I'm autistic and my special interest is detective stories. I enjoy everything from classic literature (Poe, Conan Doyle, Leblanc, etc) to modern anime
My main fandoms: Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Detective Conan, Persona 5, Magic Kaito, Cuticle Detective Inaba, Bungou Stray Dogs, Moriarty the Patriot, Sherlock BBC, Black Butler
Usually I’m the most lost and directionless on free days, despite struggling so hard with prompts, but I got a random burst of inspiration at midnight and cranked this out in under 3 hours because I was so excited about the idea.. dunno why. I guess it just felt incredibly odd to me that I’ve somehow never really made a piece about Angie encapsulating Korekiyo in her art, other than an implied painting on canvas of him. Angie is far more of a sculptor than a painter to me, but there’s a severe lack of fan-made content about her actually sculpting. Personally, I’ve only portrayed it myself once before I think.
There’s something especially…intimate?—to me about the difference in her meticulously sculpting Korekiyo rather than simply painting a live model portrait, but rather locking in on the ability to carve out his entire body in a fully tangible 3d form entirely from memory just sounds so weirdly romantic to me. She’s a true devotee to all the important figures in her life, he may never rise above the importance of God in her eyes, but he comes pretty damn close. She’ll paint him Cathedral-esque murals every time they’re apart, too, never a dull moment.
So, onesidedness is probably the main criticism of the Heiji and Shinichi friendship, and when potential romance is added to the mix, the prevailing thought—at least, in my experience—is that Heiji's affection would never be returned.
If Shinichi is interpreted as a character who experiences romantic attraction, it's an argument that doesn't sit well with me. "It feels a lot like, 'Well, of course the desirable protagonist could never romantically love the dark-skinned boy,'" I once expressed in the tags of a post. "And maybe that's unfair of me, but I can't deny that that's how I feel. Shinichi clearly has a lot of love for Heiji, and this OVA [9, 'The Stranger From 10 Years Later'] shows that he finds Heiji attractive. Like... I really don't think it's as implausible as it's made out to be."
But it's not that I don't understand the reasoning behind the hopeless, unrequited reading. There are implications of Shinichi's strong feelings for Heiji, bits and pieces that you can put together if you turn your head to the side and squint, but Heiji is loud with his love, unabashed, an open door. He speaks so fondly of Shinichi that Kazuha initially believes they're dating (Episode 118), and yet, any similar sentiments that Shinichi holds for Heiji are only quietly mentioned and barely tangible. There's a reason that Dr. Agasa calls Heiji to help Shinichi (Episodes 189, 277), a reason that the most constant adult presence in Shinichi's life believes no one else can reach him, a reason that Heiji is considered Shinichi's best friend, but on the surface, Shinichi brushes off Heiji's invitations to get together (Episodes 238, 381), states on more than one occasion that he's only accompanying Heiji because Heiji forced him to (Episodes 381, 479), and consistently has a sour look on his face whenever the two of them cross paths unexpectedly (Episodes 166, 189, 221, 381...).
I've always chalked up the attitude to Shinichi's inherent tsundere nature. He's embarrassed to show his affection for others, so he conceals it with annoyed faces and pouts and teasing (that I know is supposed to be fun but tends to come off as overly cold and meanspirited to someone as sensitive as me). Heiji isn't the only one on the receiving end of this kind of behavior from Shinichi—even Ran, Shinichi's childhood sweetheart, experiences it (Episodes 58, 927...).
So, I've never read Shinichi's grumpy behavior around Heiji as evidence that he doesn't love his friend or enjoy his company. There are plenty of examples of how that's clearly not true. Literally every Heiji case after the Reveal (Episodes 57-58), so far as I've seen, at least, depicts an excited, enthusiastic Shinichi who pointedly cherishes sharing deductions with the Detective of the West—even the cases that began with a cranky Cone!—and Conan is notably devastated whenever he's separated from Heiji or left to solve a puzzle on his own (Episodes 117, 118, 174, 224.).
It's not that Shinichi dislikes Heiji. He just doesn't shout his love to the heavens like Heiji does for him. Shinichi's love is whispered and soft, but that doesn't make it any less meaningful or real.
Still, I'm also fully willing to admit that the level of reciprocity I do interpret or could interpret in Heiji and Shinichi's relationship is simply an overanalysis—a desperate, futile attempt to justify why I'm fond of these two and their interactions despite the snotty attitude that Conan often directs towards his fellow detective.
But that's just the thing I only now realized: Conan's snotty attitude towards Heiji. When Shinichi is Shinichi, the nastiness he subjects Heiji to vanishes. The irritation that colors their dynamic fades away. There are broad smiles (Files 257, 653). There's an eagerness to work together. In "The Scarlet School Trip (Bright Red Arc)" (Episode 927), the partnership arguably takes precedence over the case, as Shinichi doesn't instantly race to solve it only to belatedly remember Heiji's presence, but instead immediately wakes Heiji so that they can unravel the mystery as a team.
Even the first time the two ever directly meet (Episodes 48-49), Shinichi treats Heiji kindly, explaining the flaws in Heiji's deduction without being insulting and devoting his time and energy to encouraging his so-called rival to be a better detective—all while he suffers horribly from the effects of the antidote wearing off.
So, this thought crawled into my head, built a nest, and refused to leave me alone: maybe the main source of Shinichi's grouchiness around Heiji is not his tsundere tendencies, but rather that he hates being Conan in Heiji's company.
It makes a heartbreaking amount of sense. Heiji is comfort to Shinichi, a reminder that, to quote Undertale, a game I've never actually played, "Despite everything, it's still you." But it's comfort that aches, a warmth as soothing as it is agonizing, because Conan is Shinichi but not, because as reaffirming as it might be to spend time with someone who always sees you as you are, who flounders and struggles and fails spectacularly at seeing you as anything else, there has to be pain in that, too, the pain that you aren't yourself anymore, you can't be, and you're trapped being something you're not, that you never wanted, that no amount of "Kudo"s can fix or undo.
