Bryce's Blog

Well, this is a surprise, huh?

A few months back, I preordered some books from Barnes & Noble that I originally expected to be here earlier, due to usual patterns, but Barnes & Noble recently estimated a July delivery for my order.

However, I recently received tracking numbers for two of the books that composed the order and one of them arrived this week.

Today, I will be reviewing that title, which is called Case Closed Volume 58 by Gosho Aoyama.

As I have given a series synopsis in an earlier post, I will not go over it again.    

After discovering the identity of the spy and chasing him down, Black Org has started to move upon the hospital and the FBI has to make plans.

However, there are other people inside the hospital with plans of their own that neither Black Org nor the FBI were counting on and those plans may jeopardize one of the FBI’s own agents.

I kind of liked this book.

Seeing as the previous volume ended with Jimmy and the FBI trying to find out the identity of Black Org’s spy, I liked how things picked up and revealed who the spy was.

I may not know why the people who actually compile volumes in Japan chose to end the previous volume on that note, since the investigation was mostly done, but they at least made sure to include the conclusion of that portion of this current clash against Black Org, though Japan is most likely nearing the point of uncovering the identity of Black Org’s second-in-command, instead of focusing on this clash with Black Org, but I am glad that they did end up forgetting to resolve things.

Then again, because Yen Press really messed up on the conclusion of Yoshiki Tonogai’s Judge series, the real credit has to go to Viz.

After all, I do not remember reading anything released by them that made me suspect that there was something missing, though that may be because they get more of the more popular series than the other distributors, who only get a few titles that have huge followings.

Still, that does not mean that Viz can mess things up terribly for this series.

I also liked the actual clash between Black Org and the FBI that occurred in this volume right after the spy was uncovered.

The moment everything started, I did not feel like putting this book down for any reason and Jimmy and Akai were able to think of a way of dealing with everything that Black Org was throwing at them.

Gin, himself, was just as great as he always is in his appearances in the series as well, since he was the only one, other that the unnamed boss of Black Org, to notice that there was something fishy going on.

After following this series for such a long time, this is what I expect from a case featuring Black Org and I was not let down.

If Gosho could make cases as good as this one, Detective Conan would probably be much better overall, since this series does tend to get relatively boring throughout the hundreds of chapters that have been published across the world.

Another nice thing about this book was that one of the cases delved a bit into basic psychology.

Now, I have not taken classes in psychology, nor am I an expert in that field, but how humans think and why they act certain ways is important in the detective, mystery, and crime fiction genres, and I have even encountered other stories that really rely on having some understanding of humans, which is why I tend to view that people are equal regardless of gender, age, or ailments/impairments, since the only real differences lie the physical or anatomical realms.

Here, the case was solved by having the suspects stand next to chairs and then somebody would say a word that would confuse people whose first language was not Japanese.

The chairs would make such people think that they were asked to sit down, when they really were not.

While I am not too familiar with this kind of demonstration, I am not surprised enough by reading about this to go and look things up.

After all, there is a reason that Brain Games and other shows like it wants the audience to participate along with their little experiments, and others show that we can be made to think of certain thinks by only hearing a few words.

Having the case end like this, it was nice reprieve from the usual Jimmy knocking somebody out or having Dr. Agasa lip sync.

As funny as it was the first few times around, that gimmick is not all that funny anymore and has grown tiresome, though Gosho really only played it for comedic purposes only on in the series.

This, however, feel fresh and makes me want to see if Gosho can do more cases like this, even if the most interesting cases tend to revolve around Kaito Kuroba and Black Org, because Gosho at least did not try to draw too much suspicion on any of the characters like he tends to do a lot.

Good job, Gosho, this case had a somewhat interesting end.

The thing that I liked the most was that Gin forced Kir to shoot Akai to regain the trust of Black Org.

Yes, Akai has been a thorn in Black Org’s side ever since he took an active role in the series, but the way things ended had me wondering whether or not Akai was going to die or get rescued, despite already knowing the truth.

The biggest problem with rereading content or going through the original source of something one watched in a movie or show is that a lot of suspense is killed from knowing what the end result was, which is probably why there are people out there who hate spoilers and try to avoid them.

However, that was not an issue with these events at all.

In fact, I wish that Viz would release new volumes at a rate quicker than quarterly releases so that I can find out what occurs right now, and possibly see if there are anything to hint towards what was revealed later on in the manga.

Unfortunately, it seems more likely that Crunchyroll will get all of the 600 or so episodes that FUNimation never touched, so Viz will not be kind enough to grant fans of Detective Conan this luxury.

