Spoilers follow for the identity reveal and ending of Arrest That Face.
Arrest That Face is international episode 1240 (Japanese episode 1182), an anime-original case. The man who resembles the wanted criminal is innocent Taro Yamada. The apparently helpful Koji Tanaka is the fugitive himself, Ken Kito, whose face has been altered by cosmetic surgery.
Kito wants the police to believe he has died. Yamada’s resemblance to his former face offers him a substitute, turning what begins as a chase after a criminal into an attempted murder of a stranger.
Ayumi finds a face from a wanted poster
Ayumi recognizes a man who looks like Ken Kito from a police wanted photograph. Kito has been on the run since a robbery-murder five years earlier, and a reward of three million yen is offered for information leading to his capture. She follows the lookalike to an apartment and summons the Detective Boys, including Conan and Haibara.
The nameplate reads Taro Yamada, a name that looks suspiciously generic in this situation. That detail reinforces the children’s assumption that a fugitive is hiding under an alias. It is an effective misdirection precisely because the name is real.
A passerby, Koji Tanaka, approaches them. Genta lets slip that they have found a wanted criminal, and Tanaka reacts strongly. When he sees Yamada through the window, he recognizes the resemblance as quickly as Conan does. At first he appears to be another observer who can help with the pursuit.
A chase becomes an attack on the wrong man
When Yamada leaves, Tanaka and the children follow. Tanaka deliberately kicks a rubbish bin, making enough noise to alert him. The pursuit reaches a swollen river, where Yamada falls in and is left unconscious in critical condition.
The police then establish that Yamada really is Taro Yamada. His fingerprints and physical characteristics do not match those of Ken Kito. The resemblance has led everyone toward the wrong identity, and the apparent pursuit of a dangerous criminal has put an innocent person in danger.
That is the case’s crucial change of direction. The question is no longer whether the nameplate conceals a fugitive, but why someone would want a genuine lookalike to be treated as that fugitive.
What exposes Tanaka’s identity?
Conan is bothered by Tanaka’s instant recognition. Remembering a wanted photograph is possible, but his vivid familiarity with the face becomes suspicious alongside his eagerness to direct the pursuit and distance the children from it. The reaction is a lead to investigate, not proof on its own.
At Tanaka’s residence, the Detective Boys find prescribed medicine from Kagami Clinic. The clinic performs cosmetic surgery. Takagi’s inquiry establishes that a patient using the name Satoru Shima underwent facial surgery there five years earlier. The medical connection gives substance to Conan’s suspicion that Tanaka is Kito after surgery.
Tanaka recognizes the face so readily because it resembles the face he used to have. The clue reverses the opening assumption: the man who does not look like the wanted photograph is the fugitive, while the man who does look like it is his prospective victim.
How the substitute-death plan works
Kito has been living as Tanaka after changing his face. Encountering Yamada presents another way to escape pursuit: make the man with his old face die, then have that death attributed to Ken Kito. The attack by the river is part of that plan, rather than an accidental consequence of a well-intentioned chase.
The intended substitution extends to the apartment. Kito appears to have entered Yamada’s room to erase Yamada’s fingerprints and leave his own, so that the room would seem to belong to the wanted man. This part of the cover-up is a reconstruction of the identity substitution, rather than the reason police initially identify the man rescued from the river.
The logic is to align an apparently familiar face with planted evidence of identity. If police accepted that Ken Kito had died, the real Kito hoped to stop living as a man under pursuit. That hoped-for result is the culprit’s objective, not a claim that his scheme could reliably defeat every identity check.
There are two distinct crimes to keep separate here. The robbery-murder five years earlier explains why Kito is wanted. The present case centers on the attempted murder of Yamada and the effort to make him carry Kito’s identity. Yamada is the direct victim of this episode; the earlier victim is not named in the account.
The confrontation and Yamada’s survival
When Kito returns to the place where he has been living as Tanaka, the Detective Boys are hiding in a closet and know his identity. He moves to silence them, but Takagi and Megure arrive. The children also help subdue him, and he is captured.
Yamada survives. His survival is an important part of the resolution: a man who has done nothing wrong has been suspected, chased and nearly killed because someone else finds his face useful.
Why the lookalike twist is so unsettling
The reward and the children’s excitement give the opening the energy of a Detective Boys adventure. Yamada’s implausibly ordinary name and Tanaka’s apparent cooperation make the chase feel straightforward. The later correction forces every part of that confidence to be reconsidered.
The disturbing idea is not merely that two people look alike. Kito first abandons his old face through surgery, then tries to abandon the criminal identity attached to it by giving that identity to someone else. Yamada is expected to absorb both the accusation and the death.
The clue sequence stays modest: an overfamiliar reaction, suspicious conduct and medicine from a clinic. That makes the deduction readable while leaving the cruelty of the plan at the center. The children’s contribution supplies momentum at the finish, but the innocent lookalike’s ordeal is the part that lingers.
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