Anarky (1999) Issue #5 Batman (2025) Issue #2

Anarky (1999) Issue #6 Red Robin Issue #8

Anarky (1999) Issue #3 DC K.O.: Knightfight Issue #3

Anarky (1999) Issue #8 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

This is an analysis/discussion of Helena as an educator based solely on what I've read during my read-a-thon of her thus far-- which is, admittedly, very few issues (debut, showcase '93 & '94, a couple detective comics appearances, and cry of the huntress). However, the thought of Helena Bertinelli being a teacher will not leave my head at all. Read more if you want my rambles on it (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠) long post ahead...

narratively its almost repulsive because when batman first began he wanted to do good. clean up his city help people it wasn't strictly a martyr complex it was a genuine need to do something good. to bring about change to give gotham something it's never had before which was hope. batman became that symbol of hope, justice, and fear (for criminals).

at his core bruce is a good dad thats at least how he began batman was a good dad, he took dick in because he felt a sort of kinship with dick because there experiences were similar and he wanted dick safe. and the circus was no longer safe due to what happened to dicks parents and bruce had the means to take dick in so he did. he gave dick hope by letting him be robin it gave dick a purpose. mind you should bruce be letting children fight criminals no but also (side note the writers created robin so kids could relate to robin so they could see themselves in robin) at the end of the day it gave dick purpose it made him feel in a way safer. he did everything he could to make sure dick had what he needed/wanted.

same thing with jason bruce saw this child steal his tires and laughed out loud for the first time in a long time okay and when he eventually took jason in he gave jason whatever he needed and was showing him that the world wasn't all bad hell i think at even one point jason said robin was magic and had another surogate mom via nocturna. the point is in these issues bruce never mistreated any of them not a single one now how did we go from kids that are taken good care of to what we have now.

i mean some would say it was the grief of losing jason but i'll raise you this in real life people lose people all the time its just part of life but the grief doesn't completely change who you are on a fundamental level we had a somewhat empathetic and caring batman to now a controlling logic fueled bruce who tries to control everything and everyone even to the detriment of his own kids.... like yes bruce was a mess right but the writing was lazy they should've explored more of bruce's grief and then let him heal but they don't they constantly have bruce regress into abusing his kids and being overly cold. and using them as living weapons at times. sometimes it even seems as though he doesn't even care for them at all and i think the moment that we should've seen bruce break out of that rage filled grief cold numbness bullshit was that quote jason says to him.

"i've never seen you hit joker that hard and you hate him".

that shouldve been the moment writers pivoted to have bruce truly begin to heal and better himself narratively it would've made for a richer story instead they constantly exploit jason grief, trauma and loss for shock value and as someone who's been through alot of trauma im tired of it because this has never been what batman should be and right now the only batman depiction we have thats close to the original is absolute batman's comic run written by Scott Snyder. And absolute batman is being put through the grinder with the shit he deals with.

also i wont ever forgive dc for how they handled jason's death because the original writer wanted to do a exploration of grief but whoever was higher up was like no lets do nothing but action sequences and destroy any character growth. also on that note free jason from his shackles to constantly dying and bruce constantly abusing him.

Hello lovelies! This is my second part of my Wakasa Rumi Theory that will go over my thoughts about Haneda Koji's murder and his dying message.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Just for reference, I already covered the first three points in Part 1 and the ones in bold are the ones I'm covering in this post:

Why I think she's Asaca.

Her probable relationship to Haneda Koji.

How she became Amanda's bodyguard.

What might have happened on the day of Haneda Koji's murder.

How Haneda Koji's dying message directly refers to RUM as his killer.

Why Wakasa went on a hiatus for 17 years since the murder.

Reason behind Haibara liking Wakasa.

With that out of the way, happy reading 😁💛.

4. What might have happened on the day of Haneda Koji's murder.

So based on the blog that uploaded, we know that two people were killed in each of their own hotel rooms; Haneda Koji and Amanda Hughes (an investor who holds powerful connections to the FBI and CIA). While Haneda Koji showed bruises and signs of struggle against his assailant, the actual cause of his death was unclear, as well as with Amanda Hughes. (In reality, the cause of his death is because of APTX-4869 and the same can be assumed for Amanda). Both rooms were left in a total mess with crockery and glass broken as well as taps left running in the bathroom. Amanda was a huge fan of Haneda Koji and happened to visit him in his room the day of the murder before they were killed. Also on the same day, her bodyguard whom she called 'Asaca' disappeared and she is the main suspect of the murders. Interestingly, something else went missing from the crime scene which was Haneda Koji's Watchtower Bishop (a shogi piece he deemed as his lucky charm). His family is convinced he would never parted without the shogi piece and whoever has it must be the murderer.

