Conan and Heiji's Nue Legend

Chronology
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Episode 872-874 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
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Information
Title:	Conan and Heiji's Nue Legend
Japanese title:	コナンと平次の鵺伝説 (Konan to Heiji no Nue Densetsu)
Original airdate:	September 9, 2017 (Squealing) September 16, 2017 (Claw) September 23, 2017 (Resolution)
Broadcast rating:	6.3% 7.5% 6.8%
Manga case:	#277
Season:	27
Manga source:	Volume 90: File 10 (958) ~ Volume 91: File 3 (962)
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Heiji Hattori Ran Mouri Kazuha Toyama Sonoko Suzuki Rei Furuya Azusa Enomoto Kogoro Mouri Shinichi Kudo Sango Yokomizo Gin Vodka Misao Yamamura Makoto Kyogoku
Case solved by:	Conan Edogawa Heiji Hattori
Next Conan's Hint:	Buried treasure (Squealing) Giant monster (Claw) Plastic bottle (Resolution)
Staff
Director:	Yasuichiro Yamamoto
Organizer:	Umesaburou Sagawa
Storyboard:	Umesaburou Sagawa
Episode director:	Ep. 872: Youko Fukushima, Hiroaki Takagi (assistant), Ep. 873: Hiroya Saitou, Ep. 874: Nobuharu Kamanaka
Animation director:	Ep. 872: Yuuyui Ushinohama, Chie Morishita (assistant), Aya Sasaki (assistant), Hayase Makiko (assistant), Tanaka Miho (assistant), Ep. 873: Akane Imada, Miwa Ooshima, Ep. 874: Kousei Takahashi, Kenichi Ootomo
Voice Cast: Minami Takayama as Conan Edogawa Wakana Yamazaki as Ran Mouri Rikiya Koyama as Kogoro Mouri Ryo Horikawa as Heiji Hattori Yuko Miyamura as Kazuha Toyama Naoko Matsui as Sonoko Suzuki Tohru Furuya as Tooru Amuro Mikiko Enomoto as Azusa Enomoto Akio Otsuka as Sango Yokomizo Tomomichi Nishimura as Densuke Takekuma Katsuhisa Houki as Michiki Tanzawa Issei Futamata as Yasukatsu Someji Rumiko Ukai as Fumie Masuko Soichiro Hoshi as Hajime Tsurumi Satsuki Yukino as Momiji Ooka Toshiya Chiba as Self Defense Forces Personnel A Yukinori Okuhata as Self Defense Forces Personnel B
Music
Opening song:	Lie, Lie, Lie,
Closing song:	Yume Monogatari

Characters introduced

Momiji Ooka
	17 years old Kyoto high school student

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Heiji Hattori Ran Mouri Kazuha Toyama Sonoko Suzuki Rei Furuya Azusa Enomoto Kogoro Mouri Shinichi Kudo (background) Sango Yokomizo Misao Yamamura (background) Gin (background) Vodka (background) Makoto Kyogoku (background)

Case

Situation

The fact that Azusa's doppelganger was playing her in the previous episode is revealed when Azusa says that she didn't go to the concert hall. However, only Conan and Amuro himself knows that the doppelganger was actually Vermouth in disguise. Conan thinks that since Vermouth bothered to investigate, the Black Organization must really be interested in the cipher left by Kōji Haneda seventeen years ago. Azusa also reveals that she saw a strange duo in front of Mōri Detective Agency talking something about "cleaning rags".

Roar

The strange couple was actually Heiji and Kazuha. They were talking about "rags to riches" which has a similar pronunciation. They came because the mayor of Yadori village had found an important clue and sent Heiji a letter requesting help to unearth Tokugawa's buried treasure. Kogoro is nonchalant to the idea since the treasure will end up belonging to the government anyway. Scared of the dangers of treasure hunting, Ran initially refuses but consents when Kazuha and Heiji suggest that Shinichi might be invited there too.

The organizer and mayor Takekuma Densuke drive them to a run-down hotel. The hotel prospered at a time when tourists came to see the Kurogane Lake but since the incident when a member of the team unearthing Tokugawa's buried treasure died in an excavation accident. According to the legend, when Ieyasu was nearly captured in the war by Imagawa, an old couple hid in the Kurogane Forest. When the country finally stabilized, he gave the couple and their son a mountain of gold coins to thank them for their kindness. This is clearly mentioned in a nursery poem: "In the morning and evening sun, two thousand jars glitter with a thousand gold coins." The reporter, Hajime Tsurumi flirts with Kazuha and Ran facing Heiji's wrath. A dog appears which seems to like Tsurumi, making him to admit he doesn't like dogs.

Ran wanted to give an answer to Shinichi's confession in London and is sad because it seems the mayor didn't invite him. Meanwhile, Hattori is planning something on his own, probably a confession to Kazuha in a magnificent place and time.

Charles Abel was a foreigner who spoke broken Japanese. He was the one who got in the accident. When the team arrived, he was still alive, his body jammed between the rocks but he couldn't speak as his throat was destroyed. He was handed a piece of paper and pen to write. The team froze seeing what he had written "nue", a monster who has the head of a monkey, body of a tanuki (Japanese Raccoon Dog), legs of a tiger and tail of a snake. It is named after a bird which has the same eerie voice. The mayor actually wants to revitalize the town and gain publicity by making a video of the treasure hunt.

Accident (Past)
	Location: Yadori Village's Cave Victim: Charles Abel Age: Unknown Cause of death: Cave-In Accident

Nue appears in the middle of the fire.

