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@cessmaga
what if ran used the one wish willow to shinichi be finally back?
like genuinely what would really happen??
would nothing would happen because shinichi is conan?
would he literally spit apart because the shinichi and conan are so separate from each other now that erasing one another would basically be killing them??
or genuinely, shinichi is actually back to his original body???
Heiji Hattori as a Symbol of Creative Paralysis in the Detective Conan Franchise (Screamofdespair Reupload)
For over two decades, fans of Detective Conan have watched Heiji Hattori grow from a charismatic rival to one of the series most beloved characters. And yet, even after more than 1000 episodes/chapters and 28 movies, Heiji remains treated as a side character, a "special guest" brought in occasionally to keep things going, but never fully integrated into the narrative core. This long-standing neglect is not just a missed narrative opportunity, it is a symptom of a deeper issue : the systematic creative paralysis caused by corporate control and capitalistic logic within the anime industry.
Heiji's Narrative & Wasted Potential
Heiji Hattori was introduced as a bold and brilliant counterpart to Shinichi Kudo, the perfect rival, partner, and narrative foil. He had all the potential to become a co-protagonist : two detectives in different regions solving cases in parallel, crossing paths, exchanging ideas, and deepening the world-building of the series. His charisma, his dynamic with Conan, his investigative style, everything was in place. Fans expected growth. Instead, Heiji became a glorified guest star. One or two episodes/chapters per year. No central role, no major investigations, no real evolution, nothing 'meaningful' since the end of his actual guest star phase, and all of it framed under the banner of a character written mainly to serve a forced romantic purpose. It’s gotten to the point where even the voice actors were tired. Despite the potential, he's used like a collectible taken off the shelf for an event, then put back into storage. They had a second ace detective in their hands and chose to keep him in the background, often by undermining his defining traits, reframing him as comic relief rather than allowing him to grow as a central figure. Takahiro Okura, the scriptwriter for some of the Detective Conan movies, stated that Heiji and Kazuha should be integrated into the main cast. Their absence, he implied, weakens the possibilities for deeper world-building. And ironically, now that the romantic subplot between Heiji and Kazuha has finally been resolved, their presence in the story risks shrinking even further if you ask me. Gosho and the writers might face a "what do we do with them now?" dilemma, instead of expanding their role meaningfully. From now on, Heiji could, alone, really take the spotlight, with Kazuha kept in the background or left out, out of fear that the story might move too fast and exhaust their new narrative potential too soon. And honestly? Why not. But that’s exactly the issue, it’s narrative cowardice. Having Heiji show up in more cases from now on, on his own, only proves they could’ve done it way earlier, and more naturally.
Corporate Logic Over Character Development
Heiji’s sidelining isn’t a creative accident. It’s a structural decision. The anime production committee composed of Yomiuri TV, TMS Entertainment, TOHO, Shogakukan etc, operates under a system where storytelling is subservient to profit optimization. Every narrative change is weighed not for artistic merit, but for its impact on merchandising, ratings, and continuity. Allowing Heiji to evolve into a regular would mean more writing, more arcs, and the risk of narrative progression. But that goes against the system’s core priority : endless repetition. This gives the anime/movies (especially the movies), and by extension the committee, a real influence over the manga’s pace, tone, and long-term direction. Aoyama may hold the pen, but the committee holds the cage. Lately, even some of Aoyama’s editors, under possible pressure, have either changed their stance or started aligning with the corporate mindset behind the series. This is not creativity, this is content management. And when your movies are making over ¥15 billion annually, why bother investing in a character like Heiji? Why develop new narrative structures, when you can keep him shelved as a “special guest” card. If you resolve arcs or elevate side characters, you bring the story closer to its natural ending and shortening a profitable franchise’s lifespan is commercially unacceptable. Even worse : while it would be entirely possible to use Heiji in non-canon filler episodes, giving the spotlight to his character without touching the core narrative, the producers still refuse to do it. Not because it would be difficult, but because it contradicts their conservative, product-oriented philosophy. They could plan episodes in advance, hire talented guest directors, build something fresh around Heiji but they won't. Because in this philosophy, innovation is not a priority. Stability is. What’s even more funny is that this could actually make people want to get back into the anime, and it would probably work really well. You’d get a bit of everything : a break from the usual artistic routine, different scriptwriters/directors/animators than usual, like i said earlier. A good example of that is the mini-series of Eri’s Courtroom. By limiting Heiji’s appearances through quotas, they’ve turned him from a character into a controlled asset, something to be managed, not developed.
