Spoilers follow for the culprit, motive and solution of Buchi Returns a Favor.
Buchi Returns a Favor is an anime-original case, international episode 1239 (Japanese episode 1181). The apparent favor to Detective Takagi is a fabrication: Masayoshi Daimatsu kills Katsuya Iwabuchi and uses the dead man as the supposed source of a robbery tip. His goal is revenge on both Iwabuchi and Inspector Megure.
The revealing clue is a small difference in handwriting. A forged note looks more credible than the victim himself would have made it, and that mistake breaks the story Daimatsu has constructed around the body.
Why does Takagi trust a message from Buchi?
Takagi is visiting the Mouri Detective Agency when Detective Chiba calls about a man calling himself Buchi. The man wants to repay Takagi by providing useful information. Takagi goes to the arranged meeting at Todoroki Park with Conan and Kogoro Mouri, but they find Katsuya Iwabuchi stabbed in the chest.
The name Iwabuchi makes Buchi sound like a plausible nickname. Yet Takagi cannot clearly remember the dead man. This uncertainty matters: the assumed connection between the telephone caller and the victim has not actually been established simply because their names appear to fit.
A note in Iwabuchi’s pocket supplies the next part of the story. It describes a planned robbery at Kameo Jewelry Store. A man who offered information has apparently been killed before he could pass it on, and the message found on his body seems to be that information. The two pieces make each other look trustworthy.
The jewelry-store diversion
Megure, Takagi and Conan watch Kameo Jewelry Store, but the anticipated robbery does not happen there. Instead, another jeweler, Tsurui Jewelry Store, is robbed. Reporters have already been alerted by an anonymous tip, placing the police failure in public view.
Megure considers whether the robbers changed their target. Conan is troubled by the difference between the shops: Kameo deals in prestigious luxury brands, while Tsurui is an older, smaller business. The switch needs an explanation beyond a name changing on a plan.
Once Daimatsu’s objective is understood, that discrepancy falls into place. The police have to be concentrated at the wrong shop, and the actual robbery has to be visible enough to embarrass Megure. The jewelry is part of the operation, but humiliating the inspector is central to the revenge.
How the investigation leads to Daimatsu
Iwabuchi’s acquaintance Kamegamori says that someone had recently been looking for him. Iwabuchi had also been falsely accused of stealing a bicycle the previous year and had come to dislike the police. A receipt for a 30,000-yen loan points to his financial trouble and, eventually, gives Conan a sample of his handwriting.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department detains Meguru Nakatake and Minayo Koume in connection with the robbery. They say they were recruited through an illicit job offer as part of a three-person group. The inquiry identifies Masayoshi Daimatsu as the organizer, a man Megure arrested four years earlier. Kido, a former prisoner, also supplies information about Daimatsu’s painful old leg injury.
The names, the anonymous call to the press and Takagi’s hazy memory remain awkward pieces of the puzzle. When the police locate Daimatsu and corner him on a rooftop, Conan puts Kogoro to sleep and presents the deduction through Sleeping Kogoro.
Two targets, one invented story
Daimatsu’s grievance comes from a pawnshop robbery four years earlier. An anonymous tip led to his arrest, and he was convinced that Iwabuchi, a former neighbor with whom he had a bad relationship, had informed on him. Whether Iwabuchi really provided that tip remains unclear; Daimatsu’s belief is the basis of his revenge.
After finding Iwabuchi following his release, Daimatsu sets out to kill him and disgrace the officer who arrested him. He recruits robbery accomplices, murders Iwabuchi, plants the false plan and makes the Buchi call through Chiba while Takagi is unavailable. The supposed final act of a helpful informant is thus part of the murderer’s staging.
A loose piece of paper would be easy to question. A paper apparently left by someone who died trying to help the police carries more emotional weight. Daimatsu exploits that difference, including Takagi’s willingness to believe that someone remembers his kindness.
Why the written character gives the forgery away
Iwabuchi writes the character pronounced kame, meaning turtle, incorrectly on the loan receipt addressed to Kamegamori. The same character appears in the jeweler’s name and location on the planted note, but there it is written correctly.
The point is not simply that two samples look different. The forger imitates Iwabuchi’s handwriting without reproducing a habitual mistake in how he forms that character. A more accurate spelling becomes evidence against the note’s authenticity.
That breaks the claimed authorship of the robbery information. In the larger reconstruction, the false note connects with the false telephone call, the planned discovery of the body and the diversion to the wrong store. The handwriting clue does not stand in isolation; it removes the premise that held the whole account together.
Daimatsu admits that his purpose was revenge against Iwabuchi and Megure. Nakatake and Koume have already been detained in connection with the robbery, and the two-part plan is exposed.
Why the title leaves a bitter impression
The episode’s strongest reversal is that the promised favor never existed. Its opening encourages sympathy for a dead informant, then reveals a murderer borrowing that sympathy to direct the police. Takagi’s decency becomes something the culprit can manipulate.
The understated solution suits the case. Instead of a spectacular mechanism, a single incorrectly learned character punctures an elaborate but believable story. The deduction is satisfying, yet the use of a dead man and expendable accomplices leaves more bitterness than triumph.
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