The anime and manga series Case Closed, known as Meitantei Conan in Japan, features an extensive cast of characters created by Gosho Aoyama. The series takes place in modern day Japan and follows amateur detective Jimmy Kudo who solves cases in an episodic fashion.
            The series begins when Jimmy Kudo is fed a deadly poison by Gin and Vodka which was designed to kill a person without any physical symptoms. The poison instead changed his body to that of a young child. Jimmy realizes that if the two men learn of his survival, they would murder anyone associated with him and takes up the alias Conan Edogawa. Hiroshi Agasa places Jimmy in the care of his childhood friend and love Rachel Moore, and her father Richard Moore. Jimmy then adapts to his daily life as Conan and helps Richard solve cases while keeping his identity a secret from others. During the course of the series, Conan learns that Gin and Vodka are part of a mysterious criminal syndicate called the Black Organization and thus begins his quest to take down the Organization. Throughout the series, Conan interacts and befriends many characters with the most notable being: The Tokyo Metropolitan Police, the local police in Conan's prefecture; The Junior Detective League, a group of children who solves mysteries for their clients; The FBI and Harley Hartwell, a high school detective in Osaka who knows of his true identity.
The manga became licensed by Viz Media while the animation was licensed by Funimation Entertainment. The two companies attempted to Americanize the character names with both companies using different names for the same characters on several occasions. The list follows the Viz transliteration names.

       Aoyama made his debut as a manga artist with the work Chotto Matte which was published in the weekly magazine Shōnen Sunday on winter of 1987. Shortly after that, another work by Aoyama, Magic Kaito, was published on the same magazine.
      In the early 1990s, another story done by Aoyama named Yaiba came out; the manga series was released in 24 volumes. Later, he would release other manga series in volumes , such as Third Baseman No.4, Gosho Aoyama's Collection of Short Stories, and Detective Conan.

Gosho Aoyama

Awards and recognition

Aoyama has won two awards for his work as a manga artist. In 1992, he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen for the Yaiba manga series. He would then go on to win the same award for a second time in 2001, this time for Detective Conan.
Additionally, his hometown Hokuei has done several machi okoshi  projects in honor of his contribution as a manga artist and resident of the town. The first projects were the Conan Bridge across the Yura River and the Conan statues in the town; both of these structures pay tribute to Conan Edogawa, Aoyama's most popular character from Detective Conan. On March 18, 2007, the Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory, a museum that celebrates Aoyama's career as a manga artist, was opened in the same town.

      On May 5, 2005, he was married to Minami Takayama, a singer and voice actress who gave the voice of Conan in the original Japanese anime adaptation of Aoyama's Detective Conan. On December 10, 2007, the two were divorced.