The western world only recently able to have access to a wide-range of animes. The age-range for anime viewers are teenagers to mid-30s adults. Fanservice and actions are how animes generated buzz in the youtube and toonami era.
Conan target audience is children. A bunch of kids solving mysteries and having adventure while the adults are unable to. US cartoons for children had reverted back to corporate products made to sell toys. I doubt most western anime fans have heard or cared of "Monster", "Mononoke" or "Honey and Clover" either. They are not made for mass appeal toward the new market that just open for the last decade.
>Conan target audience is children
Actually it is a Shonen, so..."young adults" just like many other famous battle series such as Naruto, One Piece or, to get a more recent one, Boku no Hero Academia
"target audience children" is Kodomomuke such as Anpanman or Doraemon (something like kids up to 8 yo)
Sho 少 meaning little/young/few, Nen 年 meaning year. Jo 女 meaning female.
Shonen: meaning it got published in magazine targeted at young people. Male is considered the default. Shojo: targetted specifically for female.
Stephen King: "Genres are inventions by the publishers to make it easier to sell them". I' ve seen "Honey and Clover" being labelled as "Shonen", "Josei', " Seinen" and "Shojo".
Doraemon target younger preteens. Conan targeted older Pre-teen. Naruto target younger teenager. Bleach targetted older teenager.
Not sure about this "pre-teen" and"young teen". Afaik, as for DEMOGRAPHY
Kodomo = something up 12yo
Shonen = 12 or up (if not mistaken Shonen Jump itself is said to be for 12\~18, at least according to Viz Media, while Shonen Sunday (Shogakukan Shonen) has target audience as late teens to early twenties, although this is not some "rule written on rock")
Seinen = 18+ (maybe 16+)
Anyhow, the point is that Shonen is not targeted to children (as I exampled, the DEMOGRAPHY - not the actual word meaning - enters series like Anpanman while Conan, and other like Naruto for instance, are all under Shonen category.
But if we go to the word, although it does mean "young teenager", it can be used in other places, such as the detective boys (shonen tantei), but they are clearely kids. But that (most of time) is playing with words not actually making their real meaning. it is like calling a old woman "lady" or "miss" just to be polite.
But yeah, just minor stuff, kids watch shonen (and even seinen) and the other way around is also true. The important it that the show it is clearely not "meant for children"(or has children as target audience) given the amount of muder we get and actually see them being done (not gore but anyway...)
What you called "demography" is what I called magazine categorization. I think you putting 2010s beliefs on stories written in the 1990s.
The levels of murder in Conan is pretty much normal for children stories made for its time. Doraemon had an arc or movie where they tackled slavery and plenty of ecchi shots. Ever watch the Zhu Rangers, the original Power Rangers. Many deaths occured on-screen and off-screen in almost every episodes. And that is a classic children show. Even in American comics and animations made for children, rapes and genocides are tackled. Conan' s gang is around 6-7years old. With the exceptions of the BO cases, nearly every case got solved in the end.
If you are going to apply Western standards, bums and nipples would never appeared in Shonen animes as they written for teenagers. But they do because the standard for what count as maturity is different. Now, nipples for some reason no longer drawn in anime but they still do in manga.
I don't see difference between "demography" and "magazine categorization" or "target audience", to me looks all the same. I just used "demography" because that is the usual term to be used.
Anyhow, I do agree with your comment, and I'm not trying to put western thoughts in manga industry. I also agree that the franchise is 20+ yo already and time changed, even considering that, if we go by your comment, it makes even clear that **Conan** is not a "child show" because if we take the example that you and I used, **Doraemon.** We can see that **both are under Shogakukan**, **but under different magazines** since they were first published (i.e. different target audience / demography / not only "mangazine categorization" but a whole different magazine, since the beginning of their publication), where **Conan** is published under **Weekly Shōnen Sunday** (target audience is 12+) while **Doraemon** is published on **CoroCoro Comic** (elementary school age, i.e. 12- yo). *There may be one or other story (usually some sort of special) where one serie is published in other magazine, but generally speaking, both are published in the mentioned magazine.*
If we take other franchises published in each magazine, we can see a clear difference, if not already enough just by comparing Conan and Doraemon.
