Tantei Gakuen Q / Detective School Q Volume 8 (F57-64) Review

In the previous volume of Tantei Gakuen Q, two of our Q Class members - Ryu Amakusa and Minami Megumi - happened to get a mission to infiltrate a high school institution meant for the most intelligent as the Dan Detective School got wind of rumours being spread on the internet about an unknown "Collector" who collects snuff films, in other words video tapes in which a real murder is being committed. Almost the entirety of the previous volume - Volume 7 - aside from the first two chapters was spent on this case in which Ryuu & Meg attempt to identify the Collector's true identity. But as they do that, couple of bodies start to drop while getting filmed. The culprit is basically creating a snuff film setting to trick the characters into looking at the time of death which are present on the videos. 

In previous volume's review I mentioned how although this case has some nice serious tension to it at the time when the first murder was committed, it didn't feel like there was much going on, most of what's happened has been kind of uninteresting and uneventful. The only interesting thing's been the culprit's hinted connection to the criminal organization Pluto which sells murder plans to clients for a great price (though even that dream was crushed by the end of this case. Spoiler: there is no connection to Pluto even though the perp knew the duo was from DDS and somehow knew to break Megu's wristwatch when the perp kidnapped her...).
So far, the case is alright but literally could've been trimmed in half and I wouldn't notice.

Volume 8 continues the Murder Collector Case with the explanations of who the culprit is and how they managed to trick the "time" which was taped on the videos to get themselves an alibi (obviously the culprit killed the victim at different point in time in reality as we've been constantly hinted at). We get the revelation of the culprit from a slip-up that no culprit would really make, and the main trick used to create the fake alibi with the taped murder was something I already knew of because I could swear I've seen this exact same trick before. The trick consists of knowing about the existence of a certain type of hidden material that has no actually proper foreshadowing in this case aside from subtle circumstantial evidence that still won't make one aware of the existence of such material, so it's not really that good of a twist either. While I didn't 100% suspect the real culprit, he was my most likely suspect of the bunch so I'm not shocked to learn of their true identity... but this slip of the tongue the culprit made to get cornered is quite disappointing. It's one of those things that sometimes are slip-ups and sometimes aren't as there was a transitional time jump to that moment where the characters were gathered when the slip-up happened, so the reader won't know if it's a slip-up or not for sure as we won't know for sure what they talked about, but we have to think about it and then realize what our main characters logically could have said to pin-point the fallacy in the culprit's words. Which is more work than most people're willing to put into working out a case as the translations of a foreign series could be terrible.

There is a somewhat nice twist relating to motives at the very end of this case. The motive for the first murder is quite basic at first but gets revealed to be a massive misunderstanding caused by the anonymity which internet offers to us, while the motive for the second murder is 50/50 as it's quite coincidental but I do like how it has to do with just murdering a person who figured out the truth in order for the culprit to hide their identity, rather than just killing everyone because of a tragic past. Although looking back it does feel like the twist for the first motive might've been pulled out of a hat, but at least it works to give an extra punch related to the theme of internet anonymity that this case presented us.
It's odd though as the case ends in a way where the culprit had zero connection to the criminal organization Pluto, even though that was sort of hinted at as a reason Megumi was kidnapped during this case again. I guess it's whever.

After the mysteries've been solved the Q Class returns back to DDS where they get introduced to a new character, a transfer student who is on the level of the best of DDS. The new Q Class member to attempt to become the heir to the legendary detective Dan Morihiko, Tooya Kuniko, who is actually a case-only character from the 'Collector' murder case. Previously Kuniko was a timid and shy personality who went over a complete make-over in a way that she's not even recognizable anymore. She'd come to DDS because of a strong crush towards Ryuu. The case ends in a comedic note as we move on to the next story...


Mystery of the Home Economics Classroom Case

We are almost 60 chapters into this series filled with tense adventures about the Q Class of Dan Detective School. Just before the end of previous case in which Tooya Kuniko joined the Q Class, the class had only five members who all aim to become the successor to the legendary detective Dan Morihiko. These five members are our main characters; the protagonist Kyuu, the trusty and physically strong side-kick Kintarou (Kinta), the semi love-interest Megumi (Meg), the antagonistic but not really Ryuu and the nerdy Kazuma. Or that's how it was supposed to be but hasn't actually been as although Kazuma is part of the big five (apparently now big six due to Kuniko joining) amateur detectives of the Q Class, he hasn't had any screentime whatsoever. In the beginning of this series, in the very first volume, he was introduced as this rich-brat heir to some company. Kazuma is a genius inventor who uses his computer to find important data to solve cases... but so far he hasn't actually really been useful, nor have his gadgets. I was intrigued at first about him because he was kind of an asshat for talking about murders as if they were a game, but that interest has long since dissipated.
Kazuma's solved no cases, but that would be O.K. as neither did Kinta until just two volumes ago, but there's a bigger problem relating to Kazuma than that: he's the only one out of the five who's not even been a useful part of any crime solving up to this point. He's failed constantly at everything due to needing his computer, and his moments have amounted to like two panels of looking through the net for information that we could've got via other means. He's been freaking irrelevant.

If we look at the archetypes our main cast of characters has been created through, we can see that it's actually like a group of Beyblade characters down to a T. I could swear that Kazuma was created just to fill in the nerdy computer-using slot for the main cast with the treatment he's gotten from the authors...

So, when I saw this next story, the Mystery of the Home Economics Classroom, begin with the focus on Kazuma and his middle school life, I knew I could finally at least breathe a sigh of relief for the first time regarding this character.

This case is about Kazuma's middle school class.  Although Kazuma is known as an overconfident and annoying kid as he loves to show-off his family's wealth and his own intellect, he does have his weaknesses. For example we learn that he has sort of crush towards the homeroom teacher Tachikawa Hitomi (23) and seems to does what she asks of him, such as telling others in the class where the next class is being held. Hitomi herself is new in the school  (she wears short skirts etc. to school as well...) and thus has problems working along with her seniors, such as the bossy music teacher Ebe Kyouko (29). And since Hitomi's young and new as a teacher there are other teachers who flirt with her such as the science teacher Iwadome Morihito (32).

Kazuma's middle school

The lectures at Dan Detective School sometimes overlap with the lectures our middle school student main characters have in their normal schools. You see, the DDS students go to two schools at the same time, so their schedules sure are busy. But as DDS takes priority, Kazuma is one of those characters who skip class in middle school and head to DDS. Not this time though. In fact, it's the complete opposite in general what happens in this case: As our main cast are waiting for he class to start at DDS, it gets cancelled as new serious cases came up suddenly so the homeroom teacher Hongou also has to head over there to solve cases. Kazuma stayed until middle school was over and even finished cleaning up on the 6th period because of his crush towards teacher Hitomi, so it's time to hurry towards DDS as he's late and doesn't know that the DDS class is cancelled. But before that, Kazuma heads to his classroom to get his phone he forgot behind (he also hopes that Hitomi-sensei is in the classroom as well). On his way to the class we get to see some kind of sixth sense type of stuff from Kazuma as he feels something weird after opens the door to the classroom in which the lights are still on.

In the room, a microwave seems to be on or at least contain some items, while Hitomi-sensei is on the ground in pain with a poisoned dart on her leg. Hitomi was sitting on her bench as she was hit by the dart that assumedly came from a blowgun that the vice principal brought to the school after visiting an amazon tribe for folklore investigation. The blowgun had been put in-between a closed door and the wall. It doesn't take long for Kazuma to analyze that the poison is quite lethal, but that doesn't matter as it's time to confront the culprit as a member of DDS - there is nowhere the perp could have escaped to other than the kitchen or the home economics classroom... but obviously the perp is nowhere to be seen and Kazuma has to use his authority as a DDS student with a DDS notebook to order the teachers to call the police as he preserves the crime scene and attempts to solve the crime that also includes a legend of a moving object in the classroom.

This is actually another short two-chapter case. It's technically a 'who-of-the-three', but pinpointing the criminal by thinking of how relevant (or more like irrelevant) the other suspects are to the case is surprisingly easy. The case has this atmosphere of a proper mystery, and although I guessed the form of the trick that was used here with the blowgun and the dart... I wished the trick which, while a great as an idea, was used better. The way the culprit pulled this murder attempt off really does feel kind of haphazard - it feels like it could be taken straight from scooby doo..
However! I do think this case is considerably better than Kintarou's case which was before the previous case. Kinta's case also had a silly answer to it but this case feels more fleshed out despite both being just as long. This Kazuma's case just has the air of a more classic mystery... and most importantly the ending was Amazing. I knew it would happen yet still I loved it as a character moment. This is the case Kazuma deserved to shine, to get to act like a hero in his own way. It's in clear contrast with the type of character Kazuma is. [I listened to a fitting Persona 5 song while reading this moment as well.]


Let's Board the Alibi Train! Case

This time around we have an inverted case where we see the culprit in action.
Kinta and Kyuu are on a mission. They got a request from Dan Detective School to meet up with a client on a train. As the duo spends a lot of their time talking about food, eating and bickering, they get introduced to Minazuki Kaori (32) who works as a picture book author who doesn't have pure intentions as we learn that her aim is to steal either Kinta's or Kyu's contact information in one-hour's time before the train arrives at Toyatori terminal. We learn that Kyu used to read a lot of her books in his younger, like pre-school, days. The woman then starts to pretend that she gets a call and has to leave and asks the duo to keep watching over her bags as her call is going to "take a long while".

After leaving the room she sprints out of the train on the nearest station and hops on a car she'd prepared there (as she claims to have rehearsed this event numerous times so that it will work). Then, she meets up with a man named Taga Kenji (30), the Otowa Editorial's member who got a fake threatening letter from Kaori claiming that she will crush Kenji in the place of all the new authors he's destroyed. Kaori had asked Kenji to meet up with her in the middle of nowhere. As Kenji tries to say something to Kaori she pulls out a kitchen knife and stabs him in the stomach... all because Kenji had dumped her in place of Kaori's assistant and because he'd called her drawings "old-fashioned"!

As Kaori had finished the deed she heads over to the next train station, to hop back on the train where Kyuu and Kinta are watching over her bags. With 40 minutes left she thinks believes that the rest'll be smooth sailing, however, the tunnel she must drive through is blocked by a fallen rock. If she can't use that tunnel, she'd never make it in time for the train. But she stillbarely manages to make it while driving and running at full speed. Her perfect alibi deed is now successful, the only thing she needs are the addresses of her so-called witnesses, our main characters' addresses, that is. So! It's time for us to see Kinta and Kyuu figure out she'd even left the train let alone killed anyone.

By sudden whims of fate we learn that the client of  Kinta and Kyu was actually the person Kaori had just killed, and what's worse the duo sees that the client's photo is on Kaori's mobile phone, and even that turns worse as blood stains got splattered on an envelope Kaori has due to the victim touching it right before he fell to the ground. But no problem as she's an artist she quickly manages to draw over the blood splatters to hide evidence.
As Dan Morihiko caught up on the client's death mere 15 minutes after he was murdered, Dan calls Kyuu & Kinta to tell them to head over to the crime scene and figure out who the perp is, however that doesn't seem to be necessary as Kyuu seems to have already figured out who the murderer is somehow at the end of chapter 62. Chapter 63 on the other hand focuses on how Kyuu and Kinta manage to trick the perp to expose herself.

The case is fine. It's obviously a filler case but manages to be entertaining enough. It does a really good job at being a solid inverted murder mystery meant to waste time and be forgotten right after. While there are no big twists or anything here, the case also doesn't fall on its own stupidity by having a ridiculous answer to the main trick. In that sense this case is more solid than the other two-chapter cases we've had in the past few volumes (Kinta's Case & Kazuma's Case), however, this case also didn't really try to flesh out our main characters nor did it have anything memorable to it.
This whole thing about our main duo going to the train, meeting up with the culprit, us seeing the inverted murder and the culprit managing to pull off the alibi & Kyuu realizing who the culprit is, all happened in one mere chapter. Safe to say this might be the most eventful chapter in the series so far. There have been chapters like some of the first few Q vs. A deduction battles where we had like two deduction battles in a single chapter. Those were really condensed as well. I'm impressed. Interestingly enough we learn here that Kyuu's father had passed away when our protagonist was but a lad.


The Beauty Trio, Crisis!

Volume 8 ends conclusively this time (in other words there is no story that continues over to volume 9). We have a case at a girls-only high school, which obviously means that any males who go to investigate are going to be called out as perverts. But worry not, as the perfect fix for this problem is the beauty trio heading out: Megumi of Q Class, Yukihira of A Class and our new Q Class member Tooya Kuniko reporting for duty! (Reminder that Kuniko joined DDS at the end of Murder Collector case due to her crush on Ryu.)
Just like the previous case, this one-chapter quick short story is also train-themed.

 Meg and Yukihira have conflicting personalities and Kuniko is completely antisocial which causes problems in their team spirit. But on their way to the high school the trio meets up with a challenge they must face against together as on the train trip a pervert molester attacks Kuniko (who doesn't want to tell anyone she's being attacked due to her personality). Anyway, Megumi managed to catch that the man has a green shirt and a watch on his right hand. Megumi even remembers how the man in his suit looked like from behind. The girls then manage to pinpoint one man who could've been the perp and take him to the police station to be questioned, however the crux of the issue here is to prove that this man traveled on the train when Kuniko was being molested, as the man offers a different kind of solution (and by that I mean, he has a trick to claim he's innocent). The case is over very quickly however and through it we learn that Kuniko's father's an aikido martial arts master and she's also been training aikido enough to one-shot adult males if she so wishes, despite her timid personality telling a different story. Don't judge a book by its cover.

This case was just ok. I wasn't really interested in trying to remember anything about this case. It does do an okay job at using visual clues to let the reader figure at least parts of the alibi trick the culprit pulled off, but other than that it's a very short filler story focusing on the three girls of Dan Detective School.


Last rites

 Not a bad volume to say the least. While there was nothing that jaw dropping here, I felt that 'solid' is the best word for I can come up with. The volume began with the last three chapters of the Murder Collector case which told us a story about a supposed snuff video creator and the case also utilized internet to create motives. It was a creepy story with tense atmosphere (though not as tense as Kamikakushi Village Murder Case), and the answer to the alibi trick was decent, however it was too long of a case for its own good in my honest opinion.  
Home Economics Classroom Case or in other words Kazuma's Case had a lazy/dumb answer to its main trick, but it also had a really great ending to it and rest of the case actually felt properly crafted as a short story. It's the first time Kazuma was actually relevant to a case, and here he actually got to completely solve a case by himself and act as a hero in his own way.
Alibi Train case told us an inverted story with a murderer trying to make it by using the train and its passengers to create an alibi by leaving and boarding the train at different stations. It was a properly crafted filler story (as in it didn't show us anything new about the overarching story or its characters) that however didn't have the same impactful ending that Kazuma's case had.
The Beauty Trio case also had the theme on trains and its schedules but was a much shorter story meant to show-off our main three girls together as they expose a molester on a train. It was an okay filler story.

NaNoWriMo 2020: To Go Even Further Beyond!

As we can all agree this year's been all weird. Days go by so quickly now. It's almost like a bad depression. Nothing's happening in our personal lives and things don't move forward, yet so much happens to all of us at once. Just recently the health information including ID's of tens of thousands of Finns was hacked even! That might be the largest scale crime ever in this country, if we're being real. I've heard quite a few people around me get their info's hacked. It's important to understand that

Anyway, I haven't been able to concentrate on things at all this entire year because of personal things that've been in my mind for the past four years. I'm not sure if 'problem' is the right word for these personal things but these have been mentally extremely exhausting regardless. This entire thing with Covid along with stuff happening and most importantly not happening in real life have culminated to this point where I'm planning on writing about them. 

 

 

Writer Jerry Jenkins talking about publishing books

Now, in couple of hours over here at Finland it's going to be the 1st of November, 2020 and it's time to participate on the NaNoWriMo project. It's an online project which aims to motivate writers to write a book of at least 50 000 words. You will aim to write a real book on one month. A year ago I wrote a 258-page long document with larger fonts etc. which was about 65 000 words. In I believe 2016 I wrote a 60 000 word fictional story in normal fonts that was about 98 pages, if my memory serves me correctly. So there's the ballpark of how many pages you'll be planning for at least. This year's different however as I'm going to try to see how many words an official book would be like (so the structure will be as close to an official one as I can get it).

