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As to do all of you guys a favor who told me to ask, while I was volunteering at the Funimation booth at San Diego Comic-Con, I asked Adam Sheehan what the "real story behind the status of Case Closed" is. Oh, and Sheehan gave me his blessing to post this.

First off, Sheehan mentioned that this has been told many times before, from the ANN Cast to AnimeExpo (though probably not as extensive as he told me). He said he's answered this question over and over, but people are just not facing reality. FACE IT. Funimation is done with Conan as a TV series. There are no plans whatsoever to license more of the Conan TV series. It just isn't going to happen with Funimation.

Conan has been given THREE lives, and has failed them all miserably.
Life ONE: Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, and single DVDs. Single DVDs (3 episodes) with Conan were a miserable failure, and in hindsight that's completely obvious for a series that had around 500 episodes (at the time). Coupled with it being a kids show on Adult Swim at 5:30 am (at some times), it was just not a good fit. (Though I did meet a kid whose mom told me at the Funi booth that her son would wake up at 5:30 just to watch Conan. You rock!)
Life ONE and a half: Case 1 and 2/3 were released with 6 episodes each (outside of 1.1). This didn't work either.
Life TWO: Season sets with 25-27 episodes. This also failed.
Life THREE: Viridian season sets. This also failed.

Failed as in meet expectations. The licensing fees and marketing money put into Conan were a lot, and the sales in return didn't come close to meeting expectations (and likely recur costs). Sheehan could not give me numbers, but let's just say they were bad. Conan has a TON of rabid fans, but there aren't enough casual fans (e.g. Kenichi) that push sales along. And you have to consider that many of the "fans" don't even buy the DVDs.

So how about the movies? Life FOUR? The movies sold well, according to Sheehan. Funimation may go after movies, for the sheer reason that the story is in the box and there's not as much backstory you NEED to keep going. Movies overall sell better than a series, especially a long running one.

So how about a simulcast? Not going to happen. Funimation wants to simulcast series that start at the beginning. Getting series in the middle are not likely, and One Piece only happened because it was actually Toei's idea.

So how about the Lupin vs Conan special? Specials are an option, notably this one since it has two fan bases to fuel sales.

Sheehan ranked it in terms of importance: Movies on top, right below are specials, and all the way on the bottom is the TV series.

I asked, "If the movies sell well, could that give birth to the series continuing?" Never say never in that case, but there would need to be a 10 TIMES sales increase (i.e. yeah right) for that to happen.

Sheehan summed it up with saying that the best hope for Conan is for the license to run out (and he could not tell me when that would be), and a smaller company with less overhead to pick it up (likely for subbed release). Section 23, NIS, and Nozomi were mentioned. He also mentioned that just like the Lupin license where ADV got the series and Funi had the movies that they could do the movies and have another company continue the series.

Thus, the case is closed on the Case Closed TV series. Stop this nonsense. It isn't going to happen.

Oh, and to top it off, I even asked Gen Fukunaga (as a joke, saying it half laughing). He, along with the entire Funi crew he was with (Adam Zaner, et. al.), laughed with me. "We wish."

tantei okuoku wrote: ok so I just added the quotes so does anyone have a preference as to which of the three studios that have shown interest in conan (hopefully) gets it

GinRei wrote:

tantei okuoku wrote: ok so I just added the quotes so does anyone have a preference as to which of the three studios that have shown interest in conan (hopefully) gets it

Edited so it has actual quotes.  Tiny quotes won't be seen, and when there's a wonderful quote function on the board itself... why not use it?

Detective Prince wrote: They really shouldn't Detective Conan doesn't make sense in English.

ranger wrote:

Detective Prince wrote: They really shouldn't Detective Conan doesn't make sense in English.

You should stop watching the subs then!

ranger wrote: How come Viz doesn't want to take the series D: ? They do the English manga..

Nice post Tantei, thanks for the info - I knew it was a pipedream to wait for that illusive season 6, and to think back when I started the dubbed series, I said "I'll just wait until they release season 6 and pick the series back up".

Looking forward to when their license runs out, things should be quite interesting, DC on Crunchyroll...I can kind of see this happening

Detective Prince wrote: Lol I mean the word combinations they use and puns only japanese words can be used as. It would be too confusing if they spoke english. Not to mention most likely dissapointing. Conan's dubbed verse sounds like a 5 year old girl -__-I mean I know Conan's japanese voice actor is a girl but that doesn't mean the english one has to be lol

Akemi~chan wrote: don't you think you should put this thread on the poll page?