Special Volume 19

Chronology
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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

Special Volume 19 was released on May 28, 2003 in Japan.

Cast

Characters

Conan Edogawa

Genta Kojima

Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya

Ayumi Yoshida

Sumiko Kobayashi

Ran Mouri

Kogoro Mouri

Hiroshi Agasa

Shinichi Kudo (background)

Wataru Takagi

Gadgets

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. Before he departs, Kashiwa gives him a banana to put in the freezer. The tour goes well and ends with the children watching a movie about the factory. 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. Minamoto’s cause of death is hypothermia as he was froze solid. The banana Kashiwa gave Minamoto before he left is found near his corpse. It is determined that Kashiwa sent Minamoto to the freezer to put the banana away, but everyone assumes Minamoto slipped and was stuck to the floor, until Conan discovers a pack of broken rice crackers in the victim’s chest pocket. A bright pink mark is found at the nape of Minamoto’s neck. With the given circumstances, 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 to alter the crime scene. Kashiwa tearfully blames herself for what has happened but Conan concludes that Minamoto had been murdered. Kashiwa’s weird behavior lands her on Conan’s suspect list but one matter remains: if Kashiwa is the killer, how was she able to freeze a human being with so quickly while being surrounded with children the entire time.

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 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 »

Due to incompetence of the local police, Conan takes matters into his own hands and solves the case. Minamoto’s death was the result of a heinous murder and the culprit is his coworker, Kashiwa. She bashed Minamoto in the head and neck with a small tank containing liquid nitrogen (which explains the bright pink mark found), a cryogenic liquified gas capable of freezing human flesh almost instantly upon contact. Kashiwa poured the substance on the entirety of his backside, turned the still-alive but unconscious Minamoto on his back, oblivious to the rice crackers in his chest pocket, then dumped the rest all over Minamoto‘s body, killing him almost instantly.

Liquid nitrogen is a hazardous material commonly found in food factories, hospitals, and construction sites and it is primarily used for flash-freezing, food preservation, packaging, medical uses, freezing pipes, among other things. It is incredibly cold at -196 degrees Celsius, or -321 degrees Fahrenheit, and must be handled with care at all times. That was Kashiwa’s murder weapon, not the freezer itself.

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.

Kashiwa angrily denies the allegations made against her and ridicules the police for listening to Conan. As evidence of her crime, Conan testifies that during the encounter he had with Kashiwa while at the employee lounge, 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.

Famous Detective VS The Perfect Crime

File 8 - Part 1

Ran, Kogoro, and Conan are enjoying their time viewing cherry blossoms. Kogoro claims himself to be a master detective and his deductions can cut through any deception thrown his way. Their evening is interrupted when they come across Mr. Mita, a man who proclaims that the perfect crime is possible, then goes on to say that he could pull it off. This disturbs Kogoro, Conan, Mr. Mita’s coworkers, and everyone else within earshot. His boss and the only man capable of putting an end to his shenanigans, Ariyuki Kashima, is laid out and drunk past the point of no return, having consumed massive amounts of alcohol. Conan states that the perfect crime is useless when there is a detective on the scene. Mita proclaims that it was only a joke to see how Kogoro would react.

To soothe the situation, Mita puts on a pair of black leather gloves and pours everyone another round of drinks. The garbage bin is filled to the brim with trash and Kogoro suggests just leaving the trash there, but Ran objects and decides to take their empty cans home to dispose of properly. Mita takes Ariyuki home in a cab. Conan notices that Ariyuki dropped his wallet and goes to return it, but Mita and Ariyuki have already left.

Arriving at Ariyuki’s condo, Mita reveals that he actually intends on committing the perfect crime and his selected victim is the unfortunate Ariyuki. The drunk Ariyuki is led to his condo and dragged to the back and inside a sauna room. Mita puts on another pair of leather gloves, strips Ariyuki of his clothing, even his boxer briefs, prompts him onto the wooden seat, and sets the sauna to its highest temperature possible. Before leaving, Mita forges a note and leaves the condo key in the mailbox. Mita looks back and up at Ariyuki’s condo from outside with complete arrogance and over confidence, showing no remorse and pure excitement for tomorrow’s events, as Ariyuki dies a slow brutal death inside his sauna.

The next day, Mita returns to Ariyuki to act surprise and concerned for his boss. To his actual dismay and genuine shock, he sees Conan making an appearance as he wants to return Ariyuki’s wallet that he dropped yesterday at the function. Mita has the building owner open the door, claiming he left important documents inside and that Ariyuki himself isn’t opening the door and not answering any calls, fearing for the worst. Once inside, they locate the note and key in the mail slot, but Conan detects a foul odor in the air coming from the back of the condo. He rushes through the condo and inside of the sauna, finds Ariyuki’s corpse, covered in gruesome burns all over.

Murder

Location: Sauna inside Ariyuki’s condominium

Victim: Ariyuki Kashima

Time: Last night

Cause of death: Immolation

Suspects: Mr. Mita

Cover in other countries

China

Hong Kong

Indonesia

Korea

Malaysia (Chinese)

Malaysia (Malay)

Rep. of China (Taiwan)

Singapore (Chinese)

Spain (Spanish)

Thailand

Vietnam

See also

• Detective Conan Special
• Special Volume 11-20