Sara Talks Anime

Before I continue on the Detective Conan spree, I’d like to give a quick update on my own health: while I think I may be coming down with something based on what I’ve observed with my own body, I think it’s more on the mild side compared to what my parents have. Considering previous times me and my parents have gotten sick, however, this seems to track pretty well, because I swear that every single time that both me and my parents get sick, I have a more mild version of whatever they have.

Anyway, oh boy. This is the first episode of Detective Conan to take up more than one standard episode slot. It takes up two standard episode slots! And compared to future extended episodes, this one feels more like it was made into an extended episode because of a decision made by a higher up instead of being intended to be an extended episode from the beginning. Trust me, once we get into discussion of the contents of the episode, you will understand why I’m saying that.

Now, without further ado…

EPISODE 11*: The Moonlight Sonata Murders**

* In some international releases of this episode (for example: Funimation’s original DVD releases), this episode was split into two standard length episodes. Sara Watches Detective Conan uses the original Japanese broadcast episode number for its numbering, as this is the numbering that Crunchyroll uses.
** Listed on Crunchyroll in both the subtitles and the metadata as The Piano Sonata “Moonlight” Murders. While Crunchyroll’s title is a more accurate translation of the original Japanese title, it comes at the cost of sounding a bit clunky to me as a native English speaker. As a result, I’m picking a title that makes more sense to me while trying to keep the meaning as close to the same as possible.

Anime Original or Manga Sourced?: Manga sourced, Chapters 62 through 67

Is this my first time experiencing this story?: No

Hopefully this is the only time that I find it necessary to edit an episode title from what Crunchyroll has it down as. Like, I’m sorry, but using just “Moonlight Sonata” is so much simpler for everyone to understand. Also, unrelated to the content of the episode, but I’m actually listening to the Moonlight Sonata on repeat as I write this.

Anyway, the episode begins with Conan, Kogoro, and Ran on their way to Tsukikage Island. As it turns out, Kogoro got a letter claiming to be from Keiji Aso to investigate the island, stating that the shadows will be swallowed by light (or something along those lines) starting on the next full moon.

As it turns out, however, not only is Keiji Aso not down as a resident of the island, Keiji Aso isn’t even alive, as his family, as far as we know, is dead, and died while he was playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata as his house was burning, supposedly as an act of suicide. Sometimes, I have to sit back and wonder how 11 year old me first reacted to this episode. Unfortunately, it was so long ago that I cannot give a confident answer as to how I initially reacted, but I bet she was absolutely floored at the story.

Conan, Ran, and Kogoro decide to go outside, where they meet Narumi Asai, a doctor on the island. She gives them directions to the community center, and even plays up how the island is qui–

…oh, yeah, there’s also a mayoral election going on. There are three candidates, one of whom is the current mayor, though his popularity has been on the decline. There’s also a wealthy guy, and this guy who wants to protect the island’s fishing industry.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from reality, it’s that we should never let rich people get into positions of power. Oh yeah, today’s also the memorial of the previous mayor. As if the election wasn’t enough when it comes to politics being brought up in a Detective Conan episode. Now, this isn’t a bad thing. Just that this episode is a lot more overtly political compared to the Detective Conan episodes that came out prior to this episode.

And yeah, the current mayor really isn’t liked, due to the fact that there are literal protestors outside on the exact same day as the previous mayor’s memorial. Something something “no time like the present” something something “previous president’s memorial”…

Oh, yeah, not only do we meet other characters that will end up being either victims or suspects later on in the episode, but Kogoro’s going to the community center to be able to talk with the current mayor. And while Ran comes up to her father…Conan has disappeared.

Don’t worry, we haven’t gotten to anything problematic yet. He just found the piano room, where the piano that Keiji Aso played is stored. One of the guys we met earlier states that the piano is cursed because two people died there while Moonlight Sonata was playing, but Conan tests the piano and is like “seems fine to me”.

Conan, Ran, and Kogoro later sit outside while the memorial for the previous mayor is going on, but during this, someone leaves the memorial, claiming to be heading to the bathroom. Once the sound of Moonlight Sonata’s first movement begins ringing out, however, our key players head to the piano room…where we find Hideo Kawashima, laying his head on the piano, dead.

That’s the wealthy guy, so Detective Conan feels like it’s saying “eat the rich before they have the opportunity to send leopards to eat your face”. Or something. Look, I don’t usually make references like this, so I may have screwed something up here with my wording. Ran gets asked to get the police, where she decides to go and physically look for an officer.

