This episode sees Ran and Conan, along with Kazuha, watching Hattori in a high school kendo championship. Hattori is doing well, but in order to progress, he needs to beat an opponent from Kyoto named Okita. Okita has a reputation for being able to easily take down his opponents. There’s a break for lunch, so Kazuha leaves to be with her friends from school.

During the lunch break, a referee is murdered near the outdoor restrooms by someone wearing kendo armor. A blind man sitting nearby hears what happens, but his life is spared because the murderer realizes that the man is blind and didn’t see anything. A little while later, Ran and Conan come by to use the restrooms and come across the deceased referee. Okita also comes by, and he has an uncanny resemblance to Shinichi. Okita hits on Ran, and of course, this causes her some confusion, since he looks a lot like Shinichi,

But I couldn’t believe it when I first heard Okita open his mouth and speak… he has the same voice actor as Midousuji from Yowamushi Pedal! After that, every time I heard him, I kept expecting him to say “kimoi” (“gross”). LOL! And for me, it was also a little awkward to hear “Midousuji” hitting on Ran. LOL!

By the end of the episode, the police arrive and three suspects are found. It turns out that all three of them have a motive for wanting to kill the referee. The body armor worn by the murderer is found behind the bathrooms, and it turns out to be a spare from Okita’s team.

When the police say they want to cancel the match, Hattori argues against it. It’s established early in the episode that when he wins the tournament, Hattori wants to tell Kazuha something. We’ve seen this scenario before, and I’m sure it’s Hattori wanting to confess his feelings to her. But, I suspect that when all is said and done, he’ll end up not telling her again. We’ll find out for sure next week.

Oh, and we also see the girl who’s stalking Hattori. She’s already planned a surprise victory party for him, and she has her assistant Iori keeping an eye on the match. I don’t know about anyone else, but this Iori guy just doesn’t seem to be entirely trustworthy. And when this girl arrives at the match, she has Iori serving her tea while in the stands, with others around her looking on in surprise. This girl (I can’t remember her name), is definitely kind of… odd. I feel sorry for Hattori for having her (or anyone, really) as a stalker.

Right at the end of the episode, it looks like that Hattori and Okita are poised to go ahead and have an unofficial kendo match at the murder scene. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and whether or not it has any real bearing on the murder case that’s taking place.

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