Wataru Takagi
Wataru Takagi
275px-Wataru_Takagi_Profile.jpg
Continuity Detective Conan
Age ~26
Species Human
Hair Color Black/Very Dark Brown
Eye Color Blue
District Southern District
Journal didntfall
Player Cybra
Theme Song None at this time

"You must not forget if that's an important memory to you. Especially since when a person dies, he can only live in the memories of others."

History

There's very little known about Takagi's time before joining Tokyo Metropolitan Police's Division 1 almost three years ago. He'd been transferred in at some point after the bombing case which claimed the life of former bomb squad member Jinpei Matsuda. At some point, Chief Inspector Juzo Megure decided that he would take Takagi along on investigations as an assistant. Whether this was intended to be a temporary basis is unknown since Takagi can often times be found by the inspector's side during many cases. Because of this, he was present on the flight to New York City when Shinichi Kudo solved his first murder case.

He was mentored by Detective Wataru Date, and the pair became known around the precinct as "the Wataru Brothers" since their names were even pronounced the same. The pair became very close friends, and Takagi looked up to Date. Unfortunately, Takagi would witness Date pass away after Date dropped his notebook while they were on the way back from a stakeout together. When Date bent over to pick it up, he was struck by a car. He gave the notebook to Takagi as he was loaded into the ambulance, asking him to take care of the contents. He passed away either on his way to or at the hospital. Takagi was devastated though he continued working, even going with Detective Miwako Sato to investigate three suicides the day after Date's death. He kept the notebook and uses it to this day, even hanging on to the ring tucked away inside that had been meant for Date's girlfriend.

At some point, Takagi fell in love with Sato, his assigned partner. However, luck was not on his side. Not only was Sato oblivious to his affections, his being her partner earned him the enmity of almost the entirety of the police force who were also in love with Sato. Takagi would continue to pursue Sato despite this, keeping a smile on his face and doing his best to dodge being dragged into the interrogation room to be pressed by his fellow detectives.

When Shinichi disappeared, Takagi didn't seem to take much personal interest in it. This could be explained by the fact that disappearances weren't Division 1's focus which was in reality murder. However, he quickly became the go-to officer for Conan Edogawa, a strange grade schooler who soon started living with Kogoro Mouri, a former homicide detective turned private detective. He would go on to provide both with assistance (usually with Conan acting as an intermediary for Mouri) during and in-between cases, often times answering requests of information from the police force's files. He also would assist with demonstrating various murder tricks, playing both the part of the murder and the victim by turns.

While Takagi largely acted as an assistant to another investigator, he, of course, had cases of his own. The most interesting ones, however, seemed to have his path cross with that of Mouri's or Conan's if not both. Often times those cases would take place while working with Sato.

The first of these cases involved the death of a bank manager's wife. He'd been on the phone at the police station with the woman when she was stabbed in the back. During the investigation, however, Takagi saw himself being distracted time and again by circumstances, particularly when Inspector Ninzaboru Shiratori showed up. Prior to the case, traffic officer Yumi Miyamoto had told him that Sato had told her while drunk that she liked someone in division one. As they worked the crime scene, Takagi kept having visions of Sato and Shiratori together along with their future together. Thanks to Conan's help in pointing out inconsistencies, however, Takagi and Sato were able to bring the murderer - the bank manager himself - to justice. This would be the first of many clashes with Shiratori for Sato's affections.

Still fairly new to the force, Takagi didn't have much faith in his abilities as a police officer, a sentiment which was echoed by his fellow officers. When he allowed a suspect to get away due to a momentary distraction because of a car accident, he became the lead investigator of the murder case the suspect was involved in when Sato accidentally handcuffed herself to the suspect behind the piping for a toilet. With the assistance of the Detective Boys, he went back to each witness, keeping this second investigation secret per Sato's instructions since the man, claiming his innocence, had escaped because he wanted to go to his daughter's wedding. The true criminal was caught before the time limit Sato had set to ensure that the man would make his plane if he was innocent, but not too long before the very building Sato and the suspect were locked up in was going to be destroyed with Professor Hiroshi Agasa's bomb the Tropical Rainbow.

About a few days later, he would learn the story behind Sato's father's death when she was a child. Also an officer, Sato's father had been taking a suspect in when he was shoved in front of a truck. The suspect got away, and the officer's last words were "…" Now fifteen (?) years later, the statute of limitations was about to run out on the case. Sato mentioned that she'd made a promise she'd given whoever found her father's killer whatever they wanted, Shiratori and Takagi both immediately picturing Sato as his bride. Shiratori and Takagi were then called to the scene of the latest in an ongoing arson/murder case, but Takagi realized that he'd left his handcuffs behind at HQ. Sato loaned him her keepsake: her father's handcuffs which he'd forgotten the day he was killed.

Taking a break after arresting a suspect for the string of arsons, one of which had included a body of a potential witness, Takagi looked up at the train station sign and had a flash of inspiration on what Officer Sato's last words had truly meant. He initially called Sato from a payphone but switched to his cell phone due to Shiratori asking him what he was doing and not wanting to reveal the answer to the puzzle to his rival. As he was jogging along the street, possibly to go confront the suspect as he started to reveal Sato's father's killer, he was struck in the back of the head with a rock and knocked unconscious. He would later wake up in a burning building, handcuffed to the barred window. Though the arson suspect and Officer Sato's killer weren't the same person, the latter had accidentally handcuffed Takagi in the man committing arson's next target: an abandoned and crumbling warehouse building scheduled for demolition. Though he still had his gun and could've shot the chain, Takagi hesitated, remembering that this wasn't just a set of handcuffs but the handcuffs of Sato's deceased father. Rather than risk damaging them, Takagi yanked out the barred window and climbed through before the fire consumed the building completely.

