Anime Review: Case Closed: The Fourteenth Target
Considering that this is the third day since I was able to get the server running again, I can probably say that stability has not been affected by the recent outage. Anyway, I decided to watch another of the older movies in my video collection. Today, I am going to be reviewing that movie, which is called Case Closed: The Fourteenth Target.
As I gave a series synopsis in an earlier post, I will not go over it again.
Things seem peaceful in lives of Jimmy Kudo and his friends. In fact, Rachel has plans for an outing with her mother, father, and Jimmy Kudo, though she has not found out that he and Conan are the same person. Sometime later, Inspector Meguire is shot while he is on a jog with a fake knife similar to one seen on a playing card. However. he is not the last victim, both Eva and Dr. Agasa are also attacked and get marked by the items found the cards Queen and Jack respectively. They suspect somebody wants revenge on Richard, but who would be after him? Now, It is up to Jimmy and company to find the answer.
I am not too sure about this movie. I did like how they tied in the use of card and people into this one, kind of like how pieces were tied to the people in And Then There Were None. However, instead of cards being removed, they appeared after attacks. It kind of makes one wonder who is next, but it is nothing that cannot be guessed quickly with a few people. I also liked how Jimmy stated that there is more than one side of a story while talking to Rachel. It is really funny that even in our society people act on only what they experience, instead of just trying to fix things peacefully with those who have wronged us. Is there really any other reason that a person kills another thinks that the victim should have died anyway? People say that money and revenge are the most common motives, but really greed is the only reason a person kills another. After all, the pursuit of revenge stems from greed, as does the love of money and envy. In Rachel’s situation though, she thought that Richard and Eva, her mother, separated because Richard shot Eva. Of course, this is not the reason for their separation, since the manga never stated a particular reason. Then again, like Jimmy’s parents being in America, while he stays in Japan, that does not seem like anything important to be covered in the series canon. The best part happened at the end, which was probably the best part of the movie anyway. However, as I do not want to spoil anything, I am not going to discuss it. The other thing that was nice was that this did feel more like a movie than the last one. As I said in the review for the previous movie, I could not really put my finger on exactly why that one did not seem like it should be a movie, but it seems gone in this movie. The fact that it felt more like a movie than a television episode is really a plus. Tying people to cards made it seem kind of like And Then There Were None and the fact that Jimmy says that stories have different sides to them seems to give it a close connection with real life, as well as make an interesting mystery.
Despite the interesting plot, there were a few issues. First, even though there are people that want to know why Eva and Richard are separated, I do not really see why it matters. Yes, the possible reason brought up in the movie does have something to do with the end, which I will not discuss, but it does not really matter that much to the movie anyway, considering how it ended. It would have been just fine if Rachel did not focus so much attention on whether that particular shooting did affect their marriage or not. Second, which very few people care about, but is certainly a minus, the same footage is present in both the Japanese and the English tracks. Now, that is quite common in movies in the US with different language tracks and most people prefer to watch things in their native language. However, there are those that prefer to watch anime subbed, even though they do not realize that it is not any closer to viewing it in its original form as viewing raws, how the series was released in its country of origin. In the first movie, the original Japanese masters could be seen on the Japanese track, but in this one, everything present in the English track is also on the Japanese track. Apparently, according to MagicBox from the old FUNimation forum, this was not FUNimation’s fault as they were given an edited version by TMS. Apparently, all of the first six movies have two masters, since this is not the only one to suffer from this. There is the original and the International, as supplied by TMS. While it is no big deal here for me for the movie, the biggest problem about this is that I prefer to see the original ending credits, as it just seems boring to watch the credits go by over a frozen scene than the moving backgrounds present in the original Japanese version. Then again, most people tend to not watch the credits where I live, so this would not affect many people. However, things usually happen after the credits in the Detective Conan movies, so people will miss those, if they stop watching when the credits roll.
Despite the fact that the reason behind Eva and Richard being separated is not that important, as it is why Eva was shot, and the fact that this movie used an edited master, I can certainly say that this one was worthing watching. I recommend this to fans of the FUNimation Detective Conan (Case Closed) dub and those that want a good mystery. For those that prefer to watch anime subbed, I recommend staying away from this as I doubt one could stomach the mess caused by FUNimation receiving an edited master. For everyone else, the case was interesting enough to at least give it a try.
What are your thoughts on Case Closed: The Fourteenth Target? Do you agree or disagree with my views? Do you have anything to add? Feel free to comment.