Gosho Aoyama's Collection of Short Stories

Simply a masterpiece! Delve into the mind of one the greatest mangaka artists of the late-80's to early-90's era, whilst taking pleasure in his eccentric universe and fantastic storytelling. While this short was released almost 16 years ago--as of writing this review--, the legacy of Aoyama's great works carries on. His distinctive art-style left many, to this day, pondering whether to count it as a welcomed gift to the animanga world, or as a defiant far cry from the industry-standard of "moe", which have made it susceptible to criticism. The specials follow 7 episodes, with the 7th being an episode that details the process of making Meitantei Conan.These shorts are excellent, and let me tell you why: Aoyama's universe is unchanging, unflinching, and perfectly in sync. Classical stories, classical characters, and heck, even classical voice-overs, in an intact universe, where you get to see amazing characters that live within Aoyama's world besides Conan and Ran, and how they live throughout the day. Aoyama's stories display to us how he has an excellent command on combining a realistic worldview, authentic Japanese culture, with (sometimes) quirky low-level fantasy and magic of Sakura trees turning old samurais into youthful kendō masters, genius children falling from grace, a ridiculously short detective that maintains a sharp image with a confident aura that surrounds him, and a crazy love story on the most special day in the most average man's life. These specials are short, and they're meant to be that way. These are normal characters in the Meitantei Conan universe that will probably never get anymore screen time, and that's only because their author opted for them to remain normal, yet, show us the most interesting day in their lives. The subtlety is what makes these specials so interesting. These characters will carry on their lives normally, but one thing for sure, is that Aoyama wanted us to take a glimpse of the most special and crazy day in their lives. Sanjuro will probably die of old age, living the rest of his life peacefully in rural Japan. And we will probably never know of what happens next, to the most awesome detective that is George and his new-found secretary, with their constant silly adventures. Keisuke will continue on with his life, but he will never forget that special day that made him fall in love with an idol. It's important to note that the specials also provide an entertaining look into Shinchi's parents, back when he was a small child. I believe this begs the question: do I need to watch Detective Conan to enjoy these specials? With the exclusion of the specials containing Shinchi's parents, the answer is absolutely not! These specials tell the short stories of characters within Aoyama's universe, and while they share the same world, it certainly won't affect the experience. Fans of Aoyama's works however, will certainly take a liking to this, as they crave more of his world outside of Conan and Kaito. In the end, why did I gave these specials a 10? Aside from the great stories, terrific characters, classical late-90's soundtrack, and exquisite voice-overs from seasoned veterans that voiced characters in the Meitantei Conan series, a comparative review could easily give this score over and over no matter how many times you look at it. In today's anime shows, we are constantly met with bland, cheap, or abusive stories. Just the other day I watched an anime short, and that pretty much gave me an idea of the industry's current state. The anime was about an otaku who married a normal girl, and while the premise was preparing for something very interesting, and even MAL listed its genre as seinen, it fell short right around the 2nd episode, where they added a shotacon filled with a deep brother-complex, fast forward to the 10th episode, and then you have an ensemble cast of weeaboos, "quirky" moe characters, absolutely no character development, no story progression, they just go to conventions and sell doujins, half the show was moe scenes. That's it. So if you ask me, in comparison to today's anime standards, does this deserve a perfect 10? Yes, yes it does. It's a complete and concise special that fills the gaps on every end, and certainly leaves you wanting for more. It's perfect. That would be my answer. Thank you for reading.