Meitantei Conan Movie 16: 11-ninme no Striker

I'll admit, when I saw that this movie was about soccer, I kind of knew going in that I wouldn't exactly be a fan. But really, that's not even the movies main problems. Does Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker hold up?

Story (5/10): When a mysterious bomb threat is issued, it appears to be targeting the J-League, leaving a mystery in the hands of our little Great Detective: why target soccer, who is this bomber, and what does a seemingly unrelated incident have to do with it?

I hope you like soccer and the J-League, cause booooy are they prominent here. My limited knowledge of soccer helped ... me get most of what was being said, but man there is just too much worshiping of the J-League here. There are a (I'm assuming) slew of actual soccer stars here, and they just completely flew over my head. Like to the point where I said "OK movie I get it, J-League is the bestest, just stop!".

But honestly? A lot of this movie just seems tacked on. While the mystery itself and the execution of the bomb threats is actually pretty entertaining, the rest of the story just seems rather boring. I really can't go into more without hitting spoilers, but a lot of the movie feels way too artificially structured and has no real natural flow to it. It's just average at best.

Art (8/10): Here is where the movie shines, since the soccer matches were really well animated. The whole movie actually looks really good, with action sequences being the highlight. Other than that it just looks good and holds the trend of the movies having better art than the series.

Sound (7/10): It's a Detective Conan movie. It plays the same music as always. And it's good. (Help, I'm running out of lines to talk about the music. :V)

Character (5/10): This movie just kind of juggles characters around and doesn't use them well at all. Conan, Ai, Professor Agasa, and the police characters come out OK, but everyone else is just...there, I guess.

The movie cast is also stupidly huge (seriously). There are a ton of soccer player characters, and I'm not really sure why we needed to spend time with only 2 of them for like 4 minutes at most. I guess it was to help set up the climax, but it's really a waste. Plus half of the initial suspects just poof away after the midway point, so they were basically just there to be red herrings. (And while that's normally forgivable and such, the movie tries to hold onto them far longer than needed.)

The final culprit is also supremely whiny and while his motivation would kind of drive a person to the notion of a personal attack, I'm not sure to it makes sense in the scale of the story. Also they start going crazy at the end for...reasons? I dunno, everyone here just felt weak (and funnily enough, sort of mirror the last movies cast. Huh.)

(Also the Detective Boys are at their most annoying, since apparently the story really needed them to throw a soccer ball at Conan in the most contrived way possible, along with not listening to anyone (as usual).)

Enjoyment (5/10): I gotta be honest. This movie was boring. All the random soccer people showing up was almost overwhelming and everything just feeling stilted made this not fun to sit through. I will give the movie credit that beginning at the first bombing action scene and going to prior to the last confrontation, it was fairly fun. But the beginning and final climax were just not as fulfilling.

The end gag about Rans' story was also just dumb. Come on show, you've done better.

In the end, Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker was a somewhat average movie, though part of that relies on how much you like the movie cast and all the J-League praising. (Oddly enough the soccer explanations are actually pretty interesting.) The action scenes are really fun and the mystery engaging, but the actual cast is fairly boring and the payoff is kind of unsatisfying. I would only recommend it to the DC fans to just watch it to get out of the way if you want to watch all the movies, but otherwise I'm very hesitant to recommend it.

5/10 = average at best, boring as hell at worst; hope you like the J-League, cause it's just nonstop praise for them, though the soccer aspect is actually pretty interesting; mystery is fun, but the characters are boring; DC faithful might be bored, or at least I was;

For a while, I've always considered this film to be extremely underrated. Despite what many fans will lead you to believe, Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker is a solid movie with more good points than bad. In my review, I'll do my best to give my reasons for why I consider this movie to be a good movie.

One of the first complaints has to do with soccer being a prominent theme, which people claim comes across as shallow pandering. While it's true that this movie does heavily feature Japanese Soccer League players, what people forget is that Conan is a big soccer fan. It'd be ... like bashing Phantom of Baker Street just because it panders too much to Sherlock fans. Even if the movie was J-league fan service, that doesn't change the fact that the movie still makes use of the soccer themes and characters in the main story.

Another complaint has to do with how this movie copies the story of another movie in the series, specifically the Time-Bombed Skyscraper. While that movie is fun, I did think that there were some places it could improve on. For instance, the lack of mystery surrounding the main culprit. Here, they at least tried to complicate things with extra suspects and other elements to help engage the audience in figuring out whodunit. The soccer references, refined art style and epic cinematography help give it its own unique shine while polishing out the kinks in the original framework.

