Detective Conan author Gosho Aoyama recently revealed on a TV program that he has completed the storyboard for the final chapter of the manga. This national-level series, which began serialization in 1994, is finally approaching a visible end after more than thirty years.
Gosho Aoyama revealed this news during a special preview program for Nippon TV's "24-Hour Television." At the time, singer Chanmina and SixTONES member Taiga Kyamoto visited Aoyama's studio for an interview as fan representatives.
When the topic turned to the "ending," Chanmina stated that she tends to think about the endpoint of things when planning her life, and asked Aoyama if he approached his work in the same way. Aoyama smiled and replied, "I've already drawn the storyboard for the final chapter. Do you want to see it?" Chanmina immediately asked if she could really watch it, while Taiga Kyamoto quickly interjected, "You can't take that seriously!" Aoyama then teased them by simply saying, "It's very interesting," without revealing any details about the ending.
During the interview, Aoyama also looked back on his creative journey. He admitted that he did not initially expect Detective Conan to achieve such tremendous success, even thinking at one point that the series would "end soon." He first truly realized the popularity of the work when the first theatrical film was released.
To date, the Detective Conan manga has serialized 1,166 chapters, with 108 tankōbon volumes published. The series' enduring popularity is largely due to the extremely slow progression of the main storyline—many arcs focus on standalone cases, while major developments involving the core plot with the Black Organization occur only after long intervals.
Furthermore, frequent manga hiatuses in recent years have further slowed down the progression of the main storyline. As a result, the weekly anime adaptation has produced a large amount of non-canon original content to avoid catching up with the manga's progress.
Aoyama also mentioned in the interview that he had discussed this topic with One Piece author Eiichiro Oda: "We are probably the only two authors whose manga have been adapted into weekly anime." Notably, the One Piece anime has currently switched from a weekly broadcast to a seasonal format.
The Detective Conan manga is currently on an eight-week hiatus, with Chapter 1167 scheduled to resume serialization on September 16. The specific reason for the hiatus has not been announced.