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 Japan-Brazil 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, forcing Kashiwa to handle the tour on her own. Before he departs, Kashiwa gives him a brown paper bag, reminding Minamoto of “that thing” they talked about yesterday. 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. She reprimands Conan for sneaking off on his own. Conan is upset that he can’t watch the game but Kashiwa informs him that the game is over and the Brazilian 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 of the large walk-in freezer and, to her horror, discovers Minamoto on the floor, face up, frozen to death.

Accident?

Location: Food Factory Walk-in Freezer

Victim: Minamoto

Time: ..undetermined, last seen alive at 10AM.

Cause of death: ..to be announced

Suspects: Kashiwa

Instead of finding ice cream in the freezer, they find Minamoto, dead, frozen solid.

An investigation is launched. The exact cause of Minamoto’s death is uncertain as well as his accurate time of death due to the extreme cold conditions, but indicators point to hypothermia as he was froze solid. Minamoto was last seen alive and well at 10AM, which is the time where the tour had begun. As far as hypothermia goes, it is an involuntary drop in core body temperature that occurs during long exposure to extreme cold temperatures. Death varies due to a number of factors depending on the individual. Bright red lividy marks are found at the nape of Minamoto’s neck. 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. 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. While Kashiwa tearfully blames herself for what has happened, Conan fearfully believes that Minamoto has been murdered, and his killer went out of their way to stage it as an accident.

The security guards say no one out of the ordinary in the vicinity of the factory was seen with the exception of Conan, the Detective Boys (who are of no use in this case due to their separation from Conan), their classmates, and Ms. Koyabashi, effectively ruling out the possibility of an outsider job. Kashiwa’s weird behavior lands her on Conan’s suspect list. Furthermore, is it virtually above possible means for anyone to freeze a human body very quickly, even at -60 degrees, 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 factory’s owner and maid. 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 the incompetence of the local police, Conan takes matters into his own hands and solves the case. The key factor in solving this crime is to retrace and analyze the victim’s movements, work ethics, and final moments that directly led to his death. Without Kogoro or Sonoko to impersonate, or the Detective Boys to help assist, Conan goes directly for the jugular vein and handles the details of the case himself in front of everyone. Minamoto’s passing was NOT the result of a tragic workplace accident, but instead a cruel malicious murder; the culprit is his coworker, Kashiwa.

• The Initial Setup and Pretext Facts.

First, Kashiwa sent Minamoto to the freezer to put inside the brown paper bag containing a banana. This was nothing more than pretext, as she needed the children she was guiding to confirm that Minamoto went into the freezer acting under a harmless favor and giving him a legitimate reason for being in there in the first place.

• The Deadly Assault.

Secondly, during her break, Kashiwa slipped away undetected, went to the freezer, and bashed Minamoto in the back of his neck near his skull with a metal cylinder, causing the rice crackers in his chest pocket to crush as he fell forward from the unprovoked assault (the bright pink mark started to form thereafter and was found on his neck from this attack).

• The Kill.

Finally, Kashiwa proceeded to open the same cylinder, turned the still-alive but unconscious Minamoto on his back, oblivious to the rice crackers in his chest pocket, then dumped liquid nitrogen all over Minamoto‘s body, effectively freezing and killing him in a sheet of ice. The duration of the murder lasted no more than 10 minutes.

• Explaination of the real murder weapon.

Liquid nitrogen is a cryogenic liquified gas capable of freezing human flesh almost instantly upon contact. It 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. Liquid nitrogen expands rapidly into nitrogen gas as it warms up. If one pours enough liquid nitrogen into a sealed room to freeze a person, the gas would instantly displace all the oxygen. Even if Minamoto survived the initial freeze because of the Leidenfrost Effect, the victim would lose consciousness within seconds and die of asphyxiation.

Counterintuitively, pouring liquid nitrogen onto someone who is wearing clothes is vastly more dangerous than pouring it on someone who is naked. Standard fabrics (like a cotton shirt, jeans, or cloth gloves) will instantly absorb and trap the liquid nitrogen. This holds the cryogenic liquid tightly against the skin, bypassing the Leidenfrost effect completely and causing immediate, catastrophic freezing that can require surgical amputation. Kashiwa denies having any involvement in Minamoto’s murder.

