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(4.74/5)First ever manga I read as a child. Now returned to it in Japanese after passing N3.
It has full furigana, so limited kanji knowledge is not a huge problem. The text becomes quite crowded with it though and it is not as nice to read. I don't know if this is a common issue in manga, but there is very little or no differentiation between small and full-size characters in the furigana, which is somewhat confusing, but can easily be overcome.
As someone mentioned before, there is a lot of variation in speech patterns among different characters and many of them use crude masculine language and dialects that can be tricky to understand at first. It is so common, however, that you will quickly get used to these expressions.
I love the story-telling and suspense and it has remained a favourite of mine since childhood. The different scenarios and cases with changing characters and environments bring in a variety of vocabulary and expressions, which I think is a huge plus for language learning, even though it also adds a level of difficulty.
I would recommend this series for anyone who is interested in detective stories and wants to practice a wide variety of common vocabulary and speech patterns.
TW: violence, blood, suicide...
Type: Manga Furigana: Yes Hurdle: Police investigation terminology, male slang (oft. derogatory)
I've been watching Conan for a long time and finally felt ready to take the plunge on the manga. If you're used to the way people in this series tend to talk you'll definitely find some of the slangier stuff easier, with Shinichi, the Professor, Koguro and the cops all engaging liberally in some fairly broad masculine accents. This is a very text-dense manga and the first two chapters are extra-length, so it can seem like a bit of a slog at first, but stuff begins to even out around the halfway mark with chapters dropping back down to around 15-20 pages or so.
Language-wise you'll see a lot of useful terms (in the context of detective fiction) that reoccur, and generally the author wants to walk you through the logic of the case/puzzle to tell you the solution, so it's actually a fairly easy-to-follow read once you have the essential vocab of a given case down.
[BOOKWALKER digital version] One of my favorite mangas! I read this in japanese after going through both the spanish and english versions several times over the years. A lot of the vocabulary is murder-mistery, police-procedural related. I had played through 逆転裁判 first, so I had a good grasp of those. There's also a lot of slang to portray different character archetypes, like the lousy bad manners of Kogoro Mouri, or the old scientific speech of Professor Agasa. These are common estereotypes that I found in other media, so it helps to get exposure to them.
Most of the kanji had furigana, but it was really difficult to read it in some cases. Some of the kanji were also hard to distinguish, and if the furigana wasn't readable, it created some uncomfortable situations. Other than that it was fine and it didn't felt too hard.
The first volumen features less murders than the average コナン volume, but the themes are also simpler so it was easy to follow.