Title: 工藤新一への挑戦状 Kudō Shinichi e no Chōsenjō
English Title: Challenge to Kudō Shinichi
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Year: 2011
Episode: 13
Cast:
- 溝端淳平 Mizobata Junpei
- 忽那汐里 Kutsuna Shiori
- 陣内孝則 Jinnai Takanori
- 大塚寧々 Otsuka Nene
- 土屋裕一 Tsuchiya Yuichi
- 上野なつひ Ueno Natsuhi
- 秋元才加 Akimoto Sayaka
SYNOPSIS
Kudō Shinichi is a famous high school student detective. He witnessed some men in black engage in a suspicious deal and one of those men made Shinichi take a poison known as APT4869. Shinichi later woke up as an elementary school boy and he adopted the identity of Edogawa Conan, a genius child who solves crimes.
The drama takes place before Shinichi became Conan. Shinichi, his childhood friend Mōri Ran, and Ran's father Mōri Kogorō wake up trapped in a white cubical cell called the ‘white room’. They have no recollection whatsoever of how they arrived there and why someone is keeping them there.
Shinichi finds a letter from a fan of his detective work, who wrote that the white room is a present for him. The white room contains a panel device that shows particular information and some blank boxes, where Shinichi must enter a keyword related to the presented information that is connected to a particular case he has worked on.
REVIEW
Kudō Shinichi e no Chōsenjō has an overall mystery of why Kudō Shinichi, his childhood friend Mōri Ran, and Ran's father Mōri Kogorō are trapped in the so-called white room. It is a great narrative device because then, the drama can tackle cases that occurred at different times and at different places without having to tie all of these cases together, such as which cases occurred after which cases, etc.
Unfortunately for me, I was so preoccupied with the overarching mystery that I couldn't really pay attention to the cases. I'm really curious who is behind the white room and what was his motive; I mean, what does he want to convey to Shinichi through the cases that Shinichi has worked on?
The man behind the white room is a medical examiner whose life was ruined when he made a false evaluation report in a crime and Shinichi pointed out his mistake. It's quite fascinating how he attributed his failings to another person, rather than recognize that he was careless at doing his work.
The medical examiner stated how he encountered Shinichi once and Shinichi didn't even remember him, whereas he couldn't ever forget Shinichi and how Shinichi destroyed his career prospects. Sometimes life is interesting like that, people sometimes encounter other people and they leave a mark whether they are aware of it or not, whereas for those individuals, they couldn't even remember anything related to the given encounter.
I don't like Ran's father as a character; he is an inefficient detective and his scenes in the drama are mostly for comic relief but once in a while, he is given awesome and insightful dialogues.
Mōri Kogorō: I don't want to understand a criminal's feelings. But there is one thing I do understand. For those people who exert themselves respectably, God is certainly preparing a reward for them. We don't know when that will come. No one knows that! That is life's practical joke.
Anyway, I liked how this production explicitly showed that Shinichi has special feelings for Ran, the same way that she has romantic feelings for him. It's satisfying to know that there's really something going on between them even though they are not officially dating each other, rather than just make presumptions.
I always get confused when I watch Meitantei Conan productions like this one because I tend to think in a linear way and so, I always try to figure out when these cases occurred in Shinichi's life. I mean, most of these cases happened before Shinichi became Edogawa Conan but I don't know which cases came before which cases. It may be futile to think about the timeline but I can't help it, really.
Related:
工藤新一への挑戦状 ～怪鳥伝説の謎～ Kudō Shinichi e no Chōsenjō ～Kaichō Densetsu no Nazo～
工藤新一京都新撰組殺人事件 Kudō Shinichi Kyoto Shinsengumi Satsujin Jiken
Alike:
名探偵コナン- 工藤新一への挑戦状 Meitantei Conan: Kudō Shinichi he no Chōsenjō
工藤新一の復活！~黒の組織との対決 Kudō Shinichi no Fukkatsu! Kuro no Soshiki to no Taiketsu
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工藤新一への挑戦状 Kudō Shinichi e no Chōsenjō
