"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." - Dolly Parton
This time I'll be going over Volume 67's File 699 of Detective Conan called Tomorrow is There. I've been meaning to reread this as it's one of the rare one-shot cases in the entire manga, and on top of that it's really well written as a meaningful piece of work. It's just one of those chapters that stick with me but I don't really know why; it could be the psychological aspect of the whole thing, but the case does bring a point about how you should never give up on your life for anything. I do believe that analyzing this case top to bottom is going to be very enjoyable and inspirational. I also really love the name choice Gosho Aoyama gave this particular very short case.
The Story of Tomorrow is There
The Detective Boys; Conan, Mitsuhiko, Ayumi, Genta and Haibara walk down a staircase leading from a bridge that crosses over a road in Beika city. Mitsuhiko reminds the rest of the group that tomorrow at 4:00 P.M. the final soccer match between Tokyo Spirits and Big Osaka happens [Reminder that the character Hideo Akagi - nickname Hide - is a pretty well-known soccer player from the Tokyo Spirits team]. You know, most Conan characters are pretty huge sports fans because the author Gosho Aoyama himself also loves soccer and baseball, etc. sports. Anyway, Haibara tells everyone that Big Osaka won the last match they had so she hopes that Tokyo Spirits takes the win this time. Genta tells them that Hide (Hideo Akagi) who is the Spirits' top scorer is out for the count due to an injury. It's hard to imagine Big losing when Spirits are missing their best scorer.
Haibara smirks and tells Genta that he's right - according to Haibara, most likely Higo will make a hat trick to become this year's top scorer and take Big to the championship [Reminder that Haibara is a huge Higo fangirl, there is a case with Kogoro and Haibara showing their affection towards their biggest idols where we especially see how much she loves Higo from Big Osaka]. Conan looks at Haibara and tells her that Higo's actually out of the game just as well; he got suspended for cumulative yellow cards. Haibara is shocked to hear this and asks Conan if he's completely sure. Conan tells her that he read about it in the morning paper. We see a headline of the morning paper, and it reads as follows: "Hide and Higo Out of Key Game Spirits, Big Face Off Without Top Players." This means that each team's most valuable player is benched.
Haibara ponders and it's hilarious what she says to Higo being out: Haibara understands now what the commentators were upset about when Higo got a yellow card in his last game, and now Haibara thinks that Higo has been set up. Conan is also wondering if she really thinks he was set up. It's clear that Haibara has only gotten to sports recently as she's not familiar with all of the rules. Conan wonders how Haibara knows about hat tricks in soccer but not yellow cards.
Mitsuhiko is disappointed that they won't see the best of either team battle it out and Genta tells everyone that he has to go to a dentist to get a hurting tooth pulled. Ayumi looks scared as the pain is real from that. Then we get the the first important line in this short case: Genta is disappointed at Hide not being in the match and annoyed at his tooth problem, so he wishes that tomorrow would never come.
As Genta finishes saying that, a happy-looking elderly man appears and tells Genta that he should not be saying thing like that, as there's always hope for tomorrow! Especially for children. Genta asks who the man is and he introduces himself as an old retiree who's just out for a walk. We get an information box showcasing that the man is Kyozo Daita (63), a passerby.
Genta asks the old man, Kyozo, what exactly he has to look forward to, to which the man answers that there are so many things that he doesn't even know which to choose. He explains that he's going to Osaka for a soccer game the next day. After the game he'll be going back to Tokyo to meet his old friend whom he hasn't seen in a decade for drinks. After that he'll be watching the finale of his favorite drama. Oh, and there'll also be a huge summer lottery to which he's taking a part in; he bought a bunch of tickets for it, so it should be quite the experience.
Then, all of a sudden a man runs at Kyozo and steals his purse wallet. All of his lottery tickets fly around. Conan decides to give chase to the thief as the man runs into an alley between buildings. Conan tries to order the thief to stop but he keeps running so Conan has to pull off his inflating belt soccer ball and his super charging boots to take the robber out. Conan kicks the robber to the back with the ball and the perp drops the bag he stole but still manages to run away.
Conan gives Kyozo his bag back and the old man checks the insides to make sure everything's still there.
