Chekhov MacGuffin

Where can I buy decent anime posters? I'm getting a gift for someone and would like to find a poster for an anime like Baccano!, Cowboy Bebop, FMA brotherhood, Trigun, etc. I would like some tips about reliable places to buy from.

I am going to try to push out a complete solution before Monday spoilers. Check back in later today for progress updates - I'm being interrupted by IRL issues, so I can't finish this all at once like I want too. Recap timeline: Long ago - Head waitress with child fired by Gifu One year ago - Husband of proprietor passed away One year ago - Kouhei nearly drowned in pool. One year ago soon after previous incident - storage shed broken into for the first time. Photographs when? "A few days ago" - a robber breaks into the warehouse Attack in warehouse Balloon popping Immediately after - scream heard. Murder found The photographed Kamaitachi The running on the water technique Large amounts of starch used for making kudzu soup stolen from the warehouse days earlier was added to the water of the pond. Nobody noticed because the water was already an opaque white, and stories of the kamaitachi dissuaded anyone from going to the pool. Starch turns the water into a shear-thickening fluid, which means that it behaves like a liquid when under little stress, but like a solid under high shear, as might be expected from a sudden application of weight. This allows people to run on it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XQ97XHjVw Drowning boy The child had difficulty swimming in the soupy "water" because it does not behave like regular water. It is rather viscous. The "kamaitachi" saved the boy and then washed his unconscious body off thoroughly afterwards so there would be no white starch residue. Why was this done? Practice for sure. To attract a neutral witness on a suitably snowy day with the right weather? To create a legend so that people will avoid the bath and thus finding out about the starch in it? The first cut incident Light bulb break method Gum on the lightbulb probably caused it to break. There a myth that sticking a piece of gum on a lightbulb will cause it to break after a delay. The gum was found by Yamamura and the forensics. I'm not sure why the culprit didn't recover it. Cut method The culprit could find Heiji and Kogoro in the dark using the lit up objects they were carrying. Kogoro had a lit cigarette in the hand he was cut in, Heiji was wearing a watch with glow in the dark hands on his cut forearm. Item used to cut was.... I don't know. Honestly it doesn't matter too much what it is because they didn't body search. The culprit could have tossed it anywhere the police wouldn't think to look or keep it with them out of fear. No one was wearing gloves wasn't wearing gloves, so it almost certainly has the culprit's fingerprints on it and tests positive for Heiji and Kogoro's blood. That makes it a vital clue to find. The culprit Almost certainly Midori. In order to see the faint glow of the watch, she equipped herself with orange tinted glasses. Orange tinted goggles, or in this case glasses, are standard crime scene equipment for looking at luminol other faint greenish/blue glow in the dark substances that are used to find bloodstains. Midori was not wearing anything glow in the dark, so she probably cut herself. Why was this done? To attract police. The later murder needs to be found quickly before more snow can fall and cover the prints of the people running to the annex the long way around and make them all suspects. Even better, if the murder was confirmed by the police, the culprit will have a very solid alibi. Other notes Note that Midori couldn't have known Heiji would wear a glowing watch, so the glasses must have been for another purpose - to see something else glowing in the dark. Also since Heiji and Kogoro were unexpected guests, it's possible that Midori had tagged the landlady and the other reporter with glowing paint somehow and would have aimed for them. The culprit broke into the storage area a few days earier to disable one of the lights so that once the one working lightbulb breaks, the entire shed will be dark. Second they needed to steal the starch for the kudzu soup to prepare the bath. Ran's and Kazuha's balloon popping incident Light bulb break method A BB gun or water gun filled with ice cold water could both break hot lights. What Conan said about only finding 3 BB pellets suggests to me that the BB gun was used on the light because it was not enough to hit the balloons. The culprit knew about the balloons in advance and the setup because they had seen it before and had pictures. Heiji described where the shot was from (the one pane of the paper sliding door that rools up) and where the gun came from (the storage shed). Balloon pop method The ice cold water wasn't water at all, it was acetone, a solvent which can dissolve plastic (aka nail polish remover). Acetone is put in a water gun and sprayed, when it contacts the balloon surfaces the balloon plastic weakens and the balloons pop. A spray from a water gun can hit many balloons at once, which explains Ran and Kazuha's observation that the balloons popped simultaneously. Room temperature acetone feels ice cold when it is on the skin because the heat of vaporization is so low that it evaporates extremely quickly. It also has a strong cleaning solution smell. I assume the balloons were marked with glow in the dark paint which the tinted glasses would help the culprit see. The culprit Since it requires shooting in the dark at illuminated stuff, probably Midori again. Definitely the same person as the murder. Why was this done? To attract attention and bring everyone together so that when the man's scream happens, the culprit can have a firm alibi because they were with everyone. The guns need to be disposed of. They couldn't have gotten far because the murder happened right after and the killer had other things to be doing. The bath would be an easy place to drop the things. Murder Incident Trying to think of if I forgot something Killing Gifu The culprit probably crossed the pond and killed Gifu rather than going around the long way and then came back by running across the water. I assume he was killed right before the balloon popping incident because it would wreck the alibi if the body was not extremely fresh and no footprints were visible in the snow. Perhaps Gifu was attacked through the paper door which would explain the slash and splash and the blood on the door? If he was backlit by the light in the room, then he could be seen clearly from outside the door without trouble (and the culprit would be hard to see). Gifu could have been killed with a weapon other than the scythe (although the scythe would work); any weapon that could be disposed of that would slash through the door would work. If another weapon was used, then the scythe would have been stabbed into the body after the culprit crossed for a third time to retrieve the audio broadcasting device before the police and detectives going around the long way could arrive at the crime scene. Finding the body The Gifu's scream was prerecorded from the foot massage tape mentioned in 911 page 11. That allows the culprit to have an alibi. The audio device placed in the annex that broadcasted the man's scream needs to be recovered before the police can find it, especially since the earlier incident in the storage shed was designed to attract their presence. That means the culprit needs to pretend to follow the others around the long way, but then fall behind so they can take the shortcut across the starchy bath soup to recover the device before the others arrive. After recovering the device, they then need to clean up their footprints. If they scrape clean the path clean with the scythe (as agreed upon by Heiji and Kogoro) and then wait in the dark (it has to be dark to hide, necessitating the lights be cut out by flipping the breaker) for the others to arrive they can rejoin the group and pretend they never left. The culprit then stabs the scythe into the body (that explains the discrepancy between the blood on the door where the murder took place and the current position of the body and scythe). The culprit The same person as the balloon shooter, probably Midori. The motive Gifu firing the woman with the child in the past. Maybe Gifu perved on her. Midori is probably the child from that time. Something bad probably happened to the mother and Midori wanted revenge. Other notes Koyanagi Midori is definitely the most suspicious here because of the way she tried to convince the detectives the foggy white pool was just normal water by throwing a rock in it. The recording device would have to be disposed of (in the bath?), or be something easy to hide like a phone. The specks of liquid on the rocks bt the bath were made by splashing water soup as the culprit ran across and jumped over.