Narumi herself does an examination of the body, and Conan does his own analysis of the crime scene, giving a rather detailed breakdown of what likely happened. Normal first grader behavior, everyone.

There’s also a scene with Kogoro states he’s famous, only to have people mistake him for other famous Kogoros. This is likely in part due to the fact that the island would be considered remote. Personally found this scene to be incredibly entertaining. Of course, while we have plenty of suspects, doing this without police help would be a bit too tedious.

While we learn some information about one of our suspects, Ran does eventually come back with an officer, who she had to search the island to find since he wasn’t at the station. Good going, sir.

Because there’s not much else they can deduce, however, everyone gets on their way back to their respective places. Conan, Ran, and Kogoro are on their way back to their hotel when Conan brings up that the note only suggests that the murders were starting, Kogoro goes back to the community center and insists for Ran and Conan to go back to the hotel.

Ran and Conan did not, in fact, go back to the hotel. Instead, they followed Kogoro to go back to the community center. The cop is still there, having moved the body, and Narumi arrives with dinner, and after a discussion of more evidence and noticing someone by the window, they decide to spend the night in this room, planning to stay up all night there.

They did not stay up all night. While Conan, Ran, and Narumi got up earlier before falling back asleep, Kogoro and the cop ended up sleeping until the afternoon. Since the island is considered part of Tokyo, that means that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, like Megure, have this place under their jurisdiction. This leads to questioning, where Narumi is saved for last when it comes to questioning due to how tired she is. Before Narumi can get questioned, however, we hear the second movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, where another dead body gets discovered. And since the autopsy team left to work on the first victim, that means that Narumi has to be the one to investigate the body this time.

During the investigation, bloody sheet music is found under the body. And what I personally found to be funny…

Thankfully, the sheet music remains intact, and Conan manages to figure out that there’s a message hidden in the music, as well as a message hidden in music that was found at the first crime scene. Because of how the messages were set up, however, a false assumption was made that the murders were over.

However, there’s an issue: there’s no present death to line up with the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata. During this investigation, Conan finds out from the cop that there’s a message written in this code from Keiji, which Conan decides to get the island officer to look for the key to the storage room to find that music. Of course, not only was someone attacked in the piano room, there’s also someone hanging in the storage room. While it’s originally framed as a suicide, the lack of anything to allow the victim to get to the height to hang themselves off of the ground means its murder.

There’s more investigation, including Conan finally getting a look at the sheet music left by Keiji Aso, and Conan manages to put the pieces for the case together.

Unfortunately, before Conan can give his thoughts, we get the regular door-close/door-open routine that’s used as an eye catch…

…and then we get a recap of what happened earlier in the episode. This exact recap is why I argue that this case feels like it was supposed to be a two part case that, for one reason or another, were combined into one extended episode. It would also explain why there was a visual earlier in the episode that feels like one you’d see at the end of the first part of a case.

But we get the case breakdown with Conan knocking out Kogoro with the watch and using his voice-changing bow-tie to replicate Kogoro’s voice. While the attack was done by a different perpetrator, the murders were done by Narumi Asai, who’s actually Keiji Aso’s son Seiji Aso. During the breakdown, however, Narumi heads back to the community center. Everyone (except for Kogoro) heads there, to see that the community center is on fire and the piano is being played.

Conan heads inside and sees Narumi. He tries to read the notes left by Narumi’s father to Narumi, only for her to be like “no, you get out”. She throws Conan out of the burning building, using the code one last time to get a message across.

While Conan claims to have forgotten the meaning of that message, but he clearly still remembers it.

“Thank you, little detective.”

This is one of the most important episodes for Conan’s development. Let’s just say that after this episode, we shouldn’t see a culprit go out like Narumi did ever again. And honestly, both back when I first interacted with this case in the anime, my read of this case in the manga, and now, this case makes me emotional. In fact, I’d probably go as far to say that some part of my brain associates Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata with this case. Well, at least the first two movements of it. If that’s not a sign of how much an episode has impacted me, I don’t know what is.

11 years old while I first watched this, by the way, just in case you need a reminder.

I’d say this is one of the best episodes from Detective Conan‘s first year. It’s a very good show of what Detective Conan does when it’s strong, and even if someone has never watched a single episode of Detective Conan before now, I’d still recommend that they watch this episode.

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Next Post: Episode 12 (September 30th, 2026 at 12 PM [PDT])

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