Detective Conan: The Million Dollar Pentagram

The 27th film in the Detective Conan series (known as Case Closed to US audiences), Detective Conan: The Million Dollar Pentagram was a massive hit in its native Japan, but is likely to present challenges for audiences elsewhere. It’s not just the dialogue that needs to be translated, and if you’re not familiar with the series, the rapid fire introduction at the start is likely to leave you flailing.

The key things you need to know are as follows. Brilliant detective Shinichi Kudo has been poisoned, as a result of which he is now trapped in the body of a child, and he uses the pseudonym Conan Edogawa to keep his true identity a secret whilst living with a friend and her detective father. Kaito Kid – star of the manga series Magic Kaito – is one of his established nemeses, a gifted magician and thief who is nevertheless sometimes on the side of the good guys. Suspicion arises when the Kid gets caught up in a plot to steal a series of samurai swords in Hakodate. They weren’t made by anyone famous and some of them are in poor condition, so why are powerful people desperate to obtain them? As it emerges that they could be connected to a legendary lost treasure, different factions compete to find it first.

Whilst this is happening, several of the series’ secondary characters attend a kendo tournament, where Conan’s friend Kazuha meets a talented and dashing university student. This creates panic in fellow martial artist Hattori Heiji, who is planning to propose to her but, for cultural reasons (and to overcome his shyness) can only do so in the right kind of scenic location, and to make things still more difficult for him (as if he were not already busy enough trying to help Conan), a prim Englishwoman who wants him for herself flies around in a luxury helicopter trying to sabotage his plans.

The balance of the central mystery and teenage angst doesn’t always work, and even viewers who are in their teens themselves will likely become frustrated with it at times, but there is a good supply of drama elsewhere, with kidnapping, bomb threats, secret codes, a secret diary and more. “There is always only one truth!” declares Conan, pointing straight at the camera, lest we doubt. He is named for Arthur Conan Doyle and his way of reaching conclusions can be equally dubious, with some major assumptions underlying them, but he lets nothing get in his way – even when he has to jump up and down to get sight of the evidence being shared by other adults.

There’s a fair measure of Japanese history here, underlying the fictional story, as well as some linguistic and literary play which will be inaccessible to the bulk of Western viewers. Fortunately, there is plenty of distracting imagery. The characters are odd looking even by anime standards, several having noses which point straight upwards, but refreshingly lacking in the hypersexuality attached to many such creations – it’s romance that’s the big thing here. The backdrops are, in places, simply stunning, not because of technological advancements but simply as a result of the human artistry that has gone into them. Over the closing credits (before the now mandatory post-credits sequences which fans won’t want to miss). we get to see the real places that some of them are based on, which makes them all the more impressive.

A bit of a mixed bag overall, this has plenty to thrill dedicated fans, but newcomers will have to watch for some time before they find their feet, and risk drowning in overplayed sentiment in the meantime.