For the past two years I've been planning on creating three kinds of books: an informative one, a nonfiction story that's based on my perception of actual real-life events, as well as a fictional detective story (we call them 'dekkari' over here in Finland btw). These three stories are things that've been bothering me for the longest and I feel like I've been stuck in a psychological limbo caused by events that come from outside, it's very weird but I think anyone can understand them as things that happen to your close ones also affect you too in a domino effect. So I decided to finally really work on them to cleanse my mind. By the way, did you know that writing can be helpful to keep yourself healthier? There's a reason why people write their day-to-day activities even on personal notebooks that no one else will ever see. 

 

Three folders ready to go! Not in order and with placement titles.

As these are stories that I've been planning for years, instead of writing them again from top to bottom I decided re-write down all the things I've written so far in a more formal format and then continue from where I left them in the previous years. The reason for doing this is also to catch up on what I was thinking and where the story was going. For the nonfiction / real life based ones I personally know them practically inside-out but I need to change people's and places names to fictional ones of course. There's a lot to do but it's been a while since I've went at something all-out. My university studies are suffering a lot but this entire year's been a complete flop for me regardless. I'm trying to do something to get back up here. Ah, I'm also starting to exercise again as physical exercise is healthy for mental health. I can suggest people to run with running poles as your arms actually do help you run further distances. Try it. You'll notice the biggest differences during hill running as that really takes a toll on your arms but you're most likely able to run much more than without the poles and it's also great that more of your body will get that physical stress from just running.

I'm literally not even going to worry about this - I'll definitely aim to do my best! If it takes 200 pages a week to do this I think it's time to pull up all nighters. Which is scary as I've calculated that I might need to make 20 pages a day! We have 30 days to do this.

Tantei Gakuen Q / Detective School Q Volume 7 (F49-56) Review

While the previous volume of Detective Academy Q had aspects to it that were sub-par at best (explanation of the Q vs. A finale story), the series has been pretty consistently good in what it sets out to do with these mysteries. We also ended the last volume on a slightly more interesting note as our main characters Kyuu and Megumi got locked up in a creepy room that's almost like a jail cell beneath Dan Morihiko's old agency which is now used to teach the Q Class of the Dan Detective School. There was something of a rumor about a person having been murdered in the building before Dan himself rented or bought it, but nothing concrete was ever found out.

Unlike the last few volumes, this volume has no full story to tell and is instead a continuation from the previous story with the Mystery of the Old School Building Case, and the second story, Murder Collector Case, which begins in this volume, continues to the next volume.

Mystery of the Old School Building Case
 
During late noon clean-up duty Kyuu and Meg get caught into a pickle as they find out about some of the mysteries of a trapped man as they find a jail cell beneath the school. However things get serious as an infiltrator assumedly from the main villain group of this series, the criminal organization Pluto, manages to lock both of them behind a trick door and a steel door. It's unlike that anyone would ever find them there... but it's better to try than not try! As Kyuu tries to find a way out of the locked jail, things take a turn for the worse as a seemingly poisonous snake that was dropped into the room through a small jail cell feeding window by the person who locked them, manages to bite Meg's leg...
 
Kyuu focuses on sucking the poison out of Megumi's leg and reads the DDS notebook which contains information on what to do during different types of crises. It doesn't take long for the two of them to realize that the snake which was in the room had been dropped in by someone else in order to kill them, so the steel door must've been locked on purpose for some reason as well.

Meanwhile Kinta, Ryuu and Kazuma get notified that the two other Q Class members still haven't gone home. Thus, the trio decides to head back to DDS in order to find clues of their whereabouts. In there, there are some of the A Class members still in school who then decide to help the squad to find the missing two somewhere in the old school building. The rest of the case is basically just Ryuu and co. going over what Kyu and Megumi went through in the previous volumes as they help the two escape from the dungeon.

As there is a high possibility of Pluto targeting the members of DDS, the teacher community of the school is in uproar. How is it possible to find out the identity of the infiltrator if they've potentially hidden themselves not just with top-grade plastic surgeries, but also with peak-performance acting. A Pluto infiltrator has no problem completely becoming someone else so that no one is able to find out their true identity. A real spy.

Naturally, the DDS also investigated the basement in which Kyuu and Meg were locked in. From there, they found the notebook written with blood left behind the person who was kept in there... Kyuu theorizes that the person had managed to escape that jail cell by attacking his / her capturer. But who could've that been and why was that person kept in there? There notebook is decades old and there're signs of murder being committed that've been left behind. Apparently the original criminal had been caught, jailed and managed to reintegrate into society, but there's clearly something amiss about the mystery of the old school building:
1) Who was trapped in the dungeon and why?
2) What's the purpose of the hidden room?
 One also has to wonder about the identity of the construction designer Kuzuryuu Takumi who loves making trick puzzles that create illusionary sights of things as he was he one to create that hidden door which leads to the jail cell in the basement... what could this all mean? Dan Morihiko personally decides to get to the bottom of this decades-old mystery with the help of his secretary and right hand men who teach at DDS. At the same time Ryuu seems to suspect that his caretaker - or whatever - might've had a hand in trying to kill Kyuu and Megumi.


Murder Collector Case

After couple of volumes of short to medium length stories, we're back in business with yet another long tale. The class is in session for the Q Class in the Dan Detective School. Their unnamed teacher shows the class photos of a decomposing body from a murder case. Even though everyone else is disgusted at the sight of the body, Ryu won't even flinch. Instead, just from seeing a single photo he was able to pinpoint that the victim was murdered and killed elsewhere by a semi-wealthy person. After class their principal Dan Morihiko calls for Ryuu and Megumi.

A rumor's been circling the internet at a great speed of a top-class student having snuff videos in his apartment. In other words, a video which shows a real heinous crime known as murder being committed; the death of a girl student Namie who went missing at one point. The problem here however is that the video "collector's" identity was never found out as apparently the one who found a snuff video in his apartment skipped town and disappeared in fear.

Although it may just be nothing more than a rumor, the Dan Detective School decided to butt in to investigate matters due to a missing persons report regading a girl who disappeared a month ago from a prestigious Shibusawa Institute had come in. What matters here is to find out whether or not that girl's disappearance has to do with the 'Collector'. And to do that Meg and Ryuu will be infiltrating the Shibusawa institute meant for the most genius children, and pretending to be students there. Also this case doesn't focus on Kyuu, but Ryuu, we get a nice moment in the beginning of te case in which Ryuu promises to protect Meg if someone tries to come after her life again.

As the duo arrives at their temporary new school the entire first chapter of the case is spent on Ryuu and Megumi trying to get used to how the class operates as no one wants to even look at them and everyone seems kind of annoying. Even the teacher is trying to pick up a fight with Ryuu by giving him a math problem meant for top university students... which Ryuu unsurprisingly immediately solves.
 This showcase of pure genius from Ryuu's part continues to impress everyone in this high school. Anyway, the goal is to catch a criminal and perhaps even the rumor-spreader, so after our main duo manages to get to the best class in the school, the special "A Class", next we get to know the cast of characters for this case:

Murasaki Misato (27), English teacher,
Tominaga Masashi (15), 1st year student; he apparently won the drawing lot to get in,
Tooya Kuniko (15), 1st year student,
Asabuki Maya (15), 1st year student,
Kogure Junya (15),  1st year student and the top of the class,
Oobayashi Kazuki (16), 1st year student at risk of getting dropped out; everyone thought he was the 'Collector',
Shibusawa Gakuin (17), 3rd year student,

The idea of world-wide web (the internet) plays a heavy part in this case. One of the core concepts we're introduced to are "rumours" - if one does something notable, those actions will often quickly be posted on the net and start to spread as rumours.

As the 3rd year student Shibusawa introduces Ryuu into the dorm, what awaits them in Ryuu's room is a computer that's been turned on with the word "Collector" showing on it. Next thing they witness on the computer is a video clip of a man grabbing a knife and stabbing another person. However Ryuu quickly realizes that it's simply a fake video - prank by somebody on the campus. Meanwhile Megumi arrives to her dorm to notice that the next room from her has the name plate of the girl who went missing a month prior.

After settling down, Ryuu and Meg start to hunt for the person who pulled the video prank on Ryuu with the help of the DDS's pocket book's fingerprints detection set. It doesn't take long for them to track the culprit to be the top of special A Class's students, Kogure Junya. However right when they figure this out, a mystery person whom he knows invades Junya's room and attacks him. This leads to a tense situation where Junya is taken away by this attacker somewhere, and after waking up tied to a chair, the attacker takes a video camera out of their bag...


The investigation portion of the Murder Collector Case jumps between Ryuu investigating Junya's room as a scene of crime as the boy went missing, and Megumi investigating the girl who went missing, Ogura Emina, with rest of the case suspects / school students who wanted to gather to play detective and to do that everyone had gathered together to form a detective club. However that detective play party has the culprit among them: a person willing to kidnap Megumi in order to use her in the next snuff film as a "supporting character" and it's Ryuu's mission to save her.


Up until this point on the case has had quite nice tense atmosphere to it as the idea behind snuff film murders happening in school setting is really unnerving, however it's also been kind of... bland? The mysteries presented which the characters crack are either not solvable to the reader or they're just something that the reader can hand-wave off and move to the next page. It's quite odd how unnecessarily stretchy these longer cases feel in comparison to the last few volumes' short cases. 


After Ryuu Amakusa manages to save Megumi, there's a problem: the other person in that snuff video room, Junya, had seemingly lost his life from being whacked on the head with a glass bottle while he was tied to a chair as Megumi was forced to watch it all unfold. The culprit realized that Megumi and Ryuu are part of DDS, and the culprit might've something to do with our criminal organization Pluto as well. It doesn't take long for the culprit to kill another person cold-blooded and show it on the Snuff Theater link that the culprit seems to post on the school's website. And the perp always focuses on the clock, as if it was telling the real time.

I like that regarding this second murder, the suspect the police have is less likely to have been the culprit as on the video the 2nd victim shows a way with her hand for the suspect to enter her room. Right before her death she'd said to Ryuu and co. that the person the police think of as the most likely suspect is definitely the "Collector". Thus, as Ryuu points out, it's unlikely for someone to let someone who they think is a blood-thirsty killer into their room.



This case has been "fine" and "alright" so far. Nowhere near as uninteresting as the previous volume and I don't see the trick being anything as bad either. The idea of a snuff film creator killer is a very interesting premise for a case as is the school setting, but those weren't really presented as well as they could've been. The case does have quite a bit of tension to when the first victim gets kidnapped and filmed when the killer smashes the glass bottle on his head, but that's also the only notable thing going for this case. As this volume doesn't have any full cases on its own, this case also continues on to volume 8. At the end of the 7th volume Kyuu arrives to the institution Ryuu & Megumi are in, which kind of made this case less appealing as this has happened in quite a few cases so far - just last volume we had the idol-themed case where Kyuu went to investigate alone with Class A's Yukihira, and at the end of the case the other Q Class members arrived to the scene to solve the case. That has also happened multiple times before. So, seeing similar type of writing being used for our main characters is kind of bland... just like this case so far. It's a long case, it's fine and it's alright, but there's just nothing really going for it at the moment. The killer might connect to Pluto in some shape or form perhaps so hopefully the ending amplifies my enjoyment... But from the mysteries we've solved of the case so far (not the murderer's identity which I still don't know about for sure), almost everything's been quite standard fare with no real flavour to it.

The Devil on G-String / G Senjou no Maou (2008)

The story opens up with two characters. 'Maou', or the 'Devil', is shown walking through the city's bustling streets during a cold late October night, ready to soon begin with some kind of criminal event he's been planning through for years along with his group of loyal 'followers'. At the same time a high school girl with a long gray hair passes by with the intense will and intent to catch the person who killed her mother - to catch the person known as the 'Devil'.

G Senjou no Maou (The Devil on G-String) is an adult (R18 due to H-scenes) thriller and mystery visual novel produced by AKABEi SOFT2 and was first released in 2008, and now re-released in 2015 by Sekai Project. It's available for purchase on Steam for a decent price (voiceless edition is even cheaper). The story consists of four chapters and the epilogue, and multiple end-games, in other words it has something called branching storylines, but most of the game is spent just reading through the text. From the information I can gather the game had quite positive reception in Japan when it was first released, even though I see barely anyone actually ever talk about it.

Our main character (the one we play as) of this particular visual novel is Kyousuke Azai, a high school student and the adopted son of a ruthless yakuza (mafia) boss, but he for some reason has memory problems and heavy headaches. During the day our protagonist usually goes to school like normal, a school filled with quite quirky characters such as the almost too cute-looking boy Eiichi Aizawa and bunch of girls our main character gets close to, such as a diary-keeper, daughter of the schoool's owner, and a world-class ice-skater and real daughter of the protag's adoptive father. Kyosuke though was actually forcefully adopted in order for him to work under the mob as a president of of one of his adoptive father's (Gonzo Azai's) corporations to collect money that he can pay for the immense debt left behind by Kyousuke's real father, and ultimately after doing that he wants to reunite with his mother. Kyousuke is also quite a fan of classical music which mirrors the honestly beautifully atmospheric OST that this VN has.

The real story's gears kick off as a messy long-haired girl by the name of Haru Usami transfers into Kyousuke's school. Haru is the main heroine and a detective-type character with notable powers of observation and knowledge of criminal psychology and negotiations. Too bad she's absolutely awful at dealing with social situations. Haru is the character with a history against the game's primary antagonist and villain 'Maou' but she's not willing to talk about it, which cuses the game to not progress as smoothly as it perhaps could have had the characters just been more front about what's on their mind.
By the way, Haru (The Devil on G-String, 2008) reminds me of Kyoko Kirigiri (Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, 2010).

Now, while there is this sense of mystery regarding the motivations and pasts of our main cast, the main conflict the player bumps into is more psychological regarding Maou's and the protagonists actions. As Maou gets closer to Haru and our protag, the mob boss (MC's adoptive father) orders Kyousuke to catch Maou. This leads to different types of "showdowns" with with our antagonist, but there's something wrong as we always see Maou during times when Kyousuke gets memory lapses and headaches - there's even a scene in which his psychiatrist ponders about this memory problem of his, and we get some scenes about possible alter egos.

I remember when this series was called "Death Note on steroids" by certain group of people a long time ago, but it's really not, the story isn't that special by today's standards and would probably even come off as a poorly plotted if it was a light novel. The visual novel format definitely helps it. It's a fairly compact story with a small cast of characters, but at least it doesn't feel like a drag to go through. And in comparison, G-String does at least have some mysteries to ponder about, such as who this assumedly cool villain could possibly be, and what do our main characters and the yakuza have to do with him, and whatever it is that moves our characters forward?

I'm not sure if I can get behind all the writing choices in this story. I actually first played this game in around 2011 if memory serves right, but even then some of the red herrings and character writing just didn't click with me. Kind of like how I feel when reading a generic crime fiction. But hey, at least it has great music to create an entertaining atmosphere. I'd say it's a game worth playing if one wants to play a visual novel as it's a surprisingly easy read and nothing too big, but still decent enough. That's not something I can say about certain other games in this medium. As a last note, the title of the game is actually neatly symbolistic regarding what happens with our main heroine in this story.

Wild Police Story

2020 has been a year of ups and mostly downs; movies, games, and all other type of media keep getting pushed back and even this Blogger site is being ruined with this very buggy and absolutely awful new "mobile-friendly" interface I'm using right now to write this post to see what we can possibly get out of this and what possibilities it offers to bloggers and readers. For example I can't normally return to the previous page after trying to create a post, saving a post takes more work than it should, and I can't watch posts before posting anymore because Mozilla/Chrome/etc. keep blocking these as "pop-ups", and when I manage to see the post in preview, it doesn't register where I've pressed the "Enter" button at. Absolute madness... but there might be some light at the end of the tunnel.

About today's subject though, this particular side-story series is one of the more special news (in a good way) that I've heard all year long as Gosho and the author of Zero's Tea Time (Detective Conan's Amuro Tooru's spinoff series), Takahiro Arai, announced that he's going  to start working on another Detective Conan story - Wild Police Story. I've always liked Arai's art in Zero's Tea Time so I decided to peep his other works - namely Darren Shan, Arago, Les Misérables and Tenshou no Quadrable. All of these are very original and decent length stories and I'm actually impressed at how much more prolific Arai is as I thought he was a no-name author whom Shonen Sunday picked off the streets, so to speak. Regardless, Arai's better works such as Darren Shan and in my opinion his best work Les Misérables are actually his versions of novels (in other works manga adaptations), so he clearly has a certain preference on how he wants to tell his stories, and I can get behind that as Arai is able to show emotion through his paneling extremely well, which also carried well over to Zero's Tea Time.

