Gosho Aoyama

Gosho Aoyama (青山剛昌, Aoyama Gōshō) is a Japanese manga artist best known for the popular manga series, Detective Conan, also known as Case Closed outside of Japan.

Aoyama featured Rohan Kishibe as a detective in Volume 101 of Detective Conan, along with a recommendation to read Millionaire Village.^[1]

History

Aoyama had a passion for drawing since he was a kid, and began drawing his own manga in elementary school.^[2] He later enrolled at Nihon University College of Art in Tokyo, where he continued to pursue his passion for manga.^[2] In 1986, Aoyama won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award for his debut work, Wait a Minute. Aoyama then begun to work on his debut series, Magic Kaito, which later became a part of the Detective Conan series. Between 1988 and 1993, Aoyama created the series Yaiba, which ran for 24 volumes.

In 1994, Aoyama began serializing Detective Conan. The series follows a high school detective named Shinichi Kudo, who is transformed into a child after being poisoned by a mysterious organization. Under the alias Conan Edogawa, he solves various crimes while searching for a way to return himself to normal. The series has become a cultural phenomenon in Japan, with millions of copies sold and an anime adaptation spanning over a thousand episodes. Due to legal problems with the name "Detective Conan," the English release by VIZ Media renamed the series to Case Closed.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Pinga (far right) in Black Iron Submarine was based on JoJo

In April 2022, Aoyama featured Rohan Kishibe, the titular protagonist of the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan series, in his "Detective Picture Book" for the cover of Detective Conan Volume 101, alongside a recommendation to read Millionaire Village.^[1] Aoyama described Rohan as a manga artist with an almost inhuman degree of skill and an ability that allows him to read a person's life like a book. Aoyama praised Rohan's eccentricity and his tendency to get involved in bizarre cases, despite being more focused on his manga rather than solving actual cases.

In December 2022, Hirohiko Araki was later asked about this in Kono Mystery ga Sugoi!, in which he was surprised yet humbled to hear Rohan being given the title of "detective." His recommendation of other manga series continued in the next volume of Detective Conan, where he illustrated Seiko Fuji from the manga Police in a Pod. In 2021, he also collaborated with Rei Hiroe and Sunday GX to draw Revy, the protagonist of Black Lagoon.

In 2023, Aoyama designed an original Black Organization member called Pinga for the 26th Detective Conan theatrical film, Black Iron Submarine, which was released on April 14, 2023. During a stage greeting event for the film on September 30, 2023, Aoyama revealed that he created Pinga's androgynous features to make him look like a character from JoJo, which was something the series had never done before.^[3]

On October 5, 2023, Aoyama provided a tribute illustration for the Fist of the North Star 40th Anniversary Exhibition alongside Hirohiko Araki.

Works

"Wait For Me" (ちょっとまってて) (1986)
"100% Tantei Monogatari" (１００％探偵物語 100% Tantei Monogatari) (1986-1987)
"Nonchalant Lupin" (さりげなくルパン) (1987)
"The Santa Claus of Summer" (夏のサンタクロース) (1987)
"Magic Kaito" (まじっく快斗) (1987–present)
"Sunday 19 Show - The Wandering Red Butterfly" (さまよえる赤い蝶) (1988)
"Detective George's Mini-Mini Big Strategy" (探偵ジョージのミニミニ大作戦) (1988)
"Play It Again" (プレイ・イット・アゲイン) (1988)
"Excalibur" (えくすかりば) (1988)
"Yaiba" (YAIBA(やいば)) (1988-1993)
"3rd Base Fourth" (4番サード) (1993)
"Gosho Aoyama's Collection of Short Stories" (青山剛昌短編集) (1994)
"Detective Conan" (名探偵コナン) (1994–present)
"Tell Me A Lie" (〜私にウソをついて〜) (2011)
"Detective Conan - Hanzawa the Criminal" (犯人の犯沢さん) (2017–present) - Original draft
"Detective Conan - Zero's Tea Time" (ゼロの日) (2018–present) - Original draft cooperation
"Detective Conan - Wild Police Story" (名探偵コナン警察学校編) (2019-2020) - Original story

Interviews

#	Interview	Type	Media	Published
1	Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! (December 2022)	Interview	Magazine	December 4, 2022

Commentary

Detective Picture BookBlack Iron Submarine

Detective Conan Volume 101 - Detective Picture Book

TranslationTranscript

“

Let me introduce Rohan Kishibe, the most unique of all famous detectives! Rohan is a super popular manga artist with a series in the Shonen Jump magazine. He’s also an eccentric who devotes his entire life to manga! He trains his body for this sole purpose, waking up in the morning to do finger exercises, and immersing himself in his work with an almost inhuman degree of skill. Also, he’s unable to control his curiosity when something catches his eye, which often leads to him getting involved in bizarre cases.

During these bizarre cases, he calls himself forth to investigate with the help of “Heaven's Door,” which has the special ability to read a person’s life like a book. In addition, he uses his intellect and tremendous self-confidence to get to the bottom of the mystery. Despite this, he seems more focused on his manga rather than solving the actual case… By the way, according to the author, Hirohiko Araki, Rohan Kishibe is his “ideal vision of a manga artist.” If I could use Heaven’s Door, I’d like to take a peek inside of Rohan… (laughs)

(My recommendation is…"Millionaire Village")

”

—Gosho Aoyama, April 2022

“

変わり者揃いの名探偵の中でも異色中の異色、岸辺露伴を紹介しよう！少年誌で連載を持つ大人気漫画家。漫画のために生活の全てを捧げる変人!で、そのために体を鍛え、朝起きたら指の準備体操、人間離れしたパンさばきで制作に没頭する。一方、興味深い出せ来事には好奇心を抑えられず、取材と称しては、奇怪な事件に巻き込まれるそんな彼の助けとなるのが、人の人生を本のように読む事ができる特殊能力「ヘブンスドアー」。加えて持ち前の知力、絶大なる自信で、謎の真相に迫っていく。とはいえ、彼が本当に興味があるのは事件解決より、面白い漫画を描く事だけなのである…ちなみに作者・荒木飛呂彦によれば、岸辺露伴は「漫画家としての理想の姿」だそうだ。もしも私にヘブンズ・ドアーが使えたら、露伴先生を覗いてみたい… (笑) (私のオススメは「富豪村」)

”

—Gosho Aoyama, April 2022

Black Iron Submarine Stage Greeting

TranslationTranscript

“

I wanted to create a character that looked like it came out of JoJo, something that Detective Conan has never done before, so that's how I came up with [Pinga's] face.

”

—Gosho Aoyama, September 2023

“

今までのコナンにないような、『ジョジョ』に出てきそうなキャラクターにしたいと思ってあの顔になった。

”

—Gosho Aoyama, September 2023