I was pleasantly surprised to see that a new episode of Case Closed was available on Crunchyroll.

The episode begins with a man standing outside with flyers. He’s looking for his wife who has been missing for three days, but hardly anyone is giving him the time of day. That is, until Ran and Conan come along. When Ran looks at the picture on the flyer and recognizes her as an employee at a florist shop. Ran and Conan take this man to see Kogoro, who at first is trying not to take the case. But after some prodding from Ran, he decides to take it on.

Conan ends up tagging along with Kogoro as he goes to interview the neighbors. The neighbors on the same side of the street as the man’s house only reveal that the wife was excited for a dinner date she had coming up with her husband. But when they question the neighbors in the houses behind the man’s house, they start hearing some things that make it sound like the husband and wife had been arguing, and the words that were being said sounded like the husband was going to murder the wife. As I watched, I thought this didn’t sound good for the husband, but I had some nagging doubts… this just seemed too easy.

When Kogoro and Conan return to the man’s house, they find the police there. Apparently, they received an anonymous tip that the husband murdered the wife and buried her in the backyard. The police dig in the yard and find the wife’s body. While this certainly looked damning, I still thought something felt a little off about this. There was no way a Case Closed mystery would end up being so cut and dried.

Thanks to the picture on the flyer and Conan’s inquisitive nature, Conan uncovers that, yes, this mystery was not as cut and dried as it would seem. The true killer is exposed, and the motive for this person to kill the victim was ridiculous. When the husband gets pissed and picks up a shovel to attack her, I could understand his frustration, especially since the motive wasn’t something worth killing someone over, but I knew that wouldn’t be a wise thing for him to do. Fortunately, Inspector Megure was able to get him to stand down.

Overall, it was a decent mystery for a single episode story. While I’ve seen better, I’ve also seen a lot worse.

But I don’t know if we’re getting another episode next week, since there was no preview for the next episode or any of the other things that usually show up at the end of the episode. Case Closed went on hiatus without any fanfare, and then came back without any fanfare, so I have no idea how often new episodes will be airing in the coming months. All I can do is just keep checking every Saturday morning to see if Crunchyroll has added a new episode.

This beginning of this episode did a great job recapping the first two parts of this arc.

When the story itself starts, Sato, Chiba, and another officer are questioning a woman about the murder of the second officer. During the woman’s questioning, she mentions that a suicide (jumping from a building) had taken place at the same building that the officer had been pushed from a week earlier. Sato realizes this fits into the timeline of the three suspects they’re investigating. Before they can do more, someone yells that a female police officer has been murdered.

Sato and the others run to the scene, and find Yumi lying in a chalk outline with blood near her head. It seems that Yumi is dead, but then… psyche! It turns out she asked Takagi to help her recreate the murder scene because she determined something that the officer was trying to point out as she lay dying… a no parking sign. It’s also revealed that the officer killed at the park wasn’t looking toward a swing set… she was trying to point out a no parking sign. So the episode establishes that a no parking sign is somehow an important clue.

There’s also the mystery of the number 7155 that the second murdered officer had tried to dial on her phone. The police haven’t figured it out by the end of the episode, though. So, yes, there is going to be at least one more episode for this story… which is a rarity for Case Closed.

We get a surprise cameo from Shuichi in this episode, when he saves Yumi from a couple of drunk guys who try to make her pay them for “protecting” the mini police car. It turns out Shuichi’s brother (who is Yumi’s boyfriend) asked Shuichi to watch over and protect her.

Conan jumps into the action when he arrives at the park where the first murder occurred while Chiba is there. Chiba relays what the police have figured out. While he’s in the car with Chiba, Conan seems to have pieced something together… but before Conan can say anything, Chiba gets a mysterious call.

Before that, though, Miike is approached by the shadow figure and is captured. Fortunately, she was able to dial Chiba so he can hear what’s going on… although he doesn’t know what’s going on at the end of the episode.

A lot of this episode was about gathering information and clues to solve the case, and not very much on progressing the story. But that’s OK, though. I have a feeling that Part Four will be progressing the story in leaps and bounds. To be honest, I would be surprised if this story went into a fifth part, because it feels like the pieces are just about to fall into place.

