Magic Kaito: The Phantom Thief Reborn now Remastered!
[Read: The Phantom Thief Reborn (蘇る怪盗), Remastered Edition!]
1987.
On this day, May 27, history was made. In California the Golden Gate Bridge turned fifty, having survived enough paraders to sink an aircraft carrier. In Vienna, Portugal smashed the Germans for the European Cup—its first in twenty-five years. Along the Baltic a crazy little pilot was completing a course that would shake the Soviet Bloc 'til nothing was left,
And all through Japan, Shogakukan was hawking its latest product: Weekly Shonen Sunday, Vol. 29, Issue 26. Latest—and perhaps greatest. The lineup spoke for itself: Osamu Ishiwata's B.B.! Mitsuru Adachi's Rough! Action! Intrigue! Bikers! Baseball! Robots! War! A girlfriend or two, even!
Oh, and some hick from Tottori started something called Magic Kaito.
"Keh heh heh," the old hands must've chuckled as they dragged their Marlboros. "Kid wins one contest and thinks he's an artist. How long d'ya say he lasts? Three months? Two?"
It's 2023 now, and Mr. Kuroba's still laying flowers on all their graves.
What's there left to say about this Thief of Thieves, this Moonlight Magician who continues to thrill, tease, and tempt us so? Five volumes of manga, a nub of screentime every three or four years... and he might well claim more fans—or at least fanworks—than anyone else in the Conan machine. Not excepting the little Meitantei himself.
Today, we celebrate him in the grand tradition of overambitious weebs: with a reissue of his original adventures, every panel and page retranslated and redone in HD (whatever the hell the manga equivalent of that is). Starting here, with his secret origin—and following Sunday's original publication run right to the end! Or 'til Shogakukan C&D's us all into oblivion.
In any case, we hope you'll be joining us on joyride. Whether you fell in love with him since that very first Thai-to-Eng scanlation, or you learned "Hey, the hat guy from Conan has his own series?!" just yesterday, there's something here for everyone.
Now, as a wise man once said: Show no hajimarida!
[Read: The Phantom Thief Reborn (蘇る怪盗), Remastered Edition!]