Special Post: Interview with Aoyama Gosho 2013 about New Conan Movie

First, the original Japanese version of the interview can be found here.

http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/A0003661

This is an interview of Aoyama Gosho (creator of Detective Conan) and Shibasaki Kou (Actress, singer, and voice actress of a character in the new Detective Conan Movie)which was posted by Cinema Today.


The 17th installment of the Detective Conan movie series is called "Detective Conan: Private Eye in the Distant Sea" and the trailers can be seen here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJHSR2pPS7k

 Data Collecting: Koyama Aki  Photo: Takano Hiromi  Translation: Richie Golden


With this film involving entire cooperation of the Maritime Self-Defense Forces things get really intense. There is a special guest performance this time by Shibasaki Kou who has read Conan since she was a student. As a mysterious female member of the defense force, Fuji Nanami is played as a cool character. Her magnificent performance which made it seem easy even after having not been a voice actress for about 7 years, was given the stamp of approval and said to be "very cool" by the original author Aoyama Gosho. The two of them are just meeting for the first time now, but have a connection through Conan. We talked about thoughts towards Conan distinctive of a reader, and the scrutinizing of particular points which is distinctive to an author.

■ A First Time Meeting, but an Association for Nearly 20 Years!

 Q: This seems to be your first time meeting but what are your impressions of one an other?
Aoyama Gosho (hereafter referred to as Aoyama): I've seen her on TV, on things like "Galileo" and such.
Shibasaki Kou (hereafter referred to as Shibasaki): Well, I bought one of the special volumes of the manga, which has a portrait of Mr. Aoyama doesn't it?
Aoyama: The one where I'm always being killed right?
Shibasaki: Right! There's like blood pouring out or something (laughs). Anyway, it really looks like you. It's just as I expected.

Q: Around what time did you first start to read Conan, Ms. Shibasaki?
Shibasaki: It's a vague memory, but I read it in Shonen Sunday. I think when it started getting serialized I had to have been in middle school. I think I started reading from the first story, or maybe the second one.
Aoyama: Oh wow! There's actually some people who watched it as a kid, and they have now become fathers and they watch it together with their kid.

Q:As for Ms. Shibasaki, what would you say the charm of Conan is?
Shibasaki: Is it okay if I give my impressions completely as a fan (laughs). First of all, the pictures are very easy to get into and to follow. It's very characteristic and recognizable at a glance. But the mysteries to be solved are first-class. It deals with difficult cases that take time just as a TV drama would, so before you know it you're pulled into the world.
Aoyama: Such high praise. Thank you very much.

■Can kids really follow the extremely difficult historical subject matter of Conan!?

Q: This time in the world of Conan, you appear as the Maritime Self-Defense Force's Fuji Nanami right?
Shibasaki: As a fan, there's a somewhat selfish part to it isn't there? I interpreted it as it was convenient for me (wry smile) As the special guest this time, I got to participate as a character that only appears in this movie, so I thought I was lucky.
Aoyama: I also did the character design for Fuji Nanami. I drew it before I knew that Shibasaki would be playing the role, but they told me "we want her to be beautiful" and so I gave her thin eyebrows and sharp eyes like a soldier.
Shibasaki: Her eyebrows are cute aren't they! When I heard that her position was military personnel I worried a little about whether I could play the role properly, but I maintained a feeling of tension the whole time so I thought if I could expand on that then I could make it through somehow. And also, when I was recording, most of the other people had already recorded their lines so I could really use them as reference. I thought it would be difficult if it were a situation where no other voices had been recorded yet, but even Conan's voice was already added, so...
Aoyama: It was very well done. Nothing felt out of place! 
Shibasaki: But we did a lot of redoing. Like the way the song was sung, or matching the lines going with the melody, or getting a satisfactory intonation. So when you hear it after that's done it's okay, but sometimes you'd think "is this really good like this" when there was a feeling that it just didn't match up with the melody, and it would leave a feeling that it was just out of place and strange and so we would have to redo it.
Aoyama: So at those times you'd say something like "could we record that again?" That's amazing. As for me, if it were ok as it was I'd just be like "alright, it's good like this right?" (laughs)
Shibasaki: By nature, I'm probably a little self-conscious about my voice.  I felt some relief little by little. But when it's just my voice, I worry about if it came out clearly.  So we would test out listening to it afterwards.
Aoyama: You've got a voice unlike other voice actresses so I thought it was very nice. Very cool.

