Detective Conan usually uses the power of his brain to defeat his foes, but this trick unlocks a legitimate superpower for the anime sleuth.
Although those who pride themselves on being true connoisseurs would be loath to do so, some anime fans like to watch episodes at 1.5 times their normal speed. It’s a function any modern PC or Blu-ray payer has waiting for you with a single click or button press, and it’s a popular way for people who’re following multiple lengthy series to keep up to date with the newest episodes.
While watching at 1.5-speed obviously gives the episode a different pace from the director’s original vision, speed watchers would argue the end result is largely the same, since even at the quicker speed dialogue remains understandable. For example, if you’re watching an episode of Detective Conan with a 50-percent speed boost, it’s still a story of a boy genius solving crimes, right?
Well, yes and no. As shown in this clip from Japanese Twitter user @crz_d750, the 1.5-speed Conan doesn’t just solve crimes more quickly because of his quick thinking, but because he gains the superpower of telekinesis.
“At 1.5-speed, Conan mysteriously stops running,” tweeted @crz_d750 about his discovery, and as the clip shows, he’s absolutely right. But that doesn’t mean Conan stops moving, because even as every part of his body but his mouth remains perfectly still, the background is flying by as he makes rapid progress down the nighttime road.
So what’s going on here? Well, despite its status as one of Japan’s longest-running and best-loved television series, Detective Conan is still a weekly TV anime, which means each regular episode is produced on a tight budget and schedule. With only so much time and manpower to spread around, animation cycles obviously have to be repeated, and apparently the frequency with which Conan’s run cycle repeats in this scene synchs up perfectly with a 1.5 playback speed, rendering him motionless as the world moves around him, sort of like those time-lapse photography videos where a helicopter appears to float in the air without its rotor moving.
Internet users were shocked to see Conan’s amazing new mobility powers.
“Maybe he’s riding a skateboard?”
“I bet he’s got some high-tech gadget, like shoes that are also hovercrafts.”
“It’s like if you’re playing a side-scrolling video game, and you keep tapping the D-pad to move the character forward, but don’t press it long enough for him to take an actual step.”
“He looks like the hovering Dom mecha from Gundam.”
Then there was the commenter who just acceptingly said “Conan has become a god,” displaying a whole new level of reverence towards the character for Conan O’Brien to be jealous of.
Source: Twitter/@crz_d750 via Jin
Follow Casey on Twitter, where he likes listening to Miho Fukuhara’s “Hanabi Sky” at 1.5-speed.