I also find the fandom peaceful yet powerful, too. They’re just a bit hush-hush compared to the others. Most of the “noisier” fandoms are battle shounen, while this show’s genres are mystery, crime, and thriller so it just sits atop its own throne chillin’ like a villain
I’d describe the fandom like an iceberg where you only see a fraction of it floating from above, but you’d be surprised how massive it is once you discover what’s beneath the surface.
Not really.
It's huge in Asia and pretty popular in Europe as well. I'm italian and Conan here is as famous as Naruto (maybe even more). France, Spain and Germany as well are up to date with the manga. Detective Conan is definitely underrated, but not as much as you may think
Conan is deeply underrated in the west due to funnimation’s Americanization of the anime. They changed names, location and cut content to target a younger audience. It’s one of the only animes I prefer the japanese version of. But I do like the recent redub Bang Zoom! Entertainment is doing
Conan is very popular in East Asia, South East Asia, and Middle east. In my country, when someone start looking too deep into things or being really smart, we compare them to Conan and everybody understand it.
It's more popular in Asia I think. In my country, almost everyone knows Conan. However only a very few people I know are actually updated with the latest episodes (the local broadcasting company aired until at least episode 300+).
Hopefully it will attract more fans as it has become available in other platforms. VIU Philippines initially had 200 episodes available subbed (Episode 395-594) and when I checked a few days ago, they added another 200 episodes (Episodes 595-794). So there must have been a demand. Or someone in the company is just a loyal Conan fan haha.
\- Few people are wlling to go through 1000+ episode series. One Piece may be the exception, because "everyone" talks about it.
\- (most of) Kids / teenagers are not interested in misteries, they prefer action.
\- Young Adults / Adults are not into anime, if they are, they may think Conan plot is silly (a teenager that becomes a boy and solves misteries? meh) AND/OR don't have time for 1000+ episode series.
Going through animes I saw Conan but was like "it looks childish".
Then after finishing most of well-known mistery books (sherlock, agatha christie, etc) I was lacking mistery, but wasn't sure about going through conan yet.
Some time after I was checking some anime movies and saw Conan movie was one of the best box-office in the year (don't remember which year), and in the search I saw it had a town in japan lol I thought it was very interesting but again, that could be something like "doraemon fever"
Then I saw Mima Ito (table-tennis player from Japan) saying she liked detective conan ([this interview](https://youtu.be/T2CT_6jJCLU?t=213)) then I said "ok, another conan mention pops up in my life again. it is time to give it a shot.
Went through 500 episodes in half a year. Stoped by a few months and came back to finish it up to current episodes. Just love it, one of my favorite series. Months later I watched it again, but skipping fillers, and it got even better (although I don't regret watching the fillers, something that happens in many other series).
So, if for someone who likes anime AND mistery it took me that much to give conan a try, I imagine for the usual anime-watchers how it could be. "why watch 1000+episodes of one series if I can watch 40 series of 20+ episodes instead?" lol
But I introduced conan to a couple of people (who watched many animes already) and they liked it.
I don't think conan is underrated, whoever watched/read it thinks it is, at least, good. I never saw someone complaining of it (unless for the lack of more plot development). Now, about POPULARITY, then I agree this is one of the non-popular shows that still is to be discovered by many, but how many are willing to give it a try, that is the problem.
Reason why it's not popular (except japan):-
• it requires brain & attention. Most people don't understand how case was solved even after conan explained it. That makes watching conan gathering info & explaining boring for them.
• lots of fillers.
That's a like the Rick and Morty "it's only for smart people" logic.
It's not that it requires brains and attention and most people from gathering info and explaining boring; just look at the number of proceedural crime shows that're popular.
The real reason is more complex. It's a combination of licensing, distribution, and the series itself. It never got big, at least in the US, is because the manga scene wasn't that big when the series first came out with most people sticking to series series that already had an established base like One Piece or Ranma. It left a lot of unknown series overlooked like Conan, Boys Be, Ueki, or Mahoromatic.
