- Sonoko Suzuki to Ran Mouri (File 768, Jeet Kune Do case)
BOURBON SUSPECT INTRODUCTORY CASES
The plan of this post is to write about one of the three Bourbon story arc suspects' first appearance cases in Detective Conan. This isn't a normal review, but an overview of every little thing in the chapters. I woke up one day and wanted to see how these three characters' introductory cases feel like to me and how they differentiate from each other, among other things, right down to the nitty and gritty.
The first suspect's - Okiya Subaru's - introductory case was a very interesting arson case with the detective boys in the lead.This time our main star of the case is Masumi Sera, who gets introduced in the Jeet Kune Do Case of Volume 73 of Detective Conan. Masumi's a tomboy~ish girl with martial arts skills on the level of Ran Mouri (eng. Rachel Moore), except I believe Ran to be physically stronger in a real match, and yes I know the author Gosho Aoyama said they were about equal. Where Masumi shines however, is her deductive skills as she claims to be a detective much like our previous main characters Shinichi Kudo (eng. Jimmy Kudo), Kogoro Mouri (eng. Richard Moore), and Heiji Hattori (eng. Harley Hartwell).
Masumi's existence is an interesting case as it has to do with events that take place behind the scenes; where Masumi comes from, who she knows, what she looks for, are all hidden from the view but when the explanation comes in the later volumes, it gets neatly tied up to the story itself in a way that adds a layer or two to it. She's also a rather entertaining character, taking the spot of the Kir story arc's Eisuke Hondo except Masumi has has more connections with the storyline and her position in cases is more utilized.
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| Masumi Sera in her introductory case. You can tell that she likes motorcycles from the style of jacket she's wearing. |
File 768 - Jeet Kune Do
Ran, her best friend the rich girl and heir to the Suzuki Financial Corporation Sonoko Suzuki as well as Conan are on the bus, taking a public transportation through the city during the day. Sonoko congratulates Ran for being unbeatable in martial arts as she recently won the Kanto Karate Championship. Ran tells Sonoko that her senior, Kazumi, taught her a move called the flipping-axe kick which was what mattered the most in the match for her to get the win. Meanwhile Conan feels sorry for all the girls that have to go up against Ran as physically an utter monster and honestly one of the strongest in the Conan world. There are some cases where you can see all of Ran's family with combat skills but she's actually a martial artist unlike her parents Kogoro or Eri. I personally like Ran as I can get behind her character and understand how she operates just from knowing what kind of parents she has.
Sonoko reminds Ran of her promise; if Ran were to win the championship, Sonoko would take her to the Haido Hotel's cake buffet. That day has finally come, so Ran should eat as much as she can so she can get stronger. Ran agrees and tells her that she will eat a lot of cake to get as strong as she can, but Conan just wonders if they don't just mean super fat instead of strong. To be fair to the girls though, if you do exercise a lot, eating more does give you more muscle.
Continuing, Sonoko asks Ran if Shinichi said anything to her. Sonoko assumes that Ran gave her "answer" to Shinichi's London arc confession while telling about her martial arts championship victory. Ran blushes and tells Sonoko that while she did tell Shinichi about the win, she didn't answer to Shinichi's love as she wants to meet him directly than via e-mails. Sonoko gets angry at Ran since she hasn't replied to Shinichi's confession even though the London trip was quite a long time ago. Sonoko starts to emulate Shinichi to Ran and claims that he must be very anxious about why Ran doesn't answer him. Then Sonoko tells Ran that if she takes too long and is too careless, someone else might appear to take Shinichi's heart as Shinichi is pretty popular with the girls.
If Ran isn't careful, a "powerful love-rival might appear to steal Shinichi away." As soon as Sonoko finishes saying that, she gets surprised and grabs the hand of a person behind her, screaming "PERVERT! THIS PERSON JUST GROPED ME!" The assumed assailant is a person wearing a jean jacket, an unusual hat and jeans, with medium-sized semi-messy dark hair that's not really taken care of.
