Case Closed: An Underrated Gem

 Case Closed 

Or “Detective Conan” in Japan, is a long-running mystery/crime anime about a wiz-kid high school detective named Jimmy Kudo who is reverted to the size of a first grader by a mysterious poison given to him by a shady crime organization. While remaining on the trail of his would-be assassins, he assumes the pseudonym ‘Conan Edogawa’ and stays with his love interest and former classmate Rachel (who remains unaware of his true identity) and her disgraced former detective turned unemployed alcoholic father, Richard Moore.

One of the most striking aspects of the show is the sharp contrast between the kiddy antics of Conan and his new first grader friends in the ’Junior Detective League’ and the graphic nature of the crimes Conan finds himself investigating every week. Unable to get anyone to take his deductions seriously due to his apparent age, he uses a James Bond-esque tranquilizer watch to incapacitate Detective Moore and share his observations using Moore’s voice. The police and witnesses simply assume Moore is using ventriloquism to speak without moving his lips, and the fact that he’s also sitting down with his eyes closed is just an idiosyncratic genius detective practicing his craft. In reality, he’s just an unconscious puppet of the child standing behind him using a voice modulator...

Seriously. Case Closed is absolutely ludicrous in premise and beyond cheesy in execution, but that is all a part of its charm.

I discovered Case Closed when the English dub aired at 3am on Adult Swim when I was a sophomore on summer vacation. The first episode I ever saw was ‘Murder at the Television Studio.’ I was instantly intrigued. It’s hard to believe I’ve loved this show since I was younger than Jimmy and Rachel, but it’s really the little details that drew me into it. The ridiculous theme song (“It was the first new century, in one hundred years...”), the fact that Rachel and her dad have the same last name as me in the dub so I can pretend they’re distant relatives, and the genuine creativity behind the cases Conan solves. There’s so much to love here. 

Case Closed didn’t last too long on American TV; Adult Swim canceled it due to low ratings pretty quickly and Funimation ended up only dubbing the first 5 seasons of a show that’s been on almost as long as The Simpsons in Japan, where it’s had a similar cultural impact. 

I basically forgot about the show after that summer, until one day years later Conan, his gadgets, and the engrossing mysteries he solved randomly popped into my head. I picked up the DVD collections they sold at Best Buy (I realize I’m dating myself a bit here), and even started reading the manga volumes, which are still being translated into English to this day. 

I’m not the only person I know who adores this show. Multiple girlfriends I’ve shown it to absolutely loved it, and I often encounter other fans on social media for whom this show holds a place in their heart. All the absurd pieces of Case Closed fit together to make a enchanting mystery thriller that I simply can’t recommend enough.