#andre camel

from this q&a from the love plus super digest book

Kid Killer actually kills Kid

Hello MasterDetective! This is probably the 1st time in DC history that audience probably know more about BO activities than Conan. We know who Rum is disguising as, we know about his eye condition & abilities he used to have using those eye and have gotten hints on his objectives. We have more details on what exactly happened in that 17 year old cold case than Conan. How much of it has Conan figured about all of this according to you? Thanks !

File 1144-1146 Review

The latest case was extremely promising and it delivered what we have all been waiting for,... Rum arc plot progression.

This case started off with Conan pondering over his recent triggered memories of Itakura Suguru and him trying to trace back what triggered them (File 1144). Already there, we got to see him recalling Eri and Ran's words in association with it, which I speculated could have played a significant role to those triggers in my File 1141-1143 Review other than the obvious "cat's cry" subject that Itakura had once mentioned in his diary.

This was then followed by Haibara interrupting his thought process and us once again having another Maria appearance, just in time as we are getting main plot development signaled to us. Something interesting that was said by Conan was the fact that he referenced the passing of a significant amount of time in the story. He referenced the last Maria case (File 1110-1112) and that 1 month had already passed since then. This is interesting, as it has always been understood that the overall DC story timeline is not gonna surprass a year (in order for the status quo to be preserved), so if 12 months is as long as the story plays out in-universe, then it means we are so far 9+ months (75%) finished of the story time-wise, since we know from the Vauxhall bridge case (File 1048-1050) that Mary's shrinking/London case took place at least 2 months ago ("a few months ago") and Mary mentioned back then that Conan started appearing soon after Shinichi's disappearance 6 months ago (so a total of at least 8 months has passed).

The actual meat of this case however was the reunion of Andre Camel (with the newly made-up cover "Ando Rekiya") and Wakita Kanenori (Rum). Both immediately found each familiar through out this case, and it ultimately lead to the cliffhanger of Wakita recalling his encounter with Camel 2 years ago during Rye's testing and him starting to suspect if Ando is Camel.

In terms of what I expect the follow-up of this ending will be, I don't think there will be any major consequences from this for Camel. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, it's too early for Camel to get fully/undoubtfully exposed, as this is literally his first case since he faked his death and it would break Gosho's pattern and set a completely new precedent for how quickly a major main plot setup case like the FBI serial murder (File 1061-1066), that established this status quo, would be undone. Secondly, the way this case ended on this sudden high-stake note without resolution is a classic Gosho misdirection build-up move that he does too frequently, which further suggest that there will be a twist in its continuation (that Rum gets convinced otherwise).

Now, as for how Rum's suspicions gets dispelled, I could see Conan's cover for Camel that he gave to Detective Boys coming back. When DB found him familar (File 1144), Conan introduced him with his alias and told them that he was in the recent Teitan alumni reunion (Akemi time capsule case, File 1070-1072).

If DB happens to return and reference this information about Ando to Wakita, it would be enough for Wakita, who was at the alumni reunion, to start talking himself out of the idea that Andre Camel somehow survived his fatal gunshot wounds that all of his subordinates witnessed, as he fell into deep water. All of this tension would then get averted, but perhaps with lingering queries in Rum about Ando (similar to Bourbon with Subaru in Betrayal case resolution, File 957).

A great prediction of how this cliffhanger potentially gets followed up was made by @Joey from Discord, where we could be leading into not only a flashback to Rye's exposure 2 years ago from Rum's POV, but also tie it together with something else that took place 2 years ago: Tequila's mission of ordering a software from Itakura Suguru.

I can immediately agree and see this great potential for a full flashback case here, where we see Camel's POV as he, Akai & FBI prepare their trap for Gin, and also where we see Rum's POV as he is managing Tequila's mission while planning Rye's loyalty test. This would then lead to the eventual Rye exposure, but also revelations of the behind-the-scenes that took place when Tequila's mission got transfered to Vermouth and the potential disputes/conflicts within the BO about that topic (especially if it relates to the hidden Boss). This flashback would then transition back to Wakita's reaction to Ando in the resolution chapter and resolve as mentioned before above.

