The Unsolvable Ice Trap

Chronology
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Episode 687 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
Information
Title:	The Unsolvable Ice Trap
Japanese title:	誰にもとけない氷の罠 (Darenimo Tokenai Kōri no Wana)
Original airdate:	February 16, 2013
Season:	22
Manga source:	TV Original
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Ai Haibara Professor Agasa Detective Boys
Case solved by:	Professor Agasa (via Conan)
Next Conan's Hint:	Gypsum
Staff
Director:	Yasuichiro Yamamoto
Screenplay:	Asami Ishikawa
Storyboard:	大河桝玖
Episode director:	Shigeru Yamazaki
Animation director:	Akio Kawamura Masanori Hashimoto
Voice Cast: Minami Takayama as Conan Edogawa Kenichi Ogata as Professor Agasa Megumi Hayashibara as Ai Haibara Yukiko Iwai as Ayumi Yoshida Wataru Takagi as Genta Kojima Ikue Otani as Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya Takaharu Onishi as Akira Haraguchi Akira Sasanuma as Forensics officer Yasuo Muramatsu as Tarou Yamaguchi Tokuyoshi Kawashima as Kazuyuki Ogi Hitomi Nabatame as Mika Itakura Kōsuke Meguro as Tetsuya Shiota
Music
Opening song:	TRY AGAIN
Closing song:	Hitomi no Melody

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Ai Haibara Professor Agasa Ayumi Yoshida Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya Genta Kojima

Gadgets

Gadgets
Voice-Changing Bowtie

Case

Situation

At the Ice Festival, Conan, Haibara, Agasa, and the Detective Boys are having a great time together. While in the festival, they meet the chairman of the Ice Festival named Mika Itakura. She and her father are Agasa’s old friends but unfortunately, Mika’s father died in a car accident last year and the brakes in the car malfunctioned. He was the father of the village. While they were walking together, they meet the ice engraver named Tetsuya Shiota who made an awesome ice sculptures. The Detective Boys are really impressed at him when he built an ice sculpture of a bear while using a chain saw. The people in the village also made an awesome work of the ice festival. Until sudden, the village head named Tarou Yamaguchi and the secretary named Kazuyuki Ogi appear and they both said that they are going to remove the ice sculptures so the hotels are going to be built soon. It’s chosen by the panchayat. Yamaguchi already signed the contract which made Mika and Shiota disappointed. The main gate suddenly collapsed and they’ll fix it back.

Later at night, Shiota and Mika are taking the group to the Ice Hotel so they could sleep. About the ice hotel, in order to liven the festival up, Shiota suggested it, but unfortunately, it’s backfired. The village does have financial difficulties. The chief is trying to attract people to Resort Toto and the village, there are no points to collect. The ice hotel they made then, it caught the eye of the chief. He negotiated and it shows an interest beyond. The ice hotel is made for the festival, but it’s been reversed now, so they’re forced to close it down. It’s their trump card. When they arrived, they see the beautiful view of the ice hotel. While walking around the ice hotel, they witnessed Ogi getting kicked out by Yamaguchi while he’s telling Ogi that he’s not helping him at all. Then he threw the papers at him and closes the door. Ogi picks up the papers and fled.

While inside the ice cabin, the Detective Boys are enjoying lying down on the fluffy beds. Mika tells them good night and closes the door. At 4:06 AM, Mitsuhiko came out of the restroom and saw something that scares him. He went back into the ice cabin and sleeps with other kids. Mitsuhiko is still scared unfortunately. The next morning, when Ogi come inside Yamaguchi’s ice house, he screams and Yamaguchi is found dead with strangle marks on his throat.

Murder
	Location: Ice Hotel Victim: Tarou Yamaguchi Cause of death: Strangulation Suspects: Mika Itakura, Tetsuya Shiota, and Kazuyuki Ogi

Conan tells Haibara to call the police afterwards. The police arrive at the Ice Hotel and investigate the crime scene. The police inspector from Niigata Prefecture, Akira Haraguchi, confirms that the cause of death was the suffocation by the compression of the airway. The estimated time of death is around 2 AM. Since the strangulation is not at the back of the neck, the culprit was here, impose a fine string-like weapon on the top of the sleeping bag. The bag was burned around the neck.

