DETECTIVE CONAN MOVIE REVIEW: THE FOURTEENTH TARGET

The second Detective Conan movie is titled The Fourteenth Target, and, as the title suggests, it is a big murder mystery revolving around a long series of murders. There is a killer who is attacking people close to independent detective, Kogoro Mouri, and doing so by using the fact that they all have numbers in their Japanese names to do a murder count-down based on poker cards. For example, Kogoro's former police partner, Inspector Megure, has the kanji for thirteen embedded in his name, and he's the first to be attacked. The next target is Kogoro's wife, Eri, whose Japanese name means Queen, referring to the 12th card. His family friend, Dr. Agasa, represents number eleven, because you can find the kanji for both ten and one embedded in his name. And so on.

In English, if someone had a number in their name, it would probably be obvious. In Japanese, not so much. Between the way a name is pronounced, the way it is written, the roots of each character in the name, and the other characters that could be formed by adding or removing strokes, so on and so forth... this is not so obvious, and you could probably find a number in pretty much any name if you were to look hard enough. From watching this movie, it seems to us, that, in Japanese, it's a real puzzle to find the number in the names of the potential targets, making this a viable premise for an interesting mystery.

We initially watched this movie in Japanese with subtitles and relied on the translator notes to help us follow Kogoro and Conan's deductions for which names link with which numbers. We enjoyed watching this movie this way, even though we couldn't have possibly guessed most of the numbers ourselves, not having nearly enough knowledge of Japanese for that level of punning and radical manipulation.

However, this type of mystery creates a real problem for localization. The explanation used in Japanese will most likely not transfer to any other language, so the localizers will need to come up with a compatible but entirely different rationale.

As for what concerns the Funimation English dub, the problem is even further complicated by the fact that Funimation infamously Americanized many of the characters' names, as was the common (racist and xenophobic) practice when localizing anime at that time. So, some of the characters involved in this name-number-pun mystery already had received a dub name that was blithely decided long before the dubbers realized that this movie would be like this and would necessitate there being a certain number inside, say, Kogoro/Richard's name somewhere. Oh no.

Though, we would say, in general, that the Funimation dub has been really, really, surprisingly good. It is funny, clever, relatively faithful, and sometimes even improved on some points of the original Japanese script, in our opinion.

So, faced with the challenge of localizing this movie, the Funimation dub.... just fucking laid down on the ground and didn't even try at all.

Things went the best with the first victim: Inspector Juzo Megure, who is shot in the stomach with a crossbolt and rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Funimation lucked out in that they previously decided that his name would be Joseph Meguire, a name with a total of 13 letters. Good one, and similar in spirit to how things went in the original version. (And, as an aside, let us say that we think his dub name is a decent adaptation. If you gotta, this is pretty close to the original).

By the way, we're used to watching 4Kids dubs where they completely removed all traces of Japanese (and sometimes even just misspelled English) by painting over any place it might appear in the background. In contrast, Funimation doesn't do that. Funimation just points at Japanese text and gaslights the audience into believing that these kanji are totally English letters. Which leads to surreal scenes like this one that had us laughing for at least ten whole minutes:

We love how they were even able to convert Genta having trouble reading kanji into having trouble sounding-out a name containing "ph".

So, when watching the Funimation dub, we also get to see things like Eri's maiden name "Kisaki" written clearly in romanji on her door, but then hear her secretary refer to her as "Ms. Kadan", since in Eri's previous anime appearances, Funimation for some reason already decided to change her name to be Eva Kadan.

Eri is the second victim, representing number 12. She and Kogoro have a fight over dinner, and when she receives a fancy box of chocolates the next day, she assumes they are Kogoro's apology, and she eats one. It turns out the chocolates were actually sent by the culprit, and they contained poison. Eri is rushed to the hospital to get her stomach pumped.

