(SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

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thriceplus

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(SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by thriceplus »

ORIGINAL OCTOBER 2015 POST

Note: I really want to stress that this theory was developed when there were only 933 chapters so there's very little data out there and any of the claims can be easily overturned by more information.


Lots of attention is focused on Rum or the sister from outside the domain, but not much is focused on Hyoue Kuroda. Here I make 3 possible claims about Hyoue Kuroda. Now I don't expect these to be all correct, but I do feel that they fit the general narrative structure developed by Gosho Aoyama in his previous arcs.


Claim 1: Hyoue Kuroda was put in a coma by Rum 10 years ago and left for dead.
Spoiler:
This claim is purely an exercise in noticing how Gosho writes his arcs. In each of three major arcs: Vermouth's, Kir's and Bourbon's, there are two new major characters. The main BO character and his "parallel". The parallel is usually the most important non-BO character introduced in the arc and has a very strong personal connection to the main BO character. The parallel for Vermouth is Jodie. The parallel for Kir is Eisuke. The parallel for Bourbon is Okiya. Gosho also loves to put red herrings by making the parallel appear to be highly suspicious and seemingly evil only for them to be good all along. I think we all now assume that Hyoue Kuroda being Rum is a red herring, so if he's not Rum, he is very likely to be Rum's parallel, unless Gosho shakes up the formula for the first time. (As an aside, I have a feeling that we will get at least 3 new characters, each of whom corresponds to one of the three descriptions Haibara give, so it is still possible that Hyoue is Rum or Rum has multiple parallels.)

If Hyoue Kuroda is a parallel, that must mean that he needs a personal relationship with Rum. We know nothing about Rum as a person so it can be too early to speculate what Hyoue and Rum have as a relationship. However, we know one important aspect about Hyoue: he got put into a coma for 10 years. The cause of that coma must be extremely important and it's very logical to believe that Rum caused the coma and Hyoue now wants revenge.
Claim 2: The Hyoue Kuroda we are introduced to is NOT actually Hyoue Kuroda, but someone else involved in the incident impersonating as him. This could be staged (faking his death) or legitimate (true loss of memories).
Spoiler:
There are two interesting things that are mentioned about Hyoue when Yui first described him in chapter 914: after the coma, he "looked like a completely different person" and he "is still missing quite a few minor memories". Now this is strange, since how common do people in coma suddenly change their faces? Yamato was in a coma and his face is more or less the same. Now if you read a lot of Conan, I think the first thing that pops to mind is impersonation or mistaken identity. Gosho loves disguises so much and Vermouth and Bourbon's arc all had impersonations or disguises while Kir's arc had suspicions of impersonation. I can think of little reason why Gosho would randomly make him look like a completely different person if he's not planning some switcheroo here.

So why would the fake Hyoue impersonate him? There are three schools of thought I can think of. First, he could be Rum. As I explained, I think that possibility is low unless Gosho double bluffs. Second, this can be a honest mistake. Remember he has memory loss so perhaps he had amnesia and the nurses convinced him that he is Hyoue. The third and most plausible in my opinion is that he's faking his own death. After the incident 10 years ago, he was presumed dead and his body was wrongly identified as someone else, so he's taking advantage of that. He's pretending to be dead to protect himself and his family because he knows Rum will finish the job if word gets out there that he survived. With a fake disguise, it's much easier for him to investigate his own death and get revenge. Regardless of whether he legitimately lost his memories or is pretending, I feel by the time he transferred to Tokyo, he's already regained his memories since the only reason I think he's at Tokyo now is because of Rum.
Claim 3: Hyoue Kuroda is either the father to or someone with a close personal relationship with the Akai family, Bourbon or Scotch.
Spoiler:
If you look at Conan characters, there is a noticed "1-2 degrees of freedom". Pretty much everyone randomly knows each other and there exists few characters that are not connected with anyone else. What about Hyoue? I just can't see him being some random new character without any link with the rest of the cast. This current arc has quite a lot of directions it's going in, such as Rum, the Akai/Bourbon/Scotch issue and Sera/Little sister thing, so I think Hyoue will most likely be connected with the Akai family, Bourbon or Scotch.