Gosho really wrote this chain of events well and I would like to give him a big hug, if I could, but the chances of Gosho and I ever meeting are slim to none.

Of course, the people that compile these volumes in Japan deserve a lot of credit too, because they know how to end a volume quite well, compared to the experience I got with the first volume of Not Lives.

Outside of those things, I cannot really think of anything else that I particularly liked.

Because the book started off where the previous volume left and the chain of events that happened afterwards were superb, this book was relatively enjoyable.

Although I did like this book, there are some issues.

First, the Black Org incidents, which was biggest focus of this volume, was not as interesting as I would have liked it to be.

Yes, the tension and everything else that is expected to occur in a Black Org case, but it just did not do it for me.

If I had to take a guess as to why I found the events to be less interesting than normal, despite saying that I did not want to put the book down the moments those events occurred a little earlier in this review, it would have to be because of a combination of it being more than three or so months since I read the previous volume and the fact that I had recently read A Pocket Full of Rye, where even the actions of the suspects was not enough to determine if a person was guilty.

True, the behaviors and actions of the new agent that showed up did not automatically label him as a traitor during the course of this book, but it felt like Gosho was really trying to push us into believing that this new agent was up to no good.

This is not a good way to create more intrigue in a series, especially for those that have read quite a few titles in the detective, mystery, and crime genres.

It might, however, hook the newcomers to those genres or those whose only experience with the detective, mystery, and crime fiction genres do not extend out far enough to realize that the things that put the new FBI agent under suspicion.

Still, Gosho need to shape up a bit, even if he did have Akai speak up before Jimmy really started going after the new agent.

After all, how can one impress hardcore fans of detective, mystery, and crime fiction, if it feels like the writer is trying to get us to suspect this new character?

Hopefully, the suspects become harder to determine innocence or guilt, but that is really the only thing that Gosho can improve upon, because the places where I buy or order books, Viz Media, and myself are the only ones that can really do anything about the other thing that made me a little dissatisfied, so this will only be marked as a minor annoyance.

I also did not like how Eisuke and Rena’s relationship was confirmed.

For the longest time, this has always bugged me, because I did not think that a person’s blood type could change so easily for the rest of their lives, and this felt more like a cop out that Gosho came up with because there was no other way to explain the similarities between Eisuke and Rena.

While I did find out that a person’s blood type can eventually change in the manner that Eisuke’s did, since a page on the National CML Society’s website talks about it, this revelation still feel very much like a cop out.

Why did you choose to go this route, Gosho? I am glad that I did learn something, but there were other ways that Eisuke and Rena could be related as siblings.

If I did not bother looking this up, I would have really marked this as a major issue, because the world of detective conan is not some kind of futuristic society where these kinds of things are common.

However, seeing as Gosho’s explanation does indeed fit within a realm of possibility, though I am still not too certain about it, I am willing to downgrade this to an annoyance.

After all, I do not know everything and I do not remember ever claiming in my reviews that I am never wrong.

Still, it does kind of ruin the enjoyment I had from this book.

The thing that I hated the most though was the other case presented in this volume.

While it ended an interesting way for the series, it was rather dull and ruined the pacing of this entire volume.

The clash with Black Org is supposed to be the main focus right now and we get a case unrelated between the great moments that does not match up to the rest of the content?

I am not sure about you guys, but I do not think that this is acceptable.

Yes, the initial clash ended rather quickly, but that still does not change the fact that a rather dull case happened between the best moments.

Things would have been much better if we saw Akai, Kir, and Jimmy plotting what to do in the event that Gin became suspicious.

Then again, if he did that, the biggest mystery that crops up after this clash with Black Org would have not had such an interesting turn of events, so I can see why such details were left out, though it does not change the fact that a dull case was present and that is something that the fans of detective, mystery, and crime fiction will not really like.

While there was nothing majorly wrong, the fact that Gosho’s explanation for how Eisuke and Rena could be sibling felt like a cop out and a dull case between the more interesting events turned an otherwise great volume into an okay volume.

Despite the fact that there were two actual things that could actually hurt the book, the greatness that is the events with Black Org was this worth reading.

I recommend this to new fans of detective, mystery, and crime fiction, as well as fans of Detective Conan (Case Closed).

As for everyone else, I would not say that this one should be avoid by the plague, since there were only a few things Gosho Aoyama could actually be held at fault for doing, but it would be better to read the previous volumes first, since this book does have some important events for the series.

What are your thoughts on Case Closed Volume 58? Did you like it or hate it? Was there something something you liked or hated that went unmentioned? Feel free to comment.