All these accusations point to Wakasa because not only has she disappeared for 17 years and her identity is shrouded in mystery, but she also has the exact shogi piece that went missing from the crime scene...So, what exactly happened?

Based on the fact that only Haneda Koji's body was bruised, I'd say he put up a fight after witnessing Amanda's death. The likelihood that he used the taps in her bathroom to cut the mirror before fleeing to his room where he was then finished off is very possible. Why? The case similar to 17 years ago foreshadowed it.

I'm guessing when Amanda was murdered, Wakasa was probably out for whatever reason and upon her return, she saw Amanda's state. She then walked in and saw Haneda's body. The reason why I'm convinced she discovered their bodies and did not happen to be there when they died was her reaction in Chapter 1032 to blood and her obvious knowledge about how bodies do not necessarily smell until days later after their death. This could very well imply she lived through this before, which is why she is so knowledgeable of the topic. And smelling blood, reminded her of when she found Haneda dead in his room.

She then noticed the cut up mirror with one part of it looking like a shogi piece. As she picked it up, RUM returned to clean up and they ended up struggling in a fight before she managed to escape. The reason why I think Wakasa was in a physical fight with RUM was how triggered she seemed when she saw him leave the school after his delivery. The way she looked at him with such apprehension, it shows as if she were remembering their interaction before.

She would turn out to be RUM's mistake. He couldn't finish her off and not only did he leave a loose end, but she also ran away with a crucial part of Haneda Koji's dying message, leaving RUM unable to fully destroy the crime scene. Also RUM is clearly aware of its significance to Haneda Koji's dying message. Especially after he not-so-subtly mentioned it to Conan in Chapter 1057.

The final thing in relation to this part of the theory is Wakasa's flashback of Haneda Koji in the Collecting Edible Wild Plants Chapter. Why was she calling him a fool? It made a lot of sense when I found out the actual meaning of the proverb Haneda Koji said in her flashback.

The proverb he said is 'with a watchtower bishop there must be a brilliant move'. This proverb translates to the Bishop should stay at a distance while aiming at the opponent's camp rather than approaching them directly. Now that we know the actual meaning of the proverb, Wakasa's words make more sense. She guessed that he probably underestimated RUM and approached him rather than escaping him. Hence why Wakasa refers to him as a foolish person because in the end he got himself killed. Not because she thinks he's a fool and she managed to kill him. Again, a classic on Gosho's part to frame innocent characters as threatening and dangerous when the truth is she is just extremely upset over his death. Her collapse to the ground shows just how much Haneda meant to her. If anything, she probably like Rei, feels guilty she couldn't save him in time, which is why the memory of him is so triggering to her.

Phew, finally done with the fourth point 😂 There really was so much to unpack there. Anyways, I hope it made sense...

5. How Haneda Koji's dying message directly refers to RUM as his killer.

Now that it has been confirmed that RUM is Wakita, I'll be showing how Haneda Koji's dying message refers to "RUM", aka Carasuma's number 2.

The key to solving the message lies in the broken mirror and linking it to the shogi piece. Akai and Yusaku already solved the true meaning behind the broken mirror. The remaining pieces on the mirror had the letter PTON. These letters are not needed and the letters that do matter are the scattered ones from the original 'PUT ON MASCARA'. If we remove PTON we are left with U MASCARA which was then rearranged to CARASUMA. However, one letter in particular was cut out in the form of a shogi piece. If we write 'CARASUMA' with the shogi piece border around the letter U, it will seem as if it is hinting to another message within CARASUMA. That would form a word: UMA. UMA translates to Dragon Horse and is the promoted version of the Watchtower Bishop (the shogi piece held by Haneda Koji). (Promoted in shogi means to simply flip the original shogi piece to use its 'levelled-up' power...It's the same piece not two separate shogi pieces). Therefore, if we flip Haneda Koji's shogi piece, it will show UMA which is the more powerful form of the Watchtower bishop.

