Volume 27

Volume 27
Information
Release date:	April 18, 2000
Chapters:	264-273
ISBN:	ISBN 4-09-125497-7
Publisher:	Shogakukan
English release date:	January 20, 2009
English ISBN:	ISBN 1-4215-1679-9
English Publisher:	Viz Media
Featured Detective & Keyhole
James Bond Misao Yamamura
Aoyama's death & Conan side images
Chronology
Prev volume:	« Volume 26
Next volume:	Volume 28 »
List of chapters • List of cases

Volume 27 was released on April 18, 2000 in Japan.

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Eri Kisaki Misao Yamamura Wataru Takagi Miwako Sato Ninzaburo Shiratori Juzo Megure Sonoko Suzuki Hiroshi Agasa Ai Haibara Ayumi Yoshida Genta Kojima Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya Makoto Kyogoku (background) Tomoaki Araide (background) Mrs. Yoshida

Gadgets

Gadgets
Voice-Changing Bowtie Power-Enhancing Kick Shoes

Chapters

Suspect Kogoro Mouri Case

File 264 - A Taste of One's Own Medicine

Kogoro takes Ran and Conan to a mountain hotel but he mostly enjoys the swimming pool, checking girls out. Once out of the pool, they come upon Eri, who came to this hotel with a few friends, lawyers as well, as part of a lawsuit having to do with a factory and a village in the surroundings. Kogoro and Eri belittle each other just like usual, but Eri says to Ran in secret that she feels like to reconcile with Kogoro, by offering him a tie, but Ran must not say anything for the moment. They also meet Norifumi Saku, a young lawyer that leaves Eri far from indifferent, and it is mutual. They organise a dinner with everyone and they meet Eri's fellow barristers Mikasa, Shiozawa and Usui. Kogoro drinks way too much and starts hitting on Usui, which angers Eri who leaves the table. Some time after, when tempers aren't flaring anymore, everyone looks for Kogoro, who hasn't given some sign of life since a moment. They search everywhere and end by Usui's room, where they hear the ringing of Kogoro's phone from the inside. Some time before, Usui had deliberately brought a drunk Kogoro in her bed in order to blot Eri's copybook and to become the new queen of the Bar. But Usui had been interrupted by a door knock. Later on, when Eri and co try to open Usui's door, they find it locked from the inside with the safety chain, and glimpse an unconscious Usui on the floor. Saku doesn't wait for the groom to come and breaks down the door. Usui has been strangled with a telephone wire, and in the bed there's Kogoro, who wakes up unaware of the hustle and bustle around him.

File 265 - An Important Witness

Eri refuses to defend Kogoro then Saku will be his barrister. Eri warns that Kogoro may be sentenced to the death penalty, but the real reason why she doesn't want to defend him isn't because she believes her husband killed Usui but rather because many things are odd in the room and concerning the murder, and then she can't believe Kogoro murdered Ritsuko Usui. She investigates along with Ran, Conan and Yamamura, and Conan finally deduces who is the true killer.

File 266 - Unwavering Resolve...

  Show spoilers »

Eri asks Saku to come to Ritsuko's room as she wants to tell him who the murderer is. Saku hesitates on Usui's room's location but sees some dishes he knows in front of a room and guesses it's the right one. Eri, along with Conan, reveals that Saku killed Usui and pretended Kogoro was the killer. He deliberately used the telephone wire both to strangle Usui and not to be disturbed by the phone, and as Kogoro had touched the wire. He placed Kogoro's phone near the door and tried not to wake him up. He did a few mistakes especially discarding a note on which Usui had written, as he was angered: indeed the note was about a strange type of food she wanted to order, and Saku did'nt get why she wanted to eat such a thing and tore it off. But the note wasn't about food but about the name of a man Usui wanted to meet at the hotel as part of the lawsuit. Later on, a groom brought some food for two people and Saku still didn't get it and when the groom left he put a note on the door outside not to be disturbed. This is why Eri ordered the same food and placed it in front of the door : if Saku knocked at that door, that would mean he knew which door it was as he had previously seen which food the groom had brought.

Eri explains Saku broke down the door to get rid of his closed chamber trick. He had used pliers to break a part of the safety chain and tied the two ends again with some thread, then he put the chain on and left. Therefore, when people would come at Usui's door and try to open it, the chain would work but none would see it had been broken and then mended. As Saku broke down the door, the chain's rings broke again and nobody could guess the trick, except Conan's shrewdness of course. Saku wanted others to believe Ritsuko had locked her door to be quiet with Kogoro, and that the latter had killed her in anger during his drunk state.

