It’s another Golden Week in Japan at the end of the month. That means it’s time for the annual ritual of a new Detective Conan film.
One-Eyed Flashback (隻眼の残像; sekigan no furasshubakku) is the 28th (daaaaaamn) movie in the series. It’s doing numbers at the box office, besting the performance of last year’s release. Is it good?
As a Conan fan, I thought it was great. I also think non-Conan fans who are looking for a smart action thriller a la the James Bond films or a good Tom Clancy flick would get a kick out of it. For longtime fans who may once in a while find themselves wishing that the series’ comic relief would catch a break, it’s also a great opportunity to see another side of Mōri Kogorō.
The story so far
The Detective Conan series, created by manga author Aoyama Gōshō, is a behemoth. In addition to 28 movies, it spans 107 manga volumes and 30 seasons of animated TV.
Given that, it’s impressive that each movie starts with an opening sequence that perfectly sums up the main points of the series. Here’s my own quick summary; you can read a fuller treatment of the series in my article on the fun and ridiculousness of Conan.
17-year-old protagonist Kudō Shinichi is a high schooler who moonlights as one of Japan’s most famous detectives. One night, while on a date with his childhood best friend Mōri Ran, he witnesses members of a criminal group, the Black Organization, extort a man. Taken by surprise, the criminals force-feed him an experimental drug that acts as an untraceable poison. However, it has a different effect on Shinichi, turning him into an elementary school-aged child.
Afraid of what the Black Organization might do to his loved ones if they find him, Shinichi hides his identity, taking the name Edogawa Conan—a combination of the names of Japanese mystery author Edogawa Ranpō and Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “Conan” comes to live with Ran and her father, former cop and current second-rate detective Mōri Kogorō.
Somehow, Conan and the Mōris managed to get entangled in a murder more or less every day of the week. With the help of gadgets created by his friend Dr. Agasa, Conan tranquilizes the bumbling Kogorō and solves cases himself, pretending to be Kogorō using a voice-changer. Kogorō becomes a famous detective while Conan/Shinichi attempts to track down the Black Organization and find a permanent antidote for his condition.
One-Eyed Flashback
There’s a lot more detail. But most of them are irrelevant. The films do a good job of filling you in on the characters you need to care about for this particular installment.
For One-Eyed Flashback, the series turns its attention to Mōri Kogorō. Kogorō’s drunkenness and ineptitude are genuinely played for laughs. In keeping with the more dramatic tone of the movies, however, Flashback gives Kogorō a more sympathetic, and one could even say heroic, treatment.
The movie starts 10 months earlier, with Nagano Prefecture detective Yamato Kansuke running through the snowy mountains in pursuit of Mikuriya Sadakuni, a paroled fugitive who’s on the run. However, someone takes a shot at the detective with a rifle. Moments later, Kansuke finds himself trapped in an avalanche. He’s eventually found and saved, but has little memory of the incident.
We then cut over to Kogorō, who is, true to form, getting smashed on sake. Kogorō gets a call from his old friend, Sametani Kōji, whom he’s nicknamed “Kani.” Kani, who now works for the Tokyo Police as a detective, urgently wants to meet Kogorō to discuss the attack on Kansuke. Moments before the two meet in a park, someone shoots Kani dead with a rifle. Conan chases the masked suspect on his high-powered skateboard (yes, it’s a thing) but loses track of him at a subway near police headquarters.
Kogorō, distraught at the death of his friend, insists on going with Tokyo police to Nagano. There, they team up with Kansuke to interview Mikuriya, whom Kansuke put back behind bars.
A matter of national security
Eight years ago, Mikuriya and his accomplice, Washizu Takashi, broke into a gun shop owned by Funakubo Eizō. The two seriously injured his daughter, Miki, who ended up committing suicide after the injury ended her dreams of being a biathlon star. Washizu avoided punishment for ratting out Mikuriya’s whereabouts; Miki’s father, Eizō, continues to hold a hot grudge against both men and the cops.