As for the relationship itself, there's one thing to clarify: Hyoue was put in a coma for 10 years. When he got out of this coma is still ambiguous, but assuming this happens recently, this means Hyoue was basically missing from his linked partner's life for 10 years. This makes me think the link has to be something that's strong enough to sustain time and that link is blood, more specifically father. One major obstacle at first appears to be names. After all, nobody else we know has last name Kuroda. This is why Claim 2 comes to the rescue, as it gives a perfectly logical explanation of why not only can he be some character's father but also why said character won't even be able to recognize him since his face looks completely different. Assuming Shuichi, Shukichi, Bourbon, Scotch are all in their late 20s, this makes it very possible for Hyoue to be their father, since Hyoue would first be a father in his early 20s. That's around the same age as Kogoro, Yusaku and Ginzo when they became fathers.

I've already established that Hyoue could be a father and who's daddy is currently missing? The Akais. In the series, it seems that good detective abilities is genetic. After all, let's look at the high school detectives. Shinichi, Heiji and Hakuba all have daddies that are detectives even better than themselves (Ok, I'm not sure about Hakuba but it's presumed). Both the father of Heiji and Hakuba are police superintendents in particular. Now, who else is a high school detective? Sera, as well as her older brothers previously. There's no doubt that their father must be some amazing detective and guess who randomly pops up as an extremely competent police superintendent? Hyoue. 2/3 of the high school detectives in the show have a superintendent daddy so the Akais having one as well is highly possible. A possible issue with this theory is in the Animal Crossing cards when Gosho writes "Akai's father is unfortunately already... it's a secret!" This is ambiguous but does seem to suggest that perhaps Papa Akai is dead. However, using similar logic, Hyoue could also be the father of either Bourbon or Scotch. Perhaps Bourbon or Scotch became police police and join the BO as undercover agents as revenge for what they did to daddy as a kid.

I'm still not entirely satisfied with this theory, since there's so little information, but I definitely think we've seen enough of Gosho's style to make sensible predictions about what he's going to do.


NOVEMBER 2017 UPDATE

Heh completely forgot I made this 2 years ago... I'm still standing by the claims I made back then, with the claims 2 and 3 being further narrowed and collapsed into one claim

Claim 2&3: The Hyoue Kuroda we are introduced to is NOT actually Hyoue Kuroda, but he's actually the father to the Akai family, Tsutomu Akai (who's faking his death).
Spoiler:
Well both claim 2 and 3 say the same thing now and I'm going with the claim that Kuroda's real identify is the Akai father, who is going by "Hyoue Kuroda" in order to fake his death and escape the BO (in the same way that Akai Shuuichi is going by Okiya). The fact that his appearance changed as well suggests that the other members of the Akai clan probably won't recognize him if they were to see him.

Fully expecting an Akai family reunion at the climax of the Rum arc.
Last edited by thriceplus on November 15th, 2017, 6:59 pm, edited 16 times in total.
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k11chi

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Re: New theory about Hyoue Kuroda (possible relation with the Akai family)

Post by k11chi »

I'm not sure if he's a parallel but he's a Big Boss (shout out to MGS) type of character.
Who knows, maybe he's Amuro's boss. A person who is in a higher position just like James Black.
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Uchiha Shadow

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by Uchiha Shadow »

I think he is Amuro's boss, someone posted in the Amuro thread that the organization that Amuro works in is related to the NPA, which is where Kuroda heard about Conan apparently. As for him being Mr. Akai, I don't know, he should look like Shuukichi, maybe he did when he was younger, if we assume that Kuroda is Akai's father, then that means that he 'died' 10 years ago, which would be when Shuukichi was 18, which would be when he graduated from high school, and I think that the Akai father died before that, since Shuukichi's name seems to have been Sera during high school.
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MeiTanteixX

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by MeiTanteixX »

I don't see any explanation to Kuroda's hair colour transformation....if I remember correctly, the ''he looked like a completely different person" claim had an physical evidence to it,...his hair turned from black to white all of a sudden! She claimed it was because of the stress from the accident, but then that would be self-explanatory and there would be no significance with his appearance changing, unless more than just his hair looked different...
the fact that his hair changed colour, and Conan reacted to his transformation description, has to indicate that he was swapped by someone(who was white haired) before the bandage was taken off!
DC's Awesome Qoutes:
Spoiler:
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Bourbon:''A child's curiosity and a detective's spirit of inquiry do have much in common''
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Vermouth:''A secret makes a woman, woman''
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Mary/Gin:''It's like encountering a demon in the darkness...''
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Akai Shuichi:''Fear of death is worse than death itself''
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Shinichi Kudo:''following the smell of blood to arrive upon a crime scene, using every one of your senses to hunt the culprit, then once you've seized hold of him, sinking your sharp teeth(your evidence) until your opponent gives up the ghost, That's a detective''
DeviantArt:http://meitanteixx.deviantart.com/
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thriceplus

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by thriceplus »

Uchiha Shadow wrote:I think he is Amuro's boss, someone posted in the Amuro thread that the organization that Amuro works in is related to the NPA, which is where Kuroda heard about Conan apparently.