Eri says that the police will soon retrieve Saku's pliers and find his fingerprints, as Saku didn't think about throwing it away, being certain nobody would ever find out his trick. Saku confesses to killing Ritsuko to prevent her from winning the lawsuit and allowing a factory to pollute his childhood village, and also because Usui was a very immoral person who went as far as to manipulate Kogoro to dishonor Eri. Saku says however that nobody will believe Eri as these are the words of a lawyer close to the suspect against the words of another lawyer. Yet Eri shows him Yamamura and all the other policemen who had been watching them from the other rooms' doors' peepholes and the fact that Eri recorded Saku's confession with Ran's walkman. Saku then agrees to surrender and says he has actually always passionately loved Eri, something he's not sure Kogoro does.

Once released, Kogoro walks towards Eri who is listening to Ran's walkman on the beach. Eri doesn't turn around and Kogoro says he still loves her, apologises and would like to live with her again. Eri eventually turns around, saying she was listening to music very loud and didn't hear what Kogoro told her, asking him to repeat it. Kogoro doesn't and still does his usual "Eri-bashing", moving away towards an angered Ran and a disillusioned Conan. Once home, Eri listens with delight to Kogoro's confession she actually did record, but declares his apologies insufficient.

People

Norifumi Saku
	35 years old Lawyer

Ritsuko Usui
	Victim (strangled) 32 years old Lawyer

Kenzo Shiozawa
	41 years old Lawyer

Yuji Mikasa
	37 years old Lawyer

Major events

• Eri and Kogoro's feelings for each other are once again on display. Eri is determined to prove that Kogoro is innocent, more determined than she would be for any other case. It is also their anniversary.
• Misao is once again shown to be a bumbling detective, however, he is able to lend a helping hand in solving the case!
• Kogoro asks for Eri to return home to him, admitting that he completely misses her. Eri however, pretends not to hear, and secretly records it and listens to the message over and over again when she gets to her office, smiling happily.

Sato's Father Case

Characters introduced

Kazunobu Chiba
	Police detective

Mrs. Sato
	Miwako Sato's mother Masayoshi Sato's wife

Masayoshi Sato
	Miwako Sato's late father Mrs. Sato's husband Past Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Senior Superintendent

File 269 - Time Limit

  Show spoilers »

Takagi is revealed to be inside the warehouse the arsonist set fire to. He can't break the handcuffs due to them being a memento from Sato's dead father. Conan manages to arrive in time and stop the arsonist, but does not realize Takagi is in the burning warehouse.

Meanwhile, the clock strikes midnight and the suspected bank robber, Shuji Kano, explains everything to Sato, saying how his father saved his life. Sato reveals that due to the typhoon in Italy, the anull date was moved forward by one day. Takagi seemingly dies but appears with his handcuffs attached to the window bars. He collapses in Sato's arms.

As Takagi solved the case of her father's death, Sato honors what her promise to grant a request. Though a bit embarrassed, Takagi asks her out on date. Unfortunately, she doubles it with work in order to tail a suspect. Takagi is less than ecstatic about the turn of events.

People

Man
	Serial arsonist

Hidero Saruwatari
	50 years old High school teacher

Shuji Kano
	49 years old Italian restaurant owner

Mitsuo Inomata
	50 years old Financial executive

Choko Kandori
	49 years old Boutique owner

Major events

• Sato's feelings for avenging her father's death are displayed. When Takagi says a line similar to the last thing Sato's father said to her on the day he was killed, she gets very scared.
• Takagi and Sato's budding romantic feelings for each other are once again on display. Sato lets Takagi use her treasured handcuffs, the ones her father used. After she learns that Takagi has disappeared, Sato is also very determined to find him.
• Sato's past is explored. Her father was also a policeman, but he was killed by one of his own close friends. Sato is set out to find this person.
• Even though Takagi knew that he could have shot the handcuffs to escape from the trap that was set, he was still determined to never shoot them, and find another way out, knowing how much those handcuffs meant to Sato.
• A bewildered Sato sees Takagi, her feelings for him finally growing stronger when she learns that not only is he safe, but that he cared so much to not even touch the handcuffs. Due to this, Sato and Takagi go on a date! However, the date turns into another case, as Megure calls them both before they can even begin the date, to monitor an escaped convict.
• We finally learned what happened to Sato's father on the day he died.