While Sonoko has the hand of the pervert guy grabbed, Sonoko tells the guy not to act so surprised just because he got caught groping Sonoko's butt and then she tells Ran to do the "payback time". Ran launches towards the groper (whos face we can't see as its hidden by the hat), but instantly as if automatically, the pervert puts her feet on Ran's kicking leg to stop its momentum. Note that Ran is a karate championship winner so this isn't a slight feat of the perv.
Ran and Sonoko get surprised at the perp stopping Ran's kick and then the perp makes a swift attack with his left hand, thrusting his fingers towards Ran! Ran dodges by a hair's breadth but the perp makes a swift right leg kick followup towards her head right after! Ran defends her head with her left arm but then she thinks that if the kick connects, it´s all over for her, so she decides to immediately dodge the kick by turning her head backwards and jumping a reverse spin! As Ran jumps to the ground the passengers on the bus are all scared by the high-scale battle.
The guy then complements Ran as Kanto-regions #1 martial artist and tells that she has great moves. Ran gets serious and realizes that the guy is using jeet kune do to counter her moves. Jeet kune do is a martial arts style known for not only being used but also completely developed by the famous martial artist and actor Bruce Lee.
Ran tells Sonoko to get away as the perv is actually really strong. Then the guy starts to try to explain the situation but Conan butts in and tells everyone that the hat and motorcycle-jacket wearing person is in fact not the pervert as Conan saw the whole thing: it's actually that the hat-wearing person grabbed the hand of the pervert who was touching Sonoko's butt and that´s why the person was behind Sonoko. The guy then lifts his right arm and shows that he's been holding to the real perpetrator the whole time he fought with Ran. Impressive to say the least. Sonoko gets angry at the true pervert and the perv dashes out of the bus, while scared shitless from the inhuman showcase of power.
After the pervert ordeal was dealt with, Ran apologizes to the guy for heading right in with the kick without even making sure whether or not he was the real pervert. Sonoko takes a closer look at the guy and thinks that he's actually hot-looking. The guy tells Ran that it's all fine and not to worry about it because Ran is actually his type. Conan gets shocked at the guy trying to hit on Ran and Sonoko gets jealous because she was the one that was attacked by the pervert so she should be getting hit on instead of Ran by the guy. The guy asks where Ran is going and she says that she's heading to Haido Hotel. The guy tells that it's a lucky coincidence as he's heading there as well. Conan looks at the guy angrily and thinks that he better not be making up the fact that he's also going to the hotel. The guy then looks and winks at Conan and tells him thanks for helping break up the fight.
At Haido Hotel
As the group arrive at the hotel, the new weird hat wearing guy is at the front desk wondering why the hotel doesn't have a room for him even though he'd made a reservation. The desk secretary tells the guy that it's their mistake and they should've declined the reservation. Sonoko has been impressed by how this guy is pretty much equal to Ran in power, so it'd be interesting to see how he would compare to Sonoko's boyfriend Makoto.
Conan explains that the weird-hatted guy isn't using karate like Ran, but instead his martial arts style is known as Jeet Kune Do, which was created by the famous actor Bruce Lee by combining different martial arts styles. Jeet Kune Do is also quite lethal as it focuses on weak spots on the body such as the throat or eyes. This is an interesting fact that actually tells us that this new guy - Masumi - can be deadly.
Next, Conan, Sonoko and Ran decide to head to the Pastry Buffet in the Haido Hotel. Sonoko checks through the internet (with her phone) on the hotel's website and it's explained that the buffets are held on the second floor. Conan suggests that they head up with a nearby elevator, but as the elevator opens a woman - Toshiko Hirukawa (homemaker, 49) - comes out of it and asks the trio where they're heading. After telling her, the woman tells them that they can't use this particular elevator as it leads to the annex of the hotel. Conan wonders about this as the annex was supposed to be closed.
