Case Closed, Vol. 32 [Paperback]

Gosho Aoyama (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Case Closed | Publication Date: November 17, 2009

The mystery series that inspired the hit anime! R to L (Japanese Style). You're HistoryThe legendary samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi has just died a second time: a historical re-enactor playing Hideyoshi has been killed at the daimyo's own Osaka Castle. Time for Conan to make history stop repeating itself--and for Osaka native Harley Hartwell to pick up a wooden sword and eke out some old-fashioned justice!Then Detective Moore attends a star-studded engagement party on the arm of idol singer Yoko Okino…but the festivities are cut short when one of the stars of Yoko's old girl group is found dead in the bathroom. And Conan races to save an American tourist from kidnappers who may be connected to the Syndicate! When ace high school detective Jimmy Kudo is fed a mysterious substance by a pair of nefarious men in black--poof! He is physically tranformed into a first grader. Until Jimmy can find a cure for his miniature malady, he takes on the pseudonym Conan Edogawa and continues to solve all the cases that come his way.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gosho Aoyama, made his debut in 1992 with CHOTTO MATTE ("Wait a minute") which won Shogakukan's prestigious Shinjin Comic Taisho ("Newcomer's Award for Comics") and launched his career as a critically acclaimed, top-selling manga artist. In addition to DETECTIVE CONAN which won the Shogakukan Award for best Manga in 2001, Aoyama created the popular manga, YAIBA, which won Shogakukan's Award for Manga in 1992. Aoyama's manga is greatly influenced by his boyhood love for mystery, adventure, and baseball and he has cited the tales of Arsene Lupin, Sherlock Holmes, and the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa as some of his childhood favorites.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; Original edition (November 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421522004
• ISBN-13: 978-1421522005
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #424,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #52 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Manga > Mystery

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Gold, girls and foreigners, January 17, 2010

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Case Closed, Vol. 32 (Paperback)

"Case Closed Volume 32" has a big fat wobble right in the middle of its three main storylines -- the crime is awesome, but the method (and the denouement) are painfully implausible. Fortunately it's bookended between a pair of cleverer mysteries and one left undone at the very end -- and some rather sinister new characters who may cause trouble for Conan.

Harley and Conan buckle down on the case of the man who fell off the roof in flames, and quickly find some suspicious marks on the roof and an unopened lighter... as well as a fragment of pottery, and a piece of parchment with the word "dragon" on it. It seems to imply the existence of a legendary treasure that may be hidden nearby -- and someone's willing to kill to keep it hidden.

Then Richard and Co. are invited to the engagement party of Yoko Okino's friend Kaoru, as well as all the other former members of their pop band. But then Kaoru is found with her throat slit in the bath, and the police are baffled by who might have tried to kill her -- and by whether it was an inside job or a stalker.

And when Conan and his buddies befriend a friendly American tourist, they end up on the hunt to find him when he's kidnapped -- unaware that he's got secrets of his own, and that he's not as innocuous as he seems. And finally, Detective Sato goes to a marriage meeting just to shut up her mother, only to interrupted by reports of a robbery.

Gosho Aoyama has a pretty good knack for writing mildly humorous detective stories, interwoven with taut thrillers -- and "Case Closed Volume 32" does not disappoint in that area. The first of these stories (continued from Volume 31) is a sharp little treasure hunt with multiple people pulling the puppet strings, and later on there's a heated kidnapping case that has darker undertones -- it looks like some of the people involved may have connections to the organization that shrank Conan.

Unfortunately, his knack fails in the middle story -- the first 90% of it is golden whodunnit, but the denouement falls painfully flat. The method of murder is implausible enough to make your eyes bug out, and the handling of someone committing the murder of someone close to them is.... never really handled. There's the perfect setup for an emotional confrontation, and instead there's several pages of engagement babble.

And one minor complaint would be the lack of historical notes. Since the first story involves a Japanese ruler than most Westerners have never heard of, it would be nice if Viz had included something on that.

Harley gets a bit more development in this volume, since his attempts at solving the treasure case are hampered by his heavy-handed dad (who is actually a lot smarter and more tolerant than he appears). As usual, Conan's band of preteen friends are more of a distraction than a help, and the newcomer James Black is an enigma -- he seems like a harmless, genial English-American tourist with a soft spot for animals, but he also calculates the ideal way to escape gun-wielding kidnappers.

"Case Closed Volume 32" is hampered by a middle story that just falls apart in the last lap, but otherwise it's a pretty entertaining little collection -- and as usual, it leaves you hanging partway through one mystery.