After a week-long saga involving late-night show host Conan O’Brien and the Detective Conan manga, O’Brien announced that he will be journeying to Japan next week to investigate his animated doppelgänger.
It all started about a week ago, when O’Brien devoted time on his show to discuss the popular mystery manga and anime character. Created by Gosho Aoyama, Detective Conan (also known as Case Closed) tells the story of an amateur detective who is turned into a child while investigating a mysterious organization.
It is clear, according to O’Brien, that Detective Conan is a ripoff of his life. He may not solve crimes like the manga detective, but O’Brien says it’s clear that the concept of a man trapped in a child’s body must be based off of him.
The manga debuted in 1994, a year after O’Brien began his late-night career, and went on “to instant international acclaim.” Coincidence???
The Detective Conan manga is so popular that there is an actual town in Japan known as Conan Town, populated with various tributes to Conan (of the detective brand, not the late night host brand), including a giant statue in the center of the town.
In his comical rant, O’Brien demanded that the town pay him the totally reasonable sum of three trillion yen — as well as rename the local laundromat to “American Conan’s Fluff ‘N Fold” and redo the town center statue to have his distinct haircut.
The mayor of Conan Town Akio Matsumoto responded to O’Brien’s demands with a completely modest list of his own (Matsumoto’s face added to Mount Rushmore; a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; 15,000 hamburgers — one for each citizen of Conan Town).
After more or less meeting these rational requirements, O’Brien declared last night that next week he will make a pilgrimage to Conan Town, Japan to receive his end of the offer. Having traveled to Israel, Italy, Cuba, Qatar, Armenia, and Haiti for his previous “Conan without Borders” specials, expect Conan to keep his promise.
