“Surely it hasn’t been that long since the last Sara Watches Detective Conan post,” I naively say. I was then crushed with the realization that my last Sara Watches Detective Conan post was made on Valentine’s Day. Look, I’m sorry, I’ve been busy with other stuff that I’ve had the motivation to make.
However, I think I’ve found a good way to be able to balance those things with this. Hopefully the schedules that come out of this will go over well with you guys. And if not, I’m willing to continue workshopping this until I find something that works. Enough yammering. Let’s get into your regularly scheduled Sara Watches Detective Conan post.
EPISODE 9: The Tenkaichi Night Festival Murder
Anime Original or Manga Sourced?: Manga sourced, Chapters 59 through 61
Is this my first time experiencing this story?: No
I’m not even going to do the thing I’ve been doing since Episode 4 regarding what order TMS decided to adapt episodes in. Just assume that, until I state otherwise, any manga sourced case where I do not state in my writeup what volume the case comes from is not from Volume 2. This will last until all Volume 2 cases have been adapted.
Now, this episode starts quite uniquely compared to the Detective Conan episodes that have aired at this point. In the previous episodes, we discover the crime scene alongside our main characters, and figure out the clues that determine who the killer is alongside our main characters. In this episode, however, we actually get to see the crime go down, and even get to see the face of the killer.
Now, someone who’s never gotten to this point in Detective Conan before (either in the anime or the manga)would probably start asking “well, if we already know who the culprit is, what mystery do we even get to solve?”, to which I say place a pin in that. We’ll cover that later.
However, as we don’t need to figure out how the case went down, I am willing to provide the details of it: the room was ransacked, and the victim was shot by a gun while he was brushing his teeth, with his money being taken as well. The culprit then fled after the shooting, throwing away what they were using to hide their identity, as well as the murder weapon, into a body of water.
So, we already know that the victim was Satoru Imatake and the culprit was Norikazu Sasai. All on the night of the Saitama Tenkaichi festival, as well.
Speaking of the Tenkaichi festival, that’s where Conan, Ran, and Kogoro are currently at, to celebrate! Though, as one may notice when you look at Conan…
yup, he’s stuck with a pink bunny balloon. Maybe this is a standard item given to young kids at festivals? Maybe it’s some sort of “if he wanders off in a crowd and gets lost, there’s a way to identify him” item added by Ran? Either way, it’s still really silly to see him be stuck with this balloon following him.
During the festival, however, they run into Sasai, who states that he’s there to do a report on local festivals, and Ran decides to help him take photos of the festival with his disposable camera. After the first photo has Conan’s balloon stray into the frame and Sasai insist that it’s fine alongside a conversation, we get this line, which paired with Conan’s expression, is something that I can’t help but have a brief chuckle at. I think the main reason is because of Conan’s expression.
During the taking of the other photos, however, someone comes up behind Sasai. This person is none other than Inspector Sango Yokomizo, a member of the Saitama Prefecture Police. While he’s mainly referred to by last name in this episode, I will refer to him as Sango to prevent confusion with another police inspector who also has the last name of Yokomizo. This is mainly so that if they ever appear in a case together, I’ll already be in the habit of referring to them by first name instead of last name, so that I don’t have to constantly add modifiers to the last name.
Because of Sango finding Sasai and taking him back to the hotel room that’s the scene of the crime (alongside Conan, Ran, and Kogoro), Kogoro starts his investigation. At the moment that Kogoro goes to investigate the body, Sango proceeds to ask what he is doing, where Kogoro drops his famous status. As it turns out, Sango is a Sleeping Kogoro fan.
When Conan and Kogoro both go to investigate the same thing on the body, however, it lead to a scene that I found amusing.
…okay, what happens after that last screenshot isn’t funny, what I find funny is that the two are in sync with investigating the body. Terrible for Conan’s “regular kid” routine, but amusing for the audience.
Sango then calls out Sasai as a suspect, but Sasai insists that he can be cleared from suspicion after developing the film on his disposable camera. And among the pictures are a picture that shows him at the Tenkaichi festival at the same time that the murder was stated to have occurred. However, since we already saw Sasai do the deed, the mystery becomes how did Sasai manage to get the picture that secures his current alibi.
The investigation continues, and we even get to be introduced to a character named Yamada. This isn’t the last time we see him in the series. Honestly, I feel like it’s a good introduction. While he doesn’t play a major part in the solving of the case, I feel like it’s a good way to get a basis for who he is as a character before the next case he appears in.
Conan does figure out how the trick was pulled off, however, and does the whole Sleeping Kogoro shebang…except that while Conan managed to keep his balloon down for a good chunk of the time, it does eventually come out of its hiding spot before Conan can use Kogoro’s voice to provide the smoking gun evidence. And, well…
Yup, Ran finds Conan. With a baton pass to Sango, however, the smoking gun evidence that proves that Sasai was fabricating an alibi comes to light. After finding out his motive, the cuffs get put on Sasai as he gets walked out.
There’s also a post-credits scene where Sango congratulates Kogoro on solving the case, and we get this line from Kogoro.
I hate to say it, but this genuinely matches the feel of the gaps between new manga sourced episodes this year. Unless TMS really steps up their game in the remainder of the year, 2026 (5 manga sourced episodes as of 09/09/2026) could join 2019 (7 manga sourced episodes) and 2020 (6 manga sourced episodes) in the club of years with only a single digit number of manga sourced episodes, which would suck for an anniversary year, especially since the previous _0 anniversary years still managed to hit around the same number of manga sourced cases as the non-anniversary years (For context, 2006 had 21 manga sourced episodes and 2016 had 18 manga sourced episodes, which is in the range I consider to be usual for Detective Conan seasons). Still don’t know the reason why 2019 had so many anime originals, but at least 2020 had an understandable reason for why there were so few new manga sourced episodes.
And I am going to stop there before this post devolves into me ranting about how it feels like the 30th anniversary for Detective Conan is just meant to be a jingling keys fest instead of actually celebrating the series. If they were celebrating the series, they would’ve adapted that case by now, considering how much that moment would be hyped up when animated, especially considering how long we’ve had to see those two not do or even misunderstand that thing! …sorry to have to go all “narrative obscuring who the culprit is” on you, but since my mom (who doesn’t keep up to date with the manga) reads these posts, I need to obfuscate the manga spoilers. If you know, do not speak up.
Now watch as I do all of this talk only for it to age horribly because I did it during September when this talk would be best suited for like…December. If it does age horribly, do not tell me, I’ll know the instant it ages horribly because I already actively check Detective Conan stuff.
Okay, back to Episode 9 talk, this was a fun episode! I like how this episode provides a nice shake-up to the sort of episode structure we had before. While it may seem odd here in the anime, since this case actually comes later on in the manga, it’s a nice way of making the scene where Sasai almost gets away hit harder and make you feel some sort of fear, because we know he’s the culprit, and if he gets away then it’d be a case that Conan failed to solve when he’s managed to solve every case thrown at him up until now. While yes, this is the land of fiction, where Conan manages to turn the tables in the end, I have the feeling that little 11 year old me had that fear when she saw the episode for the first time.
Man, it’s going to be good to watch these older episodes while still keeping up with the simulcast. That way, regardless of my thoughts on the recent simulcast episode, I can still watch Detective Conan content that, for the most part, I remember enjoying a lot.
Previous Post: Episode 8
Next Post: Episode 10 (Goes live on September 15th, 2026 at 12 PM [PDT])
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