Tear Jerker / Case Closed

Tender Tears never looked more painful.

Case Closed has a general policy of making its large amount of murderers sympathetic and Asshole Victims. As a result, this series is full of tear-jerking Motive Rants—among other potentially sentimental stuff. Just a few examples:

Most of them are thanks to filler episodes, as proof that fillers aren't necessarily bad.

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General

• The main premise itself: a promising teenage detective is drugged by a criminal organization, but instead of killing him the poison physically reverts him to a child, so now he has to keep his identity secret from most of his friends and the girl he loves to keep them safe, while living with her and helping her father solve cases to find out more about the organization so he can stop them and turn back to normal. His girlfriend is worried sick about him and very depressed about being away from him for so long, and all he can do is watch and reassure her from time to time; and adding insult to injury he's forced to use her good-hearted but very incompetent father as a Meat Puppet when solving cases since no one will take a child seriously, which means he gets all the credit for it. In practice, Shinichi's life and career has been pretty much stolen from him, and it's next to no wonder he's so fiercely determined to get it all back.
• Ran's life after Shinichi (who was now Conan) went missing. Imagine this. Your precious friend/lover went missing and you cannot him/her. Despite there are times that she suspect Conan being Shinichi, the truth was completely averted to prevent her from knowing it. In fact, she might already knew in her heart that Conan was Shinichi all along but was forced to deny that fact because everyone around her convinces that Conan and Shinichi are separate different people instead of being the one and same person she was looking for all the time.
• How about Haibara's entire life? Let's look at the list:
  • She was raised into an evil, amoral organization that would threaten her daily.
  • Her parents, also part of the organization, died when she was young. And the only things she heard about them were only bad things.
  • If it couldn't get worse, Akemi, her sole family, was also forced into said organization. The two hardly saw each other. And during Haibara's childhood, she was sent to America. Only to get picked on because of her Japanese features.
    • Then, her dear older sister, best friend, and Living Emotional Crutch was murdered by Gin. To make matters worse, because of the lack of evidence of foul play, Akemi's death was ruled as a suicide. After hearing the news, she tried to commit suicide with the very pill she created, only to to revert back into a 7-year-old.
    • In a bittersweet circumstance, especially with this commentary, Haibara is friends with Ran Mouri....who greatly resembles her recently dead sister. On on the sweet part, Haibara now has a great friend; on the bitter part....she has to see the face, or at least the identical features from someone else, of her sister repeatedly...only to realize that Akemi is still dead and never coming back.
    • Haibara practically begs Ran to stay at Agasa's house and not to go to the Mouri residence, because the Black Organization is lurking. Her emotional outburst surprises everyone...including herself. But what really clenches the moment was her picturing an image of her dead sister right next to Ran.
• The Wild Police Story Spin-Off focusing on Amuro's police academy days is this in concept, because the readers already know that four of the five main characters will be dead by present day.

Manga/Anime

• The case of a certain Anti-Villain of the week in a (filler) case, "The Murder in the Mountain Villa!": He was the pupil and ghost writer for the Victim of the Week (a very eccentric murder mystery author who dressed up as a vampire) and said writer used to pay for his ill younger sister's hospital bills in exchange for the guy's hard work. We later learn the horrible truth: the poor girl actually died six months ago, because her older brother's boss actually bribed her doctor into keeping her on painkillers only instead of paying for crucial and expensive treatment abroad (as per his end of the bargain), so the brother could remain indefinitely as his subordinate, which ultimately killed her. And when the poor brother found out from the guilt-ridden nurse who used to tend to the girl, he went nuts with pain and murdered said boss. Asshole Victim seems a bit lenient. Conan himself lampshades the trope as he thinks "It's said that when a person is bitten by a vampire, they become vampires as well. He killed his boss and now is guilty. Poor guy! Revenge completely drained his body, mind, and soul..."
• Seiji Asou aka Narumi Asai in "Moonlight Sonata"— the tear jerking part is not the motive rant on how he took revenge for his murdered family, but the fact that after that he decided to burn himself to death with his father's old piano, despite Conan's repeated appeals against that.
• Ran's Broken Pedestal episode, "The Ski Lodge Murder", where the killer was her favorite teacher in elementary school, and she had to relay Conan/Shinichi's deductions (which he sent to her through a hidden microphone). Seeing Ran shake and cry as she "resolved" the case, with Conan mentally kicking himself as he tells her what happened... sniffff...
  • In the post-credit scene of the episode, Conan asks if she is okay, all she can do is hug Conan as she breaks down in tears.
• When Ran said "I wish you were Shinichi" to Conan's face, not knowing the truth about his identity. His reaction just makes it worse.
• A number of the Poor Communication Kills examples are particularly tragic, especially when a misunderstanding leads to the death (sometimes at one's own hands) of a loved one. (Most notably the case where an American's written word "shine" is misread as "shi ne," or "die", causing his lover to kill herself, which leads him to go mad and kill her family.)
