In this fifth season of the incorrigible Jimmy Kudo’s existence as Conan Edogawa, the police department still doesn’t mind a child poking around murder scenes. Which is great, because his incredible mystery-solving aptitude is one of the top reasons each and every murder or crime gets solved. Twenty-four fresh episodes easily provide enough murderous intent to satisfy any fan of Sherlock Holmes. We’ve got them all, from attempted death by arson to serial killers taking revenge for a decade-old crime. Hitch up your short pants, straighten your bow tie and hang on for the ride!

As happy as I am to have more Detective Conan in my life, I have to admit that season five takes a step back from two of the series’ overall themes: The investigation into the group that, in attempting to end Kudo’s life, is responsible for his current childlike physique; and Rachel Moore’s pining for her lost boyfriend Jimmy (in fact, this season seems to retract seasons four’s admission that the two are sweethearts). Other than this, each mystery is just as interesting, varied, and murderous as one could ever ask for. We even get to visit XXX XXX, a friend of Jimmy’s and one of the few people to have figured out the reason behind Conan’s striking similarities to Jimmy in both appearance and behavior.

An often overlooked bonus to this series is how functional it is even without any prior knowledge of the characters or show. Few plotlines extend beyond an episode or two, which makes Case Closed a perfect show for ‘anytime’ viewing. Simplistic art style and very unassuming music make the show both easy to comprehend and switch the focus entirely onto the mystery at hand¸ a rarity when many other shows seem intent on intensifying the drama of character relationships.

The only drawback to this series stems from a commonly-overlooked lack of English-script subtitles. Occasionally, the difference between the Japanese-script subtitles and the English-audio script are quite noticeable, even going so far as to seem like the English script was dumbed-down for those of us not fluent in Japanese. I also find myself wishing the names of characters wasn’t changed between the two languages. I think my poor tv-baked brain can handle Japanese names of three syllables or more, but I still enjoy the story. At any rate, both voice casts do an excellent job, and the lines flow smoothly between characters for a wonderfully effective narrative.

Contains episodes 106-130.