Aoyama Goushou Tanpenshuu

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.

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Aoyama Goshou is best-known for ‘Meitantei Conan’, a detective manga series that already spans over 17 years of serialization with more years to come. But his magnum opus didn’t come out of nothing – for years, Aoyama experimented with his drawing style and storytelling techniques in order to create a most successful combination. We can see that in Magic Kaito and Yaiba – but Goshou is also responsible for a set of short stories that he made during his first years as a mangaka. And here we have an adaptation of these short stories – ‘Aoyama Goshou Tanpenshuu’.

As the title suggests, it is a set of standalone different episodes that illustrate Aoyama’s work. The episodes vary in length considerably – from a 7-minute shorts (mostly ‘Detective Conan’-related) to 30-minute episodes with a complete storyline and no direct connection to DC. But even while watching episodes that have seemingly no relation to Conan, you can’t help noticing multiple similarities.

And that is, in my opinion, the most interesting thing about this title – we have an opportunity to see the creative process of mangaka, how various ideas were born in Aoyama’s head and later successfully implemented into DC. For example, we get to see a little, but at the same time adult detective in one of the short stories. The idea of a character waiting for his beloved one because of her mysterious disappearance (in DC, it’s the other way around) also originates from Aoyama’s earlier work and it’s also adapted here. The concept of suddenly becoming much younger can be found in one of the stories, too.

The same voice cast(only in different roles), soundtrack by Katsuo Ohno and easily recognizable Aoyama’s style turned into animation by TMS Entertainment – all these facts strongly suggest that it is a DC special, though most stories don’t feature Conan at all.

And so, the question arises – ‘Does this title have any value by itself?’ My answer is – yes, but not too much. The stories themselves are nice and well-made (one is even based on an award-winning one shot), but that’s all – I wouldn’t call them outstanding. You still may like it neverthealess, even if you are not familiar with Aoyama’s works.

But in order to fully enjoy ‘Aoyama Goshou Tanpenshuu’, you must at least know what DC is about – simply to understand all the connections between them. This is, in my opinion, how a special should be done – considerably long, well-drawn, with a meaningful story that adds something to the main title (not the 2-minute flash animations that don’t have anything except fanservice and bad attempts at humor). Others(not familiar with DC) may not enjoy it much, but this title can also be seen as a good DC introduction – imagine ‘Aoyama Goshou Tanpenshuu’ in a more detective-like manner and you will find out if DC is for you or not.

Overall, it’s an excellent special, a true present to DC fans. If you consider yourself to be one and by any chance missed this title, watch it as soon as you can. And if you do, you will see the world DC universe came from – the universe, for the creation of which many detective fans will always be grateful to Aoyama-sensei.

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TL;DR Some interesting concepts. A refreshing break from Detective Conan

Gosho Aoyama's short stories collection is a collection of, well, short stories. There are seven stories in all, each of various length. Some runs for the full episode length while others run much shorter. Each of the stories are self-contained, although I like the fact that some of the stories are loosely connected in some ways.

The stories are set in the Detective Conan world, but are in no way connected to any of its characters. One story features a tiny-size detective, another story features an old man magically becomes young again. They are in the realm of fantasy, sure, but they work surprisingly well. Just do not expect to have the same quality as Aoyama's more famous work, Detective Conan. Speaking of which, some of the stories features Conan's parents, which is somewhat refreshing, because we don't see much of them in Detective Conan.

If you are looking for murder mystery like those in Detective Conan, you should watch Detective Conan instead. The short stories are nothing like DC. They are light hearted, sometimes out of this world, and project a very creative and imaginary scenario to the viewers. Some of the 'concept' from the stories work its way into the DC world.

Throughout the stories, you might notice some cameo appearance by the cast of Detective Conan. It was fun spotting Agasa or Mori or even Ran. As the anime is done in the last century, the artwork is what you would expect from that era. Art style are very similar to Detective Conan, with its distinctive Aoyama look and feel. Some of the voice actors from Detective Conan can be clearly identified in these stories. If you have watched Detective Conan for any considerable of time, you can easily tell the voice actors in these stories.

As a whole, the short stories are a break from Detective Conan. If you are open to small people, time travel and the likes, have a go at this. It is not a top quality show, but it is enjoyable to watch nonetheless.

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