Q: In this movie, Fuji Nanami's role left a very hard and dynamic impression different from the other movie versions of Conan so far.

Aoyama: For this movie, from the time that the setting was decided to be the Aegis ship, I requested to the scriptwriter "Sakurai Takeharu" that they try to make it very realistic. So it became very much directed towards adults. Because even for me too, when it's more directed toward kids I don't find it as interesting. Having said that, midway through I started to worry about whether or not kids could also enjoy this movie, whether they could be brought along to see it. But in the movie Conan explains in a way that's easy to understand what you should look for or what you should think about, and so I think that it's contents can be enjoyable for children as well.
Shibasaki: I was also thinking "man, this is difficult" as I was working on it.

■What a Shock!! The announcement of the secret rule of Conan!!

Q: As for Mr. Aoyama, do you have any rules for when you're drawing Conan?

Aoyama: There's one rule I have which is "Conan must never cry."
Shibasaki: Does he cry this time?
Aoyama: Well, I'm not saying he cries.... But, there are people who are planning on seeing the movie so I have to keep it a secret (laughs).

Q: You played an active role in the Detective gadget that will appear this time too. Can you tell us anything about that?

Aoyama: I kept the names absolutely simple. Because if I didn't then it would be embarrassing. Something like "Ball Shooter" isn't embarrassing is it. "Kick-Power Reinforcing Shoes" isn't an embarrassing name, and also it's easy to understand. But those rarely get used. The most recent thing to get used was the belt wasn't it? But it won't get used from here on out. If something strange suddenly shows up then it would be weird, so it always has to be something that Conan can wear. But we've already used so many things, there's not much left besides and backpack.
Shibasaki: What about his hair?
Aoyama: Well, he's not Kitaro (laughs). (Kitaro is a famous character from a comic called "Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro" created by Mizuki Shigeru. Kitaro is a ghost who has many gadgets at his disposal, some of which being his hair which can be used for various things.)

Q: Lastly, could you tell us a scene that you really liked?

Shibasaki: Well, I've only been able to seen it once, but when I did see it obviously I could here my voice in it so naturally that got my focus. If I were to watch it again I think there's a scene with Conan that would really move me. The sound in the movie is very strong and I thought it was amazing. For example, the scene where the Aegis ship is going to attack was really amazing.
Aoyama: I also drew some key-frames, and it's embarrassing to see them appear in the movie, which I think is like what you were saying right? The animators' style and mine are different so it's easily noticed. It wasn't so much that way this time, but... how was it? You couldn't you notice could you?
Shibasaki: No, quite the opposite... it was really cool!

Aoyama gave a signed and colored illustration of the rare combination of Conan, Haibara Ai, and (the seldom drawn) Phantom Thief Kid, as a present to the extremely happy Shibasaki. She seems to not have just been giving him a complement, but to truly love Conan. She said ecstatically "I'm going to definitely frame it and hang it in my room!" What's more, from the start and still now she excitedly said "I want to try doing a voice in the animation. Any small role is okay, and you don't have to pay me."


"Detective Conan Private Eye in the Distant Sea" opens April 20 nation-wide (In Japan).

Investigating Hondo Eisuke and who seems to be his father

Furthering the investigation into Mizunashi Rena, and Hondo Eisuke's true identities, motives, and relationship. As well as connection to the black organization.