Two other people then also arrive on the scene and start asking Toshiko whether another person was doing well as they're worried. Toshiko explains that this man was cursing while drunk at first but then started crying and promised to come down the hotel later to apologize to everyone about something he'd done. The other two are surprised about this sincerity this usually angry man is showing. The others assume that this man is going to just go back to his old ways and deny everything later.
Toshiko suggests for the three of them to head towards a nearby electronics store to go buy recording equipment so that even "his other victims" can hear the apology, meaning that this man Toshiko and the others are talking about has supposedly done something to many other people.
Meanwhile Ran, Sonoko and Conan are at the Pastry buffet location but with a very long line of people on the staircases. An employee tells the three that the buffet is now closed due to a much higher demand than assumed, thus the restaurant had ran out of food already.
Sonoko tells the employee that it's ridiculous for them to advertise pastries if they don't have enough for all the customers and as she keeps shouting a loud noise starts to echo from the parking lot where Toshiko and the other two she was with are at the time of the noise. The three of them start to scream and we get to see surprised faces of our main characters.
Conan runs to the parking lot to see a blonde man bleeding from the head on the ground. Toshiko tells him that she was backing up her car when someone fell down from the hotel on the parking lot. Two others notice that this now dead man is who they recognize as "Uesumi". Toshiko then starts to say that she saw someone on the roof. Conan asks what the person looked like and Toshiko tells that she barely saw any of the mystery person; she'd need to take a closer look. Conan then grabs Toshiko and tells Ran to call the cops and keep an eye on the parking lot as he takes Toshiko to the roof of Haido Hotel.
Haido Hotel has seven floors and the roof. Conan, Toshiko and the other two (of the three usual "suspects" of the case) arrive on the roof floor, but Conan almost falls backwards as the elevator door also opens on the other side. Toshiko then starts saying that she's scared and doesn't want to go to the roof, but then she has to as she's forced to.
On the roof Conan and the other three notice shoes on top of a jacked on the end of the building. The scene looks like suicide, but what about the person Toshiko spotted? She thinks it may've just been the jacket fluttering in the wind instead of any actual person and she starts to blame herself for being too hard on the victim when she talked with him previously, that must've been the reason for the suicide... but Conan doesn't agree as he believes this death is caused by something else entirely, but before he gets to finish his sentence our new weird-hatted messy-haired character from the beginning of the chapter makes his appearance on the roof and says: "...Murder, right... Conan?"
File 769 - A Detective Like You, Kid
As our weird-hatted new character had finished claiming that this death of a person named Uesumi who fell down from the roof (basically the 8th floor) of Haido Hotel is a murder, others on the roof start saying if he saw someone push the victim off the roof. He says that he saw no such thing, but he overheard Toshiko saying that the victim was very drunk, and then he makes a comment about how one needs good ears in the line of work he's doing. Conan ponders what this work could be. Anyway, the others on the roof don't buy the claim of a murder as the jacket and shoes have been placed on top of the roof very neatly. The new guy tells others not to leap to conclusions as he's seen many suicides in which people've jumped to their doom, but very rarely have there been cases in which people've left their shoes behind. Conan wonders what this guy means by having seen "lots" of suicides. The guy explains that stuff like leaving behind clothes mostly goes down in TV and movies as it makes a pretty picture for a story - but that doesn't mean that people behave in such way in real life before doing a suicide. The guy also explains that although movies don't do it as often anymore, they used to show hanged victims bleeding from their mouths, although that's not what really happens when one gets hanged. It's just a way of showing that the victim is dead.
The guy explains that in scenes like these in which someone has taken their shoes off befoe committing suicide, it's often caused by getting the idea from some fictional piece of work. In this case it might not be the best idea to assume that the victim who was dead drunk and trying to sober up would neatly fold his jacked and place his shoes on top of the jacket the way the clothes are on the roof. The man theorizes that the jacket and shoes could be left by someone else on the roof, but as they're at the exact spot where the dead man had fallen from, that leads to some questions. Questions like how the most likely explanation for everything is that the killer had planted the clothes on the roof to make it look like a suicide.