Detective Conan is still not over yet, so he is still a kid. Occasionally he uses a temporary antidote to become Shinichi again, but it only lasts for a short while.

Wait a minute, how would a supposed boss-Kogoro even find out Conan was trying to interfere with the Organization's plan at that time? Conan didn't exactly let Kogoro know he was bugging Rena's house, and Kogoro wouldn't have known the tap got stuck on Rena's shoe because of sheer unluckiness. You can't predict what you don't know.

Yes, he probably is the middle bro. We have a thread about the middle brother here by the way: http://www.detectiveconanworld.com/forum/topic/4679-masumis-second-oldest-middle-brother/

No, you are going to be repped because I forgot to check CR's schedule and you reminded me to. Edit: more specifically the double posting rule is in place to stop multiple posts that should be one post. There are exceptions like: 1) Posts to bump threads because of some new event (e.g. this scenario) 2) Posts that have to be broken up in order not to break the forum (e.g posts quoting more than ten times) 3) Posts that are very long and discuss two different topics that would benefit from a logical split. 4) Reference-type posts and art threads where the artist can post one art per post in a row.

Quoted from here. Quotes from here. (Same blog, another entry.) I don't have any real experience in Japanese, so is this potential pun/wordplay credible or made up? I'm suspicious of this find because I never heard of/read about that before (someone skilled in Japanese would have discovered that, I guess...?) and I can't find any other sources mentioning this. ... Yeah I think whoever wrote that has no idea what they are talking about. I'm no expert at Japanese numeral puns but I know that na is usually 7 (nana) not 9, and ya would be 8 (yattsu) and not 6. Unless the person responsible actually explains how the pun works in English, I'd be skeptical.