Anyways, what is the significance of UMA and how does it relate to anything? Well, Uma in shogi is the second strongest shogi piece. The strongest shogi piece is Dragon King (Ryū). Based on this we can assume this is the dying message. UMA of Carasuma (second strongest / number 2 aka RUM) of Carasuma killed me. This might seem too far-fetched but there was too much coincidence when I found out about Uma's strength as a shogi piece that it made sense to me to think that Haneda Koji's dying message points straight to RUM. However, I'm not sure how Haneda Koji figured out that RUM is Carasuma's number 2 in the first place. Maybe it was during his struggle against him before his death or maybe he overheard Amanda before her death talk about it, but so far this is what i came up with.

I hope you guys enjoyed this part of my theory. The final points will be addressed in Part 3 (linked here) so have fun 😁💛

(In cased you missed the first post, this is the link for Part 1)!

So this is it, the final part of my Wakasa Rumi Theory Series!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Here I'll be talking about the last two points in bold. Part 1 and Part 2 already covered points 1-3 and points 4-5.

Why I think she's Asaca

Her probable relationship to Haneda Koji.

How she became Amanda's bodyguard.

What might have happened on the day of Haneda Koji's murder.

How Haneda Koji's dying message directly refers to RUM as his killer.

Why Wakasa went on a hiatus for 17 years since the murder.

Reason behind Haibara liking Wakasa.

As usual, happy reading 😁💛

6. Why Wakasa went on a hiatus for 17 years since the murder.

Now this point will have so many things that will go into it, so hopefully no one gets lost along the way 🙌🏼

As per my theory in Part 2, I believe Wakasa had a full on confrontation with RUM after she found Haneda Koji dead. And now that she's also the lead suspect for a crime she didn't commit, the logical thing would be that she goes into hiding. The first case she was ever involved in (Chapter 968) foreshadowed the possibility of someone going into hiding for years. And after literally crossing paths with a dangerous BO member, she probably changed her appearance. This was also foreshadowed in the Pro-golfer murderer case that probably hints to the fact that she is in disguise or had plastic surgery altogether. That's why I'm not entirely sure if we can judge that she could be Atsushi's sister based on appearance (I talked about it in an ask here).

Now during the time she was in hiding, she could have still been trying to investigate the BO or trying to find a way to infiltrate it. During that time, she must have crossed paths with Kuroda 10 years ago. If they were both investigating around the same time, they could have very well crossed paths. Her reaction to meeting Kuroda the first time was just as triggered as when she saw Wakita leave the school, except this time, she wasn't as scared to talk back to Kuroda which implies she has interacted with him before and knows of him. At the same time, Kuroda's knowing smirk when he found out Wakasa was going on a camping trip. Implying it's not like her to go camping further strengthens that they met each other before.

Then, Kuroda must have fallen a victim to the accident that put him in a coma for 10 years. During that time, Wakasa must have trained even more and eventually joined some security or intelligence department like the PSB, FBI, CIA or MI6. I am drawing more parallels of her character based on Jodie who was very suspicious in the Vermouth arc but was in fact an FBI agent. Another such similarity is just like Jodie lived in a high rise apartment that Heiji noted is very expensive for an English teacher, Wakasa also lives in an expensive building. A pro-golfer even lived there so rent must have not been cheap.

So yes, my theory is Wakasa started working for some intelligence security department ever since Kuroda's accident and her main goal was to investigate the BO and steal information about them. If like Haibara she managed to hack into the BO's database, the following points would make sense:

She holds a very recent list of the APTX-4869 victims that has Kudo Shinichi on it.

She managed to find out about Miyano Shiho and 'Hell Angel'.

She could have discovered that Amuro is a BO agent which is why she fought him to retrieve the shogi piece, especially after Kobayashi-sensei introduced him as a private eye.

She described Karasu as someone that has 'Karasu' in their name as someone who is difficult to approach and a conspirator so it's very likely she tried to infilitrate the BO to get close to him.

The reason why she briefly triggered Haibara's BO sense was because she recalled her confrontation with Wakita while gripping the bishop and Uma shogi piece that refers to him in Haneda Koji's dying message.

Now coming onto the final point in this series:

7. Why Haibara likes Wakasa.

I don't know if I am entirely convinced it's because Haibara is in fact related to Wakasa or if her being Atsushi's sister bears any weight since we can't really judge by appearances if Wakasa did get plastic surgery or is sporting a disguise. But, let's backtrack a little. When Okiya Subaru was first introduced, Conan was incredibly trusting of what seemed to be a very suspicious character. Turns out this is because he was Akai in disguise and Conan was the mastermind behind this. Haibara may not be the mastermind behind Wakasa's situation but I'm guessing she knows something about her that we don't and it shall be revealed to us later.

