Now that the FBI serial murder case is over, what are thoughts on it as a whole? And what do you think about the RUM reveal from the last chapter of the case? Aoyama certainly has done something different from previous reveals, and I wonder what he plans to do next for RUM and the arc mysteries still remaining.
Detective Conan File 1061-1066 Review/Discussion
The information in File 1065, followed by File 1066 reveal drastically changed my viewpoints on Rum and the road map to Rum's resolution.
Starting from File 1065, we learned that Rum's 3 inconsistent descriptions were deliberate rumors that Rum spread to hide his true appearance and identity and that only prosthetic eye was correct. The conclusion I came to from this vital information update is that Rum might possess mainly 1 of these 3 descriptions and that he spread the other 2 rumors along with it so that if by chance any member got a look at him and spread what they witnessed, the truth would be camouflaged among 3 indistinguishable rumors. Meaning that Rum (as a man) would mainly be either a “stocky man”, an “effeminate man” or an “old man”.
Then came the 2 vital information that connect with File 1066, which is that Rum has changed his face and uses a silly name.
Here is where the major shifts starts, since we get what is in my opinion undeniable indications that Rum is indeed Wakita (amongst the 3, as SDB BLACK+ indicated, without foulplay). Rum was seen silhouetted mentioning in his recurring polite speech style the "nostalgic story" from 2 years ago during Rye's exposure,...
...which was soon after followed by an old man sitting in the same car as Rum, recalling the same incident that Rum did, being revealed to be the old man from that Rye loyalty test incident and is shown to clearly possess the one feature that is true about Rum, a prosthetic eye (depicted/revealed in the same way as Kuroda's), and that old man is revealed to be Wakita Kanenori without a wig, moustache, buckteeth and eyepatch.
If that wasn't enough, we got another File 1008 situation, where the side-note of File 1066 states that he is "the man with the silly name" (despite the story not even clearing up directly how "Wakita Kanenori" is a silly name), which is essentially handing out the confirmation to the reader that Wakita Kanenori is Rum (similarly to how we got a Boss identity confirmation in the side-note without the story directly addressing it as such).
That being said however... We ended File 1066 with Team Conan just starting to learn about the new hints "changed his face" and "uses a silly name", just before the aforementioned reveal. We got no sign of resolution whatsoever to the Rum mystery. And when it comes to build-up towards the mystery climax, we had none of Gosho's traditional case setup where all the suspects/players in the overarching mystery comes together as the titular antagonist's goals takes the spotlight and the detective (Conan) has pieced the mystery behind antagonist's identity together.
To me, this was the biggest indicator that Wakita being Rum is being treated as nothing more than just a "surface reveal" to a more crucial twist/reveal regarding Rum that is being saved for Conan to solve, leading to a future proper Rum mystery resolution (like the Halloween ship case and Mystery train case).
This reveal also surfaced another important indication, that further supported this notion. Rum's old man appearance was used completely undisguised/unaltered as he directly approached a potential traitor (Rye) 2 years ago, which is contradictory to the established behavior/M.O of Rum, where he not only conceals his voice with a voice changer, but even goes as far as to spread misleading rumors of himself, all in order to hide his identity. This further makes it seem like the old man appearance is nothing more than a disguise from the very beginning, which further goes in line with the established information in File 1065 that Rum has changed/disguised his face. So despite Rum seemingly looking to be an “old man” (as according to the descriptions), the truth is still very much likely to be far from that with the new info from Vodka (like for example, an “effeminate man” who has disguised his face).
Therefore, I'm seeing this as merely the beginning towards a real Rum climax, where Rum's/the old man's real identity and face is gonna be revealed (which might happen during the "main event" that Gin foreshadowed in File 1062).
Basically, we have resolved the "Bourbon arc"-formulated part of the story, and are potentially venturing into the "Vermouth arc"-formulated part of the story.
This is where I’m seeing Iori Muga, the "exceedingly impatient", seemingly english-influenced effeminate butler with a polite speech style, fitting in as the end-goal twist of being Rum’s true identity (through Kohji’s dying message) for Gosho.
There naturally will rise questions of how he manages his time as a butler for the Oooka household (to surveillance the Haneda family that the Oooka are connected with) and as a sushi chef (to watch over the detective who might be investigating the Kohji case), but due to lack of information on both ends (Wakita's and Iori's work schedules), it's something left to explore. Iori Muga could have been given the free time by Momiji (who is clearly portrayed to respect him and his input) to be able to spend those days in Tokyo disguised as “Wakita Kanenori”, as far as we know.
Overall however, I truly enjoyed this case as a whole. File 1066 was definitely my favorite chapter of this case and I'm very happy about the twist (and especially its delivery) that the old man from Kir arc was Rum all along. It made this whole “BO vs Camel” focus way more worth spending time on, and I can only look forward to what’s in store in the actual “main event”.