• The Cover-Up and Grim Reality

Committing the crime this way, Kashiwa made it appear that Minamoto accidentally slipped in the freezer and was there for hours. Under natural circumstances, a healthy fit human being would take anywhere between 10 minutes to just about several hours to completely freeze solid. This would undoubtedly give Kashiwa the perfect alibi as she was 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.

• The Victim’s Habits and Miscellaneous History

Minamoto was a well-known slacker at work and often left Kashiwa to handle his duties, as such at the beginning of the tour. Kashiwa most likely told their boss that she would get him to cooperate. This is evidenced by Minamoto’s boss who had threatened termination because of his work ethics. Had Minamoto been caught inside the freezer by another random coworker, he could easily state that he was doing that favor for Kashiwa with the banana, and her plan would remain intact. Minamoto had rice crackers and cola inside the freezer and had consumed most of them. The rest were discarded by Kashiwa after she brutally murdered him to remove any trace of his laziness. The maid testifies to this as she has witnessed him indulging on his favorite snacks during work hours on multiple occasions; Minamoto would not have thrown his snacks away so easily. His reason for leaving so abruptly was because he was in a rush to watch the soccer game. Kashiwa told him that the best hiding place was the freezing unit. She would then betray Minamoto, using his laziness against him, and carry out her gruesome crime.

• The Final Whistle

Kashiwa angrily denies the allegations again 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 Brazil 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 soccer game started at 10:00AM, and ended around 11:45. This is usually the time that the final score of the game is announced along with the winner. That being said, the only way Kashiwa could have known ANYTHING regarding the soccer game is if she was in close proximity of someone who was listening to the details, who should have been working but instead decided to slack off and listen to the soccer game in the freezer. She overheard the details of the game, then she ended Minamoto’s life in the manner described above. This is undeniable concrete evidence placing Kashiwa nowhere else in the factory but in the freezer with Minamoto. In an ironic twist of poetic justice, it is Minamoto’s own slacker lifestyle and passion for soccer that became Kashiwa’s downfall.

• A Killer’s Confession.

Kashiwa, upon realizing her undoing, confesses to Minamoto’s murder. She states that she had a rough life, her parents divorced when she was young, and began getting in more trouble than the law could allow. Kashiwa says she became rebellious and started hanging out with the wrong crowd. Eventually, she got tangled up with Minamoto, who Kashiwa claims was a terrible person, but to which degree is up for interpretation. It is implied that she and the victim may had been romantically involved and things may have allegedly turned abusive at some point of time.

• The End of an Ordeal and Final Remarks.

Although she regrets killing Minamoto and is ashamed that she was caught, Kashiwa states that Conan saw through everything and has a moment of deep relief. Kashiwa falls to her knees, defeated, and hugs a confused Conan tightly, tears flowing down her face before being arrested for murder.

People

Kashiwa
	Food factory worker Minamoto’s coworker Food factory worker

Minamoto
	Victim (hypothermia) Kashiwa’s coworker Food factory worker

Death Scenario

File 3 - Part 1

File 4 - Part 2

People

Conan's Desperate Situation

File 5 - Part 1

File 6 - Part 2

File 7 - Part 3

People

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: Ariyuki’s personal sauna

Victim: Ariyuki Kashima

Time: Last night

Cause of death: Immolated

Suspects: Mita

An unusual stench in the air leads Conan to a gruesome scene; Ariyuki’s horrifically burned body.

The Coroner’s Office arrives on the scene and launches an investigation into Ariyuki’s death. Based on the condition of the body, it appears if he had fallen asleep in his sauna and was burned to death after he had drunk large amounts of alcohol prior at the previous function. There are no physical injuries or wounds to suggest a confrontation or struggle.

Conan looks around and finds nothing out of the ordinary in various parts of the victim’s condo: the kitchen, bathroom, and trash. During his search for clues, he has an unsettling feeling of how Mita was just telling a group of people a horrific story about committing the perfect crime and yet he is at the scene of a crime of his late boss. Conan can not yet confirm if foul play is involved.

Giving the circumstances of this case and manner of death, the dispatch of the police is left at the discretion of the medical examiner. There is nothing suspicious about Ariyuki’s corpse. The medical examiner will assume he got home after drinking with his employees, went into the sauna, fell asleep, and was burnt all over his body.

