Volume 61

Chronology
‹ Volume 60	List of Chapters • List of Cases	Volume 62 ›

Volume 61
Information
Release date:	April 3, 2008
Chapters:	631-641
ISBN:	ISBN 4-09-121340-5
Publisher:	Shogakukan
English release date:	January 10, 2017
English ISBN:	ISBN 1-4215-8684-3
English Publisher:	Viz Media
Featured Detective & Keyhole
Koko Jirokichi Suzuki
Aoyama's death & Conan side images

Volume 61 was released on April 3, 2008 in Japan.

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Sonoko Suzuki Jirokichi Suzuki Lupin Ginzo Nakamori Kaitou Kid Kaoru Akashi (cameo) Aoi Nogami (cameo) Kaito Kuroba Konosuke Jii Hiroshi Agasa Ai Haibara Ayumi Yoshida Genta Kojima Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya Inspector Yuminaga Subaru Okiya Sumiko Kobayashi Azusa Enomoto Shinichi Kudo (background) Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi Hidemi Hondou (background)

Gadgets

Gadgets
Voice-Changing Bowtie

Chapters

Kaitou Kid and the Purple Nail

Heist Info

Purple Nail
	Shoes with 100 carat amethyst

Major events

Kaitou Kid deceives the police again.

Sports Car Arson Case

File 635 - Burn

Agasa and the Detective Boys are on their way to a camping site, but the car runs out of fuel and comes to a stop in a remote mountainous area. Agasa tries to contact Okiya, but finds in dismay that there is no signal. Conan thus proposes three alternative solutions, the first being walking to the gas station that they passed half an hour ago, the second being waiting for someone to rescue them and the third being walking to the luxurious villa on the summit of the hill to ask for help there.

Since the road that they are on has close to zero traffic and the villa is closer than the gas station, a consensus is soon reached that the third solution is the best. However, a car happens to pass through at this moment, and Agasa stops it in order to explain their situation to the driver, a man called Goki Sudo. Sudo initially seems sympathetic towards Agasa’s troubles, but when Agasa finishes explaining he shows his true colors: Sudo insults Agasa, tells him aggressively that he hopes that Agasa is stuck there forever, and drives off while laughing hysterically. Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Genta are all very indignant at the treatment that Agasa has received, and Conan says drily that they might have to beg Sudo for help again. He explains that Sudo’s old-fashioned car is one that wealthy people fancy a lot (of the brand Rolls-Royce), which suggests that he is very well-off and likely owns the villa on the mountaintop as well. As the rest of the Detective Boys clash over whether the third solution is still preferable over the others, an explosion over their head interrupts them. From the statue of the spirit of ecstasy (i.e. the mascot of Roll-Royce) that flies out of the heavy smoke and happens to drop in front of Conan, he deduces that Sudo might be in deep trouble.

Conan thus runs uphill to figure out what has occurred. When he arrives at the villa, he sees a large group of people gathering around a garage engulfed by flames and smoke, and among them there is a woman (called Ena Ginbayashi) desperately shouting Sudo’s name. Firemen soon arrive to put out the fire, and the police, led by Inspector Yuminaga, confirm that Sudo has succumbed to the wrath of the fire. Yuminaga details that apparently, the petrol barrel suffered an accidental spillage, which filled the entire garage with gasified petrol, which reacted with Sudo’s lighted cigarette when he got out of the car and started the fire. Ginbayashi, who is revealed to be the fiancée of Sudo, refuses to believe Yuminaga’s account, saying that she is certain that Sudo has given up smoking after her repeated demands. Yuminaga replies that her belief is hardly believable at all, as, during the inspection of the car remains, the police have found many cigarette butts in the ashtray, as well as a bag containing a lighter and an unopened cigarette case. Yuminaga then concludes that Sudo’s death is an unfortunate accident, but Conan disagrees. He contends that if Sudo was smoking while parking the vehicle, then the police should be able to find an opened cigarette case in the remains of the car. But this is not the case, which, according to Conan, means that someone intentionally spilled the petrol and left a cigarette in the garage so that when Sudo entered he (or she) could start a fire (in some way) and murder him.

