Detective Conan Movie 13: The Raven Chaser

The High anticipated Conan Movie 13 is finally out on DVD and already subbed on the interweb.

First of all : After the biggest letdown movies nr. 10 and 11 - EVER - Conan finally came back with movies 12 and 13.
Nr 12 was already great in my opinion and i didn't think that the 13th would be as great. Boy was I wrong.
As many of you already know the Black Organization makes it move yet again in this movie, since we didn't get to see them at all since the 5th their impact is as huge as to be expected from an undercover-mafia-like-all-in-black-clothes-organization.

The Story : ... 10
Even before the actual story begins, the movie already gets you psyched right from the beginning. I got hooked in less than a minute. I couldn't even eat my popcorn properly and my drink was untouched ever since the beginning.

We have the usual twists, turnarounds in this story. I for my part liked the setup of the cases. Mysterious messages via Mahjong tiles, serial murder, love struck suspect. You got something for everyone.

The action comes up at the end to heighten the suspense and to mark the peak of the mountain (as in every Conan Movie) but nevertheless that's why i actually watch the movies. Conan-Suspense + Action = Pure Awesomeness

The Art : 9
The Art could have been better. Although i didn't get the chance to watch the Blue-Ray version yet. I'm going to make up for it and watch it later on and edit this Review.
Characters look as good as always and the action scenes sure got some smooth visual effects. (Loved the explosion near the end though :) )
All in all, the Art isn't much better than the art of the Anime in my opinion, but it has it's appeals.
But Meitantei Conan has never been known as the Hulk of Animation.

The Sound : 7
The Sound gets only 7 points from me. I love the Soundtrack of Conan very much. Great Tracks out there, but i think the producers could've made a far better job with usage of the songs.
What struck me most was that in the final scenes there were some parts where absolutely no background music was playing, even though it could've underlined the whole situation easily.
I for my part didn't feel quite comfortable with this fact, since the music could not support the visuals effectively.
When watching the movie you won't actually notice it except you concentrate on it. (which i did since i love the Soundtrack so much ;))

The Characters : 10
10 points, nothing much to say.
All big characters were involved.
Ran Mori finally gets something to do (since she has been degraded to a little crybaby in the Anime recently ... [Hey! I like her too, but give her some more attention GOSHO !])
Detective Boys make their appearence once again. (i am a little fed up by these little guys, instead of getting the audience harassed by them give some other character more airtime !)

and the most amazing thing : All Prefecturial Inspectors make their debut as a whole ! With "all" i mean ALL of them.

Enjoyment : 10
Big Time 10 points. Even though the music got me a little off in the final scenes it was nothing compared to the whole movie. Suspense was great. The whole story was built up neatly. It was fun as hell to watch this movie.
Without a doubt : MyTop 3 Conan Movies have to be rearranged, the 6th just got replaced by the 13th !

I Recommend this movie to everyone out there.
This movie is not only for die hard conan fans, but also for the "i-watch-random-episodes" and "i-only-watch-story-arcs"- types of viewers.
Enjoy this movie !

Side Note : I also recommend watching the Magic File 3. It will get you into the right mood and willl explain some minor details and get you familiar with the Mahjong plot.

So far your PSJ

Often, I am not a fan of movies with original stories based off of anime. They often are ridiculous and have some of the most pathetic and annoying characters introduced, for some storyline that the anime would never go near thanks to it's horrible cliches and terrible attempts to make you care about the characters introduced in the movies.

Detective Conan is a very popular shonen anime, and I had guessed before knowing there were movies based off of it that there were movies based off of it. However, unlike most anime, some of the movies have actually been pretty awesome. Perhaps it's because this anime ... doesn't have magic and avoids stories about annoying princesses that are protected by the protagonists and stuff like that. Or maybe because they are basically one big case in each movie, except with more explosions than a typical Conan case. (although I admit I haven't seen movies 8-11, which I've heard weren't that great).

Story: This story is very similar to some of the other Conan movies in that there are many people in danger and many people die because of a large case that needs to be solved. The other movies had other parts of the plot that were more relevent to the actual characters but this takes it to a new level. The Black Organization, the powerful, mysterious organization Conan has been trying to stop for a long time, ends up involved in this case.

Now, something I really hated about the 5th Conan movie is that the Black Organization was barely even seen in the movie and that the entire thing, at least a times, felt like an excuse for Conan to be an explosion-filled, dangerous situation. This movie avoided both. With the exception of the end, the movie felt very similar to Black Organization cases in the anime. They are unexpectedly involved in this, and we slowly but surely learn why. Of course, a little more than half way through the movie and it seems to avoid anything Black Organization related a bit too much, and quite honestly, the case itself, while certainly good, gets a bit boring (especially compared to the Organization, which I am always find entertaining). The ending is great, although I admit it was kinda silly.

