"You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize."- Professor Moriarty (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Final Problem," from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1894)
Yes,
I know. I know. I allowed way too much time to pass between this
blog-post and my last review
of Case Closed, which dates back to late August of 2016, but
here we are again with, perhaps, the most important volume in the
series and the plot heavily involves the black-clad men from the
crime syndicate – known as the Black Organization. A volume
jam-packed with revelations and progress in the main story-line that
runs like a red-thread through the entire series!
The
58th volume of Case
Closed, known in some quarters as Detective Conan, is
basically a novel-length story.
Traditionally,
this volume begins where the previous one ended: Rena Mizunashi is
still in the hospital, closely guarded, but an operative from the
syndicate has infiltrated the hospital and is posing as a patient. So
the last volume saw Conan assisting the FBI with ferreting the agent
from a group of three patients, which he accomplished by tricking
each of them in picking up his cell phone from the floor. However,
Conan's discovery triggered a large-scale battle-of-wits between the
FBI and the Black Organization. Both groups have some very familiar
faces on their team.
In
the corner of the FBI, there's the head of the operation against the
syndicate, James Black, who is accompanied by Jodie Sterling and
Shuichi Akai – considered by the Organization to be their most
dangerous opponent and refer to him as the "Silver Bullet." Gin
even mentions to Vodka and Vermouth that "he's got The Boss
shaking." Akai's longstanding feud with the Organization yields
some very interesting revelations, harking all the way back to a case
from the second volume, but Eisuke Hondo also learns the truth about
his father and sister. And how all of that relates to Rena Mizunashi.
So this volume definitely provides some answers to the overarching
story-line of the series.
On
the opposing side are the aforementioned syndicate agents, Gin, Vodka
and Vermouth, who are backed up by a pair motor-riding snipers,
Chianti and Korn. They pose a tricky challenge to Conan and the FBI
agents in the hospital, because they're effectively trapped there
with no apparent way of getting Mizunashi out of there. James Black
points out that one wrong move on their side might result in them
having to effect an escape "through a hail of bullets."
So
this quickly moves in an almost city-wide game of cat-and-mouse
between the Black Organization and the FBI, in which the former seems
to have the upper-hand over the latter – flooding the hospital with
compact time-bombs and patients of several catastrophes they created
in the city. I won't give further details about this dangerous mental
tango between both parties, but the result is, what I dubbed, a "Strategic Detective." A series such as Spiral: The Bonds of
Reasoning is good example of a "Strategic Detective," but a
better comparison, for the readers of this blog, would probably be
the scheme Nero Wolfe cooked up in Rex
Stout's The Doorbell Rang (1965) to ensnare a bunch of
corrupt FBI agents. It makes for a very good, fun and captivating
read!
The
last four chapters seems to ease the volume back in the normal
pattern and rhythm of the series, which begins when Conan and the
Junior Detective League bump into Police-Detective Takagi at a hotel
where they were eating lunch – learning from him that a murder has
just been discovered there. Apparently, the head of a foreign agency
was murdered in his office, on the 39th floor, "shot several
times in the chest" and evidence suggests the gunman is still
in the vicinity.
Three
foreigners, who speak perfectly Japanese, turn out to be the main
suspects, but one of them was a character introduced in the previous
chapters: Agent André Camel of the FBI! So this minor murder case is
a convenient excuse to tell Camel's back-story, but the Black
Organization also rears its head. One of their operatives, Kir, has
received orders to kill Akai and a body cam/wire allow Gin and Vodka
to watch the whole show. The volume ends with a cliffhanger when Akai
is shot.
Oh,
the murder case, in which Camel became a suspect, was typical for an
Aoyama story that involved Western characters. The solution always
hinges on language. Or a misunderstanding between two different
languages (e.g. The Spider Mansion Murder Case from vol. 25).
While
this was not a volume brimming with locked rooms, dying messages,
code crackers and other kind of detective stories, this was still one
of the more rewarding entries for long-time readers. You're finally
getting some answers, but also because you finally got to see Conan
getting involved in a serious tangle with the Black Organization. So
this was welcome break from the regular pattern of the series and one
that reminded why I love this series: it is, as another eloquent fan
of the series so scholarly described it, a "superspecialawesome
volume."
Well,
since I'm already two volumes behind on the release schedule, I'll
pick up the next volume from TBR-pile ASAP and then fetch those other
two volumes. I might also do a blog-post about my favorite locked
room mysteries from the series. But that's something for the coming
weeks. Stay tuned!
Random thought that popped in my mind as I was reading the review: if the Detective Boys are renamed to Junior Detective League, the gigantic DB on their badges and logo doesn't make any sense anymore...
ReplyDeleteAs I've already mentioned often, this is the volume that forms the main driving populsion for the plot until volume 85(?), with the status quo shaken up again and everbody reacting to this new situation (similar to volume 42's Halloween story).
Last year's Conan film (The Darkest Nightmare) is in spirit a lot like the long story in this volume, with key persons in the FBI, the Organization and more parties involved (like Conan) trying to outsmart each other as they fight over a MacGuffin. It's not a traditional mystery film like the earlier movies, but I think that if you liked the story in this volume, you'll also like The Darkest Nightmare (but err... watch it after at least volume 85).
Yes, the few name changes in the US edition can be awkward (a handful of Western names among all the Japanese ones), but never realized how the renaming of the Detective Boys absolutely makes no sense.
DeleteThere's no reason why the group should not have retained their original name in the US edition or given one that matches the DB on their badges (such as the (Junior) Detective Brigade).
Once again, I really should make an effort this year to return to the movies and keep in mind to put The Darkest Nightmare in cold storage until the release of the English translation of vol. 85. Should be no problem, considering the last one I watched was Jolly Roger.