Detective Conan New Edition 1, the review of the reissue of Star Comics
Detective Conan New Edition 1
Detective Conan by the famous mangaka Gosho Aoyama is undoubtedly one of the best known, most appreciated and best realized manga works of the entire Japanese comic culture. It is, in fact, the only noteworthy investigative series born in the land of the Rising Sun that has been so successful that it is still being published 27 years after its first release in 1994. On October 18 in Japan, in fact , the hundredth issue will be available while in Italy, thanks to Star Comics, the new edition of the very first issue arrived in the Bel Paese in 1998. This is the beginning of a whole cycle of reprints which, however, has some flaws in store. At the moment we try to find out together what Detective Conan New Edition 1 looks like.Detective Conan New Edition 1: lots of news for the most passionate collectors
We will focus little on the history of Detective Conan, since it should tend to be known briefly by all and this edition certainly not the upsets. The protagonist, in fact, is obviously Shinichi Kudo, a high school detective who, thanks to extraordinary deductive skills equal to those of the famous Sherlock Holmes, manages to brilliantly solve any mystery. One day, however, he finds himself in a case that is too big and due to a strange drug, he suddenly becomes a child again. From that moment, to keep his true identity secret, he will choose the pseudonym of Conan Edogawa and this is how the most famous little detective in Japan enters the scene.The differences of the new edition, therefore, lie more in the economic and visual part than in the substance. First of all, the price that changes, without counting the Lire, goes from 3.10 euros at the beginning, to 4.30 euros for the most modern editions up to 5.90 euros for this new version. The cost is justified by a change of format that Star Comics has called "maxi" since the measures are 12.8 × 18 cm while the old edition measured 11.5 × 17.5 cm. This places it slightly larger than a classic Japanese tankōbon, but at the same time it is finally identical to its Japanese counterpart. The manga, in fact, presents an elegant dust jacket faithful to the original graphics, with the design curated by Kazuo Umino in collaboration with Bay Bridge Studio.
The lack of differentiation with the Japanese version brings, finally, four additions and modifications not present in the original edition. The first is also the most evident and takes the name of keyhole, which is a color graphic element on the back cover that has the shape of a lock and changes with each number because it shows the key character of the story. Also here is a second novelty, namely the summary of the previous chapters which in the original edition was placed in the first pages. Two other implementations are visible on the flaps: on the right there are the witty interventions of the author Aoyama which also give some curious information on the number that you are about to read. On the left, however, there is a short extract dedicated to the Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Great Detectives, a small column where the author talks about his favorite investigators who have influenced his narrative style. In Detective Conan New Edition 1 with a chapter entitled The Sherlock Holmes of the Heisei era (this too, as we will see later, is a big change), the short article could only be dedicated to the London detective.
Better translation and implementation care
As regards, however, the inside of the volume it is immediately possible to notice a greater weight and roughness of the paper, which give a more vivid and less "yellowish" print than the original version. In this regard, the layout was also carefully taken care of and above all, thanks to Alessandra Fregosi, the lettering that now guarantees a smoother reading. To improve the latter there is also a new translation always entrusted to the historian Laura Anselmino who was joined by Rie Zushi to donate more faithful adaptations to the famous comic book. However, it should be emphasized that the original adaptation was not bad at all, in fact the differences, at least in the first issue, are not so evident, but they make the language more fluent and realistic.A large number of additions in the form of editorial notes which were almost absent in the original version. These are used to translate the names of the places of interest present in the various tables and explain the meaning of some Japanese terms that are difficult to translate or of peculiar elements of Japanese culture not attributable to something similar for the Western public. Finally, an enthusiast will certainly notice that the chapter titles have also been changed to make them as similar to the Japanese ones as possible. The first chapter, as mentioned above, now takes the name of The Sherlock Holmes of the Heisei era, instead of The Sherlock Holmes of the third millennium. Historically nothing changes, but it allows to keep the Japanese tradition intact (the Heisei era, in fact, is a period of time that goes from 1989 to 2019 and therefore indicates the contemporaneity of events).
