One thing I hadn’t done in Japan yet was to go see an anime movie.  I had seen Godzilla 2000 because I have been a life-long kaiju (giant monster) fan ever since seeing Ultraman back in the 70’s; and I also had seen Owl’s Castle, a ninja movie. In Japan, kaiju and ninja were the two main genres to see. My fascination with ninja movies began when HBO and Cinemax aired Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja, Ninja III:  The Domination and countless others movies sporting “ninja” in the title.  My favorites were the ones with Sho Kosugi but I also liked the American Ninja series. Alas, there was one remaining genre to see and that was anime.           

So I spent most of the day trying to convince my friends to go see it.  No one was interested.  Finally, I found my old roommate, Justin, and he agreed immediately.  It’s nice to have friends who you don’t always need to sell an idea to. 

On opening day, we both skipped class to catch the cheaper matinee.  Looking around us, we were surrounded by babies and children, accompanied by their parents.  I felt really dumb at this point.  I was sure that the five-year old kid sitting next to me would understand this movie in Japanese better than I could.

Standing in the lobby after buying a ticket, I saw a program guide.  I hadn’t seen movie programs in the US for a long time so I decided to buy one for Case Closed.  The movie program had a lot of detailed information about the director, animators, and crew, plus nice glossy pictures.

Before the movie started, Justin and I nervously discussed just how hard this movie would be to follow with no subtitles and only three years of Japanese language study. 

Finally, the lights went out and Case Closed began.  At first, it was difficult to follow.  Case Closed has a lot of information that the viewer needs to comprehend to have any chance at all to solve the mystery.  I would probably have had a better job at understanding dialogue by picking an easier-to-follow movie like some entry in Doraemon.  I had already read the Doraemon manga in Japanese and it was the perfect place to start due to its basic Japanese targeted at young elementary school kids.  On the other hand, Case Closed was so much harder to follow.  So I did what I always do when watching a foreign movie: I ignored the dialogue and concentrated on the images, the sounds, and the action.

As the ending credits rolled, I was utterly confused about the actual plot.  I thought, Hopefully the movie will be released on DVD with English subtitles. That took 10-years to come to light. See my review of Case Closed:  Captured in Her Eyes.)

Exiting the theater, Justin and I walked over to a nearby McDonald’s to try to piece together what we had just seen.  We both agreed that the umbrella was the key to solving the murder.  After recently watching the DVD version so many years later, I find that we were on the right track.  Plot aside; it was definitely worth watching with a nice loud booming audio system and a big screen to catch all the beautiful colors and details. 

For anyone planning a trip to see an anime movie in Japan, I say go for it. Depending on your listening ability I would start with Doraemon for the beginner, then move on to One Piece and Case Closed after you have the basics mastered. Incidentally, Kaiju movies are much easier because you can skip a lot of the dialogue and just watch the crazy monster battles. 

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Anime3000 or it's staff.