In volume 1.3 of Case Closed (or Detective Conan as it's known in most of the world), the pint sized detective gets to work his magic on six more cases including the attempted murder of a bride and the brutal slaughter of a loan shark.  Sure, some of the mysteries are a little convoluted and unnecessarily elaborate, but it's still fun to see Conan solve a case while he's hamstrung by being a little kid.

Series background:

Shin'ichi Kudo (Jimmy Kudo in the English version) is a teenage detective who is one of the best investigators around.  The police often solicit his advice on their toughest cases, and he's taken all of the business away from the city's other private eyes even though he's still in high school.  All of that changes one night while Jimmy is out at an amusement park with his girlfriend Ran Mouri (Rachael Moore.)  He sees a crime going down and investigates only to be caught by a pair of thugs.  They give him a new experimental poison so that he won't talk, but the poison doesn't kill him.  Instead it causes him to become younger, much younger.  When he wakes up he's a little kid.  He still has his razor sharp intellect, but no one wants to hire a ten year old detective.

Ran discovers the little Shin'ichi wandering around and takes him home with her.  So that his true identity will remain a secret he tells her his name is Conan Edogawa, taken from his idol, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes.)  Ran's father, Kogoro Mouri (Richard Moore), is an incredibly incompetent detective, and Conan soon starts tagging along on Richard's cases.  Using some nifty inventions his friend Dr. Agasa invented, and the aid of the Junior Detective League; Ayumi, Mitsuhiko. and Genta (aka Amy, Mitch, and George), Conan is able to solve the cases without anyone knowing that he's the real brains of the operation.  The downside is that with just about every case he solves, the bumbling Richard Moore becomes more famous.

This volume:

This time FUNimation serves up six episodes of Conan using his detective skills to solve more baffling crimes.

When the Junior Detective League agrees to help a fellow classmate find his lost cat, they turn up much more than they were expecting.  They find the cat sure enough, coming out of a house all covered in blood.  Looking into the house, the kids see a dead body laying on the bathroom floor and immediately call the police while Conan watches the house to make sure no one enters or leaves.  The cops arrive in short order, but when they search the house, no body is found.  It's up to the young detective to discover where the body went, and who was killed.

Conan stumbles onto another murder in the next episode.  While Kogoro is visiting a client, the man disappears only to be discovered murdered by a samurai sword.  The man was a loan shark and a lot of people had both the opportunity and motive to kill him, but only Conan can see through the red herrings and discover who the murderer is.

The following episode is filled with action as the Junior Detective League get trapped in a department store after hours.  What makes it worse is that there is a group of crooks who are robbing the store.  Can the kids avoid the thieves while they search for a way out?

Wedding Day Blues was an interesting case that worked well.  When Ran goes to see one of her old teachers get married, the bride ends up nearly dead after drinking some poisoned punch.  There are plenty of people who had the chance to poison her, but no one seems to have a motive.  No one until Conan gets on the case that is.

In one of the weaker episodes on this disc, Ran gets the chance to model for a top fashion designer.  Soon after she, her father, and Conan arrive at the offices however the designer's assistant turns up dead, and it looks like none of the suspects could have committed the crime.  This case was a little too obvious who the killer was even before the crime occurred.

The final episode on this disc has Junior Detective League investigating a haunted house.  No one has lived in the run down place since someone was murdered there, but when Ayumi hears strange screams and sees odd things, the group decides they have to see what's going on for themselves.

Overall these were good shows, and I have been enjoying them a bit more than the later episodes.  Be sure to watch the show past the ending credits. After they are done rolling, there is a short extra scene that are usually humorous and sometimes wraps up a subplot from the show that was dropped.

This disc contains an ample six episodes on a singled sided DVD.
 
Audio:

This disc offers the choice of the original stereo Japanese soundtrack, or an English dub in 5.1 or stereo.  I alternated tracks between episodes, and I enjoyed the original audio a bit better.  The English dub was good though, with the actors doing a good job.  There weren't any phoney accents, something that I really dislike.  The audio quality was fine, there wasn't a lot of range, but there weren't any defects either.

Unfortunately, there were no subtitles for signs only.  There are several important clues that are in Japanese, but they are only translated if the English subtitles are on.

Video:

The full frame video was okay but not outstanding.  The program was made on a budget and the animation isn't that great.  The colors were just a bit dull, and the lines were a bit on the soft side.  Digital defects were minimal with a little aliasing present in most episodes.  An average looking show.

Extras:

Unlike the releases of seasons four and five, there are no extras included in this set.

Final Thoughts:

This isn't the greatest show to come across from Japan, but it is good, light weight fun.  There's a good amount of humor in each show, and the mysteries are often enjoyable if a bit unrealistic.  Both young and old should take to these shows, making this a Recommended disc..