He then wandered the area, trying to find his fellow officers, and was mistaken for a passerby. Just as Sato screamed his name in despair after seeing the building collapse in flames, Takagi responded to her, holding the window grate and smiling at her before passing out due to the likely concussion he had. Sato kept her promise about giving the person who caught her father's killer (Takagi had given her enough to go on to retrace his thought process with the help of the Detective Boys), but rather than asking her to be his wife, Takagi asked for a date instead. Sato agreed to it but ultimately turned their date into a stake out of the younger sister of a suspect.

A while afterward, Takagi and Sato were escorting a suspect back to Tokyo via bullet train when there was a mysterious package with a note claiming it to be a bomb at the back of the train. Since Takagi was handcuffed to the suspect, Sato went to check it out. Only a minute or two after she left, the suspect claimed to need to use the restroom insisting that if Takagi didn't let him go that he'd just go in his seat. Takagi took him to the restroom at the front, waiting outside the door with just enough space in the door for the handcuff chain to pass through. As he waited, he heard a cry from within and opened the door to see that the suspect had stabbed himself in the stomach with a knife. Rather than waste time worrying where the knife had come from, Takagi tried to call Sato's cell phone, but due to them passing through a tunnel, he was unable to get a signal. He unlocked his cuff and wrapped it around one of the assistance rails to secure the suspect, running to go fetch Sato who'd just discovered that the bomb was a fake. He hastily explained that the suspect had stabbed himself and the pair ran back to the front restroom only to find the man had pulled out the knife and had passed away from blood loss.

Mouri - who along with Conan and his daughter Ran had been riding the train with them - noted that allowing a suspect to kill himself while in custody would likely lead to punishments such as losing benefits or having a pay cut though he noted that as the officer who allowed the man to stab himself, Takagi would take the worst punishment: likely expulsion from the force. However, Conan started once again pointing out inconsistencies with the crime scene, allowing everyone to realize that this wasn't a suicide but a murder. After tracking down three suspects who'd left from the direction of the "bomb" after Sato had left her seat and studying what they had on them, Mouri went into his "Sleeping Kogoro" trance and pointed the finger at the true suspect who tried to run as the train came to a stop at the next station. However, Takagi stopped him by pitching a can of coffee at the culprit's head, striking him hard enough and accurate enough to knock him to the ground. His job was safe, but he and Sato still had to take a pay cut.

At some point afterward, Takagi had just finished up a case with his friend and coworker Detective Chiba when a robbery happened right in front of where they were parked. The pair was unable to catch the suspect after they ditched their disguise and ran into a public restroom, finding three possible suspects inside. They took the trio into custody and began going around trying to find witnesses, finding three (a restaurant owner, a high school girl, and an old man) but each having a different description of the suspect. As they tried to figure out what was going on, Yumi sent Takagi a text message which he ignored in favor of the case. While he and Chiba were struggling to come up with a solution, Takagi got a call from Shinichi who told him to check his text messages. There he found the message from Yumi which was, in essence, an SOS.

Sato's mother had arranged an engagement meeting for her daughter using a folder Sato had randomly selected from the pile without looking at it. The person it belonged to turned out to be none other than Shiratori. The pair had made a deal that if Takagi didn't show up to rescue Sato by sundown that she would become Shiratori's wife for real. Takagi panicked, realizing they only had a few hours until sundown, until Shinichi asked him to explain the case to see what he might be able to deduce. The detective did as asked, and Shinichi led him back through the different suspects to figure out which descriptions were viable and which weren't. The restaurant owner's description of the robber's clothing - a black shirt - was dismissed due to having UV lenses which darkened in the sun and he'd been standing outside when he saw the robber pass his restaurant. The high school girl - who'd been shopping - had her testimony that it was a tall man dismissed because the suspect had been running on the raised curb to avoid getting slowed down by the people coming off the subway. Before the third witnesses's testimony could be examined, however, Shinichi unexpectedly hung up, assuring Takagi that what he needed to now was in the old man's testimony. As he and Chiba walked through the description - a woman wearing blue - Takagi checked his watch and deliberately stated the wrong time. The three suspects immediately checked their own watches, the trick exposing the true culprit who wore his watch on the inside of his wrist like a woman. As for the blue, Takagi had realized that they'd forgotten to take into account that the man was old and that he'd used the old word for green which meant the same as blue.

Predictably he was pleased with his success, calling Sato via cell phone to tell her that he'd solved the case and was on his way over to pick her up when the suspect bolted out of the car. He momentarily froze. Due to the current time, he only had fifteen minutes until sundown. If he chased the man, he'd go over the time limit. If he didn't, he'd have let a suspect get away. Sato yelled at him for his indecision, telling him to chase the suspect like a police officer. Takagi obeyed, catching the man by tackling him and cuffing him but realizing that the run had taken them so far away that he'd never be able to get back to where Sato's engagement meeting was in time. Chiba caught up and told him to go after Sato and not to give up until he'd done everything in his power to beat the time limit. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived the sun was already down. As he stood outside the front door, gasping for breath, Sato pulled up in a car, ordering him to get in because of a case, a smile on her face as if confirming a ploy to get her away from the meeting.

