An interesting movie to say the least here, but even more interesting was the fact that they showed some movie previews, which at a guess would normally be rated Mature 16, in a G movie. While not a fan of Conan, I found that the movie was able to hold the viewers' interest without being too kiddyish. Indeed, the movie was probably a tad difficult for the 5-7 year olds in the crowd at the time. Still, the overall story-line was decent and with enough strange curve balls to keep the viewer guessing as to the identity of Scorpion. As to Kaitoh Kid, who beyond a few cameo appearances in the beginning didn't seem to be there... well, his identity was easy to pick out with little thought.

Being unfamiliar with the whole background to Conan, we got a brief overall review at the beginning of the movie, getting details about who everyone was... mind you, it was a bit tricky to keep track of everyone right away, but as the story progressed, each character became clear.

The overall animation quality while definitely not Studio Ghibli quality, wasn't all bad; typical OAV/movie quality and is fairly smooth. Mind you, there generally wasn't too much happening in the background in this movie due to the locales being shown. Likewise, the music was pretty good, not really catching the viewers attention, but being there; more nondescript if you will. The thing that was a little odd, was the "obviousness" of certain scenes, which seemed designed to catch the viewers attention and say "Hey! I'm important and will be explained later!" With no reason to suspect any plots or anything amiss, they act as very obvious red herrings for the viewer. Likewise, the foreshadowing from an o-mikuji at the beginning of the story made for some definite interest in trying to decide who would be the one to discover Conan's secret; or if there would be more than one person to find out. While this movie definitely does not qualify as an absolute must see, it certainly would be a nice way to spend an evening in front of the telly.

All in all this was a very typical OAV standard movie, decent voice acting, decent animation, decent story, decent music and decent direction. Just the strange bit with obvious visual reactions on the parts of certain characters that really catch the viewers' attention. Probably it was an attempt to make for a complicated plot while still making it easy and obvious for the young viewers to whom the movie is primarily aimed. Oh, and there is a trailing scene at the end of the credits. Poor Shinichi...
- JN, 99.06.09