The Pop-up Book Bomber

Chronology
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Episode 883-884 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
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Information
Title:	The Pop-up Book Bomber
Japanese title:	絵本から飛び出す爆弾魔 (Ehon Kara Tobidasu Bakudan Ma)
Original airdate:	December 2, 2017 (Part 1) December 9, 2017 (Part 2)
Season:	26
Manga source:	TV Original
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Kogoro Mouri Ran Mouri Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi Kazunobu Chiba
Next Conan's Hint:	Pop-up book (Part 1) Seven (Part 2)
Staff
Director:	Yasuichiro Yamamoto
Voice Cast: Minami Takayama as Conan Edogawa Rikiya Koyama as Kogoro Mouri Wakana Yamazaki as Ran Mouri Chafurin as Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi as Wataru Takagi Isshin Chiba as Kazunobu Chiba Soumei Uchida as Hiroyuki Tomonaga Daichi Hayashi as Male Announcer Nana Hayama as Female Announcer Chiaki Kobayashi as Delivery Member Hikari Kubota as Phone Voice
Music
Opening song:	Lie, Lie, Lie,
Closing song:	Togetsukyō ~Kimi Omou~

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Kogoro Mouri Ran Mouri Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi Kazunobu Chiba

Case

Situation

Part 1

A package consisting of a smartphone and a print proof of a book entitled Grandpa Tick Tock and the Three Clocks by Kenichi Imai was deivered to the Mouri Detective Agency. Meanwhile, an explosion on a pachinko named Sandcastle happened on a gloomy weather.

Bombing
	Location: Sandcastle Pachinko (Unknown location) Victim: None Age: Unknown Cause of death: Explosion Suspects: Unknown An explosion on a pachinko named Sandcastle. This event was reported on television.

The connecion of the seemingly unrelated explosion and the delivery was revealed to be related after a call on that smartphone mocked Kogoro and hints again on another bomb at a certain block in Haido City. The book has a riddle that is related to the case: on a bus station, five people are waiting. A bus with three passengers arrived. Two passengers get off the bus at the next stop while a passenger rode the bus. How many are the people on the bus when it arrived at its destination?

  Show spoilers »

The answer is three. Although there are five people waiting on the first station, it is not stated that they rode that particular bus. As there are three passengers and the driver is in the bus intially, there are four people on the first stop. On the second stop, there are two passenger who left and a new passenger who rode the bus, which means on the final destination there are three people on the bus. (3 intial passengers + 1 driver = 4 people. 4 people - 2 passengers = 2 people. 2 people + 1 passenger = 3 people)

Kogoro then called Inspector Megure about the issue, and Kogoro, Ran and Conan went into the place. Immediately after they arrived, Inspector Megure asked the police to find the said bomb and called Inspector Takagi, showing a possible suspect: a bomber named Takuji Hirukawa. Then, Inspector Chiba, with the publisher named Hiroyuki Tomonaga, checked the book which was stolen and narrated what happened. The author of the book, Kenichi Imai tried to enter a book contest when a rumor about his half-brother, identified as Takuji, was posted to the internet causing him to withdraw the contest. After his death, Hiroyuki have tried to publish the book, however the print proof was retrieved by his half-brother, who attacked him to make the attempt successful.

Attempted Bombing
	Location: Block 3, Haido City (found); Kanematsu Park, Haido City (disarmed) Victim: None Suspects: Takuji Hirukawa An attempted explosion that was apparently made due to hatred at the "detective" who posted incriminating information about him and his half-brother. The bomb was disposed safely by Kogoro before it was apparenlty stopped.

Part 2

Attempted Bombing?
	Location: Haido/Beika City? Victim: None? Suspects: Takuji Hirukawa Three bombs...

Bombing/Robbery
	Location: Haido/Beika City? Victim: 2 Megrez security employees Suspects: Takuji Hirukawa Takuji, disguised as a police officer, interpellated the two employees in their van and made it explode to get the money inside.

People

Kenichi Imai
	Deceased Created the Book Grandpa Tick Tock and the Three Clocks

Takuji Hirukawa
100px	38 years old Known to be a Bomber

Hiroyuki Tomonaga
	45 years old Publisher of Kenichi Imai

News Announcer
100px	Male TV Announcer

Security guard
100px	victim (explosion-injured) Megrez security employee

Security guard 2
100px	victim (explosion-injured) Megrez security employee

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Hiroyuki Tomonaga. As proof, though the bombs were equipped with timers, they were rigged to be controlled by a remote. According to Forensics, this would work only upto a range of 30 meters. So, the culprit had to be close to the bomb to speed up the timer. Furthermore, the culprit had to coordinate the incoming texts with Kogoro's actions. Tomonaga volunteered to go with the Police to achieve this. He suggested Takuji Hirukawa to attack the transport truck carrying the money while making it look like he was out to avenge his brother.

Bombing/Attempted murder
	Location: Haido/Beika City? Victim: Takuji Hirukawa culprit: Hiroyuki Tomonaga Hiroyuki tried to make the police think the culprit commit suicide by killing Takuji via explosion and take the rest of the money but Takuji was saved at time by Conan.

Hiroyuki Tomonaga attempted to flee with the remaining stolen money but was caught by Conan (via Kogoro Mouri). He was caught red-handed when he blurted that Hirakawa must have been dead, which was not broadcasted on the news. Conan did not understand when Tomonaga, who had forgotten about the solutions to the riddles in the picture book, suddenly started talking about the various illustrations in it. This was when he also realized that the culprit wanted Hirakawa's suicide and the illustration in the book to overlap. Hirakawa was, however, saved thanks to Kogoro's (Conan's) reasoning and plan to send Inspector Takagi and Chiba before the Police to save him, which they successfully accomplished in the nick of time.

Conan started suspecting Tomonaga when he said that the author left the proof for his brother. This was contradictory to the fact that the 'proof' was merely a photocopy, as it does not make sense for a proof to be misaligned. Naturally, Hirakawa would have wanted his brother's original creation but he didn't have it. This only meant that Tomonaga still possessed the proof and had looked it through during the case, but he lied about reading it. All these facts pointed out that Tomonaga was the mastermind.

When asked why he didn't give the original book to Hirakawa, he explained that Hirakawa's brother's work was truly a masterpiece and he couldn't give it to a criminal, despite him being a family member.

The book was successfully published later and won the "34th New Author Award".

Gallery

• TakagiAndChiba.png

  Takagi and Chiba save Hirukawa

See also

• Season 26