Chekhov MacGuffin

Moving the boss part of this topic from manga discussion here Can't agree with that. Since we have Amuro as example. I still think that he's not that bad, but still. Moreover, Aoyama-sensei like symbolism (Holmes, Gundam, etc, etc, etc) and symbolically James fits great. I can't say that he fits ideally and never did, since there's a lot of things against such a theory and you already named some, but among the others he looks like the best candidate for me. Because, unlike many other theories, this one have a lot of proofs. Both in facts and in symbolism. That's actually why I like it so much. I can't even name another person with so many things against him / her. Especially during Clash of Red and Black. After James was on one side and Gin on another when Soshiki was about to prevent any possible contacts between Akai-san and Hidemi-san, it's just way too much. Even if he aren't the biggest bad guy out there, I still can't stop thinking that he's related to the Organization.That's not the kind of "good" I mean. A good guy, as I meant it, is someone who helps the protagonists and tries to undermine the Black Organization, like Agasa, Akai, or James Black. Amuro was never the kind of good I mean, he merely had a nice face and personality to deceive you. Amuro's actions were never quite good. He was willing to let a suspect destroy exonerating evidence in order to test Kogoro. People like Agasa, Akai, or James Black aren't going to be the boss, because it would mean the boss is acting against his own interests in the Org. I do understand the advantage to being a spy, but the boss has a goal to achieve and the FBI, CIA, and Conan are threatening it. It's wouldn't be a safe choice to stand by and let them do so. There are plenty of subtle tactics the boss could use to hurt these people and make it seem like a coincidence or accident. Things like this haven't happened. As for James's "symbolism", it is a red herring that was meant to cast aspersions on him back when the FBI character's allegiances were still unproven. Akai was named after the big bad of the gundam series, yet he didn't turn out bad. Actions always speak louder than demeanor or "themes". Once you strip James of his name, there is nothing I can think of that would point towards him being the boss. Think about what James has done so far. He has gotten kidnapped, and required rescuing by Akai (but Conan got to him first). He found out who "Cool guy" was, no action taken. He found out who Sherry was, no action taken. He helped hide Kir in a hospital using one of his friends, no one in the BO can find her even though the top agents applied a lot of manpower. Thanks to the BO's search, one of their members was caught phoning the boss, chased down by Akai, and killed. James found out Kir was CIA, no action taken. James lets Akai have freedom to pursue his own plans, which usually winds up helping the FBI more often than not. Shouldn't the so-called boss have a tighter leash on the one he considers a silver bullet? Add on top of all of that the cellphone alibi, and you have a pretty good case James isn't the boss. Speaking from experience at recognizing Gosho's tactics, this isn't the kind of strong alibi that a criminal tries to build to rule himself out, it's the kind of alibi an innocent suspect accumulates. If James has any secrets to hide, I'd put them in his past with Jodie's father and maybe Shuuichi and Masumi's father as well. Unlike Chekhov's entry about the alibi, this one can't be considered as a proof, since we don't know a single thing about the nature of Ai-san's "sixth sense". We don't even know if it's drug-related, or just a strong sense of evil intents. Ai's sense works like this. No false positives so far: Ai has never been wrong when she detects a Black Organization aura. She has never sensed one from a common criminal who wasn't in the Org. False negatives do happen: Ai doesn't always detect the aura from Black Organization agents present. She is more likely to miss if there are more than one BO agent, or the Org. operative isn't focussing intently/being evil at the time. The Black Organization sense seems to be somewhat dependent on Ai's state on mind. If she is not alert/paranoid, she might miss a signal more easily. The Miyano family was not free to move around. They were followed and watched. During the meeting with his friend, there was a tinted-window car pulled up outside that Atsushi kept looking out at. If the Miyanos were truly trusted, there would have been no need for the minder.

