The Blind Spot in the Darkness

Chronology
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Episode 170-171 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
Information
Title:	The Blind Spot in the Darkness
Japanese title:	暗闇の中の死角 (Kurayami no Naka no Shikaku)
Original airdate:	November 29, 1999 (Part 1) December 6, 1999 (Part 2)
Season:	7
Manga source:	Volume 24: Files 3~6
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Kogoro Mouri Ran Mouri
Case solved by:	Kogoro Mouri (via Conan)
Staff
Director:	Yasuichiro Yamamoto Kenji Kodama
Organizer:	Michiyo Sakurai
Storyboard:	Michiyo Sakurai
Episode director:	170 Hirohito Ochi 171 Kazuo Nogami
Animation director:	170 Atsushi Aono 171 Hirobi Muranaka
Music
Opening song:	Mysterious Eyes
Closing song:	Free Magic

Characters introduced

Tomoaki Araide
	25 years old Occasionally, basketball coach and school medic at Teitan High School

Hikaru Yasumoto
	22 years old Housemaid

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Inspector Megure Wataru Takagi Eri Kisaki Shinichi Kudo (background)

Gadgets

Gadgets
Voice-Changing Bowtie Stun-Gun Wristwatch

Case

Situation

Part 1

Conan as Shinichi calls Ran but she's got something do and someplace to go. Conan muses that Ran must have something going on, something that's making her happy with anticipation. Hmmm? Next, Kogoro Mouri gets Ran and Conan in the car and drives them to his doctor's office. The doctor had insisted that he bring his family. While they're all in the doctor's home-based office, Ran asks the doctor's wife to use their bathroom. On the way there, she bumps into the doctor's young altruistic and brilliant son, knocks a sheaf of papers from his hands, and experiences a significant touch from his hand to the top of hers when picking up the papers. Later, after accepting an invitation to dinner there, both Kogoro and the doctor's wife suggest that the son, Tomoaki Araide, and Ran marry. They were both enthusiastic about it. Conan was jealous, big time! The doctor gets electrocuted, it's determined to be murder some clues are uncovered.

Murder

Location: Araide house bathroom Victim: Yoshiteru Araide Cause of death: Electrocution in bathtub Suspects: Yoko Araide, Tomoaki Araide, Hikaru Yasumoto, and Mitsu Araide Yoshiteru Araide leaves to take his habitual bath before dinner. A blackout occurs while Yoshiteru Ariade is in the bath. Hikaru Yasumoto resets the circuit breaker once, and then once again when the lights go back out. Yoko Araide and Hikaru go to check on Yoshiteru, and find him dead in the full bathtub with a submerged electric razor.

Conan is quick to discover the cause for Dr. Araide's death: his electric razor has fallen into the filled tub, electrocuting him. Though it seems that Dr. Araide must have dropped the razor himself, Conan notices that some things don't quite add up: Why was Dr. Araide sitting with his back to the mirror mounted at the end of the bathtub when he was shaving? And where did Hikaru get the burn mark on her arm? But what distracts Conan from the case is that Ran and Tomoaki seems strangely drawn to each other, and a disconcerting thought dawns inside him: Could Ran have become interested in Tomoaki now?

Part 2

While Kogoro, Megure, and Takagi test all possible scenarios, Conan discovers several clues missed by the police and adds them up to the solution of the case. And as usual, he stuns Kogoro to use him as a mouthpiece to deliver his conclusions. But Tomoaki vehemently protests the questionings, claiming that none of his family could have done such a thing!

People

Yoshiteru Araide
	Victim (electrocuted) 51 years old Local practitioner Tomoaki's father

Yoko Araide
	46 years old Yoshiteru's second wife

Tomoaki Araide
	25 years old Doctor Yoshiteru's son

Hikaru Yasumoto
	22 years old Housemaid

Mitsu Araide
	74 years old Tomoaki's grandmother

Chiaki Araide
	Deceased Yoshiteru's first wife

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

Conan sets a trap for the murderer, who is revealed to be Yoko Araide, Dr. Araide's wife. The trick had involved stealthily putting the razor into the tub during the first short circuit; then, when Hikaru attempted to switch the light back on, Dr. Araide was electrocuted, causing the second power outage. Because Hikaru had thus unintentionally murdered her employer and would as a result break down if she ever learned the truth, Conan (as Kogoro) and Yoko agree to change the details of the procession of events so that Hikaru would never be burdened by her conscience.

Confronted with the tricks she had used, Yoko confesses that she murdered her husband because her predecessor Chiaki, who was also her best friend and also the first wife of her husband, had succumbed to alcoholism and eventually committed suicide because of Dr. Araide's continuous acts of adultery. After Yoko's arrest, Tomoaki and Ran meet one last time. But contrary to Conan's fears, Tomoaki, who had listened into Yoko's confession and the agreement, is merely asking Ran to deliver his apologies to her father, and Ran is asking Tomoaki to borrow her the sweater he is wearing, of which she knits two copies for her father and Shinichi. Strangely, she giggles in amusement when Conan/Shinichi attests on the phone that he is wearing it right now.

See also

• Season 7