When Conan is explaining the numbers hidden in all the names, Funimation didn't change the visuals that accompany these scenes. For Eri, her Japanese name appears, and then "Queen" appears in English. Meanwhile, dubbed Conan explains that her name "means 'queen' in other languages." Yeah, in other languages, like Japanese, where her name is Eri Kisaki, and "kisaki" means "queen". This loops around all the way back to hilarious. ✽︎

Then Dr. Hiroshi Agasa also gets shot with a crossbow. The Funimation dub had already established his name as Hershel Agasa. They can't do the same trick as they did with Inspector Megure since it unfortunately has a total of 12 letters rather than 11 (sooo clooose).

Dr. Agasa's Japanese name is meant to be a pun on mystery author Agatha Christie, and so his name is pronounced AH-gah-sah. In the Funimation dub, however, they pronounce it... like ass. Literally. All the characters saying Uh-gass-uh only puts more unintended emphasis on how the poor man was shot in the buttock.

Funimation also dubbed Dr. Agasa with a ridiculous fake German-ish accent because all absent-minded professors in white lab coats with poofy gray hair must be German. Of course. ...Argh.

But all that aside, so, how did Funimation manage to fit an eleven into Dr. Hershel Agasa?

They didn't. Instead they made-up that the connection is that he has eleven patents.

We are very dissatisfied with this localization choice. Not only does it disrupt the name-number theme that is at the core of all these serial attacks, we doubt that it is canonically true. Dr. Agasa is a professional inventor. We know he's not very hard-working, but if he only has eleven patents to his name, what is he even doing? During the plot of the Detective Conan series up to this point, we've probably seen more than eleven patent-able inventions that he's made! In fact, let's do a count!

In this very movie, we see:

1. the tranquilizer watch
2. the voice modulator bowtie
3. the powered-up shoes
4. the retractable suspenders
5. the solar-powered skateboard
6. the Detective Boys' walkie-talkie badges

We're more than halfway to eleven already, and that's just what's in this particular movie!

At this point in the story, earlier in the anime we have also seen:

a personal jetpack

that Agasa crash-lands during Episode 1 (The Roller Coaster Murder Case).

the spy-bug that transmits audio to the handle of Conan's eyeglasses

which had a big debut in Episode 5 (The Great Bullet Train Explosion).

the portable fax machine disguised as a bento box

which we saw once in Episode 10 (The Blackmailed Pro Soccer Player) before it went completely obsolete.

the tracking screen in the lens of Conan's eyeglasses

which debuted in Episode 13 (The Bizarre Manhunt Murder).

the mecha-disguise

which Agasa used in Episode 43 (The Conan Edogawa Abduction Case) .

the earring-phone

which debuted even earlier but had a big spotlight in Episode 85 (The Ski Lodge Murder Case) .

the electronic atlas

which we saw once in Episode 86 (The Kidnapping Location Case) before it was superseded by smartphones.

and whatever the hell that robotic mantis is

which we see Agasa building during the previous movie, The Time-Bombed Skyscraper .

So yeah, we're way past eleven inventions, and that's not even getting into funky details like how a single invention could spawn multiple patents for each innovative component, or that Agasa probably has several patents related to voice-changing technologies (since he's tried to productize that concept more than once, including as licensed Kamen Yaiba merchandise!), or that Agasa is probably also responsible for the inventing some of the gadgets that are used by Kaito Kid...

But even if we put that aside and choose to believe that Dr. Agasa has indeed only filed eleven patents... why would the killer know that? And why would the killer, who is hoping Kogoro will catch on to the theme, expect Kogoro to notice such an obscure and flimsy connection?? Why would Kogoro, who only knows Agasa as the next-door neighbor of his family friends... how would he ever know the trivia of the number of patents he holds???

Then again, we're not sure what we would do to fix this situation any better... The best we can come up with is to retroactively give Dr. Hershel Agasa a heretofore unmentioned middle name that in some way evokes the theme of eleven... but we can understand not wanting to do a retcon of a character's name like that. So we will give Funimation half a pass here.

