Aoyama Gosho, Master Troll
Detective Conan 770. Utterly unremarkable case, but the new Jeet Kune Do character.... AWESOME. (It has been more than a year since I've been this excited about Conan XD -- in fact, checking through my tags, the last super-exciting case for me was the department store case in Aug. 09)
For the record, my comments from the LJ comm:
Sera is a girl = AWESOME.
That said I agree, Sera pretty obviously was testing Conan/trying to lure out Shinichi (once she realized or suspected the connection).
It's probably too much to ask of Gosho for her to be a genderbending age-shrunken Bourbon. XP So I'm still hoping for an England connection.
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To clarify, I think she was aware that something's up with Conan from the start, hence all her heavy hinting through the last few chapters. She deliberately messed up the deduction to force Conan to play his hand, but I don't think she expected Shinichi to factor into it until Conan goofed by making the call. I don't think she put two and two together until that point -- after she tests her hypothesis via the trick question I'm pretty sure she's nailed him. Someone on the DCTP forums mentioned that she's probably too far away for "Shinichi" to have been able to hear her question through Megure/Takagi's phone -- so though he didn't fall for the obvious trick it's possible he gave himself away just by *answering*. Not that he wasn't already being totally transparent. I think he REALLY underestimated her after her supposed mistake, which was foolish of him. (His arrogance really ought to come back to bite him in the butt ONE of these days. XD)
- - -
Seriously though, I am unimpressed over the whining I see about Sera being a girl at a certain fandom hub. (If Sera had turned out to be a guy, would we be seeing all this whining? Hell no.) But that particular fandom community is pretty much the pits anyway, so I can't say I'm all that surprised.
I'd actually been 80% certain she was a girl after the second chapter of this case, but didn't dare hope that was actually the case!
But yes, stupid stupid move, Conan. He's gotten incredibly careless lately (see: London arc, increasing lack of discretion in using Conan to solve cases), and could he have been more obvious this time around?
The fact that he doesn't think highly of people until they've proved their wits to him really has always been one of his glaring weak points though. I mean seriously, he dismissed Sera WAY too easily after she bungled the deduction.
I'm curious about her "line of work" though. (Even if she is Bourbon, which has like... a .00001 chance of happening right now, I suspect that like Rena and Vermouth she would hold a normal job to blend in.) What requires good ears? Music is the obvious guess, but that's totally irrelevant XD and she's also witnessed a lot of suicides... so something law enforcement related maybe. I totally want to say spy (MI5/MI6 like I keep saying) but dunno if that's just wishful thinking, LOL. And anyway I suppose a spy wouldn't regularly witness a lot of suicides so it's really pointing to something law enforcement, or perhaps something on the medical side. I doubt she's a reporter (we already have Rena). And aside from clean-up crew that really leaves only the medical/law enforcement angles I think.
Of course, if she's actually the age she seems to be (and not a shrunken Bourbon like I keep wanting to think XP), neither of these are terribly likely. I doubt she's another high school detective (wouldn't really be a "line of work" in that case, also I'm pretty sure she'd have built up some sort of reputation like the other teen detectives/we'd have at least heard her name before now... so I guess it remains to be seen if anyone recognizes her, but again, highly doubt it). It's possible she's a low-key private investigator getting paid on her own time (as opposed to the teen detectives who help out the police for free/solve cases for the heck of it), but that doesn't seem to be Gosho's style really. I think her being a standard detective may be too obvious -- she's clearly being set up to have an interesting/unique background.
I have a whole lot of theories that would jive with the "hearing" aspect (again, any sort of government agent/spy would jive pretty well although age would still be an issue there; I also considered maybe a radio operator/sound technician/communications type of work with the SDF, which would only require her to be 18), but where I'm running into blocks is with the "witnessed lots of suicides" factor. I kind of want to say that she's something like an insurance investigator or something -- at a stretch that might work, especially if she specializes in looking into life insurance fraud. I just don't know if the connection with both "good ears" and "suicides" is strong enough.