Not too long afterward, the police were preparing themselves for a potential bombing incident. A parade honoring the win of the Tokyo Spirits was the target of a bomb threat. While it was standard procedure to take all such threats seriously, the timing of this one was during the week of an anniversary of sorts in which strange faxes would arrive at headquarters. The last time this had happened, a bomb blew up the Haido Department Store's ferris wheel, killing Sato's former partner Jinpei Matsuda not long before Takagi had joined Division 1. Many officers were disguised and among the crowd, but when Takagi showed up in his own disguise despite not needing to, he was struck across the face by Sato due to his accidental resemblance to Matsuda. As Takagi went back to his car to re-park it along with remove his disguise, he spotted a bag beneath the car that hadn't been there before. As he started walking back to ask Shiratori about if he thought it might be a bomb, the bomb inside went off, destroying his car. He escaped injury, putting on a burst of speed to duck behind one of the public mailboxes, but Sato didn't realize this right away, tearing away at the burning wreckage to try and save him…or possibly Matsuda.

One of the Detective Boys, Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya, had been filming at the time the car bomb was planted and his video camera was stolen from him in the crowd surrounding the parade route before the bomb went off. The camera was recovered but the tape inside had been stolen. Luckily, Mitsuhiko had swapped tapes just before it was taken since he'd been running low on film after he forgot to turn the camera off when the Detective Boys met up with Sato and the other police officers. Takagi studied the tape with the kids while the rest of the officers went to check out a second explosion but found nothing recorded that could provide a suspect. Conan, however, realized that it was what wasn't recorded on the tape that was important: the mail truck coming to pick up the mail on the holiday time schedule. Because of this, they realized that the true target wasn't the Spirits but a robbery of a post office branch since there would be very few clerks there. The police were able to get ahead of the robbers and arrest them.

Sato was impressed that Takagi had figured it out as they left the scene, presumably getting off shift, but he gave the credit to the children for helping him see it. Sato apologized for slapping Takagi but went on to tell him to cancel their date the following week and that he should find someone else. Takagi lost his nerve to argue and agreed that they didn't make a very good match. His fellow detectives, currently spying on the pair, were very pleased with this and even treated him nicely the next day.

Less than a week after the parade bombing, the expected bombing notice came in via fax to police headquarters along with a note left in Shiratori's booby-trapped car:

I'm a major league slugger.
This is the beginning of the extra-inning game.
At my signal, the game begins at 12PM and ends at 3PM tomorrow.
It doesn't matter if you prepare a good stopper,
I will turn it around in the end.
Come to me if you want to cancel the game.
I'll be waiting in the iron batter's box as the police climb the blood-stained mound.

The notice was the result of a bombing case seven years prior. A pair of bombers held two condo buildings hostage for a huge ransom. The police were able to dismantle one of the bombs in time, but they paid the ransom since the other wasn't going to be diffused in time. The second bomb's timer was remotely disabled and the building was safely evacuated, but one of the bombers was killed when he called police headquarters after overhearing a delayed report on the radio saying the timer was still going. The suspect had been tracked to a payphone but he fled into traffic, getting struck by a car and dying.

For two years afterward, the numbers three and two were faxed to police headquarters, the third year instead being a riddle leading to a large bomb. This was the incident that ultimately killed Matsuda as the deceased bomber's partner was taking revenge on the police.

At first, it was assumed that the riddle referred to a train on the red line. However, despite stopping and searching every red train car all night, the only bombs found were fakes. The real bombs were still out in the city somewhere.

Sato ordered Takagi to take the Detective Boys (who'd once again tagged along) home and get a little sleep while she continued the investigation. Initially, he protested but back down as she argued that he'd be useless tired. As he drove, Mitsuhiko spotted the Touto Tower, noting that it, too, was red.

Takagi notified Sato immediately, already heading in its direction. Upon arrival, he learned of a small explosion that caused an elevator to get stuck between floors. Despite Sato's orders to stay put, Takagi climbed the stairs to where the elevator had stopped. While most of the passengers had been evacuated, one frightened little girl remained inside. The space between the door and the elevator's floor was too tight a squeeze to get an adult back into the elevator, but just big enough for another child to get in. Conan, who'd followed Takagi, immediately volunteered. He successfully coaxed out the little girl, but a second bomb went off, sending the elevator plummeting. Takagi somehow managed to throw himself into the elevator as it fell in an attempt to rescue Conan.

The pair survived the drop thanks to the emergency clamps kicking in, but it turned into a shallow victory. Takagi helped Conan get through the ceiling exit of the elevator only for the boy to discover another bomb atop it, this one large enough to take out the entire tower. Even worse, the trigger was connected to a mercury switch. Should Takagi try to climb up or a bomb squad technician repel down, any jolt risked setting off the trigger. With no other choice, tools were lowered to Conan along with a radio so Takagi could relay instructions from the bomb squad. Disarming the bomb was going fine until a message much like the one Matsuda saw three years before appeared on the LCD panel:

Courageous Officer,
I praise your bravery and grant you a prize:
It is the whereabouts of an after-game highlight, a great firework.
Display time is three seconds to detonation.
I wish you luck.

