The episode opens with Kogoro, Ran, and Conan meeting with Nanba, a man who works as a chicken sexer at an egg factory and is also a chicken sexer champion. He has called Kogoro because he feels his life is being threatened and wants the detective to investigate while also serving as his bodyguard. It turns out Nanba has no idea who would have a motive against him, so Kogoro, Ran, and Conan begin questioning people who work at the factory. While they don’t seem to get any real leads through this questioning, one of the people they question points them toward a photographer who works for a chicken sexing magazine, who happens to be at the factory right then and there. While the photographer doesn’t know anything about anyone having a grudge against Nanba, he mentions something that becomes an important piece of information that leads to solving the case.

And it turned out to be a good thing that Nanba hired Kogoro to also be a bodyguard, because when Nanba goes to give a lecture, Kogoro catches on to something and saves Nanba before a chlorine solution is able to fall onto him. Between this incident and what had happened to Nanba leading up to hiring Kogoro, it confirms that someone is targeting Nanba but they don’t seem to want to kill him.

The photographer gives Kogoro a piece of information he learns (for free), in exchange for an exclusive interview with Kogoro after the case is solved. Kogoro agrees, and this information leads Conan to start doing some investigating on his own. With what he learns, he realizes who the culprit must be… but, by the time he figures out the pieces and shares some of the details with Kogoro and Ran, Nanba is kidnapped by the culprit. It’s a race against time to find Nanba and save him.

While this was a one episode mystery, it actually wasn’t a murder mystery for once. It wasn’t even an attempted murder mystery. Instead, the culprit was only wanting to cause bodily harm to the potential victim. I thought that was a nice change of pace. I wish I could say more about this episode, but going too much further than this runs the risk of providing “spoilers.” But, for a one episode mystery, the writer(s) were successful at establishing the potential victim as a character. While what is revealed about the potential victim during this episode changes the viewer’s outlook on him, at least he was able to be developed just enough that the revelation is able to have some kind of effect on the viewer. I have to admit that from the preview last week, I wasn’t really expecting much from this episode, so I was pleasantly surprised by its execution.

It looks like next week’s episode is another TV original one episode mystery. After watching the preview, I don’t have any strong feelings either way about it. Hopefully, it’ll turn out to be enjoyable, or at least, decent.

Additional posts about Case Closed: