Volume 81

Chronology
‹ Volume 80	List of Chapters • List of Cases	Volume 82 ›

Volume 81
Information
Release date:	November 18, 2013
Chapters:	851-861
ISBN:	ISBN 978-4-09-124499-4
Publisher:	Shogakukan
English release date:	January 11, 2022
English ISBN:	ISBN 1-9747-2116-0
English Publisher:	Viz Media
Featured Detective & Keyhole
Handyman of Susukino Yuzuki Fukui
Aoyama's death & Conan side images

Volume 81 was released on November 18, 2013 in Japan.

Cast

Characters

Conan Edogawa Ayumi Yoshida Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya Genta Kojima Ai Haibara Hiroshi Agasa Jodie Starling Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi Kazunobu Chiba Rikumichi Kusuda (flashback) Chugo Nishiya (flashback) Chotaro Shinki (flashback) Shuichi Akai (flashback) Scar Akai (flashback) Vermouth Bourbon Andre Camel (speech bubble) Tohei Benzaki Kogoro Mouri Yoko Okino (poster) Ran Mouri Masumi Sera Eri Kisaki Jugo Yokomizo Shinichi Kudo (background/voice) Sonoko Suzuki Makoto Kyogoku Misao Yamamura Masumi's brother Robber #5 (flashback)

Gadgets

Gadgets
Detective Boys Badge Voice-Changing Bowtie Stun-Gun Wristwatch

Chapters

A Shrine to Remember

File 852 - Whereabouts of Shuichi Akai

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Yoriko Danno. She wanted to avenge her son's death. Yoriko was pickpocketed by Ikuyo one year ago, and she lost her car keys which were placed inside the stolen purse. Because she couldn't open the car without them, her son who has asthma was locked inside the car for several hours. When he got sent to the hospital, it was already too late and he died. So Yuriko researched about that pickpocket on the Internet and hung out at places where she frequently appears. Tohei Benzaki turns out to be Bourbon in disguise, while the pregnant woman is actually Vermouth, who is there to assist Bourbon.

People

Shigemori Sakamaki
	66 years old Flower viewer

Tohei Benzaki
	35 years old Flower viewer

Ikuyo Yatani
	Victim (bludgeoned) 50 years old Flower viewer

Yoriko Danno
	29 years old Flower viewer

Motoe Benzaki
	Tohei's pregnant wife

Major events

• Bourbon and Vermouth disguise as a married couple and collect intelligence about Shuichi Akai and Conan's actions during Clash of Red and Black.
• Conan shares intelligence about Bourbon with Agent Jodie.
• Clash of Red and Black and Detective Boys vs. Robber Group cases are explored.

Cocktail of Sorrow

File 855 - A Detective Solves a Case in a Bar

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Monpei Kogure. He wanted to avenge Yoshikuwa. After the case is closed, Detective Takagi told Conan that Touhei Benzaki, a victim from pickpocket case is strange, there is a contradiction in bank robbery case, then the real Benzaki said that he does not remember he was involved in that pickpocket murder case and he is unmarried. Conan who is suspected that fake couple is Bourbon and Vermouth, rushed back to the Mouri Detective Agency in panic.

People

Yuzuki Fukui
	26 years old Blue Parrot bartender

Chikafumi Usuda
	Victim (poison) 51 years old Office worker (department manager)

Mika Kishiura
	30 years old Office worker

Kensaku Hatsumura
	31 years old Office worker

Monpei Kogure
	28 years old Office worker

Yoshikuwa
	Deceased (hanged) Office worker

Major events

• Kogoro tries to investigate who is always solving the case while he asleep.
• He concluded that his "other" self is solving the case when he is asleep.
• Conan just realizes about the presence of Bourbon and Vermouth in Jodie's Memories and the Cherry Blossom Viewing Trap case via a mismatch report from Takagi, related to the case.

Steamy Relations

File 858 - A Problematic Deduction

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Kenya Settsu.