Arcade Murder Case

Characters introduced

Jodie Saintemillion
	28 years old English teacher

File 270 - Game Start

Ran and Sonoko are having fun at an arcade hall's print club, along with Conan. They talk about how Shinichi's absence has been filled with Dr. Araide's rising fame at Teitan High School. Indeed, Araide isn't only the basketball and drama clubs' coaches, but he is even now the official sickroom's doctor. The group comes across an English-speaking woman playing skillfully at a shooting game, and they recognise her new English teacher, Jodie Saintemillion, from America. Sonoko had told Ran about Jodie's strange, cold, and distant behaviour with her students, and her showing ostentatiously her luxury sexy clothing. Jodie reveals her true self to her students as she tells them in confidence that she loves Japanese games but she can't show it and has to look very professional while at high school, as it's very hard for a foreigner to find a job in Japan, and high schools are very demanding with foreigners. Jodie convinces Ran to play a virtual reality video fighting game, showing her karate skills. Yet, Ran is defeated by a stronger player named Kengo Bito, who asks her arrogantly to move it as she took her favorite seat. An arcade employee, Hitoshi Dejima, tells Ran about the specificity of this game and how to win. Another customer, Toshitsugu Emori, tells Ran about Kengo being a champion. They also meet Takayasu Shimizu, whose sister is dating Bito. Shimizu is Bito's greatest challenger, and he came to propose a return match to Bito. Everyone gathers to watch the fight on a giant screen, while Jodie plays, just as skillfully, a car racing game. Kengo beats his opponent hollow, but suddenly stops before giving the final blow. Acccordingly, he is disqualified and the match ends by a draw. As everyone turns to Bito, Conan realises he's not in his normal state and runs to him, only to see him dead, dribbling.

File 271 - TTX...

The police declare Bito was poisoned during his game, which seems impossible as he neither ate nor drank anything, nor touched anyone during his fight. Conan's deductions impress Jodie who looks at him with great interest. Watching the CCTV recording, they are shown the entire scene before, during and after Bito's death, but find nothing striking. Shimizu went to Bito's right side to ask him how he would play, in vain, Emori went to Bito's left side to pick up a coin, and Dejima was close to him before his game, when he was recovering the coins in the machine. Emori reveals he, Shimizu and Dejima all had a motive to kill Bito : himself had been called a "dangerous taxidriver" by Bito in front of everyone after he lost to Bito in a car racing game, Dejima was a former arcade game champion who got defeated and humiliated by Bito, to the point of changing appearance and becoming an employee at the arcade, hoping to see if Bito could be ever defeated, and Shimizu's sister was dating Bito, who apparently treats her very bad. The forensics reveal Bito was poisoned by TTX, or tetrodotoxin, a violent and immediate poison found in the famous Japanese fugu pufferfish, as Jodie declares. Bito was stung under his right arm by a kind of poisoned needle. Yet, the police still can't figure how someone could have poisoned Bito during the fight game as none approached him. Conan thinks about it and suddenly hears a strange scraping-steel-like noise close to him. He investigates it and eventually finds out the truth.

File 272 - Game Over

  Show spoilers »

Conan tranquilises Sonoko and invites Ran and Takagi to fight in the same game Shimizu and Bito played just before Bito's death. Ran will sit at Shimizu's place and Takagi at Bito's one. Conan whispers something to Ran and Takagi before the game start. Takagi gives Ran a thrashing and just as Bito stops before the final blow, Takagi doesn't finish the fight. Megure asks him why and sees Takagi blindfolded, "playing the dead", saying Conan asked him not to move at all, while Ran was the one winning the fight and stopping before the final. Sonoko explains she asked Conan to give such instructions to Takagi and Ran to illustrate what happened : the one winning the fight was Shimizu and the one losing it was Bito, indeed he was already dead and Shimizu didn't give the final blow to make it believe that Bito died at that moment. Because Shimizu murdered Bito with a poisoned needle when he went to his right side, before the game.

Shimizu had put a needle into a crushed cigarette stuck to a chewing-gum itself stuck to a chewing-gum's wrapping paper. He put this weapon in his cigarette pack and either pushed it forward to sting Bito or took it between his fingers and stung, not to leave his fingerprints on it. He covered Bito's mouth at that moment to prevent him from shouting. None really saw him as the place was crowded with people whose eyes were all on the various screens and games of the arcade. And they could have thought Shimizu was proposing a cigarette to Bito. He then pretended to chat with him while he actually selected a player and started the game in his place. The fact is he selected his own favourite fight character, "Haido's Wrestler", on Bito's machine, and selected Bito's favourite one, "Beika's Caesar", on his own machine, to do his trick. People were used to Bito choosing Caesar and Shimizu choosing Wrestler, and they would never suspect it was the opposite, even during that fight, and then believed Bito's Caesar was winning the fight while actually it was Shimizu's Caesar who was, in order to lure people into believing Bito stopped his final blow just as he had died.