Therefore, the manner of death makes perfect sense. An autopsy investigator would have no doubts. They would see Ariyuki’s death and rule it an unfortunate accident, submit the documents, all would be forgotten, and the case would be over. Conan replays the voice of Mita in his head where he asks Kogoro if the perfect crime is impossible, claiming he feels he can do it. With virtually no clue or evidence to be found, Conan wonders if Ariyuki Kashima’s gruesome death is the result of a gross accident, or if really a murder, how can it be proven?

File 9 - Part 2

Conan continues to apply pressure to Mr Mita who he believes to have viciously murdered his employer, Ariyuki Kashima. Mita is on Ariyuki’s computer, apparently deleting files. Conan tricks Mita into leaving the computer to search for a phone in Ariyuki’s coat pocket. When he returns, Mita, developing a dark demeanor, menacingly asks Conan on his actions. Conan does not back down and voices his theory: Ariyuki Kashima may have been murdered. This locks Conan and Mita into an intense psychological battle of cat-and-mouse.

Conan does not denounce the facts that Ariyuki was indeed drunk to the point where he needed support from others. It is just odd that he would strip from his clothing, go into the sauna, and fall asleep. Ariyuki wasn’t force to drink massive amounts of alcohol against his will. He wasn’t attacked as there were no bruises, cuts, or abrasions on his physical body with the exception of the fatal burns. Suspicious enough, Ariyuki’s cell phone wasn’t nearby, despite being home. Most people would keep their cell phones nearby in case of work, an emergency, or a need to call for help.

Mita has once stated that the perfect crime was possible but he counters saying that stating something isn’t the same as doing it. Conan adds that Ariyuki came home but didn’t drink any water, a move most drunk people do in an attempt to sober up. There was no signs of any movement inside the kitchen, refrigerator, or trash bin to indicate that Ariyuki consumed any beverage before he was killed. Mita feels Conan’s growing confidence and begins to appreciate the challenge Conan brings to the table.

Conan begins to understand Mita on what he meant by “the perfect crime.” The key points he was talking about were: one, meeting the victim, two, using what is available at home, and in Mr. Kashima’s case, a sauna, third, never use force to minimize leaving unnecessary clues behind. Even if these fail, wait for the next opportunity. When all conditions are met, everything will be examined and ruled an accident. Another point given if one looks at it from a different perspective and realize that alcohol is the most dangerous poison.

Alcohol, sometimes referred by its scientific name ethanol, is a psychoactive drug and central nervous system (CNS) depressant, decreasing electrical activity of neurons in the brain. It is the second most consumed psychoactive drug globally behind caffeine, and alcohol use disorders are the most prevalent of all substance use disorders worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies alcohol as a toxic, psychoactive, dependence-producing, and carcinogenic substance. Drinking alcohol reduces alertness, awareness, among other things. Excessive drinking can lead to cancer, liver and heart diseases, mental issues, and even death.

Mr. Kashima was not forced to drink, he did it on his own accord. He was brought back home drunk out of his mind, stripped of his clothing, placed into the lethally hot sauna without resistance, and was killed. Doing it this way, it reduces the risks of leaving evidence behind, and if a murder attempt goes awry, alcohol will take the blame and the case comes to an end. Conan believes that all of Mita’s horrific crimes have gone off without a hitch and evidence to be found. If the investigation continues at this rate, Sebastian may walk free.

The landlord walks up and asks for Conan and Mita to leave, but Conan isn’t ready yet. When Conan considers if Mita could have removed fingerprints and remembers that he was wearing gloves, he has a stark revelation.

Later that day, Mita is on the phone with a friend planning to go to Italy during Golden Week when there is a ring at his front door. He opens to see Detective Harry Takagi who wishes to talk more about Kashima and his death. Though caught off guard, Mita gives an evil grin, proclaiming to himself how his best performance will prevail and get him off the hook. Conan is besides Takagi, also smiling. The intense psychological of game cat-and-mouse is about to reach its breaking point. Who will fold?

  Show spoilers »

If it was any doubts in anyone’s mind about anything regarding this gross murder case, Mita did indeed murder his boss, Ariyuki Kashima, but how his so-called perfect crime will begin crumbling before his very eyes at the hands of Conan (whom Mita has greatly underestimated up until this point) and how Mita will be caught and brought to justice to face punishment for his crime is where the real fun begins.

