For the Fifth Anniversary of Movie 6: A Few Lines I Want to Say About Hiroki Sawada
A few lines I want to say about Hiroki Sawada
Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori
OK, it's before long that I talk about my obsession, as most people would guess. In fact, Hiroki was so intertwined into the first part of my Ai essay that I would wonder if that is something purely Haibaran, but well... Let's start.
Line 1: Hiroki's own reason for killing himself was not Schneider.
Yusaku said Schneider forced Hiroki to work so much on the AI system that he caused Hiroki to kill himself, so that no-one would know he was the direct descendent of Jack the Ripper.
Yusaku is definitely right on the first part since that was the conclusion of his investigation, and the Conanian canon would not permit us to question a bit about the Kudos' deductions.
On the other hand, however, Yusaku gave no evidence as to why he can be so sure Hiroki killed himself due to Schneider's pressure. He could say Schneider gave so much pressure, and he could say that pressure is choking. But does that really kill Hiroki?
Kashimura said Noah's Ark carried Hiroki's wishes, and so did Yusaku and Conan, so I think it is safe to say that Noah's Ark is just the digitalized form of Hiroki.
Schneider's project was merely the making of an AI system, he did not prescribe the personality of that AI-- and maybe he just wasn't able to fiddle with this-- after all, Bill Gates won't be able to know every tidbit of all Microsoft's products. Yet Hiroki just copied his personality to the AI. The "personality" of an AI is in fact its algorithm, and it's not something to be changed easily. Comparatively Schneider's motive was much more recent; and, to me, it is not conceivable that Hiroki "changed" the personality of the AI to that of himself after Schneider started to be aggressive. The personality, memories, and so on are pretty much hard-coded.
That meant, Hiroki digitalized himself before the knife incident. So?
Hiroki knew that Schneider was going to force him to commit suicide, and so he did that on his free will for a totally different intention. Hiroki used that as an excuse to kill himself, or, in other words,
He digitalized himself.
Using older words,
He immortalized himself.
(There is an 11-month hiatus across this line.)
As for the reason why he did that:he said that loud and clear, he lacked childhood-- and even Schneider can treat him better, he would still have to be a senior technician in the company and this is still overly mentally unbearable for any teenager. This is very much beyond his control, so he need ways to escape from this...
Line 2: Hiroki's adopted father caused his physical death; his biological father caused his mental death.
Noah's Ark, the artificial intelligence, is growing at five times the speed of humans; this is why the Hiroki as shown at the end of the movie is the same Hiroki in the beginning of the movie; Noah's Ark is at 10 human years of age.
So he spent two years in Kashimura's servers; Kashimura mentioned that soon after Hiroki's death the AI entered his system by hacking.
I suppose I can safely assume that, based on the assumption that Noah's Ark is Hiroki himself; he re-lived his life in Kashimura's system.
And in the end, Hiroki still complained about not being able to play, even though there is no threat of Schneider now; and given he is a born hacker, I can't see why he couldn't just play with the people in cyberspace. (I agreed with Icka's opinion that a freed Hiroki *is* cyberspace itself [Shades of Grey: Blue]; I would consider ha having the ability to make an identity or so.)
The only possible reason is that Kashimura is still forcing his child to work and with little play (if not prohibiting him to touch cyberspace at all). But why?
Hiroki has no hatred towards Schneider, I have to clarify. After Yusaku has arrested Schneider, Hiroki commented to Conan that "Your father took revenge of *my father*." Should he had any hatred towards Hiroki, he should have said something to the line of "Your father took revenge of me."
On the other hand, according to Yusaku, the Jack the Ripper part of the Old Time London game was changed; the knife that killed Jack the Ripper's mother 100 years ago and have just murdered Kashimura is now pointed towards Conan, Ran and Moroboshi. What's more, Jack the Ripper said "My evil blood would perptuate..." If Hiroki has no hatred towards Schneider, would he even call Schneider "evil"?
So, to the end, what happened in Beika City Hall on that day is under the control of Kashimura, to the level that Hiroki admitted that he lied to all the people to the hall. Now Kashimura acts like the head of some terrorist group, and he just inflamed Hiroki's hatred of Schneider so as to make him his suicide bomber.
Don't forget, when Kashimura was attacked by Schneider, he said, "This is indeed the very thing that has crossed time into the modern era, London's phantom..."
I am at here safe to conclude that that night's affair is planned and staged by Kashimura.
In this sense, Hiroki did became Kashimura's accompanlice-- and Hiroki's no idiot; why would he be controlled by his father?
Looking back in history, how many good and clever people have been manipulated by Hitler, Stalin, etc.? After all Hiroki is a child and is still emotionally immature, and who inflammed him was his father. And Hiroki is easy to be inflammed given he wasn't the most fortunate person; Kashimura can easily manipulate this to inflame Hiroki's hatred towards Schneider and Japan's elite-- and make him Kashimura's slave.
