#conan ask

Hello!!

Sorry I've been horrible at answering asks, but keeping up to date with Conan has become an increasingly harder task to handle along with work and life, so yeah. I'm going to try and answer more of these cause I've got a bunch piling up in my box.

Anyway, on to your question. Fair warning, I'm not going to be too positive about any of this. There's a larger conversation to be had about the CoAi relationship that now goes beyond the typical shipping wars in the fandom--these have been going on since the early internet days and I have grown and matured since then and have learned to stay the fuck away from them. To this typical aspect of any and all fandoms we must now add one key factor: the fact that the general marketing and movie animating team have decided to keep things spiced up because canon ShinRan is fucking up the people's need for CoAi. Meaning, since ShinRan is now canon, there is no real place for shipping wars to take place, but they gotta make their money. So how do we solve that? We put more CoAi in the movies under the pretext that Aoyama has always said Haibara is a "partner" to Conan case-wise and intelligence-wise. And to that we must add that, for some reason, everyone except Aoyama has forgotten how to write Conan --I've found him to be very out of character lately in the movies, so I agree with what you're saying-- and Ran --all they give her now are anecdotal scenes thinking about Shinichi, or kicking someone's ass just because she's strong, or randomly spitting out exposition because she's interested in history. I'm especially pissed about Ran, because they've reduced all of her strong heroine traits to basics that are used to further the story or scenes that seem to be almost an obligation. And thus people have started to dislike Ran more and are starting to really cheer for Haibara, who has a more prominent and decisive role.

It sickens me not necessarily because I dislike Haibara (I do, but not because she's a possible love interest to Conan), but because of the disservice this does to Ran. They've relegated her to a tertiary character simply because it's in their economic and marketing interests, and, in turn, they're deconstructing her as a character to the point where I don't even recognize my girl anymore. I wish Aoyama could really set the record straight and limit what the movie staff can and cannot do, because he's always talking about supervising the movie scripts but it feels more like he's just going there to say: ah yes, this looks great, Conan would say "hello" instead of "hi" but the rest is great. All the while they're destroying one of his most important and beloved (even by himself) characters. Same can be said about Kogoro, by the way, who now appears so little in both manga and movies (and anime) that I almost forget he's an essential piece of the story.

Hello!

I know the feeling, bro. One of the main reasons I find it hard to get back into Conan every time there's a new File out is the fact that the thing I love most about it is pretty much gone. We had that wonderful Kyoto development, and even got glimpses of their newly established "relationship" in the chapter afterwards, but the reality is that Gosho has so many open fronts that he simply cannot tackle them all. Right now, it seems his main focus is unraveling the whole Rum-Rumi-Amuro storyline, with small clues as to what Karasuma really is plotting and where he is. I'm thankful for that, because for the longest time we had no BO development whatsoever and the feeling that Conan was never going to end haunted me at night. Because, as you will very well understand, as long as the BO plotline is open wide, there's no way we can put an end to this.

I've been saying it for quite a while now, but I do feel we are smack dab in the middle of the beginning of the end. This being a very long, slow and arduous process, of course, but we're getting there. Mainly because I suspect Aoyama cannot keep neglecting his health issues anymore. But seeing how all the principal storylines are starting to come to a close --ShinRan have confessed feelings for each other, we're starting to dig into the Apotoxin's true origin and objective, we know Karasuma is behind it all and who Rum is, etc...-- it feels like this is it.

I've gone off topic. Back to the ShinRan of it all. I believe Aoyama said in a relatively recent interview that he plans for Shinichi to come back soon, so there's that to look forward to. And we still have the issue of Ran's birthday, which he's said before he can't reveal in public because it will be relevant in-universe. Also, I feel like that confession happening really took a weight off of Aoyama's shoulders, in the sense that he gave us what we so desperately wished for, and now he can really focus on the other plot-related details.

At this point, I think Aoyama's been very clear about it with the readers/viewers and with the characters within the story themselves: it's Shinichi.

Akai is the almost-hero. The one who has all the right characteristics to become the Silver Bullet, but isn't the protagonist. He came into the game too soon; has an emotional connection to the BO that's personal, but not that personal --Shinichi's beef with the BO comes from being shrunk, whereas Akai's "only" comes from having lost someone he really cared about. And he's clever, clever enough that Shinichi needs him to solve cases and to plot against them, but he's not Shinichi-clever (or Yusaku clever, for that matter). He's reckless, and good at what he does, and will stop at nothing to defeat them, sure. But he lacks the heart that Shinichi has learned to control.

