Because of legal problems with the name Detective Conan, the English language releases from Funimation and Viz Media were renamed Case Closed.
The story follows the high school detective Shinichi Kudo, whose body was transformed into that of an elementary school-age child while investigating a mysterious organization.
The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and TMS Entertainment, which premiered in January 1996.
While he continues to dig deeper into the Black Organization, he frequently interacts with other characters, including his neighbor, Dr. Agasa; Ran's friend Serena Sebastian (Sonoko Suzuki); a fellow teenage detective, Harley Hartwell (Heiji Hattori); assorted police detectives from different regions; and a phantom thief called Kaito Kid.
Kudo later encounters an elementary school transfer student, Anita Hailey (Ai Haibara), who reveals herself to be a former member of the Black Organization under the code name Sherry and the creator of the experimental drug that shrunk him.
[7][8] Aoyama cites the stories of Arsène Lupin, Sherlock Holmes and the samurai films by Akira Kurosawa as influences on his work.
[9] When scripting each chapter, he ensures the dialogue remains simple and spends an average of four hours for each new case and twelve for more complicated ones.
[31] In 2014 Shogakukan Asia began its own English localization of the series for Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries as Detective Conan.
[32] Laura Thornton of CBR.com, citing the common Japanese ownership in both Shogakukan Asia and Viz, described the Singapore version as, compared to the Viz one, "completely identical, word-for-word, even -- save for the names and the Detective Conan logo".
[34][35] A spin-off manga series, titled Case Closed: The Culprit Hanzawa, by Mayuko Kanba, began in the July 2017 issue of Shogakukan's Shōnen Sunday S, released on May 25, 2017.
[36] Another spin-off manga series, illustrated by Takahiro Arai with supervision by Aoyama, titled Case Closed: Zero's Tea Time started in issue #24 of Weekly Shōnen Sunday on May 9, 2018.
[48][49] The series celebrated its 25th anniversary in January 2021, and the "Moonlight Sonata Murder Case" episode (11th episode of the series) was given the remake treatment as the first part of its celebration, which featured the latest staff and production techniques, and classical pianist Aimi Kobayashi performed Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.
[52] The Canadian channel YTV picked up the Case Closed series and broadcast 22 episodes between April 7, 2006, and September 2, 2006, before taking it off the air.
[57] In 2003, the first 104 episodes, as well as the first six movies were licensed by Funimation for distribution in North America, under the title Case Closed because of legal considerations.
[59][60][61] Case Closed debuted on Cartoon Network as part of their Adult Swim programming block on May 24, 2004;[62] no more than 50 episodes were licensed from Funimation due to low ratings.
In January 2016, 52 episodes of the anime appeared on Netflix, initially under its original title Detective Conan before changing to its English moniker Case Closed.
Entertainment has released English dubs of Case Closed films through Discotek Media, starting with the Episode One TV special on July 28, 2020.
[33] Two original video animations (OVA) series were produced by TMS Entertainment, Nippon Television, and Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation.
[96][97] The first nine episodes of the OVA series were later encapsulated into four DVD volumes titled Secret Files and were released between March 24, 2006, and April 9, 2010.
Currently, the majority of the games have only been released in Japan, though Nobilis has localized Case Closed: The Mirapolis Investigation for the PAL region.
[124] The first two specials aired in 2006 and 2007 featuring Shun Oguri portraying the teenage Jimmy Kudo and Tomoka Kurokawa as Rachel Moore.
[199] Nikkei Entertainment magazine published a list of top 50 manga creators by sales since January 2010, in its September 2011 issue; Gosho Aoyama, the author of Case Closed was ranked sixteenth, with 3,320,000 copies sold.
[202] In 2024, alongside Space Brothers, Case Closed won the grand prize of Rakuten Kobo's second E-book Award in the "Long Seller Comic" category.
[212] In the United States, Case Closed received praises from Mania.com's Eduardo M. Chavez and IGN's A. E. Sparrow for its stories—telling the mysteries and how they were unfolded by the investigations of Conan and gang.
Sparrow called the style of the series a mix of Scooby-Doo and Sherlock Holmes, while Chavez believed the manga had appeal to readers of all ages.
[215] ActiveAnime's reviewers commented on complex character design and the "spirit" that the series has, indicating that fans of serialized mystery shows would rather enjoy it.
[218] IGN's Chris Wyatt was positive to the manner the cases were set up, relating them to Agatha Christie's locked-room mysteries.
[219] In the United States, the dubbed series faced several negative reactions toward its changes to localize the content for international English-speaking audiences, mostly North American.
[220][221] The voice-overs proved to be a mixed bag for Carlo Santos, who reviewed the first DVD release of Case Closed for Anime News Network; he said that while the main characters sounded like "real people", the secondary ones "[came] off as caricatures".
[223] It respondents in an online poll for Japanese citizens in their mid-twenties voted Case Closed as one of the top three manga they wanted to continue running in publication.