But there, that's my tentative theory which will probably end up totally wroooong.
And now it is past midnight and time for bed. ~_~
For the record, my comments from the LJ comm:
Sera is a girl = AWESOME.
That said I agree, Sera pretty obviously was testing Conan/trying to lure out Shinichi (once she realized or suspected the connection).
It's probably too much to ask of Gosho for her to be a genderbending age-shrunken Bourbon. XP So I'm still hoping for an England connection.
.
To clarify, I think she was aware that something's up with Conan from the start, hence all her heavy hinting through the last few chapters. She deliberately messed up the deduction to force Conan to play his hand, but I don't think she expected Shinichi to factor into it until Conan goofed by making the call. I don't think she put two and two together until that point -- after she tests her hypothesis via the trick question I'm pretty sure she's nailed him. Someone on the DCTP forums mentioned that she's probably too far away for "Shinichi" to have been able to hear her question through Megure/Takagi's phone -- so though he didn't fall for the obvious trick it's possible he gave himself away just by *answering*. Not that he wasn't already being totally transparent. I think he REALLY underestimated her after her supposed mistake, which was foolish of him. (His arrogance really ought to come back to bite him in the butt ONE of these days. XD)
- - -
Seriously though, I am unimpressed over the whining I see about Sera being a girl at a certain fandom hub. (If Sera had turned out to be a guy, would we be seeing all this whining? Hell no.) But that particular fandom community is pretty much the pits anyway, so I can't say I'm all that surprised.
I'd actually been 80% certain she was a girl after the second chapter of this case, but didn't dare hope that was actually the case!
But yes, stupid stupid move, Conan. He's gotten incredibly careless lately (see: London arc, increasing lack of discretion in using Conan to solve cases), and could he have been more obvious this time around?
The fact that he doesn't think highly of people until they've proved their wits to him really has always been one of his glaring weak points though. I mean seriously, he dismissed Sera WAY too easily after she bungled the deduction.
I'm curious about her "line of work" though. (Even if she is Bourbon, which has like... a .00001 chance of happening right now, I suspect that like Rena and Vermouth she would hold a normal job to blend in.) What requires good ears? Music is the obvious guess, but that's totally irrelevant XD and she's also witnessed a lot of suicides... so something law enforcement related maybe. I totally want to say spy (MI5/MI6 like I keep saying) but dunno if that's just wishful thinking, LOL. And anyway I suppose a spy wouldn't regularly witness a lot of suicides so it's really pointing to something law enforcement, or perhaps something on the medical side. I doubt she's a reporter (we already have Rena). And aside from clean-up crew that really leaves only the medical/law enforcement angles I think.
Of course, if she's actually the age she seems to be (and not a shrunken Bourbon like I keep wanting to think XP), neither of these are terribly likely. I doubt she's another high school detective (wouldn't really be a "line of work" in that case, also I'm pretty sure she'd have built up some sort of reputation like the other teen detectives/we'd have at least heard her name before now... so I guess it remains to be seen if anyone recognizes her, but again, highly doubt it). It's possible she's a low-key private investigator getting paid on her own time (as opposed to the teen detectives who help out the police for free/solve cases for the heck of it), but that doesn't seem to be Gosho's style really. I think her being a standard detective may be too obvious -- she's clearly being set up to have an interesting/unique background.
I have a whole lot of theories that would jive with the "hearing" aspect (again, any sort of government agent/spy would jive pretty well although age would still be an issue there; I also considered maybe a radio operator/sound technician/communications type of work with the SDF, which would only require her to be 18), but where I'm running into blocks is with the "witnessed lots of suicides" factor. I kind of want to say that she's something like an insurance investigator or something -- at a stretch that might work, especially if she specializes in looking into life insurance fraud. I just don't know if the connection with both "good ears" and "suicides" is strong enough.
But there, that's my tentative theory which will probably end up totally wroooong.
And now it is past midnight and time for bed. ~_~