  • A girl rejecting her friend's confession because she knew that her other friend loved him.
  • The anime episode where Jerkass Idol Singer Tatsuya Kimura is killed by his beautiful ex-girlfriend and manager, Mari Terahara, because of his verbal and mental abuse towards her. It's then revealed that Kimura was a Jerkass out of guilt because Mari got plastic surgery to be beautiful for him, but he loved her just the way she was before fixing her face. To twist the knife even further, he was planning to tell her everything and make a Love Confession before she killed him. Damn...
• The case involving Miyuki Hyuuga, a Sexy Secretary whose parents were killed by her boyfriend Hideomi (who came from the rich family that Miyuki was working for), when he was a teenager and she was only 6 years old, since he and his friend Mitsuaki caused the fire in which Miyuki's parents died. However, Hideomi felt guilty and returned for little Miyuki, saving her and becoming badly burned in the process. Ever since then, he helped raise her and encouraged her to live... while he himself lived with his sin. When Miyuki fell in love with Hideomi and asked him to marry her, he couldn't take it anymore and committed suicide out of guilt. Then Miyuki became an accomplice to a plan by Mitsuaki, who wanted to kill Hideomi's dad/Miyuki's boss for power. Little did he know that Miyuki was planning to actually kill Mitsuaki too, since he also was involved in the incident in which she lost her family and she blamed him for Hideomi's death. Which she did.
  • Then, when Miyuki was unmasked, she took a pot supposedly filled with gasoline and got ready to burn herself to death. Then came her Motive Rant:
    Miyuki: "It's all as the detectives said! Everything about the fire was in the note. I couldn't forgive them! Mitsuaki, for being so carefree about it; Hideomi, for keeping it quiet for so long. But still... I loved him madly! Because he came back for me! And he always helped and encouraged me after losing my parents. And he even accepted to marry me! But Hideomi is gone. I'm alone again, so I have to go and to join him."
  • Then her suicide plan is botched (there was no gasoline, only water), and Miyuki breaks down even more. ("Why, why, why? His fire lit so easily, so why doesn't mine?!") Luckily, the chairman appeared and asked Miyuki to live for Hideomi, as her mother would've wanted her to. The chairman's first love turned out to be Miyuki's deceased mother.
    • And it's really not helped by Conan talking to Heiji, who had helped him resolve the case... and having flashbacks about the aforementioned Seiji Asou, whose death he considered as his greatest failure.
• The case in which a lady named Kyouko Takahata killed her brother-in-law, Itsuro Soejima, because she blamed him for the death of her sister Shiori. It actually turned out that Shiori had died... of illness, and that she and Soejima really loved each other. And by the time Kyouko heard her sister's phone message in which she told her how happy she had been in her married life, it was already too late.
• In Episode 605, the murderer the cameraman Mifune commit a crime for the sake of his girlfriend, an Idol Singer named Kira, whose murder was written off as an accident. The saddest part is that he killed the wrong person, a Kira fangirl named Shouko who had covered up for one of his previous murders. Shouko knew his part on it, and apparently threatened him with revealing it... and yet she loved him, but had to hide her love cause she knew he still loved Kira. She didn't offer any resistance when Mifune strangled her to death, thinking that she'd denounce him (when in fact she had decided to not do so), since being attacked by him made Shouko lose the will to live.
  • Also, made worse because a Cosplay Otaku Girl named Maho, also a Kira fangirl, reveals that she was present in the party where Kira died (Mifune thought it was Shouko)... and that she was heartbroken at Kira's death, since befriending Kira in Real Life helped Maho to get over the bullying that almost destroyed her life. And then, Maho tells the aforementioned truth about her fellow fangirl Shouko's love for Mifune.
• For one that isn't a Motive Rant? Look no further than one Akemi "Masami Hirota" Miyano, who in the anime has an Alas, Poor Villain death in Conan's arms. And The Stinger of the case has a sobbing Ran hugging an apparently calm Conan as the police takes Akemi's corpse away, and he mentally swears that he will have his revenge against the Organization for what they did to her...
  • Made even better/worse by the next episode... Where her now shrunk little sister Shiho aka Ai Haibara appears. It's not that bad until the end of the episode: except for one or two tears she kept her cool, but after the case of the day (the murder of Akemi's mentor, the real Masami Hirota) is resolved, Ai sorrowfully asks Conan why didn't he save Akemi when he had the chance and collapses in tears.
  • It was probably worse in the anime, where two versions of the episode exist. The case actually happened rather early on in the manga, and it was possibly the first one that actually had a sad and grim ending. Not aware of where this was going, the anime producers had Akemi survive. So, on watching it, you might probably think it's a mistake in the airing order... and then, wham, downer ending.
