FUNimation has made it to the second season of Case Closed (or Detective Conan as it's known in most of the world), and this set of shows plays out much as the first season's did.  The brilliant teen detective Shin'ichi Kudo, trapped in the body of a ten year old, has to solve some more puzzling mysteries.  This first volume from season two has an ample six episodes, which more than makes up for the lack of extras.

The Show:

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.

The disc starts out with one of the better mysteries of the volume.  In the two part season opener, Kogoro heads off to his class reunion and Ran and Conan tag along, much to his dismay.  When they get to the hot springs where the reunion is being held, the kids go off for a soak while Kogoro meets up with some of his old buddies.  They have a good time swapping stories and playing ping-pong.  Most of the group goes off to watch the fire works, but when they return to the inn, they discover one of Kogoro's classmates has committed suicide.  At least that's what everyone thinks.  Everyone except Conan.  Even when the young detective is able to convince the rest of the people that it is a murder, all of the suspects have an air-tight alibi.  With Kogoro coming up with crazy theories it's up to Conan to solve the case.

In the next episode Conan and Kogoro bump into the very wealthy CEO of a software company.  Kogoro, ever the shyster, give him a business card and he gets called the next day.  Not by the CEO, but by the police who have found his card in the suit of a dead man.  The industrialist died in his sleep, and it looks like a heart attack but Conan isn't so sure.

This was one of the weaker offerings this time around.  The murderer is very obvious and the method he uses to kill the CEO is incredibly idiotic.
 
The next episode is a bit better.  When Kogoro is offered a job by a rich lawyer, he jumps at the chance to make some big money.  He, along with the kids who are always tagging along or else there wouldn't be a show, meet the lawyer at the hotel where he keeps his offices.  While the lawyer is in the bathroom, his wife calls and asks to talk with him.  They chat, the lawyer mentions the time, and then he and Kogoro discuss business for a couple of hours.  The evening the wife is found in her home murdered. The police pinpoint the time of the crime as shortly after she called.  The husband is the prime suspect, but how could he have killed her if he was with Kogoro at the time of the murder?

With Conan's help, Kogoro has started to get a name for himself as a competent detective so he's asked to appear on a television show that interviews people in his field.  While they are taping the show, the head of the station is found murdered.  Everyone was either in front of the camera or behind it when the man was killed, so how could anyone have committed the crime?

The last story ends the volume on a high note.  Conan catches Ran sneaking out to go on a date, a date with none other than Shin'ichi Kudo!  Since Conan is Shin'ichi he follows Ran to a diner where she admits that she's not meeting Shin'ichi, but someone else, someone very important to her.  This gets Shin'ichi/Conan rather irate, and when Ran runs off to get Conan a cake from down the street as a bribe to go home, he tries to scope out who she could be meeting.  Several people all enter the diner, and they all use the bathroom.  The only thing is one of them doesn't come out again.  She's murdered in a stall.  It's up to Conan to discover who the killer is and who Ran is wanting to spend time with.

Like the first season, these were good shows overall.  I have been enjoying them a bit more than the later seasons that FUNimation released first.  Be sure to watch the show past the ending credits. After they are done rolling, there is a short extra scene that is 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:

Like the first season, but unlike the releases of seasons four and five, there are no extras included in this set.

Final Thoughts:
 
Case Closed is a light, fun mystery show.  The murders all happen off screen, so even junior detectives can watch it without being traumatized.  While some of the solutions are a bit hokey getting to the answer to the mystery is half the fun.  Recommended.