Manga Review: Case Closed Volumes 91-94 by Gosho Aoyama
Very quick recap: Shin’ichi Kudou (Jimmy Kudo in the dub) is a teen genius detective. He crossed paths with the mysterious Black Organization, criminals that gave him an experimental poison. Instead of killing him as intended, it shrunk him to child size, so he must solve crimes while pretending to be a “normal” kid, Conan Edogawa. See the many previous reviews on this blog. SPOILERS for previous volumes upcoming.
Volume 91 opens with the conclusion of the Nue case. Conan, his girlfriend (when he’s his correct age) Ran Mouri (Rachel Moore), his rival Heiji Hattori (Harley Hartwell) and Heiji’s prospective girlfriend Kazuha Toyama (Kirsten Thomas) have been called out to a poverty-stricken village supposedly haunted by a nue, a monster with a lion’s head, a snake for a tail and a fearsome cry. It’s supposedly killed at least one person in the backstory and a corpse has been slashed to death.
But is the monster real (nah, this is not a series where that’s ever going to be the answer), is the killer trying to steal the lost treasure of the Tokugawa from Kurogane Pond, or is there something darker going on? One of the big clues requires a knowledge of hiragana, one of the Japanese writing systems, which is a downer, but there’s also a nice poignant twist from a variant of the nue legend.
Back in the big city, Sonoko Suzuki’s (Serena Sebastian) uncle Jirokichi accepts a donation for his museum of a rare book collection. There’s also a wooden puzzle box created by legendary master craftsman KIchiemon. Inside it are two items, one of great sentimental value to the donor’s widow, and the other is an oversized moonstone that’s on the Kaito Kid’s list. The idea is that as a master thief, Kaito Kid would be able to open the puzzle box without damaging it. The widow’s willing to risk losing the moonstone, as long as she can reclaim the other item which would be valueless to the gentleman thief.
Naturally, Kichiemon wants to make a challenge out of it. Conan is invited to attend as he’s figured out Kaito’s schemes before as the “Kid Katcher”, along with Ran, her inept private eye father Kogorou Mouri (Richard Moore), inventor Dr. Agasa, and Dr. Agasa’s ward Ai Haibara (Anita Hailey) (who is a scientist also shrunk by the experimental poison.) Also present are Captain Nakamori, the Kaito Kid’s police nemesis, and Subaru, Dr. Agasa’s mysterious next door neighbor.
That’s a lot of people to keep track of, and since the Kaito Kid is a master of disguise, he could be almost any one of them. Excluding Conan himself, and Ai, who are tiny children.
This is actually one of the stories where the Kid is more or less stymied and suffers mild consequences for his actions. Except for him, the story ends happily.
Next up, Conan’s class at school gets a new assistant teacher, Rumi Wakasa. She’s quite youthful-looking for 37, and adorably clumsy. Miss Kobayashi, the primary teacher, is worried about possible injuries, but glad of the help. At lunch, Ms. Wakasa approaches Conan, Ai, and the other Detective Kids Genta (George), Ayumi (Amy) and Mitsuhiko (Mitch) for help finding lime for the sports line marker.
There should be some in the old abandoned sports shed, which has a rumor about a teacher getting locked in and starving to death. No one’s been inside in years, and there’s still a torn class schedule on the floor. No lime up top, so time to check the trapdoor to the cellar. It’s perhaps not too surprising that there’s a skeleton down there, and not one of the school’s educational ones.
The corpse is holding an old sports day headband covered in what looks like random kanji. Conan realizes he’s seen this before, ten years ago when he was attending Teitan Elementary School the first time. It was tied to the door of the shack then, and a mysterious man warned him against untying it.
The police decide that the corpse is probably a thief who accidentally fell into the cellar and cracked his skull. However, the principal remembers there was a burglary nearby a decade ago and neither the criminals nor the loot were ever found. Conan realizes the items found in the shack are a code.
Sure enough, the remaining criminals come back to look for the loot. They even manage to jump Inspector Shiratori (Santos) the police officer assigned to the case. But when no one else is looking, Ms. Wakasa suddenly becomes super competent at fighting. Huh.
Fanservice time! Ran, Sonoko and Masumi Sera (another teen detective) have dragged Conan along on a trip to buy swimsuits. Conan is getting kind of hot and bothered, as he’s actually seventeen and very interested in girls despite his appearance. He does note that the style of suit Masumi picks at one point looks awfully familiar. Conan pretends to be bored and ducks out.
Naturally, this allows him to be around when a nasty customer berating a salesperson. Seems the dressing room wasn’t properly cleaned last week after a dog was in there, and she had an allergic reaction. To add more fire, the dog owner herself shows up and is nasty to both the other customer and the salesgirl. Oh, and to her own employee who’s along on the shopping trip.
When Conan meets up with the girls later, he describes the situation. Also, Ran has had her memory jogged by Masumi’s swimsuit, though the details still aren’t clear. But before this can be followed up, it turns out the abusive woman has been murdered in one of the three dressing rooms. There’s a dying clue, but which of the three people she’d just cheesed off is the killer. Or is it a fourth person whose shoes were there and have now disappeared?