Inside Kyozo's bag are: his wallet, keys, day planner diary, soccer tickets, and Kyozo's glasses case. He then tells the DB's that nothing's been taken. Ayumi asks Kyozo what the sticker on the glasses case is. Kyozo tells her that the sticker is a photograph of her granddaughter who turns seven years old this year. The glasses case and its contents are a birthday gift for Kyozo from her granddaughter. The old man says that the glasses, the case, and the sticker photograph of her granddaughter are his greatest treasure.
The detective boys tell Kyozo that her almost 7 year old granddaughter is the same age as them. Ayumi then asks Kyozo which school his granddaughter goes to, to which he answers after hesitating a bit that he doesn't recall the school's name, which is a bit odd as he looks a bit concerned when saying that. Haibara then arrives to give Kyozo back the lottery tickets that fell off during the robbery as the Detective Boys picked them all up. Kyozo is surprised at hearing that the Detective Boys are friends with real police officers as well and he decides to treat these sleuths to a snack at a nearby cake shop down the street. Most of the Detective Boys are happy about it, but Conan seems suspicious about something.
Everyone is now eating at the cake shop Patisserie Musshy. Mitsuhiko asks Kyozo if the soccer game he's attending is the big match between Tokyo and Osaka. Kyozo says yes and shows the Detective Boys his ticket to the match; he even got a great seat. Kyozo says that he's a big fan of Higo & Hide and can't wait to see them face off in the match. Ayumi tries to tell him that neither of them are participating in the match but Kyozo gets a phone call from his friend Omi. He asks if Omi is ready to pull an all-nighter the next day but Omi says that something's come up and he's gotta leave at 10 P.M., so Kyozo and Omi are only able to meet for an hour. Kyozo then asks Omi if he wants to meet at 7 P.M. instead as they're both retired with time on their hands and his friend agrees to that. Kyozo tells him on the phone to not be shocked about how old he's gotten and Conan looks at him while thinking about something.
Genta then notes that he's into a new Detective Samonji miniseries called the Laundromat Murders. Kyozo says that the Laundromat Murders is the TV series he mentioned earlier and can't wait to see who the culprit is; Kyozo theorizes that the perpetrator is the most friendly looking guy of the cast of characters.
Conan then says that he already knows who the culprit is - he knows because he's read the original novel that the series is adapting. Kyozo and the Detective Boys are surprised. Ayumi asks Conan not to spoil it and Kyozo asks Conan to whisper the culprit to him. Conan asks him if he's sure as the last episode is going to be on TV the next day to which Kyozo answers that he's going out with his friend and won't get home in time to see it. Conan wonders to him if he's not going to record it, so he's not going to spoil it as it'll be more fun to wait. After that the group leaves the cake shop. Kyozo tells the Junior Detective League thanks for everything and that his name is Kyozo Daita. Mitsuhiko says to the other kids about how likeable Kyozo was as he was so optimistic about everything.
Later one, at the TR Baker Station train station at 7 o'clock in the evening a train is arriving at Platform 2. We see Kyozo at the station, looking at his purse - or more accurately, looking at the photograph sticker of his granddaughter that's on the purse while drunk. His hands start to shake as he thinks to himself: "Yoshimi... hold on... I'll help you..."
As the train is almost as Platform 2 of the station, Conan appears behind Kyozo and tells him that getting hit by a train isn't his idea of a fun night. Kyozo is surprised at hearing this. Conan tells him that he's planning to commit suicide in order to pay for his daughter's operation. Kyozo turns his face towards Conan while surprised and the train passes by. Conan managed to save the man already. Conan assumes that Kyozo has taken a huge life insurance policy. Kyozo asks how he knows something like that and Conan tells him that he kept talking about looking forward to tomorrow, but in reality he wasn't planning to be around by then.
The rest of the Detective Boys also make their appearance. Ayumi says that Kyozo had tickets to a big soccer game but didn't even know that his two favourite players weren't going to be there. Mitsuhiko explains that it also didn't make sense for him to promise to meet his friend at 7:00 P.M. when the game to the match starts at 4:00 P.M. as a soccer game is two hours long; he'd have to get from Osaka to Tokyo in a hour's time. Impossible. Genta tells Kyozo that when they picked up his lottery tickets, he didn't count them, which was suspicious. Haibara also joins in and tells Kyozo that it's very strange that he'd want Conan to spoil the big finale of his favourite TV show - it was as if Kyozo knew that he wouldn't be here to see tomorrow. That's how the Detective Boys knew that he was planning on committing suicide.