So, as Dr. Agasa lies ass-up in the asspital, as those with ass injuries do, our heroes catch on to the playing-card theme. They realize that the items left at each crime scene appear in the classic card illustrations for the Jack, Queen, and King of Spades. And Shiratori notes that these are all death threats, since Spades are a symbol of death. That's right, Shiratori is knowledgeable about tarot — yeah, that checks out for him.

Because of this card theme, Kogoro can think of a possible suspect: Murakami Jyo, a casino dealer. Back when Kogoro was a cop, he and Megure arrested and interrogated Jyo, and there was an incident around the investigation (more on that later). Jyo was recently released from prison, and it's not far-fetched to believe that Jyo could want revenge on Kogoro, and would do so by attacking people close to him.

Now, they try to anticipate who might represent number ten, to see if they can save the victim and catch the killer. Kogoro thinks of a hostess he knows who has the kanji for ten in her name. Since this character only exists in this movie, the Funimation dub had the freedom to pick her name without restriction. They went with Tammy Diez and had the connection be that her last name is Spanish for ten. Good, nice one, Funimation.

While Kogoro, Megure, and Shiratori are staking out in front of Tammy Diez's apartment to make sure the killer doesn't arrive to kill her, Kogoro decides on his own to go watch the back door instead. While the others are able to sit inside the car to watch the front door, Kogoro stands upright outside in the alleyway for the entire night. He's that dedicated to making sure nothing more happens and no one else gets hurt because of him.

However, it turns out that Tammy Diez is not number ten. Instead, the real target is Kogoro's golfer friend, Hiroki Tsuji, who also has the kanji for ten embedded in his name. Even though this golfer friend only appears in this movie and the dubbers had free reign to decide his name, they went with Henry Tish, with no ten in sight. The connection is apparently that he is currently ranked the tenth best golfer in the world.

This is an aggravatingly poor localization job. The golfer friend's position in the World Golf Rankings is an extremely tenuous connection, and it is something that could change at any time as people move up or down in the list. It also does not match the characterization that is presented in the movie: it's a plotpoint that he is still trying to break-in at the pro level. If he was already the tenth best in the world, he would already have his career absolutely made, and the upcoming tournament would be just another tournament, and not so vital to his future success.

It would have been so easy to make something, anything that worked, and Funimation just didn't. They could have given him a name with ten letters, but Henry Tish has nine letters, as if they did it on purpose just to be frustrating. And Tish sounds so close to maybe being a reference to ten, but it isn't. Funimation could have simply named him something, anything else. Like, why not just Henry Tennish? It's that easy! Why, Funimation, why???

So anyway, Henry Tennish, because we have decided that's his name now... he happens to be a hobbyist aviator. The killer messed with his eyedrops so that they would dilate his pupils and make it so that he couldn't keep his eyes open in the sunlight — a very bad thing to happen while you are piloting a helicopter. Kogoro was already having a hard time existing in the helicopter, what with his anime-only fear of heights, but now he's got to endure as Conan ends up taking over the controls and pilots the helicopter in for a crash landing in the schoolyard.

Shinichi knows how to fly a helicopter because apparently he did the local museum's flight simulator a million times once he was old enough. It is an interesting side point in this movie that the kids all are looking forward to the day when they will be old enough to fly in the flight simulator. It sounds like something of a rite of passage. Back when he was a kid, little Shinichi looked forward to it so much, it must have been the first thing he did upon reaching the required age, and he then did it enough times that he can actually now maneuver a real helicopter. And it is interesting to have the perspective of the kids looking forward to it, and for Shinichi transformed into Conan, for him it is now completely passé. Of course, this point was really just to establish how Conan is able to save the day, but it is also poignant about the way things change as your perspective shifts as you get older...

The investigation uncovers that the culprit must be really twisted, because the eyedrops he gave Henry Tennish not only dilated his eyes for the duration of his helicopter flight in which he was supposed to crash and die; these are mega-eyedrops that keep his eyes dilated for several weeks. This means that even though he survived the crash, he has no hope of participating in his upcoming golf tournament that he's been practicing for and looking forward to for at least all of the past year, hoping that it will be his big break into pro-golfing. The culprit thought ahead to think, if he somehow doesn't die in the helicopter, I am still going to ruin his golf tournament and crush his dreams. Yiiiikes.

