Bryce's Blog

Hey there, everyone. I hope you're all doing well, even if you
might be suffering from temperature extremes at the moment.

Aside from some
minor annoyances that cropped up recently, I have been doing good and
even discovered a long running issue with the layout of this blog
that I had forgotten that I had fixed years back and had not pushed
out yet, so things should not be wonky anymore.

Anyway, a while
back, I went looking through Amazon's catalog, to try and keep up
with some series that I have been following, and I managed to secure
a few titles.

Recently, one of
those titles came, so it is time to get off my butt and take care of
it.

Today, I will be
covering that title, which is called Case
Closed Volume 95 by Gosho Aoyama.

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

After wrapping up
the case that occurred on the Kyoto trip and getting answer from
Rachel about his confession in London, Jimmy thinks life will
continue on as normal, or at least as normal as life can be for a
detective.

However, alongside
solving more mysteries, such as the attempted murder of a hostess at
a gentleman's club and helping the junior detective league find an
absentee transfer student, Jimmy has not yet realized that he has
captured the interest of Black Org's number two, who is currently
hiding among three of his most recent acquaintances, and is now a
subject of his investigation.

While the previous
volume was pretty good, that does not mean that I can relax my
guard, as that would prevent me from being as fair as I can.

After reading this
volume, I have to say that I kind of liked it.

Despite not being
able to read this a conveniently as I would have liked, when I opened
up this volume and started reading the first few pages, I found
myself engrossed in it enough that I did not want to stop reading for
any reason.

As I have said a
countless number of times before, probably to the point where you all
are probably going, “There he goes again,” one of the most
important things in a work of fiction is how things begin, as the
beginning is supposed to help take the audience to another world,
thereby giving them the temporary escape that they desire.

While this can be
accomplished in a variety of ways, depending on the genre and the
medium used to present the work, Detective Conan, like many
other manga, was originally published in a serialized format, which
means that things need to start in a way that makes sense based upon
how the last installment ended.

In the previous
volume, Jimmy and Harley get wrapped up in a murder case that
occurred in Kyoto around the same time that Jimmy and his classmates
were visiting.

After going through
much of the investigation and seeing some other small events, Jimmy
finally figures everything out and the final panels show that he is
on the verge of returning to his childlike state, which leaves us on
the edge of our seats as to whether he can reveal his deduction
before he changes back.

Now, while Viz did
kind of spoil things a bit in the last volume, by saying that Rachel
would give her response to Jimmy's confession in London, thereby
giving us a bit of a clue in how things play out in this case, this
was by far a way better way to end things off than the way things
usually go.

In this volume,
things begin on the day after Jimmy had things figured out, with
Jimmy still in his regular body because he had taken another dose of
the prototype antidote for APTX 4869, and we see the next would be
victim make a move, which leads into the reveal of culprit.

Even though I am not
really that excited about starting things like this, as I was
expecting some sort of tension or even a late reveal that Jimmy had
taken another does, thereby just starting things off with seeing the
actions of the next potential victim, it was still a decent ad
reasonable way to start things off, as most readers would be
expecting to learn the answer to the case presented to them and that
is what matters the most here.

If things had
started off differently, like starting off right as the next target
got a message, the beginning might have been even better that it is
in my eyes right now, but things could also have been much worse too,
so I cannot complain too much.

Fortunately, Gosho
Aoyama decided to have a decent enough beginning to the first chapter
of this volume, so I can at least give him a passing grade.

Hopefully, future
volumes will be able to start off as decently as this one did, as
that will help keep readers coming back for more, though I still wish
for something better.

I also liked how the
case that started the volume ended.

While Rachel did
give Jimmy her answer to his confession from back in volume
72, which was promised by Viz in the last installment, I liked
how careless Jimmy was during the conclusion of the case from the
last volume.

For longest time,
fans of Detective Conan could see quite clearly that Jimmy is
rather horrible when it comes to keeping his identity a secret, with
how Vermouth knew he was when meeting him for the first time in the
story back in volume 42 and even the numerous times that Rachel
starts putting the dots together, but nearly every time he gets his
body back, there is no huge spectacle. He just keeps living as normal
of a life that he can, almost as if Gosho Aoyama does not want him to
lose or have any sort of downfall.

Yes, there was that
time that Haibara had to return to her original body, which led to
the Bell Tree Express Arc of volume
78, and Jimmy had to ask Kaito Kuroba for help, but the fact that
Kaito Kuroba was there was too lucky, in comparison to his failure to
save Akemi Miyano back in the beginning of the series.

Here, however, Jimmy
is seen in Kyoto and, despite his wishes to remain uncredited with
solving the murder case in Kyoto, his involvement got leaked out over
the Internet and that caught the interests of each of the three
individuals who could each possibly be Rum, Black Org's second in
command, and Rum asks Bourbon to investigate Jimmy Kudo.

While the opening
chapters of this volume were not remarkable in of themselves for the
most part, this was the thing that really had me on the edge of my
seat, as it has was the first indication that Detective Conan
might be heading towards its end game, even though we have no idea
who Rum is exactly.

Now, some of you
guys who know as much or more than me about what is to come will say
that we do know who Rum, which is true, but despite seeing what he
actually looks like more later on the series, we only know his
current identity and not his real name.

By having Black
Org's second in command ask for an investigation into Jimmy Kudo,
to find out more about him, it shows that Jimmy is seen as a big
threat now and that the stakes have risen, as well as has me excited
for when Jimmy and the gang learn for themselves who Rum is out of
his new acquaintances.

