they were the few groups from my teenage years who promoted girl power music about finding confidence, being true to yourself, chasing your dreams with a positive mindset, not giving up when things get hard, and while you needed to work hard for your dreams you shouldn't forget to have fun in the process.
i still remember when they promoted and disbanded so quickly (less than a year), at the height of their success they released bops after bops like 'whatta man', 'dream girls', 'pick me' (they were beating established big company groups like blackpink at their peak), seeing them perform 'downpour', the reality show appearances were so fun and their friendship was everything.
i didn't realize how much i missed them until their reunion. i'm so happy that we were able to get a 10th anniversary EP (with 6 songs?!!).
"Whenever you feel low
Even a small voice
Doesn't matter
You just need to be yourself"
on one hand, any kind of chapter focused on haibara will make my day bc she's one of my favorite characters.
on the other, i don't understand the inconsistency of haibara's character this chapter:
if haibara was actually out for revenge, she wouldn't have felt so scared and wanted to hide from gin/ vodka. she would've been like conan and did a bunch of reckless things. she was a "traitor" who wanted to hide from the powerful boss she betrayed, fully expecting death if her hiding place was discovered. but this chapter made it seem like she actively tried to use conan as a chess piece in her schemes when all evidence is to the contrary. her literal defining trait was that she keeps telling conan "not to pursue the BO." Plus that bus case tells me that haibara was not living her life for revenge, in fact it was the opposite, she didn't want to live knowing that the BO could come for her and harm anyone else.
i don't agree that rumi and haibara's arcs are mirrors of each other. if anyone's arcs are parallel in the story, i'd say conan and haibara are the most mirrored to each other. they both needed to learn how to depend on others but for different reasons.
in the beginning, haibara/sherry/ miyano shiho was introduced as a kind of soulless, grieving, shell of a person. but when she woke up in ch. 1165, she was so sarcastic which is more like her current self. if she just woke up (based on her old character arc), i think she would've tried to run away from Agasa instead of straight up telling him the truth, since she was paranoid enough to not run to the police, how can she trust someone she just met with the truth not knowing if he's possibly with the BO? Agasa and Haibara's meeting should've been more fleshed out.
honestly, it would've made more sense if haibara saw a similarlity in akemi and wakasa rumi's behavior. Akemi was so determined to get her sister out of the BO that she took a rigged mission out of desperation. Haibara could've seen past wakasa's hostile facade and saw that rumi was also desperate for something against the BO, how her actions mirrored her sister's death and saw her sister's fate as a cautionary tale of putting yourself in danger unnecessarily. Haibara's flashback could've been about her last meeting with her sister, maybe it would've been Haibara worried and telling her not to do anything reckless before hearing about her sister's failed mission that day. Maybe the flashback could've been Gin delivering the news with glee and telling her that it was a rigged mission and Haibara being angry enough to demand the details.
i'm intrigued that amanda and haibara have similar demeanors, is the author setting her up to share a similar fate?
What we know about Haibara and Rumi so far & my thoughts on their possible relationship:
Spoilers for up to Chapter 1163!
*Chapter #s of the manga panels are in the image descriptions*
Prior to Rumi's introduction, Haibara informed Conan about Haneda Kouji, another victim of APTX-4869. She recognized his name from a list of APTX victims, but I wonder if she has a deeper knowledge of the case than that, considering Rumi's connection to him.
Speaking of the APTX list, the mystery of how Rumi has it still up in the air. Is she directly viewing the database, or did she manage to save a copy of it? Shinichi's name is clearly visible, so this is a recently updated list.
I wonder if this list could have possibly come from Haibara herself. Similar to how she accidentally sent a floppy disk to Akemi, perhaps she secretly sent a list of victims to Rumi? I'm not sure why she would, but given Haibara was already lying to the Organization about Shinichi's death, perhaps she sent info to Rumi as some sort of protection/mutual relationship.
Now the Org files wouldn't normally work on an outside computer, but perhaps Haibara had carefully recreated the list on a safe file.
After reading into the Amanda Hughes case, Conan asks Haibara about her bodyguard named "Asaka."
Haibara claims to have never heard of her, who we now know is Rachel Asaka, Rumi's real name. This could be true, as she may have only known her through a codename or alias.
The fire that led to Elena and Atsushi's death is brought up again at this time. Rumi does have grudge against Elena, but I can't imagine Haibara would be so friendly to someone who had a connection to her parent's death. Rather, I wonder if the events of her parent's death led to Haibara meeting Rumi. I'll touch more on that later.
It's an interesting parallel to Haibara and Vermouth's relationship. Both Vermouth and Rumi hated the Miyanos for the APTX-4869 project. Haibara grew to fear Vermouth yet shows a clear affinity for Rumi. While Vermouth treated Haibara badly, I wonder if Rumi had been a kind person to her in the past.
