Naoya Saijo

Naoya Saijo was the main antagonist of the Detective Conan/Case Closed episode "Sports Club Murder Case" (The Last Dive in the dubbed) He was known as a reigning champion of high diving, however a hidden secret exposed him as a villain.

Biography[]

Naoya Saijo made his first appearance on a high board at the Saeki Sports club, where he's seen doing a leap into the pool, where Conan, Ran and other gym members applaud upon seeing his stunt. He then told another diver named Keiichi Naruse to enter and laughed upon seeing the diver making a splash upon impact and mocked him about not practicing enough to be better like him. As it looks like the two were about to fight, another guy named Hisashi Kijima arrived to stop them. Saijo then headed back up to the high board to do another dive, he leapt to the air but when he, along with Reiko Saeki (the owner of the sport club) notice that he was about to hit the board, he manages to extend his arm and push himself away from the board and fell into the pool.

As Reiko and the media sees him out of the water, he bushed it off and told her that he thinks that she wanted him to have the accident, but she played it off like he was joking. Later in the Hallway Conan (who was getting a drink) overheard the conversion between Saijo and Reiko about that stunt and how the re-opening of the gym would hit the media or tax office, However the conversion was cut short due to Ran scaring Conan, who made a noise. Reiko then reminded Saijo about the party at the gym tonight at 8:00 tonight and reminded him to show up.

As Saijo plans to practice some more, he accidentally dropped a photo, but Conan manage to get it and give it back to him, who he didn't hear due to wearing earplug because of his diving.

However, he was then found dead as apparently, he died drowning while practicing the high dive. Throughout the course of the episode, Kogoro, Megure and the others believed that Saijo died by accident, even revealing that there was a witness, an elderly man who claimed to have seen Saijo diving in the window next to his apartment, but Conan refuse to believe that and thinks it was a murder. After getting the evidence he needed (and having Kogoro chase him to the high dive) knocked out Kogoro and told Ran to get Megure and the others to come back to the pool as he revealed the truth.

With everyone where, Conan (via Kogoro) revealed that this wasn't an accident but rather a murder and revealed how it was down and expose the killer was none other than Hisashi Kijima himself and was the one who the old man saw taking the dive to fool the old man. As Kijima denied that he was the killer with no proof, Conan revealed the one piece of evidence; a drawing (which the old man made due to him being an artist) of someone taking a dive and while they don't can't see how it is evidence, a closer look shows the figure with a sparkle on his ear, which was a sparkle of a pair of earrings that the moon's light bounces off and Kijima is the only one with earring.

As Megure couldn't believe that Kijima would kill Saijo because he wanted to be captain, but Conan revealed his true motive as Kijima revealed why he did it (which revealed him as a villain). Turns out six months ago, he got into a motorcycle accident and seriously injured his girlfriend and he found out and threaten to tell the owner of the tournament committee if he didn't give up his spot as Captain. It was later revealed that the murder weapon was a concrete block and that what he used to kill Sajio.

Trivia[]

In the FUNimation dub, Nicholas Sampton (Naoya Saijo in the original) was told that he had a medical condition that would make him unfit to dive anymore and was planning to retire, only to be killed by Harry Hanouse. (Hisashi Kijima in the original)

Navigation[]

Villains

Defectors
Akemi Miyano

Anime Exclusive

Anime Exclusive