Banner art and recolor were both done by me - don't repost. This blog was retired for a while but I'm still around and loving Magic Kaito characters. Find my fic at AO3 user Ocianne.
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Tumblr is about to start putting ads on your blog, unless you pay for a premium account or add a custom domain.
These ads won't just just be on your dashboard - as they already have been for ages - but on your blog, in between your own posts. As if you're the one promoting those products/services.
Even if you use an ad-blocker or any other means of not seeing ads on Tumblr yourself, anyone visiting your blog who does not use an ad-blocker will see those ads.
@staff, please ensure that these ads are VERY clearly and visibly marked as a Tumblr ad, and not made to look as though they're an ordinary post that we have reblogged in order to promote it because we support it and/or believe in it.
I will be working on the wording but I intend to add some variation of the following to all my blogs:
"Any advertisement you see on this blog that is not explicitly made by myself or not noted within the post to be explicitly endorsed by myself should be considered explicitly condemned. You should boycott and down vote any product and/or service and avoid clicking on any ads appearing on this blog. I do not support or endorse any advertisements Tumblr has put on my blog. I explicitly condemn and defame them. Do not purchase or support advertised products or services on my blog."
The Rodeo Rule: you only have to do it for the first time once.
The Rohan Rule: if you are at a social function full of new people and you want to be liked, find someone doing important work like setup or food prep and offer to help.
The Tutorial Mode Rule: to navigate an unfamiliar situation where you fear you will mess up an interaction, preface the interaction by mentioning that you've never done this before, and let them know if you have a specific concern or question.
The Rocket Science Rule: most new things you want to try seem very complicated but are simple when taken step by step.
The [X] Will Remember That Rule: if you need to make small talk with the same person on a regular basis, try to save one fact or current event in their life from a given conversation and bring it up next time you talk.
The Cool Binder Rule: by wearing clothes and accessories that are to your taste instead of trying to blend in, people will be more likely to compliment you and show interest in you as a person.
ppl on ao3 should use the "this work was inspired by" option more. so many fics out there that put links to other fics in the a/n but theres a better option.....
important addition i forgot that not everyone might know. similar to how ao3 bookmarks work, you can also link to non-ao3 fanworks using this format. so, for instance, if theres some fanart on tumblr that inspired you to write the fic? you can link that fanart to your fic!
can we appreciate Saguru and Kaito's first meeting more please
"a hang glider? you're a veritable Batman, huh?"
"ah, but Batman is a comic book hero, detective. he isn't real."
KID insinuates he's Batman IRL (or similar to him) and then glides into a fucking snowstorm like a dumbass. and obviously suffers consequences as he has to make an emergency landing on an ice rink. and then he proceeds to fail spectacularly at ice-skating. what the fuck.
"oh yeah i'm like Batman i'm so super cool" immediately acts like a fucking dumbass failure TWICE and only escapes because his task force thinks too highly of him
I love this first meeting, but also feel it's important to both their characters that Kaito jumps out that window into dangerous winds because Saguru cornered him. Kaito had an escape balloon hiding behind the signage that would have been buffeted, but much less dangerous than the glider due to windspeed. Saguru cut the tether! This isn't dumbassery, but desperation. Saguru is a detective nerd and compares Kaito to the uber-prepared Batman when the glider came out, but this is actually Kaito cornered and hiding it behind his Poker Face as he uses his last resort. The ice rink is both a last resort and also sort of proving Saguru right, because Kid carries decoys that work as the plot demands.
Saguru and Kaito are excellent foils for each other because before Saguru, Kid was often coasting in his methods to fool the task force and get away. Saguru rightly calls him out on it at this first heist attendance and drives it home in Saguru's next few heists attendances. Saguru hones Kaito to put in a lot more effort in staying uncaught as Kid before Shin'ichi ever shows up to the scene. But also, Saguru thinks he's caught Kid, and asks him his signature 'Why', and Kid tells him to figure it out for himself. Saguru has had culprits readily explain themselves when they're caught. Kid challenges Saguru to be a better detective.