• There were two Tear Jerker cases coming right behind the other in Season 5:
  • First, the "Great Writer's Disappearance Case" (Episodes 116-117): The famous novelist Nitaro Shinmei and his wife have been missing for a while, apparently in retirement as he sends his scripts and novels to his editor via mail. Their daughter Kaori goes to Kogoro and Co. so they can decipher a series of strange code messages, which hint that the Shinmeis have actually been held hostage all the time. There never was a kidnapping, or even a crime. It was the very old and sickly Shinmei's Thanatos Gambit and last mystery, so he could die peacefully alongside his wife. In fact, when he's found, Shinmei is already dead of natural cases, and Mrs. Shinmei tearfully explains it all.
  • The "Naniwa Murder Case" (Episodes 118-119): It was already hard to see Conan taking a knife to the gut for Ran and being saved only by an amulet that Heiji gave him, but the worst/better comes in the end... The Serial Killer Sympathetic Murderer was Yusuke Sakata, a detective who worked with Kazuha and Heiji's fathers, and he did it out of revenge since 20 years ago, his father was killed via a prank by the Asshole Victims that went horribly wrong. Heiji finds out first (and he is appalled when he does, as is Conan a little later when he reaches the same conclusion) and goes confront Yusuke and make him turn himself in before he kills the last two targets and frames one of them for all of the murders. And then, to make things go From Bad to Worse... Yusuke pulls out his gun and tries to commit suicide, so he and Heiji struggle. Heiji manages to disarm Yusuke (and sets the warehouse they're in on fire as he empties the gun), but he has been shot in the stomach. Then comes the Motive Rant... followed by Heiji calling Yusuke a fool for using law as an element of revenge, then saving Sakata's life by helping him walk away from the fire. Really, really strong stuff, and not even the usually horrible Latin-American dub could kill the emotions.
• From the Stranger In Ten Years OVA, one single phrase is enough to open the waterworks:
  Older!Ran: "I've already waited ten years... so another ten will be just fine."
  • Older!Conan's flashbacks before he finally found her just makes it worse.
    • Arguably the entirety of Stranger In Ten Years. It took me weeks to shake off the downer feelings it leaves behind.
• The murder when a girl kills her sister, as we find out, for marrying the man she loved, despite her feelings. However as we quickly find out, it was actually the GUY who had pushed for marriage in the first place. She (the dead sister) told her (the killer) that before because she knew she'd be heartbroken if she knew the man she loved had fallen for her younger sister. She denies that her sister cared for her, until Kogoro (CONAN) reveals to her that she had gotten her certain chemicals (that she'd (the killer) PLANNED to use to kill her (the sister)) on purpose, knowing that it might cause a chemical reaction that would kill her (the killer). Just seeing the agony of realizing what she'd done was enough to send chills down your spine and make one misty-eyed.
• Seeing Jodie break down in the car after Takagi confirms that the fingerprints on Conan's phone match those of the man found in the car, seemingly confirming Akai's death.
• Then there's one of the saddest episodes ever; two partners owning a small TV shooting company, who are obviously in love, ask Kogoro to star in their show. Later the Asshole Victim Producer is found dead in his apartment. Suspicion immediately falls on the male partner, Shougo, who tries to cover it up for a while but ultimately confesses the crime. Instead, it turns out that the female partner, Maiko, had been the one who killed the producer for passing Shougo through hell for not accepting illegal money transfers on their proposed show, and then had committed suicide while she spoke to him on the phone. Upon finding the scene, Shogo had immediately covered it up and hid poor Maiko's lifeless body in the car trunk, ready to take all the blame to keep his beloved Maiko's name clean. Conan's line through Kogoro's mouth makes Shougo break down in tears ... and the audience, too *sniff*
  Conan/Kogoro: "Won't she be feeling cold, where you hid her, with all this rain?"
• The Detective Koshien case's end in the anime has a really heartbreaking moment: when the Sympathetic Murderer, the Amateur Sleuth Natsuki Koshimizu, explains why she killed her fellow sleuth Junya Tokitsu... for causing the suicide of her best friend Kana Mizuguchi, a young maid wrongfully accused of killing her boss. Not only we see flashbacks of Kana crossing the Despair Event Horizon as she's believed to be a criminal when she actually was not (the boss was a mentally-ill socialite who actually killed herself) and cannot clear her name, but then we have Natsuki break down crying as we "witness" the flashback with the last moments of poor Kana, right as she throws herself off a cliff and into the sea.
• One from almost the beginning: Yone telling Ichieda to shut his trap after he happily says he killed Reika and Nikaidou for the sake of her grand-daughter Yaeko (whom the Asshole Victims killed) in Billionaire Birthday Blues:
  Yone: "No child on Earth deserves to die in such a terrible way. What a horrible burden she carried, knowing she had a hand in [Yaeko]'s death... (closes Reika's eyes) Not to say we should condone what she did but when someone dies, someone will always mourn. No one should go through the pain I've felt for the past two years, no matter what..."