File 636 - Cause of Fire

Ginbayashi overhears Conan’s words (directed at the Detective Boys and Yuminaga) and puts forward an alternative explanation for the absence of a cigarette case. She argues that if the cigarette that Sudo was smoking right before his death was the last one in the case, then he would throw the case out of the window right away, leaving none to be found by the police. Following this interchange, Conan becomes almost certain that Ginbayashi murdered Sudo. Haibara asks him why, and he gives the following explanation:

When Yuminaga said that a cigarette caused the fire, Ginbayashi immediately said that it was impossible; this suggests that Ginbayashi believed that Sudo had given up smoking. On the other hand, when Conan said that there was no cigarette case in the car remains, she said that maybe it had been thrown away; this suggests that Ginbayashi thought that Sudo had been smoking on his way home (Conan also notes that if Ginbayashi had truly believed that Sudo had quitted smoking, then her response to his words would have been along the lines of “of course there is no cigarette case! Sudo no longer smokes!”). Therefore, Ginbayashi maintains two contradictory positions simultaneously. This is absurd unless we suppose that Ginbayashi is the murderer. In that case she has motivation to say both (i.e. in that case the contradiction disappears): the pronunciation of her disbelief of Yuminaga’s conclusion was to tell the police that she did not know that Sudo continued smoking and thus could not use that to her advantage; and the proposal of an alternative explanation to the missing cigarette case was an attempt to influence Yuminaga’s deduction process (so that he would forget Conan’s theory about murder and keep thinking about the “accident caused by a cigarette”).

Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta are confused by this explanation (and Haibara’s reaction is not shown), but Conan believes that he is on the right track and vows to find clues that can prove Ginbayashi guilty. Meanwhile, Yuminaga asks Sudo and Ginbayashi’s friends about their activities before Sudo’s death, and learns that all of them were playing a game and that none of them (including Ginbayashi) could go to the garage to do suspicious things (the farthest that any went was to the bathroom) or notice Sudo’s arrival at the villa (they had loud music on). Yuminaga then asks about the spilled petrol barrel, and learns that the spillage also happened the week before and the week before that, both on days when there was a party. Conan believes that this is no coincidence and asks them to provide details. They reveal that on both instances, Sudo was furious when he returned home and noticed the spillage, and subsequently fought with Ginbayashi upon learning that her dog was responsible. They add that neither of the two fights was about the spillage alone: in the first fight, Ginbayashi complained that Sudo was not wearing what she had brought him (a woolen sweater, the one that Sudo was wearing before his death) and was unhappy to see him drive the Porsche (which is of a recent model) instead of the Rolls-Royce. In the second fight, Ginbayashi criticized Sudo for having stopped on his way home to buy water and keeping all their friends waiting (in this fight she did not mention Sudo’s clothing and car because Sudo drove the Rolls-Royce and wore the woolen sweater that she wanted him to wear). They also mention that Sudo did not like woolen sweaters in general, that Ginbayashi accidentally spilled wine on Sudo’s woolen sweater during the second fight and that Ginbayashi once expressed her dislike of old-fashioned cars.

Conan, bombarded by all these pieces of information, tries to connect them so as to get a clearly picture of how the murder took place. He is interrupted by Yuminaga, who removes him from the garage and tells Agasa that they should head to the camping site and enjoy now that his subordinates have refilled his gas tank. Agasa asks Conan whether he has solved the case, and Conan responds that he is almost there, and that he just needs one more breakthrough to fully understand it.

The breakthrough turns out to be right around the corner. Haibara, who wants to get in the car and leave, nicely asks Conan to open the door for her. Conan impatiently tells her to do it herself, but Haibara insists, which makes Conan realize that she is afraid of the shock that static electricity generates while opening the car door. He laughs in disbelief, but as he realizes that static electricity is the key to this case the laughter comes to a stop. After thinking for a while, Conan determines that Ginbayashi is definitely Sudo’s murderer and that she found a way to convert Sudo’s body into a lighter so that he would start the fire that ended up killing him on himself.

File 637 - Crackle

  Show spoilers »

Conan tells Yuminaga in secret that he has come up with a plan to make Ginbayashi admit guilt, which will work if Yuminaga is willing to work with him on it. Yuminaga agrees to cooperate, and thus tells Ginbayashi that the police would like to talk to her in more depth in the police station. Ginbayashi accepts Yuminaga’s “invitation”, saying that she will strive to prove to the police that there is no murderer among Sudo’s and her friends. At this point Conan suggests that she go in Agasa’s car. Ginbayashi declines respectfully, saying that she can drive her own car, but Conan’s insistence and his promise to show her an item belonging to Sudo (that he has not even shown Yuminaga) make her accept the proposal in the end, albeit in a reluctant manner.