There’s a special feature at issue’s end about Heiji and Kazuha’s rocky relationship.
This volume begins with the finish of the Dressing Room Murder Case. The clues pivot on the different ways people count on their fingers in different countries. And this leads Conan to realize that Masumi’s been fibbing about part of her background.
Which leads into an extended flashback about how Shin’ichi and Ran first met Masumi and her family on a beach a decade ago. Shin’ichi is already pretty sharp but misses context sometimes and jumps to conclusions. When a car carrying two people drives off a cliff and into the sea, Masumi’s older brother dives, but the only person left in the car is already dead.
Shin’ichi, Ran and Masumi help the brother and the police figure out where the second person went–not a murderer, this time, but still a criminal. We get more information on Masumi’s family background. And returning to the present, Masumi can tell the penny’s finally dropped for Conan, though her true purpose is still unknown.
The next story starts on a rainy day. Kogorou has lost a bunch of money betting on the ponies, except that one of the betting slips in his stack is for a winner he doesn’t remember picking, and is worth a million yen! Conan immediately spots that it’s not actually Kogorou’s, and must have been dropped and mixed up when the private eye dropped his earlier. But there’s no name on the slip, and “finders keepers.” Time to go out for fancy sushi! (The betting shop won’t open until the next day to get it cashed, but Mr. Mouri has some pocket money he can use till then.)
There’s a new cook/waiter at the sushi place, a fellow named Kanenori Wakita, who wears a medical eyepatch (a recent accident) and is something of an amateur detective himself.
Quick reminder, the current Black Organization subplot is that the mysterious Rum has taken an interest in the events going on in Japan. Rum is apparently a master of disguise, whose age, sex and location are unknown. The one clue that Conan has is that Rum supposedly has only one eye. Which makes it interesting that several people with one eye or a covered eye have shown up recently, including Wakita here.
The sushi cook takes an immediate interest in “Sleeping Mouri.” And a chance to impress the famous detective comes almost immediately. Three other customers come separately out of the rain and a little while later, a woman rushes in to announce one of them is a thief! It seems she had a million yen winning ticket in her pocketbook, which was stolen. The pocketbook also had one of her phones in it, so she ran home, got her other phone, and tracked the GPS to this restaurant.
The pocketbook tuns out to be in the restroom, minus the ticket. All three of the new customers had used that restroom. And she’d marked the pickpocket with blood but none of the suspects seem to have blood on them. Can the case be solved before the police arrive?
Impressed with Sleeping Mouri’s clever solution (actually Conan knocking the P.I. out and using a voice changer), Wakita insists on becoming Mr. Mouri’s disciple in detection. Oh, and it turns out that the betting slip Kogorou had wasn’t this woman’s, but Ran forces him to turn it over to police lost and found anyway.
This is followed by a pro golfer deciding to dump his girlfriend as he’s moving overseas. As it happens, he lives next door to Ms. Wakasa. At school, the assistant teacher accidentally ruins a prop for the class play and asks the Detective Kids to come to her place to build a replacement. Oh look, there’s been a murder next door.
This is less a “whodunnit” as there’s only one suspect, and more of Conan and his friends trying to break the golf player’s seemingly perfect alibi. Ms. Wakasa’s clumsiness comes in again when she “inadvertently” prevents the suspect from fleeing. Notably, every so often in this story, one of her glasses lenses is drawn as opaque.
This is caught by the press, and the ensuing story catches the attention of Wakita and a certain one-eyed police officer.
The next case takes us to Cafe Poirot on Friday the 13th. A birthday party is interrupted when the lights go out, and the discovery of a corpse when the lights come back on. Conan and Hattori are present, as are cafe workers Azusa and Amuro (he’s a triple agent posing as another disciple of Kogorou Mouri.)
The special feature at the end collects the timeline of the Akai family as it had been revealed so far.
Volume 93 opens with the reveal that the corpse at the end of the previous volume isn’t quite dead yet, though he doesn’t know who stabbed him. The most likely suspects are the other members of the college theater club who’d come to Cafe Poirot for a birthday party. But there’s also another customer no one recognizes and behaving a bit suspiciously. Conan, Hattori and Amuro help Inspector Megure to solve the case.
The stranger helps with a poetry clue, and the reader finds out though our detectives don’t that he has a secret connection to Hattori.
Next up, it’s time to check in on Mouri family drama. Kogorou is estranged from his wife, lawyer Eri Kisaki (Eva Kaden). They actually still love each other, but are too stubborn to make up because of their personal differences. Eri has sent their daughter Ran movie premiere tickets, but Mr. Mouri doesn’t want to go because the plot of the movie sounds suspiciously like it’s taking Eri’s side.
Not that they’re actually going to make the opening credits, because there’s suddenly a friend request from Eri on Ran’s phone chat application. It’s weird as Ran already her friended. Or does she?