Kogoro and the police realize this is even more serious than they thought. It's one thing that Dr. Agasa got a hit-and-run crossbolt to the buttock, but this helicopter crash and life ruination plan was at another level yet.

With even more urgency, Kogoro tries to think who the next target might be. He can't think of a number nine, but he does think of a number eight: his long-time friend, Kohei Sawaki, the sommelier. His name has the kanji for eight embedded in it.

Despite being introduced as a long-time friend, this guy was never seen before and will never be seen again, so Funimation could have named him anything. And they named him: Kevin Simms. Hello?? Where's the eight? Funimation added an explanation that he attended "something like eight years" of culinary school to be able to be a sommelier. That is even worse than having eleven patents or being the tenth best golfer in the world. Also, how much fucking school does it take to be a professional wine taster??? We can't seem to find a definitive number, but googling around a bit, it seems like eight years is just way too much. If he took that long to graduate, it's because he kept getting held back, not because it is impressive!

These tenuous connections make it seem like Kogoro is doing major reaches to figure out who the next victim might be, and the killer is equally forcing this pattern to exist in spite of all logic... but in Japanese, this makes sense, and Kogoro is actually being being on-point.

We tried to think, what would be a better name for this guy, to evoke the number eight? What about Otto, short for Octavius, and any last name you want. That's just off the top of our heads. This is easy.

So, Kogoro and company go to meet with Otto and warn him that he might be under attack soon. While meeting with him, they learn that he just got a job offer from a rich guy to be the sommelier of a fancy underwater restaurant in a newly-built underwater theme park (underwater restaurant, underwater theme park). As Otto explains this, everyone realizes that the rich guy, Katsuyoshi Asahi, has the kanji for nine in his name. Yet again, the dubbers could have named this movie-only character anything, and they went with... Chris Ashton - and the number comes from the fact that he owns nine buildings. There's probably more than nine buildings included in this theme park he just built, so that is not just a stretch but factually impossible.

Why don't we instead give him the name Chris Borgnine. It is a real last name, and it seems to have the right air for this rich asshole.

Everyone decides to all go meet with Chris Borgnine together to warn him of the danger he might be in. When they arrive at the entrance to the theme park, they encounter some other folks in the parking lot who also have appointments with Chris Borgnine - and everyone quickly realizes that they are numbers seven, six, four, and two.

Number seven is a famous model whose name in the Japanese version is Nana Osanai. "Nana" is just outright the Japanese word for "seven" (and the only name in which we could find the number ourselves before the subtitles explained it!). The dub decided to name her Nina Oliver, and make the number come from the fact that she was a child star whose career started when she was seven years old. Rather than this awful explanation, we can think of two better possibilities here: 1) keep her Japanese name of Nana and explain that "nana" means seven in Japanese. Or, 2) let her use the stage name of Nina Seven - since she's famous, she could even have such a distinct name, maybe as a reference to lucky seven, and you know, it just seems right for her glamorous personality. Or, hell, 3) Both.

Number six is a famous photographer, Eimei Shishido, who happens to have the kanji for six embedded in his name. The dub named him Emilio Cantore, with his connection to the number six being because apparently he has six children. Oh please. How about we name him Alexis, which has the letters for "six" backwards, oooo. And you can give him any last name you want.

Number four is English newscaster Peter Ford. From a Japanese perspective, Ford seems close enough to the English word "four" to make sense. The Funimation dub kept his name as Peter Ford, but added the explanation that... his last name has four letters. Okay, but come on. How about we slightly tweak his name to be Peter Forth, which is a real last name and is more clearly "fourth" to English-speaking ears.

Number two is a famous author whose Japanese name is Minoru Nishina, containing the number two ("ni"). The dub named him Mason Norfolk, and explained that he wrote two books — which, yet again is a tenuous connection that is most likely false. We get the sense that he's written more than two books, plus articles too. For this name, we decided to get really clever and change his dub name to Mason Driftwood. See the "two" there? Hehe!