People

Keiko Kitao
	Teitan High School Class A student Rumi's younger sister

Rumi Kitao
	21 years old University student

Kenya Settsu
	22 years old University student

Waka Hashitani
	Victim (bludgeoned) University student

Mitsuaki Kaga
	22 years old University student

Major events

• Conan has a bad feeling that Black Organization will attack him or Haibara now.
• Bourbon stalks Conan as he makes a phone call to Haibara.
• Conan and Ran suspect the presence of Masumi's older brother, thanks to Eri.

Bumper Brawn

File 859 - Jeet Kune Do vs. Karate

On a heavily raining day, Conan, Ran, Sonoko, Sera and Kogoro go bowling in Gunma. Makoto, who has just returned to Japan, is also coming, and Sonoko plans to introduce him to Sera. But, Sera is very curious, she quickly loses her patience, and cuddles Sonoko in an attempt to make her tell her who the person is. As she does so, Makoto arrives, and since he mistakenly thinks that Sera is a guy getting too intimate with his girlfriend, puts his hand on her shoulder forcefully and gives her a death stare. Sera takes the death stare as a sign that Makoto is challenging her, and a fight ensues. Sonoko is delighted by this scene, as she has been waiting for it for a long time; this means that Ran has to step in to stop the fight in the end. After resolving the misunderstanding and introducing themselves to each other, Makoto asks who taught Sera Jeet Kune Do, as he has learned from their brief engagement that Sera is quite good at it. Sera cites her brother (who, according to her, is three times as good as she is at it) as her teacher, which confuses Conan, who thought that her brother is dead. Sera clarifies that she actually has two elder brothers: the older between them taught her martial arts, and is probably dead; the younger one is whom she called during the last case. Sera continues to say that her second brother looks like their father (unlike her and the first brother), is very intelligent, and sometimes discusses cases with her. In addition, he has very important work to do, and thus is reluctant to share with Sera the specifics of his work and where he lives. Sera concludes by saying that her second brother thought that her deduction in the last case was problematic (which it was), and that Conan could rectify it for her. Conan replies that all credit should go to Shinichi; Sera smiles at him upon hearing this, which makes Conan think in dismay that maybe Sera already knows his identity.

At this moment two middle school teachers (named Michiko Monna and Sunami Masaki respectively) approach Makoto to apologize for their fellow teacher (called Masahiro Tanba) having picked a fight with him after drinking. Makoto says that he does not mind, and learns that Tanba is not injured by his punch and is now sleeping in their car. He then joins Sonoko and her friends in bowling, but as he is about to throw the bowling ball he hears Sonoko cheering for him. This makes Makoto blush and becomes a distraction for him, and the ball ends up causing massive vandalization instead of hitting the pins. Makoto thus smiles awkwardly, saying that bowling is not for him; combined with the fact that he still suffers from jet lag, he decides to go rest in Kogoro’s rented car.

A while later, Monna, out of worry, leaves the bowling alley to check on Tanba. When she returns she says that Tanba is missing. Kogoro offers to help (not because he suddenly turns warm-hearted, but because he has been bowling with the two teachers for a while and finds them quite attractive), and Conan and company join in. After a thorough search of the surrounding area, Masaki finds Tanba dead in a small porta-potty in the bowling alley’s parking lot. There are signs that he has been drowned somewhere else and dragged to the porta-potty; and since Tanba was a tall and robust man, Sera deduces that unless several people were involved in transporting the body, the murderer must be extraordinarily strong. Could it be the case that Makoto is the murderer, given that nobody knows where he was during the last few hours (Makoto did not rejoin the group until after the discovery of the body), and he just had a fight with Tanba?

File 860 - The Smell of Kerosene

The rain stops as Yamamura arrives to investigate; he is informed by Kogoro that they actually searched the parking lot two times. During the first search there was no sign of Tanba, for which the searchers went to the bars nearby to look for him, and stayed in those streets for an hour. After yielding nothing there either, they went back to the parking lot, and this time the body appeared. Yamamura asks whether they looked into the porta-potty specifically during the first parking lot search, and the two teachers respond that they did not enter, because there was a sign reading “OUT OF SERVICE”, and the door was padlocked.