Turns out that Ms. Kisaki was abducted by thugs who’d been on the wrong end of cases she’d been a lawyer in, seeking revenge. She’d managed to escape from their immediate presence and hide somewhere in the large abandoned building they’d taken her to. But they took her phone and she’s having to make do with one of theirs, using the chat function since she doesn’t dare speak aloud.
Conan, Ran and Kogorou have to figure out which of the texts are from the real Eri and locate where she’s been taken, preferably before the kidnappers kill her.
Afterwards, the family and Conan go to the movie. Kogorou winds up liking it because the detective character similar to him turns out to be pretty cool, but Eri nitpicks all the legal mistakes, and they’re quarreling again.
One-eyed and heavily scarred Police Superintendent Kuroda hears that Ms. Wakasa is taking the Detective Kids on a camping trip as Dr. Agasa is ill. He’s interested, though he doesn’t let on to Inspector Shiratori.
At the campground, the kids find themselves parked next to some college basketball players, one of whom got a eye injury that benched him. Ms. Wakasa tenses up hearing this. When the player who caused the injury burns to death in the middle of the night, it’s revealed that Superintendent Kuroda is also at the campground.
Ms. Wakasa bristles at him, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to notice what’s going on to her right causes Ai to realize that Wakasa seems to be blind in her right eye, explaining some of her clumsiness.,
With a bit of help from the arson squad, the case is solved, but not before Ms. Wakasa turns scary for a moment towards the suspect.
Some time later, Ran and Conan are at a high school kendo (swordsmanship) tournament where Hattori is participating, and Kazuha is also along. One of the referees is murdered, apparently by an expert with the blade.
This case introduces Hattori’s kendo rival Soshi Okita, who’s the alternative universe equivalent of a character from Aoyama’s previous manga Yaiba. He’s yet another character that strongly resembles Shin’ichi Kudou (though the anime gives him a distinctive voice) and included to celebrate Aoyama’s 30th anniversary as a manga artist in 2017. Soshi’s not much of a detective, but he’s a subject matter expert on kendo.
The case is complicated by the only witness being blind, and some question as to what he actually heard.
This volume opens with the conclusion of the Kendo Murder Case. Turns out that not only is a knowledge of the rules of competition important, but also the Kansai accent. Go figure.
Next, Ran’s been acting happy but secretive, so Conan and Mr. Mouri decide to tail her. Turns out she’s meeting up with Sonoko and Masumi to plan a trip to Kyoto, where they’re hoping to see Shin’ichi. Conan doesn’t know why Ran expects to see his true form there. Before he can figure this out, the waiter at the cafe they’re at is murdered.
Conan is distracted by what’s going on with Ran, so not acting like his usual nosy child self–surprisingly, the normally unobservant Sonoko picks up on this.
After solving the case, Conan is finally let in on the not-actually-a-secret; it’s time for the high school senior class trip! (Please ignore how many other class trips they’ve been on.) Even Shin’ichi won’t want to miss this one, Ran’s sure. And yes, now that he’s been reminded, Conan/Shin’ichi absolutely wants to go.
But first, the Detective Kids go to a soccer game. Afterwards, Ai’s in a snit because her favorite team lost (for all her usual maturity, she’s still a teen genius at heart) and not interested in supplying the temporary antidote to Conan’s shrinkage for his school trip. She’s cheered up a bit by the time they reach Dr. Agasa’s house, but then she finds the autographed phone charm she got from her favorite player is missing. Ai is distraught, so it’s time to go looking for the item.
Dr. Agasa’s car is down, and next door neighbor Subaru is busy, but Subaru suggests asking Amuro, who’s parked outside. (Amuro thinks Subaru murdered his partner years ago and has been investigating him, but since they’re both undercover, it’s been slow going.)
There’s several twists, but eventually the charm is recovered…but it’s in such poor condition that Ai isn’t really consoled.
Despite this, she does supply some antidote pills so that Shin’ichi can show up for the class trip. At the same hotel the class kids are staying at, there’s some movie world celebrities, but they’re being killed off one by one…by a tengu (winged goblin.) This may be connected to the student film they were all involved with, about a human who became a tengu.
The investigation is complicated by the fact Shin’ichi can only stay in his teen form for a few hours, then must revert to Conan for at least eight hours before he can take the antidote again. Good thing Hattori’s helping him out!
Also assisting is Momiji, a wealthy Kyoto girl who has a crush on Hattori. (She’s actually been behind the scenes in other stories in these volumes, but gets to be in person for this case.) At the end of the volume, Shin’ichi’s figured out who the killer is, but the antidote is wearing off right then!
There’s a special feature recapping Shin’ichi and Ran’s very slow burn romance to date.
The art and writing have their usual consistency in these volumes. #91 and 92 introduce characters that are important to the overall myth arc of the series, and particularly the Rum subplot, which gets a bit of advancement. Thus these are key volumes for the collector. #93 has Soshi Okita as a new recurring character, but he’s not attached to any ongoing plotlines.
By now, you should know if you’re a Detective Conan fan; if so, these volumes are also recommended to you.