Here is some cbox transcription for reference. Chek: Ugh, I really don't want to do anything more about the child issue until more clues appear, but it looks like I have to ask a question for the sake of completeness. What are the pronouns, speech types (feminine, masculine, ambiguously polite) being used? Subjectwise, Masumi directs a question towards the child at one point, and the child refers to itself a few times. Zenthisoror: She uses watashi, and she speaks in a very unchildlike, cool adult-like way, a bit like Haibara, but she's not as girly as Haibara. Chek: When Masumi asks the child about its opinion of Conan, did Masumi's question contain a gendered pronoun? Basically, I'm trying to get a sense of whether Gosho is blocking Masumi from addressing the child in a way that would reveal its gender. Since they are alone, I can assume that they are likely to be truthful to how they normally would address one another. User 4869: Haibara is girly? sorry off topic. Zenthisoror: In the Japanese, well, Haibara's pretty feminine. @Chek: Hmm, I think considering that Lady Oscar tells Sera to refer to her as a kind of 'little sister' she's probably a girl? Chek: @Zenthi, I'm concerned that the child is a reverse Sera, a feminine boy, who is using their ambiguous appearance to disguise from whoever. User 4869: a little related http://forums.dctp.ws/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11727&start=45#p791042 6 Nov 13, 08:50 Chek: But anyway, besides the question above about how Masumi addressed the child, a user at DCW asked about a -nasai (Black Demon corrected spelling) motherly ending. I can't elaborate on the context... Zenthisoror: @Chek: A reverse Sera would be interesting. To be fair his/ her speech pattern is more boyish than girlish. Oh, kotaenasai right? I wouldn't say that's motherly - it's a semi-formal order. Chek: Maybe that's it. Honestly I am more concerned with how Masumi addressing the child in her question about what the kid thinks of Conan. I want to know if Gosho is dodging gendered pronouns, implying a trap. Well, a male who uses watashi probably would be formal-ish if kiddo is a male and not a female. Zenthisoror: I guess because in Japanese you don't really need to use pronouns to speak and sticking them in just makes the speech kind of unnatural...let me have a look at what Sera says then... She talks to the kid like an equal? No noticeable sense of respect or hierarchy. This could simply be because of Sera's personality, but she seems familiar with the kid and the kid is familiar around Sera. Having said that, the kid comes across smarter and cooler than Sera and, of the two, more like the person pulling the strings. Black Demon: If Gosho is trying to hide her true gender then I doubt that we can find anything conclusive for now. Zenthisoror: Best bet at the moment, I'd say a shrunken woman familiar with Sera, so probably her mum. I am ecstatic. (sarcasm drips off me like a melting ice lolly) @Chek: No signs really. If anything, he's either leading us on to think she's a girl, emphasising she's a girl or seriously tricking his editor into thinking she's a girl.

Besides, it's not Gosho's style to do "the good guy was really a bad guy" plots. Gosho truly loves logical outcomes. You see it in the way he sets up his cases and his Black Organization arcs. In order to make a surprising conclusion, Gosho gives his characters weird traits like "super secretive even with allies" or special abilities like disguise and puts them in odd situations instead of the having them act in a way that isn't logical. Gosho never makes the answer to a case hinge on something that someone did "just because." Gosho's strict adherence to logical action is why the AO Secret of the High Sales is well remembered and highly rated by fans. Gosho would never write an illogical case like that (except maybe as a joke), so when it happens it's shocking. There's going to be a perfectly logical reason why someone felt the need to create a super-secret elite criminal organization made of strange people researching bizarre age altering compounds. In order for it to be logical though, the person who created the Organization is going to have to be someone with weird characteristics in a weird situation. (My favorite no evidence story right now is that the boss was in love with someone, like Shinichi is with Ran, but the boss had some lab accident that caused him to shrink and stop aging. He can't be with the person he loves (like Conan and Ran now), so he starts trying to research a recreation of the drug to give to her so she can be like him. He doesn't have the money though and no one would believe a kid, so he starts a criminal organization for research funds.)