But what I could not get behind in ZTT was the honestly rather poor script. While the stories themselves are presented nicely, they're rather empty, they have no message to tell and they rarely have any point either to exist; they're simply there to showcase Amuro's day-by-day activities in rather empty ways. Looking at Arai's earlier works, he's never done fanservice-type series like that one before either, so it's kind of odd how he chose to go for that type of style. The panels in ZTT were quite too big as well and thus they were unable to really tell any real stories. I guess Arai's biggest problem was that he isn't that good at planning chapters himself and that he's not experienced at creating short-stories, as the difference in writing quality is quite big in comparison with the longer stories he's worked on. While Gosho Aoyama (the author of DC) did supervise ZTT, he never had any that big of part in how it was created. From what I did get out of ZTT however, was that Arai really loves Detective Conan and especially Amuro Tooru as a character, as he knows all the little details that Gosho laid out about the man. I'm sure it was a big honor for Arai to get to work under Aoyama in one way or another.

In late 2019 however things took a surprising turn with the announcement of another side-story, Detective Conan: Wild Police Story. Gosho might've seen enough potential in Arai or something as he decided to take matters into his own hands and to help Arai tell a real, true side story of Detective Conan and show Arai how to craft this type of manga series that focuses on shorter stories and substance in a page. Aoyama does all the storyboards, paneling structure, sketches, for the chapters of this side series and supervises the final product as well. The difference in Arai's craft is quite immense and much closer to Detective Conan in comparison to Zero's Tea Time, and if Gosho wanted to, I'd say he could actually let Arai also work on Magic Kaito in this way if he wanted to. What makes WPS special is the fact that it's not just another Amuro story, but instead we have five very entertaining main characters in it; the squad of fresh police students of the Metropolitan Police Academy wasting their days away in the line of duty, seven years prior to the start of Detective Conan's present timeline. And four of these characters have already died in the story of DC, so this story can be quite tough to read from that front as well! The main mysteries of this series come from out main characters' pasts and motivations, which lays out a nice groundwork for the individual stories as well.


            Wild Police Story's first tale, A Fight Between Equals, begins in the middle of a night as a loud noise echoes through the walled yards of the Metropolitan Police Academy. The noise is caused by punches and kicks under the beautiful sakura trees of Japan as two young men, Rei Furuya (22) and Jinpei Matsuda (22), throw hands. From the story of the original Detective Conan manga we know just how powerful Furuya is physically in his late 20's so it's actually impressing Furuya himself as well that Matsuda won't give in (we learn later on that Matsuda's pro-boxer father had taught him, so it's actually impressive how Furuya is able to go toe-to-toe with him) - while Matsuda still manages to lose a tooth in the battle, our blonde-haired Furuya also gets couple of good punches to his face and body, so much so that he can barely keep standing after the fight is over.

Furuya Rei (22)

However this very first scene of the story isn't just about two men clashing, it's also about their ideals. Matsuda wants to pummel Furuya because he wants to get in Furuya's way of becoming a police officer - as Furuya claims that he has a goal which motivates him to absolutely become a police officer, Matsuda actually hates that. He hates Furuya's "childish infatuation towards the police" - so why does Matsuda himself want to become an officer? Arai and Gosho draw this clash of ideals and Matsuda's crazy face really well. It brings so many questions, and makes me really happy as there's actually some form of substance to get from these pages in comparison to Zero's Tea Time.

The story immediately moves on to another character, as I mentioned there are five main characters in this story about police academy, so this time we focus on one of the more recently introduced characters in Detective Conan, Hiromitsu Morofushi (22). As it's in the middle of the night at 2 AM, Morofushi happens to have a nightmare of something horrifying, possibly even real - in this dream of his Morofushi was but a young child hiding in a closet, from where he witnesses the brutal stabbing of a man and a woman, possibly his own family. The perpetrator - presented as Shadow Man - then gets up while holding his bloody knife after doing the killings and heads away, but then scares child Morofushi by peeping through the very closet door where he was hiding. But luckily the ringing door bell wakes the man up and he goes to see the beaten-up Furuya (whom Morofushi calls by the nickname "Zero") laying on the floor and leaning towards the wall. I like how Morofushi immediately knows who it was that Furuya was battling by telling the man to get along with his opponent.

The next morning the academy students have lined up and we get a clear view on our main squad: the Onizuka Class; the students taught by instructor Hachizo Onizuka (48). As Onizuka gets interested in the smuggy Matsuda's and gloomy Furuya's battle scars, the trusty class rep Wataru Date (22) makes up a story to save the two the bother of getting to fight with their teacher, but in exchange he forces everyone to run a rather long extra round.

The final member of our main squad is Kenji Hagiwara (22), a sort of lecherous type who seems to get easily along with people by striking up conversations.

We get a lot of insight into our five protagonists in the very first chapter, from their personal introductions and personalities to a snippet of their pasts from teacher Onizuka. Furuya has unprecedented scores when he got into the academy, but his flaw is getting into fights with everyone for all sorts of reasons, from his personal motivations to his hair color. Morofushi has a great sense of justice and his brother is actually a great detective of the Nagano prefecture (aha!) but he's held back by a severe trauma of what happened to his parents (the nightmare). Date, who academically is only behind Furuya in the school, has fantastic leadership skills but is heavily held back by whatever caused his own father to resign from the police force. Hagiwara on the other hand has great skills in communication but his personality causes him to waste his time going after girls. And lastly, Matsuda has specialist knowledge and practical abilities of putting things apart and together, but he's completely insolent and unable to work in a team.

The first story focuses on everyone, but the main focus is on Matsuda and his weird antagonistic perspective towards police. The way the character types of our five protagonists are told here is pretty genius as we see them through character dialogue, flashbacks and just seeing how they all act. Matsuda himself is quite the joker and I can assume that this story makes him even more popular in the Detective Conan community. I'm somewhat impressed by how well the story is crafted from character-writing standpoint as it's a normal 20-page chapter. You can tell how much Gosho had a part in this by looking at the paneling, art and the fact that relevant stuff is actually going on in the background, the stuff Gosho uses to make his chapters quite eventful. A lot of stuff happens, we even get to see the squad in the class. And talking about class, the first chapter ends off with some class with Matsuda literally telling the police to go f*ck off!

      The second chapter, Outrageous Behavior, continues from where the last one left off as Furuya investigates what possibly could have caused Matsuda to become so hostile towards the idea of police. In his quest to find information, Furuya comes across an article talking about a case where a murder suspect, pro-boxer Jotaro Matsuda, had been arrested under the suspicion of murder. It turns out that Matsuda's father had been innocently arrested as he came across two men having a conflict on his way home from the gym. Matsuda's father wanted no place in the fight, what with a title match coming soon, but it just so happens that one of the men who took part in that quarrel wound up beaten to death and eyewitness statements just happened to put Matsuda's father to the spotlight at the time of the crime.

Although the real culprit was found later, Matsuda's father's life never went back normal, and one bad thing after another started happening to him. To forget about the pain he quit being a boxer and started drowning himself in alcohol. He became a "mere shadow of his former self" thanks to the justice sytem failing him, and this is the story of why Matsuda's so hard towards the police. No one really knows what goes in his mind as he still wants to become a cop - this particular character is truly a mysterious contradiction.

As Furuya heads towards the shooting track where teacher Onizuka is training the class, Morofushi stays behind at the computer room and investigates his own story from the past that the news call the "Nagano Family Bloodbath Case" that he holds immense hatred towards to. Considering Morofushi's fate in the Detective Conan universe, it's kind of... melancholic, everything about this man. I hope he gets some kind of closure in WPS.

Anyway, the police academy members are all trained with shooting of course, and this chapter showcases the Onizuka class training with a revolver called Sakura, apparently the official weapon, a five-round gun, used by the Japanese police. While Furuya gets almost all shots with perfect scores, we get to learn a bit about this neat little information from the teach as he tells the class that there's this one genius shooter who got full points in his first shooting test; a guy who shot 20 bullets into the bulls-eye. Teacher Onizuka happens to refer to our mustached main character Mouri Kogoro with this, of course.

While the rest of the Onizuka class seem to do fine with shooting as well, Matsuda happens to be left behind as he misses all of his shots. Thinking that the gun is rigged he immediately pulls all the parts of it apart to check it out - apparently, according to Matsuda's childhood friend Hagiwara, another one of Matsuda's quite quirky habits is taking things apart. Which is why he's become specialist with all sort of mechanics, even the structure of bombs.

Matsuda's action of pulling the gun apart forces teacher Onizuka to suspend the shooting practice, but there's a problem here as one bullet goes missing. Onizuka naturally suspects Matsuda but its disappearance doesn't seem to be caused by him. Things take an even more serious turn as teacher Onizuka goes to show constructors the place to fix around the roof of the academy, but as he does so, the teach happens to fall down as the floor beneath a constructor gets destroyed and Onizuka tries to grab the constructor. In doing that the lifeline rope holding the constructor however goes over the teacher's neck and both of them are left standing - it's time to save the teach from getting hanged to death.


        Chapter three, Of One Heart and Mind, again continues from where the previous one left off as teacher Onizuka needs to be saved for the constructor's lifeline is going to hang him dead. The plan here makes good use of teamwork of all five of our main characters to get to the goal. Date and Morofushi work as the support who lift the unconscious construction worker so that his weight, which is on the lifeline, won't kill the teacher. Matsuda has to put together the gun he pulled apart, and is apparently able to do that in "one round", which is apparently about "three minutes". Matsuda claims that he could've put a normal gun back in 30 seconds but as the gun was broken to begin with, he needs to fix it to be usable so that the one bullet they have will hit the rope and cut it down in the first shot. Hagiwara's job on the other hand is finding the missing bullet itself from the person who stole it, so he gets to play the detective of this part.

Matsuda Jinpei (22)

After pulling off the heroic deed of saving teacher Onizuka with teamwork, Matsuda and Amuro decide to talk together a bit on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Police Academy. This portion of the chapter focuses on the motivations of Matsuda and Furuya, and both of them are quite original, true to their characters for sure. This little talk made them get much more close to each other, so we're offered a bit of nice character development here as well. Matsuda's motivation is quite crazy, to be honest!


        The fourth chapter, With Fortitude and Vigor, begins with the Onizuka class cleaning up the yard of Metropolitan Police Academy. Matsuda and Furuya already got quite close since the end of the previous tale despite this story starting with them pummeling the crap out of each other. It's quite funny how the girls try to hit on the boys here, they're quite interested in Furuya as well (for being a foreigner with blonde hair and tanned skin). This chapter focuses more on Wataru Date, the class rep and squad leader. As the girls and guys in the academy keep judging Furuya by his looks, Wataru happens to be always around the corner to give them a bit of lesson to never do that as it's a bit racist. Now, as Hagiwara questions if Date is actually in love with Furuya for always standing up for him, we learn that Date actually has a girlfriend, Natalie, whom Date promises to introduce the other four friends he has in the Onizuka squad soon enough.

The next morning our squad practices a bit of a certain Japanese arrest technique as martial arts, and Date happens to be the strongest person over this side of the fence as he beats literally everyone. As Date keeps battling the other students, Morofushi learns of a bike shop in which a person with the same kind of tattoo as his parents' killer was seen, so that's a nice bit of foreshadowing towards his story. After the fights are over, we get to see a bit of Date's past in which he saw his father die when he was young, and he also gives the other four a pep talk about how no one except the strongest is able to "enforce justice".
Interestingly enough the other students that talk with a toothpick in their mouth disgust Date, even though he's seen always having one in his mouth in Detective Conan's flashbacks.


        Chapter five, Learning From History, starts up as Morofushi
 heads up to Furuya's room and tells him that him, Matsuda and Hagiwara are heading out. Furuya stays behind but forgets to ask them for some toothpaste -  the three of them have already left by the time he remembers. As Furuya decides to head out himself to go to the convenience store, he meets up with Date.

Hagiwara Kenji (22)

We get to learn more of Date's past: his father was a "head patrol officer at a small neighborhood police station". Even though he appeared weak and frail, Date always looked up to his father. One day many years prior Date had asked his father why he always has a toothpick in his mouth to which his father explained that it makes him seem tougher: it makes him look strong.

One day when Date and his father went to a convenience store, an agitated man with a bloody shirt and a wooden sword came crashing in and started demanding money from everyone - as there was only one robber, Date trusted in his father to take care of business, but instead what happened was what shocked him the most: his father started kneeling on the floor, begging for the robber to spare him and his son.

Wanting his father to take care of the criminal with pride and honor, the yound Date then started agitating the criminal by announcing that his father is a cop. This action caused the criminal to start beating his father with the wooden sword, again and again. Date's father ended up being hospitalized for a year and due to the severity of his injuries, he had to quit the force for good.

This flashback is quite serious and I'd love to see it animated. What makes Date quite interesting is that he doesn't blame himself, but instead blames his father for not catching the perp, not being "strong enough to enforce justice". But history repeats itself once more. As Date and Furuya head to the convenience store, two men armed with weapons also arrive to the shop.

At the same time the three other of our main characters arrive at the bike shop as Morofushi wants to find the guy with a goblet tattoo, for he might've murdered his parents.
But Morofushi hasn't really revealed the information about the Nagano Bloodbath Murder Case to the others, and he himself is so traumatized he can't even speak, so we get to see Matsuda and Hagiwara take part in this investigation.

At the shop with Date and Furuya, the two armed robbers are collecting everyone's smartphones. While Date is eager to just take care of the criminals, Furuya notices that there's something off about it all - the robbers haven't taken cash from the register. They're not even trying to flee. The chapter ends with bunch of more robbers arriving to the scene, even one of the employee's is part of the thug group. How will out main characters handle this predicament where they stand no fighting chance?


        Chapter six, Without Preserve, starts up as the thugs have roped and tied the mouths of every customer in the convenience shop. Furuya immediately cuts off the cable that ties Date's hands with the frictional heat caused by Date's shoelaces. The problem here is that the robbers are going after big money: waiting for an ATM refill to steal the ATM itself. But as the robbers aren't hiding their faces, they're definitely planning to put a bullet to the head of everyone in the shop.

With the help of a morse code, all five of our main characters manage to deal with the situation pretty effectively. Matsuda, Morofushi and Hagiwara managed to pull off quite a hilarious scene here. It's a neat short story, but I must say, the ending of this story is hella awesome once more, and quite emotional as well, with Hagiwara explaining Date the true meaning of his father's actions and Date finally accepting to let his girlfriend meet up with his father. Not to mention he finally picks up that toothpick with pride.

        Chapter seven, Gentle Yet Firm, starts a story that focuses bit on Hagiwara, but it begins with a joint date with the girls from another class of the Police Academy. Although Date himself already has a girlfriend, he took up the offer to join the joint date to get to drink some free alcohol. Anyway, while Hagiwara - the person to arrange the joint date - hasn't yet arrived to the scene, we get to see how our four other characters act towards females and how they're perceived as. Everyone's having the time of their life.

As Hagiwara - the actual womanizer of the squad - arrives, he tells a rather elaborate story for coming late. Regardless, the boys and girls then spend rest of the night at Karaoke before heading back. On the way to the Police Academy at night, Morofushi gets shocked at a similarity a little bypassing girl has to a deceased girl from the past - potentially his sister... Morofushi has the most messed up story out of the bunch for sure.

The next day, a white Mazda RX-7 FD3S arrives at the academy; driving it is none other than teacher Onizuka. We learn that the car type has an interesting history behind it and that it's Hagiwara's favourite car, but it's not owned by the teacher but instead was something that was left behind by a deceased senior police detective whom Onizuka used to know. Four years prior, the daughter of the senior detective announced Onizuka that she'll become a cop as well, and Onizuka plans to give the car to her when she does.
Interestingly enough this is the backstory of where Furuya inherited the car from perhaps? Or at least the ideology to use this same type? I could swear the daughter of the deceased fighter is Sato, as well.

Date Wataru (22)

Next up we get to see the Police Academy students practice heavy equipment training, as in running around with shields and other heavy police equipment. During the training we get to learn that Hagiwara used to live in a car repair shop. In their childhood, Matsuda also used to visit the shop and actually pull apart and remodel cars himself, then after he got tired with cars he started learning more about more dangerous objects, such as bombs. Hagiwara's family's car repair shop did well enough to expand, but ended up going bankrupt regardless. So even though Hagiwara wants to construct machines and stuff, he ended up becoming an officer as "the police never go bankrupt". It's an interesting thought, but makes sense as Hagiwara's goal seems to be just to live his life without pressure.