Which Saguru rises to meet, and then spends the entirety of his later appearances either aiding Kid, or working at the heists in such a way that Kid is challenged but also left opportunity to escape.
I love them and their dynamic so damn much, especially in this manga first meeting. I could go into early dynamic changes from story details changing between the manga (pre-Blue Birthday being published), the DC specials (Who is this Snake person why are multiple heists being combined), and the 1412 anime (Blue Birthday happened before Adam's Smile and they changed Saguru's tagline why) but this is already long enough of a ramble.
Does Hakuba not have any hobbies outside of chasing some random thief hes convinced is his classmate? (←genuine question since I realized I have no clue on what he does as his hobby outside of cosplaying as he does detective work)
The guy probably trained himself to ran faster just so he can catch the thief—maybe chasing down the thief is his hobby. He gets cardio every heist he attends
HELLO you have asked about my favorite hyperfixation, I hope you don't mind a long post.
Hakuba has plenty of interests that could translate into hobbies, though most are brief glimpses in the midst of his few appearances. Have a mostly chronological list with my interpretation of the likelihood of it being a hobby! I primarily reference the manga since that's the most complete set of appearances we have...
MK 3.2 Enter the Great Detective!:
CONFIRMED: Detective work - Multiple headlines in England and Japan, his father asks Nakamori to take his ego down a notch from how popular he's become as a detective. In DC 54.10 he claims to have solved over 500 cases in Japan alone despite studying abroad in his high school years. Even with some exaggeration, that's high dedication to solving any mystery in front of him.
PROBABLE: Psychology study - his catchphrase is "Why did you do that?" in the original manga, which implies caring about motive as much as about guilt or method. We see him ask it directly in The Lavender Mansion/Detective Competition case as well. Understanding how people work dovetails nicely into how we see Hakuba approach detective work. Ex: In the Azure Throne case he describes his speculation of why Kid and Conan agreed to work together, and he got it so exactly right they simply reused the panel from the previous chapter.
POSSIBLE: Horology [Mechanical timekeeping devices] - he knows how little time his pocketwatch loses in a year, which suggests investmentment in not only the precision, but also the care and upkeep of his watch. He may have learned how to service and rebuild his watch.
PROBABLE: Vintage Fashion: Not just his Holmes cosplay, but other appearances have him in older styles that suggest interest in vintage fashion. This post has some examples. His frequent wear of suits in many appearances (Sunset Mansion, Azure Throne, Green Dragon) leans into appreciating good tailoring and fashion.
PROBABLE: Detective Fiction or Comics - He asks Kid if he thinks he's Batman, when the hanglider appears, which could be argued as pop culture but it's a very specific reference with not much specific association to the situation at hand. Batman is colloquially 'the world's greatest detective' which would fit with an interest in reading fictional detective stories.
MK 3.3 Nearby Enemy:
POSSIBLE: Metallurgy - This boy WELDS a CHAIN from the target statue to the museum floor to stymie Kid. No one blinks at the idea of him using a gas torch to separate a metal statue piece in the Green Dragon case either.
POSSIBLE: Chemistry studies - He also tries catching Kid with "sleeping gas", and in the MK 1412 episode he tells the nurse he knows when the effects will wear off for him to leave the hospital, which indicates a degree of familiarity with the chemistry involved and effect on the human body.
MK 3.4 Akako's Delivery Service:
POSSIBLE: Computers and Data Analysis - He was using the supercomputers of his Uncle's research facility for Kid's DNA analysis without difficulty, and then stayed up overnight doing a database review.
[As an aside, for Hakuba Labs to have a database of all high schoolers in Japan and be able to do so-called 'DNA analysis' and be the most probable source of the sleeping gas in MK 3.3 implies Hakuba Labs likely has government contracts for social demographic analyses and/or pharmaceutical research. Saguru has never been shown to have siblings or cousins, so there could be social pressure for him to have interests in those fields if he's the possible heir of the Hakuba Labs business.]
MK 4.4-4.5 Golden Eye:
CONFIRMED: Modern Fashion - He's in Paris specifically to attend Fashion Week there. The Culprit Hanzawa Spinoff also heavily implies he's a teen model himself, with his face on magazine covers with singing idol Yoko Okino and (joking but he could be) implication he might have modeled for Fashion Week as well.
