Let’s get it out of the way that Detective Conan: Private
Eye in the Distant Sea fails as a
mystery, fails at telling a satisfactory, cohesive story, and badly needs some
subtlety—any subtlety! All of which are side effects, I suppose, of being a fan
service and propaganda delivery vehicle.
Mission number one of this movie: getting everyone you know some screen time, goddammit, no matter how tacked on these
lumps of narrative have to be. Sonoko and the 1B detectives are the most
egregious, because they don’t even contribute anything to the “plot,” but the
way in which the movie insinuates Heiji and Kazuha into the story is more
annoying. Yes, they do catch a bad guy—but it’s in a movie that has not one,
not two, but three bad guys, at least
two of which are totally unnecessary. The Heiji and Kazuha subplot is
emblematic of how this kind of fan service destroys coherency: because everyone
has to do something, the movie
becomes convoluted, diluting any focus on any character. The emotional through
line—in which Shinichi promises that he would be able to find Ran anywhere, and
lo and behold, she ends up needing him to rescue her—is introduced half way
through in a half-hearted attempt to lend the movie emotional gravitas. It
doesn’t tie to the central mystery or any kind of theme, and kind of insults
viewers’ intelligence in suggesting that Ran can possibly die and trying to
wring some drama out of that tension. Another case of “you didn’t earn this” is
Kazuha crying at the end. Crying is catharsis. Traipsing through Osaka solving
puzzles and dodging bullets doesn’t earn catharsis.
For much of the same reason, Detective Conan: Private Eye
in the Distant Sea is not an
effective mystery. Look, the best Gosho Aoyama mysteries all have a hook and
are clearly laid out. A favorite story I go back to every time is when seven
detectives are gathered to solve a riddle inside a castle—traditional to be sure,
but man, the atmosphere in it is incredible. It’s the closest Detective
Conan has come to a thriller. In an Agatha Christie And Then There Were
None kind of way, the seven detectives are all suspects, distrust each
other, and kill off each other as the culprit watches, only better than Agatha
because there’s dried blood between the playing cards, a car explosion, and a
family crest that’s a cross between a crooked nosed man and a bird. Aaanyway, other
Detective Conan stories all define their suspects and have a central
conceit—locked room murder is a perennial favorite. Ones that feature a red
herring, as this movie does, always revolve around a small and insignificant
detail that the obvious solution doesn’t necessarily explain. The mysteries may
seem complicated, but the goal is often very well defined: explain this
thing, using details that we may not have drawn attention to. A lot of what
makes up mysteries is misdirection.
Detective Conan: Private Eye in the Distant Sea isn't complicated; it’s convoluted and
painfully straightforward, not understanding that mysteries are about
misdirection. It draws attention to every little detail and they always come
back like this intricate interlocking puzzle, and it’s convoluted not
because every piece works together toward some nebulous conclusion—they don’t—it’s
convoluted because there are so many mini-puzzles that do not cohere to a
unifying theme. It lacks a good hook. It lacks a clear goal. The mini-puzzles
are superfluous and purposeless. The culprit isn't even introduced in the first
act.
I can’t deny, though, that the movie has some pretty
entertaining moments, all of which, of course, are completely unintentional. Part
of it is my having seen the movie on a Japan Airline flight in English subtitle;
part of it is the dumb-as-a-box-of-oceanic-rocks terrorist plot, in which a “foreign
country” tries to steal military secret from a top security vessel. I don’t know
whether China or the US was in the original Japanese script or what, but have
some backbone, dude. Speaking of, this movie immediately shoots up on the Top
Ten Hilariously Pro-Military Propaganda Movies of All Time. It features the
police and the Self Defense Force working together like a big happy family. It lavishes
on dorky technical specs of the Aegis—which, I guess my mentioning the ship by
name means that it works. I watched slack-jawed as credits rolled over cheesy,
loving, live-action shots of the ship out at sea, with pelicans flying and
everything. It’s an atrocity to subtlety. It’s great.
Also, for those who care which I know are depressingly not a
whole lot, Detective Conan: Private Eye in the Distant Sea is kind of weirdly sexist. In the first
act, Conan becomes suspicious of a female SDF officer because women don’t make
up a ton of the SDF, so the chances of seeing one in the wild are not great.
Look, fucker, even if women make up only one percent of the SDF or something, the
chances of no one seeing a female SDF officer are still zero.
