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

Major events

Conan imagines Ran in a wedding dress. Lots of Sato and Takagi moments!

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 romantic TV series was filmed. The protagonists are a young army officer and the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur, and they meet each other after the officer is able to retrieve the girl’s red handkerchief from a maple tree. They then fall in love, but the officer is forced to flee the country as his boss is jealous about their relationship. They remain apart for several years, not hearing from each other, until one day the girl receives a telegraph in which the officer hints that they shall reunite in the “redness of the maple forest”, on the morning of new year’s eve. Since it is winter, no maple tree still has red leaves left, and the forest only has a thick white coat of snow. So the girl is unable to find the “redness” even after a long search. Just when she is about to give up and looks around for the last time, she spots a bright red handkerchief, prominently hanging on a bare maple tree. She runs towards the tree, and sees that her lover is indeed there. They immediately decide to elope and are forever happy afterwards. Since this scene (which is the last scene) is very touching, it has prompted a large number of fans to head to the forest and tie red handkerchiefs to trees themselves. As a result, they are at present ubiquitous in some parts of the forest. Sonoko, who is not expecting this situation, is deeply frustrated, as it squanders her plan to imitate the series (by tying a red handkerchief herself and sending a message to Makoto) and lure Makoto out for a romantic rendezvous (as he will not be able to distinguish between Sonoko's handkerchief and all the other ones).

Sonoko therefore decides to take all the other handkerchiefs off (very unrealistic), but she is interrupted by a man who claims to be part of the TV series crew. This person apologizes to Sonoko, explaining that it is indirectly his fault, as he was the one who gave the scriptwriter the idea of including a scene where a red handkerchief is tied to a tree (and he was in turn inspired after spotting one in the forest while searching for a place to film). The man also reveals that as the series became popular and fans bombarded TV stations with requests and inquiries, he was tasked to respond to them. For example, on 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 him). He has found the tree, but has forgotten the number of the fan, and is too tired to go down to the inn where the fan stays in order to tell him that personally. Therefore he asks Ran and Sonoko to leave a message to the fan (so that the fan will know that the man is waiting for him or her at the spot where the last scene is filmed) in the guestbook of the inn. Ran and Sonoko agree to help, and ask how they should sign the message; the man replies that signing “Hozumi” in katakana will suffice.

The three visitors therefore set off for the inn, and in this way Sonoko 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 (twice) and is dead. They also are able to find Hozumi’s notebook, which is lying on the forest floor some distance from his body; there is a bloodstain on the date April 1st.

File 542 - Name in Katakana

Conan notices the presence of a lot of dirt in Hozumi’s nails, and, from the relative warmth of his body, determines that he has been killed within the last 30 minutes. He also senses that a considerable number of people are hiding in the trees and bushes around him and watching every movement of theirs. However, Conan is unable to figure out who they are (he later asks the police about this, but they are not even aware of the existence of those people and only found an empty tent in the forest) or what they are up to. 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 ridiculous deductions and then decides to head to the inn where Conan and company went previously in order 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 Buckley respectively. Yamamura's questioning of them does not yield much useful information, as none of them has a valid alibi, and all 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; this surprises both him and Conan, and prompts them to take a closer look at the list of crew members. Yamamura complains that the dates on the list are all messed up; the word “date” turns out to be a hint for Conan, and it allows him to quickly understand the meaning of the bloodstain on the date April 1st. He then runs back into the forest, finds a tree to which a single red handkerchief is tied, murmurs that Hozumi must have dug something up before meeting his killer and finds a human skull beneath the forest floor, directly under the handkerchief. On a tree behind Conan, someone is spying on him.

On the other hand, Sonoko is watching the international karate tournament that Makoto is participating in on live television (from Yamamura’s pad). She is very happy to hear the commentator mention that Makoto has a winning streak of 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 grew suspicious), he marked the burial spot by tying a red handkerchief to the tree above it. The red color would hide it from passersby as people normally would visit this area in autumn only, 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; as a result, he tried to blackmail Watanuki, which got him killed. Hozumi was stabbed twice because Watanuki noticed that he was not alive after the first stab and left something in his notebook. After ensuring that Hozumi was indeed dead, Watanuki left the crime scene with the notebook. But since he failed to understand the dying message, he thought it was valueless, and therefore simply 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 unnatural), there must have been a distance between the last scene’s filming place and Watanuki's tree (i.e. the place of inspiration), which is why killing Hozumi before he could reveal the location of the tree was not a good idea. 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 (of about 50 gangsters) 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 Ran is injured. Sonoko is still holding Yamamura’s pad at this moment, and presently the commentator is announcing that the next match features Makoto (“Japan’s pride”). Knowing that her boyfriend would be of use in such circumstances, Sonoko shouts "Makoto, please help" in desperation. As she says so, there is a disturbance on the outermost part of the encirclement, and soon men are sent flying in the sky. Since there is a dense group of men between her and the disturbance, Sonoko and company have no idea of what is going on initially. But as more gangsters meet the same fate and the disturbance makes its way to the center of the encirclement and evolves into a full-scale riot, they are able to discern a single person taking on the whole gang and defeating the gangster one after another. In the meantime, the karate commentator reports that Makoto has been missing since three days ago, and wonders where he is. This makes a still-crying Sonoko realize that her plea might have worked, miraculously.

Finally, the person manages to defeat half of the gang, and, with a swift leap, appears beside Sonoko - it is Makoto indeed. The next minutes involve him trying to talk to Sonoko and explain why he is there, but being constantly interrupted by challengers - impetuous ones, as none of them is a match for Makoto. Watanuki finally has had enough and takes out his pistol, but is immediately knocked down by Ran. Then the two great warriors collaborate to finish off the rest of the gang, and by the time Yamamura arrives, every single one of the gangsters has been beaten up and is unconscious. Later on, 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. Since his pride did not allow him to ask Sonoko, Makoto decided to set up a tent in the forest and camp there until Sonoko came (this sign of dedication greatly pleases and moves 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. Conan wonders how it is possible that Makoto still has not fought enough.

People

Hozumi
	Victim (stabbed) Assistant director

Isamu Okuma
	25 years old Akagi Inn guest

Tatsuzo Watanuki
	63 years old Akagi Inn guest

Hans Buckley
	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

• 

  China
• 

  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