CONAN CALLS OUT ANIME RIP-OFF
Brookline-born Conan O’Brien has dragged Japan into his latest joke, starting a funny tiff over an anime character, Detective Conan, whom he claims shares a whole lot of similarities with him. And, even more specifically, the comedian has targeted a city within the country that was named after the cartoon, called Conantown.
“This a huge thing,” O’Brien said on his show, jokingly citing the evidence that “he’s a man who’s trapped in a child’s body and solves crimes ... Hello! OK?”
The late night talk show host continued to build a mock case against the manga character and the town named after him, explaining that it was created a year after he started working on the air in 1993. Other pieces of proof that the cartoon is a rip-off of the real-life Conan: He has distinctive hair and is always wearing a suit.
“No, you shouldn’t be applauding ’cause I’m getting screwed,” O’Brien joked. “Someone’s been making a ton of money off the Asian version of me for 24 years.”
To assuage the pseudo-trauma caused by the character’s likeness, he told Japan that it should pay him 3 trillion yen ($27 billion). Surprisingly, the mayor of Conantown responded to O’Brien’s request, claiming that they would honor it, provided that he personally pays a visit to the city and collects the money there.
The tradeoff might sound fair to most folks, but it isn’t satisfying O’Brien. He one-upped the mayor, making a new set of specific demands: that Conantown renames its most popular laundromat after him, calling it American Conan’s Fluff and Fold; that it gives him the key to the city, as well as the keys to all of the homes within the vicinity; and that it changes the hairstyle on the statue of Detective Conan to be more flattering. On top of the 3 trillion yen, of course.