These crimes are not what they seem.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Gosho Aoyama
Translation/Adaptation: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
What They Say
The Woman in White
The Metropolitan Police set up a sting operation to catch a criminal who’s threatened to kill a bride and groom. But before anyone can say “I do,” Conan realizes the killer is already in the wedding party… Then the Junior Detective League tries to solve a murder in a room where everything’s a little topsy-turvy. And Rachel and Serena encounter a crime at the site of a romantic scene from their favorite TV drama. Which of the hopeful lovers leaving red handkerchiefs at the scene is really a murderer?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This volume of Case Closed starts off on a hilariously coincidentally timed trip to the movies, where the junior detective league is off to see Star Blade VI. This volume came out however many years ago in Japan and it ends up getting published at nearly the same time as the Star Wars VII teaser here. The world works in mysterious ways. The kids find themselves stopping a crime for once, rather than solving a case, and the cops never even get involved. The motive is sound, the resolution simple. Not a bad start to a volume that mixes things up a bit.
The second case of the volume involves a a sting operation to catch a killer who threatened an engaged couple when he broke into the bride-to-be’s apartment. We end up getting detectives in disguise and the usual three suspects, but things start to get chaotic when the lead suspect ends up murdered halfway across town and all hell breaks loose at the ceremony. It’s a big change from the usual flow of how mysteries in this series work, and a interesting change of pace. Although the way Conan gets shoehorned into the situation is a huge stretch.
Next up is a case involving another coincidentally found murder victim by the junior detective league. We know the identity of the killer straight off the bat as we watch him commit the crime. From there it’s just watching the killer incriminate himself while Conan picks up the clues that he left behind in his haste. The only evidence doesn’t feel like it would hold up in a court, but that doesn’t matter when the culprit confesses to it.
The final case of the volume has Conan joining Rachel and Serena of a trip to a location made famous in a popular TV show. While searching out the spot of the romantic final scene to set up a rendezvous the group finds themselves getting entangled in a yakuza coverup. The clues once again turn out to be absurdly convoluted, even in the motive was sound. However everything goes crazy when three teens and a kid end up fighting off an army of yakuza single handedly so any credibility that case has was tossed right out the window by the end of the chapter. At least it doesn’t carry over to the next volume.
In Summary
This volume of Case Closed is a bit all over the place with the cases it’s covering and the manner in which they get solved. They increase in absurdity the further in you read until the final spectacular karate versus katana brawl in the final chapter. Who needs logic after the case has already been closed, right? Just snap the blade in two with a roundhouse kick! Just in case we forgot that this is a series about a teenager who was turned back into a kid, this volume reminds us that this story is a work of fiction. It’s certainly not a boring volume at least, especially when taking into account the strange coincidence of timing in the first chapter.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A –
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: October 14th, 2014
MSRP: $9.99
