Conan 48:69 wrote:
There are 3 suspects in a case (as usual)
Now we get the suspects... too late for a poll.
Conan 48:69 wrote:
first man looks identical to monkey, second and third man's names have a word "monkey". When Sonoko didn't know about Koshien, Conan-kun explains about Koshien halfway, Conan understands the criminal is connected to zodiac, as Koshien as Kou is sign of monkey in ten signs zodiac and Shi is sign of mouse in Chinese zodiac. 申 refer to monkey is the ninth zodiac. So the criminal is 水江申次.
My reasoning is pretty close to yours, with one minor difference.
I haven't sorted everything out yet so there are some incomplete parts I will have to work on later.UPDATED (despoilered for easier searching)
Explanation of Koshien
From wiki: The name Kōshien (甲子園) comes from the Sexagenary cycle system. The year of the stadium's founding, 1924, was the first year kōshi (甲子) in the cycle. The Chinese sexagenary cycle is a rotating system based on two astronomical systems: the “celestial stem” which combines the classical five Chinese elements with Yin and Yang for a total of ten components and “Earthly Branches” which uses the same 12 component ordering system as the zodiac except that it was used for telling time. The sexagenary cycle is formed by taking the first item of the celestial stem and sticking it together with the first item on the “Earthly Branches” to make a “Stem Branch”. Then you take the next item on both lists… since the cycles are of unequal length you have to make 60 stem branches (i.e go through each list more than once) before you return to the first one.
“Kōshi” is broken up into Kō and Shi. Kō is heavenly stem number 1 (甲) and shi is Earthly Branches number 1 (子) which incidentally is the rat.
Suspect name games
Hino Tatsuo 火野辰男: Hino sounds very close to the kun'yomi reading of Heavenly stem number (HSN) 3 “hinoe” (火の兄) (Yang fire). Tatsuo sounds very close to the kun'yomi reading of Earthly Branch (EB) 5 “tatsu” (辰) for dragon. Suspect #1 is probably closest to stem branch (sb) 3-5 “Hinoe-Tatsu” (Yang Fire Dragon)
Sarukawa Hisami 猿川久巳: Before I go into any of the sexagenary cycle discussion, there is an obvious wordplay to point out. Saruwaka goes by the nickname “Kyuu” which can mean the number 9 because of the 久 in his name. Sarukawa also contains “saru” which means monkey of course so the connection to nine monkies should be obvious. Sarukawa would correspond to EB 9: the monkey “saru”. Also the character 巳 in Hisami is the same as the one used for EB 6: snake. Hisami sounds close to the word Hisaki (火先) meaning “flames, forefront of fire, or flame tips.” Fire would correspond with HS 3 or 4. For suspect #2 SBs 3-9 or 4-9 are probably the closest, but 3-6 or 4-6 might also fit.
Mizunoe Shinji 水江申次: Mizunoe corresponds directly to HSN 9 of the same name (水の兄). Shinji is closest to “shin” which is the Onyomi read of EB 5 the dragon (辰) and also the Onyomi read of our friend EB 9 the monkey (申). So suspect #3 can correspond to either SB 9-5 or 9-9.
In the name games, suspects #2 and #3, Sarukawa Hisami and Mizunoe Shinji, are the most suspicious. 9 monkeys best fits Mizunoe Shinji of course.
It is possible to consider the EB formed by calculating their birthyears according to the current date, but I doubt Gosho would base a puzzle around this as it would become defunct as soon as the year ends.
The alibis
If the stabbed guy was the Tori man for the first two fests, none of the suspects have a working alibi.
The running person
Conan mentioned the guy who was sweating after running. I'm not too sure about this. Mizunoe would be sweating from his run if he was the stabber. Mizunoe has his jacket untucked and completely unbuttoned. His collar is also strange; is it a turtleneck of just messy?
The arms of his jacket are also creased excessively. The creases just seem to be the art style, nevermind. One of the other suspects was wearing warmer winter clothing with a scarf, while the other, who is in traditional clothing has on a furry traditional jacket and shows no sign of sweat marks around the neck of his light colored short as would be expected of someone running.
Timeline and details of the crime
Mizunoe was making illegal transactions which meant the passbook had evidence of book cooking. The Tori man stole Mizunoe's bag which had his ID and passbook, and he rifled through it along with the other bags and found the passbook. In the process of ransacking the items, he forgot which one was Mizunoe's. Mizunoe registered his items as stolen, but soon after doing so, the Tori man began blackmailing Mizunoe about some accounting irregularities seen in the passbook. Mizunoe and the Tori man set up a meeting to exchange money for the passbook and his other belongings.
Mizunoe prepared ahead of time a matching jacket, a hyottoko mask, and the knife since he intended to kill the Tori-man while dressed has him to remove suspicion from himself. Mizunoe was afraid that if the Tori-man had his identity uncovered, the police would look into him who reported his items stolen and may uncover evidence of the cooked books. Mizunoe took a business trip during the second rooster festival when he presumed the Tori-man would strike again so he would have an alibi in case he was caught by police as a suspect. The Tori man did indeed strike at the second rooster festival and lost a button when he ran into Ran.
Mizunoe came to the rooster festival dressed in the jacket. Along the way, he had a bento, and he probably stuffed the receipt in his jacket pocket since he looked for it in his pockets during the police questioning. The Tori-man meanwhile came in normal clothes with the daypack, having left the jacket with the missing button at his home. Not remembering whose belongings were whose or perhaps not caring, the Tori man just stuffed everything into random bags. When they met and Mizunoe stabbed the Tori man while dressed as the Tori-man himself, Mizunoe knelt down and began to rifle through the belongings looking for his passbook and wallet. The wallet he found, but Mizunoe didn't find the passbook before people saw him. --> Remember, the witnesses say they only saw the Tori-man leave the side of the stabbed guy, not actually stab him. Since the witnesses were in hot pursuit, Mizunoe was forced to throw the bag at them to buy some time to escape. In the bathroom, he discarded the jacket with the receipt for the bento still inside one of its pocket along with the knife and the mask.
The things that will nail Mizunoe is the receipt for a bento in the discarded jacket pocket and possibly also the ID not being replaced despite his wallet being stolen. In addition, the "Shin" of Mizunoe Shinji can be written with multiple characters so only someone who read the name (in the passbook for instance) would know it was the character for monkey (申) instead of one of the many other kanji that can be used to write it. The stabbed guy didn't have belongings for any of the other suspects so that eliminates them. The proof the stabbed guy is the actual Tori Man will be a jacket missing a button at his house.
The shadow guy
Kyogoku Makoto for sure. He would recognize Ran and may have heard Sonoko had her purse snatched last festival and that she might be going to another one. More likely he is there for a rake for success in fighting since Ran did mention the tournaments were imminent. Or maybe he wants the male version of the love love fortunes?
