Hi, what do you think of the latest chapters, especially the school case? Are there any hints regarding the plot? Do you think Maria is a suspicious girl?
File 1110-1112 Review
There were multiple hints/developments regarding the main plot in this case.
For starters, we had Gosho finally giving us a clue to the state of the shrunkies body when it comes to aging. Conan questioned why he didn't grow a centimeter every time his height got measured (File 1110), which Haibara deflected to answer by playing it down.
This is as good of a confirmation as any that Conan, Haibara & Mary cannot age in their shrunken state like Vermouth, which not only implicates Vermouth further to have taken a variant of APTX in the past but also that the shrunkies have to take the antidote by the end of the series to regain a normal life back.
Another part that caught my interest is the fact that Gosho used specific yen numbers in association with Haibara & Maria in the case, that had interesting potential to be chapter easter eggs that could be serving as foreshadowing/references to Haibara & Maria. Haibara was gonna pay 258 yen & Maria was gonna pay 302 yen.
If you look up the which chapter these numbers correspond to, Haibara's is a reference to desperate revivial case, where she completed a prototype antidote for the first time and was questioned whether she was gonna take the antidote or not (File 258).
Maria's is a reference to Sunset mansion case, where the Boss of the organization Karasuma Renya was first introduced (File 302).
This is the second time Maria has been indirectly associated with the Boss of the black organization, seeing as her reintro (File 1006-1008) was the same case that revealed Karasuma Renya to be the Boss of the black organization.
It looks like it's by design that Gosho dropped these antidote easter eggs for Haibara, just after teasing the idea that Haibara can't age normally, as well as these continued Karasuma Renya easter eggs for Maria. It's hard to say in the current stage what future awaits Maria (especially if there is any connection to Karasuma), but there are handful of clues to that she is more than your average side character, just by the nature of her characterization (her name, english influence, being the next transfer student after Haibara).
The following chapter potentially gave us the awaited answers to the mysterious Kohji case uploader. Yusaku reveals the suspicions that Wakasa was behind the Kohji case info uploads, and that she monitored the IP address of PC:s that entered the website, which in turn lead her to Conan who used Agasa's PC (File 1111).
This part seemingly resolves the mystery behind the Kohji case uploader, however, it doesn't fully resolve/explain why Wakasa set her eyes on a random curious kid, or how she realized his true competence/value to the point of joining an elementary school. I think this part of Yusaku's suspicions could be complimented with the idea of Asaka having sources that directly confirmed Conan as a valuable asset/player against the organization (i.e Kir, if Asaka is a CIA agent).
Yusaku then started to warn Yukiko about the possibility of Asaka being the type who would go through any lengths to achieve her goals (File 1111), which Gosho seems to wanna emphasize a lot to clarify her character type, as seen even with Rum's subordinates mentioning her potentially using teachers and kids as shields from bullets (File 1112).
Yusaku then proceeded to analyze her motives for staying in Teitan Elementary for as long as she has, which was also questioned by Rum (File 1112), only to be revealed at the end of the resolution chapter that it'd because of her fixation on Haibara.
You can find my speculations on Wakasa's fixation on Haibara here:
Greetings MasterDetective, I'm very intrigued about what does Wakasa Rumi have to do with Haibara. Like at the end of File 1112. Hope you
The rest of the case had very heartwarming stuff with the kids and their parents (especially Haibara & Agasa), including a unique twist where Haibara ended up becoming the culprit of a relatively harmless act, which was refreshing.
We also got to properly meet Maria's mother for the first time, who resembles her quite a lot (apart from having black hair like a full-blooded japanese).
We have had clues to Maria's foreign blood through not only her foreign name and light hair colour but also the showcased english influence when her grandma called the bird toy "bird-chan" (File 1007).
The fact that her mother doesn't seem to have foregin features could be an indication that Maria inherited the foreign characteristics from her father. There is therefore room for the possibility that Maria's father is an important foreigner/non-full-japanese character in the main plot. In which case, a mysterious foreigner-looking character that comes to mind that could fit that role is the driver of "Vader" (respirator elder), who recently got a keyhole feature for Volume 103.
Even if Vader ends up being Haneda Yasuharu (Kohji's father), we have no guarantee that the driver is a good guy. For all that we know, the driver could be Maria's father who is connected/related to Karasuma Renya himself (which would explain the potential easter eggs to Karasuma in recent Maria cases).