Scarlet Skeins: Case Closed, vol. 94 by Gosho Aoyama

The 94th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series represents a milestone as the chapter opening the all-important last story in this volume is chapter 1000, but, more importantly, the story itself is a milestone when it comes to the Conan/Jimmy and Rachel character-arc – which should please fans frustrated with its lack of progress over the years. Firstly, this volume traditionally opens with the conclusion to the story that closed out the previous volume. A crossover story!

Harley Hartwell is participating in a high school kendo tournament and a favorite to come out on top, but the competition is rudely interrupted when one of the referees is slashed to death near the bathroom stalls. The murderer, wearing a kendo mask and gear, was heard by a blind witness going into the bathroom. Nobody was heard coming out since then. But the three people found inside didn't have a drop of blood on them. Conan and Harley have to make quick work of the case, before Harley has to appear in the semi-finals of the tournament. There's also a crossover appearance of a character from Aoyama's pre-Case Closed adventure-comedy series Yaiba. Soshi Okita inserts himself into the investigation ("let me have a go first") with an amusingly dumb, not entirely incorrect false-solution. Interestingly, this volume also reveals Okita is a classmate of Momiji Ooka. She has romantic designs on Harley Hartwell and always refers to him as "my future husband."

The actual solution is deduced from an array of kendo-themed clues, red herrings and red herrings doubling as clues, which regrettably diminishes the fair play aspect for the average reader not intimately known with kendo – otherwise a technically sound, fair play detective story. I was really glad the ending didn't trot out another stitched together, Frankenstein-like solution or trick marring so many of the individual cases in later volumes. The next story continues this trend as well as setting everything in motion for the big story.

Conan and Richard Moore notice Rachel has been having strangely lately, acting secretive and generally being a Miss Sunshine, which is why they decide to shadow her. So they follow her around town, ending up a cafe, where Rachel meets up with Serena and Sera to plan a trip to Kyoto for spring break. They, of course, get caught and Rachel tells Conan their trip is not an ordinary one, but before she can explain, someone screams. The unpopular waiter of the place, Daiki Saraie, is found dead in the staff room. Whoever killed him demonstrated some extraordinary feats of strength.

First of all, Saraie's skull had been crushed with a huge, heavy vase, "even empty, it weighs a ton," but it was filled with water. Secondly, the murderer opened Saraie's locker by apparently tearing away the padlock ("how could a human being break a padlock open like this?") and the toolbox contained nothing that could have been "used to smash a padlock." So who killed him and how was it done as none of their suspects appears to have had the strength to lift the vase or tear off a padlock. Admittedly, the solution is not too difficult to anticipate as it also sets up the next two stories, while Conan being seriously distracted by trying to figure out what's so extraordinary about Rachel's trip to Kyoto, but appreciated this little, very well-done borderline impossible crime story. No stitches between the two tricks or between the tricks and the whodunit. Just a well-done (borderline) impossible crime/howdunit story reminiscent of certain short stories by Arthur Porges like "The Puny Giant" (1964).

The ending to this story directly sets up to the next story when Conan learns the trip to Kyoto is not a secretive, all-girls outing, but simply their high school class trip and everyone, especially Rachel, expects Jimmy to finally show his face – which is going to be tricky. Conan asks Anita to give him some of the temporary APTX 4869 antidote, but Anita refuses to hand multiple doses "so you can tour Kyoto with your girlfriend." So time to butter her up! Anita is a big fan of Big Osaka's star football/soccer player, Ryusuke Higo, but she lost her Higo plushie phone charm. Anita considers the charm unique, because Higo touched when he met her in the stands. So she's left emotionally devastated at its lost and Conan is determined to find it. But retracing it proves to be trickier than anticipated. Aoyama skillfully spun a great deal of believable complexity out of a very simple, straight forward story. Still a very minor story, plot-wise, which has its main purpose in getting Conan to the school trip as Jimmy. Nonetheless, a very well done retrieval story.

So the last story brings Conan, as Jimmy, to Kyoto to finally reunite him with Rachel and his class mates. The relationship between them appears to have gone from childhood friends to high school sweet hearts, only for Jimmy to run into an old friend of his mother, Keiko Kurachi. An award-winning actress who got her break through a university film club project ("...they're all big names now") and they have reunited to remake their first movie, but one of them received a weird, coded message with a dried leaf. She wants Jimmy to take a crack at the coded message.

Ho-Ling was not kidding when he said this story is "absolutely packed." Jimmy barely got a chance to glance at the code when their screenwriter is bizarrely murdered in his hotel room. A bloodied Taro Nishiki is found lying on the floor, but the big, ugly bloodstain with a trail of bloody footprints aren't found on the carpeted floor. But on the ceiling! So it looks as if "the killer yanked the victim into the air, stabbed him to death" and "walked across the ceiling," before flying out of 15th floor window – suggesting the handiwork of the Tengu ("...killer clearly wanted us to think it was Tengu"). A second murder is committed in the streets with a similar, bloody presentation, but the question here where the murderer found the time to create the scene. And, in between murders, a giant Tengu appeared in a hotel room witnessed by Jimmy. Jimmy also has to manage his “breaks” when reverting back to Conan with Harley secretly "helping" him out. There are other guest appearances, notably Inspector Fumimaro Ayanokoji and his pet chipmunk, originally created for the Case Closed anime movies, but they have now crossed over to the main manga series. So look forward to its conclusion in the next volume!

So, on a whole, a rock solid, thoroughly engaging volume of stories with the quality of the individual cases representing a return to form, while the quickening pace of the Jimmy/Conan/Rachel storyline rekindled the spirit of an earlier period in the series. Unabashed, quality fan service!