As our main characters run around with heavy equipment, a man dressed up in black seems to show interest towards Hagiwara and Matsuda. Later on during Motorcycles technical skills training Hagiwara is shown fixing up a bike (we learn that he's quite good at mechanics, but not as quick with his hands as Matsuda is). After seeing Hagiwara's feats and apparently from hearing the rumors about him and Matsuda, the man in black appears to ask both of them whether they'd be interested in joining the Bomb Disposal Unit of the Riot Squad. Matsuda naturally instantly agrees with his own aggressive way, but Hagiwara asks for time to think before answering.

Elsewhere, as Morofushi is walking out the academy with quite a serious face, Date seems to pay attention to him. Morofushi heads straight for the nearby motorcycle repair shop to look for clues towards the person with a goblet tattoo. At the same time Hagiwara ponders about the bomb disposal unit offer while remembering the downfall his successfull father took with his shop: everything is going so smoothly for Hagiwara and Matsuda that it could all just be a "gateway to failure".

        Chapter eight, Pride Comes Before the Fall, has Matsuda head to the white car kept in the garage by teacher Onizuka, as Onizuka asked Matsuda to fix and wash the thing. We get to see Matsuda and Hagiwara talk a bit about the dangers of joining the Bomb Disposal Unit as well.

At a motorcycle repair shop, Morofushi is looking for clues on the person with a goblet tattoo. Date joins him as well. The duo meet up with a man they saved at the convenience store robbery incident and learn of a person named Irie who apparently has the tattoo. Irie's a reserved blacksmith who doesn't really enjoy having photos of himself taken.
Another incident however happens nearby as a truck with a fainted driver keeps driving forward while pulling a car stuck to it forward. We get to see our main characters then do crazy stuff with the white car that Matsuda was supposed to fix (and did fix in record time, for whatever that fixin' ended up being worth..). They completely wreck the vehicle.

Morofushi Hiromitsu (22)

        Chapter nine, With Lightning speed, continues the truck chase in which a truck driver is unconscious and the truck pulls with it a car that has its bumper stuck to the back of the truck. Hagiwara does a ridiculous car stunt by  flipping the car he's driving to its side and throwing a police siren on the road. The car then jumps on the siren, and Matsuda and Furuya jump down from above the car that the truck is pulling.

Things take an even more ridiculous turn as the road the truck is driving happens to be a dead-end bridge on top of city streets. And holy moly, this is insane! With the word of Matsuda in his mind, Hagiwara and Furuya make the truck and the white Mazda literally fly. That was a pretty good action scene. This portion of the story concludes in a happy manner and I'm sure this is where Hagiwara came to conclusion of joining  the Bomb Disposal Unit with Matsuda, as he himself says: "I guess htting the 'accelerator' once in a while isn't such a bad idea".


That concludes all the stories up to the current chapter that have been released. I'll definitely keep reading this series and hope for more series like this to come in the future from Detective Conan. I wasn't really planning on making any type of volume reviews or anything of this when I first heard of it but I want to spread the word to anyone who wants to know more of Detective Conan and its characters and I can definitely recommend this series. I'm not sure if anyone else thinks this, but this is actually kind of crazy, isn't it? That we get to see this type of fleshing out of the story and its cast? I never thought we'd see a Detective Conan side-story with five main characters, that's for damn sure. To see actual character growth and their journey from pretty much the beginning, going through the academy classes, hardships and seeing their characters get fleshed out, it's an experience for sure. And now that I think about it, there's a lot of tension regarding the Morofushi family, isn't there?
If one wants to get a taste of Arai at his best, I suggest anyone to also read his adaptation of Les Misérables as it's quite frankly incredible. Anyway, Arai is great at his own game and he can be a fantastic mangaka for DC-related content if he wants to put in more effort from script side of things as well. I hope WPS gets an anime adaptation after we have volumes out to promote it considering how side-stories and spinoff series aren't usually this important to a main story. Or at least I hope we get special episodes akin to TMS's Magic Kaito.

Magic Kaito (Full Series Review of 1988-Present, vol. 1-5)

“Ladies and Gentlemen! I bring you marvelous illusions that make this town sparkle at night.” 

 Kaito Kid; Magic Kaito 1412

Today's topic is author Gosho Aoyama's first popular manga series Magic Kaito which has been running on Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine very irregularly since 1988, and what's surprising is that it's still on-going. In other words as of 2020 it's been over 32 years since this series started running and while it hasn't been progressing much due to Aoyama having been focusing on Detective Conan for most of his time as mangaka, it also hasn't had much downtime. You see, usually mangaka get their series axed or just stop the series when they can't work on it, but Aoyama was quite different as this series has been in the back burner for decades on end, giving us couple of chapters every decade. (Even Aoyama has managed to create and finish up this 24 volume long action shounen manga named Yaiba.) This has made Magic Kaito one of the most intriguing series to follow in its special way, as basically each of its volumes are relics showcasing in which ways the author has evolved as an artist and storyteller, and that also means that the story structuring and character writing are also entertainingly varied throughout the volumes, which is why I'll be talking about every single story in this series rather than just talk about a single story or a single volume which is how I'd normally write these posts. I also want to do this full series review of what we've got of Magic Kaito up to this point in time because Detective Conan is also getting its monumental 100th volume release sometime next year. I think that's something to celebrate about. Let's hope the animaton studio decides to give us amazing specials like Episode ONE for that event.

Magic Kaito tells the story of a phantom thief, a modern age gentleman thief much like Arsene Lupin called Kaito 1412, or better yet, Kaito Kid (it's explained in Detective Conan where this 'Kid' comes from and who gave such a name to him) who is looking to entertain any audience as well as look for a certain group of people who assumedly took his father's life. Kaito Kid's modus operandi however doesn't consist merely of stealing precious gems (and then often returning them, though I must note that Kid actually doesn't return all of what he attempts to steal in Magic Kaito), but he also puts up an act for the large audience to be wow'd by - and to do this, he always sends what is known as a calling card consisting of Kaito Kid's logo and a time and place announcing what he'll be stealing next.  This card has become known as Kid Card over the years. While Kaito Kid often mugs people, lies and steals their identities, he never wants to emotionally harm anyone, he just wants to put up a good show while trying to get to his goal. He's a magician after all.
 But beneath the white silky clothes and a top hat with a monocle, this phantom thief is actually Kaito Kuroba, a high schooler and best friends with Aoko Nakamori whose father is one of the people actively trying to catch Kid. Aside from that the series also introduces us to other types of rivals to Kaito, some overarching such as the surprisingly entertaining personality in teenage detective Hakuba Saguru, and some not.

We've seen Kaito Kid many times in Detective Conan related media. He has bunch of cases and movies to his name at this point and he's basically the antagonist that Conan has most of his 'deduction battles' with, he's also gotten a 12 episode long special adaptation by Conan's animation studio TMS as well as a 24 episode adaptation by A-1 Pictures which consists of some Kaito Kid cases from Detective Conan and most of the stories (but not all) in the Magic Kaito manga. However while Magic Kaito consists of the same characters in both MK and DC, the worlds are a bit different as the existence of magic and devil summoning etc. exists in Magic Kaito but not in Conan. The structure of the Magic Kaito manga also differs from Detective Conan in the volumes. While Conan usually has cases that end mid-way at the end of a volume, Magic Kaito has no cases that go over to the next volume, in other words the volumes only consist of full stories.

Interesting thing about Magic Kaito is also how the story progresses. For the first two volumes Kaito takes up the mantle of Kid that his father left behind, but he actually doesn't really know why. He starts stealing anything of value and making up as big of a show as he can so he could potentially get information on his father's death. In the third volume Kaito however gets a more coherent end-goal. The goal of finding a certain large jewel that he'll hold up towards the moonlight. This gem contains a smaller gem named Pandora that's visible through that light. There is a legend of a comet which passes earth that Pandora reacts to, and when that happens it starts to bleed certain liquid that turns the one who drinks it immortal. The organization that assumedly took Kaito's father's life is now after Pandora and aims to steal all large jewels before a certain time-limit of a one-in-a-millenia comet passes by Earth, and Kaito's plan is to stop the organization by finding this jewel of immortality first and destroying it.

Ah, by the way, not many know this but Kaito Kid and the Magic Kaito series as a whole actually has a prototype in Nonchalant Lupin (さりげなくルパン Sarigenaku Rupan) which is a standalone short-story (could be called a one-shot) Aoyama created before he came up with Magic Kaito. It's been printed in a single volume in Gosho Aoyama's Collection of Short Stories with Aoyama's numerous other standalone stories. The story starrs a high school boy by the name of Kaito Lupin and his childhood friend Aoko Holmes. Even the names are pretty much the same, but the plot of Nonhcalant Lupin is about crashing a wedding instead of stealing gems.



Volume 1 - Released April 15, 1988

The first volume tells us the first six one-chapter length stories that this manga has to offer. Over the years the author Gosho Aoyama has crafted most of his chapters as 16 page long in length, which means that more chapters fit into a single volume. Unlike most mangaka however Aoyama has perfected the way he inserts / condenses information in every page. Because of this skill he's been able to tell more normal length stories in a single volume than he used to in the past, even though honestly he's always been pretty good at being on point about the subject he's talking about in each of his stories - that takes a lot of effort to keep up with for 30+ years but he's managed to do it. 

This volume for example has a whopping six stories in it. They're all just one chapter in length, but with page count ranging from 30 to 39, which is quite surprising as rarely any weekly series consists of over 30 pages for every chapter the way this volume does. In page count these chapters are about twice the length of Detective Conan's. 
 
    "Return of the Phantom Thief" (蘇る怪盗, Yomigaeru Kaitō) is the first story in this manga and volume of Magic Kaito and is very familiar with most of Conan fans as it's been adapted multiple times by now as the very first story introducing us to the world of this phantom thief. The story opens up with one of Kaito's familiar lines from an opening sequence especially from the 24 episode long A-1 adaptation, "Ladies and gentlemen!" and goes on to the first chapter cover of this series, and I really like the covers in Kaito I must say. This one looks really good for a '88 manga as we have this previously mentioned character named Aoko Nakamori (means 'blue') wear a white magician suit and pull a mini-Kaito out of a top hat. 

Anyway, the actual story begins with an introduction of a masked thief that gets announced on the news as someone who steals jewels but for some reason the thief has no lower body aside from his head, arms and the white cape he wears on his back. 

The rumours about this mysterious phantom thief start circling around the school where fans - mostly girls - of this thief keep talking about the crimes he's committed. (By the way, I like how in Detective Conan we get to see the fangirl's perspective towards Kaito Kid from one of our recurring characters Suzuki Sonoko.) But there is a person who isn't impressed by Kid's sudden emergence - high schooler Kaito Kuroba isn't, that is. Kaito is an interesting main character. As a magician who takes after his deceased father, he's learned many ways to divert people's attention and manipulate them. He's able to even smooth down the hearts of anyone - even his female teacher - by acting both gentlemanly and flirtatiously.

Kaito's childhood friend Aoko however isn't impressed by Kaito's tricks and basically tells him that Kaito Kid is a superior magician to Kaito himself - there's no way for Kaito to catch him, is what she thought, but it doesn't take long for Kaito to take up in arms and announce that he'll definitely be the one to catch Kid the Phantom Thief (Kaito Kid) as Kid has announced that he'll be stealing the Moonlight Eye gem at around midnight. 

But Kid has other adversaries than just Kaito coming up as Aoko's father, inspector Ginzo Nakamori is absolutely exhilarated by the sudden news of Kid's appearance. Ginzo even goes as far as to claim that he couldn't care less about solving murders and other serious at this moment as he's been waiting for eight long years for the return of Kid to finally be able to catch him. 

The way how Gosho Aoyama manages to present the page in which Kaito reminisces his late father and mentor Kuroba Touichi, is quite well crafted. It's basically the heart and soul of this manga - the greatest magician Kaito knew of was his father who also taught him everything he knew of, which was why Kaito wants to catch Kid, to show Aoko that now he's the greatest magician in the world... but as Kaito reminisces too deeply about his father's words regarding never showing his poker face, Kaito manages to fall through a hidden wall mechanism behind his father's portrait. And behind that portrait on the other side of that wall is another picture - of a man wearing a white suit with a monocle, a top hat and a large cape while facing away from a crescent moon. 

After Kaito puts up the white clothes he finds in his father's basement he decides to go and meet up with Kaito Kid as Kid steals the gem in front of the police's nose. It's funny how inspector Nakamori is crying after seeing Kid again... Anyway, the showdown itself with Kaito vs Kid isn't that special, and it's quickly over. But it does remind the reader of couple of basic tricks used in magic. However we do get to learn that the person pretending to be Kid is actually Kaito's father's assistant, the now rather aged Jii-chan. Jii's been waiting for eight years and decided to act as Kid in order to "lure out Touichi's murderers" as according to him Kaito's father was murdered after a certain magic show eight years prior - this was why Kid went missing. As Jii tells Kaito that his father was indeed the legendary thief, Kaito decides to take up the identity of Kid the Phantom Thief to figure out just what happened to his fathers all those years ago.
 I completely forgot that we also get introduced to Kaito's mother in this chapter who seems to realize that he's now in his father's Kaito Kid hideout, and this chapter also introduces us the concept of a certain weird weakness that Kaito has.

    "The Police are Everywhere" (警官がいっぱい, Keikan ga Ippai) is the second story. The young princess Anne has arrived to Japan and brought some souvenirs with her, even to the hailed Kaito Kid who's been all over the news lately.  Notably, the princess carries with her a pet cat named Belmonde and a large jewel, in fact it's the largest jewel in Europe, named the Sun of Paris. The antagonist of this story is a man named Delon, self-proclaimed Europe's #1 detective who has no qualms pulling up a revolver and shooting any fleeing criminals with it. 

Due to his failures against Kaito and the arrival of detective Delon, inspector Nakamori is in a pickle of potentially getting thrown out of the investigation team that's after Kid. And that's quite a big problem as catching Kid's been pretty much his purpose for living apparently, of course aside from caring for his daughter Aoko. While Kaito himself is usually kind of arrogant / annoying towards Nakamori as an inspector, he's still a good-hearted person. In this story we get to see Kaito teach Nakamori one of the basics of magic: a trick with cards and the theme of drawing away the audience's attention by letting them focus on one hand as the other hand is preparing a trick in the meanwhile. And this moment where Kaito teaches Nakamori this is actually used to develop the inspector's perception towards what Kaito could be doing in the future heists as well.
I really like the moment where Kaito explains Nakamori that magic isn't real as there's always a way to explain it - for until the witch Akako makes her appearance, at least.

In this "heist" Kaito disguises as an old pervert and names himself Count Groper. That was so stupid it actually got a laugh out of me. At the same time as Kaito's fooling around both inspectors from Europe (Delon) and Japan (Ginzo) close in on him. It's quite a simple story in the end and having it be around 30 pages kind of makes me want to see more of the princess and Kaito together as they had some combo moments during the scene. Delon was quite unimpressive though ridiculous with his shooting.

    "A Clockwork Heart" (時計仕掛けのハート, Tokei Jikake no Hāto) is the third heist. The story opens up surprisingly quite brutally as an android dressed up in Kid's clothes decides to murder its creator professor with its bare hands. Later, we learn that Kaito wasn't in school a day prior but now he's timidly talking about loving Aoko (which he never would say in such a way). Of course, this Kaito is actually just the android and the real Kaito's been tied up in the laboratory as the doctor had kidnapped Kaito on his way home from school due to being a "healthy, young lad" and had tried to re-create Kaito as the android. But things went south as the robot decided to "break" its creator.

The android works by using the data of the person whose brain its been linked with, which was why it became Kid and decided to "do the work for him", but for some reason the doctor got very upset about the android doing that. And what's more, the android doesn't seem to be able to understand why it has to pretend to be Kaito; it has quite an identity crisis. But as it collects remaining memories of Kaito it decides to blow up the lab along with anyone in it, and claims to have become Kuroba Kaito, which is the identity he'll use to take over the world as. 
This one had quite an intriguing premise but ultimately fell off into more standard fare. I did like the ending with Aoko being too embarassed to talk with Kaito due to the android Kaito telling her that he loves her. The entire class is celebrating Aoko's and Kaito's supposed wedding...
 I'd be very intrigued to see the hints of psychological writing that were in this story in Conan.