Presently a subordinate of Yamamura tells him that the victim died around 5:30, which was when the first parking lot search ended. From these pieces of information, Yamamura deduces that Tanba was removed from their car before Monna went there to check on him, and that after everybody had gone to look for him in bars, the murderer drowned him and dragged him into the porta-potty. Yamamura then asks whether anyone holds a grudge against Tanba, which allows him to quickly learn that he fought with Makoto just a few hours before his unfortunate end. Since Makoto has no valid alibi, Yamamura determines that he is guilty and swiftly handcuffs him. Kogoro tells Yamamura that pronouncing Makoto to be guilty with so few clues is rather inappropriate, but the strongest protest of all comes from Sonoko. She puts herself between Yamamura and a confused Makoto, and declares (while blushing) that someone as outstanding and caring as Makoto must be innocent. This does not convince Yamamura, but after learning that Tanba was electrocuted by a stun gun before being killed and that Makoto is a national karate champion (who obviously has no need for a stun gun for self-protection), he agrees to take the handcuffs off Makoto; he also complains that Makoto should have told him that earlier (Conan remarks that Yamamura already knows Makoto from Sonoko’s handkerchief case).

The investigation continues (more accurately, Sera and Conan continue the investigation, as it starts raining again and Yamamura and Kogoro have gone inside the bowling alley to take shelter). They learn that due to land subsidence in the area, water would accumulate around it whenever it rains; this seems to be a major clue. In addition, the two detectives notice plenty of mud on the lower parts of the wall of the porta-potty, find evidence that duct tape once sealed the door and covered the ventilation grills located at the back of the porta-potty (curiously, the ventilation grills near the bottom of the door were not affected), and realize that kerosene was a part of the murderer’s trick. These clues allow them to see that it is possible that Tanba was actually drowned in the porta-potty.

Having inspected the porta-potty fully, Sera and Conan go indoors as well. There, they are told that a long, clear mark is present on the lower abdomen of Tanba’s body, which might mean that the murderer transported Tanba by grabbing his belt. They also learn that the police have found in the rubbish bin beside the porta-potty a wet towel and four cans burnt around the tear line and with odors resembling kerosene. Upon seeing these, Conan immediately rushes out, believing that there is one critical part of the porta-potty that he previously ignored. Sera quietly follows him there, and both find that a large portion of the ceiling has been burnt. This is the last piece of evidence that they need, and now both have a theory of what happened. However, partially because of her failure in the previous case, Sera is not very confident in herself, and so sends her deduction to her second brother to ask for his nod, and mentions that “he” (i.e. Conan) has gotten to the bottom already. The brother does not comment on her deduction, and instead asks who the “he” refers to. Sera thus sends him a photo of Conan, expecting the brother to be surprised, but she ends up being the one surprised: the reply of her brother is “if it is him then there is no problem”. Sera does not understand why his brother knows about Conan.

File 861 - Just Like Magic

  Show spoilers »

Conan goes back into the bowling alley and, after some efforts, convinces Kogoro and Yamamura to go outside for an “experiment”. They head to a porta-potty that Conan has asked Yamamura’s subordinates to set up (in the name of Kogoro, of course); similar to the original one, due to subsidence, a lot of rainwater accumulates around it. Kogoro is annoyed by the fact that someone has been doing things that he does not even know about in his name, but before he can protest Conan tranquilizes him and announces that the experiment will begin, with Yamamura being its subject. Yamamura accepts, albeit reluctantly, as he does not know what to expect. Conan says that it is simple, and that he just needs to sit on the flush toilet of the porta-potty and wait. He then requests Sera to cover the ventilation grills at the back with duct tape, place four cans partially filled by kerosene onto the shelves of the porta-potty, stuff a piece of paper inside each and ignite them. After this, Sera is to close the door and seal it with more duct tape, and the preparation is done. In the next few minutes, as the burning continues, the pressure inside the porta-potty increases. Eventually, oxygen runs out, the burning stops, and the air pressure reduces rapidly as temperature drops, causing water to be sucked into the porta-potty through the ventilation grills on the door. In this way, the volume of water inside drastically increases, and while at the start of the experiment it reached the lower portions of Yamamura’s legs, now he finds himself completely submerged and unable to breathe. If Sera had not removed the duct tape and opened the door in time, Yamamura would be dead in minutes.