I'm not going to do much additional work on the child identity problem until some more clues come up. It's been analyzed to death by a bunch of people already. The main reason the mother theory is as popular as it is is because we only have one female Akai we haven't seen, the child looks like a girl, and is wearing girls clothes. (And maybe talks femininely, but I haven't seen the raw text.) Normally that would be pretty indicative of gender, but we already have had one Akai family trap already who thinks it is acceptable to pretend to be male when it is convenient. (See bathroom use in Blush Mermaid.) Regarding the mother theory in general, if I assume that the child is the mother shrunken, then it really bothers me that the clues presented so far only consist of appearance (big boobs, looks like Shuuichi and Masumi), location (America, which would be a lie in this context), and possible history (maybe met Ran in the past). Usually mystery people whose identities we don't know yet are doing things rather than just existing in the story. Bourbon was activated and put on a mission about Sherry, Vermouth has something she wants to look into in Japan so she isn't going back to America, the boss is contacting his subordinates and ordering them about. Doing things is usually what differentiates suspects from clues that are people (in this case the mom would be a hint about what to expect the middle brother to be like). If I had to pick an APTXed Akai family member theory (instead of another non-shrinking theory), I'd choose the brother over the mother despite the girl look. The brother is doing things in Japan (contacting Masumi). It continues the trend of misleading-looking Akais. The cough bothers me for the same reason. Why have the child be sick at all? In Detective Conan, coughing like that typically implies a rough voice, so it will sound gender ambiguous when the anime rolls around, or to anyone listening in on bugs. When flipping back to the Makoto case when Sera texts her brother, I noticed again that the hand on the phone looks like the style Gosho uses to draw young people vs older males like Okiya and Amuro. That's merely my impression rather than an objective observation; I didn't bring it up back then because Gosho's not perfectly consistent with hand styles and there was no reason to suspect the brother could be a child at that point. Re MeitanteiSonoko's theory about the Silver Bullet and a Miyano connection, there is no evidence. We haven't heard about anyone other that Elena and Atsushi working on Silver Bullet, nor anything about Silver Bullet being used on someone (excluding APTX 4869 here). That doesn't mean it didn't happen, but without evidence, one story is as good as any other. James Black has a good alibi against being the boss. In Kir's introduction case, when Gin asked the boss by phone for permission to kill Kogoro, James was driving the car with Jodie and Conan in it. He couldn't text Gin back without Jodie and Conan noticing.

DCTP user Wakarimashita reports it will air November 16th.

I make a mistake on the timing. The brother had the name Sera when he was in high school and something else ("Akai?") before. @Black Demon, I didn't give an upper bound on the father's death, only a lower one: Masumi's conception.

Requested by Shadow Edit: Corrections 11-2-2013 ?? years ago Shuuichi born. 28-29 years ago middle bro born 16 years ago Masumi is born in Japan and the middle bro is 12 in junior high (US equivalent grades 7-9 in Japan). ??? Sometime after Masumi is conceived, the father dies. (*Clarification. His death anywhere between this and current, although Masumi implies it affected the family names.) >14-15 years ago Masumi and the middle bro start using the name Sera instead of Akai 14-15 years ago the middle bro enters high school with the family name Sera. Masumi is 2, 11-12 years ago, the middle bro graduated high school and changed his family name from Sera to something else. Masumi is 4-5. (Masumi says all three siblings have different family names. Masumi has "Sera" and Shuuichi has "Akai".) 5-10 years ago, Shuuichi sends Masumi Jeet Kun Do videos. (Masumi is 6-11 elementary school) 5 years ago Akai starts infiltrating the Org. Middle bro is 23-24. Masumi is 11, 4 years ago Masumi starts junior high at 12, 3 years ago Akai family moves to America, Masumi goes to middle school 2 years ago Shuuichi kicked from the Org Current timeline, Masumi comes back at the age of 16 to Japan So the middle brother changed his family name before their father died. Why? Was the father doing something that required his family's name to be changed? This also means that unless Masumi took the family name Sera at a later date than her brother took Sera as his family name, she never personally used the last name Akai.

The Suspicious Spicy Curry

Nothing has changed as far as I know. What are the lines you suspect?