Following the steps and cutting the last three wires would erase all chances of seeing that final clue. After relaying the message to Sato via cell phone, he and Conan settled down to wait. More importantly, Conan gave a very possible solution to where the other bombs might be. To narrow down the search, however, they needed that last clue but they'd likely die getting it. Takagi was impressed by the boy's logic but something started to bother him.

"Exactly who are you?"
"If you want to know, I'll tell you in the afterlife."

Three seconds before detonation, Takagi waited with cellphone in hand to text both the solution and the final hint to Sato. The letters EVIT appeared on the screen, but Conan cut the wires just before detonation, saving their lives. It seemed that while Takagi and Conan were safe, their chances of saving the people whose lives were in danger was gone.

Yet that wasn't the case. As the bomber watched and waited on a footbridge not far from his major target, Teitan High School, the police slipped in under the guise of a company delivering sports equipment to find and disarm the bombs. The bomber was cornered on his vantage point, but he fled by jumping over the side and onto passing cars. Sato immediately pursued by jumping as well, and Takagi followed after by taking a less direct route. As Sato fired on the suspect after cornering him in an alley, Takagi tackled her, the shot barely missing the bomber's head. He reminded her of her own words to him to not give in to fear or hate and serve the country with pride and responsibility. Tearfully, she begged him to help her forget, but he refused to let her do that either, telling her that she needed to remember for Matsuda lived on in her mind. As the two leaned in to kiss, Megure arrived on the scene, interrupting the moment.

Some time later, Takagi took Sato on a date to Tropical Marine Land, intending to give her a modest ring he'd bought for her but he didn't have the nerve to tell her about it right away. However, luck was not on his side as he felt hostile eyes on him and, to make matters worse, Shiratori had just happened to give Agasa and the Detective Boys tickets to the park for that very day. As if that weren't enough bad luck, Shiratori called Agasa away due to an urgent request for additional information regarding a previous case, leaving the kids with Sato and Takagi. Takagi was frustrated by this since it was supposed to be their date, but Sato teased him, calling it practice for when he brought his own family to the park. Takagi reached into his bag, intending to give her the ring, but realized that, somehow, his bag had been switched with someone else's. Instead of a ring box, he and Sato found a kilo of heroin.

Takagi confirmed that he'd only let go of his bag once for a ride where the staff held on to personal belongings. Going to the lost and found revealed no one had gone looking for their bag, likely someone who had no idea what he'd been carrying to begin with so he hadn't bothered to double-check the contents. Returning to the ride, they bought a souvenir picture to help get some faces to narrow down the list of suspects in addition to the bag's strap. Though they found the drug mule with Takagi's bag, they didn't try to take it, instead waiting for the exchange so they could arrest the supplier. At a fireworks show just before closing, the mule made the handoff. Sato went for the arrest but the suspect was armed and started fleeing the scene. Takagi, Sato, and the Detective Boys pursued when Sato suddenly froze in the middle of the chase. Conan used his soccer ball dispensing belt to strike the fleeing man and cause him to lose Takagi's bag in the water and nearly go over the side. Takagi finished the job by tackling the man into the water and, sadly, watching the ring fall out of his bag and sink to the bottom of the lake.

The officers that had been performing surveillance for both the drug lord and on the big date took the suspect into custody. Takagi returned to Sato who was kneeling on the ground. When he asked her what was wrong, it was discovered that she'd been reminded of Matsuda by the way the fireworks exploded around the Ferris wheel. She ordered him to promise not to leave her alone which he agreed.

A little while afterward, Takagi got the shock of his life when he walked in one morning to be greeted with an entire room of stares. Even more shocking was Yumi's tearful goodbye and the very pleased grins of his fellow detectives. He was then told that he was being transferred to a combined investigative team in Tottori. When he expressed his incredulity, the detectives told him Yumi had overheard Megure and Superintendent Kiyonaga Matsumoto talking about it, saying they'd already contacted him and that he'd agreed to it. Although he remembered a phone call he'd received when he was half-asleep, he couldn't recall what was discussed. At first, he was rather calm about it, saying he'd be back once the case was finished. The other detectives, however, informed him it was regarding a nation-wide robbery syndicate, Shiratori taking pleasure in telling Takagi it may take three years to complete. Hearing that, Takagi began to panic as the other detectives happily told him of all the benefits of him being there such as fresh air and crabs. He turned to Sato, hoping for some good news, but instead she asked him to buy her 20th Century pears.

Immediately after her request, Megure came in with an assignment in a high-rise apartment building. He assigned Sato, Takagi, and an investigator named Chou to the case, telling Takagi to learn from him since it'd likely be his last chance to work with him. The victim was a man who'd been stabbed in his apartment, and during questioning the Detective Boys arrived having seen the commotion. Even more important, they'd seen the murderer fleeing the scene though they'd initially mistaken the man for a jogger. The kids identified the "jogger" from a photo and followed the officers to the suspect's address, finding out that the apartment was one he shared with Chiba. Chiba, present due to it being his day off, swore that his roommate had done no wrong and that he himself could provide an alibi. What better alibi was there than a police officer, after all? He claimed that the pair had watched the news and recorded Kamen Yaiba episodes all morning, staying together aside from a brief shower break where it would've been impossible to go to the apartment, kill the man, and run back.

Takagi, Sato, and Chou investigated the apartment, looking for anything that might negate the suspect's alibi. Takagi told Chiba of his impending transfer, momentarily panicking when Chiba told him that his roommate had been sent away for work for a year, sending his girlfriend postcards and letters but never receiving a response, and returned to find she'd moved on to someone else.

