Bryce's Blog

Hey there, everyone. I hope you all are doing well, especially now
that we have officially transition into a new season.

Things have been a
little stressful, but I can still do what I enjoy, so I am happy
about that.

A while back, I took
a gander through Amazon’s catalog and managed to secure at least
one of the titles I follow, which has recently arrived, thereby
meaning that it is time to get off my butt and do something.

Today, I will be
covering that title, which is called Case
Closed Volume 96 by Gosho Aoyama.

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

After wrapping
things up with the case surrounding female officers getting attacked,
Jimmy is thrust into even more cases, such as another heist
announcement from Kaito Kuroba, and an accident after watching a
movie leading to another case.

However, during
these cases, Jimmy must contend with somebody else who has him pegged
and is causing issues, as well as staying out of Rum’s reach.

While I did enjoy
the previous
volume, I did have a problem with it that I was a bit
disappointed in, so I feel like I can keep on my guard, but I must
keep in mind that things might not go downhill just because of a bad
release.

And after reading
this, I have to say that I kind of liked it.

From the moment that
I opened up this book and started reading the first few pages, I
found myself engrossed in it enough that I didn’t want to stop
reading for any reason.

As I have said a
countless number of times already, one of the most important things
in a work of fiction is how things begin, as the beginning is
supposed to help draw in the audience, thereby giving them the
temporary escape that they desire.

While this can be
done in a variety of ways, depending on the genre and the medium used
to present the work, Detective Conan, like many other manga
out there is published as part of a serial publication, which means
that it needs to start in a way that makes sense based on the last
installment.

In the previous
volume, which I expressed a bit of disappointment with, we see the
beginning of a new case, where police women are being attacked, with
the final pane of the volume showing the discovery of the second
victim.

In this volume,
things pick from there, with the investigation of the second victim
starting up and time starts ticking to find the culprit.

While I would still
have preferred to have this case start off at the very beginning of
the case, this provides me with a nice little recap of the case that
is in progress which helps me ease myself into the current case, as
well as get me geared up for what is to come.

If this volume had
started off with the conclusion of his case, which I have grown
rather tired of as of late, especially because it makes it hard for
me to recommend good entry points into the series, I would have been
greatly annoyed, even if it does provide a good hook for the next
volume.

Fortunately, Gosho
Aoyama and Shogakukan decided to start things off here, which means
that they do get some praise from me though not as much as if they
just started the volume with a brand new case.

Hopefully, future
volumes will be able to start off as well as this one did, though I
am still holding out hope for a volume that will finally start with a
new case, rather than act as an overflow for the previous
installment, as I would like to help introduce others to this series.

I also liked how
much tension there was in this volume.

One of the things
that I very much like about Detective Conan, aside from the
cases, which were phenomenal in the early volumes, was how tense
things got when Black Org started making appearances and got
involved, as well as people learning of the secret he has been
keeping.

Back in the previous
volume, Amuro was tasked by Rum, the second in command of Black Org,
with investigating Jimmy Kudo, and I was expecting this to be
happening in the background, with things that would seem completely
insignificant.

However, in this
volume, we see Amuro talking to the new head of Inspector Meguire’s
division, where he asks how his side project is coming along, using
the name Bourbon.

Even though Jimmy
now knows the identity of Rum, like we do, in the Japanese release,
this part here makes me want to forget all of that because I am
currently wondering why this guy would know Amuro’s codename within
Black Org, thereby putting the reader on edge about whether this guy
is Rum or not, like we should be asking at this point in the series.

As much as I hate
cases being left to be wrapped up in just the first chapter of the
next installment, this caught my interest so much that I would have
been alright with the chapter with the panels concerning this
conversation being the start of the volume, as it picks up with the
intensity that I had back when we finally learned the name of the
boss of Black Org.

However, what really
brought up the tension and made things interesting was something that
happened in the last case of the volume.

After Makoto,
Serena’s boyfriend, had accidentally knocked an innocent person
unconscious because he did not know what he saw was an act, Sera
starts asking questions about Jimmy, with some flashbacks of things
that happened back in volumes 25 and 26, according to a page
on Detective
Conan World’s wiki, which I haven’t covered because I have
only reviewed volumes 27 and later.

However, unlike
Harley, who also questioned Jimmy and uncovered his secret on his
own, Sera reveals through her thoughts that her mother, the girl who
was with Sera, ended up in a state similar to Jimmy.

By seeing this, it
makes me wonder how exactly Sera and Jimmy are going to join forces
in the manga now, as I already know who shrank Sera’s mother and it
has also been revealed recently in the Japanese that Rum is aware of
what APTX 4869 can do.

If this particular
moment had not shown up, I would have been disappointed, as the
previous volume had quite a lot going for it.

Thankfully, this was
added in as part of this volume, which helped to make the tension
become a significant part of this volume.

Another thing that I
really liked were the funny moments.

Even though I do
enjoy the cases presented in this series, I also like how the comedic
moments in this seres can be absolutely funny, as it breaks up the
monotony.