I thought when Conan said the girl who looks like Sera, he was referring to Sera. The girl in the photo is def Sera now, so that was incorrect in the end. Known facts about the child: • Conan thinks the child is female. Outfit appears to be a high-neck pleated top, hoodie jacket, and hat. A pleated top, assuming that is what it is, is considered female-only clothing in Japan as far as I know. • Child has neck length, blond, curly hair. It's noted to resemble Char Aznable's. • Middle school aged-looking according to Conan, so approx 12-15 years old. Height is intermediate between Conan and Ran. • Has eyes like Akai Shuuichi. • Highly likely to have been hiding in Masumi's bedroom. Masumi preventing Conan from entering the bedroom and the child was later shown emerging from her room later (876). • Conan thinks Masumi showed the child's picture to him intentionally, although the purpose is unknown. Some notes about the facts • Wearing a hat indoors is somewhat secretive, but also common for Akai family. Speculation Conan suspected Masumi was warning someone to hide in the text to her brother Conan seems surprised that Masumi would so quickly cancel a meeting with her brother (876: pgs 4), especially after Masumi noted earlier that she has no idea what the brother has been doing of where he has been. (859: pgs 6-7) Conan gets the suspicious "..." watching Masumi text her brother happily, suggesting that she is doing something he finds suspect. Conan then decides to pry around the apartment, something Masumi in turn was alert to. Since the child in the photo was shown on the bed, Conan may have just been intending to match the patterns with his memory of those he saw on the phone picture to ascertain where the photo was taken. That said, I think Conan is assuming Masumi's text was a warning to stay hidden, especially after he was blocked from the bedroom. Conan suspects there is something important about the child Conan chases after the child in the crowd in a hurried and almost panicked fashion. The last time he did that sort of thing was when Scar Akai appeared and when he thought Bourbon might have gotten some serious information. That doesn't imply the child is evil, but certainly suggests that Conan thinks the child is important enough to track down immediately and get emotional about. Bugging the room pretty much confirms Conan's intentions as well as his belief that the child is not bad because he risked his bug being found and traced back to him. Conan's assumption that the child is a girl should be taken with a grain of salt Conan could very well be correct about the child being a girl. That said, Masumi already fooled Conan into thinking she was male. Androgyny might be a recurring theme for the Akai family. Even though the child appears in girl's clothes, if the child is a boy in hiding (wearing a hat indoors suggests this may be the case) then they may be using their androgynous appearance as a simple disguise. Reason why Masumi would show Conan the child's picture Conan thinks Masumi deliberately showed him the picture of the child in 875. Masumi has also been relatively free with information regarding her family. It may be that she is inviting Conan to make a deduction about the child's identity. If Conan is wrong about why Masumi wanted him to retrieve her phone, I can only think of a few other options. Maybe she wanted his fingerprints? If that is the case, couldn't she have gotten them already from something else he touched? Maybe she left the camera on and was filming his face close up as he collected it? Maybe it was recording his voice? (If it is the voice, Masumi could have purchased a recorder earlier, or recorded Conan during the deduction scene.) Theories about the identity of the child Facts about Masumi's family This is the information about Masumi's family she has given us so far. Most of it is self reported, so if she is lying everything goes out the window. • Masumi's nuclear family consists of five individuals ....• A father who is dead ....• A mother, well endowed, currently living in America. Resembles Masumi and the eldest son. ....• An oldest son, thought to be dead, who looks like Masumi and his mother. Heavily implied to be Akai Shuuichi. ....• A middle brother living in Japan who doesn't look like Masumi, Shuuichi, or their mom. ......Smart as opposed to strong, probably 28-29 years old, and has been advising Masumi on cases by phone. ......His whereabouts and work are unknown according to Masumi. His last name isn't Sera or Akai. ....• Sera Masumi herself Masumi claims that she doesn't have any more relatives close enough to depend on. (876 pg 3) It is unclear whether this means that her family are all the relatives she has, or she could have more relatives, but they aren't close enough to support her. She says she is being financially supported by one of her dad's friends. The identity of this backer is unknown currently. This information appears to exclude another blood relative in Masumi's nuclear family, which confuses Conan. That leaves us with a few options • Masumi has lied about the number of siblings she has. • Masumi has lied or does not know about (i.e. doesn't know they are related by blood) having additional relatives she is close with, one of which is the child. • The child is not considered part of Masumi's family by Masumi. • The child's strong resemblance to the Akai family is coincidental. • The child is an offspring of one of her siblings. • The child is in fact one if her family members, implying they were shrunken somehow. Detailed Breakdown of above listed ideas Masumi lied about the number of siblings she has or the relatives that she has If the child is another blood sibling, the span of her mother's childbearing years is minimum 13-14 years, assuming they are born of a single mother. Also I would expect to see clues that Masumi lied about her family per the Gosho-writes-solvable-mysteries-which-means-there-should-be-clues-somewhere principle. If the child is a relative of Masumi's then it doesn't explain why she would want to show Conan the picture, unless she was afraid of letting Ran and Sonoko know she had relatives. Masumi doesn't know the child is a blood relative of hers In these cases it is unclear why Masumi would want to show Conan the photo of someone she doesn't think is related to her. • Masumi's backers may be blood relatives of the Akai family, but Masumi does not know this yet. The child is related to her backers. • The child is a secret offspring of the father or mother. It is unclear when Masumi's father died. If he had a child