Toshiko then asks where the murder is and the guy answers that the perp is getting arrested right now as he'd told the security of Haido Hotel to search the elevator and stairs before joining them on the roof. Everyone is shocked and asks who this guy is and he say's he's named Sera (last name) - he's a detective like the boy who's with them on the roof right now.
On the parking lot Sera gets a surprise from inspectors Takagi & Megure as the police hadn't caught anyone. According to hotel security the only people going to the roof and down were the three case-only characters, Conan and Sera. After quick introductions inspector Megure is annoyed by yet another detective on the crime scenes in the form of Sera. Sera ponders why the victim was even on the annex of the hotel as the place was supposed to be closed for renovations.
Inspector Megure explains that the deceased is named Teigo Uesumi. He was the son of the owner of Haido Hotel. That's why he had a special permission to stay in the annex in order to avoid the press. Sonoko wonders if the victim was popular, but Megure tells him that it's sort of the opposite as the police had arrested Uesumi for running a scamming ring by phones but he was released on lack of evidence.
As a week prior the press had found out that Uesumi was in the hotel, the hotel's been in a bad place ever since as the victim frequently fought with the press. The victim threw a fire extinguisher through a window on the sixth floor of the hotel. The hotel had to close down the annex as it was impossible for anyone else to stay on the floor. Takagi explains that there's a rumor that the hotel staff were simply using the renovation as an excuse to quietly move Uesumi overseas where the press can't reach him.
The three case-only characters then finally get their introduction. Toshiko Hirukawa whom we already knew of explains that all three of them are victims of Uesumi's phone scam. They wanted an apology from him before he ran away to overseas. Megure questions if they managed to meet with Uesumi and Toshiko explains that she didm she went to his room. According to her Uesumi was angry at first but then he started crying and asked for a time to sober up before talking any more. The trio of scam victims tried to record Uesumi's apology and got in the car to drive to an electronics store, but just as Toshiko was backing up her car on the parking lot, the victim fell from the roof right in front of their eyes to the ground.
Inspector Takagi asks inspector Megure if the victim could've been dragged off the roof somehow. Megure asks the scam victims whether anyone has interfered with the crime scene and Conan answers that's not likely as Toshiko had told them that someone was on the roof so all of them ran over there to check it out after the victim had fallen down. As Conan and the scam victims went upstairs, Ran and Sonoko were keeping their eyes on the parking lot. Megure then asks Takagi to check the car and the body for evidence.
Sera makes a remark about something weird with the elevator as when he was waiting for the elevator, he'd seen the elevator make a stop on the sixth and second floors - this brings into question whether or not the victim really lived alone on the annex. The inspectors ask Sera when he saw this elevator move to the 2nd and 6th floors and he explains that it was after the victim had falledn and Conan had taken the trio of scam victims to the roof. Sera noticed that the elevator had gone to the top without stopping once, but on the way down it'd stopped twice. Although Haido Hotel has two elevators, only one of them is working because the victim was the only guest going to the annex as the other elevator only goes to the annex.
Megure suspect that someone might be hiding in the annex now, but Takagi explains that they're already combing the annex without finding anything. Conan questions the inspector about security cameras as it's possible that there are recordings of the elevator and the hallways - but unfortunately while the victim was staying on the annex floor, he'd blocked all the security cameras with spray paint and you can only see black through them. This information gives Conan and Sera at the same time some kind of important hint towards solving the mystery as they realize that the annex was a "black box" in which nothing would be seen. Sera then starts to rub Conan's hair and smile as the case gets more interesting.
The police decide to put more effort into investigating the 2nd and 6th floors. The scam victims then realize something and decide to talk to the inspectors about what they'd understood about the case, but they assume the police wouldn't want to listen to something like that. Megure regardless asks them about what they're talking about and they mention that on the annex The Hotel Ghost appears. According to rumors, people've seen an old man's wheelchair moving around the hotel on its own. The scam victim trio are scared and assume that the elevator had probably stopped for the ghost on its way down. Megure is disappointed in these ghost stories during investigations but asks how they even know that the wheelchair is an old man's. Toshiko explains that she knows it because of her father - Toshiko's mother was the person who fell for Uesumi's phone scam. She'd lost everything and was hospitalized from the shock. Toshiko's father had terminal cancer but booked a room in the Haido Hotel in order to visit Uesumi every day and beg for Uesumi to apologize to Toshiko's mother and him.
