Netflix’s Detective Conan spin-off anime series, Case Closed: The Culprit Hanzawa follows the titular shadowy suspect navigating the dangerous streets of Beika Town, with his own sinister plans in mind.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Case Closed: The Culprit Hanzawa begins with a sinister-looking silhouetted young man named Hanzawa, moving to the perilous town of Beika. His first concern is to find an affordable non-stigmatized apartment to live in.
After failing to find one and finally tracking down one shared-living apartment, he befriends Hanbayashi, who looks like him. However, while Hanzawa only fantasizes about killing a certain someone, Hanbayashi does the deed and gets arrested for it.
For the proper required documentation to start living in Beika Town, Hanzawa heads off to the town hall and then to the police station, where he must get his license updated and renewed.
The next adventure presents itself when Hanzawa’s hair won’t go down since he can’t find shampoo in the bathroom. So he takes a walk around town to a supermarket to buy it and finds that there are none.
Next up is a nightmare that forces Hanzawa to foolishly buy a knife from the weapons shop at night and gets scammed pretty badly. He also has a run-in with scamming mafia who are eventually dealt with by Ran Mouri.
With the little amount of money left, Hanzawa has nothing to pay the next month’s rent with; he must find a job, which is a pretty arduous endeavor in Beika. He eventually gets a job from a suspicious old man in a coat — Hiroshi Agasa.
The job entails, much to Hanzawa’s shock and horror, getting hit by a tranquilizer dart, with the capability of knocking out an elephant. He wakes up three weeks later in his room, but thankfully Agasa makes good on his word and sends him with the envelope carrying the payment for the job.
Later, Hanzawa finds a job at a video rental shop. The job seems good but the moment he enters the shop on his starting day, he finds the manager has been killed. Several detectives are present who all solve the case in a jiffy, in front of Hanzawa.
He recognizes that they’re all shop employees too, eventually agreeing to their requests to keep their identities hidden while the front as employees and moonlight as detectives.
The job is good but Hanzawa always finds himself covering for his fellow employees who all have to go run for emergency detective work. Meanwhile, he also has to care for Hakuba’s pet Hawk, Watson.
He goes to the pet shop to adopt a new pet who he can rely on and who is also obedient. However, his heart goes for the fluffiest and most adorable pomeranian puppy, the price for whom is paid by Hakuba.
Later on, when Hanzawa overhears his roommates riffing on his goofy, countryside clothes, he sets out to buy only the trendiest stuff. He ends up buying an all-black outfit — something that’s considered very ominous according to an urban legend native to Beika Town.
The urban legend becomes real for Hanzawa when he feels eyes on his back and eventually he has to ditch the trends for his safety and goes back to his old fits.
Hanzawa’s mom visits him and he gets embarrassed by her, lashing out at her and refusing to accompany her for a tour of the tower she wants to visit.
When news of a hostage situation at the same tower reaches him, he runs off to save her, only to find her enjoying cotton candy at a bench, when she failed to reach the tower before the tragedy strikes.
A lot of time has passed since Hanzawa came to Beika, and he still hasn’t been able to find the man he wants to kill. After a lot of public services and efforts at improving his luck, he finally spots him.
When he goes to kill him, he fails to do so, also realizing that it’s actually the master thief called “Kid”, who looks a lot like the man he really wanted to find and kill.
Case Closed: The Culprit Hanzawa ending explained in detail:
Who does Hanzawa want to kill?
Case Closed: The Culprit Hanzawa never mentions outright who Hanzawa really wants to kill, since he doesn’t know the name of the man.
However, as the story proceeds, it becomes clear that this “certain someone” Hanzawa wants to murder is none other than Detective Conan, or his former, adult form/original self to be precise.
The kid detective keeps tailing Hanzawa throughout the series, only for the aspirational silhouetted suspect to never catch on to it. He also comes shares space with Conan at the bathhouse, but never recognizes that it’s the same person he aims to kill.
Why does Hanzawa want to kill Conan?
The reason why Hanzawa wishes to kill Conan is never revealed in Case Closed: The Culprit Hanzawa. The titular suspect never divulges it himself, only that he wishes to murder him.
In the manga Detective Conan: The Culprit Hanzawa, it’s heavily implied that Hanzawa holds a grudge against Shinichi Kudo, the real identity of Detective Edogawa Conan.
In the manga, he has a dream where someone awfully similar to Shinichi accuses him of a crime he strongly denies committing. In the anime series, he has a similar nightmare but the face of the accuser isn’t shown.
Why does Hanzawa not recognize Conan?
Hanzawa most likely met Edogawa Conan when he still had an appearance of an adult.
Hanzawa met Shinichi Kudo but since (as happens in the original manga that The Culprit Hanzawa is a spin-off of), Shinichi is turned into an elementary-aged boy who assumed an alias and identity of Edogawa Conan, Hanzawa can’t recognize him.
He passes by Conan multiple times throughout the series, but can’t recognize that it’s him who he wants to kill. Conan suspects Hanzawa and follows him, sometimes alone and sometimes along with Hattori, but either Hanzawa successfully evades him or the chase doesn’t lead to anything since Hanzawa never acts on his wishes to murder someone.
Who is Mister Kid?
Like many other Detective Conan characters that appear in The Culprit Hanzawa, the gentleman master thief “Kaito Kid” also makes an appearance.
Due to his uncanny resemblance to Shinichi Kudo, Kid also ends up confusing Hanzawa, who mistakes him for the one he wants to kill.
However, when he goes to kill him, Hanzawa hilariously fails to do so, as Kid puts up another show for the public and successfully evades the authorities.
Hanzawa eventually realizes that Kid wasn’t the man he wants to kill, despite him looking more than just similar to his target individual.
Also Read: Daniel Spellbound season 2 ending explained: What happens to Shakila?