The Endless Loop : Why the Story Can’t Move Forward & Its Creative Limitations
Detective Conan isn’t built to evolve. It’s built to circulate. The anime and movies generate billions of yen annually. Shogakukan, a major player in the Japanese publishing industry, has a clear economic interest in maintaining Conan as a permanent fixture, not as an evolving story, but as a cultural product. This isn’t just a franchise. It’s a dependency. The series fuels manga sales, spin-offs, licensing deals, and annual blockbuster films. The spin-offs, ironically, show how low the creative bar has fallen : despite fresh angles (Zero's Tea Time, Hannin no Hanzawa), they are underfunded and underanimated. The production circle is tightly controlled, with a limited pool of animators and almost no injection of new artistic energy. There’s no new blood injected in, just veterans like Yasuichiro Yamamoto (the series director), who have been carrying the weight of Detective Conan’s production since the very beginning. Animation Producers like Keiichi Ishiyama admitted in interviews that the system is so rigid that missing a single delivery deadline can jeopardize the entire production and push the studio to the brink of collapse. Another issue is the lack of creative freedom for the movie directors : even when someone tries to bring something fresh, like the director of Movie 27, Chika Nagaoka, who wanted to portray Heiji in a more mature way in the movie, the idea was swiftly overridden by Gosho Aoyama himself. Not necessarily because he disagreed, but because the philosophy demands consistency over innovation. That said, some animation producers, distinct from the executive producers or committee stakeholders, of course, do try to bring in talented animators, scout the competitive freelance market, and elevate the quality of key sequences. Without them, Detective Conan would be visually dead. These individuals still fight to inject life into a tightly controlled environment. But they operate under a passive restriction : the 'best' animators rarely want to work on a project so artistically suffocating (the shift to digital in Gosho’s drawings, or the gradual redesign of the anime’s character models = creative limitation, which became increasingly bound by consistency over experimentation). There’s almost no space for personal style. Even when talented directors are hired, like the director of Movie 22, Yuzuru Tachikawa (formerly of Mob Psycho 100) or Movie 25, Mitsunaka Susumu (from Haikyuu!!), their unique directorial style is barely visible. The films are cleanly produced, but the soul of the director is absent. Anyone can direct a Detective Conan movie. The role has become factory work, everything is controlled from start to finish, and the director no longer has access to any real source of creative input. The brand overrides the artist. Popularity of the manga > More money to be made > More content to be produced > Tighter deadlines and overworked studios (Gosho inclued) > Drop in quality but the money keeps coming in > A system of ultra-comfort settles in, no risk, no urgency to evolve > A never-ending cycle.
Capitalism Embedded in the Narrative
This is what i mean when i say capitalism over storytelling. Characters like Heiji are not written, they are managed. Narrative arcs are not planned, they are rationed. The goal is not to tell a story but to preserve a revenue stream. Even the script decisions are shaped by what’s safest for the committee. In contrast, look at Toei’s handling of One Piece. Despite being a massive commercial franchise, it invests in high-caliber animators, embraces experimental visuals and respects the momentum of the source material. It doesn’t just protect the brand, it elevates it. Conan does the opposite : it freezes its own world out of fear.
A Point of No Return?
