Lesley's Anime and Manga Corner

At the beginning of the episode, a beautiful woman comes to the Mori Detective Agency to ask Kogoro to take on a case for her. He’s smitten with her, which annoys Ran. But after the woman says her case is trying to locate her missing husband, we can see Kogoro’s face fall… and Ran’s full of triumph. I think Ran won the “best reaction award” for the episode.

Anyway, the woman gives Kogoro information about her husband and what led up to her husband’s disappearance. She had been out to lunch with friends, and as they parted, she saw her husband approaching another woman. She followed them, but didn’t see any signs of cheating going on. She decides to approach her husband, and when he sees her, he runs away. She lost sight of him at the river and hasn’t seen him since… but then later adds that she thought she saw a car drive off around the same time she lost sight of her husband.

Conan tags along on the investigation, saying that Ran wants him to keep an eye on Kogoro. They investigate the couple’s home, including the husband’s office, and the only thing they find is a business card with another address on it. Upon investigating that location, it’s discovered that it’d a virtual office that the husband has rented. And examining the river, they find tire tracks to a microcar. But before they can do anything else, the wife calls. The police found her husband’s wallet near the river. While the cash is gone, his cards and some receipts are still inside.

After examining the receipts, Conan comes up with an idea of how to track down the husband. This idea works, and Kogoro and Conan find where the husband is. It turns out he’s trying to cover up a lie he told on their first date, because he never confessed to the lie before they got married. Kogoro convinces the husband to return home and tell his wife the truth.

And it seems like this should be the end… but since we already know this is a multi-part episode, we know that simply isn’t going to be the case. The final shot of the episode shows something being set on fire…

As I watched this episode, I started having the sense that something is “off” with the wife. There were some shots where I was picking up something odd with the wife’s facial expressions. But, could the animators have done this as a kind of “red herring” to throw the audience off? But considering how easily the husband was found in this episode, I have a suspicion that something more convoluted is going to play out over the course of the next episode. But I don’t have any specific ideas or theories when it comes to any potential twists in this case. I’m interested to see how this mystery will ultimately be solved, as well as how Conan will come up with the correct solution.