Megure's Sealed Secret

Episode 217-218 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
Information
Title:	Megure's Sealed Secret
Original airdate:	December 11, 2000 (Part 1) December 18, 2000 (Part 2)
Season:	9
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Inspector Megure Kiyonaga Matsumoto
Case solved by:	Conan Edogawa Inspector Megure
Chronology
Prev episode:	« The Bay of Revenge
Next episode:	The Gathering of the Detectives! Shinichi Kudo vs. Kaitou Kid »
List of episodes

Characters introduced

Midori Megure
	37-38 years old Inspector Megure's wife

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Inspector Megure Sonoko Suzuki Ran Mouri Wataru Takagi Miwako Sato Kiyonaga Matsumoto Kogoro Mouri Makoto Kyogoku

Case

Situation

Part 1

The episode starts with a dark-skinned young lady in a phone booth at night, speaking to someone over the phone. Right after she is done calling, and when she was getting ready to return to her nearby car, a man dragging a club comes up from behind her and knocks her out with it.

Grave Physical Injury - Attempted Murder
	Victim: Michiko Ishiguro

The next scene shows Ran and Sonoko shopping for a sweater as Sonoko wants to buy for Makoto Kyogoku; Sonoko gets scolded by Ran when she learns that Sonoko wants to make it pass as if she had knitted the sweater for him. Kogoro and Conan left the girls to do their shopping, and while crossing the street Kogoro notices a good looking girl coming out of a phone booth. Conan notices that she left a ball-point pen in the booth so Kogoro grabs it and went to the lady to give it to her. As Kogoro touches her, she tackles him to the ground; Inspector Megure, Wataru Takagi and two other police officers come out and jump on Kogoro without realizing that it is Kogoro.

After they find out it is Kogoro, they all go to a pasta shop and explain the case to Kogoro. It is also shown that the lady who attacked Mouri was Miwako Sato, posing as a decoy. They show him pictures of the 3 different victims (Ryoko Mizutani, Hitomi Endou, and Michiko Ishiguro - the girl from the first scene): all of them are young women with bleached hair, fashionable clothes and deep tans, and according to their testimonies the man attacking them was around their own height, meaning around 150 cms tall.

Sonoko arrives to the pasta shop right then and upon seeing the girls's pictures she identifies them as Ganguro, girls who change their looks drastically to look fashionable and exotic and as a way to rebel against Japanese society. After being unable to figure out a relation between the victims other than their looks, Mouri brings up a case about a string of female high-school students being hit by cars, which happened 20 years ago. Inspector Megure looks shocked, stands up and says they should get back to the investigation.

As Inspector Megure is about to leave, he tells Sato and Takagi that they should start at the beginning. Then Conan spots something else similar to the 3 victims and Sonoko: they all are wearing rather fashionable jewelry pieces that are given as a gift in a particular shop if you spend 10,00 yen or more there. Megure approaches her, checks on the jewels Sonoko's wearing and compares them to the photos: all of the girls are at least one piece of the jewelry set, though Sonoko has them all due to having purchased lots of stuff there.

Sonoko calls Ran to ask where she is. She says she's in a parking lot and then she screams in terror because she has just found another victim. Said victim is a 20 year old girl named Tae Aizawa, who used to work at the same store: again, a very young woman with bleached hair, tanned skin, and wearing the special jewelry gifts. Unlike the others, however, Aizawa is actually dead.

Murder
	Location: Haido Department Store parking lot Victim: Tae Aizawa Cause of death: Blow to the head with a blunt object (metal bat)

The victim's boyfriend arrives to the crime scene. His name is Noriyuki Shirakawa, he works as a cook in the convenience store owned by his dad, and he had asked Aizawa to meet up with him so they'd reunite with his dad. Some possible suspects gather in the scene: Shirakawa's father Haruyoshi (who opposed to him and Tae's relationship), the waitress Yuri Konnou who also was a friend of Shirakawa Jr., and a guard named Sadakane who used to work for another convenience store, whom Shirakawa Sr. accuses of being the killer to ruin the store's reputation. He then also tells his son to get a new girlfriend, one "with a clean slate". Yuri Konnou then explains that Aizawa was related to another case a year ago: she accidentally hit a young boy named Akira Sakurai with her car in the parking garage and killed him, thus she renounced to her job and was searching for another before she died.

