Volume 52

Chronology
‹ Volume 51	List of Chapters • List of Cases	Volume 53 ›

Volume 52
Information
Release date:	January 16, 2006
Chapters:	533-543
ISBN:	ISBN 4-09-120026-5
Publisher:	Shogakukan
English release date:	October 14, 2014
English ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-4215-6508-8
English Publisher:	Viz Media
Featured Detective & Keyhole
Robert Ironside Misae Yamamura
Aoyama's death & Conan side images

Volume 52 was released on January 16, 2006 in Japan.

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Hiroshi Agasa Ai Haibara Ayumi Yoshida Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya Genta Kojima Sonoko Suzuki Makoto Kyogoku Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi Miwako Sato Kazunobu Chiba Ninzaburo Shiratori Yumi Miyamoto Misao Yamamura Yoko Okino (background)

Gadgets

Gadgets
Voice-Changing Bowtie Stun-Gun Wristwatch

Chapters

Star Blade Case

File 534 - Connection Sneak Peek

  Show spoilers »

Bungo Tatei wants to kill himself and have his friend Joji Narukawa accused of actually murdering him, in order to avenge his girlfriend Ami's death, caused more or less by Narukawa. Though, Conan and co stop him from doing so, and explain him the truth.

People

Bungo Tatei
	Freelance cameraman

Joji Narukawa
	Tatei's friend

Ami
	Deceased Tatei's girlfriend

Fake Wedding Case

File 537 - Wedding Battle

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Masateru Taira.

People

Rinzo Gunji
	42 years old

Teigo Shimabukuro
	30 years old

Fukuharu Karube
	36 years old

Masateru Taira
	31 years old Groom

Rei Masudo
	28 years old Bride

Overturned Belongings Case

File 540 - The Thing He Wanted to Hide

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Toshihisa Manda.

People

Toshihisa Manda
	53 years old Novelist

Kohei Haramoto
	Victim (beaten) 28 years old Manda's apprentice

Novel
	Manda's pet cat

Shimaki
	Editor

Ichimura
	Housekeeper

Sonoko's Handkerchief Case

Characters introduced

Misae Yamamura
	85 years old Misao Yamamura's grandmother

File 541 - Sonoko's Red Handkerchief

Sonoko takes Ran and Conan to a maple forest in the mountains of Gunma Prefecture where a well-received and touching romantic TV series was filmed. In one of the most important scenes of this series, the lead actor (who starred as a young soldier fighting in a war abroad) tied a red handkerchief to a tree branch and sent a telegraph to his lover where he implicitly told her to reunite with him there after years apart. This prompted a large number of fans to go to the forest and tie red handkerchiefs to trees themselves. As a result, red handkerchiefs soon become ubiquitous in some parts of the forest, which means that Sonoko's scheme to imitate the series (by tying a red handkerchief herself and sending a message to Makoto) and lure Makoto out for a romantic rendezvous will not work (as he will not be able to tell Sonoko's handkerchiefs from all the other ones).

The three visitors encounter a man who claims to be part of the TV series crew. He explains that he was the one who gave the scriptwriter the idea of including a scene of tying a red handkerchief to a tree in this forest, because he had spotted one while searching for a place to film. Due to this, as the series became popular and fans bombarded TV stations with requests and inquiries such as “where was the scene shot?”, he was tasked to respond to them. He further says that that day he has been asked by a fan to find the exact location of the tree with the original red handkerchief (i.e. the one that inspired the scene). He has found the tree but has forgotten the telephone number of the fan, because of which he asks Ran and Sonoko to leave a message for the fan in the guestbook of the inn where the fan is staying and to sign the message 'Hozumi' in katakana. Ran and Sonoko agree to help and set off with Conan for the inn to leave the message; Sonoko thus forgets to tie her handkerchief. After leaving the message she realizes this and thus returns to the forest with Conan and Ran, and they discover that Hozumi has been stabbed and is dead. They also discover the notebook of Hozumi, which is on the forest floor some distance from his body, and there is a bloodstain on the date April 1st.

File 542 - Name in Katakana

Conan finds dirt in Hozumi’s nails and is able to deduce that he has been killed within the last thirty minutes because of the relative warmth of the body. He also senses that a considerable number of people are hiding in the trees and bushes around and that they are watching him, Ran and Sonoko. However, Conan is not able to figure out who they are (he later asked the police about this, but they were not even aware of the existence of those people and only found an empty tent in the forest) or what their purpose is. Detective Yamamura arrives after Ran calls the police; he turns out to be a fan of the TV series as well (and he started watching upon his grandmother's recommendation). After being informed of what happened, Yamamura makes some nonsense deductions and then decides to head to the inn in which the fan entrusting Hozumi to find the tree stays so as to obtain further clues. After being shown a list of the inn's guests, Conan and Yamamura are able to narrow the suspects down to three people, who are named Isamu Okuma, Tatsuzo Watanuki and Hans Berkeley respectively. Yamamura's questioning of them does not yield much useful information, and all three claim that they do not know the TV series in question at all. Meanwhile, one of Yamamura's subordinates informs him that there is nobody in the TV series crew named Hozumi. Yamamura takes a close look at the list of crew members and complains that the dates on it are messed up. This unintentional hint allows Conan to understand the bloodstain on April 1st and he heads into the forest alone. He finds a tree to which a single handkerchief is tied, murmurs that Hozumi must have dug something up before meeting the culprit and finds a human skull beneath the forest floor.

