Straight to Your Heart: Case Closed, vol. 95 by Gosho Aoyama

Gosho Aoyama's 95th volume of Case Closed picks up where the previous, absolutely packed volume ended that was crammed with familiar faces, storyline developments and a cliffhanger to a tantalizing murder case featuring two imaginative impossible crimes – apparently committed the long-nosed Tengu of Japanese folklore. First a short recap. Conan has temporarily returned as Jimmy Kudo to attend a class trip to Kyoto to link up with Rachel complete with will-they-won't-they overtones, but their class trip runs into a class reunion of a university film club that quickly ended in bloody murder.

Their screenwriter is brutally murdered in his hotel room with a big pool of blood and bloody footprints staining the ceiling, which suggests the killer yanked the victim up in the air to kill him and then casually walked across the ceiling. And walked, or flew, out an open window on the 15th floor. A second murder is committed in the open street with another trail of bloody footprints walking sideways along the wall. In this closing chapter, the murderer attempts a third murder with footprints from an apparently invisible man approaching him on a bridge, but, by that time, Jimmy had already closed the net around the killer.

I think this story is far better for its long-awaited developments in the overarching storyline with all its character-arcs than the fantastically-staged series of impossible slayings, which are excellent in presentation, but poor and unconvincing in execution – especially the first murder and the last attempt are unconvincing. I suppose the trick for the first murder could have a whole lot more convincing in a smaller, more intimate setting, but not here or on this scale. I didn't think much about the other impossibilities with the inexplicable appearance/disappearance of the Tengu (SPOILER/ROT13), fbeg bs, tvivat njnl gur zheqrere, orpnhfr gur crefba jub jnf greebevmrq ol vg unq ng yrnfg gb or va ba vg. Lbh pna'g uvqr fhpu n guvat vafvqr fbzrbar'f ubgry ebbz, fhqqrayl fpner uvz jvgu naq znxr vg qvfnccrne, hayrff gung crefba vf chyyvat gur fgevatf be vf na nppbzcyvfu. A commendable attempt to weave four impossible crimes into a fairly short story, but again, far better for the storyline-and character-arc developments.

The second story deals with the direct fallout of the previous story, because Jimmy Kudo, "the top teen detective of the east," resurfacing to solve a murder case involving well-known filmmakers has started a buzz. Kudo's return ("Rumors of His Death Debunked") trended on social media, became the top news story online and attracted the attention of the news media. So now Conan is in deep trouble as reporters with camera crews besiege his home and everyone who knows Jimmy Kudo, which is bound to get noticed by the Black Organization. Meanwhile, Anita and the Junior Detective League go to the home of classmate who failed to show up at school that day. When they enter the home, they find the first of a trail of clue to an indoors treasure hunt and they fear the little girl might have gotten trapped somewhere while following the clues. So they retrace their girl's step by following the clues her grandmother left behind. Yes, a very minor story intended to break away from Conan's precarious situation and the growing interest in Jimmy Kudo's return, but by no means a bad story. Where, and how, they discovered the girl involves something I always imagined would make for a first-rate locked room-trick, but, to my knowledge, it has yet to be used. So overall a better story than the previous landmark story and Conan learns the name of the Black Organization's boss. We all know who he really is, right?

The fallout from Jimmy Kudo's headline grabbing return continues into the third story, but also has a pretty good, self-contained detective story to offer.

Richard Moore netted an aristocratic client, Gunzo Morooka, who received a threatening note to stay clear of the Black Bunny Club ("...if you value your life"). So they meet at the Black Bunny Club to discuss the case. Black Bunny Club is a "gentleman's club" where hostesses are dressed as scantily-clad bunnies raising the question how Conan and Rachel were even allowed on the premise. When food and dinner arrives, one of the bunnies is poisoned and hospitalized with only three suspects who could have poisoned her drink. So, on the surface, it's the customary whom-of-the-three-did-it staple of this series, but how the drink was poisoned is rather ingenious and makes the story standout. Case Closed is going to be interesting study material in the future for how the traditional 20th century detective story adapted itself to the 21th century. So good story that also has Toru Amuro as Moore's disciple to look over Conan's shoulder with a cliffhanger that would been a perfect conclusion to this volume.

The last two chapters begins a story that will be concluded in the next volume and deals with "a serial killer who targets female cops." More precisely, the female cops of the traffic division and colleagues of the series regulars Yumi Miyamoto and Neako Miike. At the end of the last chapter, the serial killer left three bodies behind and his second victim left a cryptic dying message: a bloody finger pointing towards a swing set on a child's playground. So we'll find out what that's all about in the next volume.

So, when it comes to the individual plots, this volume was a mixed bag, but very rewarding for long-time fans of the series as the game finally appears to be afoot. Like Ho-Ling said in his 2018 review, the stories show "Aoyama is busy moving his pieces for an event which might very well be the ending of this series." It really comes across like that, but then again, this volume was originally published in 2018 and vol. 107 was published earlier this year. So maybe not yet, but look forward to the next volume.