Is it too late for Conan to change? Realistically, yes. The franchise has become a full-loop economy. The story can’t end, but it can’t move forward drastically either. Heiji Hattori, a character who should have been a second protagonist, remains trapped in guest status, even as his storylines are technically resolved. The worst part? That resolution doesn’t open up new narrative space. It shuts it down. The couple is canon now. It's great, but It’s hard to expect anything surprising going forward. I keep a sliver of hope, but honestly, it feels unlikely.
So yeah, Heiji Hattori is more than a sidelined character. He’s the symbol of everything the franchise could have become, and refused to. In trying to protect the illusion of a never-ending world, Detective Conan has built a prison for itself. Not out of lack of love. But out of fear of loss. The fear of losing control over a profitable system, fear of disrupting a carefully maintained commercial balance, fear of ending the formula that guarantees returns.
idk but there's something so tragic that both in meta and in story where heiji is always sidelined in favor of shinichi, "his better and superior version"
An animatic I made for the Phoenix!Heiji AU!
Youtube Version
I got hyperfixated and finished all 4 of Phoenix!Heiji's refs at once haha! Plus a restructure of the Revival Cycle so I can have it seperate.
An expression sheet (+ bonus art) for my friend @harmonytre / @smolboyhours of her Phoenix AU version of Heiji Hattori from Detective Conan!!
that's probably controversial but "Conan and Shinichi are different people" AUs are a great example of an AU that that is so different from canon that I just don't find it interesting. I mean, it's kind of the point, no? that they're so different, but actually the same person having an identity crisis?
I do really like the comics someone on here made of this au recently, but it's all thanks to the execution methinks. the fact remains that splitting shinichi into conan and the original himself makes them into entirely different characters
I did see some people say that they struggle to see Shinichi and Conan as the same character to begin with, not the case for me but that must be why...
TBH, I go back and forth on this myself. Purely visually speaking, the merchandisers love treating them as separate, and even Gosho himself gets in on the act at the start of every volume:
But even script-wise, a lot of the standalone, especially DB cases just feel like they're from a different canon (especially in the pre-Haibara era where he doesn't really have an equal to talk to) where Conan is a "normal" grade-school genius that never has to worry about secret identities. I mean, could what he does to Kid at the end of "Blue Wonder" exist in the same orbit as a Shinichi that went through the Moonlight Sonata case?
Don't get me wrong, I like Shinichi being treated as the actual hero (and the majority of AO3 seems to agree), but when you try to digest canon all at once, the feeling that Shinichi is mostly a bit of flavor-text Gosho likes dropping in Conan The Actual Protag every now and then becomes almost unescapable..
I feel like simply calling JK Rowling a transphobe isn't strong enough anymore. Like. This is not your grandpa calling you by your deadname at a restaurant kind of transphobic. This is her wanting to eradicate all trans people (with an extra special hatred towards trans women specifically). This is her trying just that by personally funding transphobic hate groups with millions to push around laws in the UK. It is not hyperbolic to call her a dangerous, genocidal maniac.
It's not about cancelling a problematic writer. It's about literally trying to save lives by denying her as much money and power as possible.
The first time Shinichi comes back as a teenager is just Shinichi suffering for two consecutive episodes. Seriously, it starts with him being sick for a cold, then after getting a temporary cure he was literally suffering for the entire time before he came back as Shinichi, and then even after coming back, he was still suffering because it was a very little time he could be himself again, and then immediately passed out after it, and was in bed for three days. That must have been the most awful painful experience ever
So, people explore the whole "post-Conan Shinichi who has chronic issues due to his overuse of antidotes" thing.
But, I kinda figure... Why wait for him to be Shinichi again? Why not slap Conan with the chronic pain and fucked up body issues from forcing himself through those transformations so much?
What I'm saying is why not make him suffer now?
#i can imagine him not noticing at first or like ignoring it fully and not telling haibara or anyone else#like not even seeking out treatment until it gets too bad#he would hate it and it would just be another reason to hate being conan#i wonder if the pain would persist when he took antidotes and went back to his og body
prev's tags
He would 10000% hide the fact that something is going on at first. He wouldn't realize it right away, probably, but as soon as he did he'd hide it. Oh. Man. Imagine that he does a pretty good job for a good while, but eventually the pain starts persisting even when he uses the antidotes (it originally went away). He manages to keep it hidden, people are used to him occasionally looking like he's gonna have a heart attack when he pops up and he's always fine
Until one time he gets back to Conan and at first can't even move because it's so intense. He tries to write it off as just the usual "recovering from the transformation" but it persists and while he does eventually get back up, he's in enough pain he can't hide it very well. He tries, but as he's getting back to Haibara his knees buckle and he ends up on the ground, and she's of course worried because he shouldn't be this unsteady still and he's trying to play it off, but she can tell something is wrong
They get him back to Agasa's place, and only under significant pestering does he finally admit to the pain
And she's like "that's not supposed... Kudou-kun. How long has this been going on." and he has to admit it, and has to begrudgingly mention that it originally went away when he was back to Shinichi but it doesn't anymore and that it's been getting worse each time
And Haibara just having to very gently "Kudou-kun. I... I don't know if this can be fixed. You're putting ridiculous amounts of strain on your body, I warned you against significant use of the antidotes because I wasn't sure how it would effect you. I admit I was more worried about you building up a tolerance, but... You need to stop, you may permanently damage yourself if you keep using them. You might have already done irreversible damage."
And then he has to sit with the consequences of his actions, while Haibara tries to get him every medical test she can somehow because now she's worried--is this just the joins? Muscles? Does he have organ damage? Fuck, is he in the earliest stage of organ failure for anything? She needs to know! She needs to make sure he's not actively dying!
(And that, more than anything, finally get through to him--that she's legit afraid he might have accidentally started killing himself with antidotes)
Thankfully, so far it seems to be limited to mostly the joints, and some muscles. Maybe some immune system issues? Ones that can be managed. Now they just have to figure out an explanation for what's wrong with Conan...
Columbo is always a game of cat and mouse where the mouse thinks it's the cat and the cat pretends he's a mouse 🫱🫱
one of the reasons why Columbo is so funny is because he will get on his suspect's nerves sooo badly and then the suspect cannot do anything about it because Columbo will go "I'm just a little guy and it's my birthday! I'm just a little birthday boy!" with the suspect and Columbo both knowing full well that Columbo is lying but the suspect cannot say a word about it not being Columbo's birthday due to the social conventions surrounding them and the fact that they are indeed guilty of murder
I can't explain it with words but there's something so therapeutic about Gosho drawing Shinichi...
Since I talked a bit about Gen Rex a few days ago... Let's do it again! Sort of.
I like Generator Rex's approach to... Who Is Rex? Is Rex the one he was born as? The child that needed a life-saving infusion of nanites? Is Rex the criminal of Hong-Kong? Is Rex Providence's secret weapon?
Is Rex with his memories a different person? Is the Rex in the past the one he should be now?
All the answers to these questions are a very firm, very definitive "No".
Rex, the one we currently know, the one we saw the journey of, is Rex. The one who chose to move past his past, yet own up to mistakes that he doesn't even remember making. The one who seeked answers, but eventually got to accept the people he has now, and put his family to rest in his heart. The one who went back to Providence out of free will, who helps people and who absolutely... Kicks... BUTT.
Rex is the one he chooses to be.
And... This is how I approach Atem, too. Atem with his memories is no different from the Atem we have seen grow. He only has memories. Those do not change him as a person, for his journey with YUGI and his FRIENDS is what changed him, what made him grow to be Atem, today.
The Atem of the past is no longer, for even when he gains his memories, Atem isn't a different person. He isn't Atem of the past. Yami grew with the memories Yugi, Jounouchi, Anzu, Honda, Ryou, Ryuji, Mai (Hanasaki special manga mention bc he's utterly underrated) have given him, the experiences they shared.
