This Week in Anime

Can Detective Conan Newbies Enjoy Zero's Tea Time?

Chris
Steve, I admit I was a little intimidated when I saw Editorial say we should cover Case Closed for TWIA. But I'm nothing if not committed to this column. So...I did it. I marathoned all 1,054 episodes of Detective Conan, just in time to be ready to talk about it, as assigned!

Aw jeez, this is why I really need to do more than skim my e-mails. We might actually need to reschedule this one then. And finding ourselves with nothing else to do here now, where could we spend that downtime?

Right, this is way more reasonable than actually trying to cover the entirety of the somehow-still-ongoing original Conan anime (It's almost as long as ten Legend of the Galactic Heroeses!), and short-form Netflix spin-offs seem to be our main focus recently, so. This one takes breakout character Toru Amuro and focuses on him in...not necessarily a coffee shop AU, since this is still within the proper Conan-verse. Let's call it a "Coffee Shop Gaiden." All filler, only occasional killer.

Well...he's does get a little more busy than that.


Even with all the canon complications, I think Zero's Tea Time does alright getting those basics across. Within the first couple episodes, you can pick up on Rei's status as some sort of triple-agent moonlighting as a café worker, special agent detective, and secret society supervillain, with different aliases between each one. They even show 'em all off across the intro for you!

Come to Café Poirot. We got Rei thirst and thirsty Rei.

I'm glad you brought that up because yeah, one thing I absolutely wanted to talk about was this character's Amuro association. Like his most-known alias of 'Toru Amuro' intersects with his 'real' name of Furuya Rei to shamelessly name-drop both Mr. Furuya and his most famous role.

The closest thing Zero's Tea Time has to an ongoing story arc is the plot of Rei adopting a puppy. What do you think he ends up naming his adorable new companion? I'll give you one guess.

What if I told you that the whole setup was almost certainly intentional, as Gōshō Aoyama had pulled the same stunt earlier with Rei's fast-moving archenemy, named Shuichi Akai.

You'll never guess who Gosho requested voice him in the anime.

That sort of struggle might conflict with the overall intent of this one, where even in the more dramatic moments of its brief episodes, Rei is pretty much the most effortlessly awesome dude alive.


Watch him chase a criminal down on a commandeered motorcycle and espouse the values of traffic safety!

I respect Midori for confidently dropping an awful pun like that in the middle of this already completely unserious series.

But yeah, the lighter atmosphere and regular focus on food (He even cuts the crusts off! A gentleman indeed!), almost bring to mind Today's Menu for Emiya Family. Though Zero's Tea Time is careful to almost always stay laser-focused on Rei himself, with none of the main core Conan cast appearing beyond brief, out-of-frame cameos. The idea seems to be to show how easy things are for Rei when he's not having to participate in major manga-derived plots.

There are some allusions to the more serious aspects of Rei's character, like his aforementioned adversity against Akai, or his lingering attachment to his old police academy squad or his mentor. But those are all brief, context-lite flashbacks for regular viewers to recognize, and those less deep in get to have it as the emotional spice for this cute detective curry.

Yeah, it gets to a point a few times where you wonder if the shortened run-time on these things was simply because they knew they wouldn't have the production resources to make more. It means that several of the episodes just come off like disparate sketches that are over before you know it. We do get an occasional uptick, like the lighting going all sexy any time Rei is interacting with Vermouth, or one episode's psychedelic swerve into what can only be described as a Curry Trip.


And I def got a kick out of the way they drew any of the incidental crooks Rei came across as the 'Criminal' from the original Case Closed.

Especially since he later makes an improvised weapon check with that baby!


It doesn't work, because Rei is Rei, but points for trying!

A real Columbo, this guy.

That was another one that made for fun watching, mostly because of the absurd gimmicks of the course we got to see Rei run through. Complete with him getting to the top of some ridiculous Sonic the Hedgehog loop-run to show that even a turbo-genius like Rei isn't above walking into a room and forgetting what he was there for.

That's one of those segments where Zero's Tea Time Dilemma uses the whole bit of Rei's insufferable knowledge of everything for that cohesive comedy. Compare him compounding Kazami's curry-based torment by explaining the scientifics of why drinking water is bad, actually, with him talking down to his sexy secret society boss about not using phones or having drinks before bed.


Listen buddy, I'll accept your spicy food advice, but there are some things in this world you'll never convince me to give up!

The punchline there being that it's not even good sleep he's getting!

Hey, with the triple-shifts Rei's pulling, it's no wonder he doesn't have time to learn the differences between Brits and Americans. He barely has 90 minutes total to allot to his own titular tea time!

Still somehow he has plenty of spare time to sexily wash his car or teach a neighborhood kid to ride a bike, though.

So much of it comes off like the premise of Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto, except if Sakamoto were a spun-off character from a mega-popular series that's been running for over two-and-a-half decades, and not played for comedy as much as it is some sort of helpful husband pin-up calendar.

And as neat as the overall vibes are, especially since the miniscule run-time means it never overstays its welcome, so much of it comes off like trying to sell people on the appeal of Toru Amuro "Bourbon" Rei Furuya, except most of the people coming into this one were already sold on this guy thanks to knowing him from the original show.

I can see it working as something of a primer for those curious about Rei's astronomical popularity who don't want to get into the extremely tall weeds of the main series. And hey, maybe those context-free traumatized Toru flashbacks would then actually interest them enough to check out the broader story. That's worked with any number of movies for something like, say, One Piece, right?

But as much as you may want to pour yourself a tall drink of Rei right away, remember everyone, All Cops Are Baristas

Goodnight Everybody!