The 90th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series is a star-studded affair with many familiar faces and plot developments furthering the ongoing storyline of the Black Organization, Men in Black and the character-arcs tied to them, but traditionally begins with some tidying up – concluding the story that closed out the previous volume. Previously, Conan and Anita began to probe a 17-year-old murder case of a shogi champion, Koji Haneda, who died under questionable circumstances in a hotel room during a tournament in the United States. A fresh case presents itself when the body of a real estate president is found beaten to death in his outside guesthouse. The victim was holding a pair of novelty scissors, honey is discovered in the head wound, shattered glass is on the floor and the water was left running ("what an odd case"). Doc Agasa created the novelty scissors, which is why they were called to the scene.
Anyway, the solution to the dying message here provides new insights in the death of Koji Haneda and the second-in-command of the Men in Black, "Rum." That neatly leads into the next story.
Richard Moore is asked to attend a late night TV broadcast in which Gaito Hotta, "the Spirit Detective," is going to summon the ghost of Haneda to get the truth of his mysterious death nearly twenty years ago – naturally Conan invites himself along for the ride ("why'd you have to tag along, brat?"). When they arrive at the hotel to meet the ghost-whisperer, they hear the sound of plates and glasses smashing coming from Hotta's room. So they run in and found "a trail of footprints from some spilled wine leading to a bedroom in the back" and saw someone jumping from the balcony unto the balcony of the room next door. Hatto is lying on the bloodsoaked bed. When they go check the room next door, the door is opened by Masumi Sera! She's hiding someone in her hotel. Just not the murderer, but a mysterious little girl.
The problem of Hotta's murder plays second fiddle to the overarching storyline developments and Sera's sticky predicament. She has to play detective and solve the case promptly, while trying to hide the little girl or risk the police finding evidence of her presence. Even worse, they find her! That's easier said than done when Conan's hanging around the place ("What did I tell you? The kid's good, isn't he?"). But who's the little girl? A tremendously fun, exciting story that actually feels like some progress is being made, storyline-wise. I also enjoyed Conan screwing up the "Sleeping Moore" act by losing his voice modulator and only finding out after he already stunned Moore.
The detective plot of the third case is even more inconsequential to the story than in the previous one. Conan and Okiya learn that a famous rock star, Rokumichi Hado, is finally going to debut a song he composed seventeen years ago – titled "Asaca." So there are two potential leads to the Haneda case and Black Organization. However, the rock star ends up dead, hanging from the rafters with a guitar strapped to him, but was it suicide or murder? However, the plot has to be thinnest, least interesting since the first handful of volumes in the series with all the interesting stuff happening in the background. Conan and Okiya aren't the only ones looking into the rock star's hanging. Toru Amuro is present as well ("...no shortage of detectives on the case"). Someone from the Black Organization is keeping a close eye on them. So still a great story despite it not being a particular good detective story.
Finally, the last two chapters setup the story that'll be played out further and concluded in the next volume, but the beginning is very promising and apparently a return to the detective story proper.
Harley and Kazuha turn up in Tokyo to drag Conan, Rachel, Serena and Richard Moore along on a treasure hunt. The mayor of the small, remote village of Yadori wrote to Harley that a clue to the location of the legendary Yadori treasure has been found and invited the young sleuth to test his detective skills by finding the treasure. They accept and find themselves staying at an abandoned, rundown hotel in the middle of nowhere. It used to be a popular tourist destination, until an archaeologist digging from treasure died in a rock slide. The dying, half-buried man left a note with the word "Nue" on it. Nue is the name of a monster from old folktales ("head of a monkey, body of a tanuki, legs of a tiger, an' tail of a snake") who makes a fiery appearance and leaves a body in its wake. So look forward to the rest of the story and its conclusion in the next volume.
So, all in all, a somewhat odd, but not bad, volume playing out like a regular volume with separate cases, but they all take a backseat to the main storyline developments – which is usually reserved for the longer, volume-spanning stories (e.g. vol. 58 and vol. 78). While the individual plots were slighter than usual, the stories felt big and important because of who were involved in them. And what was revealed. So this volume can be summed up as a definite fan pleaser as the series begins its trek towards vol. 100.
"The explanation for the method and weapon is clever, in theory, but unconvincingly executed and a good example of a late period Case Closed story where the trick came first with a story written around it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."
ReplyDeleteI agree with this assessment. I can imagine scenes where Aoyama and his editors giving each other new trivia/ idea every week, and Aoyama had to mix and match the trivia into tricks for the murder cases. I think this is more apparent in recent chapters, where the idea often felt a little bit disjointed. However, I also think it is understandable since Conan has running for 30 years. Incredible how Aoyama can still create new cases and maintain popularity. I think one of the biggest strength in this series is the breadth of the characters. Even though some of the mysteries might be weak, the stories itself can still be interesting by featuring different casts of characters in each cases. This is even more apparent in the Conan movies. Although the cases in the movies are usually an afterthought, the movie is still very successful because they highlighted different characters in each movie. Aoyama also has a knack of creating lovable and marketable characters. I think this is the reason why Conan is still very popular for 30 years, even for casual non-mystery fans.
Not only understandable, but to be expected. You often see that something has to give after decades of prolific writing and, in Aoyama's case, drawing. A.C. Baantjer slipped into a comfortable, but successful, formula in order to write two novels a year and Christopher Bush began to seriously trim down his plots when he entered his third decade. Not to mention maintaining quality. But, as you said, it helps when you have a team of editors finding ideas and tricks that can be developed into a story. I only wish they remembered a story written and plotted around a single good idea is often better than a story with a ton of potentially good, but disjointed and diluted, ideas. "The Poisoned Coffee Case" from vol. 60 is simplicity played to perfection.
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