This episode opens with a recap that perfectly reminds the audience what happened in the previous episode and set the stage for this one.

Conan is at the scene of the crime, and he hears about how the officer who was murdered, along with another female officer who was friends with her from high school, had stopped three people for traffic violations the previous week at a corner right near the Mori Detective Agency. Unfortunately, Kogoro was out of the town at the time, but he decides to talk to the employees at Poirot to see if they saw anything. Conan picks up some information from Amuro, but not enough to help crack the case.

With the death of a colleague and friend, the other officer with Miike at karaoke the previous evening goes to see someone who she suspects is the murderer. Unfortunately, she made the mistake of going alone. When I saw that she had found the suspect and that she was alone, I knew she was a goner. Sure enough, she’s killed and thrown from an outdoor stairwell at an apartment complex. But what surprised me, though, was that she didn’t die instantly on impact. She had just enough strength to try to dial her phone, but the murderer crushes her phone with her foot before anyone could answer. Conan happens to be nearby when people are talking about the discovery of this body, so of course he goes to check it out. The culprit is also hiding among the crowd, and we hear him think that there’s still one more officer he needs to find for his revenge.

After finding out about their colleague’s death, Yumi decides to go out alone to check on something… even though Sato had just warned her and Miike to be careful, since it appeared that the murderer is targeting female police officers. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, where we see someone jump into the scene behind Yumi’s patrol car.

I hope something I saw in the preview isn’t accurate. Because if it is, it’s going to be game changer for the two main characters we’ve seen in the MPD Transportation Department (Yumi and Miike). I really don’t want to say any more, because then I would be wandering into spoiler territory.

So this is going to be a Case Closed mystery that’s going to be a three-parter, just as I suspected at the end of last week’s episode. With the story that was being built, I knew it would be rushed if it was only a two-parter. But it’s definitely interesting to see that the series is starting to utilize more three-part episode arcs. This used to be a rare occurrence, and now it’s happened twice over the past few months. So it makes me wonder if this arc is a canon storyline from the manga.

I’m very interested to see what happens next week, especially since the preview was indicating something rather major would happen.

This storyline has a strong focus on the MPD Transportation Department, specifically on Miike and Yumi (the two officers who drive around in their mini police car). We see some hints of Miike’s romantic interest in Chiba. There’s an adorable flashback of when Miike and Chiba were kids, and how he was lecturing her to follow traffic laws. When Conan and the Detective Boys encounter Miike on their way to school, she explains traffic safety and traffic signs to the kids.

But, as is the case with Case Closed, there’s a shadow figure we see early on who seems to be intent on revenge against someone. After their first appearance setting up their want for revenge, we see them in a car as Miike, Conan, and the Detective Boys cross the street.

One day at work, Chiba says something to Miike that he doesn’t realize is insensitive, since he doesn’t realize her feelings for him. This gets her depressed, so a couple of co-workers suggest going out to karaoke that night. While Miike is singing, the other two talk and it’s revealed that one of them feels as if someone’s been following her recently. After karaoke, Miike is taken home by one of the co-workers. The one who felt like someone had been following her, is approached by the shadow figure and is lured away to an isolated area under the guise of needing assistance. Even though this officer knows martial arts and is able to use it against the shadow figure, the figure has a taser, which knocks down the officer and paralyzes her movement. This turns into a murder case.

The next day, Conan and the Detective Boys run into Miike and Yumi in their patrol car, and they overhear a call on the radio about a murder victim at a nearby park. When they arrive, Takagi and Sato are already investigating. However, it’s up to Conan to point some things out that the two detectives missed. It’s got to sting a little that an 8-year-old is pointing out things like this to them. I think that even if they knew that this was really a 17-year-old in an 8-year-old’s body, it still would likely sting.

The episode concludes with Conan giving a brief recap of what’s happened, and ends with him saying something along the lines of, “And we would later learn that this was only the tip of the iceberg.” With that line, I’m wondering if this could perhaps end up being a three-parter instead of a two-parter. With what little they know by the end of the episode, along with that line, it’s hard for me to believe that they could wrap this up in two episodes without feeling rushed.