He learned his real name, that gives him power, yes. But his real name doesn't suddenly change him, it doesn't suddenly make Yami into Atem. Or at least, not the Atem that sealed himself and Zorc into the puzzle/ring.
Atem was already formed by the time he has learned of his true name, by the time he has found his memories.
Generator Rex poses the question of: are you the same person with your memories? Are you responsible for what you, the version of you that has been forgotten and lost in the depths of your mind, have done?
Is Atem the one who chose to seal himself with Zorc? Is Atem the one who has lost his father and had taken the throne, so young? Is that all Atem is?
And is thus Yami not Atem, too? For Yami isn't truly Yugi's "Yami", he's another soul, he's a different person than Yugi.
Yami doesn't suddenly stop existing once he learns his true name. He's still Yami. He's still the one who experienced the Shadow Games, who befriended Yugi, Jounouchi, Anzu, Honda, Ryou, and so many more. He's still the one who teamed up with Yugi to take down Pegasus. He's still the one who went through Battle City, and then the one who relived his own memories.
He made new, different bonds with the people in his past. We don't know the entirety of how Atem of the past interacted with the people in his past, because we are never shown this. We're only shown when Atem saved Sugoroku from falling to his death.
He's not just a skin to be shed. He's not a notebook to be taken back, stored away.
And I think that's very beautiful.
I have a post-canon idea for shinichi where after all of the events he completely lost his past memories and now he's struggling getting his memories back is because how convoluted his past is and now he doesn't know if he's a new person at all or a husk of a person named shinichi
the reason I wanted to do an amnesia arc on him was because I wanted to explore his identity crisis even further, and I wanted to ask a question of "is he the same person?? is he a new person without his past memories?? and is it okay not to bring them back again if it really causes him pain??"
the reason why he lost his memories?? I wanted to make some bits of cyborg au lore into my crossover universe, but I'm not sure if I'll like adding different elements into detco that barely have any sci fi and supernatural elements to it
idk but I'm just gonna shelve this
I forgot where this tag is and I forgot where it is or where I screenshot it but I cannot stop thinking this alot
the more I think about it, the more I realize how scary all this is
conan is just shinichi's child persona he's acting but considering how much time has passed I don't think that's the case anymore
conan became his own person now, he created so many connections and bonds and he slowly took over shinichi's life, while shinichi became just a memory people remember
and erasing conan won't be easy, like I said he is his own person now and that's like "killing off" an innocent child
and the fact that a false persona slowly eats you from the inside out while you can do nothing about it is really terrifying, it is a true fate worse than death
and now I keep thinking about the ova 9 where shinichi has a nightmare about growing up a conan for the rest of his life while the people who he knew move on without him
I don't think he's right about growing up (it's implied in the manga where he doesn't grow a bit, which is another worse fate) but I think he's right about being forgotten by time for disappearing for so long, which makes me sad
is shinichi still going to win?? of course it is he's a shounen protagonist lol but I cannot stop thinking about the missed potential there
I just found out that Goose went through conversion therapy. Transfem Jax is even more important now.
Your Cain instincts AU really does live in my head rent free since I do usually headcanon them as identical twins separated shortly after birth. The idea of them being both fake twins and real twins without knowing it keeps rotating in my brain. I love it.
Thank you for all you do!! You genuis person!!!
Not even gonna lie, I would LIVE for that drama!!! Even if it’s unlikely in canon, it’s real in my heart <3 plus, I’m sure they’ll end up related one way or another. Y’all KNOW I am a found family girlie all the way, it would be so funny for the family to be literally found!!
Thank you very very much for the kind words and support!
I know "designated detective boys baby sitter Kudo Shinichi" is a common post conan trope. But i raise ypu "Cant be trusted to baby sit specifically the detective boys bc hes gotten to used to looking into these literal seven year olds eyes. Hes 3 times there size and still differs to them like peers. He WILL pull out his goofy little pin and ask them to be his comically effective surveillance system against a dangerous criminal."