Conan discovers a photo on a Mizunashi Rena fan page, that just happens to have a woman in the background that resembles Mizunashi Rena and who is carrying a bag of groceries, and also has Tsutenkaku in the background. So he thinks that there is a possibility that she might have used to live in Osaka, and so he requests Heiji's assistance. He asks him to have inspector Otaki to secretly check to see if any woman with the name Mizunashi or Hondo ever lived in Osaka and who might have gone missing at some point. That is because Conan thinks the Hondo appears to be searching for his sister or the enemy of his sister, in other words he believes that someone with the black organization murdered Eisuke's sister and is now posing as her after having plastic surgery. That would connect Eisuke's motives for looking for her, and the reason that Gin talked about Rena murdering some man named Hondo(someone also related to Eisuke and "Rena" that she had to kill when taking over "Rena's" identity ).

Inspector Otaki checks the school records in Osaka for the last 20 years but no one by the name Mizunashi Rena shows up. Also there were discovered to be two people around Tsutenkaku who had a picture from about 10 years ago that had a woman in them that looked like Mizunashi Rena (The picture Conan saw on the fan site) but it doesn't appear that there was anyone that knew her at that time. But there was a restaurant owner in Osaka that did know Hondo Eisuke. He would go to the restaurant with his dad. His dad was a quiet person and was call Hondo. (So, it appears to maybe be the person killed by "Rena" that Gin was talking about) His dad would sometimes go there with his colleagues from work but a few years ago he suddenly stopped showing up. The shop owner and Eisuke's dad got along well and would sometimes sit and talk even after the shop closed, but the 80 year old shop owner passed away from cancer so they (Conan and Heiji) don't know what those two (Dad and owner) talked about. But, the among colleagues that he met with where some foreigners. Also, he (Eisuke's dad) and the others were dressed in dark or black clothes, seeming like they might have come from the black orginization.

The shop owner also had a grandchild who went to college in Osaka and now runs a model shop in Tokyo, and Conan is going to try to get some information from him, but he also met Hondo when he was in Osaka so he might be under surveillance from the black orginization.

They find out a few things from the grandchild. One thing being that the man, while he was with 3 or 4 foreigners dressed in black, was heard saying "いよいよ潜る" which means "to dive deeper and deeper". The grandchild thought he was talking about scuba diving. Also, the foreigners said "Good luck" and "No pain, no gain".

They found out that the mans child was never there when he was with his business partners.

And that the man was hired by "The Company".

They got this picture which is apparently him and his son.

Hondo Eisuke

A transfer student from Ran's class is a fan of Kogoro and comes to meet him. He is very clumsy, wears glasses and looks a lot like Mizunashi Rena. His name is Hondo Eisuke.

There's nothing suspicious about him except that he looks like Rena and that he seems to watch Conan closely sometimes.

Meanwhile Rena is still unconscious. And all her information seems to be a lie, even her name. Mizunashi Rena in Japanese can be turned into the numbers "007".　

Hondo continues to show more resemblances to Rena as he gets involved with an other case with Kogoro. And while on a bridge in the middle of an investigation. he cries as he leans on the railing. Then Hondo asks Kogoro about cases he solved for famous people in secret that didn't make it to the news as if he's trying to get some piece of information secretly.

Then a conversation is heard between Gin and others about Kir getting their Boss' trust. They talk about a rat sneaking into the organization and Kir having them cornered. But instead got tortured but didn't spill any information. Gin then says that Rena eventually shot and killed that "rat".
Gin says that they have a focus for finding Rena, and that it's currently being investigated.
The last name of that "rat" is "Hondo"

Hondo Eisuke brings an other case to Kogoro. They get involved and it brings them to a house of a murdered woman who's son is the boy that ran out in front of Rena's bike causing her to crash.

Conan later figures out from what he reads on a Mizunashi Rena fan page that the man who was hired to do some strange job (the event that Eisuke brings to Kogoro and they first start to investigate before meeting the boy) is a fan of Mizunashi Rena and was wearing a jacket with her picture on it. He was spotted by the boy who told him that he saw that woman "Rena" in a bike accident. Eisuke likely read that same page and that's why he brought the case to Kogoro. He wanted to talk to that kid because he's looking for Rena's whereabouts.

But, Conan doesn't believe he is with the men in black who are also searching for her, because of his(Eisuke)  personality and emotions he showed in previous cases.