• The case introducing Tooru Amuro, with Kogoro's school friend Raita Banba. The night before his wedding, the bride, Hatsune Kamon, burns to death in her car. He's a suspect, as he had acted like a borderline Crazy Jealous Guy over Hatsune and both of them had suspected the other of cheating. Raita and Hatsune shared everything: Not only could they tell what the other was thinking even they were being silent, but they had the same birth date, same blood type, and they'd even been rescued from the same fire as infants and were both adopted. Yeah, I think you know where I'm going with this. It turns out that Hatsune was afflicted with Turner Syndrome and that she and Raita are twins. She had suspected something was up and had used DNA sequencing to find out the truth. She'd received the call confirming it and killed herself in the first suicide since Volume 1.
• The Kimono Goddess filler case has a surprisingly powerful scene in the beginning, where Sakurako Suzuka aka the Sympathetic Murderer's dead little sister climbs to a building's roof in her university campus... and after sadly staring at the skies, she throws herself off and dies. Beautifully done, and really heartbreaking.
• The ending of "A Small Client". Poor, poor Tomoka and Kazuki.
• In the final episode of the live-action series, there's the apparent death of Ran. Shinichi loses it trying to get to her body, while ignoring the police's efforts to find out what they can from him. And there's her father's response:
  "It's a lie, right? It's absolutely a lie that Ran is dead, right? She's only seventeen! What would my seventeen-year-old daughter die from?! (grabs Shinichi) Answer me, Boy Detective!"
• Heiji's introductory episodes had two:
  • First, there's the resolution of the case itself. The Asshole Victim had pulled an Uriah Gambit on the Sympathetic Murderer, getting her to marry him after sending her husband to jail under false accusations. The murderer only found out when her stepson (the dude's son) brought a picture of his girlfriend—and the girl turned out to be the lady's daughter, raised by her paternal family. Which led the Asshole Victim to pull a Parental Marriage Veto, and the Sympathetic Murderer to uncover and then kill him, and ultimately set a crime scene designed to fool Heiji and Kogoro (and would've succeeded if not for Conan/Shinichi. The lady, after having her cover blown, explains all of this and turns herself in... only asking this from her stepson: "I don't know if I'm worthy of even asking this... but please take care of my daughter and make her happy, will you?" And the guy immediately promises to do so, hugging the crying daughter.
  • And second... The case has been resolved by Shinichi instead of Conan, who has found a temporary cure in an Osakan liquor that Heiji brought as a gift for Kogoro—which has interesting effects on his cold-ridden body. But since Status Quo Is God, he's now starting to revert to his "Sleep-Mode Size". And what is he thinking of, while hiding away from a very worried Ran and in intense pain?
    Conan: or better said, the about-to-shrink Shinichi "Please! Don't make me change back yet! At the very least... I want to tell her... with my real mouth... with my real voice... At least... let me say... one more thing to Ran!"
• There's something about Heizo Hattori really laying into his son about disturbing the body of a victim. The scene gives you an extra punch to the gut for Heizo hitting his son prior to this speech and then calling his son an "amateur" later on:
  Heizo: (to Heiji) "He's just getting in the way! The spoiled brat let all this nonsense about "high school detectives" go to his head. He's disturbing the body and the crime scene to feed his own ego. He's just a liability to preserving the evidence. Just now, two people died right under his nose while he couldn't do a thing to stop it. He figured the police had established a perimeter so nothing would happen."
• Conan's reaction to Heiji going missing in the "Symphony Serial Murders" case. And when he tries to look for him, Conan just screams "HATTORI" over and over. Even though Heiji turned out fine, it was hard to see Conan like this; he though for a moment that he had lost his best friend and brother. This cringing scene just shows that despite Conan/Shinichi's cool exterior, he loses it when he thinks something has happened to his loved ones.
• In "Which One's Deduction Show" arc, Heiji and Kazuha decide to have a competition to decide where they, Conan, Ran, and Kogoro will either go to Takarazuka (Kazuha's choice) or Koshien (Heiji's choice). The competition is solving a case, of course. Heiji has no problems figuring out the complicated murder and arrogantly (in his mind) apologizes to Kazuha for about to win the case, but then he looks at Kazuha: She's crying. Heiji immediately drops his smirk and looks at her with a gentle expression; he realizes that she's frustrated over not being able to solve the case. This scene glimpses at how Heiji truly hates seeing Kazuha truly upset.
• The Desperate Revival Story Arc is perhaps the most emotional point of the series so far, with some of the following points as evidence:
  • Episode 188 has Conan being shot! Aside from the general tension that comes with such an event, there is also Genta, Mitsuhiko, and Ayumi each blaming themselves for what happened to him.
  • Episode 189 continues with the overall despair being felt by everyone close to Conan. Then there is the discussion with Heiji where he says he thinks Ran has figured who he is. During this talk you can see how much it weighs on him that he can't be open with her about everything despite wanting to so badly.
  • Episode 191 has a returned Shinichi collapse right after solving a case. Especially harsh as he hadn't even had a chance to properly reunite with Ran.
  • Episode 192 has a small one when a cured Shinichi greets the Detective Boys and they don't recognize. It doesn't bother him too much but it still serves as a reminder that Conan, while just a cover identity for Shinichi, has a life of his own and if Shinichi is ever permanently cured he will have to say goodbye to that life for good.
