The Teen Novel That Smells Like Guilt

Chronology
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Episode 1103 (Int. Episode 1161)
Information
Title:	The Teen Novel That Smells Like Guilt
Japanese title:	青春小説に罪の匂い (Seishun Shōsetsu ni Tsumi no Nioi)
Original airdate:	November 11, 2023
Filler case:	#406
Season:	TBD
Manga source:	TV Original
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi Miwako Sato
Case solved by:	Kogoro Mouri (via Conan)
Next Conan's Hint:	Stuffed animal
Staff
Director:	Yasuichiro Yamamoto Nobuharu Kamanaka
Screenplay:	Hiro Masaki
Storyboard:	Yasuyuki Honda
Episode director:	Masahiro Takada
Animation director:	Akio Kawamura Naoko Soeda Yui Ushinohama Ayumi Iemura
Character design:	Masatomo Sudo Masanori Hashimoto (sub-character) Hiroshi Ogawa (design works)
Production cooperation:	BIG BANG
Voice Cast: Minami Takayama as Conan Edogawa Wakana Yamazaki as Ran Mouri Rikiya Koyama as Kogoro Mouri Chafurin as Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi as Wataru Takagi Atsuko Yuya as Miwako Sato Kosuke Okano as Chu Masamura Go Shinomiya as Yoshito Yoshinari Kenji Hamada as Hiroki Kataoka Saki Nakajima as Chigusa Takeuchi Masumi Taira as Mrs. Yasuki Yuki Sanpei as Liquor store owner Motoki Sakuma as Bookstore clerk Rikako Yamaguchi as Female staff
Music
Opening song:	Unraveling Love ~Sukoshi no Yūki~
Closing song:	…and Rescue Me

The Teen Novel That Smells Like Guilt (青春小説に罪の匂い ,Seishun Shōsetsu ni Tsumi no Nioi) is the 1103rd episode of the Detective Conan anime.

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Juzo Megure Wataru Takagi Miwako Sato

Gadgets

Gadgets
Stun-Gun Wristwatch Voice-Changing Bowtie

Case

Situation

Masamura asking Kogoro to investigate Yasuki.

This time, Kogoro took over an unusual affair, from a well-known novelist who specialises in teen novels particularly, named Chu Masamura. He requested Kogoro to investigate regarding a deceased, who is called Taizo Yasuki, who died recently during a car accident. He persistantly emphasised his need, to ascertain all of the late Yasuki's friends and acquaintances, especially those "questionable" ones.

Kogoro thus set off to work, he inquired around the Yasuki residence and saw a man dressed in a formal suit, talking to Yasuki's mother, and that person turned out to be the new Haido City assembly member, who is named Hiroki Kataoka. So Kogoro interviewed him with some questions within his office. Kataoka confessed the fact that Yasuki and he were classmates during high school, but not very close, apparently. But no matter how Kogoro inquired further, the assembly member insisted on the same statement, so he had to call off the investigation forcibly right there. Before leaving, Kataoka handed Kogoro some flyers to help spread the news about him being the new assembly member for Haido City.

Afterwards, Kogoro learned that Yasuki loved reading books in bookstores, but when Kogoro reached out the bookstore owner, the owner said that Yasuki had quit the bookstore for some time already, with the reason of writing his own novel. Everything had returned to the starting point - novel, so Kogoro visited his client Masamura's apartment. As he pushed the door open, what he saw was only Masamura's cold dead body lying in front of the apartment entrance.

Murder
	Location: Masamura's apartment Victim: Chu Masamura Age: 30 years old Cause of death: Blunt-force trauma Suspects: Unknown Right beside the victim, there was a tiny notebook deposited, which has "215, 222, SAME" written on it.

The content in Masamura's notebook.

Kogoro felt exceedingly confounded, and was still reckoning the meaning with regards to the casual characters on the notebook, and failed to notice the culprit behind him... The culprit sprayed pepper particles onto Kogoro's face and knocked him down afterwards.

Assault / Attempted Murder
	Location: Masamura's apartment Victim: Kogoro Mouri Age: 38 years old Injury: Blunt-force trauma Suspects: Unknown

Everyone discussing about the case in the hospital.

In Haido Central Hospital, Kogoro was being awakened by Ran and Conan. Inspector Megure was accompanying him as well, whilst checking out Kogoro's condition. Although he was prayed by the culprit with pepper sprays, his health issue was not problematic. When Conan asked him about the culprit's identity, Kogoro murmured that he did not get the chance to see the face of the culprit. Just at this instant, Conan perceived that the door of Kogoro's sickhouse slid faintly, but when he went to check, no one was outside. Is this an illusion or a reality？According to Megure, Masamura has been receiving threatening letters for months now; most of them were telling him to cease the serialisation of his new novel, which was about a group of boys attacking adults with metal bats as though it were a game, and the setting was from 20 years ago. On the other side, Takagi called upon Yasuki's house and inquired of Tasuki's mother, about the mystical novel he had been writing before his death. The name of it was "Middle-aged Man Hunting Days". Based on this title, Kogoro was able to surmise that, Masamura probably plagiarised Yasuki's manuscript when he showed him for suggestions; this explains why he would only dare to begin serialising this novel after Yasuki's death. What is more, after some time, he started to receive numerous threatening letters, which made him think that the plot within Tasuki's novel might not be made-up, but rather, a real-life experience of his. In this aspect, the people sending those threatening letters might be the other perpetrators who were involved in that incident 20 years ago. Therefore, Masamura approached Kogoro to investigate Yasuki's friend circle, in order to back up his assumption.

Kataoka's fliers and the threatening letter.