by another woman, then it is possible that the child was raised with that other woman instead, and Masumi was not aware of the relationship. Also, if somehow her mother concealed a pregnancy from Masumi, it's possible that the child is a secret sibling. The child is not considered part of Masumi's family by Masumi One solution is that Mrs. Akai remarried and had another child after the death of her first husband, who had Shuuichi, middle brother, and Masumi. Masumi for some reason doesn't consider this step-child a part of her family. This sort of logic seems weird to me, but maybe there is customary thinking to explain this? The child is an offspring of one of Masumi's older brothers • Her middle brother is 28/29 which would make him a teen parent if that was the case. • Shuuichi is older and theoretically could have had a relationship with another woman early on. That said, Shuuichi hasn't acted like he has a child (unless the woman he impregnated kept the child secret from him). Jodie is 28 and would have been a teen mom. No past girlfriends of Shuuichi old enough to have had the child are known to exist. The child is in fact one if her family members, implying they were shrunken somehow. The APTX 4869 theory. Gin mentioned that Shinichi was the first, or at least one of the first people APTX 4869 was tested on. That is backed up by Haibara implying that the Black Organization hadn't been using it as a poison for too long. Her test of APTX 4869 on Numabuchi was blocked by him escaping. That implies that any shrinking going on will be recent in the case of APTX 4869, or really old to the tune of 18 years if Silver Bullet is involved. Silver Bullet was never mentioned as being tested on people, so APTX 4869 is more likely. Haibara, in her intro case, did give a warning that she thought more people might shrink which would be disastrous if discovered, so Shinichi should hurry up and make Kogoro famous and break the Org. A shrunken person would explain why Masumi showed Conan the child on her phone, inviting him to figure out that he and the child have the same problem. If Conan thinks he is dealing with a shrunken child, it explains why he took off running after the kid in an extreme way and bugged their room. Then there is the problem of why anyone would be dosed with APTX. Amuro trying to lure out Shuuichi by killing one of his family? The person got caught investigating something? The middle brother shrunk Out of all the various candidates, the middle bro makes the most sense. If he is the child, he looks different from Masumi and Shuuichi with his light hair color, something Japanese people are sensitive to. I could see Masumi saying he looks different from she and Shuuichi, even though their eyes are similar. If the middle brother is feminine-looking to the point where he is mistaken for a woman (in contrast to Masumi's masculine appearance) then the brother might be posing as a female child because it is a convenient disguise, especially if he doesn't know who is trustworthy. The middle bro has failed to tell Masumi where he is and what he is doing and refused to allow Masumi live with him, all things he would be doing if he was trying to hide his shrunken state from her, or what Masumi would say to others if Masumi was covering for him. It's strange that Masumi appears to have realized Conan is Shinichi (see discussion on The Wizard), but she hasn't informed her middle brother (who is in a similar state) about this discovery and working with Conan prior to the Makoto parking lot bathroom drowning case. If she knew her brother was shrunken, I would think that she would try to probe Conan to figure out what happened earlier on. She hasn't done so yet. The only way I can reconcile this is if the brother had been keeping his shrinking a secret from Masumi up until the text message with Conan's picture in the Makoto parking lot drowning case. Then he himself figured out Conan was Shinichi (maybe he met Shinichi in the past too). In between Twin Bets and Red Woman, he broke his prior secrecy and called a meeting with Masumi because he wants info on someone else with his condition. Masumi takes a picture of her brother at this time and shows it to Conan in the Red Woman Case, hoping Conan will figure out there is someone else like him too. Masumi really did intend to meet with her brother at the hotel where she claims to be living now (which is different than the short hotel she was shown to be living in before.) She changes plans to have Conan, Ran, and Sonoko come over so that the brother could get a look at Conan for himself, and so Conan can learn more about her brother's shrunken state. In case they see her later at a different hotel (the one where Masumi really lives), Masumi lies about moving out soon. Masumi keeps Conan from going in the bedroom is so he doesn't realize she doesn't live there (and because the brother was hiding in there). The brother wears a hat indoors when going to the scene of the crime in order to be sneaky. This explanation doesn't account for how the brother knew Conan was a good detective. (He would have had to know about Conan ahead of time - see middle brother theories on knowing Conan is Shinichi) If the brother is the child, that means as an adult, he probably looked a bit like Okiya, because siblings typically have similar builds. That would explain Masumi's instant startled reaction to Okiya, but uncharacteristic failure to follow up on any suspicion later. She realized he wasn't who she thought he was at first. Masumi's mother shrunk Well the child would be a girl. I don't really know what else to add onto this. Masumi's mother hasn't been active in the storyline the way the middle brother has. Masumi said her mother was in America, which could be a lie. Almost all the other information about Masumi's mother is physical appearance related. Maybe the mother met Ran in the past, because Masumi asks Ran to back an assertion that her mother is big chested, implying that Ran must have seen her in the past. Akai Shuuichi shrunk Shuuichi is definitely Okiya, so this doesn't work. Characteristics Okiya possesses that Shuuichi has, but the middle bro might not have: Black Org feeling Ran's feeling they have met before Quote "Don't make that face" and Haibara's feeling Okiya and Shuuichi are similar Knowledge on how to operate Conan's tracking glasses despite not having seen them before as Okiya Able to "predict Shiho and Akemi Miyano's moves" Likes bourbon whiskey. Left handed. The presence of Yukiko while Okiya was living in the Kudo house. Yukiko is good in disguise.

