Bryce's Blog

I hope everyone has been doing well, as the seasons have officially
changed for everyone.

Things have been
going fairly well here, especially because I can still do do what I
enjoy.

A while back, I went
looking through Amazon’s catalog, to keep up on the titles I
typically follow and managed to secure some titles.

Recently, one of
those titles arrived, which means that it is now time to get off my
butt and take care of it.

Today, I will be
reviewing that title, which is called Case
Closed Volume 98 by Gosho Aoyama.

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

Jimmy and the gang
are still wracking their brains over which tray is authentic, in
order to find out who killed the antique appraiser.

However, even if he
manages to wrap up the case, he has other things to contend with, as
Sera and Akai both start piecing things together about not only each
other but also the movements of those allied with Jimmy.

While the previous
volume ended up being alright, mostly due to lackluster cases,
that does not mean things are going to continue going downhill, so I
must make sure that I don’t let soured feeings get in the way of
being able to judge things.

And after reading
this, I have to say that I enjoyed it quite a bit.

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

As I have said so
many times before, ine of the most important aspects in a work of
fiction is how things begin, as the beginning is supposed to draw the
audience into the world of the work, thereby giving them the
temporary escape that they desire.

While this can be
accomplished in a variety of ways, depending on the kind of work and
the medium used to present it, Detective Conan, like many
other manga, were originally published as part of a serial
publication, which means that things need to start in a way that
makes sense, based upon where the previous installment left off.

In the previous
volume, Dr. Agasa pays a visit to an appraiser that he asked to look
at an antique that he got back the place he visited back in volume
12, which was never dubbed in the anime, not even from the recent
stuff, as of this writing, on a page
on Crunchyroll
featuring the newer dub effort, since the new dub is out of order and
contains gaps and said case happens in episodes 163 and 164,
according to the case
page on Detective
Conan World’s wiki.

Not long after they
get there, the appraiser is found dead, and, when the investigation
begins, Sera starts questioning Subaru, who we know is Akai.

Here, this volume
picks up on Sera’s questioning Subaru, asking him how he knew she
was a girl, before we finally resume the investigation that just
started.

By picking things up
here, my attention was quickly grabbed, as I felt like I would be
able to get answers to the questions I got from reading the previous
volume, and it gave me reason to kee on continuing on with this
volume, even if it was possible for the cases to feel rather dull.

If things had not
started off in this way, I think I would have felt lost and
disappointed, as the questions posed by Sera were very reasonable,
considering she has yet to uncover Subaru’s identity at this point,
and I saw no other way that this could have started, even if I was
more interested with the case at hand.

Fortunately, Gosho
Aoyama remembered that he something to deal with before finishing the
case and made a rather interesting start for the volume, which makes
me feel like giving him a passing grade.

Hopefully, future
volumes will be able to start off just as well as this one did,
because I think there needs to be more interesting things going on
than just going from one case to another, which will also help to
maintain the fanbase.

I also liked how
something that came up in the first case of the volume seemed to crop
up multiple times throughout the course of the volume.

While deep messages
or truths aren’t really a focus of the series, or most other works
of fiction, though I can think of one mangaka that seems to include
messages about importance of accepting and validating oneself in many
of their works, and the thing that came up in this volume is not
really that deep, at least to me, it was still interesting to see.

After the both the
authentic tray and the killer were revealed, Agasa was disappointed
that he never found out the antique he brought in was worth, but
Subaru said that its worth was spelled out by an idiom that states
trying to conceal a secret only makes it more obvious.

Now, knowing about
the idiom might lead people like me to feel a bit frustrated because
many of us know that Jimmy seems to always find a way out of Rachel’s
suspicions, with the more recent events becoming much more
unbelievable than earlier moments, but the fact that things relating
to this idiom multiple times was still intriguing enough.

For example, after
the case concluded, Sera noted that the idiom fit both Haibara and
Jimmy perfectly and Akai figured out what had happened to his mother
when he talked to Sera.

Even though this is
not necessarily new information to us, it is still interesting to see
how Sera was able to figure out that Subaru was her brother and that
Akai could figure out that his mother suffered the same fate as Jimmy
and Haibara.

However, the thing
that really intrigued me about how prevalent this idiom was in the
volume happened in the last case of volume.

In that case,
Rachel, who was invited along with Serena and Sera, attend a birthday
party for a friend with Jimmy, who only came along because she didn’t
feel like leaving him home alone, and Jimmy is not feeling the
greatest.

When Jimmy was about
to take some meds, Sera notices the capsule that Jimmy noted was the
protype antidote for APTX 4869 and questions him about it, thereby
leading him to hide.

