Meitantei Konan (Detective Conan, or also known as Case Closed due to legal problems with the name Detective Conan for its English release by Funimation and Viz Media) is a detective manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. The manga has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday since January 1994, with a total of 100 volumes as of October 2021.

Detective Conan had over 250 million copies in circulation as of 2021, making it the fourth best-selling manga series of all time. In 2001, the manga won the 46th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shonen category. Aoyama was heavily influenced by the stories of Arsène Lupin, Sherlock Holmes and the samurai films by Akira Kurosawa. In 2006, the Japanese government even used the characters of Detective Conan in campaigns to help promote crime awareness among children.

An anime TV series adapted from Detective Conan, by Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and TMS Entertainment, premiered in January 1996. Both the manga and its anime adaptation have received positive response from critics for the brilliant plot and thrilling cases.

Following the huge popularity of its anime, Detective Conan continued to inspire several animated feature films, OVAs, video games and live-action. The ninth film was nominated for the feature film category at the 5th Annual Tokyo Anime Awards, and the next five films were nominated for the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year in their respective years of release.

The story of Detective Conan started with a murder case. The landlord’s wife has died and everyone in the mansion was in a state of total shock. In the midst of this scene, a high school boy was trying to solve the case and find the culprit. His name was Shinichi Kudo.

After a heated battle of wit, Shinichi finally revealed that the murderer was none other than the landlord himself. He was faking an injury and sit in the wheelchair while in fact his wound has healed months ago. The landlord tried to escape as his crime has been exposed but Shinichi kicked the nearby globe and it hit him right on the head.

Thanks to Shinichi’s quick thinking, the culprit was apprehended. Police Inspector Megure was at the scene of the crime and thanked Shinichi for a job well done. It seemed that he was no stranger to the detective game.

The next day after school, news of Shinichi’s latest triumph has been covered in all the major newspaper. However, his friend Ran Mori wasn’t impressed and even told Shinichi about how his success has made her father ran out of a job. Ran was the captain of their school’s Karate Club and her punch was powerful enough to leave a hole on the wall when Shinichi laughed about her father being a detective with no job.

Shinichi then started telling Ran about his love for the detective stories and his favorite character Sherlock Holmes created by the author Sir Conan Doyle. Shinichi was really good at soccer but he gave it up to become a detective. As they were heading home, Ran reminded Shinichi about his promise to take her to the amusement park if she won the city’s karate tournament. They both agreed to meet at Tropical Land at around 10 o’clock.

The next day, Shinichi took Ran to the amusement park as promised. However, he kept telling her the stories of Sherlock Holmes and even demonstrated his detective skill. Shinichi said that a good detective could tell many things about another person just by shaking their hand. Then, he grabbed a random woman’s hand and deduced that she was a gymnast by the calluses on her hand. The woman’s friends told him to back off. Even Ran got angry and told Shinichi to stop telling her detective stories and just enjoy the amusement park.

Ran then pulled Shinichi to the roller coaster. Once they were sitting on the roller coaster, Ran said that she was really looking forward to have fun with Shinichi and held his hand. As the roller coaster started, Shinichi suddenly felt a drop of water on his forehead. Right after that, a loud noise was heard and something warm splashed on Shinichi’s face.

When the roller coaster was out of the tunnel, they finally realized that a man has been killed. His head was cut clean off and the warm liquid that Shinichi felt was his blood. The man was one of the gymnast’s friends that Shinichi and Ran has met earlier. There were only seven other people who rode the roller coaster and one of them was the murderer.

Out of the seven people, there were Shinichi, Ran, three women who were friends with the victim and two suspicious guys dressed in all black.

Right then, the police arrived and Inspector Megure recognized Shinichi. The whole crowd discovered that he was the famous high school detective and started to cheer for him. While Shinichi and Inspector Megure was talking about the case, one of the guys in black wanted to leave. His eyes were cold like that of the murderer.

Then, one of the polices found a bloody knife wrapped in a piece of cloth hidden in a bag. The bag belonged to Aiko – one of the three women and the victim’s girlfriend. She instantly became the prime suspect even though she profusely denied everything.

The police was about to take Aiko away when Shinichi looked at the knife and realized that something was wrong. Shinichi then announced that Aiko wasn’t the killer and pointed at the gymnast – Hitomi.

He explained that a woman didn’t have enough strength to cut a man’s head off by using a knife. And if that was the murder weapon, Aiko has had plenty of time to get rid of it. Hitomi has put the bloody knife inside Aiko’s bag to frame her. The method that Hitomi used to kill was making a steel wire out of her necklace and a hook she hid in her bag. Then, Hitomi slipped out of her seat when the roller coaster started to enter a dark tunnel, reached out the back and put the string around the victim’s head. Finally, she threw the hook and it caught onto the rail. With the power and the speed of the roller coaster, the victim head was cut clean off.

Shinichi then explained that even though Hitomi was seated two rows in front of the victim, she was the only one that could commit the crime by using her gymnastic skill. And right before she killed him, Hitomi shed a tear and that drop of tear was what Shinichi felt on his forehead. “Only on a roller coaster would tears flow sideways”, Shinichi said.

With that, Hitomi fell to the ground and admitted her crime. Hitomi and the victim were once lovers but he left her for Aiko. Feeling betrayed, Hitomi planned to kill him and then end her life.

After Hitomi was taken in by the police, Shinichi and Ran decided to go home. On the way, Shinichi spotted one of the guys in black earlier that was acting strangely. He told Ran to go ahead and followed him. Shinichi eavesdropped on the scene where the bad guys were making a deal and tried to take photo with his camera.

Unlucky for Shinichi, the other guy in black discovered him and hit him on the head. Shinichi was almost unconscious when the bad guys gave him the experimental poison that their organization developed.

When Shinichi regained consciousness, the polices found him lying on the ground. As the light shone on him, Shinichi realized that instead of killing him, the poison has turned him into an elementary school kid.

How will Shinichi face this challenge as he find the cure? Will he ever be able to turn back?