Shimizu then pretended dropping his lighter and picking it up, and actually got rid of his weapon on the floor, hoping that during the mass gathering in front of the giant screen, someone would tread on it, and the chewing-gum would stick to their sole, and then the person would walk away with it unknowingly, and would probably throw it into a bin if they ever found it. This could actually be very dangerous as the person might prick themselves with the needle and probably die as well. Actually, it is Dejima who trod on it, explaining the noise Conan heard. Shimizu denies being the murderer and says he is smoking different cigarettes and chewing different gums from the cigarette/chewing-gum brands used to make the trick. Sonoko explains he took random crushed cigarette and discarded chewing-gum from some of the arcade's ashtrays, explaining also why we wouldn't find his fingerprints on it.

But as Shimizu still calls it a worthless piece of evidence, Sonoko asks Dejima to open Bito's machine's safe where three 100-yen coins are found. Indeed, after Dejima emptied it, three people played on the game : Bito when he asked Ran to move it to took her seat to train before the match, Takagi when he played against Ran following Sonoko's orders, and in between Shimizu, who put a coin in the machine to start the game in Bito's place, as Bito was already dead. If Shimizu claims playing only on his own machine before and during the fight, then why is there a coin with his fingerprints in Bito's machine? After that, Shimizu owns up to killing Bito in order to revenge his sister who was hospitalised because of Bito. Indeed, Shimizu's sister, crazy about Bito, overworked to pay for her boyfriend's enormous and non-stopping horse racing, gaming and other kinds of debts, to the point she would barely eat one meal a day, and accordingly fell ill and may lose her sight forever due to a huge vitamin-A deficiency. Shimizu can't fully blame Bito as himself is a gaming-lover as well, but he trained hard to become famous in the arcade game world, in order to challenge Bito to his favourite game, as if he ever defeated him, Bito would accept to leave his sister. But Shimizu never succeeded in doing so and chose to kill him instead.

After the case, Jodie marvels at Sonoko's detective skills, comparing her to a famous American policewoman. As the group parts, Jodie says "Bye bye cool guy" to Conan, with a mysterious smirk on her face, which upsets Conan. Later on, Jodie is phoning while doing her nails in her flat, saying she found out that their target, "Rotten Apple", goes to school, and that she learns very interesting things in Japan.

People

Kengo Bito
	Victim (poison) 21 years old Unemployed

Hitoshi Dejima
	22 years old Arcade staff

Toshitsugu Emori
	41 years old Taxi driver

Takayasu Shimizu
	30 years old Game magazine writer

Major events

• We learn of Jodie's love for video games. It is also mentioned how she is Ran's English teacher.
• Jodie hints that she knows Conan's identity and at the end she talks on the phone saying she found one of her targets.

Bear Hunters Case

File 273 - Stuck on the Same Boat

Agasa accompanies the Detective Boys to pick matsutake mushrooms in the forest (the prefecture that the forest belongs to is not specified). Right after they have been given instructions by an employee of the motel that they are staying in, Genta starts searching frantically, but soon becomes frustrated by the fact that the mushrooms are not as easy to find as he thought. Complaints are then heard, which prompts Ayumi to point out that picking matsutake was Genta’s own idea; she originally wanted to pick apples. Genta responds contemptuously that apples are common and cheap, but Haibara disagrees, noting that the apple is the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, and that eating it resulted in Adam and Eve banishment from there; she therefore concludes that the apple is much more mysterious than the matsutake. Mitsuhiko, watching this conversation unfold from the side, is so impressed by Haibara's depth of knowledge, elegance and beauty that he starts blushing. This does not go unnoticed; Conan immediately asks him about his strange expression, which forces Mitsuhiko to go on the defense and claim that he is merely looking at Haibara. Nonetheless, in the ensuing conversation between him and Conan, Mitsuhiko is lavish in his praise of Haibara and cannot conceal his appreciation of her rather unique qualities; this allows Conan to easily figure out what Mitsuhiko is trying to hide. He thus pats Mitsuhiko on his shoulder and tells him that "she is not someone that you can deal with".