During Rumi's introduction, Conan notices that it's strange for her to be here, but Haibara quickly backs her up.
She's consistently shown to praise or defend Rumi, which is a huge contrast to how she's reacted to other suspicious characters that enter her circle, like Subaru and Masumi.
Haibara sometimes senses an ominous aura around her, but she has also felt it around other characters like Subaru. What's really interesting is that she's surprised that Rumi can't see out of her right eye.
We learn later that this is due to amaurosis fugax. If Haibara knew Rumi before, she might have been aware of this condition, or at least that she couldn't see out of that eye.
Perhaps this detail was the final information for Haibara to confirm that this really is the woman from her past, and not just a look-alike. Later that day, Haibara very sternly tells Conan to leave Rumi be after noticing her eye condition.
Additonally, Haibara doesn't seem to be too scared about Rumi hearing the name "Miyano Shiho" and possibly connecting the dots.
While Haibara is usually pretty calm or happy around her, Rumi appears a bit more inscrutable. She could just be excited by the concept of the shrinking ability, but who knows what she may be feeling.
Rumi refers to Haibara as "the daughter of the woman who ruined her life." It's interesting to me that she specified Elena, considering both of her parent's were involved with the project, Atsushi being the one initially recruited.
There's a few possibilities why this may be:
Elena's work had developed into leading the APTX that was used.
Elena is the one that encouraged him to join the Karasuma group.
Rumi had direct contact with Elena before she passed away.
I think it's the first one, as Elena has a much more prominent role in the series, and even earned a nickname within the Organization.
Rumi asks Haibara about her parents, but Conan seems far more concerned than Haibara. In fact, Haibara doesn't seem to care at all.
Rumi doesn't seem fazed by the mention of her parents being dead, and immediately focuses in on Haibara's intelligence. She's probably aware of the fire, but I think she might have had a more significant reaction if she had a direct involvement in their death.
I don't think Rumi infiltrated the Organization, since they knew her face and RUM would have immediately recognized her. Even in disguise it would have been too risky in my opinion.
I think this has to do with Haibara's time being raised in the US. Those years are still pretty much untouched, so there's a lot of room for possibilities. Plus, Rumi is from the US, so it makes sense that she would meet her there.
After her parent's death, Haibara was sent to the US to study and take over their research. My guess is that somehow, Rumi was able to connect her to the Karasuma Group, and sought out to get close to her.
Maybe this was in the form of being a mentor, teacher, or neighbor. There were very few kind people in Haibara's life growing up, so I could see her having a soft spot for someone she became attached to as a child.
If this were the case, the other question would be how/if they had maintained contact after Haibara moved back to Japan to work for the Organization. Of course, if Rumi got the APTX victim list another way, it's possible Haibara had not heard from her again until this point, but given this latest chapter, I think they maintained some form of contact. Perhaps this was through Akemi and/or coded messages.
Update: since this post, it was revealed that the Fusae store started in the US, so it's possible Haibara became a fan of it before she moved, and Rumi heard about it back then.
In this chapter, Haibara looks pretty excited to see Rumi and immediately runs off to chat with her in the Fusae store. Rumi says that "a friend" mentioned the store to her. I'm guessing that this "friend" was Haibara, given that she is constantly shown to be a fan of the Fusae brand.
The Fusae brand grew in popularity less than ten years ago, so Rumi wouldn't have heard it from someone like Amanda, for example.
I'm hoping that the end of this case leads to some sort of flashback, maybe of Shiho talking to Rachel about the brand.
Some side notes:
If Rumi did know Haibara from her childhood in the US, it would make sense why she entered Teitan elementary. She would be very familiar with how Haibara looked as a child and may have noticed her.
Considering Rumi has a positive view Tsutomu and Subaru, I wonder if Haibara's relationship to the Akai family will by impacted by Rumi at all, maybe becoming closer to Haibara or helping her fill in the pieces of her unknown relatives.
Haibara has a good relationship with Jodie, so I wonder if she will help bridge the gap between her and Rumi, forming an alliance.
Anyways, that's the jist of what we know about Rumi and Haibara's relationship so far! I'm really excited to see the story unfold between these two. A character besides Akemi that Haibara has a positive past with is incredibly rare. Add in that this character actually had a negative view of her parents, makes this quite the fascinating mystery.
I'd love to hear your thoughts as we wait for the next chapter to come out!
i do think it's unusual that haibara seems overly friendly with wakasa, a woman who holds a grudge against her and everything wakasa did was to find the person responsible for her employer's death, but from ch. 1164 I think that it's because haibara pieced the pieces of her identity together, maybe recognizing her from the newspapers/ Haibara did some digging into the incident since it's Rum's "greatest mistake" or some other past connection. Or maybe Haibara understands that she's something who deeply values retribution, but Wakasa's not a stone-cold murderer. Wakasa's motives seem very clear cut to Haibara, compared to Akai, whose motives are notoriously mysterious.