  • Episode 193 makes the entire arc into what is basically one massive Hope Spot. The cure starts to fail for Shinichi and while recognizing the warning signs still chooses the solve the case rather than go to Ran. When Conan goes to her and tells her that Shinichi had to leave you can tell it is killing him that he has to do it. One of the cruelest examples of Status Quo Is God ever.
• Episode 213 has a hunter that was trying to protect a bear that had saved him years ago accidentally kill another hunter that was trying to kill the bear. That isn't the sad part though. The real Tearjerker comes in when it is revealed that the dead hunter killed one of the bear's cubs and used it as bait to lure it out. Even a Smug Snake hunter that spent the entire time going on about how he was going to shoot the bear dead found that going too far.
• The "And Then There Were No Mermaids" case has the culprit be a young woman who has been maintaining a Secret Legacy her family has been responsible for. Her mother had been killed while maintaining the masquerade and one of the ones responsible unknowingly revealed this to her. The ending has it revealed that the adults of the town knew about everything relating to the Secret Legacy all along and they all tearfully bow to her in apology for what has happened.
• The second part of the episodes/chapters focused on Inspector Shiratori and his lost and then found childhood love is rather good in the manga, but was made of this trope in the anime. As seen in this spoileriffic gif set, the "if you look closely, you can actually pinpoint the moment his heart breaks in two" meme fits surprisingly well, as an increasingly griefstricken Shiratori struggles hard as he finds more and more evidence that the woman who could be his True Love from childhood has grown into a criminal. Kazuhiko Inoue's voice acting in the episode really doesn't help.
• Episode 231 has Ai choosing to stay on a bus with an active bomb rather than live with the risk of the Black Organization finding her all her life. Conan savers her of course but this is one of the times when you realize just how terrifying she finds those psychos and lives with the constant terror that one day they will find her and either kill her as painfully as possible or drag her back to continue the work she was doing, which they would make certain to be a Fate Worse than Death.
• Episode 232 has Ai being especially morbid since the bus incident. Agasa even mentions that she hasn't been eating, a clear sign of lingering trauma.
• Episode 239 has Conan figuring that one of his favorite soccer players is culprit in a murder case. He confronts the man personally, with the ensuing confrontation eventually convincing the man to give himself up to the police. The sad look he has on his face at the end is perfectly understandable.
• Episode 255 has Shinichi sadly thinking on his romance with Ran. Adding to the emotional impact is the fact that during this he is seen as Shinichi, not Conan.
• Episode 268 ends before the credits with Ran crying, which Shinichi overhears.
• Episode 286 has Sharon Vineyard describing her Dark and Troubled Past.
• Episode 288 has Ran in a Heroic BSoD over saving someone that went on to commit murder.
• Episode 295 has Kogoro's horror at Ran being kidnapped. The part where he literally begs the police to let him help emphasizes how this is affecting him.
• Episode 301 has Satou slapping Takagi for inadvertently disguising himself so that he looks a former officer that she knew and is The Lost Lenore to her. Poor guy just can't catch a break, poor girl is beginning to break.
• The above pales in comparison to what happens in episode 302 where Satou cancels a date the two of them were supposed to have and tells Takagi it is for the best as she believes that anyone who gets close to her will be lost. Takagi, after a moment of holding her hands, agrees and tries to laugh it off but as soon as she leaves he lets the sorrow through. Even Shiratori who was watching from nearby finds this depressing.
• On boy, where to start with episode 304.
  • First there is Sato constantly seeing the Grim Reaper behind Takagi, ready to swing its scythe.
  • Then there is the flashback to Sato's former partner and the aforementioned Lost Lenore Matsuda where he pulls a Heroic Sacrifice in order to prevent a more catastrophic explosion than the one that kills him.
  • Followed by a bomb in an elevator that looks set to cause a case of History Repeats by killing Takagi and Conan. They survive of course but the tension in the scene has you genuinely fearing for their lives.
  • And closing out this show is a Sato in full blown Broken Bird mode who's tracking down the Mad Bomber, a callous coward that has a vendetta against the police department. She actually shoots at him, with the bullet lodging itself not even an inch away from his face in the wall. Poor Sato is clearly struggling with the desire for revenge on the man and Takagi's appearance is the only thing sparing the man a death sentence^note He still ends up dead during the events in Movie 25 though..
• Episode 341 reveals that before her death Akemi had visited someone and told them that she would be back in a week and that she would be bringing her sister with her. But because of Gin... that meeting could never happen.
• In episode 345 while Ran is shielding her from bullets Haibara thinks back to her sister. Considering what happened to Akemi one can only imagine what Haibara was going through during this.
• Episode 359 has Satou freaking out when fireworks explode behind a ferris wheel, reminding her of Matsuda. That case may have been resolved, but the trauma it caused her certainly hasn't.
• Episode 418 has Yukiko being led to believe that Shinichi has been killed, which causes her to break down in panic.