Mizunashi Rena

Okino Yoko introduces Kogoro to a friend of hers who is a TV announcer (Mizunashi Rena) and has a case for him. (It is later on that we learn her real motive for hiring Mouri, which she tells him later in an email, is really to keep a certain someone safe) In the case Conan places a tracking device and wire tap inside cum and sticks it outside her door, but after the case forgets to retrieve it. When he runs back to get it he can hear the gum com unstuck and fall on the ground, the Rena steps on and it's stuck to her shoe. The Rena makes a phone call, and Conan can hear that she's calling the number for the syndicate's boss.

Conan calls Agasa and he and Haibara come and they tail Rena and listen to her conversation. She ends up going to meet Gin and Vodka. Vermouth is also there and two new members are introduced. Two snipers named Chianti and Korn. Though Chianti seems to not like Vermouth at all. They are planning and assassination using Rena to distract the target (a politician) with a television interview. Rena's code name is Kir.

Conan runs into Jodie, and he and Jodie eventually stop the assassination, forcing the black organization to come up with a new plan. And although Kir seems to be with the syndicate, she talks to Conan and doesn't seem to be a bad person. Based on what she says, Conan starts to think now that she can see through his acting (that she can tell he's not there just by coincidence. And Conan starts to consider her real identity)

Akai found out about the situation with Conan's wire tap etc. and disappears for a little while (he is taking precautions against Gin at that point).

The black organization now plans to use Vermouth on a motorcycle to stop the targets car and Kir will kill him. But then Kir asks Vermouth where her(Kir's) bike is. Also, Vermouth knocks on her bike and asks if Kir is "like this"(She is saying are you a NOC? At this point Vermouth seems to know who Rena really is).


And at this point, Vermouth knows that Conan is trying to stop them.

Meanwhile, Conan has Agasa bring Ran and Kogoro to his house for their protection, but Kogoro later goes back home without telling them.

Conan, James Black, and Jodie stop who they think is Vermouth but turns out to be Rena. She crashes her bike when a young kid walks into the street.

Rena changed her clothes when she got on the bike, so her shoe with the tracker and wire tap are in Gins car. He discovers them and suspects it was put there by Mouri Kogoro since he was at her house the night before, and so Gin, Vodka, Chianti, Korn, and Vermouth all head the the Mouri detective agency.

Mouri just happens to be listening to horse races on the radio and Gin thinks he's listening to the wire tap. Also, he thinks Kogoro is involved with Sherry.

Conan gets Kogoro to move out of the way and exposes that he is only listening to horse races. So Kogoro is completely clueless about what's going on, but Conan saves him. However, Gin has the tracker with Conan's prints on it, but suddenly it gets shot out of his hand. Akai had set up nearby with a sniper. Akai shoots at them and Gin then assumes the tracker was planted by the FBI and leaves Kogoro and Conan alone and flees. But Gin still has slight suspicions about Kogoro.

They are then trying to find Kir who the assume was taken in by the FBI. Mizunashi Rena is kept secretly in a hospital where they are waiting for her to recover in order to question her. She is currently unconscious.

The Phone Number of the Syndicate's Boss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOgRevdiLnU

Conan is on a case and the criminal makes a phone call. This for some reason reminds him of when vermouth sent the message to her boss. Then detective Yamamura makes a call to his grand mother in Tottori. Both the call the criminal made and Yamamura made are to places in Tottori with the same area code "0858". When those numbers are dialed it sounds the same as when Vermouth entered her boss' address. So, "0858" is the first four digits of the black organization's boss' phone number.

After a case dealing with a man the has perfect pitch Conan finds out that the tone of those numbers "0858" being dialed is the same as "Nanatsu no ko" or "Seven Children" a Japanese children's song. This is so that the members of the black organization can remember the number without ever writing it down or saving it in their phone.

So after analyzing the tones that the keys will produce, Conan is able to come up with a more accurate number "#969#6261" That's the number Conan says belongs to the boss of the syndicate.

Rapping up the confrontation with Vermouth

Conan now knows that code name Vermouth from the black organization is Chris Vineyard, and that Chris vineyard and her mom Sharon Vineyard are the same person.