Conan explains that Kyozo went drinking to make it look as if he got drunk and stumbled off the train platform by accident, at least that was the plan had Conan not stopped him from jumping under the train. Haibara explains that life insurance policies generally have clauses against paying for suicide, so that's why Kyozo had to get drunk first.
Kyozo wonders how Conan knew about his granddaughter being sick. Conan tells him that he seems very close to her but still couldn't tell the Detective Boys which school she attends. That's because she doesn't go to school in the first place. Conan theorized that she's in a hospital somewhere. Kyozo tells him that he's right - his granddaughter has been hospitalized for the past six months. She was born with heart problems and Kyozo's family had finally found a skilled doctor overseas who's capable of operating on her, but the operation fee is so massive that there was no other choice but to try to get the life insurance money. Ayumi tells him that his granddaughter would want him to be around when she gets better. Genta also tells him that what he's going to do if one of his lottery tickets was a big winner to which Kyozo says that he couldn't possibly win 100 million yen (~1 million dollars) twice in a row. Kyozo tells them that he'd won 100 million yen at the end of the last month and thanked the gods when that happened, but what happened afterwards broke the camel's back as Kyozo went and lost the winning ticket.
Conan asks Kyozo if he'd read the lottery results in the newspaper while he was at the laundromat. Kyozo answers him that he's corect. The winning ticket was gone when he got home so he must've dropped it on the way. Conan asks him what he'd done with the other tickets and Kyozo answers that he threw them away at the laundromat.
Conan then realizes that Kyozo had put the winning ticket somewhere safe. He wouldn't just stuff it in his pocket, and it can't be his wallet either as he didn't take his wallet to the laundromat. Conan assumes thus that in his excitement, Kyozo put the ticket inside the one and only thing he had on him at the time - the glasses case his granddaughter gave him. As Kyozo opens the glasses case he sees the winning lottery ticket stuffed inside of there and gets very happy.
Haibara asks Conan why he even took his glasses case to the laundromat. Conan answers that he noticed Kyozo squinting when he made notes in his planner notebook. The glasses must be reading glasses. Kyozo explained earlier that he reads the newspaper every time he goes to the laundromat to waste time, it's all pretty logical. Conan tells Kyozo that when he thought he'd lost the ticket, he didn't want to open the glasses case because he felt so guilty towards his granddaughter.
Kyozo gives a sigh of relief and laughs, saying that for a while he thought of robbing a bank to pay for his granddaughters surgery. Then he tells thanks to the Junior Detective League and leaves while very happy. Genta and Mitsuhiko mention how the Detective Boys just were in a scary bank robbery situation so it's not funny to hear the old man joke about robbing a bank.
Ayumi tells Haibara that she remembers that she saw someone she knew in that bank. It was the man on the bus they were on a long time ago, the bus that got hijacked. Mitsuhiko and Genta also remember seeing the man at the bank - a man with narrow eyes and a burn mark on his cheek.
Conan tells the Detective Boys that he doesn't remember anyone like that on the hijacked bus but Ayumi tells him that the guy actually didn't have a burn mark when that happened - it's the guy with the black knit cap. When Conan hears this he gets shocked as he realizes it's Akai Shuiichi or someone like him as the case as well as the chapter ends.
This was an extremely rare one-shot case in the Detective Conan manga. But I wouldn't be writing about this case if I didn't think it was pretty incredible in its own right. I really like short stories and the fact that Gosho is able to compact this mystery about the optimistic old man with ill intentions in one mere chapter and use it to connect to the overarching plot at the end, is actually pretty impressive. In the past I didn't care for the case as it seemed to be basic but it is one of the more important cases when it comes to understanding how human psychology is used to build a case and explain certain actions. The lottery ticket part is also part of the whole and it does make sense when you actually think about it. My favourite part is when the train passes by the old man. That signals that Conan already managed to save his life then and there.
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