Where'd you get the NPA part? I've only seen references to the Nagano/Tokyo police.
Uchiha Shadow wrote:As for him being Mr. Akai, I don't know, he should look like Shuukichi, maybe he did when he was younger, if we assume that Kuroda is Akai's father, then that means that he 'died' 10 years ago, which would be when Shuukichi was 18, which would be when he graduated from high school, and I think that the Akai father died before that, since Shuukichi's name seems to have been Sera during high school.
Assuming Papa Akai is still alive (which I'm still uncertain about given Gosho's Animal Crossing comment), then Sera's comment would indicate that he died about 14-15 years ago. There are two ways we can approach this:

1. A simple explanation would be that Hyoue got out of his coma 4-5 years ago. There's no indication when he got out, just that he's still missing some key memories.

2. Sera's lying. Sera telling truth 100% here is also problematic for another theory: the Sera's mom = Elena's sister. Sera is by all means a Japanese last name complete with its own kanji, which makes her mother being a white British problematic. Even if you assume that it is somehow a bastardization of a British last name, which is NOT what's commonly done in Japan, I can't think of a common last name that even sounds like Sera. And no, Michael Cera's last name is Italian but English.
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Max1996

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by Max1996 »

thriceplus wrote:
Uchiha Shadow wrote:I think he is Amuro's boss, someone posted in the Amuro thread that the organization that Amuro works in is related to the NPA, which is where Kuroda heard about Conan apparently.


Where'd you get the NPA part? I've only seen references to the Nagano/Tokyo police.

I can't think of a common last name that even sounds like Sera. And no, Michael Cera's last name is Italian but English.
1. We know Amuro works for the Secret Police. Combine that with the fact that he suspects Conan of being the one behind Sleeping Kogoro and that Kuroda knows about Conan and only one conclusion can come from it: Kuroda works with Amuro. I think this is what Uchiha was saying.

2. Sera's name in the Japanese order of surname-given name is Sera Masumi. It is possible that Masumi, not Sera, is a bastardization.
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k11chi

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by k11chi »

If he meant that Conan is the brain behind sleeping Kogoro then it makes sense that he'd have an extremely trusted underling working for him since he thinks Conan is smarter than normal kids... Now that I think about it, Kuroda and MG might be going towards a similar goal in trying to "hire" Conan for some reason.
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Serinox

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by Serinox »

Kansuke, Koumei and even Yui were already suspecting Conan of being much smarter than it seems and Kansuke basically says the same thing, that Conan is the brain behind Kogoro, in the Red Wall Case, long before Amuro or Kuroda were introduced in the manga, so it could've just been a rumor that spread in Nagano Prefectural Police. Kansuke -> Yui and then Yui mentions it off hand in some conversation and faster than you can see it's common gossip that Inspector Yamato thinks that this Conan Edogawa boy is the brain behind Kogoro Mouri -> Kuroda returns and hears of the rumors and trust Yamato's judgement enough to assume the same thing. No need for Amuro telling him that.

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thriceplus

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by thriceplus »

Max1996 wrote:
thriceplus wrote:
Uchiha Shadow wrote:I think he is Amuro's boss, someone posted in the Amuro thread that the organization that Amuro works in is related to the NPA, which is where Kuroda heard about Conan apparently.


Where'd you get the NPA part? I've only seen references to the Nagano/Tokyo police.

I can't think of a common last name that even sounds like Sera. And no, Michael Cera's last name is Italian but English.
1. We know Amuro works for the Secret Police. Combine that with the fact that he suspects Conan of being the one behind Sleeping Kogoro and that Kuroda knows about Conan and only one conclusion can come from it: Kuroda works with Amuro. I think this is what Uchiha was saying.

2. Sera's name in the Japanese order of surname-given name is Sera Masumi. It is possible that Masumi, not Sera, is a bastardization.
1. I'm not getting the logic here. I mean Yamato and Komei both suspect Conan of being the brains behind Sleeping Kogoro and Kuroda was their boss, so this provides reasonable explanation of why Kuroda suspects Conan without needing the secret service or Amuro at all.