Meanwhile, Inspector Haraguchi is questioning Mika. Mika was at the festival repairing the main gate with Shiota. Shiota was at overnight getting his tools. When Haraguchi asks Shiota what time did he leave the workplace, Shiota answers he was there at 12 and 4 AM. Both times for about ten minutes. Conan mentions that it seems like the entrance to the Yamaguchi’s ice house needs a key and wonders how would the culprit even get in. Haraguchi says that there can be many key duplicates. Mika knows that Ogi is the only one with duplicates. Because of a custom key, Shiota only was able to make two, including the master key. Haraguchi asks Ogi why does he have a duplicate and Ogi nervously answers that in the morning, he decided that he was going to wake him up. After the chief locked the entrance, only Ogi was able to enter and exit the dome. So Haraguchi asks Ogi where he was last night at 2 AM, Ogi said that he was making documents in the office. He swears that he didn’t kill Yamaguchi.

While Conan walks at the side of the big ice house, he notices a small hole. He looks through it and he sees two crime scene investigators working. The Detective Boys runs to Conan but Ayumi accidentally slips. The reason why it’s slippery is because they’re on the ice rink. The water is to blame. Ice melts when pressure is applied. When you’re on the weight-bearing leg, you can melt the ice by stepping down. In fact, water is on the ice so the frictional force decreases. Mitsuhiko says he saw the chief last night. It was about 4 in the morning. He needed to use the bathroom. In the dome, he saw Yamaguchi’s flying soul. Conan finally figured who the culprit is after hearing Mitsuhiko’’s strange testimony.

People

Mika Itakura
	27 years old Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Ice Festival

Tetsuya Shiota
	43 years old Ice engraver

Tarou Yamaguchi
	Victim (strangled) 61 years old Village head

Kazuyuki Ogi
	34 years old Secretary

Akira Haraguchi
	31 years old Inspector from Niigata Prefecture Police

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

The police are about to take Ogi to the station but stopped by Conan using Agasa’s voice with the voice changing bowtie and Agasa has to make mouth movement to make it look like what Conan says. Conan says he finally understand the whole truth of the case. You don’t need to enter the dome but there is a weapon that did tighten his neck. The Detective Boys brought a big block of ice and two PET bottles. The description of the trick: the village chief died, using PET bottles and string, which is what Agasa is about to show. Conan tied a string with two PET bottles and puts the string on top of the block of ice. The string slowly goes down. When pressure is applied to ice, it melts. Ice melts when there is pressure applied, but it soon re-freezes. The culprit tried to do this when the chief was sleeping. The trick works outside the dome. With this, they’re able to kill him from anywhere around. Genta brought the small block of ice which is the weight that was used by the culprit. When Haraguchi tries to pull the cord out of the ice, it won’t budge because it freezes. The culprit uses the lighter to burn the string. That’s why there were scotch marks by the neck. The string in ice won’t burn so easily but actually it is not burning. The culprit actually used the magnesium ribbon and it burns intensely. When Agasa uses the lighter, the ribbon creates a will-o’-the-wisp which is what Mitsuhiko saw. This must have burned the bag. The magnesium compound is burned and it’s magnesium oxide. The same thing was observed in the dome. It clears up in less than five minutes and Mika is not the culprit. For the success of this trick, one must go to the position of the sleeping chief. Like if they sleep anywhere else besides in the bed. Then Conan only knows of one person to whom it can be, the man who designed the ice hotel. The culprit is Tetsuya Shiota. Suddenly, Shiota asks how he knows where Yamaguchi sleeps. Agasa answers that the VIP bed was the perfect size for the chief. It certainly was strange, for an entire dome to have such small bed. The bed was made to fit his body. As evidence, there should be white powder on Shiota’s sleeve. It adheres when using the murder weapon, it’s the magnesium oxide. Shiota confesses to his crime and reveals Yamaguchi made Shiota sick to his stomach. Shiota was running errands to the office the other day and he heard that Yamaguchi and Ogi are talking. Yamaguchi said he reached the agreement and claims that it’s about time limit of the village’s money. Also Ogi said that he’s the one who worked the car to make it look like an accident. The expenses of the festival had been embezzled by Yamaguchi. Shiota used the long-awaited ice hotel as a murder weapon and he played the waiting game to get an iron-clad alibi. He waited for the best possible time to kill him, to create an alibi so that Mika takes no sin. Also Shiota was the one who made the main gate collapsed. Shiota wanted to protect Mika.

See also

• Season 22