Rereading volumes 1--55: Ran
I think that’s what hit me the hardest when rereading the earlier volumes: Ran feels like a completely different person to what I remember her being in the later manga, and I don’t mean in a good, isn’t-in-incredible-how-her-character-developed way. I mean I really can’t figure out how she got from A to B, but she seems like a completely different character.
I love the Masami Hirota case for a lot of reasons–knowing its crucial relevance to the plot, the clever cross-deceptions, and Akemi’s death still managing to make me tear up through what a raw gut punch her last few panels are–but I think Ran JUMPING OUT OF A WINDOW and SMASHING HER WAY INTO A SUSPECT’S CAR because she thinks he killed “Masami” is still up there with my favourite Ran moments. I feel like later on she was flanderized down to doing nothing but cry in response to things; here, she cries about Masami’s death because tearing up easily has always been a part of Ran’s character, but so has this wonderful, burning fury that I feel like she lacks later on. From the first chapter, Ran has been a karate champion who, yes, will cry at deaths and ghosts, but will always respond, where she believes it possible, with action. When Sonoko’s in a car about to roll off a cliff, Ran smashes it open and pulls her best friend out. When startled by an axe-murderer in an isolated house, her response is to scream but also to kick the attacker hard enough to snap the handle of the axe. When a fake clockmaker’s grandson tries to take her hostage, Conan and Kogoro display fear… for her attacker. Who she promptly lays flat and then complains of him startling her. I always loved this mix of fierceness and tenderness in Ran, that she was a top-drawer badass who also felt strong emotions, but I just feel like in later volumes the badass fell by the wayside in favour of the emotions rather than the two continuing to work in harmony.
I can’t pinpoint it exactly, but I feel like the downslide happened at the end of the Desperate Revival arc, when Shinichi continually abandoned Ran at the restaurant. Ran felt off to me for a lot of this case, and I think it’s because she was so passive. I know this is a big moment for both of them, finally getting to spend time together after (as far as Ran knows) not seeing each other for months, but it felt like Shinichi was leading the entire thing–yes, he asks Ran’s permission to go investigate the murder, but it felt a little odd to me that she didn’t go with him, or never went to look for him after he ran off and had been away for ages. The previous time that he returned, the first time we met Heiji, she was bombarding him with questions (rightly so) and chased after him as soon as he tried to run off… I guess I feel like she didnt’ stay at that table in the restaurant for any reason other than “the narrative needs her to”.
And I’m uncomfortable with this ending because it’s part of a long chain of Shinichi repeatedly gaslighting Ran about his identity and location and perpetually lying to her, yet playing off their unresolved feelings for each other as ~tragically romantic~.I really don’t understand why Shinichi is still hiding from Ran, to be honest. He is living in her house and using her father as a cover, which during the Rena Mizunashi incident nearly got him killed, and might have gotten Rean killed too as a possible loose end. It might have been sensible at first, when only Shinichi and Agasa knew the secret and didn’t know anything about the identity and scope of the organization they were dealing with (at the start, Shinichi just through it was two guys), but now Shinichi is rolling in Black Org information and has been spreading his identity around like butter; his parents know, a random dude from Osaka that he never knew before he was Conan knows, a random kid from America who is up to his giant glasses in BO shit knows, a former member of the Black Organization knows, and at least one actual active member of the Black Organization knows! Basically, I really dont’ understand why he hasn’t told Ran yet; she’s hardly defenseless–hell, she’s a good sight more capable of defending herself than he is, or Haibara, or Eisuke–and with him having already brought BO to her doorstep at least once (twice? Only seen scatty bits about this waiter dude who works for Kogoro now and is probably BO?), what she doesn’t know could kill her.
And bloody hell, she deserves to know if she’s still somehow in love with him through all this shit. It think that’s what rubs me up the wrong way too; their entire relationship is a badly dragged out game of deception and distance, but the narrative still handles it as a positive romance. No. You stop that.