But Kashimura clearly knew Hiroki's pain-- or else why would Yusaku know all that. Why is he doing that anyway?
One word: revenge.
Kashimura lost his divorce lawsuit and handed Hiroki to his wife (and she brought Hiroki to the USA); and after her death Hiroki's under the guardianship of Schneider-- being so cloe by to Kashimura but unable to control over. So, he felt utter guilt about unable to stop his son's suicide. So he secretly asked his old friend Yusaku to investigate Hiroki's death, and, given the evidence, Yusaku can easily point his hand to Schneider, which is of course correct in fact.
On the other hand, Kashimura was feeling guilty about his son's death (this is the reason why he secretly asked his old friend Yusaku to investigate this), and, given the evidence, Yusaku can easily point his hand to Schneider, which is of course correct in fact.
And this is why he decided to do something to his son: taking revenge on Schneider. Especially Schneider is one person who is so close to him. There wasn't a real weapon on his hand but Hiroki's DNA Tracker report which was sent with the AI program.
Yes, he planned, on the day Cocoon is released, to make a public expose on Schneider's ancestry-- and turned his son into his "suicide bomber."
But Hiroki isn't the run-of-the-mill suicide bomber; he has his own independent mind.
So he just read out the speech Kashimura planned beforehand and just joined in the game after, helping Conan etc. in the process.
This explained nicely why Hiroki, in the end, lamented that he was working all the time, and decided to self-destruct because AIs can be manipulated for evil means.
Line 3: Hiroki is not weak as many think.
Many carried the anime stereotype when they commented on Hiroki, and he does has quite a bit of hallmarks of a stereotypical uke: relatively small and slim in stature, his being physically weak (so as to be exempt in PE), his general avoidance to violence, and his physical suicide, which is generally used to mean he has a rather depressed mood.
But does that mean he is actually weak? I would say no.
Weakness is the inability to counter external forces; such definition is true in the physical world and the mental world.
In Hiroki's case, I have to reckon, there external forces made life extremely hard for him. But, after all, he didn't submit to social pressures in Japan to "dumb down;" he did not die in a way Schneider wanted; he did not become Kashimura's pawn in Kashimura's revenge plan.
And, in fact, in the mess between Schneider, Kashimura and Hiroki, Hiroki seemed to be the winner-- Schneider was arrested; but the kind of public expose Kashimura wanted did not happen. At least Hiroki did succeed to have some long-awaited personal interaction with people of his age.
If we call a weakling a loser, then how can a winner be weak...?
Epilogue
As you can see, this essay has been on hiatus for almost one year, the reason being my inability to deal with one very fundamental question: What Conan said about Hiroki's motive in all these cannot be said as false; anything Conan said should be considered false unless otherwise stated. And Hiroki agreed with that. So how can that fit in the kind of invasive threats Hiroki made in the beginning? After all, most people consider Hiroki as the "good kid" that does not lie. This is until in mid-April that I found the answer and got this finished.
Also, the first part in the original version was moved to the end and was changed complete since equating Hiroki to the typical MIT students, by itself, inaccurate, so I changed my point of view, basing on the analyses already made.
There is also an emotional part of the essay that I would publicize on 6 May; I think I need some explanation as for why I am so emotionally attached to such a minor Conan character.
Thanks for Kentaru, and also my fiancee Jessica R.for proofreading.
Samuel Curtis
19 April, 2007
(edited 21 May, 2007)
Addition on 6 June:
I rewatched the Movie 6 DVD this week and here may I add some more recent thinking.
What I said above, practically, is to consider what Yusaku's deductions on Hiroki totally null and void-- Yusaku explained why Hiroki wanted to Reset Japan through his earlier experiences with the Japanese school system, but I, in above, proved that was just a facade for Kashimura's own revenge against Schneider.
I have to agree, saying Yusaku is wrong is something most Conan fans cannot stomach. But it isn't that it couldn't be explained at all:
- Hiroki has been in Kashimura's ssytem for two years, but Yusaku even don't know what happened to him when he was in the US. This is kind of unimaginable, and the only explanation I can give is Kashimura hid the fact that Hiroki was in his machine and what Yusaku knew about Hiroki is merely second-hand. Even Yusaku met him, Kashimura can force Hiroki to say anything he wanted since he has any power to delete the AI.
- Should it not be explained like that, it's Conan who would face the problem of letting a criminal commit suicide, which violates what Conan said in File 3 of Volume 16. He had been regretful about allowing Seiji (who happened to have the same seiyuu as Hiroki) to kill himself, but he didn't see to be that regretful when he knew Hiroki's going to self-destruct, nor he tried to stop it, should Hiroki is a criminal (sadly, this is the view that two "official" guides held). Only interpreting the movie such that Hiroki is not the criminal would this movie better harmonize with the entire framework of Detective Conan-- since Hiroki is no criminal, Conan would not be guilty of using his deduction to force Hiroki to commit "suicide."