The episode begins with Ai, Conan, and Professor Agasa watching television and seeing an ad for a lottery to win a whale watching trip. The other Detective Boys are planning to participate, and invited both Ai and Conan to join them. They aren’t interested, but after Professor Agasa makes it clear that he wants to win the trip, Ai agrees to go. However, she needs to use the professor’s bank card to withdraw money in order to participate. And Ai makes Conan come along with her.

We see that both Ran and Kogoro are having problems using their respective bank cards to withdraw money from the ATM, and in Kogoro’s case, the machine refuses to return his card. When Ai tries to use a machine, though, the machine refuses to take the professor’s card. Just then, a suspicious looking man in all black comes in and uses a black bank card, rather than the bank’s red card, to complete a transaction on the machine. When the man hears Ai’s last name, he acts as though he recognizes her.

Shortly before this man enters, Conan talks to Kogoro about a international hacker scheme that happened about a couple of years earlier in connection with ATMs, and the Detective Boys get the idea in their heads that the mysterious man in black is an international hacker. As usual, they decide they’re going to pursue the subject. Conan wonders if the man in black is from the Black Organization, but Ai says she doesn’t recognize him.

I can’t say too much more without giving away spoilers, but what I will say is that Ai has a run-in with the man in black, and Mitsuhiko follows the man and stumbles upon a discovery. But when all is said and done in the end, it turns out that things aren’t quite what they seem in regards to the mysterious man in black.

Knowing that the Detective Conan film featuring Ai was scheduled to open in Japanese theaters the same week this episode aired on Japanese television, I knew that the existence of this episode was to somehow tie in with the film. This has happened with a lot of the previous films in the franchise, so it would make sense that it would happen for this one as well. The very end of the episode hints at the film, and with the final bit that airs after the preview, they even mention, “Come see us at the movies!”

This was an OK episode, but you already kind of knew going into it that there had to be some kind of twist to this story, since the film lead-in wouldn’t have any major plot points or changes in characters. This wasn’t necessarily a bad episode, but it wasn’t a great episode, either. My favorite parts happened right near the end of the story, because I love seeing the interplay between Ai and Agasa. They really do have an interesting dynamic.

The next episode seems to be another anime exclusive story, and it appears to be another one featuring the Detective Boys. The title of the episode doesn’t give any indication of what kind of story it’s supposed to be, although the preview seems to indicate that someone is being threatened. While I don’t have high hopes for the next episode, I don’t think it could be any worse than “Intrigue at Smile Village.”

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