Spoilers through Detective Conan File 1137, including earlier revelations about Hiromitsu Morofushi. The theories below stop at this chapter; they do not reveal the later solution.
File 1137 starts a Nagano mystery with an apparently impossible fire: Tamaki Ito’s left arm suddenly catches alight during a filmed attempt to contact a dead friend. The cause is still unknown. A restored smartphone, the group’s childhood detective badges, and memories stirred in the Nagano officers give the opening more to investigate than the supposed haunting alone.
File 1137, The Sacred Light of the Dead, appeared in Japan on January 22, 2025, in Weekly Shonen Sunday issue 8 and is collected in Volume 107. It follows the seven-year flashback involving Shinichi Kudo and the police academy friends in Files 1134-1136. Its Nagano setting also places it in the run-up to the 2025 film One-eyed Flashback; the film is background context here, not an explanation of this manga case.
How a ski trip becomes a ghost investigation
Conan Edogawa, Ai Haibara, Genta Kojima, Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya, and Ayumi Yoshida are traveling with Professor Agasa. Kogoro Mouri has caught a cold, so he and Ran Mouri have stayed behind. Before the children reach the ski resort, Kogoro sends them to the Nagano police station to explain his absence.
Yui Uehara has bought the local Katsuchiyo Shinshu soba that Kogoro wanted. Collecting it turns out to be the practical reason for the detour. Haibara remembers Uehara and Kansuke Yamato through the alarming food-related expressions she heard on their earlier meeting. The children then tour the station, where the sight of their group reminds Uehara, Yamato, and Takaaki Morofushi of their own childhood.
The Compass Detective Club and the missing fifth member
In the cafeteria, the children meet four members of the Compass Detective Club, a group that makes videos at supposedly haunted locations: editor Kaori Nanjo, manager Shichisuke Kasai, camera operator Yuta Kitakura, and host Tamaki Ito. Tamaki is known for her horror-related videos.
There used to be five of them. Three months earlier, a fire at the lodge where they were staying killed Kaori’s older brother, Takehiko Nanjo. His burned smartphone has finally been restored, bringing the surviving members to the station. Among its photographs is one of the friends as children wearing detective badges.
That photograph creates a pointed comparison with the Detective Boys. The visitors are not simply four strangers attached to a dead victim: they once shared the kind of childhood bond Conan’s friends still have. What has happened to that bond is a question worth carrying into the case.
The ritual at Hakuryu Ski Resort
The group has come to test a legend associated with the Nagano-Shizuoka border, Shibito no Miakashi. They also intend to call up Takehiko’s spirit. Their destination, Hakuryu Ski Resort, happens to be the children’s destination too, so the two groups go together.
They arrive near the burned lodge and move to the edge of the ski area for filming. Tamaki sets up and covers a candle, then calls to Takehiko. Nothing appears. Just as she is about to abandon the attempt, her left arm starts burning with no visible source of fire. File 1137 ends before the cause is explained.
The clues behind the haunting
Why the restored smartphone may matter beyond this case
The phone is the detail that makes a possible Hiromitsu connection especially compelling. Hiromitsu, Takaaki’s younger brother, died after shooting through the phone containing sensitive information about his Public Security Bureau work. Takaaki later received that damaged handset. A dead man’s phone reaching the people left behind therefore has an existing emotional weight in the Morofushi story.
Takehiko’s phone could prompt a memory of Hiromitsu or develop the same theme of what survives a person’s death. That is a prediction drawn from the parallel, not evidence that the two men or their phones are directly connected. The prospect of another Hiromitsu memory is what gives this small prop such a strong pull.
The border setting recalls an earlier Nagano case
The Nagano-Shizuoka setting also recalls the earlier case on the Gunma-Nagano border. That story brought Gunma officer Misao Yamamura into contact with the Nagano police and revealed that he and Hiromitsu had played together as children. Both cases also involve groups making online videos. Those shared elements make the sense of repetition more specific than simply returning to a snowy setting.
The resemblance may be another route toward a Hiromitsu recollection. It does not establish one, and this incident takes place within Nagano, so there is little reason at this point to expect the Shizuoka police to take over. The stronger possibility is a return to the officers’ personal history.
How much room does the opening leave?
A four- or five-part case seems possible at this stage. Yamato and Takaaki have had little time in the spotlight, no new death has occurred in the present-day action, and the opening has only just delivered its central incident. If the story also makes space for childhood memories, a three-part structure could feel tight.
That remains a pacing prediction. A case does not need a new murder, and a film approaching release does not guarantee a particular chapter count or a flashback. Still, the quiet setup leaves room for more of the Nagano officers than we have seen so far.
Could the clothing help explain the fire?
One early possibility is that something on Tamaki’s clothing, perhaps alcohol or another volatile substance, contributed to the blaze. The useful part of that theory is the focus on the fabric and any substance applied to it. The chapter has not identified either an accelerant or an ignition mechanism, so volatility alone cannot be treated as the answer.
The next evidence needs to explain why this particular part of her clothing burned at this particular moment. Until then, the apparent lack of a fire source is the mystery to solve, not proof of a supernatural cause. File 1138 continues the case.
Continue the Nagano case
The links below cover Volume 107, the preceding File 1136, and the continuation in File 1138.
Further reading (contains spoilers): Nagano Prefectural Police appearance guide.
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