Saturday, May 13, 2017

Detective Conan: The Crimson Love Letter

I made an exception to watch Conan 20th movie last year because it was interesting with the Black Organisation plot. I said 'exception' because I never watched any Conan movie before despite already reading the manga for more than 15 years now. For this year, I was not hooked by the trailer. I was hooked because of me being deprived of movies. Lol. After working for 3 Saturdays in a row, today was my first off. When I saw the advertisement for the advanced screening today, I thought why not since I would be out for the whole day.

It is my first time attending a movie advance screening kind of event by Odex. The ticket cost me $35 and the gimmicks were actually not fantastic: poster (I am not a poster person), clear folder, Japanese tea cup, and Gosho Aoyama's signature card. The only thing which caught my interest is only the Gosho Aoyama's signature card although I knew I expected the impossible. It turned out to be a digital signature copied and pasted.

The so-called event was messy. There was no signages on the queue for the sales of limited merchandises from the movies and the queue to collect the goodie bags. When I reached, I only saw a queue and I thought there was only one queue. It turned out be the queue for the merchandises. I was like the 5th person queueing and I was disappointed the items that I wanted (the medal and the hand fan) were already sold out. The hoodie is too expensive at $98. I am very particular about clothes while I did not bat an eye when I bought $75 Kingdom Hearts Keyblade Conductor Baton last week. Haiz. But I was also thinking about practicality: there was no chart to estimate the size of the hoodie so it would not be funny if after spending that much I could not wear it and there will be limited chance of wearing it in hot and humid local weather. Although the merchandise sale was advertised to be open to the people who bought tickets first before to the public, they did not really check if the people buying had tickets as they were understaffed.
I did not get what I wanted. But since I already queued, I decided to buy these plush keychain for $19 each T_T Well it is rare to see Heiji's merchandise so I guess why not...
Conan mascot was wondering around. It was good for the public but disappointing for me who thought that there would be a designated proper space to take photo with Conan for the ticket holders. Sigh.. I still consider myself lucky to take a photo with the box office as the background and although there were strangers at the background, it was not that crowded. Still, with strangers, the photo was not good enough to be a profile picture :( The girl who helped to take my photo was lovely too. She retook my photo when a passerby inconsiderately walked past behind me.

After watching Kuroko yesterday, I think Conan movie is nice to give a brief introduction to the characters at the start of the movie. Yes, despite having 21 years of history, it still gives introduction which I think will help people who are new to the series. Story and humour wise, it is typical Conan style so nothing is extraordinary. The action scenes during the bombing of Nichiuri TV and the Satsuki temple were too unbelievable. Although these scenes give audience adrenaline rush, it is quite unrealistic for Conan and Heiji to escape such situations. The action scenes from last year's movie are more exciting as it is really about fight between good vs bad.

Well at least now I know this kind of event from Odex will be quite rubbish both in terms of organisation and the goodie bags so next time I would not be tempted anymore. For now, I am only having empty hope that they will promote the movie like last year: Conan standees around Plaza Sing and Conan mascot will appear for photo taking at certain hours. Empty hope because I know it is not going to happen since the movie is out for general screening this coming Thursday and there is no standee whatsoever at the mall now T_T

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