    "Kaito Kid's Busy Weekend" (怪盗キッドの忙しい休日, Kaitō Kiddo no Isogashii Kyūjitsu) is the fourth heist and Kaito is busy nabbing the Angel's Crown - a crown consisting of dozens of jewels. This story has yet another clever cover page to it. As Kaito attempts to grab the crown, the police including inspector Nakamori surround him with flashlights in the dark room, which is what causes the main problem Kaito has to solve this time as Nakamori seems to recognize Kid's face as his daughter's childhood friend Kaito Kuroba's face. 

Things at school are seemingly weird as Aoko's asking Kaito out instead of arguing with him as they usually tend to do. Kaito decides to give in and agrees to go out with her but there's a surprise as Aoko tells Kaito that next sunday they'll both be going to Tropical Land (the famous setting in the first chapter of Detective Conan), at the same time as when Kaito had announced that he'd be stealing the Angel's Crown. The reason for Aoko's actions is his father's adamant suspicion that Kaito is truly Kid. 

This is a very entertaining chapter when it comes to the focuse on Kaito's and Aoko's relationship as they spend time in Tropical Land. The heist portion itself is really quick and not focused on, and it's just meant to be entertaining to follow as Kaito tries to rush back to Aoko until a set time limit runs out so that she won't find out his identity as Kid. The chapter also ends with a nice moment between Aoko and Kaito.  

    "The Underwater Pirate Ship" (海賊船浮上せず, Kaizokusen Fujōsezu) is the fifth story; I don't think this one's ever been adapted. The story takes us diving, or is supposed to at least, but as Kaito has a phobia towards fish, only Aoko's been spending a lot of time underwater. This story is kind of weird. In its core Aoko and Kaito meet a dark-skinned diver named Silver who loves to make things explode without thinking twice. Silver is revealed to be the son of a famous pirate and Aoko shows him the way to a sunken ship where Silver grew up during his childhood. The ship is filled with jewelry and skulls of people, and the air is thin. But outside, there are sharks that want to grab a bite of the three people (Aoko, Kaito and Silver) who entered the ship so there is no way to dive back ashore. This problem causes Kaito and Silver to work together to get the ship to get above the shores despite having been in the depths of the ocean for decades. After the ship gets working for a little bit and does get up, Kaito and Silver continue their bout, but the ship is about to sink again. Kaito escapes the ship with Aoko while Silver stays behind and sinks with the ship.

This is the hardest story to rate so far; its core ideas are very interesting when it comes to just telling an emotional story as it could easily have been a replacement idea for Detective Conan movie 11: Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure, which also told a similar themed story, but ultimately the journey and flip-flopping as enemies and allies with Silver is way too fast paced as it's told in mere 30 pages, and seems sort of haphazard because of that. But I must say the animators have missed the mark not animating this one as it'd clearly come across better with a soundtrack and if slightly modified to fit a 24 minute long episode's run time.

    "The Scarlet Temptress" (緋色の誘惑, Hiiro no Yūwaku) is the sixth and final story of volume one of Magic Kaito. We get introduced to a new overarching character in Akako who is honestly one of the funniest characters Aoyama has created. I recently re-read the latest and last released story of this series (Sun Halo which is the last story of volume 5 of Magic Kaito) and I got a good laugh at reading about her antics. 
The story opens up with a girl - Akako - laughing in a room where she's talking with a mirror that claims that every male in the world is a slave to her, well, everyone except for one: Kaito Kid. 

It's February 14th, in other words the Valentine's day. Aoko is at school and trying to offer Kaito some chocolate but he just thinks it's about trying to trick him to eat sweets so that he gets hurt by his cavities. Aoko's friend Keiko then tells her that it's neat that she has someone to give chocolate to, as you know, all the other boys in the school have already been taken by that one new transfer student. Every male in the school flocks over to Koizumi Akako and begs for her to give them chocolate (as Feb 14th is when the girls apparently give the chocolate to boys). Then Kaito comes back to class after getting bunch of chocolate from girls himself and then he asks Akako to give him some but she decides to slap Kaito and tells him to throw all other chocolate away if he wants any from her. The entire class has gone crazy and even calls Kaito rude for having taken anyone else's choc, but Kaito decides to tell Akako that he doesn't need any from her in that case. 

Kaito's declination of Akako's "good will" caused her to realize that Kaito is indeed Kaito Kid - the only male in the world unable to bow to her. This is the crux of the issue as Akako decides to expose Kid's identity to the world as revenge for not doing what she says.
To do this deed Akako as the sole successor to the Scarlet Arts, in other words magic, will use magic circles and voodoo dolls to try to take control of Kaito and we get this neat scene where Kaito with his illusionary tricks manages to tuggle the heart strings of a real witch a bit. It's interesting as this story also gives Akako an interesting weakness: While Kaito has severe phobia towards fish, Akako is not allowed to ever cry as if she does, she'd lose her magic powers...


The first volume ends with an omake where the entire story is basically shown from another perspective: it's all an act that the author Gosho Aoyama is directing and the cast is basically acting for a television series. We go over all of the stories in this volume in quick succession to reveal how Gosho would have casted the characters and how good they're at "acting" and getting these scenes through. It's like how we get those failed shots in some of the Jackie Chan films at the end of the movies. Pretty neat.

The first volume of Magic Kaito definitely shows where Gosho has come from. The character relationships and their everyday life acts are quite enjoyable to follow. The story structuring is very condensed and there are certain aspects that haven't changed about how he tells his story. However the 30 page long stories do manage to often feel jumbled, they need to be fleshed out more. If Aoyama ever wants to remake these stories in his current more down-to-earth style, they might come across as better crafted and more enjoyable to follow. Honestly the biggest flaw I feel the stories in this volume had were how Aoyama had certain ideas that should've been built up throughout a longer arc, but because they weren't they just jumped too quickly from one thing to another without feeling coherent enough. One of the pros of proper pacing I guess. I'd like to see how these stories would come across if they were stretched for a one-hour special. 


Volume 2 - Released October 15, 1988

     Stay Away From Me (彼から手をひいて, Kare kara te o hiite) is the seventh story in this series. Kaito decided to hit the road with his class and go skiing during the snowy winter and Aoko joined him, but there's a problem - Aoko doesn't seem to be able to ski and because of that she just keeps falling and hurting herself and the people she crashes into. At the ski slope the scarlet witch Akako from volume 1's final story has also joined them as she still wants to brainwash Kaito into her slave. There's a little bit of more serious tension here as Akako thinks of Aoko as an eyesore who always gets in between her and Kaito, but as she mentions that she likes Kaito to Aoko we get to see how Aoko handles someone whom she deems much better and more beautiful than her claim that they like the same person she does. Also the name of this chapter has to do with Kaito trying to push Akako away all the time.

The class will be holding a costumed ski contest in which they'll be going down the slopes as a pair - no pairs of the same sex allowed. Damn that teacher. Anyway, as there is a 'great price' for the best pair, the students start to plan for their attack. The main point of this story is to have a romantic bout with Aoko and Kaito but with Akako mixing it up a bit and of course the story ended with Kaito pulling off a win. While the story in Tropical Land in volume 1 had really neat moments, I think overall this is the most solid romance story so far between Aoko and Kaito.

    Japan's Most Irresponsible Leader (日本一の無責任総理, Nippon'ichi no Musekinin Sōri) introduces us to the eighth story of Magic Kaito. I don't think this story has ever been adapted either despite Kaito pulling off a great "Ladies and Gentlemen! -moment in this one.
As Kaito and Aoko are playing a co-oop video game, the news announce that Japan's prime minister Uemoto has been stolen during an international conference by Kaito Kid, and it's all on tape as the PM disappears during smoke and a large message announcing the crime had been left on the scene that claims to have been left by Kaito Kid. I like how Aoko wants to record the moments when her father inspector Ginzo Nakamori is on the news announcing that he'll catch Kid. 

At school the girls are fangasming over Kid's potential motives for world domination or something, and this motive for the crime is the main aspect of this story. The answer is actually easy to think about and shouldn't be hard to come by but it does tie nicely to yet another basic magic trick you'd see on Penn & Teller show. Even the name of the chapter hints at the answer so it's no surprise that it's not presented as some grand reveal at the end. I actually really like this story, it's one of the most consistent ones if not the most consistent one so far. It has a lot of comedy that might make some people really laugh but that comedy deals with an interesting subject - politics. This chapter consists of Gosho's take on governmental leadership, political warfare and how much of a farce both of those actually are. The ending here on Kaito's part was awesome when it comes to showcasing a gesture of good will. That, along with the nice slice of life bits with Kaito and Aoko learning to defeat a powerful boss fight in a console game, makes this story the best one so far when it comes to consistency.

    I Am The Master (わたしが主人だ, Watashi ga Masutā Da) is number nine in the list of Magic Kaito stories. A professor has created a small robot by the model of RZ-04 named Granpapa for inspector Nakamori. The one special thing about this robot is that it only needs to see someone once and it'll never forget them. 

Kaito arrives at the top of a skyscraper and heads to steal a jewel named Cleopatra's Vanity which resides on the forty-eighth floor. Seeing Kaito count down the floors as he's on a free-fall from the roof as he reaches 48th floor and then smashes through the window is quite a nice addition, as it shows just how miraculously Kaito pulls off his heists. As Kaito arrives to steal the case holding the jewel, he notices the tiny robot which then opens up its single large eye and starts to analyze Kid's face. Next up inspector Nakamori decides to try to catch Kid but he throws himself out of the window on the 48th floor. This seems to be before Kaito got the hangglider to fly away with, so we see a pretty cool scene where Kaito falls downwards all those floors of the skyscraper until he eventually escapes the helicopters and cops following him - but he could not manage to escape the gaze of a single miniature robot that seems to be impossible to escape from. 

Throughout this story Kaito has to escape the gaze of numerous robots who watch him and the 'master' robot which controls the rest and gives orders to them. It's basically just a fun little story that has this similar idea as those movies where a government is looking at you constantly through satellites and stuff like that. I don't have much to say about this one as it doesn't really do anything, so a filler story through and through.

    Adults Don't Understand (大人とわかってくれない, Otona to Wakattekurenai) is the tenth Magic Kaito story. Kaito is at school and pays attention to a bandage that's been wrapped around Aoko's left wrist. Aoko explains that it's not because of an injury but because it's a good-luck charm from none other than the witch classmate Akako. Akako claims that Aoko is just way too childish and needs to grow up, so she wrote ADULT on Aoko's wrist and wrapped it up to leave for four days. At the same time Akako is now absolutely furious about Kaito - she can't get him out of her mind as all the men in the world are meant to be her slaves, but Kaito just won't do what she tells him to... so Akako decides that maybe it's just better to erase Kaito from this world so then that'd mean that every man in the world would be her slave...

At her creepy home which is an old manor Akako decides to do none other than summon Lucifer himself. Lucifer gives Akako hints at how Kaito will meet his doom, apparently atop a crimson tower this time, and after getting that information Akako just rips the paper she summoned Lucifer with and tells him to get back to hell. In the future chapters there's also another really hilarious scene where Lucifer is summoned again in similar way.

During the full moon night of Kaito Kid's next heist, Akako goes and makes inspector Nakamori wear an amuler which completely brainwashes him into trying to kill Kid, but it's not just him as Akako herself is also trying to hunt him down for a bit. The ending of this story is pretty decent with Akako showing more emotions.

    On The Ball (ボールにかける少年, Bōru ni Kakeru Shōnen) is the eleventh story. The author Gosho Aoyama is known to be a sports lover especially of baseball and soccer so this story's theme being baseball isn't a big surprise.

The news are printing Kaito Kid's smug everywhere. "The stylish thief", "This week's best man", "Kaito Kid Strikes Again", "Exclusive! This is Kid!" - front papers are filled with articles about the mysterious phantom thief. This phenomenon where everyone is entranced by a thief has caused little children to see Kid as either evil or as an ally of justice. I notice that Kamen Rider is also referenced in this story (Kamen Rider is a superhero TV character often also seen in Detective Conan). Anyway, bunch of kids get into an argument and one of them calls the Metropolitan Police Department to announce that they'll be stealing Nagashima Kazushige's home run ball from the Tokyo Dome the next day as a baseball game is being held there.

It doesn't take long for the news to catch up on this information, and soon all of Japan knows of it. This brings Kaito pressure, as he is a magician. Magicians never let their audience down. Now, here comes the interesting part: As Kid has announced he'll be stealing Kazushige's home run ball, Kazushige has yet to even score a hit, let alone a home run, and how's one even supposed to catch a home run ball in the first place?

Everything however is handled just by coincidence random stuff instead of logic, but there's something really cool about this story, and that's its atmosphere. The baseball match is excellently presented here to contrast the huge crowd: it's its own moment that kind of draws one in. It's not drawn in detail, but has a style that's quite original and I think the animators for Detective Conan's baseball special episode #383 ("Miracle at Koshien Ball Park! The Defiants Face the Dark Demon" case) might've used this chapter as inspiration to do the opening sequence for that episode.

    Ghost Game (ゴースト・ゲーム, Gōsuto Gēmu) is of course the twelfth story and we deal with a ghost story. Aoko's friend Keiko studied in the school library the previous night and came across a 'monster' which scared the living crap out of her. Now, Kaito and Aoko are in class where a new blonde biology teacher by the name of Asou Keiji is teaching them. This time the new character's a male, however, so all the girls in the class are drawn to him... 

Aoko pushes Kaito to pretty much break in their school with her the next night to get rid of this 'monster' Keiko saw and got horrified by, but on their journey they also meet up with this new teacher Keiji wandering around the hallways during dark, but he quickly leaves the place. As Kaito and Aoko try to find this mysterious monster, they come across a staircase that's soaked in some red liquid, and a cat that's seemingly kind of monstrous or something. It's as if someone was trying to scare them away from the school. 

There's not much to say about this story. It's a basic comedic type 'horror story in school' meant to give some scenes to Aoko and Kaito. But this case also has some foundations to Aoyama's Detective Conan career as In this story Kaito does some slight detective work by checking out clues like how there's a damp cigarette in the room. Even the ending of this story has some logic behind it, even if it's very weird logic. 

    The Hustler VS. The Magician (ハスラーvs.マジシャン, Hasurā vs Majishan) is the thirteenth Kaito story and the final tale to close the second volume with, but there's more to it than that as it actually has never been published before the volume release, but it was adapted in the Magic Kaito 1412 anime's 3rd episode. In this one we get introduced to Jii-chan, the elder man who was Kaito's father's, Touichi Kuroba's, assistant when Touichi was working as the original Kaito Kid. Now Jii also helps Kaito here and there to pull off heists, but we're reintroduced to Jii by his "Blue Parrot" bar. A place with a billiards hall. Though right now Kaito and Aoko are trying to play billiards while Jii is snoring it out as there are no customers around. I must note that this story interestingly enough brings some other overarching aspects back in slight ways, like how Kaito tries to see Aoko's panties but they're filled with fish symbols which makes Kaito scared due to his phobia towads fishies.

At the same time as Aoko is chasing Kaito to scare him, a tough-looking man arrives to tell the two to leave elsewhere, but as the man was starting to get violent Jii wakes up to tell him to dip. Apparently Jii is having problems with money and he had to get a loan from the tough guy's boss who owns a much bigger and more popular billiards bar 'American' that's by the nearby train station. The bar steals all of Jii's customers.

A long time ago, even before Jii met Kaito's father, Jii used to be the owner of a legendary cue - a billiards stick consisting of diamonds and emeralds. However one day he was challenged by a hustler, Hasura Tsuujirou, and lost the game where the cue was the bet. As Jii-chan is the person most looking for Kaito's well-being, Kaito decides to get the cue back by beating the legendary hustler at his own game. But there are a few problems. First of all, Kaito can't even hustle. Second of all, you need to be over 18 to enter the bar, and third of all, you need to be dressed up properly. Well, that third isn't going to be a problem for the moonlight magician...