In terms of legitimate criticism, there are some things I do consider to be slight nitpicks. While the music is serviceable, it can sometimes sound very "Rugrats-like", with the exception of the song that plays when everything explodes (that song is awesome). The resolution at the end is very cheesy, but it's still really satisfying ("the eleventh striker was you after all"). While the J-league does have a purpose in the main plot, it would've been nice to see them after the criminal was caught. Would've given them some nice closure, ya know?

Overall, this movie is too good to be getting all of this undeserved flak. A good Detective Conan movie doesn't need Kaito Kid or the Black Organization to be good (that in itself is its own form of pandering). As long as the movie stays true to what Detective Conan is, it doesn't matter how much soccer fan service there is. Of all the movies that I've reviewed so far, Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker is, indeed, faithful to what Detective Conan is.

This Conan movie brought to you by J-League! Play Soccer kids!
In this movie Mouri Kogorou murders a small child in drunken confusion. I shit you not. He stops an ambulance and that may have lead to the death of a small child. Which is kind of important to the plot, but HE certainly doesn't dwell upon it.
This is also the movie where Conan messes up all over the place and gets sloppy. I don't know if they were trying to be a little more realistic, but he seems to have trouble making the jumps and perfect landings. As such the ending takes a bit more ... time to end how you expect it to end... with Conan kicking a soccer ball into something to stop the timer. If you couldn't guess that's what was going to happen, you must be new here.

Overall this movie is about soccer. It's officially sponsored by J-League, whose team members actually show up in the movie. The whole plot is pretty much copy pasted from the previous. We have bombs going to go off and Conan has to stop it. Only this time it's soccer themed. Really it's getting boring. I kind of remember Conan movies having a bit more mystery and intrigue. Also it seems some of the hints they give are kind fo disjointed as they don't give you the other clues and have you put them together.

It's hinted the next movie has a cruise ship in it. I can only hope it hasn't been rigged up with bombs that Conan has to stop.

Story, 8 : Good overall, I actually really enjoyed the soccer aspect despite not being a soccer fan or a sports fan in general, it was fun seeing Conan genuinely enjoy something and because various soccer players have showed up in the main series they didn't feel out of place, I even would've liked to see more of some of them, like Sanada after the case had been dealt with. The only real gripe I had was that the main case seemed a tad extreme for the criminal to have successfully carried out anything after the police figured out his likely targets but ... what's a Detective Conan movie without some suspension of disbelief?

Art, 8 : ? I don't really know what to put for this, the art is mostly normal Conan level but the action scenes are really good in this movie.

Sound, 9 : I also don't know what to put here, it's usual Conan style, I love it.

Character, 7 : As some people said, it's basically just the normal main cast that shine, but personally that doesn't bother me, I guess I would've like to see more about the criminal's side of things before basically the end, but it was a pretty decent misdirect; and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the small development for Sanada.

Enjoyment, 10 : The tone of the movie just worked well for me, it felt more simple because it takes place close to home instead of them going on some trip like so many other movies, but the action was cool and fun to rewatch, and I'm a sucker for Conan just going off and getting stuff done by himself without all the dramatics of everyone worrying over him and this movie had a lot of that. I actually was kind of iffy on it when I first watched it but after rewatching several times I feel like I enjoy it more each time.

Overall, a really solid movie, I don't think any prior knowledge of soccer is important to enjoying or understanding this movie, though if you REALLY dislike soccer this might not be the movie for you. it doesn't really have much of the annoying "Ran crying over Shinichi/Conan" type moments (I'm not a Ran hater but that's been overused in the movies, especially considering the movies aren't canon) it does have dramatic moments but not the slow despairing kind, idk how to explain it.

WELL, this is the second Movie, i have watched on the same day as the Detective Conan Quarter of Silence. This Movie was actually different. At first, yes it had like the previous movie this Action Movie Vibe and there really was no less Action. But unlike in other films, the Action here lets the viewer to involve themselves. What i mean is the background why all of events are happening are quite touching and also forces the viewer to involve himself emotionally into the Action.
As we all know the main Character Conan is a big Fan of Soccer so no surprise that in ... this Movie the case resolves Football. I was really able to enjoy this movie in a different Movie, like i already mentioned...
Even with all the Action happening, me as the viewer, i was able to understand more how all character feel themselves. What are their reasons for doing something and so on.
The greatest thing, for me was, the soccer Match scenes, they were so lively, that it made me desire, that football matches in real life would be such and if possible, be done from the same Angle, not from Above like it is usual.
And another Thing, every scene made me to watch the movie without blinking, i was so into it, wondering what is gonna happen next further most of the times i was surprised, didn't see that coming.
To finish up, i really recommend every Detective Conan Fan to watch this movie, you will like it. I know, cause i do...
And i am also sure i am gonna re-watch this movie a few more times in the Future.