Detective Conan is the Batman of Anime.

[MithrandirOlorin]

In more ways then one, if indeed we consider Goku the Superman of Anime and Sailor Moon the Wonder Woman.

In Japan Detective Conan is just as all consuming and ubiquitous a franchise are those shows and Pokémon. Every show I'm inclined to compare to Batman is some similar ways are fairly popular but not one of the goliaths of the industry.

I'm qualified to say this because of my unique Nerd history. Batman is my oldest fandom, many of the oldest memories I have are of watching Batman shows and movies and playing around as Batman characters with my brother, and I spent the late 2000s and Tweens calling The Dark Knight the greatest film of all time and yes I also read lots of actual comics. Then I got into Anime late in life but quickly felt like it was everything I'd been looking for and needed only a few years for it to take over my self identity.

Then this year I started watching Detective Conan and have increasingly come to realize it combines nearly everything I loved about Batman with much of what I love about Anime in an unbelievably perfect symmetry.

In general I don't think there's many other Anime that do the double life thing as similarly to Western Superhero Comics as Detective Conan, with the Teen Drama stuff making Spiderman perhaps just as valid a comparison. It's technically a factor in Magical Girls shows but tends to quickly not actually matter much, in shows like Code Geass being let a more alt history setting makes to begin function differently.

I also remember one of the fun Memes of being a Batman fans in the 00s was claiming Batman can beat anyone because he's "always prepared" or something like that. Conan is the Anime character who in my view has earned the same hype, not from being "always prepared" but from being able to use quick thinking to deal with what he was unprepared for, which in truth is more how good Batman stories work as well.

But some of what makes Conan like Batman is stuff film only Bat Fans haven't really seen yet. The Batman was hyped as being a Batman movie that's finally a detective movie, but it's more Film Noir/Hardboiled Detective. In the Comics Batman can also be a Sherlock Holmes style detective who solves puzzles and defeats his adversaries by outsmarting them. Detective Conan becomes like Batman by accident because of how he combines inspiration from the same sources Batman did.

I increasingly don't think it's a coincidence that Detective Conan has the same initials as the Comic Book anthology series Batman debuted in and which became the namesake of his publisher.

He's even done that disappearing act a few times.

I guess the only thing missing is that there isn't as diverse a Rouges Gallery of recurring villains, just the Black Organization and Kaito Kid who's not really a villain at all.

But the real core reason is that in Anime only Detective Conan has a similar relationship with the No Kill rule, believe it or not even Magical Girls don't follow it as consistently. It is fairly rare for it to really be that much of an issue in an episode, but when it is it is, in 649 (the middle episode of a 3 parter) Conan prolongs a crisis endangering his family because of his insistence on not killing the criminal. It was also a big deal in Movie 24.

Episode 119 (126 of the old Funimation localization and Dub) is a filler episode that I'm often inclined to recommend to be a good first impression of the franchise for Western Comic Book fans. On multiple levels I think it's an episode Linkara would love, I hope his Patreons eventually get him to watch it like they have a few Tokusatsu shows. And SFDebris may like it as well.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2 ... anime.html

[stryke]

I'm amused that my response from reading the title was 'of course, might as well also say that Goku is the Superman of anime' and fair enough you already covered that in the first line of the thread.

Going outside of comics would you consider Lupin to be the James Bond of anime?

[MithrandirOlorin]

I'm amused that my response from reading the title was 'of course, might as well also say that Goku is the Superman of anime' and fair enough you already covered that in the first line of the thread.

Going outside of comics would you consider Lupin to be the James Bond of anime?

We're not the first think it, the comparison is made constantly.

Perhaps a little bit, but he's also Indiana Jones.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Now that I've seen it i have to mention that the refusal to Kill comes up again in movie 25.

[BBally81]

Funny you would mention the Batman comparison as the author Gosho Aoyama confirmed that Conan's use of the glasses to hide his identity is inspired by the Clark Kent identity.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Funny you would mention the Batman comparison as the author Gosho Aoyama confirmed that Conan's use of the glasses to hide his identity is inspired by the Clark Kent identity.

Yeah and the episodes where Ran actually suspects the truth remind me of Lois Lane in Superman II. But overall the show is more Batman like.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Did I forget to mention that the first Detective Conan movie has a "somedays you just can't get rid of a Bomb" sequence? It looks like I did.