The content of the threatening letter is as follows: Cease serialisation of your novel "Scary Little Monsters" in "Del Mondo" magazine immediately. If you refuse to comply, consider yourself forfeit! Not just yours either. Your family and friends, too. Consider yourself forfeit!

Detective Sato found out that Hiroki and his classmates, Yoshinari Yoshito, did dreadful matters during their student times. Accordingly, she went around to talk to these two: Hiroki was quite cocksure and declared that "his inetgrity is spotless", but went hysterical after hearing those "accusations"; Yoshito on the other hand, is fairly calm in contrast, but also denied the statement.

It was time for Kogoro to take the temperature, and the nurse walked into Kogoro's sick house and remarked that Kogoro really looked like his late father, and he showed a photo of her and his father. In that photo, she was holding a stuffed toy shark in her hand, smiling along with her father. Later on, Conan solved the "code" written on Masamura's notebook. He offered that all clues were inside the novel that Masamura was serialising - 215 is the date of when that described incident in the novel took place. It was also snowy on that day; the man that the boys attacked had a stuffed shark, which matches the romanji, S-A-M-E. But there was still a mystery unsolved regarding the 222.

Takagi confirmed the alibis of the two suspects; they all had one when Masamura was murdered. Kogoro also pondered deeply: how could the culprit enter Masamura's apartment with him on guard due to the received thretening letters? After some thinking, Conan dashed into the library and was searching for something on the computer; it was about the incident from 20 years ago. But he realised that there were not even a tinge of snowflakes falling on the 15th of February, and instead, the attack actually happened on the 22nd of February, according to the online newpaper Conan found. After looking depper into it, he figuered out the truth completely, and was about to reveal the unmitigated tragedy...

People

Chu Masamura
	Victim (beaten) 30 years old Author

Taizo Yasuki
	Deceased (traffic accident) 34 years old Amateur novelist

Hiroki Kataoka
	34 years old City assembly member Yasuki's former classmate

Yoshito Yoshinari
	34 years old Sushi chef Yasuki's former classmate

Chigusa Takeuchi
	29 years old Haido Hospital nurse

Man A
	Yasuki's friend

Man B
	Yasuki's friend Bookstore clerk

Man C
	Liquor Store owner

Man D
	RANSUN mart employee

Woman
	City assembly employee

Mrs. Yasuki
	Yasuki's mother Housewife

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

There were stains on the right edge of the paper, which are lines 94mm apart.

Conan leaves from the library, with all the truth contained in his mind, he then liaises everybody into Kogoro's sick room and he begins the deduction. He starts to explain the dying message...

The Truth of The Dying Message

As Conan found earlier in the library, the attacks happened on February 22nd, not February 15th. With both Kataoka and Yoshinari reunited, he says that the one who sent the threatening letters to Masamura was none other than Hiroki Kataoka, as the printer stained both the threatening letters and Kataoka's fliers, meaning that he was the one who sent them. He admits that he was against Masamura publishing a novel of attacking men, as it might generate a bad influence on youth, even though he, along with Yoshinari and Yasuki were part of the attacks of February 22nd, 20 years ago, meaning that Masamura wasn't really involved. Kataoka admits that he didn't kill Masamura, as he was in Haido Hotel at the time. Yoshinari also had an alibi. So, who did the murders?

The Real Culprit

It turns out there was someone hearing behind the door of the hospital room: Takeuchi, the nurse that said that Kogoro is similar to her deceased father. The shocking truth is that Chigusa Takeuchi, as her given name is Chigusa, was the daughter of Yuji Takeuchi, the man who was attacked by the three men. She is the culprit who killed Masamura. That day, Mr. Takeuchi was supposed to give a stuffed shark as a present for her daughter, but on his way back home, he was attacked in the process. She confesses that she only wanted to know what happened to his father. It was their fault Chigusa's family fell apart, as her father lived in hospital for the rest of his life before dying, and her mom remained frail for experiencing fatigue.

Yuji Takeuchi
	Deceased (beaten) Chigusa's father Office worker

Chigusa visited Masamura's apartment because she wanted to point out the mistake he made in putting the wrong date of the attack, which meant a lot to her, as it was the day that she lost her most precious person. That is why on Masamura's notebook, the wrong date 215 was crossed, and the correct date, 222, was written beneath it. Since Chigua is only a girl, Masamura let her in easily, despite the threatening letters. But here comes the incredible part, after disclosing all the sorrows, Masamura did not sympathise with Chiguasa, but began to pressure her to give her statement, and that is how it feels to be a victim. Feeling scared of being attacked just like her father, she sprayed pepper gas and beat him with the baseball bat. Chigusa cries in repentance of how she did the same thing Kataoka and his friends had done to her father. Yoshinari shows regret, but Kataoka doesn't, meaning that he doesn't care at all about the attacks. Megure says that Kataoka will probably receive a visit from investigators to investigate the threatening letters.

Murder (Past)
	Victim: Yuji Takeuchi Cause of death: Blunt-force trauma Culprits: Taizo Yasuki, Hiroki Kataoka and Yoshito Yoshinari

Aftermath

After being released from the hospital, Kogoro encounters some admirers, ad obviously he went with them. Conan exclaims how he thought Kogoro was supposed to work.

Trivia

The same novel by Kaori Shinmei in episode 493.

• In one of the magazines that Masamura serialises his novel, Kaori Shinmei's name appeared on the front cover.
  • An interview with her is probably published in the magazine, regarding her work "The Murderer From Hell" (黄泉からの殺人者).
  • This novel also appeared before in Clash of Red and Black (Exclamation), as the book the victim Kakuzo Okudaira used as his dying message.
• Kogoro's gold business card reappears in this episode.

See also

• Current Season