Detective Conan Episode 816: Regrettable and Kind Alien

Summary

Case Closed

Case Closed, known as Meitantei Conan (名探偵コナン?, lit. Great Detective Conan, officially translated as Detective Conan) in Japan, is a Japanese detective manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. The series is serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday since February 2, 1994, and has been collected in 73 tankōbon volumes as of September 2011. Due to legal considerations with the name Detective Conan, the English language release was renamed Case Closed.[1] The story follows the adventures of Jimmy Kudo, a prodigious young detective who was inadvertently transformed into a child after being poisoned.

Since its publication, Case Closed has spawned a substantial media franchise. The manga has been adapted into an ongoing animated television series by Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and TMS Entertainment; the animated series has reached its twentieth season. The series has spawned three original video animation series, fifteen animated feature films, three live action dramas, one live action series, numerous video games, and many types of Case Closed-related merchandise. A two-hour television special titled Lupin the 3rd vs Detective Conan was aired on March 27, 2009, and featured a crossover with the series Lupin III.

Funimation Entertainment licensed the anime series for North American broadcast in 2003 under the name Case Closed with the characters given Americanized names. The anime premiered on Cartoon Network as part of their Adult Swim programming block and was discontinued due to low ratings. The first six films were released on Region 1 DVD in North America. Viz Media later licensed the manga series for English-language publication in North America and used Funimation's renamed title and cast. As of July 2011, 39 volumes have been published by Viz Media.

Compilation volumes of the manga have sold more than 120 million copies in Japan. In 2001, the manga was awarded 46th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category. The anime adaptation has been well received and ranked in the top twenty in Animage's polls between 1996 and 2001. In the Japanese TV anime ranking, Case Closed often ranked in the top six. Both manga and anime have had positive response from critics for its plot and cases.

Plot

Jimmy Kudo is a 17-year-old high school prodigy who frequently helps the police to solve cases. During an investigation, he is attacked by two criminals, codenamed Gin and Vodka, from the syndicate called the Black Organization. They force him to ingest an experimental poison, APTX 4869, which is supposed to kill him, and leave him to die. A rare side-effect of the poison, however, transforms Kudo's body into that of a child instead of killing him.

Adopting the pseudonym Conan Edogawa, Kudo hides his identity to investigate the Black Organization. He intends to pretend to be a child until he can find enough evidence to apprehend the syndicate, after which he can then safely find and administer a cure for his current condition. Edogawa enrolls at Teitan elementary school and forms the Junior Detective League with three other children in his class: Amy Yoshida, Mitch Tsuburaya, and George Kojima. To further cover up his activities, he moves in with his childhood friend Rachel Moore, whose father, Richard, works as a private investigator. Kudo continues to solve criminal cases as Conan, but usually poses as Richard Moore with the help of special gadgets invented by his neighbor and friend, Hiroshi Agasa.

Shiho Miyano, a member of the Black Organization and creator of APTX 4869, tries to leave the syndicate after her sister's murder, but is held captive by them. She attempts to commit suicide by ingesting APTX 4869; however, like Kudo, she is transformed into a child. She manages to escape and enrolls in Conan's school under the pseudonym, Anita Hailey. She joins the Junior Detective League and assists Conan in his investigations on the Black Organization. Conan's quest has led him to help the FBI to plant a CIA agent, Kir, inside the Black Organization as an undercover spy.

In 2007, Aoyama hinted he had the ending planned out but he has no intention of ending the series yet.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2021

0 Detective Conan Episode 816: Regrettable and Kind Alien

Episode 816: Regrettable and Kind Alien

Scenario: Unemployed man Hanzaki Yasuo slips and falls to his death after he sees office worker Takedera Hitoshi wearing an alien costume. After questioning Takedera's three acquaintances who witnessed the incident, the Detective Boys investigate and close in on the truth.

One night, two office workers named Arisa Nakashima and Susan Trümpelmann are on their way home when they suddenly meet what appears to be an alien appearing at the lower end of a set of stairs leading down from an abandoned temple. The two women are frightened, but then the alien announces, "We are extraterrestrials" while tapping its throat, and asks them to take a picture of him and publicize it. Amused by this proposition, the two women cheerfully agree to this and pose for a picture and even a video clip with Nakashima's smartphone. Suddenly, they hear a man yelling in fear, "It's an alien!", and then the body of a man comes tumbling down the stairs from above. As it comes to rest at the bottom and the frightened women and their extraterrestrial friend gather around it, the "alien" reveals himself to be a costumed man.

After shouting "It's an alien!!!" in a panic, Hanzaki apparently missed one stair and then fell down, resulting in his death from blunt trauma and a broken neck.

The morning after that, the Detective Boys investigated the scene and begin to suspect the costumed man to be responsible for a prank gone wrong. However, they are met by a boy named Kota Matsumoto who claims that the incident was actually his fault: The culprit, Hitoshi Takedera, is an acquaintance of his, a kind office worker who plays with the children on his off-days at the children's center. Kota is a firm believer that aliens are mankind's friends. When a bully from his class claims otherwise, it apparently inspired Takedera to dress up as an alien and find witnesses to spread the benevolence "fact" in order to do his young friend a favor.

As the children contemplate Takedera's mishap, they witness Nakashima and Trümpelmann laying down flowers at the stair bottom and paying their respects to the deceased, Yasuo Hanzaki. When questioned about the accident, Nakashima produces her smartphone and shows them the video, which has by happenstance recorded the incident. The two women also confess that following Takedera's request of taking a picture of him, they had quickly realized that this must have been a prank and had played along just to humor him. The Detective Boys begin to reconstruct the details of the incident and realize that it may have actually been foul play since, considering the distance between the top and the bottom of the stairs, Hanzaki likely could not have recognized the costumed Takedera as an alien.

Deciding to investigate, the Detective Boys decide to question Hanzaki's next-door neighbour, Tsuneyuki Tamai. Tsuneyuki is able to tell them that Hanzaki was unemployed after having been laid off from his factory job, and was blackmailing someone, which makes the Detective Boys suspect that the blackmailee is very likely Hanzaki's murderer as well. Since Hanzaki habitually left his apartment door unlocked, the Detective Boys enter to look for clues, but all they find is an ashtray full of cigarette stubs, a lot of karaoke giveaway dolls, and a note from an ear, nose and throat clinic. But after some thinking, Tsuneyuki remembers a phone conversation between Hanzaki and his blackmail victim which suggests that Hanzaki was attempting to force him to give him his old job back. However, Hanzaki used to work for a mere subcontractor for the prestigious firm Sank Heavy Industries, which was not satisfyingly profitable.

Next, the Detective Boys meet Takedera, who has just left a police station after having been questioned. Takedera explains that he chose to adopt an alien disguise upon the suggestion of his old college friend, Akira Omi, who was a fellow member of his college's children literature club; the alien costume was part of a children's play he and Omi had concocted during their college days. But when he mentions that Omi requested him to be at a certain time and place to perform his act in front of witnesses, the Detective Boys instantly realize who the culprit is, but the possibility that Hanzaki would fall into a blind panic at the mere sight of an alien is factually next to nil. After Genta accidentally bumps his head on a lamp post with an advertisement sticker for an ear, nose and throat clinic, Conan at once realizes the decisive flaw the culprit has committed in the execution of his crime.