• Episode 471 has a bomb attached to a car that Kogoro is driving while Ran and Conan are with him. Conan is rescued by the police but they can't get Ran out in time. When it looks like the bomb is about to go off Kogoro apologizes to Ran for being a bad father. Not only is this sad in general but it also shows how little Kogoro must think of himself for how his life has gone, especially since Ran dearly loves her father despite his faults.
• Episode 488 has the culprit be a musician who murdered the victim because he led a young fan of the musician to commit suicide. The culprit actually tears up while he is on a Motive Rant but unlike most culprits admits that what he did was selfish motivation on his end, which makes the whole thing even sadder.
• Episode 497 reveals that Akai was able to infiltrate the Black Organization by dating Akemi because of how important her sister was to the organization. The two fell in love for real and despite Shuu breaking things off with her after an ambush gone wrong Akemi sent him a text asking if they could start dating for real after the robbery that ultimately led to her death. Akai himself still has the text on his phone, much like Satou did for Matsuda, but unlike her Akai will likely never move on.
  • Making all of this even worse is that Akemi addressed the text using the cover name that he was using. He never told her his real name.
• Episode 500 reveals that Rena was a CIA agent working with her father in order to infiltrate the Black Organization. They were nearly caught when Rena was bugged but her father beat himself up to make it look like she was responsible so she could enter their ranks. The worst part would have to be when shoves his bitten and bleeding wrist into her mouth and makes her pull the trigger on a gun in order to kill him.
• Episode 502 reveals Camel holds himself responsible for Akemi's death because his actions during an attempt to capture Gin led to the failure of the ambush, which led to Akai being exposed as an FBI infiltrator and ultimately to the robbery case that ended in her being killed.
• Episode 524 has a temporarily restored Shinichi on the verge of shrinking back into Conan but his efforts to escape so Ran won't discover the truth are ruined by her grabbing his hand and refusing to let go until they get to a hospital. He is saved by Haibara using the knockout watch on her but she is saddened when she wakes up to find that she is holding Conan's hand, thinking that Shinichi has left her once again.
• Episode 563 reveals that Jodie and Shuu used to date but he broke up with her when he started dating Akemi. He implied that he did still love Jodie but ultimately couldn't bring himself to keep things going with both of them at the same time.
• Episode 584 has Kobayashi almost suffering an Heroic BSoD when due to a mistake, she comes to believe that Shiratori (whom she's crushing on hard without knowing the role she had on his life) doesn't actually love her, but wants her to be a Replacement Goldfish for Sato instead. When that happens, the poor teacher slowly slumps to the floor in desolation, much to the worry of Ai and Ayumi...
• Episode 586 has Ayumi crying over Conan after he has been knocked out.
• One of the worst breakdowns comes in episode 605 when the culprit discovers one of his victims was in love with him and told him she would keep quiet about his crimes. He thought it was a threat and when he finds out otherwise he starts slamming his head into the floor, forcing the police to restrain him.
• Episode 609 has Ran thinking Shinichi got her nothing for White Day. She takes it well at first but when she gets a text from Sonoko about her own White Day gift Ran starts crying in front of Conan.
• Episode 617 has Ran cornering Shinichi while he is temporarily cured and breaking down in tears over how he seems unable to notice her feelings for him, completely unaware that he is actually Conan and that not only he knows but fully returns them.
• Episode 639 has young girl whose grandfather just died waking up from her nap and going to get him for tea, before remembering what just happened.
• Episode 691 has Ran once again noticing how similar Conan is to a young Shinichi and she looks him right in the eyes before questioning that he really is Conan.
  • At the end Sera looks at Ran and Conan together with tears in her eyes, before thinking to herself:
  "I really am a bad girl."
• Episode 770 has Amuro thinking of a beautiful woman all but stated to be Haibara's mother Elena that used to look after him when he was a child, where she says that she has to leave and won't be able to take care of him anymore. Whatever happened to her was bad enough that just hearing his childhood nickname "Zero" is enough to be a trigger.
• Episode 783 reveals that Bourbon hates Akai so much because he blames him for the death of Scotch, another infiltrator in the Black Organization, that he was friends with.
• Episode 812 aka the last part of the anime version of Hyoue Kuroda's introduction case expands on the death of the Sympathetic Murderer's younger sister and makes it not only quite scary looking, but quite heartbreaking. It shows a teenaged Akiyama and his little sister against a red background , as she's shot dead and collapses in a pool of her own blood in front of her tearful and soon-to-be vengeful older brother...
• Episode 975 the victims grieving husband who learns that his wife was murdered because she pruned her neighbors tree that was blocking the sunlight on her garden. Enraged that his wife was killed for such a petty reason he nearly tried to kill the killer only to be stopped by Megure telling him it’s not what his wife would want.
• Manga chapters 954 and 955 feature Amuro having flashbacks featuring the death of his and Akai's aforementioned Forgotten Fallen Friend Scotch... at the hands of "Rye", aka Akai, apparently for "treason".
