There were three complete cases in this volume: two murders and one valuable missing stamp. I’ve only read one other volume of this series so far, but each of the two murder cases had an aspect that was similar to the skating rink case from said volume. In the first case, one member of a group of friends had done away with another. In the second, sounds of celebration were used to disguise a gunshot. I don’t know enough to state whether this sort of “variation upon a theme” is standard for this series or not, but it is a little worrisome.
The cliffhanger ending from the last volume—one of Conan’s friends seemed to realize who he really is—was resolved in a way that managed to be fun but still left all of the characters right back where they started, when all was said and done. I suppose when one is writing a series of this length, one might have to recycle some criminal methods and might also try to avoid doing anything major to break up the character dynamic. But as a result, while Case Closed is good for episodic fun, it will probably never achieve greatness.
Case Closed is serialized in Japan as Meitantei Conan (Detective Conan). It’s been running for 14 years now and has 64 volumes so far. So far, Viz has released 26 volumes in English.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.
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