The search came to an end after nothing turned up. A thought flitted across Takagi's mind that if the case dragged on long enough that he wouldn't be transferred. Immediately, he berated himself for such thinking since it was his duty as a police officer to solve the case. Seeing how tense he was, Chou told Takagi to relax and that if the case was prolonged, he could pass it on to someone else. However, the case didn't go on for much longer as Conan revealed the alibi trick using a duplicated recording of the morning show Chiba thought they'd been watching live and the Kamen Yaiba tapes.

Upon returning to headquarters, Chou bid them farewell while Chiba went to interrogate his roommate who'd confessed so that it was all properly documented. Takagi and Sato went to her car to take the Detective Boys home when she was startled by her own prank snake which she'd frightened Takagi with shortly before the discovery of the transfer. She asked and then demanded that even should he meet someone nice in Tottori that he wouldn't have a change of heart to which he told her he wouldn't and started to ask her to get engaged before he left. Unfortunately, he was interrupted by a confused Megure who wanted to know where Takagi was going. It turned out that Chou's full name was Chousuke Takagi and he was the one being transferred. The phone call Wataru Takagi couldn't remember was a misdial by Megure. With that resolved, Sato asked what Takagi had been about to say, and Takagi chickened out to ask her to karaoke, the Detective Boys inviting themselves along.

Not too long afterward, Takagi went to a jewelry store to buy a diamond pin that Yumi told him Sato said she liked. He was initially hesitant since he was still paying off the loan on the ring that had been lost during the failed date at Tropical Marine Land but as he started to work up his nerve, the Detective Boys once again appeared seemingly from nowhere since they'd seen him enter the store. The kids started suggesting which one Takagi should buy for Sato, so he asked the clerk to take out the pin he'd been planning to buy to show them. It easily met their approval, and as he was preparing to buy it, a jewel thief started smashing display cases and held up a sign with a demand for the clerks to put all the gems in his bag. Despite being off-duty, Takagi pulled out his badge, ordering the thief to stop and telling him the police were surrounding the block as a bluff. However, the thief laughed and fled, Takagi taking up pursuit. He chased the man to the top of a building where, much to his horror, the man jumped off the roof only to die as he hit a moving van parked below.

Shiratori and Sato showed up to officially investigate the crime scene, Shiratori giving Takagi the evil eye once he learned that he'd gone into the jewelry store on his day off rather than being some good Samaritan. The initial evidence leaned towards this being an intentional suicide since the suspect had been armed but Takagi wasn't, so there had been no reason to jump off the roof. As they processed the scene, all the stolen jewels were accounted for save one: the pin Takagi had been planning to buy. It had fallen to the ground during the robbery, and the robber had stuck it into his pocket, but the robber's pockets were empty upon search. Further investigation revealed that it wasn't an intentional suicide but all a trick to cover up a murder perpetrated by the dead man's employer whom he'd been blackmailing.

Takagi had Sato retrieve the pin from the murderer's coat pocket, but she was more confused by the jewelry than enthusiastic, asking if it wasn't the pin that Yumi had been interested in. Shiratori realized he'd seen Yumi wearing a bracelet he'd bought for Sato, and Sato told him that she'd loaned it to her since Sato herself wasn't interested in shiny things. Thus Yumi's plan to get free jewelry by manipulating the officers who were in love with Sato was revealed.

Sometime later, Chiba begged Takagi to join him at a singles party so that the numbers would be even. Takagi wasn't too thrilled with this idea, especially seeing Mouri and his family at the same restaurant. As was typical for him, his luck went further south when Sato proved to be at the very same singles party courtesy of Yumi. The pair sat away from each other, managing to get under one another's skin due to the fact the other had even gone to the party. Sato charmed all the men, telling tales of her cases while Takagi tried to cheer up the host's sister who was worried about her son being home alone.

While talking with the sister, it was discovered that a strange man had taken interest in her son, giving him gifts and such. In turn, the boy told the man about their home and even managed to find out when the boy would be home alone. Recognizing the early stages of a child being targeted, Takagi and Sato told the sister to call her son at once. However, she'd been trying the entire time with no answer. With Yumi and Chiba too drunk to do anything, Takagi, Sato, and Mouri's family accompanied the host and his sister back to her apartment. The boy was long gone with only a ransom note for one million yen remaining behind.

Takagi wanted to call for backup, but Sato argued that more police involvement would only make things worse. Their own involvement had been an accident, but it was unlikely the perpetrator realized the mother would be spending the evening with off-duty police officers. Based upon what little evidence remained at the scene, it was deduced that the boy knew the kidnapper and that the suspects were three men who'd been invited to the singles party but hadn't come. Under the guise of just hanging out after the singles party had finished, the group went to each of the suspects' homes.

Not finding the child or any evidence of him being in any of them, they returned to the apartment and contacted Megure to keep him appraised of the situation. During which Sato revealed to Takagi that she'd only been at the singles party for the food. This led to a brief spat between the two, each accusing the other of going to the party and knowing ahead of time what it was despite each's claims of being tricked into it by their original companion. They were interrupted by Sato's cell phone with Megure on the other end asking for an update. As she explained they'd found nothing, the boy called out that he was home, having returned on his own and none the worse for wear. The kidnapper had simply released him, asking the boy not to say anything about where he'd been.