At 'American' the owner, Tsuujirou, got a calling card from Kaito Kid, declaring that he'll be coming to take the legendary cue at 10 P.M., which is exactly what he does as he 'infiltrates' the place with Jii and Aoko. At the same time as Aoko is drinking Martini (by thinking it's juice..) with her father who doesn't recognize her, Kaito and Jii go face to face with Tsuujirou at the billiards table. $100 per game, nine-ball rules in which the first player to down the ball number nine is the winner. As Kaito keeps getting his ass whooped by Tsuujirou in billiards, so much so that Jii's money has ran out as Kaito has spent $1000 trying to win the cue, the last game is a bet with Jii's "Blue Parrot" bar at stake. This is not a bad story to end the second volume with. I like how we had some combo moments with Jii and Kaito at the end as we haven't really seen that so far in the series. The mere idea of a billiards bar heist is enough to sell it for many and I think this worked quite well in the 24 episode anime Magic Kaito 1412.


The second volume ends with "Kaito-kun's Theater" which tells a comedic advertisement story in which Aoko is the only one in her class who doesn't know of a very popular book series that's being sold right now. The series goes by the name of Magic Kaito and it has two volumes out with extra bonus pages to boot. However as Aoko goes from shop to shop to try to find a copy, they're all sold out. Kaito Kid then makes his appearance at one shop and drops the first volume of Magic Kaito to Aoko, and then she follows the first volume which runs away to another shop to find the second volume of Magic Kaito on the shelves as well.


Volume 3 - Released September 15, 1994

We're officially on the third volume now, released almost six years after the second one. This is the last volume released before Gosho went to work on Detective Conan. Between volumes 2 and 3 he worked on the long-running shounen action series Yaiba. So far we've gotten to know the basics of how the plot and its characters in Magic Kaito work but it's been mostly about episodic stories with very little that connect them to each other (other than some overarching characters and, like, Kaito's fear towards fishes which is used as comedic relief now and then).
 
    Star Wars (スターウォーズ, Sutā Wōzu) is the fourteenth story in this series and the first of volume three. Inspector Nakamori saw a dream that could as well be a nightmare to him. In his dream the phantom thief Kaito Kid disappeared and while Nakamori was trying to catch him, he himself fell off somewhere into the darkness. But there's a good foundation for Nakamori's nightmare as Kid's really been gone for three months already without any prior warning. The reason for Kid's disappearance's a stong seasonal flu.

However as it's Christmas Eve it seems that Kid's making a comeback as he announces to steal the Giant's Star which resides on top of a christmas tree in Toufuu Department Store. The star consists of jewels, both diamonds and emeralds, and is worth billions of yen. But it doesn't take long for the reader to be notified that the department store is merely playing a publicity stunt to get more customers, and it doesn't help that the owner wants to get the insure money from the jewels by blaming the theft on Kid. 

Overall this is an alright story. For over half of the 30 pages it consist of, Kaito doesn't even know that everyone thinks Kid is going to steal the christmas star. The ending of this story is quite different from what we've seen so far as Kaito just uses explosives to punish the store owner for his crimes (though I don't think the owner ever got arrested or anything...)

    Enter the Great Detective!! (名探偵登場!!, Meitantei Tōjō!!) is the fifteenth Kaito Kid story and it finally introduces us to a new but actually somewhat formidable rival character to work as the antithesis to Kaito's antics. A blonde male appears dressed up in that stereotypical Sherlock Holmes outfit and announces out-loud the identity of a 'culprit'. After the 'culprit' gets caught the news print everywhere about how this 'famous detective' had just returned from London and solved yet another case. This new detective character has quite a lame but effective signature question to the perps he catches; simply put, it's: "Why did you do it?" The Magic Kaito 1412 anime's 4th episode does this story excellently as it also adds the next Hakuba heist in the same episode. I definitely suggest people to watch that episode to get introduced to Hakuba and his quirks.

Basically all of Japan is expecting some kind of showdown with our new character and Kid. Well, everyone except inspector Nakamori, of course, as Nakamori tends to be more... annoyed by the fact that someone other with actual skill is expected to catch the gentleman thief.
Adam's Smile is a 400 million yen worth painting that Kaito's after this time, and to gather data on where it'll be taken, Kaito is at an ice skating ring nearby the Big Pecasso Exhibit. There's a problem though - Kaito might be great at skiing, but he just can't stay on his feet when ice skating... yet another weakness added to the legendary phantom thief's list.

As the exhibit is filled with cops along with inspector Nakamori, our new detective from London makes his appearance - Hakuba Saguru right back from London, but what's more Hakuba's also the son of the highest authority in Nakamori's police department. He's the type of character to tell exactly what time it is right down to like .01 seconds. Hakuba also likes to collect data on the people he's after, like what their favourite food is, what sports they like, etc. Basically Hakuba is a show-off who looks at everything with pinpoint accuracy. He even tells girls he likes things like his height, date of birth, blood type, horoscope, weight...
 Anyway, Kaito disguises himself as one of the cops and it doesn't take long for Hakuba to be on his trails. Kaito of course manages to complete the heist and get away but at the end Hakuba also joins Kaito's and Aoko's class as the new transfer student. It's an alright story that doesn't do much else other than introducing this new detective to the team.

    Nearby Enemy (眼下の怪盗, Ganka no Kaitō) is the sixteenth story so far. There is going to be a monumental moment for Kid as the TV channels have announced to perform his next heist live on the spot. So when Aoko asks Kaito to join a concert as she won couple of tickets, it's no surprise Kaito first declines this offer as he has other things on his mind. Our new transfer student, the famous cocky teenage detective Hakuba Saguru is all too willing to take up on Aoko's offer however, but Aoko doesn't necessarily want to leave Kaito out of the concert. It all ends up in a bet in which Hakuba promises to catch Kid during his next heist, and if he manages to do so, Aoko has to allow him to join her to the concert instead of Kaito. On the other hand Kaito will go with Aoko if Hakuba isn't able to catch Kid. I notice that apparently all the girls in the school have started to go after Hakuba; guess they got tired of that biology teacher from the second volume.

So with a date with Aoko as the bet in mind, the heist Kid has promised to pull off during night is the theft of a large statue in Ekoda Museum. However with helicopters filling the skies and hundreds of laser sensors underground as well as police forces in the building, it doesn't seem very possible for anyone to even get near the thing let alone steal it.

This was a pretty cool little story. Had this been at least two-parter it would've been the best story so far, but right now I'm not too sure. The highlight of this to me was the skirmish with Hakuba and Kid as they battle for a gas mask. The ending is simple but kind of clever as it subverts the expectations of how the first two volumes have presented these stories as (they tend to end in a certain way). This shows how Aoyama is starting to lean more towards building up these mystery plot twist stories where the ending isn't going to completely be what you expect.  

    Akako's Delivery Service (紅子の宅配便, Akako no Takuhaibin) is story number seventeen, and as the title should give out, it's a reference on a famous animated movie "Kiki's Delivery Service" by director Hayao Miyazaki. In her home manor in the middle of some woods, Akako is again doing her magic things, this time on a crystal ball. In the first volume Akako asked a mirror about who's the most beautiful woman on Earth - of course it's supposed to be her - and how every male in the world is her slave, except for Kaito Kid. Then Akako decided to break the magic mirror for saying such a hing. This time she does the exact same thing with a crystal ball, except the ball manages to give Akako some good information this time around, so Akako decides to not break it: the crystal ball claims that even though Kaito will never be Akako's slave, all the men around her will as Kaito will surely 'disappear' soon enough. The reason for this is because the crystal sees in some near future a sight of teenage detective Hakuba Saguru having caught and handcuffed Kaito Kid.

Kaito Kid's been quite active lately as he's been stealing jewels for three days in a row. This time he manages to escape inspector Nakamori once more as he announces to come by and steal another piece of materia the next day. However as the inspector curses his luck for not catching Kid again, Hakuba arrives and tells the inspector that Kid's days are counted as he'd left an important piece of evidence that leads his identity behind on the crime scene: his hair.

Hakuba takes the inspector to his grandfather's active research facility in which the young detective has collected a lot of data on Kid. I think this is worth noting:
 Hakuba's Data on Kaito Kid: Height 174 cm, weight 58 kilograms, 2.0 eyesight in each eye, an IQ of whopping 400, the ability to use many different voices, good at every physical sport except ice skating (aha! we saw Hakuba collect this data in that ice skating heist, good to see it come back)...

The research facility manages to analyze the hair at their lab. It belonds to a Japanese male with blood type B and surprisingly enough his age is around 15-17, even though the police assumed Kid to be in his mid 30's due to stealing stuff since inspector Nakamori was only 20 years old. Nakamori thus doesn't believe the data and dips from the lab, but Hakuba has other things in mind as he starts to go through the data on every single high schooler in Japan. Hakuba's so into it that he won't even be sleeping through the night. 

The next morning as Hakuba arrives to the school, he's absolutely beat with dark eyes for not sleeping a wink, but he has come to a certain realization overnight so he decides to invite Kaito to the Ochima Art Museum where Kid has announced his next heist to happen at. Kaito decides to accept Hakuba's invitation thinking that it'll make it easier for him to complete the theft, but Akako butts in and warns him not to go due to the vision she saw. We see that Kaito still doesn't tell of his secret identity to Akako even though she knows of it, and Akako's attempts to warn the thief ring to deaf ears as Kaito still decides to go with Aoko to the museum as it's a direct challenge from Hakuba - he'd never back down from it. We also get to see Hakuba have a slight crush on Akako, though not as crazy as the other men in the school.

I think this story was over a bit too quick after it finished building up. Hakuba is fast on Kaito's tracks but kind of disappeared out of the picture for some of the pages he could've been used here to try to outsmart Kid, you know, to get some tension going. It's basically a story that builds up to Hakuba realizing Kaito is Kid. It's not a bad story or anything for a mere chapter-length tale but the ending isn't that great as our heroes use magic to get out of a pickle.

    Yaiba VS. Kaito Kid! (〈番外編〉刃vs.快斗!, (Bangaihen) Yaiba vs. Kaito!) is the eighteenth Magic Kaito story. Looking at the art, it might be a chapter that didn't make it to the first any volumes as the art is sort of similar as in the late 80's Magic Kaito stories. Of course since this is a Yaiba story as well it must've been created after those first Magic Kaito volumes came out... I dunno. In this story inspector Nakamori visits the household where Yaiba resides. Yaiba is the first long-running manga Gosho Aoyama has managed to finish (we'll see if Magic Kaito and Detective Conan get on that list one day) and as I mentioned before it has a 24 volume long manga series and a 52 episode long animated TV series by the name of Legendary Brave Swordsman Yaiba (Kenyuu Densetsu Yaiba). Aoyama has this tendency to include other series in his other works - including characters and settings from one-shots. Be it the police department or the tropical land, these are settings included in other works this author does, and it creates this odd mixed universe of different ideas. Anyway, it's cool to actually get to see Yaiba himself in this story. 

Kaito is attempting to steal the sacred sword from the large household but comes across many obstacles that seem quite unnatural, like a weird turtle creature... I like how the secondary main character of Yaiba, Sayaka Mine, as well as her mother and grandmother, get entranced by Kid's flirting... The entire story is basically a fanservice crossover showing off Kaito and Yaiba duke it out. It's at least pretty comedic. I believe this story part was actually used in the OVA episode "Conan vs. Kid vs. Yaiba - The Grand Battle for the Treasure Sword!! Japanese Title: コナンvsキッドvsヤイバ 宝刀争奪大決戦!!" 

    Blue Birthday (ブルーバースデー, Burū Bāsudē) is the nineteenth tale. For some reason this is one of the titles I remember the most. After Kid has completed yet another heist in the middle of the night, a phone at a booth starts to ring. A person answers and tells Kaito that it's been a real long time since they last talked, and in the past they'd even warned Kid not to touch "that jewel" and that Kid is lucky that the jewel Kaito stole wasn't "the one they're looking for". Before hanging up this mysterious person on the phone warns Kid that if he ever gets in their way, it's his life that'll be at risk.

Not paying any heed to the warning Kid sends yet another message to the police, claiming that he'll be going after "the world's larges sapphire from India" that's on display now. As Kaito grins with his successful heists, Aoko gets angry at him as Kid's already stolen five things - jewels and such - this month, so Aoko's father, inspector Ginzo Nakamori, can't even get any sleep. It's also Aoko's 17th birthday this very day but his father is still just after Kid. Kaito then promises to arrive at Aoko's birthday party, albeit he'll be a bit late, and then he asks if Aoko wants something special as a present. 

Things get interesting as Aoko asks Kaito to bring his Kid as a present, in other words she wants Kaito to catch Kid, which obviously won't happen, but then Aoko also asks another question: "Why does kid have to be a thief, anyways? What exactly is Kid's reason for stealing things?" Sometimes Kid throws the items he steals away, sometimes he returns them. Does he just enjoy the act of stealing or becoming popular for doing such stunts? Aoko herself really hates Kid as she believes that Kid simply enjoys making fun of her father who never manages to catch him. We get this cool inner monologue from Kaito where he thinks how he's actually always respected inspector Nakamori.

This story is basically a soft boot back to the main storyline of the series which was introduced in chapter one. Here, Kaito once again starts to think about how his motive for stealing things is because he wants to find out who killed his father and mentor, the most famous magician in the world, Touichi Kuroba eight years prior. Kaito wears the white robes and a monocle to lure out the people who killed his father.

The Blue Birthday gem itself is protected by numerous invisible lasers, but this time the lasers instantly destroy anything that touches them. Around the gem itseld is a special steel cage and a high-electric voltage door. Kaito just tricks the cops with a dummy and steals the game, however the inspector reveals that just being part of the plan as the jewel Kid just stole contains a microtransmitter that can't be removed.

At the rooftop Kaito checks his watch and realizes that it's time to hit the road as Aoko's birthday party is being held. Kaito decides to fly over to Aoko's house with the hangglider, as Aoko wanted Kaito to bring Kid to the party, but as he's about to jump off, someone shoots a gun at him. breaking the glider. Kaito notes that there is a large group of people on the roof, and the person holding the gun has the same voice as the person who spoke with him on the phone the other day.  What's more, this group of people even think Kid is Kuroba Touichi, in other words they know of the original Kid's identity...
Kaito questions this weird organization's motives for taking the jewel, but even they say that they don't know what's so special about the jewel - but what they do know is that with it, they can have "Eternity", whatever that means. Things escalate to a point where Kaito throws the Blue Birthday to the crooks and the group's ringleader shoots him down the building.

As Kaito fell off the building, we see Aoko have her 17th birthday party with bunch of her classmates, but it's not looking like Kaito's coming. The scene then goes over to a place with a Yaiba-like japanese mansion or whatever it is, a large wide-area place with buildings surrounding it. Over there a bossy man gets the "Blue Birthday" gem from the ringleader of the gang, who the bossy man calls 'Snake'. After getting his hands on Blue Birthday, this bossy man then says how he'll be telling about the gem to 'that person' (assumedly the boss of the bosses in this organization).

 The reason why the boss of the organization wants the Blue Birthday is because it might be the gem that holds the key to immortality. The organization members talk something about a comet named "Volley" that comes close to Earth every millenia. There's a legend about that comet which talks about how one should take the "holy gem" underneath the shadow of a moon, and when one does that, special "tears" will start to flow and drip out of the jewel. Anyone who drinks those tears will then become immortal. Apparently there's a large jewel which holds that power but no one knows which it is. 

The organization has a grand plan in mind: steal all the large jewels they can find in order to get their hands on the legendary gem, and their time limit is the day when the comet comes. The way to find out which gem is the right one is that if the jewel is held up towards moonlight, there'll be another, small red gem glowing inside of it. That small gem is known as 'Pandora' and is the source of these 'Tears of Immortality'.

Kaito then makes his grand appearance at the place where the organization's been talking, and he heard everything they said. Apparently 'Snake' had shot Kaito to the heart but that place was protected by the Blue Birthday. And this is when Kaito realizes that he has a new goal in mind: he'll find the jewel housing the Pandora gem, and when he does that he'll destroy it like how Frodo destroyed the cursed ring. The ending of the chapter has to do with Kaito celebrating Aoko's birthday his own special way.

This is the most impressive story so far in the series and is the first case to truly have some of that complexity often found even in the early stories of Conan. This was very packed with its own twists and turns to it. I can't say I'm particularly intrigued by the organization members like Snake, but the idea of giving Kaito a more interesting goal (finding Pandora and destroying it) was a good choice.

    Green Dream (グリーンドリーム, Gurīn Dorīmu) is the twentieth story of this series and the closing heist in the third Magic Kaito volume. The art in this case is pretty much what early DC looks like. Kaito Kid had sent a message to a musical theatre "Mars & Rosa" and claims to arrive and steal the world's largest emerald, the "Green Dream", that'll be on the stage the next day. However Kaito has already infiltrated the place to plan for different ways on how to steal the gem. 