No new Magic Kaito episodes have been scheduled if that is what you are asking. There is no schedule for upcoming Kid cases in the manga either; they come when they come. Occasionally there is a note that the next case will be a Kid case when the current case ends. New Magic Kaito manga cases seem to only happen when there are promotional reasons...

The Seven Wonders of the Hiroshima Miyajima Tour Found by noting it was an Anime Original episode with an art style indicating it is after episode 500. I looked at the people appearing pictures in each AO after 500 in this list of anime episodes.

I reread the case and it occurred to me that if the victim could sneak into the room disguised as a delivery person with wine, then the author could kill her in the back of his own room and sneak out in his own delivery person disguise, maybe with a cart of stuff to hide the body on. There were a number of delivery people coming and leaving so that it would be easy to take advantage of the confusion of people coming and going. The people doing the eating contest probably won't be paying attention. That would add an additional explanation to why the body was close to the front door - easiest to dump it there (and will be quickly spotted when room service comes later.) Also, if the victim did come upstairs with wine, perhaps it was to drop off the completed manuscript for the publishers (and undress for shower + affair after the publishers leave). The author man could have her use a disguise without making her suspicious with the excuse that it would be good not to be recognized since bad things have been said about the two of them. Also, if you all were wondering how Sera and Conan knew he was the killer, it was because the author slipped and somehow knew when the threatening letters were delivered, and thus how long the publishers had time to tell him about them. There may be other clues, like the missing button, that tipped them off too.

Fake. Facebook is a cesspit of Detective Conan rumors.

The Boss thread would probably have been better because it's a bout trying to figure out who the boss is while this thread is more about questions that can be answered. I don't think they are the boss and Vermouth personally.

10/10 Explanation there, Black Demon.