As the boy walked by him to go to bed per his mother's orders, Takagi noticed the child's socks were wet and asked why. The child had remembered his uncle saying he shouldn't take things from strangers so had returned to where he'd been kept to give back a rare Kamen Yaiba card the kidnapper had given him during a previous meeting, but the man was gone and a different man he'd never seen before had been in the bathroom. At that, Takagi put the puzzle pieces together, a horrible possibility occurring to him. Without telling the others, he ran back to the culprit's apartment, arriving just after Megure's group surrounded it. Not bothering to stop and explain, he ran up to the apartment and rushed to the bathroom to save the culprit who had been trying to commit suicide.

During the car ride to drop off the Mouris at their home and to fill out reports on the incident, Takagi apologized to Sato for running off without telling her, having wanted to confirm his deduction as quickly as possible, but she waved it off saying that it was far more important to save a person's life than to catch them. She even admitted that she'd been upset at herself and even jealous of Takagi for being so focused on catching the culprit that she hadn't taken into account their emotional state. The pair apologized to one another for their tiff over the singles party, and the next time Yumi invited Sato to one because they were running short, she refused…until Yumi mentioned cake being served after dinner.

In a later case, Takagi acted as a double for a groom while Yumi was the double of the bride since the groom was being threatened by a dangerous thief who was also a serial killer that the groom had interrupted during a robbery of the bride's home. Despite the threat, the groom had insisted that the wedding continue as planned. However, the charred remains of wedding guest were found in a warehouse some distance from the wedding hall, the serial killer's fingerprints on their nails. Despite the fact that it was very likely the killer had snuck in under the guise of a guest, some of whom the couple had never met in person but via a hot springs chat site, the groom insisted that the wedding continue as the police investigated in the background. Based upon inconsistencies in the groom's behavior, it was discovered that the groom had been the serial killer thief's accomplice all along. Not only that, he was the one who'd done the actual killing.

However, there was a minor mix up at the end of the case where Sato - who'd swapped clothes with Yumi so she was in the bridal gown - mistook Takagi for the culprit, flipping him into the ground right in front of a wedding photographer. The photographer snapped a picture for the wedding hall who then went on to use it in poster advertisements. Naturally, both Takagi and Sato were embarrassed by the ads.

Takagi's distraction during the case regarding a famous mystery author's murder actually provided the inspiration for the solution to the locked room. He'd arrived at police headquarters to discover Sato wearing an engagement ring…one he hadn't given her. His comment about feeling like he was walking a tightrope with Sato was an unintentional clue to how the killer escaped the room and left the room's key in the deceased author's hand which led to the killer himself. In the end, it turned out Takagi had been worried over nothing, Sato having chosen to wear the ring on her finger due to misunderstanding Yumi's meaning when she said it was good luck and doing so would "keep the bugs away". The "bugs" in this case being the other detectives. Takagi asked her to wear his ring which she agreed to but he realized too late that he'd forgotten to explain the significance of it to her.

He and Sato were paired up again in staking out a suspect believed to be a serial killer known as "The Hammer Man" some time later. They were interrupted by Conan, Ran, and Sonoko Suzuki, but Chiba was also on hand and had stopped three delivery people enter and leave the apartment the man was holed up in. Realizing that no one was currently watching the door, Sato ran up to the apartment to find someone unconscious on the floor with a rope around their neck. That person was likely the Hammer Man and one of the delivery people was the likely culprit, but the three officers released the delivery people without thinking, a rookie mistake. Upon review of the evidence left behind, it was deduced that the actual Hammer Man was a Hammer Woman who'd swapped places with one of the delivery people. She was caught after knocking out another victim to swap clothing and escape via taxi since a delivery person's outfit would've been suspicious.

Though the statute of limitations for murder was extended to twenty-five years at some point following Sato's father's case was concluded, another serial killer who'd vanished into thin air's case was running out of time. This one was personal to Superintendent Matsumoto since the man had given him the scar over his left eye though he'd returned the favor by using the murderer's own weapon to cut across the man's back. Takagi and Sato were among the police officers assigned to the case, Sato agreeing to go to a hot spring with Takagi as long as they caught the murderer before the deadline three days away. However, the case was given an additional twenty-five years after a criminal psychologist who'd mocked the killer on TV was murdered in his own apartment, the culprit whistling the Beatles' "Let It Be" as he passed by Ayumi and Ai in the elevator just as the killer in the original slayings had.

Takagi with the Detective Boys in tow (the kids inviting themselves along by sneaking into Takagi's car) went to re-interview the loved ones of the original murders' victims. Listening to each of the last things the victims were heard saying along with what the last witness overheard the murderer say to his murdered father revealed that the foursome were connected by mahjong. They even managed to track down a mahjong parlor where they used to play and discuss cases they saw in the newspaper, their deductions usually being the correct solutions. By pure chance, the owner had the group's original mahjong set which contained the fingerprints of the murdered psychologist, the owner himself, and a possible suspect who'd threatened the group in the past. The psychologist and the suspect had had a fight after the other three players stopped showing up, throwing around the tiles and scratching them. The owner hadn't the heart to throw the tiles out, so for twenty-five years, the prints had been preserved. Takagi took a few of the tiles, wrapped them in a handkerchief, and put them in his pocket to give to the crime lab for printing.

