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.

Thank you for reading.

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.

I don't give it a 10 because the 'enjoyment' isn't consistent through every shortie.

You get to see other characters and interactions and possibilities at Aoyama-sensei universe.

Some of this stories are related to Conan, some aren't. Some are Awesome, and some are just your average anime tale (but with his characteristic style).

My most favorite one was 'Play it again'. First because of the characters, and second because I'm an old soul myself, therefore, I miss the old days when samurai and knight values mattered, and no one thought those values were 'outdated', or 'toxic' or boring. That one story was worth the watch of the whole ... bunch.

The other ones vary from a 9 to a 6. But they are short, so you won't loose much by giving them a try.

I really loved this. It's a bag of mostly great things! If you're a Detective Conan and Yaiba/Gosho Aoyama fan, you should definitely watch this (but recommended to watch at 150 or more episodes). When I watched this, I also happened to realize that Gosho Aoyama seems to love writing romcom-like stories, and that many elements of Detective Conan were shaped from these stories.

My personal favorite was the first one in the collection; Wait For Me. It was one of the most beautiful and moving stories surrounding time travel that I have ever seen. Seriously, Gosho Aoyama is a god of romcom elements.

The Making of ... Detective Conan is also surprisingly good, and my second favorite; The Detective Boys (minus Haibara) are in the real world, where they enter the TMS Entertainment studio, believing that there are businessman attempting to kill Conan. However, the truth is, they're producing an episode of Detective Conan, and we get an entertaining, yet educational and short look at the main process. Unlike the episodes airing at the time that were animated in cels, the short seems to have been animated digitally.

The Wandering Red Butterfly and Ten Planets in the Night Sky are prequels to the Detective Conan anime; It stars Edogawa Conan/Shinichi Kudo's parents, Yusaku and Yukiko. The first one takes place before Conan was born and before the two got married, and the second one is during their marriage and Shinichi is a toddler. We are shown that Shinichi was closer to his mother and even takes off from her.

Detective George was my least favorite. It felt relatively slow, and was overall just alright, but seems to be an earlier prototype of Detective Conan.

Santa Claus in Summer was another really great romcom, and I really loved the characters in the story. Without spoiling anything, the boy is the only one who can save the world, so to figure out how he is granted any wish, one of which is meeting his favorite idol.

Definitely take the time to give these a watch, especially between Detective Conan episodes. It's really worth it.

These short stories won't convince you that Gosho Aoyama is some kind of master storyteller. They will definitely convince you that he is a seriously weird dude who would be writing seriously weird things if Detective Conan wasn't so popular and profitable. And, so, if you've been watching Detective Conan and want a break, this is a fine option. It's fun, first and foremost. Any Conan fan can check these out. They're not just for completionists.

The best thing about it for me was the character designs and general art style were still running on the 90s cel-animated Detective Conan aesthetic. I love the way Detective ... Conan looks at the very beginning, and this is a slight bump in quality above that, to make it suitable for a direct-to-VHS OVA special.

Most of the stories are fine-to-good. The first half are definitely the strongest, with the best gimmicks. I was hooked through the time machine one and the Christmas one had an interesting flavor. The interstitials about the Kudo parents from Detective Conan were fun, too. Who could say "no" to a Baby Conan story? The second half were not so good, especially as they leaned harder into not-quite ecchi territory that Aoyama is apparently not equipped to tread in. The kendo one was a snoozer that I watched at 2x speed. None of them are bad wastes of time, but some are stronger than others.