As for the list, I think Wakasa could've had someone from the inside give it to her through connections, considering her employer used to be high up in the food chain.
But that last panel, wow! I haven't been surprised in such a long time. Haibara does know what's going on. i hope we get more clarity in the next chapter.
If/When the 3rd season rolls around, I don't know for certain if they'd pick up immediately where the 2nd left off. Specifically with Fagin in a coffin 6 feet under. Given the 6 month time-skip between 1 and 2, I imagine there might be some length of time between 2 and 3? Can't say for sure. But I cannot stop thinking about how the characters would reunite at the hospital.
Belle enters the building with Jack and- well, Hetty and the Fox Family were the only ones made aware of his departure (iirc?), so it'd really just be them relieved to see he hadn't left.
Then Boxer comes stumbling in with a grievously wounded Sneed, so Jack and Belle must operate. But as they're in the middle of it, the gang comes in and goes to Jack all like, "Hey, sorry. Fagin is dead,"
And Jack just kind of exhales a laugh and goes, "No he isn't,"
And the lot of them begin to bicker until someone admits that Fagin has been buried. And Jack, with his forearms stained with the blood of his injured and possibly dying coworker, shouts something along the lines of, "YOU BURIED HIM?!"
Like- genuinely there would be so many moving pieces to that Season 3 intro. A series of new information coming forth and culminating in the emergency-operation on Dr. Sneed whilst the gang rushes to the burial plot where they boxed in a very much alive Fagin who grows ever closer to suffocating by the minute.
Chapter 429 and 431 were so good for izuocha and its fanbase. To see Izuku and Ochaco hold hands twice and then opening up to each other emotionally was everything and more and the ending really felt like a good pay off to not only Ochacoās arc about love but for Izuku to who never really put his feelings on the forefront and can now freely act on them since hero society allows both characters to live freely. I canāt think of a better ending that fit both of them then what we got. Thank you Horikoshi!
file 1070 | when he promised that he'd always protect her and he meant it
lately i've been thinking about how natural conan/ shinichi and haibara/ shiho protect each other throughout the series:
conan saves haibara from the bus, he runs after her when he thought she left on a train but she didn't (hence the iconic "you'll protect me right?"), how he tranquilized her so she wouldn't follow him to meet vermouth, how he shouted her name and went after her whenever she ran away or when he was worried that she was hurt from the burning cabin.
how haibara outsmarts him, ruining his plot to outsmart vermouth (who turns out had a sniper behind her), because she doesn't want him to die in her place, being willing to give herself up if it means that he'll live.
how haibara holds his hand when she's scared, when she's leading him out of danger, how she holds onto his clothing because he makes her feel safe. how he holds her hand to lead her to safety and takes her hand so she can join the group/ watch the soccer game.
he gives her his glasses (his literal disguise) to put her at ease, he gives her his hat multiple times, he took off her shades at the soccer game, he saved haibara when she was cornered by pisco/gin/vodka.
how he worries about her enough to go to the professor's house to watch over her, how she worries about him enough to tell him that she's worried that he'll die if he keeps investigating the BO.
she gives him the antidote and saved him from tough situations multiple times, she goes to find him with the glasses saving him from the locker when he scared & hiding from gin, how she changed his status to dead so the organization won't go looking for him.
and this is just the manga/ anime, don't even get me started on the movies. like can we talk about how the people in charge of the movies definitely ship coai? there's always at least one iconic scene between them.
Here's my favorites in no particular order:
M5: he threw the helmet to protect her from the crystals, she went with him to solve the case
M6: they both talk trash about being in a room filled with nepo babies, she saves him from being crushed telling him to solve the case
Lupin III vs DC: haibara saves conan from being blasted by mine's rocket launcher
M16: haibara kicks the final shot conan needed to save their lives
M24: Haibara helping conan convince Ran that they need to stay because they're "just kids", how she knows conan was fake tripping to plant a bug on his target, how they both speak english fluently, how she helped him with the MRI incident, how she helped him on the train by getting the list, how she stopped Ran/ the stewardess from freaking out about the train by explaining the science behind it, how he signaled to her "thanks" with his badge and she waved back "no problem" and the stewardess shipping them from the background.
All of M26
M11: how he calls her his assistant, how she pulls out the blood bag so Mouri (by proxy Conan) could join in on the case
M15: how he covered her from the bullets "aren't you a little forward for a kid?", how he contacted her through the DB badge when the phone signal was cut off, how he told her that it was dangerous and they should go back but she say "no way" and made the ski board go faster, how he brought her with him to rescue the DB who were stranded on the side of the road.
M22: he went to her for help with a case, she listened to him when he was upset, they watch the news together
M19: how conan knew that haibara destroyed a nice jacket to save him
