Green Dragon (Part 1)

Chronology
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Magic Kaito Chapter 37
Information
Title:	Green Dragon (Part 1)
Japanese title:	グリーン・ドラゴンの巻（前編） (Gurīn Doragon no Maki (Zenpen))
Original release:	April 10th, 2024
Shōnen Sunday issue:	#20/2024
Volume:	TBD
Pages:	16

Green Dragon (Part 1) (グリーン・ドラゴンの巻（前編） ,Gurīn Doragon no Maki (Zenpen)) is the 37th chapter of the Magic Kaito manga. It was written by Gosho Aoyama, drawn by him and his assistants and originally appeared in the Shōnen Sunday issue #20/2024, released on April 10th, 2024. It was written as part of a new case to promote the release of Movie 27: The Million-dollar Pentagram in April 2024.

Characters

Introduced

In order of introduction:

Midoriko Nakamori
	40 years old Prosecutor Aoko's mother and Ginzo's wife

Juro Tsunakura
	50 years old Tsunakura Museum owner

Featured

Characters
Kaitou Kid Kaito Kuroba Aoko Nakamori Saguru Hakuba Ginzo Nakamori Shintaro Chaki Kashiko Shikibe Keiko Momoi Konosuke Jii

Gadgets

Gadgets
Card Gun

Heist

Green Dragon's Scale
	World's largest phosphophyllite Encrusted in the pupil of the bronze statue of Date Masamune

Settings

• Tokyo
  • Chiyoda Ward
    • Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office
  • Ekoda Area
    • Nakamori Residence
  • Ōta Ward
    • Haneda Airport
  • Unknown ward
    • Ristorante Verde
    • Tsunakura Museum (綱倉博物館)

Plot

As Aoko Nakamori is sitting alone at a table in an Italian restaurant, her mother, 40-year-old Midoriko Nakamori, a prosecutor at the Tokyo Prosecutor's Office, arrives and takes the seat in front of her, excusing herself for being late. She further explains that she can only be with her daughter for two hours before having to head back to work, and Aoko wishes her to enjoy these two hours, as they are celebrating her 40th birthday. As she looks around, Midoriko comments on how expensive the restaurant looks, preferring to eat at a nearby family diner, but Aoko says that Ginzo, her father and Midoriko's husband, has been preparing for this event for a while now. Thinking about said husband, Midoriko looks around, but does not see him, and Aoko explains that he received another notice from Kaito Kid. A perplexed Midoriko looks at her daughter and asks, what "Kaito Kid"? Aoko is surprised her mother does not know the famous thief, but Midoriko had a fight with her husband about work before and never knew what happened at his work afterwards. Aoko then has her mother look him up on the internet, and Midoriko grits her teeth seeing how many criminal offenses he has done and asks why he has not been arrested yet. Realizing that the thief has been bothering her husband for so many years, she tranforms her birthday dinner into a strategic meeting with her daughter to catch said thief.

At the same time, at the Tsunakura Museum in downtown Tokyo, superintendent Chaki and Ginzo Nakamori are staring at Kaitou Kid's newest target, a bronze statue of Date Masamune. Chaki thinks that it is unusual for Kid to be targeting a statue, but the inspector points at the jewel in the statue's eye socket, but as he tries to name the jewel, Juro Tsunakura, owner of the museum, comes in help and says it is a "phosphophyllite" gem, nicknamed the "Green Dragon's scale". Ginzo looks again at the jewel and thinks that it is an easy target for Kid, as it left in the wide-open, but Tsunakura explains that the gem was inserted from the inside and then bronze was poured to fill the cavity inside the statue, setting it rock-solid into the bronze. Chaki then theorizes that Kid could dynamite the statue, but is rebutted when Tsunakura says that the jewel is very brittle. Nakamori thinks that Kid could take the entire statue by lifting it just like in a previous case, but enters Saguru Hakuba sipping from a cup of tea, who reveals that to his advice, steel beams were embedded to the ground, essentially gluing the statue to its location. At the deerstalker detective and his caretaker's arrival, Nakamori gets annoyed, but Chaki welcomes him with joy. After thanking his caretaker Kashiko Shikibe for the tea, he excuses her and allows her a well-deserved break.

Three days later, at the Public Prosecutor's Office, a tired Midoriko spits out to her superior all the evidence to help build a strong case to prosecute a suspect and then asks him for an early leave, as she had been working on the case for three straight days without sleeping. A happy chief prosecutor lets her leave, and later stumbles upon a room full of boxes of previous case files, realizing that Midoriko sifted through all that content within a mere three days. He then stood there impressed and thought to himself that she is on the road to become prosecutor general. In Ekoda, Kaito, Aoko and Keiko are walking on the road back from school and Kaito is shocked to learn that Aoko and her mother are going to try to catch Kid together. Keiko is also surprised, but because she never heard about Aoko's mother and thought she died. An angry Aoko says that it is just that her mother leaves early and comes home after she goes to bed. Keiko understands that and asks Kaito if he knows Aoko's mother, and the latter says that lately she has been making him lunches too. Kaito then asks Aoko to use her toilet and both head to her house. As they go inside, they see a notice on the floor saying that Aoko's mother is sleeping and they go in quietly. While using the washroom, Kaito thinks to himself that it will be an interesting match against Midoriko Nakamori. The next day, a drowsy Midoriko is awaken by the four alarm clocks in her room and quickly gets herself prepared. As she comes across her daughter, she lets her know she just reviewed all the security systems of the Tsunakura Museum in advance for catching Kid. She also tells Aoko that she washed Kaito's handkerchief, and a surprised Aoko asks how she knows he came, but she says that she noticed the toilet paper roll was torn from left to right and the only person to come to their house that does that is Kaito. Aoko is impressed and thinks to herself that the most Holmes'esque person she knows must be her mother.