The scamming story didn't have a nice ending as Toshiko'd mother died in the hospital. This death caused her father to hand himself in his hotel room. During his stay in the hotel he'd been using an electric wheelchair rented from the hotel, and while he was moving around the hotel with the wheelchair a lot, many people started to notice the wheelchair. This was likely what caused the rumors about an old man's wheelchair that a ghost supposedly uses, to spread... Toshiko's father had also surprisingly stayed on the 2nd floor of the hotel.
Inspectors Megure & Takagi head to the 2nd floor to check out for any clues. The entire floor is filled with spray paint marks reading things like "DIE" on the walls, most likely from angry scam victims. Takagi seems to call Uesumi a jerk, which is kind of funny. Inspector Chiba is on the 2nd floor investigating something weird about an electric wheelchair. He explains to Megure that the wheelchair was still moving when they'd arrived on the floor and a fishing line had been placed between the two front wheels. The hotel staff had said that the victim, Uesumi, had rented the wheelchair before his death - but not because he was disabled or anything, he'd just wanted to ride it around the annex for fun. Takagi theorizes that the victim may've been the one to start the story about the Haido Hotel Ghost to spread in order to scare the scamming victims who visited him away. It's possible that Uesumi was planning to use the wheelchair and the fishing line for some kind of prank.
The fishing line that was between the front wheels of the electric wheelchair is very long. There are broken rubber bands tied to the end. There is a mark on the left leg rest that was caused by it bumping into something. Conan wonders if the murderer used the wheelchair, but Megure tells Conan to check through the window as they're on the opposite side from the parking lot where the victim had fallen, in other words way too far away from the crime scene.
Later on, Megure wonders if what Sera had seen about the elevator stopping on the second and the sixth floors was correct. Sera tells him that he'd actually asked a security guard to also pay attention to the elevator, so Megure could also ask the guard. As the group head to the 6th floor Megure and Takagi almost falls backwards the same way Conan almost did before as the elevator has two doors. Conan explains that he'd asked the hotel staff about the two-doored elevators and apparently there are large ballrooms on this particular side of the annex that take up the first and second floors. That's why having an elevator that opens both ways makes it easier to get things in and out of the ballroom for all sorts of events. [We get to see a map of the secondary hotel building to make build of Haido Hotel easier to understand].
The mess left by graffiti from spray cans is much thicker on the sixth floor. There are death threats and other type of threats on the walls. It's no wonder the hotel is trying to renovate stuff after the mess assumedly left by angry scam victims, or maybe the victim itself was so crazy. Inspector Takagi explains that the 6th floor is where the victim, Uesumi, was staying and that the renovators were scheduled to arrive an hour after the victim had fallen. Sera and Conan look through a broken window and guess that it's the window the victim had broken with the fire extinguisher a week prior. Furthermore, the broken window is suspiciously placed right above where the crime scene on the parking slot is. It's also notable that the sheet that was used to tape over the window's been blown away. Conan notes that there's a big glob of paint on the wall and floor beneath the broken window and a weird mark of something that was placed on the paint. There's a paint can nearby with a dent on it from something bumping into it. Nearby that paint can there's another paint can with a similar dent. Furthermore, the 6th floor's elevator also has a similar dent on it.
Conan starts recollecting the facts: There's a double-doored elevator, an electric wheelchair with a long fishing line attached to it, along with those weird ghost stories that take place in this black box of a renovation site in Haido Hotel. It all fits together to come to a conclusion, and Conan understands that only one person hat the opportunity to set the crime up the way it happened. But instantly right after Conan thinks that, Sera blurts out something: "Hirukawa is the the killer! This case is... closed! I've already solved it!"