If Rum had not shown
enough interest in Jimmy by now, even though his involvement in Kyoto
being leaked was not exactly within his control, I think I would have
been really disappointed, as the involvement of the second in command
of the big bad is supposed to signify that things are nearing the end
and by have such a person seem uninterested would fail to deliver on
that.

Thankfully, Gosho
Aoyama and the others that help him to bring this series to all of us
have decided that now is the time for Rum to really start moving,
which has me excited for things to come.

Hopefully, things
will get more exciting in future volumes, as I and many other fans
would very much like to see this series end with a bang, but because
Gosho Aoyama, Shogakukan, and the others involved in making Detective
Conan are only human, I would not be surprised if things take a
turn for the worse.

The thing that I
liked the most though was how the name of the boss of Black Org, as
well as the group's name was revealed.

After the events in
Kyoto concluded and the rumors of Jimmy being there started to spread
like wildfire, everyone is pretty much chewing him out, including his
parents, Booker reveals that the clue left behind from 17 years ago
may have been interpreted wrong, with the correct reading being
Carasuma or, more correctly Karasuma, ultimately saying the name
Renya Karasuma, whose name was first mentioned in volume
30, which corresponds to episode 219 (Japanese count) of the
anime.

After the reveal of
this name, we then get flashback in the penultimate case of the
volume where the parents of Akemi Miyano and Haibara talk about
something involving the Karasuma group and how sketchy they sounded,
which suggest that the Karasuma group and Black Org are either one
and the same or connected.

Still, this has me
excited to see what happens next, as the only thing that can really
happen after taking care of Black Org's number two to fall is for
the organization itself to fall, since the boss of Black Org is the
only big thing to contend with, which create the second and final
sign to me that this series has entered into its end game at last.

If the boss of Black
Org had not been revealed right now, I might have been able to live
with it, especially considering that his behavior is said to not be
the wisest, but with Rum being revealed to be the second in command
and quite competent in his job, I highly doubt this series would be
able to go on much longer once Jimmy discovers who Rum is.

Fortunately, Gosho
Aoyama and those helping him to bring us this series decided that now
was a good time to reveal who the boss of Black Org is, which makes
me feel like giving them a round of applause for dragging this out
for longer than is necessary.

Hopefully, we will
learn more things in the future, like what APTX 4869 was originally
intended to do, as there are still questions that need to be answered
before we can have a satisfying ending to the series, but I will not
be surprised if some things remain unanswered, as that is one way of
keeping awareness of this series going and will help bring in new
readers.

Outside of those
things cannot think of anything else that I particularly liked, at
least that could stand out as much as what I talked about.

Because the volume
started out well enough, though the conclusion to those events is
what really grabbed by attention, and we have names for both the boss
of Black Org, as well as a possible name for the group, revealed,
this was a pretty decent read.

Although I liked the
volume, there are some issues.

However, aside from
things that are too minor to talk about, such as typos, and things
that could be inferred from what I already talked about, the only
that really bothered me was how this volume kind of felt like it
dragged on.

Now, Detective
Conan is considered a mystery series first and foremost, so one
should expect interesting things to happen too often, since the cases
are supposed to draw the audience in and give them something to
figure out, but we went from seeing Rum asked Bourbon to investigate
Jimmy Kudo and getting the name of the boss of Black Org to murder
cases and a missing person case that had nothing to do with the
developments.

Normally, I would be
fine with this kind of thing, since Black Org confrontations do not
happen to often and there was nothing to suggest that anything will
happen in the near future, but this is one of the times I have a
problem with how things end.

As I have said a
countless number of times before, aside from how things begin,
another important part of a work of fiction is how things should end,
and in an installment in a series, the ending is supposed to give the
audience a reason to want more.

In this volume, by
the time we reach the end, my excitement kind of waned a bit because
we go from Jimmy showing excitement to make preparations to take down
Karasuma and a meeting between Akai, Amuro, Booker, and Vivian to a
murder case where female police officers are dropping like flies.

In the case of this
volume, I would have ended it early, by having things end with the
reveal of the boss of Black Org and have everything else in a new
volume, which would have created some real excitement, even though
the wait will be a long time, or I would probably just extend it to
one more chapter, so that we can see Amuro and Akai holding each
other at gun point.

Unfortunately, Gosho
Aoyama and Shogakukan decided to end things off with the start of a
case I feel like I should be interested in but cannot because of
everything else happening, which means that they get some demerits
from me.

Hopefully, future
volumes will not feel like they have dragged out as much as this one
has, due to the fact that most of the exciting stuff happening too
soon, but considering that it can be hard to find a good place to end
an installment in a serial publication, especially if one wants to
maintain a consistent 10 to 11 chapters every volume, I would not be
surprised to see more dud in how things end.

Thankfully, that was
the only thing that I really disliked about the book, so Gosho Aoyama
and Shogakukan, or whoever they had put this volume together, can
walk away knowing that they did not do anything else egregiously
wrong.

While there was only
one real thing to complain about, that thing endded up being bad
enough to hurt an otherwise decent book.

Despite the fact
that the volume felt like it dragged on for a bit after the highs
that could be found, the good parts balanced things out enough to
make this worth reading.

I mainly recommend
this to fans of Detective Conan, as they will like this the
most and one could consider this volume to be the beginning of the
end of the series.

As for everyone
else, considering how much is revealed in this volume and how it
signifies that the series may be nearing the end, I recommend
checking out the earlier volumes first.

If you liked this
review and would like to see more, please consider supporting me on
either Patreon
or SubscribeStar,
so that I can keep following this series to the end and maybe find
other worthwhile reads for you guys to check out.