As for me, I think it's OOC, I'm not saying this is my view on death penalty, but I honestly don't think Shinichi would ever justify death penalty, he's always against killing anybody off, when the incident with Moonlight Sonata happened and Narumi (the cluprit) commited suicide he clearly regretted it and blamed himself as seen in the future episodes, he thinks that since his deductions as a detective caused Narumi's suicide, he's the one who's at fault there, he's no different from a murderer. When he tried saving Narumi he even told him that there should be other ways, indicating that he doesn't think death is the answer. In the future episodes where the murderers intend to kill themselves, he always prevents it, and puts effort in giving them solace and hope to live. This trait of him is also seen when he saved Vermouth when she was disguised as a serial killer, even though he knew that she was a serial killer then and even saw her theatening Ran, yet when Vermouth was falling, he (and Ran) still chose to save her, because as he said "I'll never understand what causes people to kill, but for saving someone's life, I don't need a reason right?". This trait of him is also shown during the case of Celebrities' Secret and The Tragedy of the Pier, in both cases, the culprit attempted murder, and yet he didn't push them to be arrested, he lets the victims decides if they want to press charges on the culprits, which shows that for Shinichi, it's not the attempted murder that's unforgivable but it's taking one's life, so no I don't think he justifies death penalty, but what's your say about it?

Man, I have seen some piss-poor Shinichi takes on this hellsite, but this one is, by far, one of the worst. Mainly because the people defending it are demonstrating a complete lack of reading comprehension, because saying Shinichi would support the death penalty means they basically haven't understood 80% of Shinichi's actions during "Conan."

All of the examples you provided are key in understanding that, evidently, Shinichi would absolutely NEVER be in favor of the death penalty, and there isn't much more to analyze or add because actions, quite literally, speak for themselves in this case. What's more telling of someone's total opposition to the death penalty than someone's total opposition to culprits dying? How much clearer can Aoyama be? Does he need to have Shinichi wear a fucking sign hanging from his neck that says "death penalty sucks"?

Hi! This question hasn't been asked as far as I remember, but I'm not sure you're gonna like my answer if you like their dynamics.

It's not that I hate their dynamics, cause I don't. It's just that I can't really stand Amuro. I've mentioned it before in other posts, but I have zero interest in him whatsoever because the more we know about him, the clearer it is to me that he is simply fan service that's only getting in the way of us finally getting to Conan's end because he keeps starting spin offs and serving as a way to introduce new, different characters that I also do not care for, at all. So every time he's on screen (on page?) regardless of whether he is with Conan or not, I can't do anything other than roll my eyes in exasperation because I would rather stab myself in the leg than see his story play out.

That being said, because he's fan service and he is oh so very clearly an off-brand copy of Akai, of course he and Conan have the same relationship as Conan and Akai do. Because Aoyama's brain does not strain farther. He cannot come up with another new, interesting dynamic because he's got 600 other dynamics to worry about. So he's just like, okay, whatever it is he has with Akai is also what he has with Amuro. Let's call it a day.

And that's what he does, the madman. Calls it a fucking day and then leaves us waiting a month and a half only to announce that the new chapter will not, in fact, develop plot, but will instead serve more fans by giving them Kid and Amuro.

I'm exhausted.

Anyway, you could say Akai and Shinichi have that kind of older brother-younger brother relationship. If it weren't for the fact that Akai is fucking Fort Knox. He's closed up as shit. He's never let anyone get even remotely close to him. He supposedly dated Jodie but every time they interact it's like he's mentally calculating a meter distance between them. I know it's cause he lost Akemi, yadda yadda yadda, but the man is such a coldly coded son of a bitch that whatever kinda relationship or dynamic he has with other characters is only just on surface-level. So yeah, sure, they act like brothers I guess. But it's such a working relationship, so bound by their mutual interest of taking down the Organization and similar thinking, that it's really hard to say there's any sort of friendship beyond or beneath that.

It's not like Heiji and Shinichi, for instance. They really have a sibling thing going on. It's not that deep but it's definitely one of the deeper connections Shinichi has with other characters.

So yeah. Basically subscribe everything I just said to Amuro and Shinichi's relationship, and that's what it is.

But what do you think?