Among the investigation questions, Shirakawa freaks out when his father is mentioned as a possible suspect for the case in general. He snaps and tells the police "You are all useless!" in horror and frustration. Upon hearing Shirakawa's words, Megure goes into a shocked state and remembers a very young woman saying the same phrase in tears... as well as saying "Why are you suprised? I said I was going to play Decoy." Then the woman's face in his memories is shown again, except she's bleeding profusely and says "Guess... it didn't go as smoothly as in the movies." Megure drops to his knee and looks like he has a headache; he says it's nothing when Kogoro and Satou show concern, and Yuri offers apologies before taking the younger Shirakawa away, but Conan suspects something.

Conan then brings up other points. First, only Mizutani (first victim) and Ishiguro (third) could offer reliable descriptions, since Endo (second) was attacked from behind and couldn't see who attacked her. Second: the girls weren't wearing much, even though it was freezing and at night, meaning they were in the way to their own vehicles where either was warmer or they had their coats. Sato says she will wear the decoy outfit she wore before and exit her car, in case she can do more. Inspector Megure then shouts "Didn't I say no more decoys!?" Superintendant Matsumoto arrives and asks if it's "that case" from before. Megure denies it and Conan thinks something is strange with him...

Part 2

After asking Mouri if she can borrow his keys, Sonoko puts her and Ran's shopping bags in the car and then goes searching for the restroom, unaware that she's being watched over by the culprit who, for a then-unknown reason, decides to follow her...

The investigation continues, and when the policemen accidentally drop Aizawa's shoe and cannot put it back on since it doesn't fit, Conan deduces that the killer took her shoes away to hide how he was tracking and attacking girls with similar footwear. Since all of the girls attacked were gyarus, he also deduces that Aizawa was using platform boots, which are very popular among them. Sato hears this and says that a year ago, in the incident that took the life of little Akira Sakurai, Aizawa was supposedly wearing platform footwear; the boy's parents told this to the judge and said that was the reason why Aizawa didn't step properly on the brake and ended up hitting him. Megure sends out Takagi to find more info about the accident, and then tells the others to seek for the culprit who is still not too far from them.

After discussing some more details, Takagi returns and confirms the information already given. Conan and Ran see that Sonoko isn't with them; Ran mentions that Sonoko was supposed to go to the car and then to the restroom, and then Conan realizes that Sonoko was wearing platform boots... like all the victims. Ran calls Sonoko to her cellphone, and Sonoko says she's looking for a safe way out since the lights are out. She then gets scared since it looks like she's being followed, and as she turns, the culprit is right in front of her and she starts screaming.

Sonoko manages to avoid the culprit's pipe and throws her phone at him, revealing his face. She tries running downstairs, with the man being horrified since she saw him clearly. Conan says that the killer saw Sonoko with Mouri's keys and mistook her for the driver, hence why he's chasing her now. Sonoko's phone lands near a purikura machine located near a restaurant in the tenth floor, so they deduce Sonoko and the killer are not too far away from it. Megure takes active part in commanding the police, and both Matsumoto and Mouri notice how pumped up he is.

Sonoko runs aimlessly in the tenth floor, and when she's about to reach the gates she trips over her boots and falls to the ground. Ran and the police find her phone on the stairs and deduce she's in the apartment store as no one has seen her in the restaurants. Meanwhile, the maddened killer starts ranting about how all the fashionable girls are bitches in sheep's clothing who should be all killed. Sonoko screams again and this time Ran, Conan, Megure and Co. hear her; they also hear the sound of several things falling, Go stones among them, which allow them to see she's now on the fourth floor (the only one with such arrangments).

Sonoko again dodges the pipe, as the culprit rants about how he only wanted to teach her a lesson, but after seeing his face, he had to kill her. Cornered again, Sonoko cowers as he tries to hit her directly... and then Megure shows up. He takes the hit for her and gets struck in the head, but the blow is softened by his hat.

The bleeding but still conscious Megure asks the man if hurting others feels good. The he lectures the culprit, calling him out on how he thinks he's following justice and revenge, yet aside of killing Aizawa he has only harmed innocent girls who had nothing to do with the incident that robbed him of his son, thus acting only out of petty rage and will to harm others. The man falls to his knees, saying that he started by wanting for "that woman" (Aizawa) to wear "decent" shoes and apologize to his son in Heaven, and breaks down in tears. Ran arrives and comforts Sonoko, then Satou and Conan come in and see Megure injured but he insists it's nothing.