At the musical stage a number of different people have gathered and one of them, the lead actress and daughter of the musical's owner Reiko is making up a ruckus by talking down on other actors, especially the young Megumi, for supposedly ruining the show. It doesn't seem like anyone around really likes Reiko as she's not just incredibly rude but she apparently used her father's authority to get the leading role. The other workers on the theater even want Kaito Kid to blow the entire place up to get rid of Reiko. If this was a Conan case, she'd basically be the victim. 

As Kaito's doing his preparations at the threater later in the evening after the actors have left, he comes across the young Megumi who's practicing acting on the stage, and she's pretty incredible at that, despite everyone saying she's terrible at acting. The reason for that is her nerves are far too weak: when she's in front of a crowd Megumi's legs start to shake and she can't keep her calm with everyone's staring eyes all on her. Kaito then gives her a pep talk and tells her to imagine the audience as just mere garden of pumpkins. 

The next day, the day of the heist. Aoko and Kaito arrive at Mars & Rosa. It seems that here Gosho basically sets up some foreshadowing as Aoko notices a retractable roof on the theatre. There're also bunch of celebrities around the place.
We get to see the stage play itself play out a bit as the actors show off the Green Dream emerald. There's this cool trick by Kaito that's build through dialogue from other characters; throughout this story Gosho uses the inspector as a fakeout as he claims that Kid will definitely aim to shut down the lights and weasel his way through the darkness. The story and the volume end with Kaito helping Megumi play out a big role. I think this story would work well if animated properly. It definitely had the feel of a Conan case at the beginning with how the sub-plot of the stage play was handled. Pretty cool. In general this volume felt quite packed, what with it having seven stories to tell. Some of them had some neat things going for them, but nothing actually monumental. The last few stories had a bit more professionally crafted feel to them with how the pacing allowed to tell a larger, more crowded story more coherently than before. I guess Gosho's gotten used to planning his stories out by now.


Volume 4 - Released February 16, 2007

So, the third volume which was released in -94 finally gave us some plot progression as Kaito learned of the Pandora gem which is rumored to give immortality to anyone who drinks its tears. Pandora is a small ruby-like object that exists inside an unknown larger gem, and it can be seen through the gem holding it if one looks through the large gem by pointing it at moonlight. This fourth Magic Kaito volume was released nearly 13 years after the third one, so I'm interested in seeing what kind of stories we'll get in this 2000-2010 era of Aoyama's career.

    Crystal Mother (クリスタル・マザー, Kurisutaru mazā) is the twenty-first story and the first story we read in volume four. Queen of Ingram, Selizabeth, had decided to board the Royal Express which is one of Japan's most luxurious trains. The story immediately begins with a surprise as the Queen says the phantom thief had come into her room to steal the treasure of Ingram, the largest topaz in Europe "Crystal Mother" which is hanging on the Queen's neck as an amulet... or at least it should have, as Kid immediately noticed that gem was nothing but a replica. The real one's location is unknown for anyone except the royal highness herself. Kaito is in the backgrounds listening on the police's and the queen's verbal exchange to try to get any information on the whereabouts of the jewel but what he hears is the Queen's proclamation about the train trip being a one-on-one with Kid vs. the Queen. With two and a half hours remaining until the train arrives at Osaka, it will be a direct showdown.

The Queen is not on the train just with her royal army but also her two years old pet cat Caesar and her little son Prince Philip Maximilian Ingram. Philip is the son of King Henry who died two years prior to a sickness. Selizabeth is very strict towards the Prince however as she orders him to call her 'Your Majesty the Queen' rather than mother. Aoko and Kaito are also on the train. Kaito always finds clever ways to get unnoticed to these thieving scenes as 'Kaito'. This time around he'd asked Aoko to get him a ticket to join the luxury train that Aoko's father inspector Nakamori is also riding. Aoko reveals that she's going to personally go and meet up with the Queen and say hello. That didn't even come to Kaito's mind as he tends to want to avoid being seen.

On the same train the overarching villain group's member 'Snake' has also infiltrated and is talking on the phone in a bathroom. The organization's of course after the jewel as it may be the hailed Pandora, but because of Kid the police reinforcements on the train are bigger than ever. The organization thus plans to take the jewel directly from Kid after he steals it.

I'm actually quite surprised by the quality of this heist story compared to what we've seen before in this series - there's a lot of thinking from Kaito's part for a one-chapter story. He checks all these suspicious things like the cat's eyes and the Prince's teddybear for whether or not they contain the jewel. The Prince also sees through Kaito and notices that he's actually Kid - and the Prince even knows the location of the gem but won't be the one revealing it. It's actually quite a surprising place as I also forgot where it was despite having seen this story before. This story has a deeper story to tell with the relationship of the Queen and her son however, and Kaito gets a pretty epic scene near the end regarding it, as well as the showdown with the mysterious organization's member Snake. I like how everything here was presented by Gosho but the way Snake survived that one scene with a comedic fashion was definitely to not make Kaito into a killer. The ending of this story actually kind of made me feel some emotions and it's nice to see Kaito be a bit more daring here, like how he drugged Aoko to keep his identity safe. I think the manga did this better than the anime, but I'd have to rewatch the Crystal Mother episodes.

    Red Tear (レッド・ティアー, Reddo Tiā) opens up the twenty-second story. This time around Kid is going after the world's greatest ruby, Red Tear, a ruby that's somehow blue in color, owned by a magician troupe led by a woman named Jody Hopper who seems to want to see Kid's magic unfold. Akako the scarlet witch arrives to class however and tells Kaito to not go after it as the ruby has a supernatural story surrounding it: it's a demonic stone that will cause calamity to anyone who touches it.


At the Minato Police Station yet another announcement from Kaito Kid has arrived... this time however the message says that Kid has changed his mind about stealing the ruby. Included with the letter is Kid's apology.

On the streets Kaito and Aoko walk about and head towards a movie theatre as a man walks by and seemingly accidentally hits Aoko. Kaito immediately realizes that this guy snatched Aoko's purse during the impact and starts to chase the man, but something surprising happens as a woman bumps into the man and steals the purse that he stole. This woman is introduced to us as the famous magician of the Hopper Troupe, Jody Hopper, the granddaughter of James Hopper who was the greatest magician of England.

There's this neat little scene where Aoko talks to Jody and praises Kaito's father as the number one in Japan but Kaito is annoyed by that and thinks to himself how his father must've been the best magician in the entire world instead. Jody seems to recognize Kaito's father as apparently he and Jody's grandfather used to be part of the same pick-pocket squad. A cool little detail to take in. Anyway, Jody tells the two that magicians are nothing but swindlers deceiving people. It's been two years since her grandfather died and she decided to put an end to the troupe after tonight. She also invites Kaito and Aoko to join her last show.

At Minato Hotel, Nakamori is still waiting for Kid despite the announcement that he withdrew from the heist. The hotel is packed with undercover cops on every floor from top to bottom. This time however Nakamori is off-duty as Aoko had invited her father to join to see the troupe's dinner show, since Kaito had better things to do, so to say. At the same time as Aoko and Nakamori spend their evening, the mysterious evil organization that's after Pandora, is checking out the place and will execute their theft plan in 10 minutes. Nakamori himself notes that Jody always wears the trademark jewel on her, but there's never any programs for Jody herself in these shows, so they question whether or not she can't do any magic tricks herself, but apparently that's not true; since her infancy she's gotten training from her master magician parents who died in an accidents during a show 10 years prior. Jody herself is apparently the greatest magician in the troupe right now. The ruby she holds with her is a memento left by her parents as the gem was found on top of them after their bodies were found burned-up, and due to their death it got the name Devil's Stone. So, despite Jody being a great magician, she began despising magic due to her parents' deaths.
At the same time as Kid appears during the show, the organization also attacks the troupe guns blazing. It's mostly about escaping the organisation and dealing with them. We also get to see a little bit of Jody and Kid combo in this one as magicians as well as the last magic trick left behind by Jody's grandfather...
This story is pretty good in the anime version especially as the ending moment is supposed to pull the emotional heartstrings of the reader. I notice that this 4th volume seems to focus on this type of storytelling in general.

    Black Star (ブラック・スタ(Burakku Sutā) is story number twenty-three. Despite of its name, it's actually a flashback that happens before the real Black Star heist. Kaito and Jii are planning on their next heist, but Jii's got a pretty ominous feeling about it all and he wants to ask Kaito to just dip instead of going through with it as the previous heist they pulled of was a "very close call". This story, Black Star, tells that story in which Kaito almost got caught by a surprising enemy. It's been since the Hustler story that Jii's been a part of this. I really like this story in the 6th episode of Magic Kaito 1412 as it's a very entertaining cat-and-mouse game with Kaito and a certain character from Detective Conan. In fact there's also a familiar inspector in the house this time, along with inspector Nakamori. 

Kid's female fanbase's been rising lately and Kaito's quite happy. But Kid's next plan is to somehow steal the clock tower that's being moved soon. The scarlet witch Akako has another ominous warning for Kid as she wants Kid not to steal anything right now (even though Kaito never acknowledges to Akako that he's Kid, Akako being a witch just automatically knows of it). Akako's warning is a prophecy from Lucifer the Devil, and it goes as follows: "When the bells of the old clock tower ring out for the 20 000th time, the magus of light will come flying from the east to destroy the sinner in white."

Anyway, Kaito doesn't care a bit about warnings like that and decides to prepare for the next heist that's going down on the night of a full moon. Although news claim Kid'll go after the clocktower itself, he's going after the hour hand filled with diamonds while dressed up as one of the guarding officers.

There's another side to this story as well as the mayor seems to have already sold the diamonds on the tower. The reason why the clocktower itself is planned to be moved is because of a nearby amusement park, so the city is planning to sell the tower to the highest bidder. With Kid targeting the tower, it's of course the best time to sell it as it gets such large media presence - and also even if the people buying it realize it's a fake, it doesn't matter as the mayor can always blame Kid for swapping the diamonds with fakes... but even then, the main plan is for mayor to not let the replicas ever even be found out.

At the scene of heist a mysterious new clever antagonist to Kaito has began to set up traps for him. This character basically organizes the police's stand-off against Kid from a helicopter that's flying over the place. How will Kid steal the massive clock hand and escape while this massive danger draws in?

This story is basically the closest you can get to a Death Note's L vs. Light type of cat-and-mouse game in Magic Kaito, and when it comes to that type of storytelling, this is definitely one of my favourites in this series. It's an excellent fanservice tale that works not only as a crossover between these two franchises, but also works to tell a story that feels like a quick but real intellectual battle where Kaito is at danger of getting caught as our crossover character gives the police orders on how to cach him by understanding the mind of a thief and his actions. The clocktower also holds something of a deeper meaning for Kaito and Aoko, which was a neat little added detail.

    Golden Eye (ゴールデン・アイ, Gōruden Ai) is twenty-fourth heist. This story has also been adapted in the Magic Kaito special episodes by TMS in 2012 by the name of The Reminiscent Golden Eye. Inspector Nakamori along with the police force are all after Kaito on helicopters etc. As Kaito's escaping, a self-proclaimed "Chat Noir" guy in a creepy pilot's suit appears next to Kaito with a parachute and tells him that he could've stolen the item Kid had just stolen except in half the time, and then he offers Kaito to have a match with him, a contest between two thieves at Hotel Ocean, 9 PM sunday. We learn that this Chat Noir guy is actually a famous French thief. 

As the object Chat Noir is after is just a ring, in other words a small jewel at best, it's not going to contain the Pandora that Kaito's looking for. However, Kaito still wants to have this duel regardless to show he's the greatest thief around.

Kaito is after a ring of the same name as the episode this time around. Apparently the ring is the final accessory that 'Antoinette' had gathered in order to ward away evil, and all the six other objects had already been stolen by Chat Noir in the past. In fact, Chat Noir's never stolen anything else. And after stealing these items he returns fakes that seem to be made from the same plans as the originals are. The Golden Eye is being held at a large hotel in an exhibit where French officers attempt to lure out Chat Noir. This is similar to how Nakamori wants to always lure out Kid. This time around the cops are planning to catch both of the thieves.

The hotel's windows are covered by special titanium that can withstand even 10 tonne blasts, and during the heist all the lifts will be stopped and all the stairways guarded so Kid and Noir won't be able to use those either. It's easier to get in than out. But the biggest defense mechanism here is the ring itself, as it will be held by inspector Nakamori who'll sit on the case clenching his fist while wearing the ring, gas mask and a transmitter during the announced time of the heist.
An insurance company investigator from America, Ruby Jones, had come to also check out the place as they're suspicious on whether Chat Noir is actually an accomplice of the owner of the ring. There's also this problem of Chat Noir potentially cutting off Nakamori's finger to get the ring...

So... this is probably the best heist in the series so far when it comes to interesting ideas. Although I'm not sure. The identity of Chat Noir isn't that surprising - and it's not for Kaito either - but there's just something this story does really well. I suggest people to watch the 10th episode of Magic Kaito specials by TMS and judge for themselves though. In of itself this is yet another cool showdown heist that this fourth volume offers us, and the ending is really awesome with Chat Noir's and Kaito's motives both sort of aligning. Hmm, maybe I should note that it seems Hakuba's gone overseas in this story, seemingly to France. 

    Dark Knight (ダーク・ナイト, Dāku Naito) is the twenty-fifth Magic Kaito story. I've seen this one quite a few times in the twelfth episode of the Magic Kaito special episodes by TMS as it's an excellent episode when it comes to atmosphere, and it's also one of the most emotional endings to a story that Gosho Aoyama's created. 

Kaito, as Kid, is again escaping the police who've cornered him up in an alleyway. Kaito was unable to use the hanglider due to heavy rain and is thus close to getting caught. Next to him he finds a radiophone with a person named Nightmare speaking through it. In this story we get introduced to officer Chaki, seemingly inspector Nakamori's superior at the police HQ, who tells us that Nightmare helped Kid escape. The police HQ had gotten a fax from Nightmare claiming to have become allies with Kid and they're already planning on the next heist together. 

Nightmare is a man with a strange mask, who's been joining hands with many kinds of thieves around the world. Nightmare's reward for making up the escape plans and helping to steal stuff is half of whatever is being stolen, and Nightmare's never failed at his crimes. But there's something different about Nightmare compared to other thieves: every time he gets tired of his allies, they'll get arrested and they're practically destined to die. Because Nightmare's an international criminal this causes a surprising "ally" to arrive at Japan: the ICPO (International Crime Police Organization), led by Jack Connery.

Nakamori had called Kaito to check out the traps he'd made for Kid, making things easier for Kaito. The ICPO's already working with the Japanese police as they don't have authority to arrest over Japan's ground. As Kaito is checking up the scene of the next heist, the Shuho Art Museum, to prepare, he and Aoko run up to Kenta Connery, the son of Jack Connery from Interpol. Kenta's mother died three years prior and Kenta's being held at an orphanage instead of living with his father.

Nightmare has an impressively strong presence in this one despite his sort of silly disguise. The episode hammers in this serious atmosphere caused by Nightmare knowing of Touichi Kuroba's death and about Jii-chan being the current Kid's assistant. The threat of Nightmare using this information against him is the catalyst for why Kaito decided to join up forces with Nightmare to steal two earrings with black opals named the 'Dark Knights'. The opals are hidden in a tough glass case with water in it as the opals are very sensitive to dryness.

This story is basically about three things: Kid stealing the opals, trying to deal with Nightmare, as well as the young Kenta's personal problems with surgery. I think overall Kenta's one of the most tragic characters created with his problem, being so young, losing his mother at such a young age and being an orphan... along with the quite a sad ending to this heist.
The 12th episode of the Magic Kaito specials by TMS that adapt this case are truly immersive to me, personally. Ah, also Hakuba gets a few scenes in this story but nothing too big. Anyway, an excellent Magic Kaito story when it comes to atmosphere, and the most emotional one as well.


This fourth volume of Magic Kaito was excellent. We had five heists in this one with Crystal Mother, Red Tear, Black Star, Golden Eye and Dark Knight. None of the stories disappointed. Magic Kaito always had the potential for more cat-and-mouse games with other characters, but so far we had mostly comedic stories. Hakuba's introduction was probably the closest to a serious showdown in the first three volumes. Now, in volume 4, the entire theme of the volume was for Kaito to have some kind of battle with whoever was the main antagonist of the story. Also one of the things I've noticed is that in the first three volumes there's not been as many real heists where Kid goes to steal stuff. This volume basically had nothing but stealing however, so it's a great addition to the series considering its theme of thieves stealing stuff. Also, the volumes in this story were more serious than what we got in the first three volumes as well as there's more focus on Kaito doing things that can be considered criminal and questionable.



