The Mansion of Death and the Red Wall

Chronology
‹ A Dangerous Party of Two	List of Episodes	Rainbow Color Kidnapping ›

Episode 558-561 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
Information
Title:	The Mansion of Death and the Red Wall
Japanese title:	死亡の館、赤い壁 (Shibou no Yakata, Akai Kabe)
Original airdate:	December 5, 2009 (Three Visits) December 12, 2009 (Item in Hand) December 19, 2009 (The Late Komei) December 26, 2009 (Empty Fort Strategy)
Season:	18
Manga source:	Volume 65: File 6 (682) ~ Volume 66: File 1 (686)
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Kansuke Yamato Yui Uehara Taka'aki Morofushi
Case solved by:	Taka'aki Morofushi Conan Edogawa Kansuke Yamato
Next Conan's Hint:	Red paint (Three Visits) Chess (Item in Hand) Operating gown (The Late Komei) Italy (Empty Fort Strategy)
Staff
Director:	Koujin Ochi
Organizer:	558 Seiki Taichuu 559 Seiki Taichuu 560 Takaomi Kanezaki 561 Takaomi Kanezaki
Storyboard:	558 Seiki Taichuu 559 Seiki Taichuu 560 Takaomi Kanezaki 561 Takaomi Kanezaki
Episode director:	558 Fumiharu Kamanaka 559 Aisu Mugino 560 Kouichirou Kuroda 561 Akira Yoshimura
Animation director:	558 Nobuyuki Iwai, Tomomi Kamiya 559 Akio Kawamura, Michiyuki Nojo, Yusuke Suzuki 560 Michitaka Yamamoto, Masashi Hasegawa 561 Masatomo Sudo, Junko Yamanaka, Seiji Muta
Voice Cast: Minami Takayama as Conan Edogawa Wakana Yamazaki as Ran Mouri Rikiya Koyama as Kogoro Mouri Yuji Takada as Kansuke Yamato Ami Koshimizu as Yui Uehara Sho Hayami as Taka'aki Morofushi
Music
Opening song:	MAGIC
Closing song:	Hikari

Characters introduced

Taka'aki Morofushi (Komei)
	35 years old Inspector from Nagano Prefecture Arano Station

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Kansuke Yamato Yui Uehara

Case

Situation

Three Visits

Kansuke Yamato and Yui Uehara takes Kogoro, Ran, and Conan to a mansion. Uehara reveals that the mansion was owned by a rich man in the past; The man one day decided to search for five talented people and gave the five a room in the mansion until they have reached their dreams. Uehara reveals that six people, Shusaku Akashi, Aoi Kobashi, Naoki Midorikawa, Shoji Yamabuki, Takuto Momose, and Shiro Naoki, referred to each others as colors that sound alike to their names. They were called Aka (赤?, Red), Ao (青?, Blue), Midori (緑?, Green), Yamabuki (山吹?, Golden Yellow), Momoiro (桃色?, Pink), and Shiro (白?, White) respectively. Yamato reveals that the doors in the mansion swung outward and that someone used a pile of boxes filled with books to trap Akashi inside a room. They examine the room to find one wall of the room painted red and in the center of the room a white and black chair placed back to back and nailed into the ground with the white chair facing the red wall.

Murder (Past)
	Location: Mansion of Death Victim: Shusaku Akashi Cause of death: Starvation Suspects: Naoki Midorikawa, Shoji Yamabuki, Takuto Momose, and Shiro Naoki

Yamato's rival, Taka'aki Morofushi whose name can be read in Chinese as Komei, arrives and reveals he was the first to find the body as he was delivering flowers to the late Aoi who died from a heart attack in the storage room of the house. Conan reveals that the culprit knew the door would open outwards in the house and the location of the boxes of books which means the culprit is one of the three people who use to live in the mansion.

Item in Hand

Yamato tells Komei to take Ran and Conan with him to investigate the four suspects. They learn that Akashi and Aoi were avid chess fan and that Aoi was adored by all her friends. After investigating the four, they believe Naoki is involved in the murder in some way and travel to his apartment to arrest him. Upon arrival, they find that Naoki has been strangled and that the culprit had spray painted the wall in front of Naoki red.

Murder
	Location: Apartment Victim: Shiro Naoki Cause of death: Strangulation Suspects: Naoki Midorikawa, Shoji Yamabuki, Takuto Momose, and Taka'aki Morofushi

Komei then heads off to investigate the case on his own.

The Late Komei

Komei investigates the crime scene at the mansion and realizes who the culprit is. Before he could text his answer to Yamato, he is knocked unconscious by the culprit.

Attempted Murder
	Location: Mansion of Death Victim: Taka'aki Morofushi Suspects: Naoki Midorikawa, Shoji Yamabuki, and Takuto Momose

Arson
	Location: Mansion of Death Suspects: Naoki Midorikawa, Shoji Yamabuki, and Takuto Momose

The building is set ablaze and Komei is saved by Uehara. At the hospital, Conan and Yamato deduced from Komei's incomplete text "The late Komei" was a saying which was alluded from the Battle of Wuzhang Plains; the moral of the story is that one can have great influence even after death. They believe that the culprit murdered Akashi to avenge Aoi's death. Conan and Yamato then realize what Akashi's dying message means.

Empty Fort Strategy

Komei regains consciousness, together they conclude that they lack the evidence to capture the culprit and thus decide to use the Empty Fort Strategy to lure the culprit out.

People

Shusaku Akashi
	Victim (starved) Illustrator

Aoi Kobashi
	Deceased Novelist Shusaku Akashi's wife

Taka'aki Morofushi
	35 years old Inspector from Nagano Prefecture Arano Station

Naoki Midorikawa
	38 years old Actor

Shoji Yamabuki
	39 years old Fashion designer

Takuto Momose
	37 years old Computer graphic creator

Shiro Naoki
	Victim (strangled) 36 years old Musician

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

Using the strategy to lure the culprit out, they created the sense that no officers are guarding Naoki's apartment and successfully lure Naoki Midorikawa. Yamato reveals that Akashi had katakana spray painted on his wall indicating Naoki Midorikawa to be the murderer. Naoki, who was meeting his old friends to ask for money, finds Akashi and having misread the message began to spray it over with red paint cans. He realized that the message was indicating Naoki, takes a picture of the message, and uses it to extort money from Midorikawa. Conan reveals that Akashi had prepared the room to indicate the murderer to be Midorikawa even if the message was painted over. Conan reveals that the white chair was facing the red wall while the black chair was facing the white wall. This corresponds to chess piece colors where white makes the first move. Conan explains that the message tells a person to look at the red wall then look at the white wall; Doing so causes one to see a green complementary color afterimage which indicates Midorikawa. Midorikawa confesses and explains that he blamed Akashi was Aoi's death since she got a heart attack from frantically searching for a portrait of herself. He reveals that Akashi had painted over the portrait since he lacked the money to buy more painting supplies and had Akashi told her, she would not have died. Komei reveals that Akashi was working on a new portrait for her in secret and had intended to surprise her on her birthday. Midorikawa having realize his mistake breaks down in tears.

Trivia

  Show spoilers »

• The door to the room where Shusaku Akashi was barricaded in and the rolling trolley blocking the door were both undamaged. This would imply that Shusaku Akashi did not mount a serious attempt to escape by trying to break down the door or pick the lock. Normally it would be expected that a desperate starving person who had the energy to break a window to leave a dying message would attempt to escape imprisonment rather than docilely accepting death.

See also

• Season 18