A Happy E-mail Brings Sadness

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Episode 726
(Int. Episode 778)

Information

Title:

A Happy E-mail Brings Sadness

Japanese title:

幸福(しあわせ)メールは不幸を呼ぶ
(Shiawase Mēru wa Fukō o Yobu)

Original airdate:

January 18, 2014

Broadcast rating:

10%

Filler case number:

#220

Season:

19

Manga source:

TV Original

Case

Cast:

Conan Edogawa
Ran Mouri
Kogoro Mouri
Misao Yamamura

Case solved by:

Kogoro Mouri (via Conan)

Next Conan's Hint:

Left and right

Staff

Director:

Yasuichiro Yamamoto

Screenplay:

Tatsuro Inamoto

Storyboard:

Masaki Ozora

Episode director:

Takanori Yano

Animation director:

Masatomo Sudo and Seiji Muta (supervisors)
Akio Kawamura
Masanori Hashimoto

Character design:

Masatomo Sudo
Kumiko Shishido (design works)

Production cooperation:

BIG BANG

Voice cast:

Minami Takayama as Conan Edogawa
Rikiya Koyama as Kogoro Mouri
Wakana Yamazaki as Ran Mouri
Toshio Furukawa as Misao Yamamura
Hirofumi Nojima as Osamu Samon
Minoru Shiraishi as Toshihiko Migita
Sho Karino as Student

Music

Opening song:

"Butterfly Core"

Closing song:

"Ima Aitakute..."

A Happy E-mail Brings Sadness (幸福(しあわせ)メールは不幸を呼ぶ ,Shiawase Mēru wa Fukō o Yobu) is the 726th episode of Detective Conan anime.

Cast

Characters

Conan Edogawa

Ran Mouri

Kogoro Mouri

Misao Yamamura

Gadgets

Gadgets

Voice-Changing Bowtie

Stun-Gun Wristwatch

Case

On a dark night, the Mouri family, including Conan, were in Kogoro's car and heading home when they come across a scooter parked in the lane blocking the road. They investigate and find Nana's corpse lying on the park's ground with a rope around her neck.

Situation

Murder

Location: Park

Victim: Nana Hirose

Age: 27 years old

Cause of death: Strangulation by Rope

Suspects: Osamu Samon and Toshihiko Migita

Nana left behind a dying message that resembles the top part of the kanji for "left" (左) or "right" (右).

Investigation

As the investigation begins, Conan notices a weird smell coming from the corpse. The smell was gunpowder, which is usually present when a gun is fired. This crime was committed with rope, so the victim's cause of death and evidence don't match up. Ran noticed that parts of her make up was missing and the face was wet.

During this time, Osamu Samon, the victim's fiancé, arrives at the scene. He explains his relation to he victim, and introduces another suspect, Toshihiko Migita, who was the victim's previous boyfriend. As they go to question the second suspect, Samon asks to go with them. In the car, Samon shows Conan and a photo of a party that was held for him by his school students. He tells Ran that he knows the dying message could potentially refer to him.

Osamu Samon attending a party.

When they question Toshihiko Migita, he shows that Samon is also a definitive suspect due to how the message war written. Migita has a solid alibi, claiming to have been in the bookstore all night, and that he has the video surveillance footage to prove it. Conan notices something seems off about the footage. Inspector Yamamura and Kogoro Mouri point to Samon as the culprit, due to his lack of an alibi. At the moment, Samon doesn't have a clear motive for killing the victim.

Conan steps out of the shop to review where everything stands and who could be the culprit. As he looks around, he notices shards of glass and a damaged concrete wall. In the shop, Inspector Yamamura is about to take Samon as the culprit, Conan bursts on the scene and knocks Kogoro out cold to begin the 'The Sleeping Kogoro's Deduction Show'.

People

Nana Hirose
	Victim (strangled) 27 years old Insurance salesperson

Osamu Samon
	27 years old Elementary school teacher Nana's fiancé

Toshihiko Migita
	32 years old Bookstore owner

Man
	Student Nearby resident

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

Evidence

The evidence that Conan gathers is as follows:
Toshihiko Migita: The flawed surveillance footage with him disappearing abruptly and reappearing slightly different, the shards of glass and broken concrete outside his shop, and the dying message.
Osamu Samon: His emotional relationship to the victim as a fiancé, the image on his phone with the party poppers, and the dying message.
Victim: The dying message that resembles the top part of the kanji for "left" (左) or "right" (右), her wet face with some of her makeup removed, and a smell of gunpowder on her clothing.

Explanation

The dying message wasn't intended to point towards Osamu Samon as the culprit, but towards Toshihiko Migita. When writing 'migi,' you write the horizontal bar after the sweeping stroke, when looking at the dying message it was shown accordingly. So it wasn't the katakana 'na' nor 'Samon', only 'migi' is written in that order.

In the surveillance footage, Migita was in view of the cameras for the period it was running, assuming that the cameras were always left running. Migita used that preconception to make it seem like he never left. When he left for the toilet, he turned the cameras off. Then, he took the scooter on a 10 minute trip to the crime scene, and attacked the victim. It took him another 10 minutes to return, he turned the cameras back on and reappeared within it field of view. Using that technique, even if there was more than 20 minutes missing, it would appear as there was no gap at all since the camera system doesn't display a time stamp for the footage.