Another thing worth mentioning is the amazing continuity. Sometimes people who make a story for an anime that isn't based off of the manga can do a horrible job at remembering why people liked it in the first place. One of the many reasons I enjoy Conan is the amazing use of continuity and how so many of the cases are at least briefly mentioned eventually. I can think of no less than 10 references to older cases, and all of them are awesome to anyone who actually remembers those cases (and one of those references was only in the manga at that point).

Art: I don't have much an opinion of the art for this anime, but I did really enjoy the art I guess. It looked better than normal anime episodes since this is a movie and since the anime art works best when the setting isn't a normal, sunny day, the parts when it was night or evening were pretty great. But other than that...I thought it was really good. That's all.

Sound: Like the anime, the voice acting was great. I love all of the voice acting and it was nice to hear Kamiya Akira as Kogoro one more time (this was the last thing translated before we got Kogoro's new voice actor). Not much else to say, the voice acting for all of the characters is always amazing. Especially the Black Organization members. When they talk, I almost automatically think that something awesome is going to happen because of their voice acting.

The music is...ok. There was some good music but way too often they played this annoying song in the background that, according to the official soundtrack I heard, was actually like 30 very slight variations of the same song. It was not enough to ruin anything in the movie but it was still very annoying.

Character: I should point out that I think that about 95 percent of the recurring characters in this anime are really awesome. But there was more than the usual characters in this movie. In the anime, while Megure, Takagi and others are in many of the cases since they are in that area, there are a number of other inspectors and detectives that have appeared when they have gone to other prefectures. Almost all of them appeared and the interaction between them was amazing to most Conan fans. Gunma's idiot Yamamura interacting with the recently introduced serious, and badass Nagato Inspector, Yamato was hilarious because of how different their personalities are. Even better was the amazing "deduction" Kogoro did later in the movie and how his two fanboys, the loud but fun Sango Yokomizo and Yamamura reacted to it made me laugh. The continuity also helped and the characters felt much more in character than I would expect (not that I care for the movies as long as they aren't absurdly out of character). However, something was wrong with Gin. He seemed way too happy. Not even in typical "Gin is going to kill someone" happy that I would expect, but more of a bizarre happy. And some of the things in the ending were kinda silly.

Enjoyment: I enjoyed this movie. Most other Conan fans probably will too. I think others can enjoy it as another random movie instead of actually watching the entire series, but a lot of the things in the movie make me think that even Conan fans who never pay attention to anything that isn't in the manga would enjoy the interaction between characters and the amazing continuity.

Overall: 9

A close acquaintance of mine once asked me "what, in my opinion, is the quintessential Detective Conan movie?". For some time, I thought that all a movie needed to be good was to have good pacing, clear focus, and an incentive to see things to the end. While those elements are necessary for a movie to be "good", what does it mean for a movie to be a "good Detective Conan movie"? In my mind, that kind of movie must embody everything Detective Conan is about; A brilliant detective robbed of his adult body that must solve murder cases with the police in order to ... bring the organization responsible to justice. In my journey to review each and every one of these movies, Detective Conan: The Raven Chaser not only fulfills the requirements to be a great movie overall, but also the best Detective Conan movie so far.

One of the best things this movie is able to do is juggle a massive cast of characters and make each and every one of them important. Conan isn't the only star of this film; we have Ran, Kogoro, the Detective Boys, Megure and the police force, and the Black Organization (not to mention the film's original characters). Despite the cast being massive, each and every person in this movie has a purpose that is essential to the resolution of the story. In most movies with a large cast, they often run the risk of either overstaying their welcome or just blend in with the background. In entire run time of this movie, not once did I experience that kind of blunder. This is only one of the several things this movie gets right.

Another thing that this movie gets right is its story. While the Black Organization is present in this film, the main focus for Conan (and for them as well) is to find the culprit responsible for the serial murders taking place all over Japan. With Conan's identity at stake, its a race against the clock to find the culprit before they do. This probably has to be one of the best constructed cases in the movies so far. The majhong tiles and the phrase "Tanabata... Kyo.." have more meaning behind them than one might think. This movie has so many layers that it is literary a treat to re-watch it over and over again. Along with the three elements I mentioned above, Raven Chaser is also an overall great movie.

As much as I love this movie, I will concede to it not being perfect. What happens to the Organization in the end is a bit unsatisfying, the reasoning for the true culprit is a bit of a stretch, one of the key plot points does reference a spoiler in the main series, and while the art style is great, it does utilize some pretty obvious CGI in a few spots. Not enough to ruin the film, but worth mentioning.

This movie is so good that the only bad thing about it is that every other movie after it always falls short because of it (all have tried, but none prevailed). Despite that, I'm truly happy that a movie like this exists. If anyone were to ask me what the quintessential Detective Conan movie is, I would point them to Raven Chaser any day of the week.