We haven't mentioned Five or Three yet, but they are already accounted for.

Kogoro has realized that he himself has the number five in his name. Kogoro is someone who likes to make Japanese dad jokes about the number-ification of words, so he's totally noticed the "go" in Kogoro. To localize this, here, Funimation was stuck with a name they previously decided, but they got lucky enough. In the dub, he is Richard Moore, an appropriately detective-y name that let's Funimation also use the nickname "Dick" for extra joke opportunities. To fit into this murder count-down, the dub was able to say that his last name "Moore" has five letters. Not the best, but given the situation, it will do.

And Officer Shiratori Ninzaburo has realized he himself has three in his name (it's from the "zabu" in Ninzaburo). But Funimation already set his name as Nicholas Santos while they were dubbing the previous movie. So now, Funimation goes way out on a limb and explains that he is the third child of three siblings who were each born three years apart. That situation is not as notable as the long-winded explanation makes it sound, and why would the culprit be pulling out family trees during all of this murder scheme? Probably the best thing to do here would have been to explain that the "san" in Santos can mean "three" in Japanese, and now we have gone in a really strange circle.

So everyone gets on the Disney-World-style monorail to enter the theme park proper and meet with Borgnine. Numbers nine through two will all be meeting in the underwater restaurant.

Here is where the movie shifts tone a little bit. We no longer have the mystery of finding the victims around town, and we now have everybody confined in a small space with a murderer on the loose and suspicions high. Borgnine is found already dead in the aquarium, Otto gets nearly impaled by another crossbolt, and Nana Seven gets stabbed and killed during a blackout.

Then a bomb goes off. In the underwater restaurant. The whole place floods, and it's an ordeal getting everyone to safety. Based on the playing cards floating in the water afterwards, it seems the culprit wanted to finish everyone off in one fell swoop by drowning them all during the explosion.

Yet they are able to use the hole created by the bomb to escape the underwater restaurant to the outside. Since Megure's stitches have reopened in the water, and Ran is recovering from nearly drowning, and Mason Driftwood can't swim, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of everyone helping each other to swim the way out, but ultimately everyone makes it out of the underwater restaurant and onto another one of the nine buildings of the theme park. Mason Driftwood is unconscious and inhaled a lot of water, and Conan uses Kogoro's voice to insist that Shiratori be the one to do CPR. Kogoro has a moment to be confused before Conan knocks him out and reveals the culprit as Sleeping Kogoro... (Toggle whodunit...)

In conclusion

We love this movie. It may be our top favorite Detective Conan movie. We can't decide between this and The Time-Bombed Skyscraper for the top spot.

This movie has solid, tight plot. It explores the abilities and motivations of Kogoro to the point of completely overriding his previously established characterization. Ran and her relationship with her family gets a special spotlight. And damn, that is a memorable villain.

We enjoyed it greatly, but, unfortunately, The Fourteenth Target is not a movie to casually recommend to just anyone, because of all the adaptation trouble. We can understand that some people might not want to watch a mystery that depends on reading lengthy translator notes. And, as we said, Funimation really dropped the ball on this one. But we bet that the original movie is extra amazing for Japanese-speaking fans who can find the clues as they watch along.

...Wait a minute. Why is this movie titled, The Fourteenth Target? (Toggle spoilers...)

We previously assumed the title was referring to Shinichi as the Ace, but there are only thirteen cards per suit in a poker deck, so Shinichi would be the thirteenth target! Who is the fourteenth target? Is it Ran, because after all thirteen cards were targeted, Conan aims the gun at Ran? Or are they counting Jyo, since Otto killed him first? Does Jyo represent the Joker, and that means that actually all the numbers are shifted by one? But if we count Jyo, then is the fourteenth target Ran or Shinichi? Wow, we wrote an entire review and we just suddenly realized we have no idea what the title is even about. Just like with Spell of the Unown, ABCDE!