This is the testimony of a student that lives nearby: "It was around 10:30. There was a program I wanted to watch, so I turned on the TV. Then..." (There was an accident involving a white 4-door car crashing into the wall and then driving off. He shows picture of the car on his phone with the time stamp of '22:30')

It was most likely a drunk driver. The car might be in the area, and it would be a white car with a broken headlight. If Migita was in the shop he could have heard the crash clearly and would have reacted on the surveillance footage, but he never never did. Why? Because the footage from that time was missing. 10:30 matches the time of the murder. Migita wasn't present at that time. What tipped Kogoro (Conan) off was his hair, which was messy as he was going to the toilet, but was neatly flattened when he came back it, as if he had been wearing a helmet.

Migita confesses to killing Nana. His motive was because the victim apparently harassed him with photos of her current relationship, then made fun of him by saying she never sent them. However, Kogoro (Conan) stops Inspector Yamamura from taking Migita to the station. Migita did attempt to kill the victim, but he didn't kill her. The culprit for the victim's death isn't Toshihiko Migita, it is Osamu Samon.

This seemingly contradicts his deduction of the victim's dying message. Kogoro (Conan) explains that the stroke order of the dying message did indicate that Migita was the culprit. However, the victim didn't write the message, Samon did. In her e-mails, Nana usually wrote Migita's name in katakana, not kanji. Why would she switch to kanji in her final moments? The way the message was written was identical to the way Osamu had written it earlier.

The first step of Osamu's plan was to send Migita harassing emails from the victim's smartphone. Knowing Migita's personality and misguided affection towards the victim, Samon took advantage of that to tempt Migita to murder her. Evidence of that was the e-mail's writing style. The e-mails sent by the victim never had any punctuation, and always ended in her signing her name 'Nana.' But the emails sent to Toshihiko had punctuation and lacked her signature. It's difficult to change the writing styles, as well as stroke orders, so they were obviously written by someone else. Just as Samon planned, Migita attacked the victim in a rage. Samon headed to the park to make sure she was dead. But she wasn't dead; she managed to get up and was washing her face to clean away the dirt. That's why the victims face was wet and her make-up was rubbing off. He stepped in to finish killing her and write the dying message "Migita", but then he heard Kogoro, Ran, and Conan approaching in car so he had to rush away from the scene.

The proof is the gunpowder residue left on the victim. The reason why gunpowder residue was found in a crime that didn't involve a gun was because of Samon's photo. The photo was of party Samon went to, which involved a lot of party poppers. They contained gunpowder, the same gunpowder residue left on the victim's clothes and Samon's clothes. The gunpowder transferred to the victims body when he strangled her to death. If Samon says he didn't meet her on that day, how can he explain the gunpowder on her at the crime scene?

The motive for Osamu's crime was because she called off the engagement. Osamu was wearing a ring but the victim wasn't, which meant Osamu's feelings were unrequited. To conclude Toshihiko Migita is the culprit for the attempted murder of the victim. Osamu Samon is the culprit for the murder of the victim.

BGM listing

#	Song Title	Romaji	Translation	OST
0:01 - 0:20	ディスティニー アイランド	Disutinii Airando	Destiny Island	Detective Conan "Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure" Original Soundtrack
0:37 - 0:53	エスケープ！	Esukēpu!	Escape!	Detective Conan "Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure" Original Soundtrack
2:46 - 3:27	事件現場 （謎ver.）	Jiken Genba (Nazo ver.)	Scene of the Case (Mystery ver.)	Detective Conan Original Soundtrack 2
3:58 - 4:29	キーパーチャージ	Kīpā Chāji	Keeper Charge	Detective Conan "The Eleventh Striker" Original Soundtrack
4:39 - 6:03	????
7:05 - 8:46	????
9:16 - 9:55	アンダーアイス	Andā Aisu	Under Ice	Detective Conan "Quarter of Silence" Original Soundtrack
10:11 - 10:15	注意深い目	Chuuibukai Me	A Careful Eye	Detective Conan "The Raven Chaser" Original Soundtrack
10:20 - 10:38	黄色い直感１	Kiiroi Chokkan 1	Yellow Instinct 1	Detective Conan "The Raven Chaser" Original Soundtrack
10:50 - 11:15	イン モルティス １	In Morutisu 1	In Mortis 1	Detective Conan "Full Score of Fear" Original Soundtrack
11:37 - 12:22	????
12:24 - 13:22	インターナショナル ケース(インシデント)	Intānashonaru Kēsu (Inshidento)	International Case (Incident)	Detective Conan "Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure" Original Soundtrack
14:04 - 15:22	アラベスク タッチ	Arabesuku Tacchi	Arabesque Touch	Detective Conan "Full Score of Fear" Original Soundtrack
16:15 - 16:40	????
16:55 - 17:56	????
17:59 - 19:51	????
20:21 - 21:51	????
23:13 - 23:32	ＣＣＱ	CCQ	CCQ	Detective Conan "The Eleventh Striker" Original Soundtrack

Gallery

In other languages

Language	Title	Translation
Catalan (Catalan dub)	El correu feliç que porta la desgràcia	A happy e-mail that brings sadness
Thai	จดหมายแห่งความสุขที่นำมาซึ่งความทุกข์	A Happy E-mail Brings Sadness
Vietnamese	Tin Nhắn Hạnh Phúc Mang Lại Bất Hạnh	A Happy Message Brings Sadness

See also

• Season 19