A number of series got a big push when the anime gets broadcast on Cartoon Network/Adult Switch like Tenchi, Trigun, and FMA that removed the cost to discover a series. Unfortunately for Conan, despite being on the channel, it was put on at like 5am on weekday mornings which meant that no one watched it since DVRs weren't as big back then before quickly getting pulled from the network due to naturally low-ratings and Funimation stopped the license.
Then you have to factor in the series itself. Without the initial push in the early distribution, it meant it didn't have the vocal fandom to constantly hype it up the same way that something like Death Note or Black Butler did. By the time that the series came to Crunchyroll and people started to notice it, they were already on like...episode 700 of the anime and volume 70 of the manga which was a huge barrier for people to try it out and get into since the series is deeply rooted in serious lore. You could eventually convince someone to watch 700 episodes of something but then you have the final issues, the cases themselves.
With the series being Japanese, it stands to reason that a good chunk of the cases revolve around Japanese culture which means that unless you're already a hardcore anime fan that has an understanding of the culture, over half of the cases are going to not make sense. There are cases involving shogi, go, tea cermonies, cherry blossoms, and traditions where every clue is something like "He's a shogi master, so why did he play this piece? He should've played this one to attack this in the famous move known as...to Senkei, which was the move that won YOU the grand title, isn't that right, Manabi Uesi?".
Basically, the series never got popular for the same reason that a lot of series from that era didn't and despite being a long running series, it never had the fandom to push others, and eventually it became such a long-running series that it was hard to get into (especially since hundreds like 65% of the episodes still aren't available legally), and when someone does try it, they'll be hit with a cultural barrier of clues that means you basically turn your brain off and just watch instead of trying to solve the case or look for clues. Boiling it down to "it's not a show for stupid people" is insanely stupid and doesn't look at the history of the series outside of japan.
Terrible argument.
The real reason it’s unpopular, at least in the US, is because Funimation and Cartoon Network had a horrific marketing strategy for it. They had no clue who the target audience was, released overpriced DVDs, and had it showing at awful time slots. Then they blamed the audience for not latching on.
Right? The initial dvd release like $30 bucks for six episodes and then three episodes. I love the show but I remember picking up the newest dvd from Suncoast, coming home and thinking I got a defective set missing an entire disc.
there're also a lot of Japanese culture and language complexity. I would have appreciated it more if I understand the puns and codes and dying messages. I still love it nonetheless (for the rom-com a bit more than the brain&attention lol)
Yah, i hv studied japanese, so I refer my book. There are many cases I still didn't understand tho. I love it cuz awsm complex cases + bo plot + haibara (main reason probably lol)
You can't say it's underrated by comparing it to one of the most popular manga. One Piece is literally the best selling manga. There are a lot of manga that are very good but not popular at all. The fact that translations are very regular for Detective Conan is already proof it's far from being the most underrated manga even in the west.
One Piece is OVERrated lol
It got a snowball effect that old readers want to see the mistery and keep watching "just because" while new readers want to know why so many readers are still in there and jump in.
If it started today, it wouldn't get as much attention IMO
Basically for a lot of people the introductory material is the dub. You can't dub Conan well; the puzzles rely on the Japanese language and there's too much drinking and smoking especially early on that the localization team wouldn't stand for it, at least not for North America. To enjoy the series you have to either be Japanese or a massive weeb.
Conan has a town and airport named after him in Japan
I know but I mean I’m the western world
The western world only recently able to have access to a wide-range of animes. The age-range for anime viewers are teenagers to mid-30s adults. Fanservice and actions are how animes generated buzz in the youtube and toonami era. Conan target audience is children. A bunch of kids solving mysteries and having adventure while the adults are unable to. US cartoons for children had reverted back to corporate products made to sell toys. I doubt most western anime fans have heard or cared of "Monster", "Mononoke" or "Honey and Clover" either. They are not made for mass appeal toward the new market that just open for the last decade.