PROBABLE: Languages - He speaks Japanese, English, and French that we see between Golden Eye and Midnight Crow (MK 5.3). He could easily enjoy learning more and it's a useful skill for gleaning information!
PROBABLE: Running/Parkour/Martial Arts - Hakuba runs in dress shoes which is not an easy feat, and shows no signs of being out of breath despite how fast and long he runs to arrive at the heist location. In the later Azure Throne case he pulled off a fireman carry with no signs of muscle strain which indicated good upper body and core strength. Some sort of martial arts experience is a guess based on the other parallels with Sherlock Holmes (whose go-to was basically a mashup of jiujitsu, stickfighting, and boxing) and the fact that due to his father's position, he's a potential kidnapping target.
DC 30.4-30.7 Sunset Mansion:
CONFIRMED: Falconry - He has Watson trained to respond to his whistles, and uses Watson to send a message to Baaya. That's no small feat and makes it a hobby he's spent significant time on, and may have sub-hobbies of birdwatching or leatherworking or small game hunting.
CONFIRMED: Western-style Billiards - he beats out fellow detective Mogi with several impressive shots, which would take skill and practice to achieve consistently. [This is the same Billiards style as Jii's pool bar, which makes me sad we've never had reason to see him show up there.]
POSSIBLE: Marksmanship - He holds the pistol on Souda with a confidence that implies he knows how to use one, and a stance that is FAR more natural and corrrect than when Mogi holds one on Mouri.
MK 4.6-4.7 Scroll of the Dark Knight:
PROBABLE: Chess - he likes the White Knight metaphor reference for his name, and he describes a chess term for the black knight piece that people unfamiliar with chess wouldn't be familiar with.
POSSIBLE: Gemology - Likely picked up since chasing Kid, but he knows the exact density of opal. In the Midnight Crow case he uses a jewler's loupe to analyze the stone and people accept his analysis.
DC 54.9-55.2 Lavender Mansion Mystery:
POSSIBLE: Sketching/Architecture - he has a well-drawn floorplan of the Lavender Mansion in his notebook, which takes practice to do accurately.
MK Ch 37-39 Green Dragon:
POSSIBLE: Tea - Some people don't care about their caffeine source, but Saguru finds black tea calming specifically, which indicates a familiar ritual (and maybe a bit of neurodivergence). Some people enjoy collecting teas and enjoying the subtleties of different flavors.
POSSIBLE: Skiing - he catches up to Baaya in the middle of a ski slope which indicates some skill there.
And I'm going to stop there because I'm out of appearances to analyze, but there's a lot of hobbies to choose from! Some are probably more in-depth hobbies than others, like falconry clearly is, or he could have had others that he doesn't actively practice as much but informs his knowledge base.
I've tried to stick to strict canon and limited my headcanons, but I'm always a sucker for talking about Hakuba and his character interpretation. <3
This is the boy whose introduction involves him asking "Why did you do that?" He cares about motivation. He cares about what makes people tick. His most recent appearance involves him correctly predicting Kid's actions, down to the manga reusing the actual panel in the background.
I firmly believe Saguru Hakuba should be majoring in Psychology, even if he dabbles in other fields or has a second major in addition. Not criminal psychology, because that tilts too close to criminal 'science', but simply delving into how the mind works, individually and collectively.
Poor Shinichi he just wanted his detective friends to be friends too. He’s seeing a friend be rude to an other one because Heiji was in guard/attack dog mode for him . And it just gets worse from there.
Yeah D:
Like... I wonder if he even sees this happening, having had all his various experiences, and he's just a bit. "O-oh. Oh..."
Because looking at his expressions?
He's playing up the "little kid" vibe here, but he's not unhappy.
I could read this as "Can't we just get along? Can we? We have SO much in common."
And honestly, Shinichi would have a lot to talk about with Hakuba! They're both huge Holmes dorks!
Compared to how Hattori got Holmes facts wrong when he went to a Holmes Otaku retreat to find Shinichi there, and garnered the ire of many present when he said Ellery Queen was his favourite detective over Holmes.