Volume 5 - Released July 18, 2017

This is the current final volume of Kaito Kid's own stories, and I'm not sure if we'll ever get a sixth one. Regardless, the first two volumes were quite prototypical with different ideas that didn't come together as well as they should've. The 3rd volume was closer to the beginning of Detective Conan type of writing and the fourth volume was basically nothing but great stories featuring antagonists for Kaito to take up on during heists. 

    Phantom Lady (ファントム・レディー, Fantomu Redī) is the twenty-sixth heist, and the first story in the fifth and as of now latest volume of Magic Kaito. This story reveals the lineage of the legendary Phantom Thief always clad in white.

Kid finished up stealing a jewel around a place crowded with Kid fans, but that jewel he easily manages to snatch contains a weird note saying "Hey, Kaito Kid. Next time it's my turn. On saturday night, as the moon hesitates. At the unsullied stake-head I shal seal up your jewel and return what I had borrowed 18 years ago." Kaito thinks nothing of the note and after checking up the gem through the moonlight (he checks whether or not the gem contains a smaller gem known as Pandora), a mysterious man is seen taking photograps of Kaito (dressed up as Aoko) returning the gem to inspector Nakamori by mail... 

The person who took the photos had sent them to a weird organization led by President Goudzu. Goudzu believes that Aoko and Kid have a much closer relationship than what anyone knows as Kid has disguised as Aoko for five times already. Goudzu and rest of the group theorize that there must be a very special reason why Kid always sends the stolen goods to inspector Nakamori to return them, instead of anyone else; they think Nakamori himself is the person pulling the strings of Kaito Kid. They believe Aoko has taken up the mantle of Kid from her father. Apparently Goudzu had gotten an injury from Kaito eighteen years prior and he wants to get some kind of revenge for that.

At school Aoko tells Kaito that she'd somehow unknowingly won two tickets for a reserved dinner at Touto tower on the special view platform. The platform is held at the highest level of the tower and there's also an exhibition of a very rich recently deceased person's collection, including a large ruby. Kaito decides to offer to become Aoko's partner on that dinner, but Akako the scarlet witch comes and tells him that she was the first to ask Aoko to let her join. However as the tickets are kind of mysterious since Aoko never joined any competition, Kaito deciphers that they might've been a letter addressed to Kid instead and he decides to disguise as Aoko's father so that he'll get to Touto tower.

This story introduces us to the lady thief known as Phantom Lady. As the organization here wants revenge on Touto tower, we get a flashback to 18 years ago in Paris, at Eiffel tower from which the original Kid escaped from 18 years ago where the Phantom Lady attempted to steal pricy vehicles. There, the lady meets up for the first time with Kuroba Touichi who shows off some pretty interesting skills. We also learn that the white Kaito Kid outfit was created for a magic show Touichi was planning to pull off 18 years ago. The outfit is a shout-out to the great thief Arsene Lupin. 

An unexpected origin story about Kaito's parents and the original Kaito Kid's motivations. This time around the same guy who tried to kill the Phantom Lady is going after Kid, but has made a massive miscalculation and assumes that inspector Nakamori is the OG Kid while Aoko is the new one... Kind of funny, I guess. Anyway, the trap this antagonist set up for Kid this time again also kind of retells history and we get to see how Kaito compares to his father. The ending ties into a Detective Conan's Kaito Kid case regarding a three-piece Sakamoto Ryouma item as Kaito's mother asks him to collect them to punish couple of criminals who used to work for the company Kaito caught in this story. It's interesting as Kaito's mother - Chikage - claims that she might never come back to Japan as her "friend" seems to have taken a liking to her. Who could that friend be? 

Actually, there's something quite intriguing about this story when it comes to the anime version Magic Kaito 1412 where this is adapted in episodes 9 and 10, but ends mid-way in 10 and the next episode and half directly continue on with the Conan's Kid case about the Ryouma items which is a story where Kid announces that he's not coming to steal anything, but instead to return items that've been stolen by the great Phantom Lady many years ago. And this time we see the case from Kaito's perspective while in DC this case is told from Conan's perspective. The way the anime and manga differ is pretty original as it ties Magic Kaito directly to the world of Detective Conan.

    Midnight Crow (真夜中の烏, Mayonaka no Karasu (Middonaito Kurō)) is the twenty-seventh tale and the first three-parter (three chapter long) story in Magic Kaito, as the stories so far have only consisted of either one (~30 pages) or two (~18 pages) chapters. This is basically the longest Magic Kaito story, but the heist / story that comes after this one is just as long.

Kaito, as Kid, uses sleeping gas to take out the guards protecting the world's largest black diamonds, the Midnight Crow. Hakuba'd taken a leave of absence to go overseas and inspector Nakamori bedridden with a common cold, no one seems to be able to stand in his way. In the room with the diamond Kid tries lock-picking his way through, but his fingers don't work as planned because the room is ice-cold. Both Hakuba and the inspector appear out of nowhere to surround and attempt to catch Kid. It seems that they've got advise from a mysterious man on how to catch the phantom thief. Kid manages to trick his way out by using double-disguising methods.

With Hakuba watching over the Midnight Crow and the inspector having an unknown ally over his side, Kaito decides to back down - it ends as a complete defeat for Kaito Kid that night. I like how in the manga Hakuba's personality comes across well with him shouting at an officer he doesn't know is Kid.

At Jii-chan's billiard bar, we learn from Aoko that an older man named Harry Nezu, self-proclaimed 'magic trick buster' with the nickname 'Hedgehog' was the cause for Kid's failure this time around. Harry's coming to Japan basically this very day and he'll be meeting with inspector Nakamori while he's visiting. For the visit, Kaito decides to give the inspector a gift through Aoko. 

Harry is presented as quite an interesting character who doesn't really care to play with "kids" but still decides to help Nakamori a bit - for his own reasons. This time the temperature in the room where Midnight Crow is gets lowered to -10 degrees (celsius is used in Japan). But Harry tells Nakamori that his prey isn't the magician clad in white, but the one in black. The police had gotten another advance notice from another phantom thief, saying: 
"Tonight at midnight, please forgive my rudeness when I take my black jewel.
-Corbeau the Phantom Thief". Corbeau references 'Crow' in France, which is, according to Hakuba, the reason why Corbeau calls the Midnight Crow 'his'. Harry'd gotten the same message as well which was the reason he came back to his "father's homeland".

Corbeau is a phantom thief most active in Las Vegas in the recent times. His M.O. includes scattering crow feathers at the scene of the crime and he has the ability of using multiple different voices. But the surprising thing about Corbeau is that he looks identical to Kid, except in black. Kaito gets face to face with Corbeau on the top of a roof. Corbeau questions Kaito's clothing and wonders if Kid is a fan of his and an imitator or a cosplayer. I actually got a chuckle out of Corbeau thinking Kid's name was "Child the Robber". Anyway, Kaito of course tells that Corbeau's copying him, but Corbeau explains that he was simply gone from the scenes due to an "illness", waiting for a time to make a comeback and to get revenge for his senior disciple's, Kuroba Touichi's, fate. The black clothes Corbeau wears are actually Touichi's original ones. He analyzes Kid's plan (using warming pads all over his body not to get cold in the freezing room) and deems it childish and useless. Because of that Corbeau offers Kid to make a wager; Corbeau claims that he'll steal Midnight Crow from darkness without ever touching it. Kaito's mission is to figure out how the jewel was stolen, and if he's unable to do that, well, it's time for Kid to retire as a phantom thief for good. And if Kid figures out the trick, Corbeau'll retire instead.
"There is no need for two ghosts of Kuroba Touichi".

This story also includes the mysterious main villain organization and its key member Snake going after the jewel to try to find Pandora. With Kid merely "watching from the shadows" Hakuba also hypothizes that he's interested in seeing Corbeau. 

The Midnight Crow is protected by a mysterious pedestial. The diamond is protected by an ultra-dense glass and the pedestial itself has sharp blades spring out of it at high speeds. It's lethal. But there's also something weird about the pedestial as it burned inspector Nakamura's buttocks, yet for touch it doesn't feel hot...

In this heist, inspector Nakamori is going to be used as a key to protect the gem personally for the second time in this series. The inspector's mission is to hold onto the handles of the glass case and sit on top of it while wearing a gas mask. Now---how will Corbeau pull it off?

With feathers falling through a ventilator and the thief making his first move, the jewel vanishes from the case, with a coin in its place with the word 'Corbeau' printed on it. On the bottom of the coin there are also other words saying "next time I'll be back to take the real thing." as Harry had swapped the real gem before the heist. Now it's Kid's mission to figure out how the jewel was stolen without touching it. Mysteriously enough, Kaito's mother had also suddenly come back from overseas without mentioning about it, and we get some background information about Corbeau and the trick buster Harry Nezu through her.

Gosho Aoyama wrote this story for the finale of Magic Kaito 1412 and it does have some of those story beats to it, for example Hakuba and Akako also appearing, and Chikage - Kaito's mother - asking Kaito to move to Las Vegas as a magician. In the anime this was extended to even greater lengths with Kaito thinking about perhaps letting go of going after Pandora for his father's sake and continue his life for himself. The anime version (EP23-24) was somehow perfectly paced and had tension and neat action to it. I really liked this one. I can see these differences between these volumes now more clearly. One last heist to go over now...

    Sun Halo (日輪の後光(サン・ヘイロー), Nichirin no Gokō (San Heirō)) is the twenty-eighth and final story of Magic Kaito's 5th volume, and also potentially the last story we'll ever get for this series in a volume format unless Aoyama somehow pulls through 10 chapters more for this series as there are no more chapters after the fifth volume. It's kind of weird as I recently re-read this story and doing so was the catalyst for me to review all of Magic Kaito manga and rewatch bunch of the episodes. 

This time around Kaito Kid has sent a Kid Card announcing a heist of a yellow diamond named the Sun Halo, which is positioned on a statues of the Goddess of Mercy, Kannon, at Tohto Buddha Exhibition. The jewel shines with bright and divine aura when light hits it, so could it possibly be the container for Pandora? 
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Kid forces led by inspector Nakamori have been focusing on the aerial defense forces lately as well, since Kid loves to fly around, so there are new challenges to face... 

Kaito Kuroba, the real identity of the phantom thief clad in white, rides a bike to school for the first time basically ever from what we've seen in Magic Kaito, but apparently he's used it to escape in the shadows. The teenage detective Hakuba and scarlet witch Akako also arrive to take notes of Kaito's motorcycle and throw a tarot card with a prophecy at Kaito, and his fortune is told by the Tower Card, which basically signifies only bad things. Of course the legendary Kaitou Kid won't care about silly fortunes either so it's time for the heist.

At the buddha exhibition Kaito notices that the buddha and its diamond that have supposedly been resting for millenias in Sandei Shrine's Nagekomido are nothing more than fakes. And poorly crafted ones at that. Kaito decides to make a sudden appearance as Kid hours before the time of the heist to tell the nuns of the temple to stop with the charade of pretending the statue and its gem are real, but all of a sudden a large trapdoor opens and the glass box with the statue, Kid, and Aoko all fall into the pitfall. Kaito could have just escaped with his card-rope combination shot through his card-gun, but he decides to go and grab Aoko instead as she faints on her way down... straight towards the large broken glass of the box that fell into the pit. Afterwards, Kid and Aoko get moved away in a truck with a mysterious room consisting of hint cards telling Kid to solve puzzles if he wants to make it out alive. Problem here is that Kaito's health is getting worse from the blood loss and pain as he got pierced through stomach with the sharp glass as he fell. This pain thing helps Aoko to solve one problem and be the key element in helping the two of them move forward in this weird structure they've been locked in. I also quite liked the way how Hakuba used modern ways to figure out where the truck might be going, using the enemy's weapon against them.

Chapter 35 (Sun Halo Part 2) in particular I felt is the funniest Magic Kaito chapter that Gosho's created. The way how Hakuba clearly shows affection by blushing slightly when Akako calls him is a neat detail, but when they talk and Akako gives hints towards Kaito's whereabouts with her magic, I found it hilarious how Hakuba asks the source of Akako's information, and how she says that it all came from Lucifer (whom she's summoned about three times in this series so far). We get a good look at Lucifer the Devil in this chapter as well and I really got a good laugh at Akako dealing with him in this story. I think seeing Lucifer completely helps make it funnier (as before this he's been sort of a shadow with no proper form).

Lately I've been reading the Tantei Gakuen Q / Detective Academy Q manga series and one of the more enjoyable stories in that series so far has been a case where two of the main characters got trappen under their school in volumes 6-7. While that story could be called a "case", it's actually not as it's simply the main characters figuring out that there's a hidden door, a jail cell room, and them getting locked in it and getting out of it with hard work and a lot of luck. But what that story does, is set up excellent tense atmosphere for the overarching story about the jail cell's existence and who could have built that hidden mechanism to the cell in the first place and for what reason. This Sun Halo heist - the last heist of Magic Kaito manga - also has that similar feel to it, as Kaito and Aoko are locked up in a weird structure with traps created by a craftsman named Arizato Juuken although this one is more character-driven and has more characters doing more stuff in comparison to the TGQ story which focuses more on setting up the atmosphere for the mystery that won't be answered until much later. There are couple of Detective Conan cases with similar ideas to them and I'm thinking on reading those through as well.

This is an interesting case in that it truly shows how much Gosho has evolved as a writer: he's able to write characters in a more broad way, they do things that are harder to decipher and less linear, and they kind of turn a smaller story into something larger from multiple different angles. In that aspect this was the most impressive Magic Kaito story at least, though as a Kaito story it's not exactly the best representation of it. 
This volume, volume #5, had two 3-chapter long stories that are both basically the longest stories in Magic Kaito. The stories themselves were different again, they're more broad in scale here and told very different out-there type of stories not present in previous volumes.



I'm done! - Below is the condensed review of all twenty-eight heists of the Magic Kaito manga

Volume 1 (-88) introduced us to this series. It told us quite experimental and simple stories. The stories showed us the blueprints that Aoyama would start from. While there is a lot of similarities with Aoyama's present writing style, the overall story plotting did have problems in its pacing and Aoyama wasn't used to fully pacing his stories out when he created this volume

Volume 2 (-88) was very similar to the first volume but I felt this one had better ideas. Hustler vs. Magician and Japan's Most Irresponsible Leader were sort of stand-outs in their own way, and we had two stories featuring the scarlet witch Akako.

Volume 3 (-94) was a slight step-up from both volumes 1 and 2 in multiple ways. We get introduced to Kaito's rival Hakuba Saguru, an entertaining character in his own right and all of the stories in this volume are basically professionally done, but kind of simplistic and linear. Honestly, I really liked the 'Green Dream' heist which told us a story about a theatre play with a neat message to it about how anyone is the protagonist of their own life. This story was also the first Magic Kaito story that felt like a Detective Conan story as it set up more than the heist, and the character writing for the heist-only cast was very case-only cast feeling.

Volume 4 (-07) was absolutely insane compared to what came before it. This volume is filled with cat-and-mouse games and intriguing antagonists for every story. While the previous stories have been more slice of life with occasional theft, and had other stuff for Kid to deal with in general, this volume focused entirely on Kid breaking in and stealing gems. The way how these stories were written also felt more serious than other volumes (Kid drugging up people and doing other sorts of crimes just felt more serious here), and the stories also got this extra emotional punch to them here as well.

Volume 5 (-17) had the longest stories in Magic Kaito with three chapters for two stories and one two-chapter story. In other words this volume merely had three full stories. Regardless, this is clearly very different volume in how it's plotted: Phantom Lady told us a flashback origin story of the original Kaito Kid and Kaito's parents. Midnight Crow was a deduction battle with couple of weird fellows in Henry and Kaito Courbeau. If Magic Kaito ever continues again, this is clearly a story that connects to the overarching story as we never got true answers to who is who (in a previous story Kaito's mother said that she's at Las Vegas with some dude... who is that as well?). The last story, Sun Halo, may not be the best representation of this series that is supposed to be about a thief, as it is an escape story from a death trap, but that's also something that's never been done in Magic Kaito before. The more broad storytelling also shines here with how effectively and subtly Gosho Aoyama is able to move different pieces from different angles in grander and clever ways.