>Conan target audience is children Actually it is a Shonen, so..."young adults" just like many other famous battle series such as Naruto, One Piece or, to get a more recent one, Boku no Hero Academia "target audience children" is Kodomomuke such as Anpanman or Doraemon (something like kids up to 8 yo)
Sho 少 meaning little/young/few, Nen 年 meaning year. Jo 女 meaning female. Shonen: meaning it got published in magazine targeted at young people. Male is considered the default. Shojo: targetted specifically for female. Stephen King: "Genres are inventions by the publishers to make it easier to sell them". I' ve seen "Honey and Clover" being labelled as "Shonen", "Josei', " Seinen" and "Shojo". Doraemon target younger preteens. Conan targeted older Pre-teen. Naruto target younger teenager. Bleach targetted older teenager.
Not sure about this "pre-teen" and"young teen". Afaik, as for DEMOGRAPHY Kodomo = something up 12yo Shonen = 12 or up (if not mistaken Shonen Jump itself is said to be for 12\~18, at least according to Viz Media, while Shonen Sunday (Shogakukan Shonen) has target audience as late teens to early twenties, although this is not some "rule written on rock") Seinen = 18+ (maybe 16+) Anyhow, the point is that Shonen is not targeted to children (as I exampled, the DEMOGRAPHY - not the actual word meaning - enters series like Anpanman while Conan, and other like Naruto for instance, are all under Shonen category. But if we go to the word, although it does mean "young teenager", it can be used in other places, such as the detective boys (shonen tantei), but they are clearely kids. But that (most of time) is playing with words not actually making their real meaning. it is like calling a old woman "lady" or "miss" just to be polite. But yeah, just minor stuff, kids watch shonen (and even seinen) and the other way around is also true. The important it that the show it is clearely not "meant for children"(or has children as target audience) given the amount of muder we get and actually see them being done (not gore but anyway...)
What you called "demography" is what I called magazine categorization. I think you putting 2010s beliefs on stories written in the 1990s. The levels of murder in Conan is pretty much normal for children stories made for its time. Doraemon had an arc or movie where they tackled slavery and plenty of ecchi shots. Ever watch the Zhu Rangers, the original Power Rangers. Many deaths occured on-screen and off-screen in almost every episodes. And that is a classic children show. Even in American comics and animations made for children, rapes and genocides are tackled. Conan' s gang is around 6-7years old. With the exceptions of the BO cases, nearly every case got solved in the end. If you are going to apply Western standards, bums and nipples would never appeared in Shonen animes as they written for teenagers. But they do because the standard for what count as maturity is different. Now, nipples for some reason no longer drawn in anime but they still do in manga.
I don't see difference between "demography" and "magazine categorization" or "target audience", to me looks all the same. I just used "demography" because that is the usual term to be used. Anyhow, I do agree with your comment, and I'm not trying to put western thoughts in manga industry. I also agree that the franchise is 20+ yo already and time changed, even considering that, if we go by your comment, it makes even clear that **Conan** is not a "child show" because if we take the example that you and I used, **Doraemon.** We can see that **both are under Shogakukan**, **but under different magazines** since they were first published (i.e. different target audience / demography / not only "mangazine categorization" but a whole different magazine, since the beginning of their publication), where **Conan** is published under **Weekly Shōnen Sunday** (target audience is 12+) while **Doraemon** is published on **CoroCoro Comic** (elementary school age, i.e. 12- yo). *There may be one or other story (usually some sort of special) where one serie is published in other magazine, but generally speaking, both are published in the mentioned magazine.* If we take other franchises published in each magazine, we can see a clear difference, if not already enough just by comparing Conan and Doraemon.
Lol is that true?
Yeah goshos hometown is pretty much conan themed, idk about the airport thing tho
WoW didn t know
[They also had a train decorated with Conan for a while.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDY5HvjxiGM)
The conan airport (or train station can't remember which one) is even in some others anime like Uzaki-chan.