• Chapter 957 has several of these:
  • There are some more details added to what was described above. In reality, Scotch did not know Akai/Rye from before, and he was about to shoot himself dead after Akai apparently realized that was The Mole. Akai then revealed that he was The Mole too, spoke to Scotch kindly and tried to convince him to not kill himself... and then they heard frantic steps coming from the stairs. Scotch thought the Black Organization had found out about both of them and quickly shot himself in the chest so he wouldn't get caught and to destroy his phone, which probably had sensitive information about his mission. Then it turned out the person running upstairs was Scotch's partner Amuro/Bourbon, who got Scotch's last message and wanted to stop him... And to keep Scotch's "secrets", Akai quickly said he had executed him in front of an horrified Amuro. Tragedy barely manages to describe this.
  • The case in itself turns out to be this: It's one of the very, very rare times where someone's "murder" is actually a suicide - the "victim" was an Idol Singer who hung himself out of depression and after years of blaming himself for his ex-girlfriend miscarrying their child. Said ex-girlfriend, now his manager, used tricks to alter the suicide scene and make others believe he was killed so no one, and specially a paparazzo who had harassed the Idol Singer, would dig into the her and the guy's shared tragic past. YIKES. Even the paparazzo couldn't bring himself to write about the truth when it came out.
  • And to put the cherry on top of this... Ran realizes that Azusa, who has been hanging around them, is actually "the woman that called [me] an angel" - aka Vermouth in disguise. When confronted, Vermouth's reaction is to smile at Ran sadly and ask her not to come further into her world - because Ran and Conan are, in her words, her "treasures".
• In episode 817, a kind-hearted young lady who was well loved by everyone named Motoko Kawaguchi was stuck in an abusive relationship with a controlling man, Haruki Toriumi, who didn't even care about her happiness. As Haruki was a heir of a rich and powerful group, Motoko couldn't ran away and had to resort to faking her own death in order to escape him, with her landlady and neighbors (Shigemi, Kumi, Katsuko and Mitsue, plus the mover Ryuuji) being willing to help her run away. And when he found out he murdered her out of anger and selfishness since he didn't want to look bad to other people (Motoko previously attempted to call off their engagement). And then he tricked Kogoro into investigating Motoko's "death", hoping to make himself look innocent. To make it even sadder, this is QUITE the example of an abusive relationship.
• Chapter 1000-1005. The murder cases involved a circle of famous people and they were closed friends. The culprit was in fact a closed friend of their circle who committed suicide because the struggling late friend's name was not in the credits of the show they are working for. However, it was revealed that the late friend's name is there using the combinations of all the listed people in the credit by having irregular spacing along with a few of them changing their names so that the late friend's name will appear together with them during the credit since the producers could not pay for another staff to include in the credit. Unfortunately, the spacing didn't show up in the credits. Realising that, the culprit cried from regret due committing pointless murders over a simple misunderstanding. From far away, Yusaku believed if the celebrities' late friend, who was fond of ciphers and riddles noticed this, the suicide and murder would not occur in the first place.
• Chapter 1021 has Detective Morofushi realizing that his younger brother, Hiromitsu (AKA Scotch) is dead.
  • The same chapter reveals that Hiromitsu is not only friends with Furuya (Amuro), but also with Date, Matsuda, and Hagiwara. Given that four of them are already dead, Furuya is the only one still alive.

TV Drama

• The first TV drama has Ran being kidnapped, and when Kogoro finds out he blames Shinichi for it and punches him in the face. The police have to pull him off before he can start doing worse.
• The drama also concludes with Ran and Shinichi going to Tropical Land the day Shinichi was shrunk by the Black Organization.
• In the second live drama special Shinichi returns to normal for a while and tries to hide himself from Ran, remaining distant from her throughout the investigation. He explains that he doesn't want to be more friendly because he is inevitably going to shrink again and forming more of an attachment would only hurt her more. No matter what he does Failure Is the Only Option for Shinichi until a cure is found and it is tragic.
• The third episode of the live action series has Kogoro thinking that Eri is cheating on him and he is genuinely hurt, lighting into her about betrayal not just towards him but for how it would affect Ran as well.
• The sixth episode of the live action series has Kogoro reaching an antidote to a poison that is killing Ran but the automatic door starts closing before he can reach her. He stalls the door as long as he can but can't keep it from shutting, so he tosses the antidote to Shinichi and yells for Ran to not die.
• The ninth episode of the live action series has Shinichi and Ran, who have been handcuffed together up to this point, separated when the handcuffs suddenly fall off and the door shuts while they are each in a different room.

Movies

• Movie 4 Captured in Her Eyes is basically an emotional rollercoaster:
  • First, Ran goes through a Trauma-Induced Amnesia and sorta becomes The Ophelia, after witnessing Officer Sato being repeatedly shot by the murderer of the movie. The reactions from her parents, Sonoko, and Conan are just heartbreaking.