The prints of the unknown person belonged to a robber and murderer whose fifteen-year sentence had ended and was released a few days before. He was re-caught quickly, so Takagi went to go get the witness who'd heard the killer's voice years ago for identification while Sato took the kids home. However, Conan realized on the drive back that the last victim's dying message was "copycat", meaning that the last victim was the serial killer himself who'd been killed by someone else, likely someone related to the original victims. Only one of them knew about the killer's habit of whistling "Let It Be": the very same man Takagi had gone to pick up to go to the police station to try and identify the killer's voice.

Unfortunately, Takagi had no knowledge of this, returning to the man's home unsuspecting. Seeing the door was unlocked, he stepped inside, calling out to its sole occupant, and was struck in the back of the head with a baseball bat. While unconscious, he was cuffed with his own handcuffs and stripped of his gun. The witness-turned-killer confessed his crime to Takagi since he'd acted rashly in attacking before finding out that Takagi knew nothing of it, planning to use him as a hostage to escape. Sato chose that moment to call, intending to warn him but not knowing that she'd called too late. The killer ordered Takagi to tell Sato to come so that he'd have two hostages, but Takagi broke his cell phone in two, rendering it useless. Enraged, the man beat Takagi with a baseball bat while leaving him conscious. The police surrounded the killer's home, but Takagi feared that Sato - who might be there - would try to rush the killer while he was aiming the stolen gun at the door. Takagi got to his feet and rushed the suspect himself who turned and fired, the bullet striking him in the chest.

Perhaps to even out all his bad luck up until that moment, the bullet did not penetrate his heart. Instead, the bullet lodged itself dead center in a lone mahjong tile that had remained in his jacket pocket. He was sent to the hospital to undergo surgery and be treated for his injuries from the beating but was otherwise fine. Sato went to visit him, at first assuming the worst, and was very happy to know he was alive and well. Unfortunately, due to his injuries, the hot springs were off. Takagi expressed his disappointment since it meant that, once again, circumstances had blocked any major step forward in their relationship. Right when he expected another interruption, she leaned over his bed to kiss him in what may very well have been their first kiss.

Several cases later, the anniversary of Date's death arrived. His normal good nature was drowned out as he looked through Date's - now his - police notebook and finding pictures of the man and his girlfriend together. He even went to the records room to review the three suicides he'd investigated the previous year, realizing one of the victims had been Date's intended fiancée. At the time, they hadn't understood the "DATE" written on her calendar had been Romaji for "Date" and not the English word since she'd been an English teacher. However, he didn't discuss it with his coworkers, instead reacting angrily when someone asked him why he was upset. Just before the anniversary, he left work early with permission to fly to the girl's relations and explain why precisely she'd killed herself, intending to return the next morning to take the Detective Boys to the public relations department to be the poster children for child crime prevention.

However, Takagi never made it back.

Instead, a man overheard the kids talking excitedly and asked them to deliver a package to Takagi's girlfriend along with a message:

"This is something perishable, so please open it right away. If you delay, tomorrow or the next day will be too late."

Conan called Sato just after the stranger left so she could open the package. Inside was a tablet that, when turned on, provided a live feed to a camera that was focused on an unconscious Takagi. His arms were bound around with rope wrapped around his chest, his hands were tied behind his back with rope as well, his ankles were also tied with rope, and there was duct tape over his mouth. Around his neck was a noose tied with a knot that would choke him to death rather than break his neck should he fall from the board he was lying on. There were different camera angles set up that would randomly switch. However, there were no indicators of where Takagi was aside from it being at least a four-story building under construction and the batteries of the tablet couldn't be recharged since the charge connector had been tampered with. The tablet's serial number had also been removed and the touch screen disabled. Even worse, it was very likely that attempting to take the tablet apart to try and find the source of the video feed would render the police unable to receive any more video. The only thing they could use was the button to turn the screen on and off.

Upon waking, Takagi realized his situation and remembered the events leading up to it. He had met with an older teacher who'd collected the dead woman's personal effects in Komamae since the man had thought of her as a daughter. While they were talking, the man said he wanted to show Takagi something and ended up drugging him from behind. Since it was unlikely that health would be arriving any time soon, he set to work trying to leave clues for his fellow officers along with free himself.

Looking down towards the ground, Takagi realized that he was actually suspended over a large mirror to give the appearance that he was many stories in the air. The building itself was actually about two stories high. To try and reveal this trick, he carefully started to turn himself over to try and drop his notebook. In the process, he nearly fell but he accomplished his goal. Unfortunately, the notebook landed underneath the board where it'd likely be hidden from camera view. A few hours later, a crow landed on the stick holding the above-shot camera before landing on him.

At some point Takagi turned himself back over to look up at the sky. As day turned to night and the temperature - already cold - dropped further, he wondered if he'd freeze to death. After all, he was only wearing his suit, hardly appropriate weather for the current conditions which included snow. The only reason he was still alive was because a heater had been placed under the mirror to prevent snow from giving away the trick and enough heat had risen to keep him from freezing. However, he refused to give up when he remembered Date's last request. Carefully, he inched himself along the board so that his back was to a wall as much as possible, the noose around his neck's length too short for him to properly sit up. He then started to rub the rope binding his ankles against the edge of the board to begin sawing through the bindings.