When they go to sleep, Heiji notices fire in front of the hotel. When they rush to the site, the nue appears. It rips the warning sign and takes it away with its mouth. Heiji and Conan take the other way to avoid the fire. When they arrive, there are teeth marks in the signboard though the creature is nowhere to be seen. Conan finds blood spots on the ground. On going a bit further in the forest, they find Someji, the historian dead with long scratches on his back as though he was attacked by a wild beast.

Murder
	Location: Yadori Village's Lakeside Victim: Yasukatsu Someji Age: 55 Years old Cause of death: Slash Wound in the Back Suspects: Densuke Takekuma, Michiki Tanzawa, Fumie Masuko and Hajime Tsurumi

Claw

Someone directed the mayor in a letter to invite the people to revitalize the village. The unknown sender also mentioned who should stay in which room. Ran and Kazuha exchange rooms and their room is taken by Tanzawa Michiki, the archaeologist. The reasons for inviting each of them were also mentioned. Tanzawa once examined the area of Shizuoka in the past. Until a few years ago, he was famous as a commentator in TV programs on ruins. However, he experienced a setback when some pottery he unearthed was suspected of being fake. Masuko Fumie is an author who is knowledgeable about Japanese monsters. She graduated from an art school.

The letters also suggested using the nue to revitalize the town if the buried treasure didn't work. Someji Yasukatsu, the murdered documentary reporter was a historian knowledgeable about Tokugawa's buried treasure. The letter simply suggested that Tsurumi Hajime is a fledgling reporter who travels across the country for monster stories. The members of the excavation team have all disappeared and even their names are unknown. Heiji was invited because the mayor had spent some amount of money for repairing the hotel so he was unable to invite Kogoro and also was unable to contact Shinichi.

While they are talking, fire engulfs the area and they hear the nue's scream. Tanzawa is heard screaming. He is found lying dead in his room with two sting marks on his chin, probably poisoned.

Murder
	Location: Yadori Village's Villa Victim: Michiki Tanzawa Age: 62 Years old Cause of death: Poison Suspects: Densuke Takekuma, Fumie Masuko and Hajime Tsurumi

Inspector Yokomizo Sango of Shizuoka Police appears. He seems suspicious of the situation initially but on seeing the evidence, he contacts his superiors to mobilize the self-defence force, a little too much of exaggeration on his part. The mayor mentions a drop of water falling on his cheek and the simultaneous sound of opening of a carbonated beverage. Fumie denies having to do anything with it and Tsurumi was too far away from the site of the incident.

Resolution

Conan and Heiji explain the tricks used to create the nue and expose the culprit. (See Resolution below)

People

Densuke Takekuma
	58 years old Mayor of Yadori Village

Michiki Tanzawa
	Victim (poison) 62 years old Archaeologist

Yasukatsu Someji
	Victim (slashed) 55 years old Historian

Fumie Masuko
	46 years old Novelist

Hajime Tsurumi
	22 years old Reporter Doesn't like dogs

Charles Abel
	Deceased (cave-in accident) Foreign Miner

Dog
	Golden Retriever Former Owner was Charles Abel

Self Defense Force Member
100px	Shizuoka Prefectural Military Self Defense Force Member

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

Faking the Nue

The culprit used perspective shift to simulate the enlargement of the size of the nue. She used a screen with a steep drawing of the windows in the hotel and dressed the dog as the nue. The tree in the line of sight of the observer and the darkness of the night combined with the smoke make the nue appear larger in size. The dog was trained to carry the sign on hearing the nue's cry, which was exchanged with the real sign with the giant teeth marks next to Someji's body to make it appear that the nue had killed him. The sound of the nue can be produced by rubbing a moist finger against the surface of a glass with water in it.

Clues and Evidence

• Faking perspective requires the knowledge and experience of an artist.
• Under the guise of putting out the fire, the culprit scattered metallic sodium to ignite the fire the next time.
• Putting an empty ballpoint pen tube in a cork, securing tape around it, then closing and shaking the soda water bottle, the culprit could shoot water at a distant target.
• Tanzawa was similarly poisoned by attaching a twin-pronged poison dart to the cork instead of a tube. The weapon was retrieved using a string attached to it.
• The culprit probably trained the dog and planted the tree to obstruct the view when she came to the hotel before.

Conclusion

Fumie admits she killed the two victims. Charles Abel was actually her husband. During the accident, Tanzawa and Someji had run away without trying to help Abel. Even after all these years, they had no repercussion of their deeds and shamelessly came to unearth the treasure that had once caused their teammate's death. Charles was actually trying to write "metal" ("tetsuno" in Japanese) as he had found a metallic hairpin. As a foreigner, he had never seen one before and after writing "metal", he was trying to show the team the paper and the hairpin to ask them what it was. But since he wrote with a permanent marker, the ink bled through producing "nue" instead. Heiji also reveals that Hajime is the son of Fumie and Charles. This is why, the dog recognizes him as his former owner. She invited Hajime to have him see her avenge his father. Similarly, according to one legend, the nue was actually the mother of Minamoto Yorimasa, who transformed into the beast so that her son could slay it.

Aftermath

Heiji tries to confess his feelings for Kazuha, but is disturbed by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force landing nearby on the orders of Yokomizo to capture the Nue and secure civilians. Surrounded by soldiers, Heiji decides not to confess. Some time later, the high-school student Momiji Ooka reads about the case on her smartphone and calls Heiji her future husband.

Gallery

• Shinichi and Ran E872.jpg

  Ran thinks about Shinichi's confession in London.

• Nue EP872-874.jpg
• Ran and Kazuha EP872-874.jpg

  Ran and Kazuha are scared thinking of Nue.

• Heiji and Kazuha Second Confession Attempt E874.jpg

  Heiji attempts to confess his love for Kazuha once again.

See also

• Season 27