#anokata

(trying a new format here, pt. 2 is queued for tomorrow)

Exactly all these questions you brought up were floating in my mind as well. At first, my first suspicion and prediction for Gosho's introduction of "Vader" (File 1090) was that he was supposed to be a mislead character to build up the Rum plot suspense for the Rum arc climax, which I wrote about in detail in my File 1090 review.

Now however, It's looking very likely with the introduction of a second Boss suspect in File 1102, Falcon Elder (that is very likely another mislead), that Gosho has started setting up the Boss arc plot by already teasing the new arc suspects at this phase of Rum arc.

While it would be the first time that Gosho introduces overarching suspects before the story has shifted focus to the connected antagonist, it is not the first time Gosho introduces characters relevant to the following arc. During Bourbon arc, Gosho introduced Haneda Shuukichi and "Sister outside the territory", who ended up being very relevant characters in Rum arc.

Just as you suggested, I also suspect that we will get a third Boss suspect eventually, to follow Gosho's 3-suspect pattern at the very least (though it doesn't have stop there ofc).

Boss Suspects' True Identities

As I mentioned in my previous post about "Vader" below, I suspect that he is Haneda Yasuharu, since he has both reasons to find the police incompetent (File 1090), due to failing to catch his son's killer, as well as for him to recognize Mary and protect her from getting exposed publically through the news (File 1096-1097), since he is Tsutomu's friend.

As for the newly introduced Falcon Elder, who is clearly being framed to be Karasuma Renya through his Crow-resembling Falcon pet, he was revealed to have some kind of anger towards someone connected to the recent Kid Killer News with Conan & Jirokichi photo in it, since he used his staff to crack the phone showing it (File 1102).

After thinking through all the possibilities, I think it makes the most sense that Falcon Elder's true identity is the Ōoka retiree, Momiji's Grandpa who was acquainted with Haneda & Kuroda (who was also foreshadowed in File 1088).

He is the only mysterious rich old man that we haven't been introduced to. Also, in the M21 guidebook, Gosho revealed that the Ōoka family are a rich family just like the Suzuki's, only that Sonoko's uncle Jirokichi is slightly richer.

This could be setup and cause for some intense rivalry between Ōoka retiree & Jirokichi, where Ōoka retiree could be harboring ill feelings out of jealousy towards Jirokichi, who keeps getting more publicity and gaining more wealth. This would explain why he cracked his phone with Jirokichi's photo open out of anger (that is meant to mislead us into thinking his target was Conan).

If we also were to get a Rum twist in the upcoming climax where Rum ends up indeed being Iori Muga in disguise, then him appearing with Falcon Elder could be the ultimate misleading suspicion booster for Falcon Elder being the boss (when he could in reality be the head of the Ōoka family that Muga is a butler for).

Further speculations on Falcon Elder can be found in my review of File 1113-1115.

To summarize my speculations, we now have three silhouetted rich old figures, and their identities are:

Note: Basing this on how the English dub refers to him, I’ll refer to the unpronounceable demon as The One through this post

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Okay, by this point in the story, we have gathered enough information about the demons. Norman has clearly put out the more scientific explanation of their biology in Chapter 120. Mujika’s presence as a messiah-figure for them with her blood is also a big point of interest. However, what we get from from the more cultural and religious aspects of their culture brings out many interesting implications. Here’s a note of established facts taken from the story:

The Religion, Culture, and the Promise:

Chapter 49, 157

The demons’ faith is supposed to follow a clear respect for the sanctity of life, as shown in the Gupna ritual

Chapter 51

Taking creatures’ lives in the name of hunting does not go against the demons’ religion, as they see it as borrowing them from their gods, however....

Chapter 46

The demons’ religion also explicitly forbids them to eat human flesh

AAaaahhhaaahahhhhahhhhHHHHEEEEEY Boss.HOW ARE YOU DOING, S-SIR?

I’MGREATHAHAHDOINGJUSTFINEYEP. JUST DOING MY JOB. YEP. LOTS OF JOB WORK OVER HERE, VERY HARD! AHA. hhhhAH.