On the other hand, Sonoko is very happy to hear that in the karate tournament that Makoto is participating in, the commentator presents him as someone who has not lost in all his 400 matches despite only being 18 years old.

File 543 - Superman

  Show spoilers »

Conan tells Ran on the phone that Agasa is going to pick him up and uses the call to give instructions on how to get to the tree with the original handkerchief (this is aimed at the culprit, whom Conan deduces to be Tatsuzo Watanuki and who can hear the phone call). Watanuki arrives there soon after and Conan confronts him and begins his deduction. It turns out that Watanuki once murdered someone and buried the body under a tree in the maple forest. In order to find the body later (for relocation in case that someone grows suspicious), he marked the burial spot by tying a red handkerchief to a tree branch. The red color would hide it from passersby as people normally would visit this remote forest only in autumn, when there are plenty of red leaves. But since that handkerchief ended up inspiring the popular series and a lot of people subsequently tied red handkerchiefs nearby, it became impossible for Watanuki to find his handkerchief and tree. So he contacted Hozumi and paid him to find his tree for him. Hozumi did, but he also found the body. Hozumi thus tried to blackmail Watanuki, and this got him killed. He was stabbed twice because Watanuki noticed that he was not immediately dead after the first and left something in his notebook. Watanuki then left the killing scene with the notebook, but since he failed to understand the dying message, he thought that there was nothing valuable in the notebook and thus threw it away. Conan also notes that since the TV series crew did not want Watanuki's handkerchief to be filmed (having two handkerchiefs in one scene would be weird), there would be a distance between the filming place and Watanuki's tree, which is why Watanuki could not quickly find it after killing Hozumi at their meeting place (which is a rock that appears in the scene) before he could reveal the location of the tree. Finally, Conan says that he knows that Watanuki is the culprit even if he has not come back to the forest because the dying message "April 1st" implies his surname.

Watanuki does not deny any of these; instead, he summons his henchmen (previously hidden behind various trees) to kill Conan, who is unprepared for such a large crowd and initially planned to stun Watanuki by using his wristwatch. Ran, who is worried about Conan, arrives with Sonoko and the three begin fighting with Watanuki's subordinates. They are soon overpowered, and Sonoko shouts "Makoto, please help" in desperation. Makoto then suddenly appears and, since his martial abilities are superior to Ran's, brings the situation under control together with her. By the time Yamamura arrives to arrest the criminals, they have all been beaten up and are unconscious. Later, it is revealed that the buried body belonged to one of the lieutenants of a criminal organization that Watanuki is also affiliated with; he was killed as both vied for leadership and Watanuki wanted to reduce competition.

On their way back to Tokyo (Agasa drives), Makoto mentions that he became a fan of the series due to his sister’s obsession with it; for this reason he was able to partially understand Sonoko's message. The part that he could not figure out is when they are supposed to rejoin. As a result, he set up a tent in the forest and plans to live there until Sonoko comes (this sign of dedication greatly pleases Sonoko). In the last panels, Makoto is reminded of the karate tournament that he abandoned upon seeing Sonoko's message, and he asks Agasa to drive to the airport (despite having been disqualified) so that he can fight the champion to see who is better.

People

Hozumi
	Victim (stabbed) Assistant director

Isamu Okuma
	25 years old Akagi Inn guest

Tatsuzo Watanuki
	63 years old Akagi Inn guest

Hans Berkeley
	41 years old Akagi Inn guest

Trivia

• The title for each chapter are worded as the following in Case Closed:

• File 533 - Suspicious Behavior
• File 534 - The Fateful Premiere
• File 535 - Panic at the Wedding Hall
• File 536 - The Uninvited Guest
• File 537 - Wedding Battle
• File 538 - The Topsy-Turvy Room
• File 539 - The Upside-Down Mystery
• File 540 - What He Wanted To Hide
• File 541 - Serena's Red Handkerchief
• File 542 - A Name in Katakana
• File 543 - Superman

Cover in other countries

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  China
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  Finland
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  France
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  Germany
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  Hong Kong
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  Indonesia
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  Italy
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  Korea
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  Malaysia (Chinese)
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  Malaysia (Malay)
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  Rep. of China (Taiwan)
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  Spain (Spanish, Volumen 2)
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  Sweden
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  Thailand
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  United States
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  Vietnam

See also

• Manga
• Volume 51-60
• Detective Conan