While much of the
humor to be found here is pretty much par for the course at this
point, I found myself chuckling quite bit during the second case of
the volume.

At the beginning of
the case, we find out through Harley that Kaito Kuroba had announced
his next target, and Harley is seen ogling Kazuha’s mouth, which
annoys her.

Later on, when
things start to happen that lead up to Kaito Kuroba making his move,
we see Kaito notice the interaction between Kazuha and Harley, and
Kaito decides to have some fun by disguising himself as Kazuha,
thereby creating some funny interactions between Harley and Kaito.

However, what makes
this all so funny, aside from the fact that Harley does not notice
that Kaito has disguised himself as Kazuha, much to Kazuha and
Jimmy’s disappointment, but even shows that Kaito has slipped up,
when Jimmy asks him why he is crouched down, which is something that
everyone noticed except for Harley.

Now, with the
exceptions of his appearances in Detective Conan, if Hakuba is
involved in his heists, and a sequence featuring Jimmy in volume 4 of
Magic Kaito that got added into episode 219 (Japanese count)
of Detective Conan, Kaito, like Jimmy, is presented to make
very few, if any mistakes, to the point where even who is disguised
as is part of the mystery, but here, he really blows it and in a very
hilarious way.

If Kid had not made
the mistakes he did during this case, I think it would have been
alright, as the case itself wasn’t too bad and the audience was
aware of much of Kaito’s actions, since it was more so a battle of
wits than anything, but I do not think it would have left that much
of an impression on me, aside from the fact that we might have
learned of who Scotch was from Morofushi, though he did also play a
big part in this case.

Fortunately, Gosho
Aoyama decided to have things play out like this and it became
memorable for just providing some good laughs.

Hopefully, we get
more cases like this that feature Kaito, as it feels like Kaito
Kuroba’s cases have been getting a lot more dull now that he only
shows up when Serena’s uncle challenges him than the random heists
they were earlier in the series, but I would not be surprised if
things got worse.

The thing that I
liked the most though was how my attention was held quite well by
this volume.

Now, some of you
guys might be surprised that I did not talk about the ending this
time around, like I have done with other volumes, as I have stressed
that the ending of a work is just as important as how things begin,
which is still very much true, but this warrants attention because
this is also an important part of writing anything.

After all, not
everyone is as patient as I typically am, and will stop reading
things when they no longer hold their interest, except maybe for
instances where what is called the sunken cost fallacy arises, which
happens with many long running manga.

In the case of the
series, I complained about how the previous volume felt like it
dragged on, as we had a lot going on, from Rum asking Amuro to
investigate Jimmy Kudo and we even learned the name of the person in
charge of the Black Organization, but then we just finish things off
with the start of a case that does not end until three chapters into
this volume, with its only relevance to the things that happened
before being the very end.

Here, however, I did
not find myself that bored out of my mind because everything felt
relevant to what was going on overall.

Yes, it could be due
to the fact that Gosho Aoyama has decided to make nearly every case
of the Rum arc relevant to the plot, but there are a lot of other
interesting tidbits out there, like a possible connection between
Haibara and the Akai family, which has yet to be disclosed in the
Japanese reeases, and even questions that popped up even when the
cases were dull.

In fact, unlike how
the previous volume felt like it dragged on, this one felt so short
that I had to double check that I did indeed get the usual three
cases per volumes that are typically contained.

If this had been
anything like the previous volume, I would have dropped the series
here and now, as Gosho Aoyama and Shogakukan, or whoever they had
compile this volume for them, usually do a good job in picking a
decent mix of cases that should hold a person’s interest, and would
likely result in the loss of more readers.

Thankfully, that did
not happen this time around, and that makes me feel like giving them
a big round applause for a job well done.

Hopefully, future
volumes will be able to be as interesting as this one is, but
considering how many cases are seemingly plot relevant these days, I
would not be surprised if future volumes end up becoming boring, at
least if the series does not end as soon as the current plot
progression of the Japanese releases makes me feel it will.

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

Because things
started off quite well, there was a lot of tension and questions to
be found, and the volume did not feel like it dragged on, this was a
great read.

Although I liked the
volume, there are some issues.

However, aside from
things that are too minor to talk about, like typos, the only thing I
can think of to really complain about would just end up being like
beating a dead horse at this point, which I feel relieved about,
since I have been quite disappointed with this year’s batch of
volumes, even though there were only really two volumes that were
truly problematic.

As a result, I can
gladly say that there is nothing worth mentioning.

Considering that
there was quite a bit to like about this volume, unless one really
wants to get nit picky, this was definitely worth reading.

I mainly recommend
this to fans of Detective Conancite>, as they will enjoy this the most.

As for everyone
else, I recommend check out the earlier volumes first, especially
because the volumes these days require knowledge from the previous
volume to enjoy.

If you liked this
review and would like to see more, please consider supporting me on
either Patreon
or SubscribeStar,
so that I can continue following this series or maybe find some more
worth while reads for you guys to check out.