Oh, yeah, Itsuki made his first appearance in years in the second story in volume 5 of the R series. Too bad it's an absolutely horrible story at this point (featuring a ridiculously designed building even for Kindaichi Shounen standards).

The story was originally written for the 1997 live-action film (the novel was released simultaneously), so it does feel a bit 'different' at times from normal cases, like the Kowloon Treasure story. While not one of the series' best, I did like the slightly different atmosphere (without going overboard like Deep Bue Massacre).

Meh, it's mostly memorable because it's so different, with Kindaichi & Miyuki being part of a group of hostages during a terrorist attack. It's at times more like a Conan film... The film and the novel were released around the same time (1999), but are quite different save for the basic concept. The TV series adaptation of the story is based on the novel (this is the only story that has been animated twice, AFAIK).

The film has an awesome ending though!

Oh I see, well I'll reserve judgment until I see it but it's a bit of a shame it deviates from the usual formula (or genre, rather), especially since the setting looked very nice. Thanks for your answer!


PS : on a side note, I just saw Murders on the screen the other day, and it was a rather pleasant surprise, the plot tried some new things and at least the killer/victimes weren't obvious 5 minutes in.