Later at the hospital, Matsumoto reveals a case in the past explaining why Megure was so anxious and reluctant to use a decoy, as well as the origin of a scar that he covers with his omnipresent hat... the case that Mouri and Matsumoto himself were speaking about. 20 years ago, a man was attacking school-aged girls with long skirts after having been bullied into insanity by delinquent schoolgirls (whose trademark in Japan is the use of long school skirts); he started by trying to just scare the girls off, but then he became increasingly violent and killed at least one of them by running her over with his car.

After the female students from the area stopped wearing said long skirts, the crimes stopped; but a while later, a delinquent schoolgirl willingly went to the police and said she wanted to become a decoy, since she was the best friend of the murdered girl and wanted the culprit to be caught. She was very rebellious and insisted to do what she wanted in these regards, so Matsumoto assigned the rookie Megure as her bodyguard...

One rainy night, the culprit tried to run the decoy girl and Megure over with his car. Both of them were badly injured... specially the girl, who took the brunt of the impact despite Megure's efforts. He still got to identify the culprit's car, leading to his capture.

Ran and Sonoko are moved to tears, thinking that the decoy girl died. Matsumoto laughs and says he never said she passed away... and then a dark-haired woman shows up. As she and Matsumoto make small talk, Conan notices that she has a rather big scar on her forehead; then they hear Megure's voice asking for the help of someone named Midori, and the woman replies to his call. They deduce that after the decoy stunt, Midori married Megure, and not only he covers the scar with his hat to keep others from seeing it, but to avoid being teased for marrying a woman much younger than him and with such a rebellious past.

People

Michiko Ishiguro
	Victim (beaten)

Tae Aizawa
	Victim (Killed) 20 years old

Noriyuki Shirakawa
	24 years old Chef

Yuri Konno
	24 years old Waitress

Yoshio Sadakane
	43 years old Security guard

Haruyoshi Shirakawa
	53 years old Haido Department Store owner

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

The killer was, effectively, the guard Sadakane. He was the father of little Akira Sakurai, whose different surname was his mother's maiden name whom he took up when his parents got divorced.

Conan found out that Sadakane had to be the culprit since he worked at the guard in charge of the parking site, so he could take his time to observe the people driving around and see if they were wearing platform boots. Sadakane thought that Aizawa's use of such footwear was the cause why she couldn't stop in time and hit Akira, so he targetted young women (all of them Gyarus) who wore it; by coincidence, Sonoko had been given a pair, hence why he targetted her despite not being a Gyaru.

The girls were all around 150 cms. tall, but reached 160 cms with the boots on, whcih confused the police since the three surviving victims said they were attacked by "someone around their height". Aizawa and the other girls were attacked either in the open or in the parking lot not just because of Sadakane's connections, but also because Aizawa was a minor when she fatally struck Akira down, thus he had no way to find out where she lived or what her name was, due to the law. He first waited for a woman who fitted her physical description, and when he didn't find her, he broke down and attacked any girl with platform shoes that he saw driving, with Aizawa being the last one almost by accident.

Extra information

• In Part 1 the scene where Ran screams is a part of Closing 37.

• Also the part where Megure drops to his knee is also in Closing 37

• Both episodes were remastered on the 15th and 22th of January, respectivly.

• Except for Sonoko, all of the women attacked by the culprit have dark skin and bleached hair. They were members of a Japanese subculture known as Gyaru, in which young women rebel against the very conservative Japanese society by bleaching their hair, adquiring deep tans, and more often than not behaving like fashionable wild party girls without much concern for the future. Such a subgroup and its equivalents are viewed in contempt by lots of Japanese people, who accuse them of being selfish, materialistic and shallow. This is seen in Shirakawa senior's words about Shirakawa Jr. dating a "girl without a clean state", and how everyone comments that the girls were wearing skimpy clothes in the freezing winter.

Kogoro doesn't seem to be very aware about the Gyarus, as he only comments that "the girls looked like they were living in the jungle or something" (alluding to their unnatural tans), and adds that "they just don't look like normal Japanese people". Then Sonoko correctly identifies the girls as part of the Gyarus, referring to them by their more popular nickname "ganguro". Satou adds that Endou, the second victim, is actually a "yamanba", a Gyaru/ganguro with specially dark skin.

• A parallel is made between the Gyaru girls and young female delinquent schoolgirls, known as Sukeban (girl delinquents). Said school girls are identified by, among other things, wearing their school skirts much longer than usual. Like the Gyaru group, they were very hated by Japanese society, to the point of being denounced in the eighties as "omens of downfall" due to their rebellious and arrogant attitude. Midori Megure and her deceased best friend were sukeban.

See also

• Season 9