The answer to everything that starts with "I've read in fanfics" is always, automatically, never believe anything you read in fanfics. Especially KaiShin ones. They are incredibly biased in their interpretations of characters to fit ships that will never be, precisely because the characters are different to the ones they seem to be interpreting. This is also true of AiConan, ShinRan, and pretty much any other ship that people have written fanfic about. Fanfic is never real life. Hell, I've yet to read a single Conan one that gets characterization right --they never do.

Except that's kind of the point of fanfic, isn't it? To let your imagination run wild and free and take stuff and make it your own in whichever way you want --as long as it doesn't hurt other people.

Always in favor of fanfiction.

Never in favor of people taking fanfiction as gospel.

(Also, never in favor of taking everything I say as gospel. I'm just some freak who has dedicated her life to this anime and occasionally writes stuff she thinks about on the internet. Never trust me. I'm not Aoyama. He's the one person we can actually trust.)

So anyway, to answer your question, I think it's been established that the """"""rivalry""""" Shinichi and Kaito have has become something far from true, cold-blooded, and deadly. They're kids. Playing catch with each other. Much in the same way their parents did. Shinichi hasn't taken Kaito Kid seriously since that first encounter where Kaito established that he's never going to cross the two unforgivable lines Shinichi has: killing or hurting someone, and actually committing a crime. I don't actually think Kid has ever broken any laws other than, maybe, trespassing and impersonating an officer. Minor crimes. Nothing. He's literally just some dude who shows up to cause a little chaos, do some magic, then leave. All of that while wearing a monocle and a white top hat. Shinichi doesn't take him any more seriously than he'd take The Condiment King.

That, added to the fact that by now, Shinichi has enough clues about Kid's identity that he could've --if he hasn't secretly already-- figured out his identity but hasn't. Because he doesn't care. He doesn't actually want to put him in jail. He wants to know he's clever enough to solve his little riddles and eventually take his monocle off to find out (or confirm his theories on) who he actually is.

Heyaaaaaa

I have! And @detectivegeekshin and I theorized about it a bunch when the news came out. 

My best, logical guess is still the Karasuma episode with Hakuba and the other detectives united, and Kid pretending to be Kogoro. It makes sense that they’d do a reboot of such a colosal episode now that we finally know Karasuma is somehow the boss, plus it was already an iconic episode that we all remembered. And it’s got Kid in it. So it’s really the best option. 

But then I started thinking about what I really wanted it to be, because at first I didn’t really wanna get my hopes up and just be pleasantly surprised like I was with Episode ONE. And God, I really want it to be like Episode ONE: an extended, longer version of a story we already know by heart which provides more backstory and fills in missing bits in remarkable ways. So it was almost inevitable for my brain to go straight back to what I always defend is the single greatest Arc Aoyama has ever drawn. 

The Desperate Revival Arc. 

Throw things at me, whatever. You know I’m right. 

Because just THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES. THINK ABOUT ALL THE NEW STUFF WE COULD SEE WITHIN THE DESPERATE REVIVAL ARC. 

Think about Shinichi experiencing the pain of the antidote for the first time. Think about us seeing his first immediate reaction to recovering his body for the first time. 

We could see him show up backstage at the play. WE COULD SEE SONOKO PUSH THE DARK KNIGHT ROLE ONTO HIM. AND WE COULD SEE AND HEAR HIS REACTION UNDER THE MASK AS HE ALMOST KISSES RAN FOR THE FIRST TIME. 

I REPEAT. WE COULD ACTUALLY GET SHINICHI’S TAKE ON THAT WHOLE ALMOST-KISS SCENE. 

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. 

WE COULD SEE THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF THE PLAY POST-SHINICHI FAINTING. 

AND THEN

AND 

THEN

WE COULD ACTUALLY SEE HIM DECIDING WHAT TO WEAR TO THE DATE. MY HEART’S TRUE DESIRE SATISFIED AT LAST. AND WE WOULD MAYBE SEE HOW THEY MEET FOR THE DATE. DOES SHINICHI PICK RAN UP? HOW DO THEY BOTH REACT TO SEEING EACH OTHER DRESSED UP? 

WE COULD SEE MORE OF THEIR CONVERSATION AT THE RESTAURANT. 

WE COULD MAYBE EVEN GET A LONGER FLASHBACK TO YUKIKO AND YUSAKU GETTING ENGAGED.