File 770 - Sera's Careless Deduction
The trio of scam victims: Toshiko Hirukawa and two others that we surprisingly haven't even been introduced to, have been called to the 6th floor of Haido Hotel for Sera to make his deduction. Trio heard that the case was closed and assume that it was suicide after all. Megure explains that the victim, Teigo Uesumi, the son of the owner of Haido Hotel, had been murdered. Megure points at Sera and tells the trio that "this young man claims to have figured out how it (the crime) was done." Sera is for some reason surprised about Megure calling him a "young man". Conan asks Sera to tell them his deduction about the case. Conan smirks and tells Sera: "We can see if you've made any mistakes." to which Sera takes up the challenge and starts explaining the case of Teigo Uesumi.
Sera explains that the victim's jacket and shoes that were left on the roof were simply planted there to make one think that he'd jumped off the roof. This was done in order to make everyone overlook the real crime scene - the 6th floor. Sera explains that Toshiko Hirukawa is the killed: she'd tried to cover up the truth that she'd used the elevator and electric wheelchair in order to kill Uesumi. This brings many questions as when the victim fell to the ground, Toshiko was actually on the parking lot with the other two scam victims. Sera explains that the only actually tricky part about this entire thing is setting up the rubber bands and the fishing line. Toshiko then asks Sera to explain this magic trick.
Sera tells everyone that for the murder trick to work, it required Toshiko to meet up with the victim on the 6th floor and get him drunk; with the victim's drinking problems it was quite easy. Once the victim had passed out from drinking too much, Toshiko put him on the electric wheelchair with his knees up, pushed in front of the elevator. Afterwards Toshiko called the elevator to the sixth floor and hooked up the rubber bands on the fishing line around the mirror that's inside the elevator. Afterwards she'd stepped out of the elevator and pushed the button for the first floor. She had the fishing line go all the way down. Then she'd called the elevator back to the sixth floor and tied the fishing line to the wheelchair, making it about a foot shorter than what was measured.
After pulling the line up so it wouldn't get stuck, Toshiko got on the elevator with the wheelchair and the victim. At the second floor, she pushed the wheelchair out, then rode on down to the first floor alone.
Then, Toshiko came out through the elevator on the first floor and met up with Conan and the others. Conan wanted to use the elevator to get to the pastry buffet, but Toshiko told him not to use the elevator because the annex was closed. But in reality it was so no one would see the trap Toshiko had set as there must've been a long fishing line strung between the two elevator doors. The second and sixth floor buttons must've already been pushed when she was talking with Conan, but instead of explaining the situation about the reason for pushing those two floors' buttons, Sera decides to show what went down.
Megure calls inspector Chiba to press the 2nd and 6th floor buttons. Sera explains that when the elevator reaches the 2nd floor, the electric wheelchair will be waiting for it. Once the door opens, it'll move into the elevator and stop when it bumps into the opposite door. The elevators on this annex have double doors. One set of doors opens on the first and second floors while the other set opens for the third floor and above.
Then, the electric wheelchair with a dummy riding it arrives on the 6th floor. It follows a path that's built for it out of things like boxes and paint cans.. and then heads for the window that the victim himself had broken a week prior by throwing a fire extinguisher through it. The wheelchair then clams into the wall beneath the window and then throws the victim out of the wheelchair, and... nothing happens. For some reason the dummy on the wheelchair isn't falling. Sera starts to panic and think that the killed must've found a chance to come back and grab the body or something, but Takagi tells him that he'd said the police that the wheelchair would tip the body out the window automatically.
Conan then sees that Sera didn't figure the mystery out after all. But thinks that it's too risky to use his sleeping dart to knock out Megure, Takagi or Sera to explain the case through (as he believes the police won't listen to a kid like his Conan self) so he decides to come up with another plan and make a phone call.
