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.
Here is my HeiShin Valentines Exchange gift for @yumerikka! I love both your prompts so much, and so I did both. Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy making them~🥰 -red
Also thank you @heishinvalentineexchange2025 for holding the event! It was a blast!🥳
An aspect of dcmk I find interesting is whenever someone confronts Conan about his identity, or implying that he's actually Shinichi, they never seem to think further about it than how it affects them personally. It's always that Shinichi is lying to 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 and trying to deceive 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮, but never that he's in hiding to protect 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧.
And Shinichi freaks out every time, because in his mind his identity being revealed is literally life or death, no matter who it is. He goes into a panic survival mode every time, but whenever someone confronts him (Hattori, Ran, Sera, etc.) they never think of it from his perspective, and it just makes him out to be the asshole in the scenario.
Funnily enough, the only person (other than Agasa who he told willingly) who actually respects his situation and thinks about it from Shinichi's point of view is Kaito. Obviously this happens in a movie so the canon is a little flimsy but when he finds out Conan is actually Shinichi, instead of confronting him, he 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘺. He immediately shows support rather than trying to get him to confess or rat him out, and I fully believe it's because Kaito understands what it's like to have a hidden identity. While he doesn't directly understand Shinichi's situation, he understands enough to not threaten him with it, which is probably a big reason why Shinichi ends up trusting him as much as he does.
(the same could be argued for Akai but he hasn't revealed that he knows so I'm not counting it in this)
i love sitcoms, even the "bad" ones, even the ones that get worse as it goes on, i just love them. i love all of the long running jokes, the slow burn romances, the impossible situations, the meaningless drama, i love having something comforting to watch. they make me so happy.
Detective Conan genuinely is such a funny franchise because pretty much every main detective character is an expert in some kind of combative art— as well as a non-insignificant amount of non-detective characters, like Ran— and meanwhile the big (or rather little) detective himself, the main character of the entire shebang? Well, you see, he's really good at soccer
With all this Roe v Wade bs going around, I’m remembering an activity that a high school English teacher let us participate in to end the debate on abortion. He divided up the room and had us move to whichever side resonated with us. Pro-choice or Pro-life. Once seated, he addressed each one of us individually and asked why we chose the side we ended up on. We gave our answers.
He then said, “If you were at the top of a very tall building holding a Petri dish with an embryo in one hand and a baby in the other, and you were forced to let go of one of them to catch yourself, which one would you save?”
The baby.
He then asked the pro-life section why they chose the baby and not the embryo. Everyone answered similarly by saying “it’s not the same. The baby is alive.”
The teacher said, “Exactly. You chose to save the baby because you understand that there’s a difference. If you were really pro-life that choice would have been impossible to make.”
I hope that someday everyone could see eye to eye that our bodies and our rights to healthcare should never have been put in jeopardy. It is way deeper than just embellishing the egos that run our country.
stormborns
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
germansingergirl
janainaart
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
