I love genre fiction, so how could I not be intrigued by something called Detective Conan? I mean, it’s got Detective right there in the title, along with the most recognizable (lamentably, perhaps) name in Fantasy fiction. It turned out the show is an anime series that has been steadily produced in Japan since the mid-90s and has absolutely nothing at all to do with Conan the Barbarian. It’s double-plus Detective, actually, since the Conan is question is Arthur Conan Doyle.

I gave it a test drive, so you would not have to live your life unaware of the glory (or misery) that is Detective Conan, and I found out that it is neither glorious nor miserable. Instead, the anime is an entertaining diversion that never quite displays the wit and brilliance of a solid detective story nor the emotional depth of serious anime. On the other hand, its childishness is endearing, and it does have that great “something larger is afoot” feel that episodic anime often has, where each episode stands alone but always within a larger plot that is going on in the background.

Before he becomes Detective Conan, the main character is known as Shin’ichi Kudo, the son of a famous detective writer who idolizes Sherlock Holmes. He is also a brilliant detective himself, despite his young age (he is in his 2nd year of high school). Over the course of the first episode, he solves a crime (this happens in every episode) and also interrupts what may be another crime. The criminals he interrupts dose him with an experimental drug that is supposed to kill him but instead… shrinks him so that he looks like a grade-schooler!

That’s anime for you.

Shin’ichi consults a family friend, who determines it would be unsafe for him to reveal that he was not, in fact, killed by the drug. A different friend of his, a female student who happens to have a crush on him, bursts in and interrupts the proceedings. Shin’ichi is forced to quickly make up a new name, which he pieces together from the two great detective novel authors whose names he sees on a nearby bookshelf: Arthur Conan Doyle and Edowaga Rampo.

The larger plot arc of the series that follows includes Shin’ichi’s search for the criminals who dosed him. If he can acquire a sample of the drug he was given, the aforementioned family friend–an eccentric scientist, who sometimes plays Q to his James Bond–can create an antidote that will unshrink him.

So I guess there actually is a lot of fantasy here after all, just not of the swords-and-sorcery type. Regardless, after the first episode, he is very definitely Detective Conan, a grade-school aged boy who is utterly brilliant but is forced to hide his brilliance because no one takes him seriously. I watched the first five episodes, and the “men in black” who are responsible for his transformation make an appearance or two, but mostly the show is concerned with his solving of individual crimes while he bides his time waiting for more information on them to appear.

The detecting is probably the most disappointing aspect of the show, as it is very contrived and does not follow the grand detective convention wherein the viewer/reader is given all the information needed to solve the crime at the same time the detective is. Or rather, it does give the information, but not in such a way that the viewer can put it all together most of the time, and typically the significance of a clue is revealed as the clue is revealed, so there is no satisfaction to be had there.

The plots are as contrived as the case-breaking clues, and full of detective-story stereotypes like the locked room, the suicide-as-murder, and so on. It is worth mentioning that I am just five episodes in, and the general rule with long-running anime series is that they only get better with time, as the writers are forced to add more depth and complexity to the story once the low-hanging fruit is gone.

Is this the case with Detective Conan? I have no idea, as of yet. The Wikipedia entry states, “Many references to other detective literature can also be found for fans of detective novels; References to Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie’s works, Kogoro Akechi, Kosuke Kindaichi, Arsène Lupin, Maigret, Ranpo Edogawa, and many more,” which bodes well for the evolution of the series. References to established works are fun for me, though almost nonexistent in the first five episodes.

If you’re a fan of anime in general, you are used to the fine line between cutesiness and adult storytelling (not meaning x-rated here; this is no hentai) that you often find in these sorts of things, and it doesn’t bother you. You will probably enjoy the humor, and the interesting-yet-shallow characters. I know I will be watching more because I want to see how–if at all–the issue with the men in black is worked out, and I also find the complexity that is already evolving in the form of a weird crush triangle between Conan, Ran, and a fellow elementary-school student (I said it was weird) to be amusing. If you are looking for something to satisfy your longing for genre entertainment, however, this isn’t really it. The “detectiveness” of the series is a superficial shell, a plot-device that justifies the continued interaction of the major characters and gives them something to do while the show is taking place.

It is worthy of mention that, in today’s world of rock sans piano, the opening theme for the first 30 episodes (”Mune ga Dokidoki” by The High-Lows) reminds me of nothing so much as a jam session featuring Meat Loaf and Andrew WK trading off turns at the piano while backed by a solid rock band. It is also worthy of mention that the first 72 episodes as of this writing can be viewed at www.detectiveconan.us as streaming fansubs, although the series is now being distributed in North America, which renders even the flimsy justification of “I can’t get it any other way” invalid.