Sera makes another theory and tells the inspectors that the killer must've used the car - the fishing line could've been tied to the bumper... but that theory doesn't go anywhere as Takagi explains that there are no signs of anything like that on the car. Megure tells Sera that if the murderer had used the car, there'd be no need to set up an elaborate trick with the wheelchair in the first place. Then Sera grabs his face and smiles as he says that he can't believe that he was so careless with his theories as he looks at Conan - hinting that Sera actually knows the real answer but tries to get Conan to come out with the explanation instead.
Conan then raises his left arm where a phone is. While on the other hand he has another phone. He's talking through two phones... with the voice of Shinichi Kudo through the voice-changing bowtie. With the voice of Shinichi he says out-loud through the mobile phone's speaker that the killer used the two paint cans near the window. Sera reacts a bit to the name of Shinichi Kudo.
Conan gives the other phone to Megure and runs to hide behind the corner. With the voice of Shinichi he explains through the phone call that there's a big glob of paint under the window with marks left by something being placed there. The marks on the cans match the marks beneath the broken window. Now, the only thing left is to hold the cans in place and get the wheelchair to ride over there again. Sera decides to get the wheelchair moving towards the window again, and shouts to the phone "Like this, Shinichi?" to which Shinichi answers "Er... I'm not there, so I can't tell!" which tells us that Sera has deeper role to play with everything as it seems to be hinted he already knows Conan is Shinichi and tries to get Conan to slip-up (Sera does this quite a few times in the future as well).
Anyway, the wheelchair carrying the victim will then come out of the elevator and move towards the window. At the time of the murder, the wet paint (which left the marks) had kept the cans stuck to the wall. When the wheelchair finally hits the paint cans, the footrests will slide underneath them as the rear wheels fly upwards, the armrests hit the wall and the impact sends the victim flying out of the window. This causes the body to fall right in front of the killer on the parking lot in order to establish the murderer's alibi. The reason why Toshikawa had claimed to have seen someone on the roof after the victim fell was to make up an excuse to go to the roof to push the button to send the elevator back to the first floor.
In order to confirm this Inspector Chiba is ordered through the phone to press the button to the first floor. As the fishing line gets pulled, it draws the wheelchair back towards the elevator and afterwards it will again bump to the elevator door. Since the fishing line was a little too short, the rubber bands broke off, and by the time Conan and co. went towards the roof, there was nothing on the elevator anymore.
The killer took the elevator with the witnesses to the roof. There, she made up an excuse about being scared in order to be the last person to leave the elevator in order to press the buttons for the sixth and second floors again. As the elevator stops on the 6th floor, the wheelchair will then go in there and drive to the opposite side. As the wheelchair stops on the 2nd floor, the wheelchair will go out the door on the opposite side from the crime scene. This was done so that even if the police found it moving on the 2nd floor and found it suspicious, the wheelchair was simply too far away from the crime scene for them to acknowledge it as relevant clue. The paint cans had flown out of the way from being in impact with the wheelchair as it went back towards the elevator when it was pushed by the fishing line - Shinichi even explains that if one needs solid evidence to get her, there should be traces of the victim's clothes and hair on Toshiko's own clothes as she had to get a good grip to get an unconscious man into a wheelchair, but Shinichi also says that "of course, you could always just claim you made up with the victim and the two of you shared a warm hug..." to which Toshiko starts laughing a bit and then she gets angry and tells that she will confess it all instead of saying something disgusting like that. Toshiko says that she set up the murder so that the victim would fall straight down to hell.
Megure questions Toshiko whether or not she'd come to the hotel before to test the wheelchair out which must've caused the rumors about the wheelchair ghost of Haido Hotel to spread, but Toshiko says that she hadn't - in fact, the only part which she created about the murder method were the ramp of paint cans. She wasn't the one to test the wheelchair murder method out. Toshiko explains that a while ago when she visited the victim's, Teigo's, room, he'd made the wheelchair roll out of the elevator in front of her eyes. The victim was the one to come up the the murder method. According to Toshiko Teigo had been bragging about it to his friends over the phone. It was supposed to be a prank to drive everyone out of the annex. Teigo'd called it "Operation Geezer's Ghost." That was when Toshiko decided to put Teigo in that very same chair, in order to "make him feel the sorrow my father felt when he came here day after day to plead for decency."