2. Wait so you are suggesting that Sera inherited her mother's first name? Masumi's the first name and Sera's the last name.
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Uchiha Shadow

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by Uchiha Shadow »

I was just tossing it out there as a possibility, it's clearly possible that Kuroda just heard it from Yamato, but him hearing it from Amuro would at least tie him more to the plot, rather than him just being a police officer who knows about Conan and might know RUM, as for the NPA thing, I'm not sure, but I believe it was mentioned when the raws for file 916 came out, I can't exactly remember since it was a long time ago.
thriceplus

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by thriceplus »

Uchiha Shadow wrote:I was just tossing it out there as a possibility, it's clearly possible that Kuroda just heard it from Yamato, but him hearing it from Amuro would at least tie him more to the plot, rather than him just being a police officer who knows about Conan and might know RUM, as for the NPA thing, I'm not sure, but I believe it was mentioned when the raws for file 916 came out, I can't exactly remember since it was a long time ago.
Kuroda being Bourbon's boss just doesn't really make much sense to me. I can't see how Kuroda can hold leadership positions both at Bourbon's organization and at the police since the two positions should be mutually exclusive. It's like someone being both Chief of Police of Miami and a director of the FBI. That just doesn't make any sense.
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k11chi

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by k11chi »

It makes just as much sense as any other theory...
thriceplus

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by thriceplus »

I really wonder why Hyoue was first introduced in Nagano and then moved to Tokyo, instead of directly having him show up as the new superintendent in Tokyo. This makes me wonder if Nagano is itself important, or if it's just a convenient tie-in with the Yamato/Yui/Komei?

Does anyone know if Hyoue has a Nagano accent? I can't tell if he's born&raised Nagano like the rest of the crew or if he transferred there from Tokyo for whatever reason and now he's transferring back.

Either way, it seems like the incident that led to his coma happened in Nagano, so there has to be some significance to the region. If we assume Claim 1 is true and that Hyoue was part of the Nagano police when he was tracking Rum, which led to his coma, this makes me wonder if Rum also has some ties to Nagano as well.
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jimmy_kud0_tv2

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by jimmy_kud0_tv2 »

1. If you read ch916 in Japanese, Kuroda says that he specifically heard rumors from the NPA (警察庁 Keisatsuchou called National Police Agency in English) that Conan was the brains behind Sleeping Kogoro. Meaning he would have heard it before being transferred to Nagano to begin with.
2. Kuroda has no connection to Nagano. Yui specifically said that He was transferred there because he was old and was having memory issues. Typically brand new and elderly police members are transferred to more remote locations where there would be less actually happening.
3. The reason Gosho introduced Kuroda at that location is because he was using the name puns that he does. Like Kansuke and the other suspects in the Kawanakajima case, Kuroda's name comes from one of the members of Takeda Shingen's men.
4. We won't know if he has an Nagano accent until we know which voice actor has been chosen to play him. However he does not speak the Nagano dialect that Kansuke sometimes speaks. There is a difference between accent and dialect. Accent is how words are spoken and Dialect is what words you use.
I hope that I can find someway to contribute to the community even if it's just random crack theories and looking things up for people who can't find the information they need.
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thriceplus

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Re: (SPOILERS) New theory about Hyoue Kuroda

Post by thriceplus »

jimmy_kud0_tv2 wrote:1. If you read ch916 in Japanese, Kuroda says that he specifically heard rumors from the NPA (警察庁 Keisatsuchou called National Police Agency in English) that Conan was the brains behind Sleeping Kogoro. Meaning he would have heard it before being transferred to Nagano to begin with.
2. Kuroda has no connection to Nagano. Yui specifically said that He was transferred there because he was old and was having memory issues. Typically brand new and elderly police members are transferred to more remote locations where there would be less actually happening.
3. The reason Gosho introduced Kuroda at that location is because he was using the name puns that he does. Like Kansuke and the other suspects in the Kawanakajima case, Kuroda's name comes from one of the members of Takeda Shingen's men.
4. We won't know if he has an Nagano accent until we know which voice actor has been chosen to play him. However he does not speak the Nagano dialect that Kansuke sometimes speaks. There is a difference between accent and dialect. Accent is how words are spoken and Dialect is what words you use.
Thanks for the info. Very useful.

OK, after checking what the NPA was, I see that Japan has no FBI-equivalent and everything is overseen by the police. I guess Japan's simply small enough that an FBI-equivalent is not necessary. Anyways, this makes much more sense now if Bourbon and Kuroda were to have some working relationship since everything is under one umbrella and the NPA oversees everything.
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