#IReadsYou Reivew: CASE CLOSED Volume 71

CASE CLOSED, VOL. 71
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

MANGAKA: Gosho Aoyama
TRANSLATION: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
LETTERS: Freeman Wong
EDITOR: Shaenon K. Garrity
ISBN: 978-1-9747-0655-6; paperback (July 2019); Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
184pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

Detective Conan is a Japanese detective manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama.  It has been serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday since January 1994.  VIZ Media is publishing an English-language edition of the manga as a paperback graphic novel series, entitled Case Closed, under its “Shonen Sunday” imprint.

Case Closed focuses on Jimmy Kudo, ace high school detective.  Kudo is trailing two suspicious men in black (named “Gin” and “Vodka”), when the nefarious duo attacks him.  The two men administer to Jimmy a mysterious substance that physically transforms the teen into a first grader.  While searching for a cure, Jimmy adopts a new identity, becoming elementary school student, Conan Edogawa.  Acting alone and sometimes with his friends, the Junior Detective League (JDL), Jimmy/Conan continues to solve criminal cases and mysteries.

As Case Closed, Vol. 71 (“The Game is Afoot”) opens, Conan and the Junior Detective League solve a rather benign mystery.  It is set at Teitan Elementary School, and it involves – first, finding a “crime prevention” VHS tape lost in the school's A.V. room, which is hardly organized at all.  Then, Conan and the JDL find themselves on the case of a second lost VHS tape containing a superhero TV show (“Samurai Boy”) made by the students; a lost love letter from 13 years earlier; Teitan alumnus, Detective Chiba; and his lost love.  Can Conan and the other kids find the tape, a lost message, and reignite the flames of puppy love?

Then Conan, Dr. Herschel Agasa, Richard Moore (“the Sleeping Detective”), and his daughter Rachel head to London after being invited on an all-expenses-paid trip by an eccentric lady millionaire.  So how does Jimmy Kudo end up in London, also?  And how do both Jimmy and Conan end up trailing a devilish serial killer whose clues reference Sherlock Holmes stories?

THE LOWDOWN:  I'll start off this review by saying the usual:  I love the Case Closed manga.  And regular readers of my reviews know that.

Case Closed Graphic Novel Volume 71 starts off with the sweet and charming two-chapter mystery involving videotape memories and 13-year-old messages.  The remaining nine chapters of this 11-chapter volume focus on the London-set mystery of Sherlock Holmes clues, a serial killer, and a Wimbledon championship tennis match that turns out to have life and death implications.  By the way, that mystery doesn't conclude in Vol.71, which leaves us with a helluva cliffhanger.

As usual, Tetsuichiro Miyaki's sharp translation skills come to the fore in this particularly dialogue-heavy volume.  There is so much dialogue in some chapters that you might think you are reading a double-sized chapter, dear readers.  Luckily, Freeman Wong's unique lettering sets the stage, as well as being clear and concise.  Well, we've got to hurry back for Vol. 72... for the end of the match.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Readers looking for fun mystery fiction will want to investigate the “Shonen Sunday” detective manga, Case Closed.

A
8 out of 10

Reviewed by leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


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