Case Closed stars the young detective Jimmy Kudo in his ongoing war against crime, murder and evil…by solving the toughest, most perplexing mysteries in Japan.  After getting involved in a case involving a secret crime syndicate he is fed a poison that instead of killing him, shrinks him down to a young child! Now he’s staying with his crush (girlfriend?)  Rachel and her father the inept detective Roger Moore in disguise as grade-schooler Conan Edogawa. Despite his new small size, he’s still solving mysteries and trying to track down the elusive men in black and their organization. 

Case Closed : Vol 32 contains the rest of the case from the previous volume. It’s a strange murder at Osaka castle in which a tourist falls from the roof; burned alive! What does it have to do with a mysterious scroll with the character for “Dragon” printed on it that may be a treasure map? It’s up to Conan and his friend Harley to fit the pieces together to find the one truth.

Highlights

One of the nice things about Case Closed is that within every volume you always get at least one complete mystery; aside from the first chapter of the Osaka case in the previous volume, this volume has three complete cases, which is particularly cool.

The second case in this volume begins when Roger Moore receives a ticket  from his favorite idol singer Yoko Okino to an engagement party held for one of her celebrity friends. Koaru Kusano’s wonderful night turns violent however, when she is violently attacked! Once again, Conan is on the scene.

The final case, and my favorite of the volume is a kidnapping case; Randy Hawk, the sponsor of a circus animal show is abducted… except the kidnappers accidentally grab a look-alike. The Junior Detective League was at the circus, however, and they’re hot on the trail of the suspects.  The cases with Conan’s friends from his elementary school are always entertaining; the kids have more outlandish and nonsensical theories than even the loutish Detective Moore and their cases often take unexpected turns even when in comparison to his more dramatic, longer ones.

Overall

The very nature of Case Closed makes it difficult to get into the plots too much without spoiling things; the mystery cases are labyrinthine, creative and often even sad; misunderstandings, betrayals; I hate to spoil the details of them in a review since it’s the details in this series that shine so strongly.

The cases are all intricately plotted, a word here and there, an alibi, even the hand someone is drawn holding something can come into play later in the case.  Aoyama is to be seriously commended for creating mysteries that nearly all the time have the clues hidden within the story itself; admittedly, there are times when outside information is required, sometimes about the Japanese language itself is needed for a word puzzle and that can make the already head scratching mysteries downright impossible for an English audience to solve. That doesn’t stop me from picking out my suspects and watching what everyone says myself though; it’s a unique thrill to have figured out “whodunit” before the manga tells you.

Speaking of changes, it’s impossible not to mention that the English language edition Americanized the names of the major character; Kogoro Mori became Roger Moore, etc. This is both good and bad in my opinion; it’s a shame to change things from the original version, but the cases frequently give you a ton of Japanese names to remember so it’s a nice lifeline to have a few that are easier for someone without a foreign language background to remember. Fortunately, any character introductions include a handy little box with their name, age and profession drawn next to them, and at the start and within each chapter the characters helpfully sum up the case to make it easier to follow.

I’d also like to make particular note of the humor and art; there is an enviable level of silliness and funny drawn expressions packed into the book; the situation of what is essentially a small child blurting into crime scenes over and over leads to a lot of great humor. There’s also some light sexual humor; the usual “guys are perverted” manga stuff as well as sight gags; like the video game Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney a gag or a clever bit of tomfoolery is often slipped into a revealing moment to disguise clues.

Case Closed may be the only shonen manga I can think of for your mystery fix, but it’s one I’d be confident recommending on its merits alone; the characters are likable, the mysteries are puzzling and the art is clear and attractive. Case Closed is the manga to get to fill that detective shaped hole in your collection.

ComicsOnline gives Case Closed : Vol 32, 4.5 out of 5 junior detectives.