Detective Conan

Detective Conan (名探偵コナン ,Meitantei Konan, lit. Great Detective Conan) is a Japanese detective manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama and is serialized in the Japanese manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Sunday since 1994 and has been collected in sixty-eight Tankōbon volumes as of June 2010.

The manga has been adapted into an anime series by the animation studio Tokyo Movie Shinsha, directed by Kenji Kodama and Yasuichiro Yamamoto, and is broadcast in Japan on Nippon Television, Yomiuri TV and Animax. The series debuted on January 8, 1996 and has since broadcast 586 episodes as of September 04, 2010. The series has seen high levels of popularity in both manga and anime formats in Japan since its reception, and has also been adapted into twelve Golden Week movies, with the first released on April 17, 1997 and since then followed with a movie released each year. Ten of the movies held a top 10 box office position in the year they were screened. In addition, ten Original video animation have been released. As of June 2010, sixty-eight volumes have been released in Japan.

Story summary

Conan Edogawa

The story follows the adventures of Shinichi Kudo (also known as Jimmy Kudo in Case Closed), a prodigious young detective who was inadvertently transformed into a child due to a poison. He renames himself Conan Edogawa to hide his real identity in order to protect his beloved ones.

Case Closed

Detective Conan is known as "Case Closed" in North America. The name "Case Closed" results from concerns of copyright conflict of the name Detective Conan.

Viz Media licensed the manga series under the name for English-language publication in North America and released thirty-five volumes as of July 2010. Funimation Entertainment licensed the anime series for North American broadcast. Both the English adaption went under the name Case Closed. The character names were also adapted into English ones with some names different between the two. Fifty episodes of the English dubbed series aired on Cartoon Network as part of their Adult Swim programming block on May 24, 2004 until January 2005 and were discontinued due to low ratings.

Demographic

Even though Detective Conan is a Shōnen, its audience is composed of a substantial proportion of female viewers and readers. The series also seems to attract all ages.

Critical reception

The series has been well received in Japan with the anime adaptation ranking in the top twenty in Animage's polls between 1996 until 2000 where it dropped below the top twenty. In the Japanese TV anime ranking, Detective Conan often ranked the top six. It has even been used as a mascot to promote citizens to follow the law. Meanwhile, the English adaption has not been as equally popular as in Japan, and has been criticized for the name changes.

Appearances in other media

Besides for his anime and manga appearances, Conan is the protagonist for all the movies and the video games based on the Case Closed series. Some anime parodied, lampooned and even mentioned him. Some of them include, Yakitate!! Japan, Black Cat, Inuyasha, Hayate the Combat Butler, Proposal Daisakusen, Sonic X, and Angelic Layer. He was used as a character to promote people to follow the law in Japan, due to the popularity of the series.