The wrap-up
Not long after the case, Teigo Uesumi's secret bank account was discovered by the authorities. The police were able to follow the trail of money to the rest of the scammers. With the gang's leader - Teigo - deceased and their crimes exposed, the telephone fraud case came to a close. This was on the Nichiuri News under the title: "Fraud Ring Rounded Up!!" Furthermore, in the school Ran and Sonoko talk about how Shinichi solved the case. Sonoko teases Ran about how Shinichi should've called his "beloved wife" as well, to which Ran dodges the question and tells Sonoko that Conan told her that Sera guy who was on the scene was a detective as well. Conan told Ran that when they left Haido Hotel, Sera had told him "See you soon." - now, what could that mean? Sonoko then teases Ran about maybe Sera wants to ask Ran out as the teacher comes into class to introduce a new transfer student in Ran's and Sonoko's class: Masumi Sera herself with a skirt and everything. The plot twist of this is basically everyone coming to a realization that Sera was actually a girl, so she's a tomboy-type character.
THE REVIEW
I began this short journey of going through each of the three Bourbon arc suspects' introductory cases in order to get some insight into how the author Gosho Aoyama adds certain themes to the cases that represent these characters and what they're about. This case, Jeet Kune Do (in the anime it's called Deduction Showdown at the Haunted Hotel) takes place in Volume 73, chapters 768-770 of the Detective Conan manga series. The case introduces us to a new character, Masumi Sera, who is quite fickle and somewhat hard to understand. Masumi is first thought to be a guy groping Sonoko Suzuki on a public transport, but it gets revealed that she's the person who grabbed the hand of the real groper. This is interesting as the first chapter of the case opens up with Masumi telling Ran that she's "a girl who's just my type". Then, Masumi goes to Haido Hotel on her own while Ran, Sonoko and Conan also have business there. Things escalate as a man falls from the roof of the hotel to the parking lot in front of the people the victim was supposed to apologize to. This case is technical and deals mostly with logical thinking where you ponder about Haido Hotel's layout and elevator mechanics, from and where things move and in which timeframe are the key things to solve here. The case is presented as which-of-the-three type of murder case, but it's actually not as we are never introduced to the names of the two other of the three suspects. It's clear who the culprit could be from the get-go, and that's why the case is kind of bland to me. The case does have a false solution to it in sorts but I don't think it's that special as it doesn't differ enough from the true answer, regardless, in its technicalities this case is decent. I liked how the victim's story was handled in this short case - this guy was a total rotten tomato. Like really, you don't even get to see this guy alive in this case, yet you get to feel the pain he's caused, and it's so bad that the cops were even after this guy and his corrupt schemes even after he died.
The trick itself is actually pretty cool with how it's done in such a short time frame so effectively, making use of the simple but technical layout of the Haido Hotel and its mechanics multiple times in row. It's just that how this is, simply feels too obvious for a case that somewhat doesn't present it as too obvious. What I mean by this is that when the case begins you kind of know the woman - Toshiko - definitely is the culprit. The two others weren't even named. She was also the only one there. After that you get the explanation on the wheelchair, the layout, the fishing line and stuff, and that basically makes you kind of get the gist of the murder method, even though the technicalities might have some holes in your theory, it doesn't take long to understand what went where and when. The situation with the false solution did make me question whether it actually was a suicide a little bit though, I guess. This case is meant to introduce us to Masumi Sera who is then at the end surprisingly revealed to actually be a woman instead of a man (which everyone thought Masumi was). Out of the three Bourbon story arc suspects' introductory cases, however, Jeet Kune Do case ended up being my least favourite as it just doesn't feel too special. The next case in this volume continues from where this leaves off of, with Masumi joining the main cast of characters.
BOURBON SUSPECT INTRODUCTORY CASES
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