Detective Conan: The Time Bombed Skyscraper

A series of bombs goes off across the city, and the devices carry the signature of an architect Conan knows. The last of them is planted in a skyscraper with Ran inside. The film is not interested in a murder puzzle. It is interested in the clock: the series' usual deduction is tied to a countdown, and what Conan has to work out is which wire to cut as much as who did it. The form reaches for a scale the television version does not have: wide shots of the city, explosions, and a long action sequence in the final act. This is the first cinema film of the series. It opened in 1997, and Detective Conan films then became a nearly annual fixture in Japan; the franchise that now regularly sits near the top of the box office started here. Kenji Kodama directed. Minami Takayama voices Conan, Kappei Yamaguchi voices Shinichi and Wakana Yamazaki voices Ran. Who it is for: viewers who know the series and like classic detective anime. Who it is not for: anyone after realistic crime fiction. The bombs and the last-second rescues run entirely on genre logic.