More than that, Heiji represents everything Shinichi's lost. Conan can't be the teen detective that Heiji's freely able to be, with his name in the papers and his deductions widespread. Whenever the two are together, Heiji has to be sneaky or lie or conjure up excuses to keep them that way. Whenever Heiji calls, Conan has to hide or pretend he's talking to someone else. Whenever they speak, Heiji has to crouch to meet Conan's eyes—a gesture that's meant to signify their equality but simultaneously underlines how they're not equals, not as things are, not to the rest of the world.
While I can't say I'd ever excuse the undeserved annoyance that Shinichi pushes on Heiji, considering the behavior with this lens makes it a whole lot more sympathetic. It's humiliating for your friend to see you sitting on someone else's lap like a little kid when you're not one (Episode 166). It hurts that you can only talk candidly with your friend after he's manufactured a reason to send everyone else away (Episode 189). It stings that your friend has to orchestrate a plot so that you can attend the Detective Koshien when, had you been in your own body, you could have made the decision to go yourself (Episode 479).
It's not that Shinichi dislikes Heiji. He just dislikes the unfortunate necessity of being relegated to the child sidekick instead of the peer that he is. He just dislikes that he can't fully be the Kudo that Heiji thinks of him as.
If you consider "Conan's Dream Vacation," after all, it's one of Shinichi's greatest desires to be by Heiji's side, with Ran and Kazuha... but as himself.
Anyway. I already liked Heishin, but the idea that Shinichi's bouts of stinkface around Heiji are largely because Heiji reminds him of how desperately he wishes to return to himself does soften what I considered to be one of the friendship's most glaring flaws. And while the answer to the question of onesidedness here is of course up to interpretation, that Shinichi clearly has a lot of trust in Heiji (asking for advice in Episode 189!), and that Shinichi enjoys Heiji's company in cases and misses him when he's gone, and that he displays a palpable joy when working with Heiji as Shinichi (Episodes 522-523, 927-928), and that he dreams of being together in an official illustration, all demonstrate to me that there's a lot of love here.
The thought that Shinichi is upset that he can't be Shinichi for Heiji only adds to that feeling.
not all ships are For wanting them to be in a happy healthy relationship together. sometimes shipping two characters means you want them to be erotically obsessed with each other and become entwined in a mutually toxic love affair for a few months and then horrifically break each other's hearts and never speak again. sometimes you want them to be codependent best friends with enough repression to explode a submarine who only make out/have sex when they're at their worst. sometimes you want them to pine after each other for years, never say anything, and then die. sometimes you want them to kill each other. this, too, is shipping
simon blackquill being a ridiculous and inexplicably british otaku is my favourite localisation decision. it’s so fucking funny. this man uses japanese honorifics in the courtroom and also says “bloody hell”unironically. what is going on.
I know that Kaito likes being mysterious and all but I think as fans we deserve to know at least one important thing
So... what is his hair color?
It used to be brown, right? For both Kid and Kaito
But then something changed
The same scene from Black Star, but in the 2014-2015 anime
Here Kaito's hair is brown but it turns black when he becomes Kid
It's clearly black when he's Kid, even if he doesn't have his costume on
But then it gets back to being brown
It's brown in official artwork and colored pages as well, thought some people doubt it
Does he use a temporary hair dye? A wig? Is it a part of his hat because Toichi was going gray? Or maybe it's just a visual change for the viewers that doesn't exist in-universe?
this is official artwork from the Magic Kaito 1412 the animation, dvd/blue ray box set.
here you can clearly see Kaitou KID has darker blue black hair while Kuroba Kaito has dark brown hair.
Aoyama Gosho created the character to have medium/dark brown hair as seen in manga coloured pages and official art drawn & coloured by Aoyama himself
also in the old Detective Conan episodes & OVAs, the Kaitou KID identity is given the same brown hair as Kuroba Kaito
therefore my conclusion is that it was just a stylistic choice only for Magic Kaito 1412 the animation , to make the Kaitou KID identity have darker hair colour
otherwise Kuroba Kaito & Kaitou KID both have medium/dark brown hair
For the sake of fics, the idea of Kuroba Kaito using temp hair dye/spray for when he does the Kaitou KID thing would be interesting and fun.
however in cannon that is very unlikely since it would most likely have been mentioned in the chapter that Hakuba Saguru found a strand of Kaitou KID’s hair at the scene of the crime and analysed it at Hakuba Laboratories
So there's indeed been an unexplained change just to separate his identities!
It was brown, it is brown, it will be brown
Good work, everyone. Case closed🫵😎
There are some good thoughts on the reason for that and a deep dive into Kaito's psychology that happened in the comments, so if you're interested you might wanna take a look:)) I thank @reptiles-104 for that
I'd like to think that a few agencies have tried and reached out to her because of her father's fame and how shinichi inherented his beauty. Because of one reason or another, shinichi ends up accepting one of the jobs (my excuse to be able to draw the veil trend~).
As expected, it's received well by the public. But because of that, more and more people started talking how modeling or following her father's path of acting would suit shinichi better. Or it'd be a waste for her beauty. That she didn't have to do something as silly as detective work. So she tries to ignore them whenever she can.
I wanted to make something for the idea, but didn't have the time...
Also! What i've wanted to express in the short comic was that although still-picture could capture the beauty of a person perfectly, people would often times prefer the moving and breathing you. There's just a certain charm in people's movement and body language. There's just something lovely about your existence, that kind of things ♡
dededos
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