The next day, the police managed to figure out based on his behavior leading up to the kidnapping just what case file Takagi had been looking at and who had taken him. Unfortunately, the suspect drank poison as soon as the police arrived, intending to see their despair - particularly Sato's - as the last thing he saw. However, his pleasure turned to horror as Sato revealed that he'd condemned an innocent man to die. The man had thought Takagi had dumped the girl which had driven her to suicide, never knowing there had been two Watarus on the force and that the one who'd been the woman's actual boyfriend had been struck and killed by a car. Before he could give the location where Takagi was being held, the poison took effect and he died.

Unaware of these events, Takagi finally managed to cut through the ropes, freeing his feet. He could dangle them freely on either side of the board to give himself more stability. He first used them to grab a blanket that had been placed near his feet and throw it towards the mirror, hoping this time the trick would be exposed, but it, too, landed beneath the board. However, that was the last thing on his mind. Doing so revealed the dead man's last means to ensure that his victim would die: a time bomb that had been taped to the board. He started to remove the tape but pulled the bomb on top of the board with him, preventing it from falling and detonating when he heard people passing by. Due to the tape, however, he couldn't shout for help and time was still running out.

Memories of his time with Date passed through his mind as he waited, hoping that his message had been received by the people at headquarters. He was out of moves he could make, growing weaker by the house, and his fate was firmly in their hands. Takagi spent another night on that board, the clock ticking down to the one-year anniversary of Date's fiancée's death. One way or another, be it from cold, the bomb, or starvation and dehydration, Takagi was unlikely to last another twenty-four hours.

In one last-ditch effort to save himself, Takagi got the edge of the duct tape on his mouth stuck to the pole his noose was tied to. He then tore off the tape, but he couldn't scream for help due to the dehydration. Instead, he started mouthing the location of Komamae, hoping someone watching the video feeds would understand as the last few minutes ticked down.

A helicopter with Megure and Sato were passing over Komamae and found the building, but going lower would've blown Takagi off the board. Instead, Sato dropped down into the snow bank on the roof across from where Takagi was lying on the board. By this time, Takagi thought he was hallucinating seeing her before he passed on right up until she aimed her gun at him and ordered him to move his head to the left. She shot the noose's cord and tackled him off the board, the bomb going off a few seconds later.

That's when Takagi arrived in Nautilus.

Personality

Upon first meeting, the phrase least likely to come to mind in regards to Takagi. Though kind, good-natured, and slow to truly anger, Takagi can come across as bumbling due to being more introverted and inexperienced than most other members of the police force. He doesn't always say or do exactly the right thing though his heart is certainly in the right place. As one of the newer members of Division 1, he still has quite a lot to learn.

Takagi is exceptionally polite. Even when upset by something or yelling at someone, his manner of speaking remains that way. In fact, he even refers to himself using "boku", the boyish and very polite way of saying "I" in Japanese which many characterize as meek. While he does on occasion yell at others, it's a rare occasion outside of ordering a suspect to stop. More often than not, it's Takagi himself being yelled at, usually by Megure, rather than him yelling at anyone. When that happens, he usually cringes back a bit, holding up his hands to seem non-threatening.

Not that he really needs to appear any more non-threatening than he already does. Because of his good nature, he's taken advantage of quite frequently. Most often by Conan and the Detective Boys who use them as their personal chauffer during cases or just muscling into his life when they spy him off-duty. If they or Mouri need any information from the police, Takagi is usually the first officer they call.

However, it's unfair to rule out Takagi as a capable officer based on this. Thanks to his experiences in Division 1, he's certainly been developing into an officer worth respecting. He's very dedicated and has long since learned (at times ahead of his colleagues) to listen to any child witnesses rather than simply disregard any of their testimony due to their youth. This is especially applicable to Conan, and he's one of the very few officers who pay very close attention when Conan is speaking, even allowing the child to take the lead on an investigation.

He also has a strong sense of honor and justice, both important for being a police officer. He also possesses a strong desire to protect people. For example, he expressed regret that he wasn't able to save Conan when on the phone with Sato while trapped in the elevator of Touto Tower following the bomber's announcement of the hint three seconds before detonation. While this can be attributed to his job as a police officer, it's very possible that it stems from his self-sacrificing streak such as when he refused to break Sato's father's cuffs despite the danger he was in while trapped in a burning building and risked being burned alive.

Still, he has a bit of an odd streak when it comes to his hobbies. He follows the international wrestling scene, recognizing the "Shining Wizard" technique Ran uses when knocking out a suspect on sight. He also has expressed that he likes to play the maracas.

He also believes in luck which, given the information concerning it in the next section, is very understandable.

Abilities

As far as anyone is aware, Takagi is a normal human being. He's physically fit both for and due to his job as a police officer. Thanks to his training, he knows how to handle a gun and at least basic self-defense techniques. Though he may not be the brightest member of the police force, his intuitive leaps - as evidenced by the kidnapping case at the singles party and by his asking Conan who he truly is in Touto Tower - can be quite astonishing.

Takagi's luck, however, is certainly far from normal. It typically runs bad. In some cases, such as the anniversaries of Date's and Date's fiancée's deaths, his luck goes even further south than normal and puts his life into very real jeopardy. However, it's at that point that his luck takes a sudden one hundred and eighty-degree turn, swinging things back extraordinarily in his favor before whatever situation he's in turns fatal such as a mahjong tile being precisely where it needs to be to stop a bullet. Whether this is the result of something unusual about Takagi or not remains to be seen.

Relationships

Under construction

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