HCM City to hold exhibition on iconic Japanese comic series Detective Conan

Vietnam will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Japanese comic book series “Detective Conan” starting this week.

The event to be held at Gigamall in Thu Duc City from June 29 to August 31 will pay tribute to the popular comic strip and its creator and illustrator Gosho Aoyama.

The comic is about 17-year-old Kudo Shinichi, a famous high-school detective who is tracked down and drugged by the Black Organisation.

He survives but his body transforms into that of a little boy, leaving him to solve baffling mysteries and murder cases under a new identity, Edogawa Conan.

The exhibition will have six sections with various themes, allowing visitors to recall memorable moments in the series.

There will be an Intro Room with a figure and iconic pictures of Conan.

Following that will be the CONAN’s Words area with memorable quotes from characters in the comic strip.

For those who like the romantic-comedic aspects, there will be the CONAN’s Love area about his romantic relationships.

The CONAN’s Mystery area will be for solving codes and messages that have appeared in the series and digging deeper into the villainous Black Organisation.

All the criminals and actual models of murder weapons appearing in the series will be exhibited in the CONAN’s HANIN room.

CONAN's Justice will tell the stories of the victims’ families.

Conan’s rival Kaito Kid, a jewel thief and world-renowned stage magician, will perform his best tricks in the CONAN’s Magic section.

The tour will end in the Memory Room, which will show a documentary about the 30-year evolution of the series.

There will also be a room displaying the author’s very first sketches and manuscripts for the series and photos of illustrations drawn by him.

In Japan, the event has drawn a large number of visitors in Tokyo, Sapporo and Sendai cities and the event is preparing to open in Osaka, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Nagoya cities in the next few months.

The comic strip has sold over 270 million copies worldwide, and its anime (Japanese animation) version has been aired in 40 countries.

It has also seen multiple spin-offs, movies, original video animations, a television special, video games, and live-action dramas.

The series was first broadcast in Vietnam on HTV3 in 2009 and has remained among the most popular animation films.