However, Mary and
Sera are able to figure out that what Jimmy had was likely what they
were looking for and Mary tells Sera that she should try to get it.

By seeing this, it
makes me wonder if we will have a moment where Haibara meets them and
shares her knowledge with them, as that would likely be a bit easier,
but because both Jimmy and Sera aren’t in a position to establish
an alliance quite yet, I can still see them trying to swipe the drug
in the future.

If the idiom was not
so common within the pages of this volume, I think I would have been
alright with things, but by making it so obvious and having it fresh
in my mind while I read this, made things all the more enjoyable.

Hopefully, things
like this happen much more often in future volumes, as it will help
to mainain interest and give readers something else to look out for,
but because I know that that is not a big thing to have in this
series, I wuld not be surprised if things started feeling like more
of the usual.

Another thing that I
liked was how the cases this time were actually pretty good.

While I cannot say
that they are quite up to par with what was featured in the first 26
volumes, I can say that this is an improvement over what things were
like in the previous volumes.

In nearly every case
to be found here, I found myself wanting to figure everything out and
enjoying each scenario presented as it came, like how Haneda figured
out who killed a shogi club member, before Jimmy and the trick behind
the antique trays was also quite interesting, as was the treasure
hunt case started by Momoji.

This is what I want
from every volume of this series, especially because Detective Conan
is supposed to be a mystery series first and foremost.

If the cases were
dull this time around, I might have considered cancelling my
preorders of the last two volumes to be released over here this year,
as I don’t think I would have the patience to either wait for
things to get good again or for Gosho Aoyama to finally bring this
series to a close, and I do not think I am the only one in that
position right now.

Thankfully, Gosho
Aoyama and Shogakukan, or whoever they had compile this volume for
them, managed to deliver something that I can say that I am proud to
have read.

Hopefully, future
volumes will be just as good as this one, especially when we get
closer to the final showdown with Black Org, because I, and many
others, would like to see this series end just as well as Pandora
Hearts did in its final
volume, but because this series is made by human hands, I would
not be surprised if the series went further downhill.

Thing that I liked
the most though was how this volume ended.

As I have said
numerous times already, aside from how things begin, another
important part of a work of fiction is how things end, as the ending
is supposed to either leave the audience satisfied, in the case of a
standalone work or the final installment in a series, or, in the case
of an installment in a seres, a reason continue.

While I am still not
completely satisfied with how things ended in this volume, I am happy
to say that it both does the job of making me want to get the next
volume as soon as I can, which makes me happy that I was already able
to preorder it, and ends on the better side of spectrum of what can
happen when a volume ends with a new case.

This may not be the
first volume to end things like this, as it did end with the
discovery of a body, but it is one that I am happy with because I
want to be able to start the investigation and learn more about what
is going on, which I am sure fans of detective, mystery, and crime
fiction crave in the stuff they look at.

If this volume ended
like many others before it did, I would have been mad, because the
dead horse would have reared its ugly head once again, and I am sure
people have grown tired of me mentioning how tiring it is for a
volume to end when the case only has a single chapter left.

Fortunately, Gosho
Aoyama and Shogakukan, or whoever they had put this volume together,
decided to end things at a decent enough point that I feel ike giving
them another passing grade.

Hopefully, this kind
of ending can finally overtake the one I, and likely many others, ave
grown weary of, as this kind of endng is far more interesting, and
there might be a chance to bring other readers in by continuing the
trend of endng like this, but I will not be surprised in the trend
I’ve grown tired of continues in the next volume.

Outside of those
things, I cannot think of anything else that I particularly liked, at
least that either stood out as much as what mentioned or could not be
shoe horned in with what I talked about.

Because things
started off quite well, the fact that an idiom ended up being quite
prevalent within its pages after being first mentioned, and the
ending was of the more satisfactory variety, this was quite an
enjoyable read.

Although I liked the
volume, there are some issues.

However, aside from
things that are too minor to talk about, such as typos, nothing
seemed to bother me too much.

As a result, I will
have to say that there is nothing worth mentioning.

Considering that
there was quite a bit to like and nothing to really hate, unless one
wants to get really nit picky, this was definitely reading.

I mainly recommend
this to fans of Detective Conan, as they will be able to enjoy
this the most, but fans of detective, mystery, and crime fiction,
should be able to enjoy this too, since there weren’t really any
dull cases to be found.

As for everyone
else, this might be worth giving a try, especially if you want to dip
your toes into the waters of detective, mystery, and crime fiction,
but it might be better to start with previous installments 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 continue following this series and maybe find other
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