Tonight, we'll be showing another (random) episode from the long-running TV series, Meitantei Conan (Detective Conan). Conan is easily one of the most popular manga/anime acts of recent years in Japan. The manga on which the anime is based appears in the popular magazine Weekly Shonen Sunday (which is also home to artists like Takahashi Rumiko, Adachi Mitsuru, and Yuuki Masami) and is drawn by Aoyama Gosho (who has drawn Yaiba!, another story whose main characters are a little kid and an older girl).

The manga has completed 19 compiled volumes and 5 "special" volumes drawn by Aoyama's assistants. Meanwhile, the anime has hit 100-plus episodes and continues to be shown every Monday night at 7:30PM in Japan. There are also two animated movies -- Tokei Jikaku no Matenrou (Countdown on a Skyscraper) and Jyuuyonbanme no Taagetto (The Fourteenth Target). The latter opened in theaters earlier this year.

For how much longer this series will steamroll on is anyone's guess. And while the inability of Ran and the others to discover Edogawa Conan's real identity as genius detective Kudo Shinichi continues to look rather stupid, this show has plenty of its own "charm" points. The attractive artwork is par excellence for a TV show, and the soundtrack is pretty good on its own, too. The direction is crisp, and the stories continue to be engaging on the whole. The series may be a bit episodic, cases followed by more cases, but it does give room for character interplay and development. You even can't help but to like Ran's father, the totally hopeless moron whose voice by Kamiya Akira you might recognize if you've seen any City Hunter, Maison Ikkoku, or Yawara!.

Here's some trivia. Another extremely popular series in Japan right now is Young Kindaichi's Case File, also a crime/mystery-based show about a young brilliant high-school detective. Sounds familiar? ^_^;