In the evening, Aoko brings her father his lunch box at the museum but is upset when Ginzo has already ate. Ginzo apologizes and says that he could not read her text and when he reaches to grab his phone in his pant pocket, a receipt from a sewing shop falls out of his pocket. He explains that his shirt button fell off and he had to buy a new one, while Aoko asks him if he has recovered from his cold. Through her earpiece, her mother, who is monitoring the room, asks her to talk to superintendent Chaki and she does, noticing that he is drinking coffee instead of his usual tea. Chaki says that it is because he just came back from New York and was a bit jet-lagged. Satisfied with his answer, Aoko then turns to owner Tsunakura and probes him, noticing that he is holding his teacup with his left hand. However, Tsunakura is not left-handed and simply developped that as a habit to drink tea while writing. A wary Saguru seems to have caught on on what Aoko is doing and hypothesizes that someone is spying on them, while drinking from his teacup too. He points at Aoko's brooch, hinting that it is a camera, but then saying that he was simply joking. Midoriko watching all of this from her computer says to herself that Saguru is pretty smart.

Later, Konosuke Jii calls Kaito from Haneda Airport and says "all went well" for him, and warns him that Midoriko is not someone to underestimate, which Kaito agrees, since as a kid when he was trying impress Aoko, her mother saw through all his tricks. He accepted to have a matchup against her to get back at her for all these times she unmasked him in the past. At midnight, Saguru, Tsunakura, Chaki, Aoko and Ginzo, along with a handful of riot guards, are standing around the statue and waiting for Kid to come. It does not take long for the show to start, as the lights go out and an ace of spades flies towards the roof, unveiling Kaitou Kid standing on the statue with a grin on his face. Watching him from the computer monitor is a smiling Midoriko Nakamori, asking the thief to "show her what he got".

Continuity

Referencing

• Kaitou Under Scrutiny (Manga: 16) : Nakamori referencing Kid stealing a whole statue is a reference to the bronze statue heist at the Ekoda Natural History Museum.
• Kaitou Kid and the Queen's Bangs (Detective Conan Manga: Volume 101, files 7-9 (1076-1078)) : Midoriko Nakamori reads about the Queen's Bangs case.

Sherry's Soliloquy

Sherry's soliloquy for File 37.

Sherry's Soliloquy (シェリーのひとりごと ,Sherī no Hitorigoto) is a collection of comments Gosho Aoyama has Ai Haibara say on the official Detective Conan website, Conan News Agency (こなん通信社 Konan Tsūshin-sha) in the course of every new chapter's publication.

Soliloquy of File 37:
アンダーリム眼鏡・・・萌えるわね♡
Half-rim glasses.. So cute!
(April 12, 2024, translation by Nakamura)

Real Life Models

Tsunakura Museum

Tsunakura Museum is modeled after the real-life Art Institute of Chicago Building, a Beaux-Arts building completed in 1893. Tsunakura Museum is shorter than its real-life counterpart, only having 5 windows per side as opposed to the Art Institute's 7 windows. It also incorporates the street lamps outside the museum. The interior is however different, the real-life AIOC Building having Corinthian columns, while the Tsunakura Museum has Ionic columns.

• 

  Tsunakura Museum

• 

  The real-life Art Institute of Chicago.

Trivia

Shonen Sunday #20/2024.

• The cover of Shonen Sunday #20/2024 shows Kaitou Kid and his real appearance Kaito Kuroba, along with Saguru Hakuba, Aoko Nakamori, and Akako Koizumi.
• Date Masamune (伊達 政宗, 1567-1636) was a famous regional ruler of Northern Japan during the Edo Period (1603-1868), and notably founded the city of Sendai. The diamond in his eye is also a reference to his moniker of the "One-Eyed Dragon of Ōshū".
• Phosphophyllite, known in Japanese as "Rinyō-seki" (燐葉石) is a rare mineral composed of hydrated zinc phosphate and often left uncut as its crystals are brittle, making the existence of the "Green Dragon" rather improbable.
• Jurō Tsunakura (綱倉 十朗) is named after the first Katakura Kojūrō (片倉 小十郎), Katakura Kagetsuna (片倉 景綱, 1557-1615), head of the Katakura clan and a close aide of Date Masamune.
• The Italian restaurant at the beginning is named "Verde", meaning "green/lush".
• In the case Midoriko is working on, the people involved are named after Shōnen Sunday editors: Domoto (堂本), Murata (村田) and Funamoto (舟本), whose name is also used for a riot police officer in Detective Conan file 1119.
• Kaito's handkerchief bears the inscription "hocus-pocus", meaning to "deceive", a fitting name for his persona as Kaitou Kid.

See also

• Magic Kaito Chapters not yet included in a Volume
• Magic Kaito

References

Chapters not yet published in volume format
37 • 38 • 39