And that's it! Omg I can't believe how long it took me to put this out. As exhausting as it was, it was so much fun to write 😂.

(In cased you stumbled upon this post first, these are the links for Part 1 and Part 2)!

I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did and I'm open to everyone's thoughts and opinions 😁 💛🖤

It's been such a long time coming but I've finally done it! My Wakasa Rumi Theory is here and I can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts and opinions 🙌🏼 💛

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Before I jump right in, I'll be breaking down the theory into a 3 part series because there's just soo much to cover 😅. By the end of it I will have covered the following:

Why I think she's Asaca.

Her probable relationship to Haneda Koji.

How she became Amanda's bodyguard.

What might have happened on the day of Haneda Koji's murder.

How Haneda Koji's dying message directly refers to RUM as his killer.

Why Wakasa went on a hiatus for 17 years since the murder.

Reason behind Haibara liking Wakasa.

As y'all can see I'm going to cover a lot so I hope this explains why it took me so long to put it out, so sorryyyy 🙈🙏🏼 The ones in bold are the ones I'm covering in this post...

Anyways enough stalling and on with the first point:

1. Why I think Wakasa is in fact Asaca.

Well, let's start with what we know about Asaca. She is a woman who was mysteriously hired as Amanda Hughes' bodyguard, and is a strong, skilful fighter. Her identity is shrouded in mystery and ever since the murder, she has disappeared with no one knowing who she was and where she went. Now coming onto Wakasa...She's an obviously strong, ruthless fighter who was even able to take on Rei in the Eerie Farm Chapter.

There were also two foreshadowings made. The first was in chapter 954 when Akai asked if there was a careful, strong fighter who appeared around the girls and Sonoko answered that Ran is the closest person to match such a description and calling her a bodyguard. From this, we can assume Asaca, like Ran, is a fierce fighter but because they appear kind, their power is underestimated...just like Wakasa.

The second foreshadowing was the fact that Wakasa's introductory case revolved around unsolved events that started 10 years ago. I find this eerily similar to the whole Haneda Koji situation.

The last reason that makes me think Asaca is Wakasa is this panel from Chapter 1072 which is eerily similar to Asaca's picture from the blog.

Now moving onto the second part of the theory:

2. Her probable relationship to Haneda Koji.

For this part of the theory, I'll be honest I have no concrete evidence on any of my assumptions. I'm only basing them on an easter egg I noticed in the second case she was involved in. With that being said, I think she is probably his love interest. I'm not sure if they were in a relationship, but there seems to be some sort of connection between them. The reason why I don't think she is his sister is because there was no mention of a 'sister' going missing since the murder. With his family being rich and influential, they would have also made a fuss about their daughter going missing. So the likelihood that Wakasa is related to him through blood is slim. However, if she was his girlfriend or just someone he loved, his family may not have necessarily found out about her yet. Also the second case she was involved in since her introduction served as an easter egg in my opinion.

In Chapter 978, the case was about a sports player flying overseas for a championship and was leaving his girlfriend behind. While the events are not 100% identical, there are subtle similarities between the case and Haneda Koji travelling overseas for a chess championship.

One last thing I noticed is a parallel between her flashbacks and Jodie's flashbacks of her father's murder.

In the Vermouth Arc, there was a lot of speculation that Jodie could be Vermouth and she was the one who killed the man from her memories, but that did not turn out to be the case. In the current RUM arc, it was presumed that Asaca is RUM but that also has been debunked. Wakasa's memories of Haneda Koji would seem to imply she was the one who murdered him, but judging by Gosho's pattern of making innocent characters seem most suspicious, and the fact that Asaca isn't RUM (who is the true murderer), it just makes me believe that Wakasa is probably his love interest just like Jodie was the daughter.

Onto the third part of the theory:

3. How did Wakasa become Amanda's bodyguard.

If Wakasa isn't lying about her age, she would have been 20 years old at the time of the murder. Most probably at 20, it is hard to believe she would have been a full-time employee for some security company. Therefore, one can assume if she was Haneda Koji's love interest and he is aware of her skills, he could have offered Amanda that Wakasa helps guard her for the time they're spending in the States. So if this was done as a favour between friends, it would make sense why Amanda's family knew nothing about her or how she was hired. This is just my speculation but I honestly can't think of anything else to explain how she became her bodyguard 😂.

This is it for this post! In Part 2, I'll discuss what might have happened in the murder and the meaning behind the dying message (linked here). So I hope you enjoyed this post and happy reading for the next one 😁💛