Kor from DCTP sent me this: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2010-11-22/detective-conan-to-join-monster-hunter-portable-3rd So maybe Gosho is a fan if a character can dress up like Conan in the game?

I vaguely recall there already being an interview question on this matter. Check the logs.

Sounds good to me. I liked Butterfly Core.

The most interesting questions from SDB50+ have been posted here: http://forums.dctp.ws/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12259

I do not think Kansuke is Rum (The first suspicious person is never right!), but I do think that Kansuke is being used as a model to show off how to properly hunt for Rum. Conan used Kansuke's appearance to point out how various physical features satisfy Haibara's description of Rum. Kansuke is a strong young man, but if he let his hair down he might look feminine, and he uses a cane which makes him look elderly. We should be prepared to do the same for other characters who might appear: examine how their physical attributes and actions might make them look like a strongly-built man, feminine, and elderly. Also keep in mind we know Rum uses a prosthetic eye, so we probably want someone with two eyes like Superintendent Matsumoto. (I'm only picking on him because he injured his face across his eye and might have a prosthetic. I don't see a way a mountain like him could be mistaken for feminine.) Files 328-330 (Sato's Omiai Case) are probably helpful to review.

That's going too far.

Gosho said that he often uses Haibara as a voice for his own ideas. Remember Haibara's quote: "You can't complain about time going by... If anyone tries to change it... Life will punish them."

Round two, now that translations are out: What concerns me is that the old man yelled out while all the suspects were with the detectives. That likely means the man either 1) hadn't died yet and it was something else that made him yell - then he was killed later while the detectives were running around outside 2) Whatever killed him was an automated mechanism or 3) There is a fourth suspect. The gash in the door and the lights having gone out may be related to the technique the culprit used. One suggestion is that the culprit only pretended to run with the detectives around outside to the annex and instead turned back and bee-lined across the bathwater in order to kill the old man before the detectives arrived. If that is true, then they broke the lights and made a gash in the door as a distraction. The lights going out made the man yell. They wanted to focus attention to the room with body right away so no one would realize they had slunk in from a different direction in the shadows. Since none of the fragments of lightbulb have blood, I'm going to have to revise my solution for that part a bit. I'm going to guess for now the bulb was broken with a water gun rather than a piece of gum - I think the culprit would have collected the gum if they used that - and pieces of the bulb would have been sticking to it. Squirt the bulb with cold water and it will break at a distance. Something else was used by the culprit to cut in the dark. There might be yet another technique still that I have overlooked that was the cause of the fluorescent lightbulb and the balloons popping in the child's room. It could be related to cold. The next thing that needs to be explained is for what purpose did the culprit (assuming it is the same culprit) cut people in the dark in the warehouse. Is there a psychological trap, or were they attempting to portray themselves as a victim to avoid suspicion? Is it possible that the bulb breaking and all the cuts were accidents? I can't think of any way that could be true, but maybe I need to reconsider. One of the items stolen from the warehouse might have been cornstarch or something else you can add to water to make it shear thicken. I'd like to point out that Hattori might not have noticed he was cut right away if his skin was chilled. That's why the kamaitachi appears in cold places. Cold skin is numb and registers pain slower, so by the time someone realizes they have been cut and are bleeding, they have already moved past whatever caused the injury. The myth of the kamaitachi was created to explain that discrepancy. (Note to self: check the dyed haired lady's fingernails in 911. They were painted with stars before.)

But anyway, if it's true, then it destroys the immortality theory too.To be fair, not all people think immortality is a great idea. If an immortality drug is invented I would consider it a huge disaster. I oppose the concept pretty strongly because I believe that ideas will stagnate without death. People become set in their thoughts and ways as they age, so humanity as a whole would no longer be able to improve rapidly. Itakura might not have been working on immortality anyway. It's possible that Itakura's program was meant to help the BO's goal in another way: http://www.detectiveconanworld.com/forum/topic/1658-purpose-of-that-computer-program-by-itakura/

The only hole I can think of is that curing cancer doesn't seem mad-scientist enough. Atsushi was a scientific outcast, so whatever he wanted to do must have been pretty out there. You'd think the boss could rope in a legit business if APTX was meant to cure cancer. But yeah, curing an exotic disease might be a potential boss motive.