(This is only my personal speculation. I think it obviously has to do with Vermouth taking either APTX 4869 or possibly an other drug, maybe with APTX 4869 being the prototype. With Sharon having told the story about Chris showing up at the grave of her late husband, disguised as him, it seems like maybe Chris and Sharon both existed at one time, but then Sharon died but Chris took her place for a little while. Or, Sharon got old, then used a drug to become young, and so had no choice but to pretend to be her own daughter and say that her mother died. Though none of these options can be confirmed at this point.)

Ran and Sonoko (and Conan, Haibara, and Agasa) know that Jodie is an FBI agent. She convinces Ran and Sonoko that she is just in Japan on vacation though, and that the night of the incident she was going to say goodbye to Conan and Haibara when she saw them get kidnapped. So she followed the kidnappers, had a shoot out, and the kidnappers fled.

Ran got in Jodie's trunk after she got suspicious form the photos she saw. But she says she put them behind her mirror because a Japanese friend of hers said it was strange to have the photos sitting out all over her house. Sonoko and Ran remember that in America, people often have pictures of family and friends sitting on their desks, etc.

The FBI is targeting Vermouth but don't know her true intentions. So, they gave the Japanese police a similar kidnapping story to cover the events.

Conan removes all the wiretaps in Agasa's house and goes around town disguised as Haibara and doesn't see anybody following him. And, with Vermouth saying she'll give up on Haibara. Conan believes they are safe for now.

Also we now know that for some reason the black organization wants Akai Shuichi dead. (The purpose of Chris disguising as a slasher in New York. They thought if it was just an ordinary criminal, that Shuichi would lower his guard.) But while we know that Jodie is after Vermouth to avenge her father's death and finish his investigation, we don't really know why Shuichi has a personal reason to go after Vermouth. If may be related to him cutting his hair (or maybe not. I'm again only guessing).

The FBI offers to put Haibara in the witness protection program but in the end because of something Ayumi says, Haibara decides not to because she doesn't want to run from the syndicate anymore.

Araide moves back. He was told by Jodie that someone disguised themselves as him to commit a crime, but the criminal had blown their cover and fled so it was safe for him and his family to return from America. The criminal wouldn't try the same trick twice and an other doctor already took a job at a hospital in Aomori where Araide was going to go work. So, Araide returns to being the schools doctor.

 

Conan, Haibara, Ran, and the FBI confront Vermouth/Sharon/Chris

Mouri Kogoro receives an invitation to a Halloween mystery costume party. Ran is scared of monsters and ghosts so she doesn't go. But Kogoro goes with Sonoko. Conan keeps it a secret from Ran that he(Shinichi) also got an invitation. On his envelope it is addressed to Kudo Shinichi, but in the letter inside it is to Edogawa Conan. The letter is from Vermouth and it is written in English letters. At this point Conan already suspected foreign actress Chris Vineyard as being involved with the organization, and so he suspects that she might be Vermouth. But either way he knows that she knows his and Haibara's true identity. He also suspects that the house is bugged so when he gets a text he tells Agasa to be quiet. It's a text from Hattori. Conan is asking him to go to the party in his place because he thinks they are trying to lure him out and away from Haibara and so he is staying behind at Agasa's. But, Conan suspects that someone has been in his house lately and so he must check that out too.

Vermouth is on the guest list of the Halloween party so Vodka is sent to see what she's up to.

Then Conan goes to check out his house. That's when he finds out that the one who's been staying there is his mom, because she's been worried about him and wanted to keep an eye on him. She disguises Conan as Haibara, Hattori as Kudo, and gives herself a disguise. They locked Haibara in Agasa's basement. Then Conan waited upstairs as Haibara. And Kudo's mom and Hattori went to the party.

Araide(Vermouth) calls and says he wants to check up on Haibara's cold, and that he'll come pick her(Conan) up. But Jodie shows up first and convinces him to go with her. And Araide follows them.