Meanwhile, Conan bumps into someone when he arrives in Nagano. Feeling something’s amiss, he realizes the man planted a listening device on him. The guy turns out to be Detective Hayashi Atsunobu, leading Conan to deduce that something larger is afoot in this case. He confirms this with series regular Amuro Tōru, a member of a secretive public security police unit who runs a coffee shop below Kogorō’s office. Amuro won’t divulge anything, but Conan learns enough to know that, somehow, the case is a matter of national security.
At the same time, Dr. Agasa brings along three of Conan’s elementary-school friends, the so-called “Young Detective Squad,” to see the parabolic telescope in Nagano. The observatory was itself the scene of a break-in recently that Kansuke investigated at the film’s opening.
As the story progresses, the connection between these disparate events comes into greater focus – and Conan, Ran, Kogorō, and the others are dragged into a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the shooter that endangers them all.
A blockbuster mystery (but skip the 4D seats)
As I wrote in my giant Conan round-up, this series, like most shonen manga and anime, is highly episodic. That’s good for the creators, as it enables non-fans to drop in on any given film even if they don’t follow the series in detail.
For the past decade or so, the Detective Conan films have gone all-out to create a blockbuster theater experience. Unlike the series, which focuses on pretty pedestrian murders, the movies up the stakes, usually focusing on a large-scale threat to human life or, in this case, issues related to national security. As such, on top of the usual sleuthing and whodunit that’s the hallmark of Conan, the movies are an excuse to bust out some well-animated, high-velocity action sequences.
So the question of “Is this a good movie?” comes down to a couple of factors:
- Is the central mystery interesting?
- Are the action sequences sick?
- Do fans get to spend some quality time with their faves?
Mystery-wise, the story is fair for a Conan case. I didn’t find myself caring as much about the whodunit in this one, to be honest. As usual with Conan mysteries, the solution takes a “person you’d least expect” tack that, frankly, has grown a bit repetitive after 30 years. For me, as a fan, the movie is more of a chance to spend time with characters I’ve come to know and love.
Action-wise, One-Eyed Flashback should satisfy anyone who likes a mystery/action thriller in the style of the Bourne, James Bond, or Tom Clancy films. Watching a Conan film always makes me a little sad that the movies don’t get traction in the US, as they’re a rare case where Japanese cinema rises to the level of a Hollywood production. One culture critic here compared the films to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which I find an apt comparison.
I saw One-Eyed Flashback at Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills in their MX4D theater. The theater is equipped with lights, smoke jets, air jets, and rumble seats that move and shake in concert with the action in the film. The experience attempts to turn the movie into a mini Universal Studios Japan ride. Frankly, this wasn’t worth the 1,200 extra yen ($8.40) I spent on the ticket and can safely be skipped.
More “cool Kogorō”, more fun
As a fan, I think my favorite part of this movie was the focus on Mōri Kogorō.
In the usual chain of events, especially early on in the series, Kogorō is a comic character who lives in Conan’s shadow. He’s not a great detective. He drinks too much. Like most single Japanese men, he overrelies on his daughter to keep the household running. This likely makes him relatable to men his age in the same situation, but makes him somewhat repellent to everyone else.
As the series has gone on, it’s given Kogorō more of a chance to shine while also retaining his slapstick elements. In this film, outside of the opening sequence, the “Kogorō as comic relief” element is gone. After Kani dies, Kogorō is a man on a mission, demanding to be part of the investigation even though he’s only a civilian.
As the movie progresses, we get to see more of Kogorō in action. We also see in one scene the man express a humility that’s rare for him. Most of the time, Kogorō is more than happy to sponge off the fame that Conan’s duplicity buys him. One-Eyed Flashback is an opportunity to see his better side – the loyal friend and trained upholder of the law who’ll do anything to make sure justice is served.
Where to watch the Detective Conan films
If you’re lucky enough to live in Japan or another country where Conan is popular, you can catch it in theaters. For US viewers, Amazon Prime has the series plus many of the movies available to rent under the title Case Closed – and will likely carry One-Eyed Flashback once its theater run is over.
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