Murder case related stuff, description and deductions. With help from Fujiwara and Shadow: Pg 5: The gang see three men waiting. Ran and Sonoko wonder what those guys are doing in the hallway. Sera says that they're waiting for the manuscript of a popular romance author who lives on that floor. When Sera tries to recall his name, said author introduces himself. Pg 6-7: The three men are publishers invited over by a romance author, Mr. Bald guy, to get a chance to see his manuscript. Mr. Bald Author challenges the three men to a contest: whoever eats the most would get his manuscript first. Delivery people have been bringing by various orders for this contest: sushi, wine, pizza, Chinese food, and donuts. Pg 8: The author shows the three men a scale. The winner of the eating contest will be the person with the highest difference between the before and after weigh-in wins. Mr. Bald Author says he'll go take a bath and that they should be watchful that he doesn't leave the chamber and do something bad. Pg 10: The three men leave feeling sick, and it is unclear which one won. They discuss how the author is having an affair with his assistant, a bleached-hair woman (and the vic in this case). They mention the assistant took a room directly below the author’s, but didn't even show up once. They assume this is because of the bad press the affair got and the threatening letters about the affair they all received. The author was hot up-and-coming when he was younger, then he lost popularity for a while, but recently he's regained popularity all thanks to the new assistant he took on last year. Pg 13: There is shouting from the floor below. Pg 14: The body of a blond woman, the assistant of the author, is found by the door of her room on the floor directly below the author’s by a staffperson bringing room service. Pg 15: She has been strangled and Yoshikawa lines are visible. She has been dead 2-3 hours. The author comes down so see the commotion along with one of the publishers. Pg 16: The publisher mentions they all received threatening messages regarding the affair between the author and that woman. The author claims not to have heard about them: “You could have told me! While this happened to her, I was writing a romance novel without a care in the world ...” Conan and Sera suspect the bald author is the culprit. Threatening letter content: pg 10: Get that man-eating woman who has become his assistant away from him! pg 16: If you don't get rid of that assistant, you'll regret it ... My thoughts so far: Conan and Sera are convinced that the author is the culprit. Assuming he is, then the contest and the obvious request for the publishers to make sure he doesn’t leave is clearly part of the author’s plan to turn the three men into his alibi. Leaving during a contest is poor form, they might cheat after all. Based on the fact that the author appears to want his alibi to be that he never left his room during a certain time frame, we can deduce that the murder took place during the eating contest while the author was supposedly in his bath. The crime was also premeditated so we can posit planning beforehand. If the author has an intact alibi, only way for the him to leave his room would be to descend via the balcony which would take him to his assistant’s room directly below his. The female staffperson who walks in with the bottle of wine is probably the assistant victim. She had blond hair pulled back and is not shown leaving. The author tells her to decant the wine and no more mention is made of her afterwards. She is "hidden" in a crowd of people bringing food items who have come before and after her. Her mole on her chin may be covered by makeup so that she isn't recognizable. It’s unclear why she would disguise and come by. Presumably it’s part of the author’s plan, whatever that is. He must have convinced her to do something… The author probably descended via balcony to her room (after killing her with her body?). The body needs to be by the door so it will be found quickly. The door also needs to be unlocked so that it appears some random person could attack her. Assuming the author person was controlling her movement, if he intended to strangle her in her own room, he wouldn't have to have gotten her to come by as a staff. At this point I can’t reconcile why he would ask her to come by dressed as a staff person with necessity. I don’t think she disguised without him knowing because he wouldn’t likely have time to prepare a murder trick that involves getting her body back into her own room on the spot. The victim died via strangling while conscious and capable of resisting. The Yoshikawa lines around the strangle wound means the item the culprit strangled with her was bloodied. The woman’s body seems to have been found close to her door, so she couldn't be lowered on to her balcony like in the historical actor murder case. Room service for two – wine with two glasses - was ordered to her room. The room service arriving to her room would be incredibly convenient for the culprit because if she is found quickly it would solidify his alibi. I am guessing he prompted the order: maybe he ordered it for her, telling her he will be down after he and the publishers finish up, or she ordered it on his suggestion thinking he will come down after they finish. I think the first is more likely because the author would want to make sure the body is found before a gap could happen that would break his alibi. Who sent the threatening letters isn’t clear. The author may have done it in order to provide some sort of motive for an imaginary outside killer to attack the assistant. The motive for the murder is probably something like the illustrator murder case motive. The button on the bald author’s shirt has disappeared between the meeting and him coming downstairs. Art error or clue? New Hotel The hotel Sera is at now is not the same one that Sera was in to begin with. (see V74-4 pg 16) That said, Conan and Ran don't mention it so I suppose they expected the move. In this case, Ran says "I’d like to see the place where Sera-san is living as well! ♥" Maybe Sera left after the murder case where the guy trashed her old hotel? Or maybe she moved for another reason? The person in the room For people wondering about the person opening Sera's door, I did quick sketches to guess the minimum and maximum possible height for the person assuming they are standing normally. (Any squatting, crouching, or leaning over will mean the person is taller than estimation.) My results are that the person is about 1.5 times taller than Conan at minimum and a little less than 2 of Conan at a maximum. That size range covers older children to teens about Sera and Ran's height. Keep in mind that this depends on Gosho's art being near perfect and my estimations being pretty good. My method is below. First I estimated Conan's height relative to the door: Then, using the image of the hand, I sketched in the body figure of the person using Gosho-style arm, body, head proportions for children (Not uploaded because too lazy, crappy fast art). For calculating lowest possible height, I made the assumption that the arm was fully extended out, in order to minimize the height of the shoulder. (See picture for type of reaching motion I mean). This is probably not realistic given the scene because that would put the person far back from the door rather than a more appropriate peeking out position. For approximating max height I assumed the upper arm was in a near vertical position similar to this pose's left arm. This brings the shoulder to the maximum possible height.