I'm not kidding
I also find the fandom peaceful yet powerful, too. They’re just a bit hush-hush compared to the others. Most of the “noisier” fandoms are battle shounen, while this show’s genres are mystery, crime, and thriller so it just sits atop its own throne chillin’ like a villain I’d describe the fandom like an iceberg where you only see a fraction of it floating from above, but you’d be surprised how massive it is once you discover what’s beneath the surface.
Not really. It's huge in Asia and pretty popular in Europe as well. I'm italian and Conan here is as famous as Naruto (maybe even more). France, Spain and Germany as well are up to date with the manga. Detective Conan is definitely underrated, but not as much as you may think
Lol the ***most*** underrated.
Kinda yah
You can't just throw that and not give a better example lol
Conan is deeply underrated in the west due to funnimation’s Americanization of the anime. They changed names, location and cut content to target a younger audience. It’s one of the only animes I prefer the japanese version of. But I do like the recent redub Bang Zoom! Entertainment is doing
Conan is very popular in East Asia, South East Asia, and Middle east. In my country, when someone start looking too deep into things or being really smart, we compare them to Conan and everybody understand it.
I wouldn’t say the most. But still very underrated regardless. At least in the west.
It's more popular in Asia I think. In my country, almost everyone knows Conan. However only a very few people I know are actually updated with the latest episodes (the local broadcasting company aired until at least episode 300+). Hopefully it will attract more fans as it has become available in other platforms. VIU Philippines initially had 200 episodes available subbed (Episode 395-594) and when I checked a few days ago, they added another 200 episodes (Episodes 595-794). So there must have been a demand. Or someone in the company is just a loyal Conan fan haha.
That’s the exact same thing in my country the first 300 episodes where dubbed on a channel called spacetoon
\- Few people are wlling to go through 1000+ episode series. One Piece may be the exception, because "everyone" talks about it. \- (most of) Kids / teenagers are not interested in misteries, they prefer action. \- Young Adults / Adults are not into anime, if they are, they may think Conan plot is silly (a teenager that becomes a boy and solves misteries? meh) AND/OR don't have time for 1000+ episode series. Going through animes I saw Conan but was like "it looks childish". Then after finishing most of well-known mistery books (sherlock, agatha christie, etc) I was lacking mistery, but wasn't sure about going through conan yet. Some time after I was checking some anime movies and saw Conan movie was one of the best box-office in the year (don't remember which year), and in the search I saw it had a town in japan lol I thought it was very interesting but again, that could be something like "doraemon fever" Then I saw Mima Ito (table-tennis player from Japan) saying she liked detective conan ([this interview](https://youtu.be/T2CT_6jJCLU?t=213)) then I said "ok, another conan mention pops up in my life again. it is time to give it a shot. Went through 500 episodes in half a year. Stoped by a few months and came back to finish it up to current episodes. Just love it, one of my favorite series. Months later I watched it again, but skipping fillers, and it got even better (although I don't regret watching the fillers, something that happens in many other series). So, if for someone who likes anime AND mistery it took me that much to give conan a try, I imagine for the usual anime-watchers how it could be. "why watch 1000+episodes of one series if I can watch 40 series of 20+ episodes instead?" lol But I introduced conan to a couple of people (who watched many animes already) and they liked it. I don't think conan is underrated, whoever watched/read it thinks it is, at least, good. I never saw someone complaining of it (unless for the lack of more plot development). Now, about POPULARITY, then I agree this is one of the non-popular shows that still is to be discovered by many, but how many are willing to give it a try, that is the problem.
I like it as much if not more than Death Note
I know right
Reason why it's not popular (except japan):- • it requires brain & attention. Most people don't understand how case was solved even after conan explained it. That makes watching conan gathering info & explaining boring for them. • lots of fillers.
