Ah, the time period when anime original episodes of Detective Conan were special treats between manga canon episodes instead of being the majority of newly broadcast episodes that are released during a broadcast year. This is also the second anime original episode to be released for a holiday. This episode was originally released in Japan on April 29th, 1996, which was also the first day of Golden Week in 1996! So if Episode 6 was most likely made to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Episode 14 was most likely made to celebrate Golden Week! I was today years old when I found that out, I just decided to look it up because I was curious if its Japanese release date was a similar situation to Episode 6, and it appears that it was!
Also, there have been a big change to the Detective Conan Crunchyroll page between my last post and now! Episodes are now split by the year they came out on the page, which should prevent (or at least reduce) errors with new simulcast episodes! Trust me, if this post series ever gets to the point where those errors were at their peak, you’ll get to read my exact frustration at the fact these errors were even occurring.
Anyway, trust me, as we get further into the post, you’ll understand exactly why I chose to bring up the real world Golden Week calendar. Now, where were we…?
EPISODE 14: The Mysterious Sniper Message Case
Anime Original or Manga Sourced?: Anime Original
Is this my first time experiencing this story?: No, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen the episode that it might as well be a yes.
The episode begins with Conan and the Detective Boys going fishing using a net. That’s right, this is the first anime original case where the Detective Boys are actually the main investigators of a case! While they did appear in Episode 6, their appearance felt more like a cameo appearance rather than a fully-fledged appearance.
In another part of the river, a remote controlled boat with a balloon tied to it is chugging along, with the Detective Boys observing it until they see the balloon pop. Conan uses his binoculars to look to see who shot the bullet to see people on top of a roof of a building on the other side of the river, though it seems that one of them is there against his own will.
…my wording will make sense later. Trust me, I hate that wording just as much as you guys do, but in my defense, the subtitles did it first.
The person who was serving as the sniper seems to notice that Conan is looking at him. Back with Conan and the Detective Boys, while Genta takes the binoculars to try and get a look at the people on the building, but they left prior to Genta getting the binoculars. So, what else are the kids to do but go directly to the building where Conan saw the sniper and investigate. While Genta claims that the sniper hitting the balloon from where they were is impressive, considering the acts I’ve seen [CHARACTER THAT ISN’T INTRODUCED UNTIL LATER IN THE SERIES] do with what I’ve interacted with, this isn’t as intriguing to me as it’d be to a kid like Genta.
And while Ayumi assumes that the sniper was here for target practice, Conan assumes that the sniper was being tested.
Okay, that’s the final time I’ll use or show that wording in any capacity. I’m sorry, but I think that in most, if not all, of the instances where that wording is used, the removal of the word own still would’ve had the sentence make sense. Absolutely not an issue with the series, just an issue with the subtitles that Crunchyroll uses.
They look around for evidence that the sniper and the people with him were there, only to find that the only evidence that’s there is a calculator that was left behind by someone on the way down. Conan makes the conclusion that the calculator is a message that the sniper left for Conan since, as we already established, the sniper was doing this against his will. Despite that being the only real evidence they have, however, Conan decides that they need to notify Inspector Megure.
Megure does take Conan’s statement on what was reported, though with there not being enough evidence in clear view to conclude whether or not there were actually people here, Megure can’t investigate the scene further. Of course, the Detective Boys call for him to investigate the river. And Megure’s response to that?
So, yeah, this episode is a Golden Week special like how Die Hard is a Christmas special: they take place during the time frame for it to be considered a special. While Die Hard would still be up for debate as to whether or not it’d actually be counted as a holiday special, the fact that this episode came out on the first day of Golden Week makes it much more likely that the episode is intended to be a Golden Week special.
Anyway, while Megure can’t investigate the actual scene further, he offers to investigate the calculator, which Conan agrees to. Conan’s already memorized the number, anyway. The Detective Boys believe that Megure wasn’t taking their call seriously, however.
Back at the Mori Detective Agency, Conan’s busy mulling over the number on the calculator as Kogoro is looking at an advertisement for a train in a paper thing. Sorry, I’m not an expert when it comes to identifying that kind of stuff. When Ran sees that Conan is struggling, she talks with him to give ideas for what it could be, with her idea for the final three numbers being the lead that Conan ends up chasing: the identification of a major route in Japan, and combined with a comment by Kogoro about rivers and the flow of traffic, Conan and the Detective Boys investigate the roofs of buildings on curves on a local route with that number to see if there’s one that matches up. While at first the search seems fruitless, there is a more out of the way building that’s technically part of the route whose curves seem to line up.
So, of course, Kogoro calls up Megure to make the report…but as it turns out, there was some information that could be gotten from the calculator, as Megure had found the fingerprints of an officer on the force on it, and Conan recognized the officer as the person that he saw doing the sniping. This is also when Megure learns the location of the attack, as well as what is assumed to be the time of the attack.
Now, things were playing out a bit too nicely. While Kogoro, Megure, Ran, Conan, and the Detective Boys wait in a vehicle near where they concluded the attack was supposed to occur, when the time for the attackers to arrive at the “location” comes but they don’t show up, there’s confusion. Mitsuhiko decides to type the number into the calculator to do his own go-over with it…only for Conan’s new perspective to allow him to see the message that the sniper was trying to communicate.
And that is where I’m going to stop recapping the plot. While this isn’t a manga canon case, I think that the rest of the episode would be best experienced blind. The most I will say is, as you may expect, Conan helps the sniper take out the people forcing the sniper to act and the people forcing the sniper to act get caught. Other than that, you’ll have to watch the episode yourself.
While there’s still some signs that I think make it clear that this is an anime original episode, I definitely think this is one of the stronger anime originals. Much better than Episode 6, in my opinion. Even if there’s nothing about this episode that impacts the plot of the series due to it not being a Gosho Aoyama written case, I’d still recommend watching this episode if you’re doing a watch through of the anime, as I still found it to be just as fun a watch as a 21 year old as I likely had when I was 11, even if I have my issues with Crunchyroll’s subtitles.
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