With an amazing seven episodes on one disc, the next volume of Case Closed (or Detective Conan as it's known in most of the world), season 3 volume 2 for those who are keeping score, offers a lot for fans of the show.  Not only are there a lot of episodes, but this volume also contains some entertaining mysteries and a story where Conan at long last changes back into Shin'ichi Kudo (if only temporarily.)

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:

The disc starts out with an interesting mystery that has a couple of not-so-clever twists.  When a rich woman body is discovered, there is no shortage of suspects.  Her security camera is a great help however, showing the exact time that people came and left.  The only problem is the camera also gives everyone an alibi.  No one was with her when she died!  The clues in this one are a bit too obvious, and the actions of some of the innocent parties are just down right stupid.  Yes, it makes for a more convoluted case, but what innocent person would really tamper with a dead body to make themselves appear less guilty??

One of the best episodes on this disc is the two part No Immunity for the Diplomat.  A strange young man shows up at Kogoro's detective agency, Hattori Henji (Harley Hartwell in the dubbed version).  He's a high school detective too, and a very good one.  People have started calling him the Kudo of the West, and he's out to prove that he's better than Shin'ichi.  Of course Conan instantly takes a dislike to his competitor, and when body turns up in a room that was locked from the inside both detectives want to be the first to finger the murderer.  Conan is at a distinct disadvantage though, since he can't let anyone know who he really is.  Henji and Conan are neck and neck at finding and deciphering clues, but when Conan starts getting really sick, Henji comes up with a scenario that not only sounds plausible, but causes the guilty party to confess.  Conan's illness isn't the common cold however, he is changing back to his adult self after drinking an unusual cold remedy.  Will Kudo have to admit that his rival is the better detective?

The other shows on the disc are just so-so.  While the case at the ski lodge was fun, the investigation of the death of a diving champ was a little silly.  (Any two bit lawyer would easily get the guilty party off based on the flimsy evidence.)  There was a murder in the local library that Conan and the Junior Detective League investigate (their only appearance on this disc) which was also pretty absurd when the entire mystery was unraveled.  But even so, the strength of this show has never been the mysteries themselves.  The fun is in watching Conan out-think the police and piece together strange and seemingly meaningless clues.

This disc contains an ample seven 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 fine job.  There weren't any phony 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 some clues that are in Japanese and when characters are introduced their name and age is given in a Japanese subtitle, but these are only translated if the English subtitles are on.

Video:

Quality wise this disc takes a nose dive when compared to the others in the series.  Squeezing so many episodes onto a disc does sacrifice some image quality.  The full frame video had quite a bit of aliasing and macroblocking.  The colors were just a bit dull, and the lines were a bit on the soft side too.  The show never looked great, it was made on a budget and the animation isn't that great, but these prevalent video defects make the program look worse.

Extras:

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

Final Thoughts:
 
While the two-part story on this disc was great, the other episodes were only so-so.  More often than not after watching a show I'd think "eh, that was dumb."  Still, it was fun watching the cases unfold.  The video quality of this disc was significantly less than the previous entries.  Aliasing and macroblocking were a problem and they distracted from the show.   Fans of the pint sized detective will want to check this disc out, but I'd recommend making it a rental.