I like it!

Conan has brought up the possibility the girl in the photo is not Sera. Usually when Conan drops hints like that it's a clear indication to follow the line of thought he is suggesting. I think the photo = Akai's mom, kid Akai Shuuichi theory is looking more likely. The only problem is who is the other person in Sera's apartment behind the door Sera didn't let Conan open, and who presumably opened the door where Conan dropped his bag? It could be the mystery kid... or Sera's mom? They look quite short, so it could definitely be the kid from the picture. They do look taller than Conan though. Regardless, Sera definitely lied about living alone to Conan, Ran, and Sonoko. Re some translation errors Black Demon: SOME TRANSLATION ERRORS REPORTED BY THE CHINESE STAFFS: http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2643854673 Black Demon:Apparently it's her FATHER'S rich friend, not Sera's. Also, he's NOT as rich as Sonoko. James Black anyone?

The woman in Shinichi's house who was with Okiya was heavily implied to be Yukiko who was helping Okiya with his disguise. (That said, she could be cheating on Yuusaku with Akai Shuuichi....)

He is comparing the Black Organization to the Team Rocket gang from the Pokemon game franchise. They both wear black, but they aren't very similar.

Here is the translation of the panels courtesy Fujiwara Note lots of people think the child is actually a boy, not a girl like Conan thinks. It would be fitting considering he was also mistaken about Sera. Regarding the little mystery kid there seems to be two major lines of thought: #1 The girl in the picture is Sera, and the kid is a relative. Sera didn't say she had any additional family members beyond her parents (her father is dead), herself, and her two brothers (872 pg 3) so the child must be related to someone in her family. The middle brother is old enough to have a kid of that apparent age. Another option would be that Sera's mom remarried after her first husband died, and had another child which Sera doesn't consider to be one of her siblings for some reason. #2 The girl in the picture is Sera's mom (Who looks a lot like Sera!), and the child is Akai. The child is distinctly not smiling and its face is identical to Akai's. Sera's mom appears not to be chesty, but maybe she was a late bloomer? It makes sense in that Sera might be trying to hint to Conan her family's identity, especially after Conan was poking around the issue in 872. If the child is Akai, maybe he dyed his long blond hair black later? Do note that Char Aznable has long and blond hair with a very similar hairstyle to the child's. For picture comparisons, see the spoiler box below. ...

Well, yeah, that was pretty random. However, I am curious where you got the picture.