Here he is being kind of "what the fresh hell is going on. How do I react to this. Hattori you absolute walnut."
By the end, he's just watching on in... well. I'm sure this couldn't have been comfortable for him? And then Hakuba cedes his position to him and I'm sure Shinichi'd have to know that's an odd thing for a 16-17 year old detective with pride to do.
If anything, this seems to be the only time he reacts to Hakuba with anything other than "can we stop fighting and let me make friends" and it's because Hakuba seems to be treating him like the little kid he appears to be, and- something to do with calling Shinichi "Mister." I don't know if that's a translation thing or not, though.
But yeah, Shinichi just... he sure was along for the ride here. :c
First! I am LOVING all this meta, thank you for cleansing my skin watering my crops etc etc I am delighted.
Second, your wondering about the "mister" inspired me to go look up the raws for this panel because I have seen a scanlation that translated 'Mister Kudou' as 'Kudo Someone-kun' and I needed to find the truth.
Saguru calls Shin'ichi "Kudou soregashi(某)-kun" which is literally "someone/unknown person". He's calling Conan "Kudou Whoever" to his face and I find that hilarious.
I am also now convinced that he's being subtly petty at Heiji and the other two teenage detective (and the specter of Shin'ichi) by saying that of course this boy can equal the absent detective to whom he's being compared unfavorably.
Look at that FACE. Those unevenly arched eyebrows are less polite than that smile and closed eyes suggest.
Okay apparently I'm going to do a study on this introduction, because going back to it? Especially knowing more about Hakuba via more recent Magic Kaito chapters? Fascinating stuff.
So. Hakuba's introducing himself, and he starts out by bringing up "My father spoke of you often" and "It seems you're a very sharp detective." Both of those are positive!
Hakuba is... high society, compared to Hattori simply hanging out around high ranking people and treating them like normal. Hattori argues with Kazuha in a very down to earth way, while Hakuba knows how to drink tea and probably how to set the table with a full set of cutlery (or at least how to use them).
So, Hakuba using their fathers to introduce himself is, to him, a normal enough way to say "I've heard good things about you, we're similar, I hope we can get along well."
What's more - Shinichi realises that, pretty quickly. Even if they hadn't met previously, he'd have been able to figure out by the words being used, that Saguru's father knows Heiji's father, or that they're in the same business.
If anything, I'd say that this slight culture clash is the second step of things going wrong between Hattori and Hakuba here, right after Hakuba being present at all, since Hattori had wanted Shinichi to take his rightful place where Hakuba is currently sitting.
Strike one, strike two.
Unfortunately, it gets worse from there, and I'm gonna go into it.
But then Hakuba brings up that he's not even fully based in Japan. To which, mostly Hattori is just "wait, what?" - but although I'm sure he means it simply to be as clear as possible, that could also be read as "I would say that, but I'm actually better." As in, being smug.
Strike three.
Still with "Kudo is the high school detective of the east, that's obvious, isn't it?" and rubbing salt into the insult to Hattori's bro with "they'd have liked me to represent the east in his place" but...
Oh boy.
This... this is also where I just stared and held my head in my hands because now? Because of something Hattori's said, and what he's going to continue saying/leaning into... we need to go back in time.
All the way back in Hakuba Saguru's first appearance, the papers say "just returned from London," suggesting (as I've seen someone say before) that he'd spent at least some, if not much, of his youth in Japan.
Certainly, he doesn't seem to speak with an accent in the present day, so he can't have grown up in the UK and only sometimes lived in Japan.
In Japan, however, he is referred to as...
In Nakamori's (uncouth) words at their first meeting, "Y-you're that bastard from London!"
No mention of how he has a fully Japanese name, partially Japanese features, a Japanese father, and no accent.
His introductory splash also frames him with the Union Jack behind him, showing off his Holmes cosplay and light hair. Almost all the major characters in the series have blue eyes, but here it's rather... plainly emphasising his Western features. His non-Japanese-ness.
Now, I do have to wonder if Gosho wrote that back in 1990 and hadn't given much thought to it. I certainly don't think it was intentionally cruel.
