Magic Kaito

is a 1987 Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. It is about Kaito Kuroba who learns what his father did before he died. He took his father's alias and became the new. Aoyama stopped drawing the series because he started Detective Conan which became a huge hit. The main cast of the series also appeared in the Detective Conan series as a perfect collaboration between a great detective and a great phantom thief, which can be compared to as Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsène Lupin. The series has also been published by Shogakukan in the weekly magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday.

Plot
Kaito Kuroba, a normal teenage student whose father died under mysterious circumstances eight years ago. Eight years later, he is made aware of his father's secret identity; a famous international criminal known as International Criminal 1412: the Phantom Thief, and that he was murdered by a mysterious organization for refusing to aid them in retrieving the "Pandora Gem"; a mystical stone said to shed a "tear" during the passing of a particular comet, the consumption of which bestows immortality. He vows to prevent the organization from gaining immortality, and assumes his father's identity as he begins his quest for the gem. His only clues as to the gem's location are that it glows red under the full moon and that it is a doublet: a gem hidden within a larger gem. Thus, it would have to be a relatively large one with a bizarre history, and always stored in a place that never receives moonlight. He thus researches and steals famous priceless gems with odd histories from incredibly well-defended areas, and always returns them after the very next full moon.

Manga
The manga has been published by Shogakukan and appeared weekly in the magazine "Weekly Shōnen Jump" since 1987. The series had stopped after that Aoyama created Detective Conan, but the chapters are becoming very rare in Shōnen Sunday. It has been collected into four tankōbon volumes and two chapters unbounded. The series where been re-release in 2011, which where showing a new design of cover and also other kinds of designs.

OVAs & Specials
There was an anime OVA released on April 17, 2010 about the first chapter of the series aired by Animax. It was directed by Toshiki Hirano and produced by TMS Entertainment. It was titled The Secret of the Birth of Kaitō Kid. There where later in August 2011, some episodes of Magic Kaitō released by the same directors of Detective Conan. The whole episodes contains elements from Volume 1 until Volume 2.