If you like detective stories as much as I do, then you'll really like watching Detective Conan. To me, it's like a combination of James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and Encyclopedia Brown (a series of children's books).

Kudo Shinichi is a high school detective. One night, he was chasing two men in black clothing, when they knocked him unconscious and gave him a mysterious poison that had never been subjected to human testing. An hour later, he found that his body had shrunk to that of an elementary school child. Meanwhile, his physical capabilities were severely decreased and he had no idea what the mysterious poison was. So he went to his scientist friend, Dr. Akasa, for help.

This brilliant and athletic high school detective adopts the name Edogawa Conan and becomes buddies with three children who are always looking for an adventure. Shinichi is supposedly away working on a case, and his parents are always abroad, so he lives at his female friend Ran's house. Ran's father is a lazy mediocre private detective, and Ran becomes Conan's babysitter. (Ran and Shinichi have feelings for each other, by the way. You know there has to be some romantic relationship here... ) Ran is a really cool character because she stands up for herself. She's also an expert at karate.

Doctor Akasa is like that scientist who creates the neat gadgets for James Bond. In this episode, Mouri Ran, her father, and Conan are riding on the Shinkansen train, when Conan finds out that there's a bomb on board. The new addition to Conan's collection of gadgets is a pair of sneakers which will give Conan a super kicking ability. Shinichi is an excellent soccer player. Conan/Shinichi is like Encyclopedia Brown and Sherlock Holmes in that he has an incredible memory and a great eye for details.

While Conan solves all these mysteries, he's also hoping to find those two strange guys and the antidote to the poison. Detective Conan is a very fun anime series. It's light and intriguing, and over 100 episodes has been shown in Japan. (I have only seen less than 10 because they're really hard to find, but I loved every single episode.) So don't miss "The Case of the Big Shinkansen Explosion"!!!