However, by volume 40, released in 2003, he's learned a bit more about social prejudice, and shows this with the Professor's First Love story:
This shows something that happened 40 years ago in-universe, with a girl of Japanese-American descent who has light, gingko colour hair, being very aware of how different she is, and not wanting her friend to see. She calls her hair "weird" and starts to cry.
Coming back to the present - content released in 2006 - let me go back to Hakuba Saguru.
Hattori "That's obvious, isn't it? And yer not even from this country to begin with."
Oh, Hattori. Only the previous case had you seeing how words can be as sharp as knives, and can hurt people.
Saguru doesn't seem too bothered at first, however...
First off, he points out that it isn't even his fault he's "taken Kudo's place" in the first place!
They contacted his housekeeper, who he's been shown to be very close with (I'd hazard a guess to say that, having not seen his mother at all, or seen her mentioned, Baaya is closer to him than his parents are), and when she heard that her charge would only be taking someone else's place since they weren't there, she got offended on his behalf.
Saguru, who loves this woman like she's literally his nanny, could hardly say no at that point.
More to the point: how he says "But it appears I am unfit to represent the East..."
So now we have Hattori having come in wanting his best friend to be represented and not sidelined just because of circumstances out of his control, and being in a bad mood immediately because of someone else having been called in. He also possibly inflates the number of cases he worked on or solved, by including childhood adventures, leading Saguru to point out that his count is only low if you only count the ones in one country. Saguru attempts to make friends with him regardless, and that doesn't work because Hattori is still stuck on how Saguru is "taking Kudo's place" and then focuses in on how Saguru "isn't even from this country" which... starts leaning into the uncomfortable territory of "Hattori I love you to pieces but are you being racist/xenophobic right now?"
I say that in the context of how Japan has a really big problem with seeing anyone who isn't fully Japanese as Not Japanese Enough, as I went into earlier. I don't think he's aware how he's coming across, by the way; he's simply got a big case of foot-in-mouth.
So now instead of having come to this conclusion organically and naturally, Saguru is offering to take the place of "Guest Participant from Overseas" to placate Hattori.
I'd imagine he won't be wanting to tell Baaya about that, for sure.
Saguru goes on to suggest that Conan (i.e, Shinichi himself) should represent the East instead.
I reiterate: they could well have come to this conclusion over a friendly conversation, because of how they have five detectives. But instead now Saguru has ceded his position to (as far as he knows) a child. A very clever child, but a child nonetheless.
The next time we're back at the island with Hattori and the others, he's already decided he doesn't like "that smug guy."
As said before, there are plenty of things that Hattori could have picked up on that'd suggest Saguru "looked down on people" and "had a prideful way of thinking" and he certainly could appear smug in his achievements.
Hattori himself says that Saguru was "was like a copy of [Kudo]." But he has decided he doesn't like Hakuba, therefore he won't like Hakuba.
A moment of Saguru bonding with Natsuki over their natural brown hair, a shared trait - we can see him smiling after saying "But... there aren't any tv cameras yet, so you could do what you want for tonight?"
In a way I feel like I'm making too much of a big deal out of this one thing, but I'm not the one bringing attention to it - Gosho is. Gosho's the one who reminds us that kids get into trouble for their natural brown hair, and Saguru got that too.
Those who've read Magic Kaito will know that he DOES have a Japanese school uniform - but as we saw at the start of the post, when he arrived, he arrived from his school in London.
This further emphasises how he's set apart from the others.
(An aside: it's entirely possible that his "school abroad" is more likely him going to sixth form, since our Secondary schools last (or did for me) up to the age of 16, and depending on the time of year he may have transferred over to the new school year already. Or he's just finishing his last year of Secondary. We don't know.)
Honestly... I'm going to leave this at that for now, because for one thing the post got away from me a bit, and became longer than I expected, and for another thing, I've covered the majority of the first meeting and both of them getting off on the wrong foot.
In short:
Hattori arrived with an idea of slipping Shinichi into the event, and was offended and upset when someone was already in his place. He, being the loyal friend he is, wasn't willing to simply let it lie.
