Special Volume 19

	Volume 19
	Information
Release date:	May 28, 2003
Original Work:	Gosho Aoyama
Manga:	Eiichi Yamagishi
ISBN:	ISBN 4-09-142789-8
Publisher:	Shogakukan
	Back Cover Image
	Conan Side Image

Chronology
‹ Special Volume 18	List of Chapters	Special Volume 20 ›

Special Volume 19 was released on May 28, 2003 in Japan.^[1]^[2]

Cast

Characters

Shinichi Kudo (background)

Wataru Takagi

Gadgets

Stun-Gun Wristwatch

Voice-Changing Bowtie

Detective Boys Badge

Power-Enhancing Kick Shoes

The Intense Cold World of Murder

File 1 - Part 1

Conan and the Detective Boys, accompanied by their teacher Ms. Koyabashi, are on a school field trip to a food factory. Disinterested, Conan listens to the soccer game on his MP3 player which is confiscated by Koyabashi. They are given a tour of the facility by employees Kashiwa and Minamoto. Minamoto abruptly leaves, leaving Kashiwa to handle the tour on her own. Conan sneaks off to the employee lounge to watch the soccer game but is caught by Kashiwa who informs him that the game is over and the home team won 3-1. An hour after the tour, and as promised for being good students, Kashiwa gives the kids ice cream. She opens the door and discovers Minamoto on the floor, face up, frozen to death. An investigation is launched and everyone assumes Minamoto slipped and was stuck to the floor, until Conan discovers a pack of broken rice crackers in the victim’s pocket. Conan believes that someone knocked Minamoto unconscious, causing him to fall facing the front thereby breaking the rice crackers, then turned him on his back. It is now possible that Minamoto had been murdered.

File 2 - Part 2

Conan has a brief encounter with the owner and janitor of the food factory. The owner says that Minamoto had been reprimanded for slacking off at work and was on the verge of being fired for taking long excessive breaks in the lounge and bathroom. The maid says Minamoto has used to eat his favorite snacks which included rice crackers and a can of cola which was thrown in the garbage. After realizing Minamoto was a soccer fan, Conan understands the truth behind his death.

Show spoilers »

Minamoto’s death was the result of a heinous murder and the culprit is his coworker, Kashiwa. She knocked him unconscious with a small tank containing liquid nitrogen, a cryogenic liquified gas capable of freezing human flesh almost instantly upon contact. Kashiwa turned the still-alive but unconscious Minamoto on his back, oblivious to the rice crackers in his chest pocket, then dumped the liquid nitrogen all over Minamoto‘s body, killing him almost instantly.

Committing the crime this way, Kashiwa made it appear that Minamoto accidentally slipped in the freezer and was there for hours, hoping the investigators would write off his death as a tragic accident. In reality, he was brutally murdered just minutes before the discovery of his corpse.

Minamoto was a well-known slacker at work and often left Kashiwa to handle his duties, as such at the beginning of the tour. This is evidenced by Minamoto’s boss. Minamoto had snacks prepared in the lounge to take with him but never got the chance. They were discarded by Kashiwa in an attempt to remove any trace of Minamoto being an another location. The maid testifies to this. His reason for leaving so abruptly was because he was in the rush to watch the soccer game. Kashiwa told him that the best hiding place was the freezing unit, where she would carry out her gruesome crime.

As evidence of her crime, Conan testifies that during the encounter he had with Kashiwa, she had told him that the soccer game was over and the home team won 3-1. The reason why this is extraordinarily important is because there is no way Kashiwa should have known about the final score of the soccer game considering she was in the middle of a tour. The only way she could have known anything regarding the soccer game is if she was in close proximity of someone who was listening to the details. As Kashiwa was murdering Minamoto, she overheard the details of the game.

Kashiwa, upon realizing her undoing, confesses to Minamoto’s murder. She states that she had been tangled up with Minamoto, and he was a terrible person. It is implied that she and the victim had been romantically involved and things may have turned abusive. Although she regrets killing him and is ashamed that she was caught, Kashiwa states a deep relief and hugs a confused Conan tightly, before being arrested for murder.