Fans are impatient because "Conan is still in first grade after 30 years"
Detective Conan comics have lasted for 30 years, with no final boss yet, making readers wait impatiently for the secret in the work to be revealed.
In the poll: "Comic I want to know the ending of most before I die" by the siteManga Plusperform,Detective Conanranked first, with 31% of the vote. Voters were mainly between the ages of 30 and 39, according toThe News Lens,voting resultsnot representative of the entire audience of the series, but reflects readers' impatience with the progress of the work.
The first volume was released in 1994, when the artist Gosho Aoyama was 31 years old. The story revolves around high school student Shinichi Kudo, who turns into an elementary school student after taking the shrinking drug APTX4869 from the mysterious black organization. In the form of elementary school student Conan, Shinichi Kudo solves one case after another, while searching for clues about the black organization. Conan longs to save himself, and return to his original form, for Ran - the classmate he loves.
The first readers ofDetective Conannow in his 30s, having gone through important stages of life and possibly becoming a father or mother. As for Edogawa Conan, as of the latest volume released in March, he is still a student in class 1B of Teitan Elementary School.
On comic forums, some readers joked: "Conan is the longest-repeated student in the world", some people were no longer patient enough to wait: "The plot gradually became cumbersome, the timeline was illogical and rambling", "Some cases with extremely funny and ridiculous motives, like writing to meet deadlines", "The fact that the artist tried to make money from this golden goose ended up making readers feel bad". Many people said they stopped reading Conan because the story dragged on for years and months, the author evoked too many mysteries but left them unsolved, and the main axis of the story became increasingly confusing.
Although many of the original readers have dropped out of the series, it continues to attract a new audience of teenagers. According to Deved, a longtime reader of the series,Detective Conan -Story styles change over time to meet new tastes. Not simply focusing on solving crimes, stories open up new characters, ambiguous love lines, and romantic elements. Deved believes that this is understandable, because authors and publishers also need to change so that more people pay attention to their work, and that change cannot please everyone.
In Vietnam, Kim Dong Publishing House has published Detective Conan since 1995. Mr. Dang Cao Cuong - head of the Comic book editorial board of the Publishing House - said that the circulation of each volume is 200,000 copies, then reprinted about 10,000 copies per volume. The main target readers are teenagers, from 14 years old, followed by adult readers, 34 years old and under.
According to him, Conan holds its place in the manga world thanks to the author's creation of an attractive character system, each character has its own style, attracting its own fan base. The story still has many mysteries, keeping the audience waiting for new developments to know the truth. In addition, the animated film adapted from the story has been released annually for the past 27 years, creating a fever at the box office, thereby reaching more audiences, making the fan community stronger. The work ensures the reasonableness and necessity of a detective story.
AboveNHK, artist Gosho Aoyama said the secret to Conan's longevity for decades is not to draw and write according to his own ideas, but to combine the trends and thoughts of readers. He called it a "balance" between the creator and the recipient. The artist feels that making Conan is increasingly difficult, especially the stage of setting up the case scene and the perpetrator's methods. That is why the author and assistant have to add many elements unrelated to the main axis of the story. Gosho Aoyama has no intention of putting down his pen.
Conan has become one of the symbols of Japanese culture, welcomed by audiences in many other countries. The airport of Tottori Prefecture - the hometown of Gosho Aoyama - was originally called Tottori Airport, but in 2014, it was changed to Tottori Sand Dunes Conan Airport. Conan's image is everywhere in Japan's least populated prefecture. When getting off the plane, passengers can see Conan and Ran warmly welcoming them at the customs gate. This prefecture also opens many Conan-themed tours, especially the "Conan village" in Hokuei town - where the author grew up.
Tottori Prefecture also has the Conan Museum, which displays Gosho Aoyama's manuscripts and manga-related items. Conan is also used as the name of a bus stop, a road, and a bridge here. In 2019, the Conan Museum attracted 200,000 visitors from within and outside Japan, with a peak of 4,000 visitors per day.