As Sera finishes explaining the physics behind the murder scheme, she turns to Sunami Masaki, and declares her to be the murderer. She conjectures that on the way of taking the drunk Tanba back to their car, Masaki told him that she had forgotten the car key so that she could take him to the porta-potty for “temporary shelter against the rain”. Once Tanba was inside in a sitting position, Masaki would stun him and tie his belt to the flush toilet (in this way, if Tanba tries to stand up to avoid being submerged in water, he will be unable to do so, and a mark will be left on his abdomen as he attempts). Then she set up the cans (without igniting the paper yet), padlocked the porta-potty, put up the sign to dissuade others from approaching, used duct tape to cover the ventilation grills at the back and blocked the entrance to the drainage system nearby with a towel. With everything prepared, Masaki now could return to the bowling alley. She would claim that Tanba was asleep in the car, and encourage Monna to check on him so that she would notice that he was missing and ask her to search for him. This would give her a reason to return to the parking lot. Now that there was enough rainwater around the porta-potty, she would ignite the four pieces of paper (this is why the ceiling appeared burnt), seal the door with duct tape, remove the padlock and the sign and leave Tanba to die. Meanwhile she would convince Monna to head to nearby bars to continue the search so that she would have a valid alibi.

Sera continues stealing Conan’s show time and says that since this alibi will work only if the body is discovered soon after death, the murderer will be desperate to come back as soon as possible. Additionally, under this scheme, the murderer has to make sure that she (or he) is the one to find the body first, because the duct tape and the cans have to be disposed of, the entrance to the drainage system must be unblocked to remove water, the rope used to tie Tanba to the flush toilet must be cut and the completely soaked toilet paper needs replacement (if any of these fails, the police might think that there is something fishy). In other words, that Masaki discovered the body is proof that she is guilty. Another piece of evidence is as follows: since no duct tape was found in the rubbish bin, it must have been flushed down the toilet. Following this line of reasoning, Sera and Conan asked the police to look into the sewage system for retrieval. They have successfully done so, and, unsurprisingly, they have found Masaki’s fingerprints on it (as it is almost impossible to scrape duct tape off a surface with gloves on).

Knowing that the evidence the police have is unequivocal, Masaki admits that she killed Tanba. The motive is somewhat convoluted: Tanba was engaged to a good friend of hers, but since his parents had already picked another girl and were vehemently opposed to their marriage, the desperate couple decided to commit suicide together. However, when they were actually standing on the cliff and looking down at the bottomless ocean, Tanba was scared and, while his lover jumped off and eventually drowned, he stayed on the cliff cowardly and failed to kill himself. Masaki could not tolerate such behavior, and she also wanted the two to rejoin, which prompted her to do it herself.

The case is therefore solved. Presently Sera receives another message from her second brother, and while Aoyama does not show us, the readers, the main body (although it can be inferred that the brother is explaining why he knows Conan), he does kindly allow us to see the P.S. It reads “have you seen the wizard already?”, to which Sera responds “you could say so” as she looks at Conan with a smiley face.

People

Michiko Monna
	30 years old Middle school math teacher

Sunami Masaki
	29 years old Middle school science teacher

Masahiro Tanba
	Victim (drowned) 32 years old Middle school P.E. teacher

Major events

• This is the first time Makoto meets Masumi and had a small fight with her.
• Makoto fights Masumi because he thought that Masumi is a playboy that want to seduce Sonoko.
• Masumi's older brother knows a lot about Conan.

Cover in other countries

• 

  China
• 

  France
• 

  Germany
• 

  Hong Kong
• 

  Indonesia
• 

  Italy
• 

  Korea
• 

  Rep. of China (Taiwan)
• 

  Spain (Spanish, Volumen 2)
• 

  Vietnam
• 

  Thailand
• 

  United States

See also

• Manga
• Volume 81-90
• Detective Conan