  • Takagi was just a wreck when he saw Sato after she was shot by the culprit. At one point, while he was protecting Ran from the killer he accidentally bumped into another woman...and instantly thought back to holding Satos' bloody body.
  • Kogoro and Eri. They just found out their little girl witnessed a brutal attempted murder and was nearly a victim herself. And when the former wanted to investigate the case he was just told NEED NOT TO KNOW, meaning that he couldn't get more involved because that's Internal Affairs.
  • This dialogue of Amnesia!Ran and Conan:
  Ran: Hey Conan... what's Kudou Shinichi like?
  Conan: Well, I know he really cares about you, but he finds difficult to express his true feelings.
  Ran: I want to meet him... someday.
• A minor one, but in the fifth movie, Countdown to Heaven, Sonoko styles her hair like Haibara, which surprises Conan and causes him to blush. Sadly, Ayumi watches from the car and is about to cry, that she doesn't have pretty hair. Poor girl.
• Hiroki Sawada of the Non-Serial Movie, The Phantom of Baker Street, is Deus Angst Machina to tear jerking levels: Child Prodigy who was a bit too much for Japanese schools to deal with, two separate Parental Abandonments, and his stepfather, despite recognizing his ability, deprived him of socialization—and a later case of his DNA tracking his stepfather provoked the latter's In the Blood response—which culminated in his pretty epic suicide in the movie's opening—at the age of 10.
  • Movie 6 also has Kogoro terrified for Ran's safety, with him going so far as praying to Conan to bring her back unharmed.

• How about Conan's breakdown in movie 17? When it looks like Ran might not be alive, he just can't handle it. It gets worst when he starts repeating her name: We see the tears and anguish of the Marine officers, Yuuki, Detective Boys, Sonoko, Inspector Megure, Takagi, and Sato, and Conan balls up his fist, a single tear escaping. Then, the real punch comes when Conan lets out his anger and sadness, that surprises everyone, with one single word: RAN!!!
• In Movie 8 while Conan is contacting Ran over the radio with his Shinichi voice she calls him out on constantly appearing and disappearing from her life. The series shows how much she is hurt by his constant absence from her life but this scene shows how the brief reunions they have together serve only to make that much worse.
• Anything about Honjo Nanako from 13th movie, The Raven Chaser. Her Heroic Sacrifice is very memorable.
• Movie 14 has Kid reaching his lowest point yet when he convinces Ran that he is actually her beloved Shinichi. He shamelessly manipulates her feelings for Shinichi to pull of a successful theft while she is left thinking the boy she loves is a criminal. She goes as far as begging Kid to turn himself in and is on the verge of having her First Kiss stolen by someone who doesn't care two ways about her. It was incredibly fortunate that Kid tipped her off by going just that one step too far or this would have been a tragic ending.
• Movie 15 has Conan getting caught in an avalanche that he started in order to stop a flood from destroying a village, which Ran sees. The poor girl shatters like glass as she rushes back as soon as possible to find him. She is literally clawing at the snow to find him while screaming his name. Her hands eventually start bleeding from her frantic efforts before a Hope Spot comes in the form of Conan's dropped cell phone. Down to the last second she calls Shinichi out of sheer desperation for help to find Conan. Dear lord is this one of the most heartrending things to come out of this series, and that is saying something.
• Movie 20 has Curaçao's entire story that drives the plot. She's a high-ranking member of the Black Organization who lost her memories after an escape gone wrong. She then has a chance encounter with the Detective Boys who do everything they could to help her regain her memories, and she grows an attachment with them, even saving Genta and later Haibara when they are about to fall to their deaths. Even after she got her memories back in the climax, her growing affection for the kids and Haibara, a former BO who got treated horribly by its members not unlike she has experienced, is what triggers her Heel–Face Turn and she pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to stop a gigantic ferris wheel from crushing into the Marine Park, saving the kids and countless civilian lives. What really sells it is the Detective Boys' reactions in the epilogue, who don't realize the truth about who she really was and her final fate, believe that she has simply 'gone away' and laments that they almost become friends with her and that they missed her. Conan and Haibara solemnly notes that it really is the Detective Boys' doings that finally revealed her true colors as a good person.

Openings and Endings

• Opening 12, destiny, has a Ran in a white dress looking sorrowful while petals float around her but it also has Shinichi as himself with his hand to his face in something resembling shame.
  • The lyrics of the song are also a bit depressing, being mostly about enduring pain in order to reunite with someone with the only reason for doing so being an uncertain belief that it is destined to happen.
• Opening 21, "Glorious Mind", was the last song ever recorded by ZARD frontwoman Izumi Sakai before her death due to cancer. Sakai did the vocals to the song mere weeks before her death, and the song was technically unfinished before some remixing of other ZARD tracks allowed the track to be released posthumously. The lyrics to the song could be interpreted as Sakai finding peace in her illness.
• Ending 49, "Lie to You" features a flashback to the end of the Desperate Revival story, specifically the part where Conan tells Ran that Shinichi had to leave the restaurant. The ending also features shots of Shinichi/Conan moping alone.