This idea is extremely promising and it goes surprisingly well with everything that has been setup in this case, and it would continue the so-far-consistent Itakura software developments/hints that have been dropping since the previous case. Also, Gosho had teased in recent interviews that not only Camel, but also the FBI was gonna return soon (which would fit with if FBI appeared in the flashback case to 2 years ago). Gosho also revealed that the magazine cover for the issue that next case drops in will feature Rum, so all the more reason to have it center around his POV.

Something else that Gosho decided to happen was Rum getting his first glimpse at Haibara (Sherry), who was been completely shaken by the triggered BO sense since Wakita appeared (File 1144-1145).

Rum was immediately disarmed by that and seemed to just be at the brink of processing who he may have recognized before Conan came in and interrupted his thought process. This was a very close-call situation that could potentially bear fruit far into the future when Gosho intends to have Rum realize that APTX4869 had de-aged Sherry and Shinichi all along. Haibara was quick to dismiss Wakita ("sushi guy") as a threat once she was mislead to believe by DB that he was Conan's friend (File 1145). It did make me wonder if this was gonna carry any consequence, like for example Haibara daring to return with DB to where Wakita is and once again get triggered (but from afar) as Conan directly witnesses it (this time both of them affirms that Wakita has to be BO) or Wakita further interacting with DB (after they dispell his Camel suspicion) and asking them about missing Haibara in front of Conan.

Regardless, this leads me to the subject I have been meaning do discuss, and that's Conan's awareness and potential suspicions that he already has hidden at the moment about Wakita.

I have previously written my speculations on what Conan thinks about Wakita, and this case was essentially a goldmine of hints that confirmed my speculations that Conan has pretty much zero:ed in on Wakita as potentially being Rum.

The first hint we got was the aforementioned interruption of Wakita recognizing Haibara as Sherry (File 1145). Conan immediately interrupted him by asking him for a bandage in an unsuspecting manner, which was extremely convinient timing, suggesting it was intentional after having made note of Haibara's state at Wakita's presence. The second hint was how Conan explained off his usual smart observations to Takagi. Takagi immediately made note of the absence of crediting it to Kudo Shinichi, further highlighting Conan's off-routine behaviors, as if he is very suspicious of Wakita and intentionally being careful about mentioning the BO's recent investigational target, Kudo Shinichi (File 1145).

The last hint was how alert Conan was to Wakita's actions, as if he has been carefully observing his watchful eyes. After Wakita glared at Ando as Conan was conspiring with him, he later started noticing a slight off-sync in Ando's mouth movement with the voice and soon after realizing Conan's absence he had an lightning-suspicion that Conan could be relaying Ando's deduction directly and started rushing to where he located him, only to be presented by Conan's childish act of obliviously being interested in an ant line (File 1146). Conan's readiness to fool Wakita and beforehand relaying to Camel to take over the deduction if he stops talking is like the nail in the coffin to Conan's solid suspicion of Wakita being Rum undercover. While he doesn't know the intricate details about Rum (like past photographic memory through his snake-like eye, truly being Amanda's/Kohji's killer & "Time is money" petphrase), he has enough circumstantial evidence to make that connection (Wakita wearing an eyepatch, Asaka glaring at Wakita, Wakita's interest in a shogi piece & Wakita-Haibara's mutual reaction to each other). At the very least, he is definitely viewing him as an enemy from the BO.

Although Conan has fooled Wakita into thinking he is a normal smart kid (rather than an actual de-aged young adult), he is yet to realize how aware Wakita is of his true intelligence/competence, as further seen by how Wakita expected for Conan to be able to deduce things about the case by relaying indirect hints to him (File 1145).

Overall, this case was very good and had interesting tricks. It was refreshing to have Camel finish solving the case by deducing the rest by himself and be depicted as a competent agent intellectually (File 1146).

It was also nice to finally get a first canon glimpse at Ayumi's mother, who appeared in the background as Ayumi talked about her (File 1144). We'll have to wait and see when she gets a proper intro in the future.