While in the car Conan as Haibara asks Jodie to do him a favor. This is to find out if Araide really is Vermouth. He tells Jodie about the Araide murder case, and asks her to try and lure her out.
Jodie stops the car at a harbor and gets out. Araide also gets out and she confronts him. She asks him about the upcoming trial that he'll have to testify at and about him covering up for Hiraku. But because only three people, Araide being one of them, knew what really happened, Vermouth, who only learned about the case from the files she stole from the metropolitan police department, didn't know the truth, so Conan could be sure that he wasn't really Araide, and was actually Vermouth. Then Jodie reveals that Chris Vineyard a.k.a Vermouth is her father's killer and "A secret makes a woman, woman" is the last thing she said to her(Jodie) when she was a child.

Jodie's father had been working on a file about Vermouth in secret with the FBI. So Vermouth killed him and burnt down the house. Jodie went down the street to get some juice to make her father feel better so she survived. Then her dad's colleagues put her into the witness protection program. It is revealed that she is also an FBI agent. She followed her dads investigation to pursue Vermouth. 

They knew Vermouth was planning to kill Araide and take his place because she was repeatedly spotted going to his clinic even though she wasn't sick. So, the FBI preemptively made Araide and his family move to America and faked a car crash making it seem like he had died. Then they let Vermouth cover it up (as she thought it was a real crash) and then pose as Araide. When Jodie broke into the clinic after hours she found the dart board with the photos and knew she was on a mission to assassinate the woman in the photo(Sherry). Jodie questions about if Haibara is really the woman in the photo(Sherry), and also questions about Ran and Conan. She also asks why Vermouth never ages.

Vermouth/Chris Vineyard attended her mother's funeral and made the comment to the press "A secret makes a woman, woman" and so Jodie was suspicious of her. She tested her finger prints to those from the glasses that Chris picked up at the scene of Jodie's father's murder 20 years before and they matched. But Chris is too young to have been there that night. That's when Jodie cross-references her prints with their files and realized that Chris Vineyard and her mother are the same person.

That's why Chris Vineyard/ Vermouth protected Conan and called Ran Angel. It's because she was saved by them in New York, when she was Sharon, posed as the serial killer. Also, Sharon is long time friends with Kudo's mom so she knows what Kudo looked like as a kid and so figured out Conan's true identity and has been trying to keep him out of everything.

Vermouth stole all Mouri's files and not just those related to Araide, so that they wouldn't know which ones she really wanted, and would make it seem like Mouri was her target and could lure the FBI out.

Haibara shows up, having broken out and tracked Conan with his spare homing glasses. Conan is distracted and Vermouth turns his tranquilizer watch on him and knocks him out. Haibara came to let Vermouth kill her and end everything, but ran protects her. She was suspicious of Jodie when she say the pictures, and after her dad left for the party she went to talk to Jodie but ended up hiding in her trunk. When she heard gun shots she jumped out and protected Haibara. Vermouth/Sharon/Chris couldn't shoot Ran. Ran and Haibara pass out from shock. Akai shows up with a gun to help Jodie. Calvados kills himself and Vermouth escapes with Conan in her car and shoots and blows up Jodie's, preventing her and Akai from chasing her.

In the woods Vermouth sends a message to the syndicates boss. She notices that Conan recorded it and goes to destroy it but Conan tells her that it's hooked up to a heart monitor, and if the transmitting stops, the recording will be emailed to the police and he also tells her he send the data to a nearby friend (Dr.Agasa).

Out of options Vermouth knocks him out with sleeping gas. If she wakes up first she'll escape and if he wakes up first he'll capture her.

It's revealed that Vermouth was disguised as a serial killer to get Akai to let his guard down so that she could kill him in New York last year. It's also revealed that Gin doesn't remember Kudo Shinichi, but when asked about him Vermouth covers for him. She asks Gin to come pick her up. She woke up first, destroyed Conan's equipment and fled. Agasa came to Conan when his heart rate monitor stopped, but he was obviously fine, he just lost the data.

But Conan remembers the sound of the number Vermouth dialed when she sent the message to her boss.

Also, Vermouth agreed to give up on Sherry.