Spoilers follow for both deaths, the accomplices and the concealed weapon.
Tsubota is the planner behind the attack on Oshiba and the death of Koiwai. Koiwai helps him attack Oshiba, but Tsubota then pushes his accomplice down the temple steps, silences him and presents himself as an innocent witness. Koiwai is both a participant in the first attack and the second murder victim.
The Man Who Came Falling Down is international episode 1266 (Japanese episode 1206), a self-contained anime-original story. Its solution depends on separating what a witness says happened from what the injuries and a hidden second weapon reveal.
A lost notebook brings Conan to the temple steps
Conan and Kogoro are looking for Kogoro’s missing notebook. Yanaka and Nezu have picked it up near the temple steps, so the characters initially meet over an ordinary lost possession. Then Koiwai suddenly comes tumbling down from above.
Another man, Oshiba, is found at the top of the steps. Both he and Koiwai die. Tsubota offers an explanation that seems to connect the two deaths neatly: Koiwai attacked Oshiba, was seen and lost his footing while fleeing.
That account makes the fallen man the sole attacker and his own death an accident. It also leaves Tsubota in the reassuring position of the person who can explain the scene. Conan has to test that apparent clarity against the evidence instead of accepting the role Tsubota has assigned himself.
Koiwai’s anger does not explain the whole sequence
Koiwai believes that Oshiba has stolen his work, giving him an apparent motive for violence. Yet his conduct three days earlier complicates the theory of a simple confrontation that suddenly became fatal: he had already backed away from Oshiba. His resentment is real, but it does not explain why events resumed in this particular form.
A conversation at a small restaurant suggests that someone was cooperating with Koiwai. That possibility changes the direction of the inquiry. If another person helped bring about the attack, Tsubota’s story of a lone assailant leaving the scene is incomplete.
The earlier withdrawal and the restaurant conversation have different uses. The first unsettles the simple motive-and-opportunity narrative; the second suggests another participant. Neither should replace the physical evidence needed to show how Oshiba was attacked.
The wounds contradict the lone-attacker story
Oshiba’s injuries indicate blows from different directions. They do not fit Tsubota’s account of Koiwai attacking alone from one direction. The investigation therefore has to account for a second attacker and the separate weapon that person used.
Tsubota and Koiwai had attacked Oshiba from different sides. Tsubota hid his own weapon beneath a floor near the scene, removing the most obvious object that would reveal his participation. He then pushed Koiwai down the steps.
His later testimony completes the concealment. Koiwai cannot contradict it, and the absent second weapon makes a one-man attack easier to believe. The story of a fatal misstep also hides a second deliberate killing behind the spectacle that Conan and Kogoro actually witnessed.
Why Tsubota turns his accomplice into a victim
The plagiarism is more complicated than Koiwai understands. Tsubota has been appropriating Koiwai’s work and plots. He also resents Oshiba receiving the name recognition and praise for work they have produced together. His frustration at going unrecognized exists alongside his own theft of someone else’s ideas.
Oshiba discovers Tsubota’s plagiarism, threatening to expose him. Tsubota uses Koiwai’s anger at Oshiba to recruit him into the attack and silence the person who knows what he has done. Koiwai is acting on a grievance that Tsubota has redirected for his own protection.
After the assault, Koiwai knows about their cooperation. Tsubota kills him to remove that witness and place the blame for Oshiba’s death on him. The two deaths serve connected but distinct purposes: suppressing the plagiarism discovery, then suppressing the accomplice who could expose the murder.
Conan makes the supposed witness retrieve the evidence
Conan works out that Tsubota has concealed the second weapon beneath the nearby floor and draws him into returning for it. Police are waiting. Tsubota’s attempt to recover the object establishes his connection to a hiding place an uninvolved witness should have no reason to seek out.
The trap brings the clues together. The wounds establish the need for another attacker, the restaurant conversation points toward cooperation, and Tsubota’s retrieval attempt connects him to the concealed weapon. His own action breaks the story he tried to impose through his testimony.
His involvement is exposed in front of the police. The apparent accident is revealed as the murder of an accomplice, and the accusation against Koiwai changes from sole responsibility to participation in the attack on Oshiba.
The solution leaves Koiwai in an uncomfortable position
The sudden fall is effective because it interrupts such a small errand. A notebook, two people who found it and a flight of temple steps become the setting for two deaths within moments. On a second look, the quiet arrangement of people at the beginning carries far more weight.
Tsubota’s reversal from helpful witness to planner gives the deduction its satisfaction. The final confrontation also moves beyond competing explanations: he goes to the weapon himself, making his behavior the last piece of the case.
Koiwai’s fate supplies the bitterness. His anger is exploited, and he is killed so that someone else can escape responsibility, but he has still helped attack Oshiba. The explanation preserves both sides of that role. Tsubota’s desire for recognition ends in stolen work, manipulation and the disposal of the man whose resentment he found useful.
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