What if the boss has a Shinichi-type personality? If we pretend that Shinichi's sense of ethics is flexible, isn't it conceivable that Shinichi would go as far as making a giant criminal organization just to fund the research to save Ran? There might be a certain the reason the boss had to turn to the underworld, maybe no one in legitimate business would believe in the project the boss wanted to do - everyone told him it was impossible. Or maybe the boss has some strange feature that would be incompatible with being a real company president.

It's an official Conan Wallpaper, probably from one of the yearly calenders. You can tell by the logo on the bottom right.

Maybe the boss has someone in particular he wants to use it on. Perhaps the Black Organization and its scientific research has been created for the sake of one person who is simply that important to the boss?

Pisco's comments about the drug were pretty revealing that it wasn't meant as a poison. Haibara said the same.

Something which has got very little attention in the DC fandom was that Gosho said this in the Leaked interview notes from the May issue of the magazine 「ダ・ヴィンチ」 (da Vinci) どうか！　どうか、あと二つ質問させてください！　黒ずくめの組織の目的とはナニ？　APTX4869の作用から考えると、不老不死が怪しいのでは……。 Please! Please, let me ask 2 more questions! What is the BO’s goal? Going by the APTX4869, I would think immortality… 【青山】「違います。確かにそう思っちゃうよね。今ね、組織の中では大変なことが起こっていますよ」 That’s wrong. It’s true that you’d think that, isn’t it? You see, right now, something really big is happening within the organization. We also have this from a monthly Conan newspaper interview: I: So then, the black orginization is full of mysteries. But, what sort of orginization are they, and what is their goal? World Conquest? A: Well, the world....or rather, they want control of lot's of money. They're moving stealthily in the shadows...sort of like (Al) Capone did right? Or, sort of like the image of the bad guys in 007 or something...sitting there stroking a cat. It's probably best not to say too much. The first statement seems to rule out immortality as the primary goal of the BO. Personally, given the pretty good evidence that APTX4869 is supposed to be some sort of deaging/immortality/youth drug, I think Gosho's answer might imply that APTX4869 is something needed to achieve another more important goal rather than trying to say APTX is meant to do something else. Whatever the BO's greater goal is, it might be very expensive. Gosho says they want control of a lot of money, and not just want a lot of money. That suggests to me the money is a means to an end rather than the end itself. Control seems to suggest they might intend to use it in legit business as well as illegal dealings. Keep in mind, with labs to run, experts to hire, bribes to pay, personnel to compensate, and illegal supplies to acquire, the BO's operating costs are probably in the mid to high tens of millions up to lower 100s of millions USD per year (Billions to ten billion yen). And then we have the other part: "You see, right now, something really big is happening within the organization." I don't know what to make of it. We haven't seen signs of a major reorganization or changeover in leadership. The most we have heard of is a purge to look for allies of Sherry. What else could be going on? Why now? Is this statement just Gosho trying to drum up excitement or has something really changed in the BO recently?

I forget if I mentioned this one, but it derailed a whole case solution for me. In the red wall case, there was no damage to the door or the trolley where the man was locked in. If a healthy man is not tied up in a locked room you would think he would definitely try breaking down the door or busting the lock before throwing everything out of the room right? That made me think he was actually tied up, and it was the culprit who painted the red on the wall and nailed down the black and white chairs. I also thought it was strange the guy wouldn't break the window and then drop out. It's definitely possible to fall three stories and live. The chance to break your legs is better than dying of dehydration. I used to have a list of flaws from Gosho's cases somewhere...

I'm not sure which part stood out the most to me. Was it the scene where Conan was being swarmed by an inexplicable army of bizarre dancing numbered doors, or was it the scene where Ran's horn was being used to drill to the core of the earth but then she accidentally exploded and fell into a epileptic monochrome kingdom hearts opening sequence? Most importantly, what part of that opening indicated that you are about to watch a mystery show? Then again, with a weird club dance song like that for an OP, I'm not sure the animators could have done much better. B'z come back soon, we miss you.