Ginbayashi thus goes on a ride back to the center of Tokyo with Agasa, Haibara and Conan (the other members of the Detective Boys go on a police car as per their wish). During the ride, she is inundated by Conan’s comments and questions, which make her slightly uncomfortable. Among other things (e.g. showing her the statue of the spirit of ecstasy), Conan makes sure that she learns that Haibara is wearing a woolen sweater (just like Sudo did before his death) and that Agasa’s Beetle is an old-fashioned car (just like Sudo’s Rolls-Royce). Agasa also does his part in Conan’s plan: on the way, he fakes that he is low on fuel, and therefore needs to head home and refill the gas tank with the barrels of petrol stored in the garage. Since Ginbayashi says that she is fine with it, the Beetle is soon back to Agasa’s. Agasa parks the car and fetches a petrol barrel, but slips on the way back and spills the petrol all over the garage floor (at this point, Conan reminds Ginbayashi that the scenario before Sudo’s death is unfolding again). Since (according to Agasa) there are towels in the trunk, he asks Haibara to open it with the car key. Haibara obeys, but before she can insert the key into the keyhole she is interrupted by a panicking Ginbayashi, who shouts that doing so will release the static electricity and produce sparks. She immediately realizes that she just made a huge mistake, but it is too late. Yuminaga walks into the garage and, together with Conan, reveals her murder scheme: the overall goal was to make Sudo accumulate as much static electricity on himself as possible so that when he inserted the key into the keyhole to lock the car, the sparks generated could react with petrol and set off a fire immediately. In order to maximize the accumulation of static electricity, she urged Sudo to wear a woolen sweater, dissuaded him from stopping on the way home to buy drinks (as this would result in contact with surfaces that can release static electricity safely) and waited until a time of the year when the air is relatively dry to execute her plan. Furthermore, she insisted that Sudo drive the Rolls-Royce because only old-fashioned cars come with a key, which is made of metal and therefore releases static electricity effectively (in contrast, a remote is used to lock or unlock more modern cars, which avoids the release of static electricity entirely). Finally, she spilled wine on Sudo’s woolen sweater a week ago so that he would not wear it everyday. As Sudo disliked woolen sweaters and likely did not have another one, this move made sure that he would not be constantly bothered by the annoying shock from static electricity. In this way, Sudo would not take measures to address this problem, and her plot could go forward.

After hearing this deduction, Ginbayashi straightforwardly admits that she has always wanted to kill Sudo (and destroy the Rolls-Royce along the way), whom she now refers to as a “cold-blooded devil hiding under a human coat”. She recollects that her father was once on a ride with her mother in remote mountains, and suddenly suffered a heart attack. Sudo happened to pass by, and despite her mother (who did not know how to drive) imploring him for help, he refused, and additionally insulted her and told the couple that they should remain there and await death. Her father died shortly after in the absence of medical intervention, and her mother was mentally crushed and followed her husband to paradise a few months later. Before she died, the mother told the daughter about the silver-colored human figure at the front of Sudo’s car, and she was eventually able to find Sudo based on this clue. Ginbayashi finally comments that if she had not stopped Haibara, then they might all be dead already, but Conan says that there is no reason to worry, as the barrel only contains water (on the way back, Conan sent an email to Okiya asking him to change the content of the barrel) and there is actually no keyhole on the trunk of the Beetle.

People

Goki Sudo
	Victim (explosion) 34 years old IT company president

Ena Ginbayashi
	31 years old Sudo's fiancée

Major events

Ran continues to hold Shinichi's hand just about he is going to turn back, she is suddenly tranquilized by Ai and wakes up holding Conan's hand, Conan's identity remains a secret, as Ran belives Shinichi let go of her hand and ran away,however Ai explains if you look closely the sweater Conan is wearing has been cut from the cuff all the way to the he and is held together with safety pins,that proves he put on the sweater while Ran was holding Shinichi's left hand, showing he didn't want to let go of Ran's hand.

Paper Airplane Case

File 638 - Paper Airplane

Subaru Okiya and Shinichi Kudo - on the phone - challenge each other in finding first the solution to the mysterious "paper plane mystery".

People

Ikuo Daita
	Missing company owner Prior boat captain experience

Kidnapper
	Deceased (committed suicide) Ikuo Daita's kidnapper

Major events

• Okiya is shown suspiciously drinking bourbon in the Kudou house.
• Shinichi worries about Ran's safety and rants to the police over the phone.

Azusa's Brother Case

Characters introduced

Sugihito Enomoto
	28 years old Azusa's older brother

File 641 - Destruction

Azusa's brother Sugihito Enomoto is accused of having murdered his boss Takafumi Torihira. Conan and co hurry to try and disculpate him, Conan believing Sugihito's colleague Touji Kawase is actually involved in it. Sugihito seems to be on the lam, and Azusa is accused of hiding him somewhere, and trying to cover him up. Later on, Azusa goes missing, but Conan refuses to believe she ran away.

People

Sugihito Enomoto
	28 years old Azusa's older brother

Takafumi Torihira
	Deceased (Gunshot?) Securities trader

Toji Kawase
	28 years old Securities company employee

Cover in other countries

• 

  China
• 

  Finland
• 

  France
• 

  Germany
• 

  Hong Kong
• 

  Indonesia
• 

  Italy
• 

  Korea
• 

  Malaysia (Chinese)
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  Malaysia (Malay)
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  Rep. of China (Taiwan)
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  Singapore (Chinese)
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  Spain (Spanish, Volumen 2)
• 

  Sweden
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  Thailand
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  United States
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  Vietnam

See also

• Manga
• Volume 61-70
• Detective Conan