The Detective Boys continue their search, but it remains fruitless until Conan uses his extensive knowledge about the ecology of the matsutake to help them out. Now that they know how to methodically find more matsutake, the Detective Boys scatter around the forest, each going to a place where he or she believes has the most mushrooms. Genta goes missing in this way, and Conan deduces that he has climbed a mesh fence to reach the inside of the forest, where matsutake is exceptionally abundant. Since Genta’s detective badge is undergoing repair, nobody knows where he is, and Haibara thus proposes that the four Detective Boys split present into two teams (Conan will go with Ayumi, and herself with Mitsuhiko) to look for Genta, and that Agasa stay behind in case Genta returns. With everybody agreeing with this plan, the two teams also climb the mesh fence and set out. Once they are alone, Mitsuhiko asks Haibara whether there is some special relationship between Conan and her, as they are frequently seen chatting about some adult-sounding and strange topics out of the earshot of others. Haibara tells him that their chats are about rather trivial topics and that things are not as romantic as Mitsuhiko believes (Mitsuhiko does not seem entirely convinced by this explanation).

Genta seems to have gone very far, as neither team is able to find him quickly and their loud calls remain unresponded. To make matters worse, Haibara and Mitsuhiko discover that Genta is likely to have penetrated a second mesh fence to reach the innermost part of the forest, where hunters and bears are found and where people are occasionally shot dead by hunters (who are under the belief that they are dealing with some large animal). Despite being conscious of the dangers, Haibara goes right in, followed by Mitsuhiko, and they almost immediately encounter a black bear cub. Haibara approaches him (or her?), saying that since he is less than one years old he cannot harm them. Mitsuhiko, on the other hand, is more cautious, especially after Haibara tells him that the cub’s mother might be around.

Sudden gunfire perturbs the peace of the forest, and the cub runs away in fear. Gunfire explodes again, hitting a tree near Haibara and Mitsuhiko, and they are now able to see the shooter. Mitsuhiko shouts to let the shooter know that he is dealing with humans, but before he can finish Haibara leads him away, as she notices a dead body with an apparent gunshot wound on it beside them. As they run away to safety, Haibara explains that the shooter might have committed murder and that if he (or she) suspects that they have seen both his face and the body there will be a motivation to kill them as well.

Conan and Ayumi have much better luck: they have stayed out of trouble and have managed to find Genta (a greedy one, as the number of matsutake mushrooms that he has collected is far more than the previously agreed-upon number). However, this is not the end of their worries: upon reuniting with Agasa, they find, much to their dismay, that this time Haibara and Mitsuhiko are missing, and that they are in the hunting area (according to Conan’s glasses). As they set out for another searching mission, they meet a hunter named Kiyoshi Yasaka, who wonders why Agasa would bring children to this dangerous area. Conan finds Mitsuhiko’s badge left on the forest floor and some blood marks and bear footprints nearby; this causes Ayumi to suggest in panic that Haibara and Mitsuhiko have been eaten by a bear. Yasaka says that bears do not usually eat humans, and at this moment another hunter joins them. He is called Matasaburo Saika, and he claims that in this forest resides a huge female bear nicknamed “Jubei”, who loathes humans and thus is willing to eat two children as a snack before her hibernation. Presently yet another hunter - Tomoya Negoro - joins in the conversation. He is thrilled upon hearing that Jubei actually exists, and tells a horrified Ayumi that he will avenge the murder of Haibara and Mitsuhiko by killing the ferocious bear himself. Agasa condemns his inappropriate comments as Ayumi cries even more heavily.

All three hunters then suggest that they accompany the Detective Boys in their search, as they are much more familiar with the forest and the mountain ranges covered by it. Using binoculars, Haibara and Mitsuhiko see the shooter together with their friends, and Haibara warns Mitsuhiko that he should stay silent and not make any gesture to the group as the hunter will shoot and kill them without hesitation and later claim that he mistook bears with children.

People

Kiyoshi Yasaka
	41 years old Hunter

Matasaburo Saika
	67 years old Hunter Former matagi

Tomoya Negoro
	28 years old Hunter

Jubei
	Female Asian black bear

Man
	Victim (gunshot) Hunter

Cover in other countries

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  China
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  Finland
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  France
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  Germany
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  Hong Kong
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  Indonesia
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  Italy
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  Korea
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  Malaysia (Chinese)
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  Malaysia (Malay)
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  Norway
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  Rep. of China (Taiwan)
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  Spain (Spanish, Volumen 2)
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  Spain (Spanish, Volumen 2)
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  Sweden
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  Thailand
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  United States
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  Vietnam

See also

• Manga
• Volume 21-30
• Detective Conan