But my real problem was Ran. Why can she suddenly...basically "sense" when Shinichi is not actually Shinichi? Ok, ignore that, better question.
Why did Gosho throw away the only real drama the Shinichi and Ran relationship had anymore? The only real possibility that doesn't involve a stupid twist ending for Shinichi X Ran not being blatantly canon was the ending of episode 308 before Akai appeared with the "do hearts grow apart when separated?" thing. While Gosho dropped the ball with any attempt at continuing the odd Conan/Ran/Haibara love triangle (you know, to make room for more Detective Boys and Eri's cat), the lack of Ran and Shinichi stuff could have been somewhat justifed by this. This seemed like the perfect opportunity, no, this WAS the perfect opportunity to do that. But that will never happen as Ran loves Shinichi and knows him so well that she only has feelings for the real Shinichi and always will, yippee!

It really killed what little drama there was with that part of the series, at least for me. And it really pisses me off (and don't even tell me the Blue Spark of Fail had some AiCon stuff, it was done horribly anyway). I mean, I can, and will, make fun of how serious such "sometimes pretty good I guess" romance plots are taken by some people. But, that doesn't mean I don't see why it's liked. It's simple but a really great idea for a romance plot. Have a pure hearted, typical high school girl whose feelings are so blatant even dead people she's never met know that she loves Shinichi, go with that for a while. Than introduce another character who is much different, has a dark past and at first doesn't seem completely trustworthy. Some more for the first pairing with a couple of hints towards the 2nd pairing. Increase the number of moments for the 2nd couple, but keep it far more subtle. Keep first pairing stuff going but focus on Haibara and have more and more moments for the 2nd pairing etc. It's a really good idea, and despite not being amazing imo, worked incredibly well. The AiCon and ShinRan topics should be proof of that.
But, sometimes I really don't think even someone as talented as Gosho thought about what happens next. I say this because I fairly quickly thought of at least one way to keep it going at least during the Eisuke arc without it changing anything of even the slightest importance or even changing any of the plot cases at all (I could see it being a bad idea if Eisuke hurt sales, which almost wouldn't surprise me). That just makes it frustrating, if I think I thought of something that would have improved anything in Detective Conan, SOMETHING IS WRONG.
@ AiCons and ShinRans, don't make me regret giving you a little bit of respect.