Mita looks down at Conan and states that the police and forensics team is at his residence at Conan’s request. He asks Takagi if any of his fingerprints were pulled from the crime scene or near or in Kashima’s sauna. Takagi says no but something of interest was definitely found. That something is an unusual smudge, almost invisible if not for the thorough investigation. Conan confirms that Mita was indeed wearing a pair during the cherry blossom viewing at the get-together that was held at the Japanese Garden the day before. Although because he was wearing gloves, Mita’s fingerprints wasn’t pulled from the sauna switch, but he did leave something behind.

Contrary to popular belief, wearing gloves may seem like a clever way to conceal evidence, but depending on the material, it can do more harm than good. Leather products hold their own special qualities and characteristics, almost like a human. This is due to the fact of the natural grain of leather coming from an animal’s hide, meaning it can potentially be used for identification purposes. This is true when examining high-quality leather with visible grain patterns. In some forensic investigations, the police can attempt to lift latent fingerprints from leather surfaces by using special techniques to visualize the ridge details left behind by touch.

Conan inserts that neither Mr. Ariyuki Kashima nor Mita is innocent; both have committed crimes under the law. Ariyuki learned that Mita was embezzling money from his company. Instead of going to the authorities, Mr. Kashima blackmailed him, further fueling the deep hatred inside Mita that eventually manifested into murder. Miniature proof is that Mita was on Kashima’s computer, allegedly looking for Kashima’s address book, but he was really deleting the incriminating emails. Just because one deletes files from a computer, it doesn’t mean they went away completely. Based on the emails alone, Ariyuki was extremely relentless in keeping Mita in check, turning Mita into a victim of blackmail. Conan states that after Mita did what he did, Conan went after him and confirmed his partial theory. He even asked some exports on the matter and the results were astounding to say the least. If Mita had any motives for wanting Kashima dead in the worst way possible, it would be that.

The truth of the matter is, Mita is dating a coworker in his department. That woman has said she was pushing Mr. Kashima to drink alot of alcoholic beverages at the cherry blossom viewing party. Mita had to get someone else to get Kashima liquored up to the point of no return and make him drink as much as possible. The gathering of alcohol is also calculated. It would be beneficial if someone else got it on Mita’s behalf. His girlfriend’s behavior matched the given conditions and was investigated as well. During Mita’s girlfriend’s questioning, she stated that Mita asked her to get Kashima drunk and if it was successful, he would take her on vacation to Italy, all expenses paid, just show up.

Mita claims that there is nothing wrong with playing a harmless adult game. Also, the gloves that Takagi wants has been thrown in the incinerator due to their defectiveness and holes. Mita gives another evil grin and states that Conan’s attempts at naming him the killer was entertaining but have came up short, leaving Conan and Takagi helpless. Takagi asks Mita if he remembers pouring Detective Kogoro Mouri a beer in his cup at the garden party.

During that time, Mita was wearing his leather gloves, the very same ones from the cherry blossom party. The trash bin at the garden was full to capacity so nothing else could have been disposed of. With no other choice, that same beer can that Mita touched with his gloves went to Detective Mouri’s house and was discarded there. If the unique characteristic mark made by Mita’s leather gloves matches the mark on Kashima’s sauna switch with the beer can, then Mita’s perfect crime theory is a bust, and the link between the cherry blossom and hot sauna is therefore satisfied. He can kiss his girlfriend and his trip to Italy goodbye for the rest of his life. Mita is promptly arrested by Takagi as Conan tells him that his words held true: “when there is a detective who stands on business, there is no such thing as a perfect crime.” With Mita now in custody to face judgment for murder, Conan takes his rightfully earned victory in triumph and returns to the Mouri agency.

People

Mita
	Company employee

Ariyuki Kashima
	Company Owner Victim (Immolated)

The Culprit is #10

File 10

People

Cover in other countries

China

Hong Kong

Indonesia

Korea

Malaysia (Chinese)

Malaysia (Malay)

Rep. of China (Taiwan)

Singapore (Chinese)

Spain (Spanish)

Thailand

Vietnam

References

See also

• Detective Conan Special
• Special Volume 11-20