The episode opened with just enough of a recap to remind the audience of what happened during the previous episode. When the episode itself actually got going, it was surprising to learn that the company president, who had been hit on the head with a rock, wasn’t dead. He was simply unconscious and would live. With Case Closed‘s track record for murders, I thought for sure at the end of previous episode that the company president had been killed.

The next day, Kogoro, Ran, Conan, the president’s daughter, and one of the employees are at the crime scene. The daughter’s boyfriend arrives, and with something seen at the crime scene, paired with information about the boyfriend’s profession, it’s thought that he might be the attacker. He adamantly denies it, but ends up admitting to the police that he was going to attempt to steal from the company’s safe. Let’s just say that this did not sit well with his girlfriend. I have a feeling that she ended up dumping the boyfriend after what we saw in the episode itself.

The daughter gets a call from Manabu, the guy who had faked his kidnapping in the previous episode. He claims to have his apprentice held hostage and demands ransom money. Conan, through some investigation of his own, determines where Manabu and his apprentice must be at, and he has Ran take him. And just by chance, Manabu bumps into them as he leaves a convenience store, and a chase leads them into a nearby science museum. Thanks to a convenient run-in with someone who has cola, Conan is able to use a substance that he borrowed from the children’s science museum to track Manabu’s footprints… which lead him to where Kogoro is about to deliver the ransom money.

After this, a lot of information comes out, and the truth of the case is revealed.

Maybe it was just me, but it felt like this part of the story relied a little too much on coincidence in order to bring everything together, especially when it came to Conan and Ran. They just happen to bump into Manabu, Manabu just happens to run into a guy with cola while being chased, which made it possible for Conan to get the substance (which just happened to be made at the children’s museum that day). See what I mean?

But I find it funny how Conan, when someone asks him how someone his age knows so much about something, keeps saying he saw it on television. LOL! But with the chemical from the children’s science museum, Conan says he learned about it in science class.

There was no preview at the end of the episode, so I’m guessing there may not be an episode next week. I’ll just have to check Crunchyroll next Saturday to find out whether there’s an episode or not.

Ran wins a lottery prize, which is a trip to Kanazawa. While they’re out and about in the city, Ran, Conan, and Kogoro have a run-in with a young woman who’s running with a large bag. From interactions with her, it’s revealed that the girl is a “pampered princess” (even worse than Sonoko is), and they help her to get a taxi to where she wants to go.

Later, they run into her again when someone steals the bag of money from her. Kogoro is able to get it back, and discovers there’s a lot of money inside. Before they can get any answers from the girl, she runs off. They see a short while later, and the bag of money is gone. She admits that it was ransom money, and this is the catalyst that brings this next mystery into being.

It turns out to be a kidnapping case involving an employee of the girl’s father’s company. While discussing the case with members of the company, the kidnapped employee calls and says he’s been freed and will return after being questioned by the local police. But during this whole thing, we see that the girl’s father is a major jerk, although he dotes on his daughter. We learn that he hates the girl’s current boyfriend, and suspects him of kidnapping the employee.

When Manabu (the kidnapped employee) returned, I thought he was acting kind of unusual and suspected that something was up. By the end of the episode, it was proven that I was right. It turned out he staged his own kidnapping, and through the reveal, we learn how Conan and Kogoro realized he’d been lying. When the case seemed to solved so quickly, I wondered how this would be a two-parter. Well, Manabu escapes and is on the run… and is not caught by the end of the episode.

Right at the end of the episode, we see the girl’s father attacked by a shadowy figure. So the mystery of the next episode is going to be trying to figure out who attacked the company president. I have a feeling that Manabu is not going to be the perpetrator, because that would just be too easy. It could also potentially be the girl’s boyfriend, but that also seems too easy. I really hope that I’m not disappointed by how this two-parter is resolved.

I know I’m not saying a lot here, but honestly, it’s one of those episodes where the initial mystery is solved rather quickly but then leads into another mystery. The buildup was fine in the episode, but the resolution felt kind of quick. I know it needed to be that way in order to set up the mystery for the next episode, but it weakened the enjoyment I might have had from trying to figure out the kidnapping mystery. It was too quick and too easy. Oh well. Like I said previously, I hope I’m not disappointed by this arc’s resolution.