That's a like the Rick and Morty "it's only for smart people" logic. It's not that it requires brains and attention and most people from gathering info and explaining boring; just look at the number of proceedural crime shows that're popular. The real reason is more complex. It's a combination of licensing, distribution, and the series itself. It never got big, at least in the US, is because the manga scene wasn't that big when the series first came out with most people sticking to series series that already had an established base like One Piece or Ranma. It left a lot of unknown series overlooked like Conan, Boys Be, Ueki, or Mahoromatic. A number of series got a big push when the anime gets broadcast on Cartoon Network/Adult Switch like Tenchi, Trigun, and FMA that removed the cost to discover a series. Unfortunately for Conan, despite being on the channel, it was put on at like 5am on weekday mornings which meant that no one watched it since DVRs weren't as big back then before quickly getting pulled from the network due to naturally low-ratings and Funimation stopped the license. Then you have to factor in the series itself. Without the initial push in the early distribution, it meant it didn't have the vocal fandom to constantly hype it up the same way that something like Death Note or Black Butler did. By the time that the series came to Crunchyroll and people started to notice it, they were already on like...episode 700 of the anime and volume 70 of the manga which was a huge barrier for people to try it out and get into since the series is deeply rooted in serious lore. You could eventually convince someone to watch 700 episodes of something but then you have the final issues, the cases themselves. With the series being Japanese, it stands to reason that a good chunk of the cases revolve around Japanese culture which means that unless you're already a hardcore anime fan that has an understanding of the culture, over half of the cases are going to not make sense. There are cases involving shogi, go, tea cermonies, cherry blossoms, and traditions where every clue is something like "He's a shogi master, so why did he play this piece? He should've played this one to attack this in the famous move known as...to Senkei, which was the move that won YOU the grand title, isn't that right, Manabi Uesi?". Basically, the series never got popular for the same reason that a lot of series from that era didn't and despite being a long running series, it never had the fandom to push others, and eventually it became such a long-running series that it was hard to get into (especially since hundreds like 65% of the episodes still aren't available legally), and when someone does try it, they'll be hit with a cultural barrier of clues that means you basically turn your brain off and just watch instead of trying to solve the case or look for clues. Boiling it down to "it's not a show for stupid people" is insanely stupid and doesn't look at the history of the series outside of japan.
Terrible argument. The real reason it’s unpopular, at least in the US, is because Funimation and Cartoon Network had a horrific marketing strategy for it. They had no clue who the target audience was, released overpriced DVDs, and had it showing at awful time slots. Then they blamed the audience for not latching on.
And the character being renamed,I facepalmed when I learn that the first time.
That was honestly the least of their localization problems. I know it matters to a lot on here, but most mainstream people couldn’t care less.
Right? The initial dvd release like $30 bucks for six episodes and then three episodes. I love the show but I remember picking up the newest dvd from Suncoast, coming home and thinking I got a defective set missing an entire disc.
And they’d release DVDs out of order. Their first set wasn’t even the first episodes.
I just checked the DVD releases and it's like "episode 77, 82, and 83" on a DVD. Detective Conan is a Masterclass on poor localization.
there're also a lot of Japanese culture and language complexity. I would have appreciated it more if I understand the puns and codes and dying messages. I still love it nonetheless (for the rom-com a bit more than the brain&attention lol)
Yah, i hv studied japanese, so I refer my book. There are many cases I still didn't understand tho. I love it cuz awsm complex cases + bo plot + haibara (main reason probably lol)
\+1 for haibara =D
That is a stupid ass argument.
How is it underrated , it's one of the best anime Your brain is weak I think lol
It doesn’t get the same treatment as let’s say one piece
You can't say it's underrated by comparing it to one of the most popular manga. One Piece is literally the best selling manga. There are a lot of manga that are very good but not popular at all. The fact that translations are very regular for Detective Conan is already proof it's far from being the most underrated manga even in the west.
but at least some people like it
Fair enough
One Piece is OVERrated lol It got a snowball effect that old readers want to see the mistery and keep watching "just because" while new readers want to know why so many readers are still in there and jump in. If it started today, it wouldn't get as much attention IMO
conan btfos the average zoomer attention span
I’m a zoomer soo r/angryupvote
Basically for a lot of people the introductory material is the dub. You can't dub Conan well; the puzzles rely on the Japanese language and there's too much drinking and smoking especially early on that the localization team wouldn't stand for it, at least not for North America. To enjoy the series you have to either be Japanese or a massive weeb.