Instead of backing down and accepting the situation and make friends with the new detective - who Shinichi knew and was acting friendly with, and who was willing to befriend him - he let his bad mood get the better of him and made offensive remarks of his own, most of which to the others would seem entirely unwarranted.
Because of that, Hattori still has a bad opinion of Saguru, and Saguru's opinion of Hattori has gone from "my father's spoken of you [positively]" to "rude asshole."
Neither of them are innocent, but when you look at them individually and fairly, neither of them are the only one in the wrong, either.
Like... no wonder they don't get along from here on? Wow.
I did not expect there to be so much in it, but there we go.
So there's this Saguru headcanon I've been toying with.
Instead of interpreting Saguru as Holmes-obsessed, his interest actually spans classical literature more generally, although with a more honed (obsessive) focus on certain niches (mystery, detective stories, stories about brilliant thieves, etc). Sherlock is still a character he definitely cherishes. But he actually cosplayed 'Holmes' (in an outfit Holmes never canonically wears, to be clear) as a little nod to Lupin vs Herlock Sholmes. Like. The thief he's starting to chase is a Kaitou/gentleman thief. He's dressed in all white with a goddamn tophat and cape. Saguru just wants to match the level of camp and play along.
I know this does contradict a piece of canon - in that he's still wearing his Holmes-esque outfit in a case that has nothing to do with KID (during his very first introduction). But an additional headcanon to account for this is that Saguru is avidly into historical fashion and deliberately wears it in his day to day life. Sometimes more subtly and sometimes not. I think another strong indicator of this is his pocket watch, which is certainly old fashioned. Also, I of course wouldn't be surprised if the deerstalker + inverness are also a comfort outfit for him.
And one additional thing to consider is that we haven't actually seen him quote Holmes at any point or really reference him at all. In contrast to Shinichi, the established Holmes fanatic, who has definitely quoted the Sherlock Holmes books. That is, of course, as far as I recall. It's possible that I'm misremembering.
Anyway, I just think it's a fun alternate interpretation! Not sure if I've fully embraced it, but I've been having fun exploring it.
A: i am and have been a vintage/historical dresser since 2019
B: i have a sherlock fit despite the fact that im not a fan
C: every vintage/historical dresser i lnow has a sherlock fit regardless of being a fan or not
D: About 4 years ago, i made a post going heavily into detail about how the vintage styles and trends Hakuba wears
And i mean like REALLY in detail
He doesn't have a single outfit (other than school uniform) that doesn't have connections to English Historical fashion
I feel like it should be cannon (or at the very least fanon) at this point But alas 😔
Unfortunately, my post was made on an account i deactivated a couple of years ago, but if you would like, I can, and will, remake it going into even further detail !!
I remember seeing a post like that!!! I don't know if it's the one you made since I think I recall seeing it more recently than 4 years ago. Whatever post I saw is part of what sparked this exploration, though. I'd love if you remade the post, and I'd adore seeing more details :D
I'm a wee bit timeblind, but i remember making it during covid lockdown or maybe a little after????
It had to have been 2020 or early 2021 bc that's when my DCMK craze peaked
But yeah . . . . . Covid was 4 years ago (i swear time isn't real 💀)
Although within the past year, i did make a post taking about making other outfits for hakuba, where i mentioned the topic that that was mostly me interacting with somebody else and then drawing up examples
If you remade the post I would be super interested - I love Saguru and character details but fashion generally eludes me. I remember seeing the original post as well, and would love one with more detail.
this image is making me realize fandom wikis are so impenetrable and smothered in ads that I have never actually seen any of the attempts at branding that fandom tries to make with its logo or choice of colors or whatever because I literally don’t have the opportunity to do so on their own goddamn website
this seems like a good opportunity to remind everyone that the Indie Wiki Buddy extension exists, and works on both Chrome and Firefox!
it makes it so that whenever you click on a link to a Fandom wiki, it helps you redirect either to an independent wiki (if there is one), or to a site like BreezeWiki that removes ads, suggestions, etc from Fandom pages so you can actually read them without all the clutter!
