Fit the pieces together

[MeiTanteixX]

I'll just put it out there...

Wakita - BO member, closest subordinate of the Boss that underestimates Rum and that drugged Mary.

Rumi - Vermouth.

Tsutomu - Former CIA agent.

Mary - Former MI6 agent.

Kuroda - Akai Tsutomu.

Original Kuroda - NPA officer

Asaka - Not Rum. Asaka is Kohji's sister. She was drugged by Rum but survived. It's Maria Higashio.

Person who uploads info about Kouji's murder case - ...is Mary & Sera.

Muga - Highly skilled investigator/infiltrator/Assassin. He's not full-Japanese.

Rum - Iori Muga (Karasuma Muga).


In short, the only valid Rum suspects:

- Kuroda

- Wakita

- Iori

- Other past character that has already been introduced...

[DCUniverseAficionado]

All right my turn..!
1. Kuroda- Rum in disguise, And using actual kuroda's coma as mean to not use much of disguise(wearing glasses and using the stick)

And did both Rum and the real Hyoue both end up in a coma, 10 years ago? Did Rum lose his memory of Shiho's/Sherry's appearance?

Kuroda - Knows about Kouji's dying message, and a switch took place during his coma.

Original Kuroda - NPA officer

Then who replaced him?

[MeiTanteixX]

All right my turn..!
1. Kuroda- Rum in disguise, And using actual kuroda's coma as mean to not use much of disguise(wearing glasses and using the stick)

And did both Rum and the real Hyoue both end up in a coma, 10 years ago? Did Rum lose his memory of Shiho's/Sherry's appearance?

Kuroda - Knows about Kouji's dying message, and a switch took place during his coma.

Original Kuroda - NPA officer

Then who replaced him?

Not enough info to tell at the moment.
Was only stating the things I was sure of, or at least had a lead towards.

[DCUniverseAficionado]

All right my turn..!
1. Kuroda- Rum in disguise, And using actual kuroda's coma as mean to not use much of disguise(wearing glasses and using the stick)

And did both Rum and the real Hyoue both end up in a coma, 10 years ago? Did Rum lose his memory of Shiho's/Sherry's appearance?

Kuroda - Knows about Kouji's dying message, and a switch took place during his coma.

Original Kuroda - NPA officer

Then who replaced him?

Not enough info to tell at the moment.
Was only stating the things I was sure of, or at least had a lead towards.

True. Is Tsutomu is one of your candidates?

[ATEM]

but yonehara and sakurako both have clearified past and childhood

Her first name is Sakurako, and her last name is Yonehara. She's one person.

Sorry for that It's a stupid of me but I thought of uehara xD xD

[jimmy_kud0_tv2]

Kuroda - I genuinely think that he is a police officer who was in a coma and only has a back story to make him more suspicious. I still like my original idea from way back that he is somehow blood related to Sakurako and that she gave him a bit of info about how Conan acts when other grown ups aren't around, that contributed to Kuroda's other information about Conan, from the NPA, that lead to his conclusion about Conan being the brains behind Sleeping Kogoro.

[W]akasa Rum[i] and [W]akita Kanenor[i] - I think these two are actually working together. One is going after Conan and the other after Kogoro. It seems like their goal is to find the best detective and get them to solve the case from 17 years ago. However, I bet that as they get closer to their respective targets, they may begin to see patterns of deduction style. They might be the ones behind the information upload, but I don't know yet. I feel like Wakita's news paper in the recent case may have been of something else. (Nichiuri Newspaper)

To me, it feels like the two of them, combined with Kuroda, are making this mini "The Secret Behind Sleeping Kogoro" arc within the greater Rum arc. However I doubt any of the three of them are actually Rum.

Tsutomu - please be just as dead as Tequilla.

Mary - Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, The lamb was sure to go. He followed her to school one day, Which was against the rules, It made the children laugh and play, To see a lamb at school. And so the teacher turned it out, But still it lingered near, He waited patiently about, Till Mary did appear. "Why does the lamb love Mary so?" The eager children cried. "Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know," The teacher did reply.

? ? ? - I'm really hoping that its Akai in a wig trying to observe Amuro, to make the transition to him knowing that he is alive, more smoothly. Doing so on the same type of day that he "died" (Friday the 13th) could be a lead in. You know he's going to discover it eventually. Might as well try to curb that homicidal rage. If nothing else, I want it to be Akai so that parallels could be drawn between Conan + Heiji, and Akai + Amuro team ups using this case.

Asaka - maybe its Rumi, maybe it isn't. I don't know

Rum - I don't like most of the suspects that we have listed currently. I'm really hoping that Rum either hasn't been introduced, or was introduced in the Bourbon arc, but is not that obvious of a suspect.

[MeiTanteixX]

True. Is Tsutomu is one of your candidates?

Tsutomu is one of my strongest candidates,... but the problem is...

...I'm still not sure if he's alive, mostly because of Gosho's ambiguous words in the interview. "unfortunately..." sounds like a death, and "It's a secret" sounds like a damage control, in order to leave the survival option a possibility to the readers. And there's too many assumptions to be made before "Kuroda=Tsutomu" makes sense.

...Rum is definitely a valid candidate, but his motives are highly questionable. The most reasonable motive for Rum to undergo a plastic surgery and become a new person would be to infiltrate the NPA, a strong source for vital information(like the NOC list). But then why would he leave it? I'm assuming that Kuroda left it soon after he woke up from the coma. If he wanted to avoid daily connections with original kuroda's colleagues(to avoid suspicion), while still maintaining a bond to the NPA(in order to ask for info when needed, as a superintendent of MPD), then it makes somewhat sense, but that's just a weak reason. Especially when his mission seems to be pointing to exterminating rats, the main focus should be to get as much info on spies from the NPA, and then leave to another prefecture. But considering that Bourbon is still alive, that doesn't seem to be the case,....he just left it...which further points him to being someone else, like Tsutomu(since I'm pretty sure that he is not the original Kuroda).

In other words...
Gosho's words have me doubting Tsutomu's survival,...
And if Rum is Kuroda, then he isn't using his infiltration effectively, or there is a new factor involved that forced him to step back.

[DCUniverseAficionado]

Kuroda - I genuinely think that he is a police officer who was in a coma and only has a back story to make him more suspicious. I still like my original idea from way back that he is somehow blood related to Sakurako and that she gave him a bit of info about how Conan acts when other grown ups aren't around, that contributed to Kuroda's other information about Conan, from the NPA, that lead to his conclusion about Conan being the brains behind Sleeping Kogoro.

At the very least, I think that accident had something to do with Rum, if there's no replacement during coma involved.

[W]akasa Rum[i] and [W]akita Kanenor[i] - I think these two are actually working together. One is going after Conan and the other after Kogoro. It seems like their goal is to find the best detective and get them to solve the case from 17 years ago. However, I bet that as they get closer to their respective targets, they may begin to see patterns of deduction style. They might be the ones behind the information upload, but I don't know yet. I feel like Wakita's news paper in the recent case may have been of something else. (Nichiuri Newspaper)

To me, it feels like the two of them, combined with Kuroda, are making this mini "The Secret Behind Sleeping Kogoro" arc within the greater Rum arc. However I doubt any of the three of them are actually Rum.

I can think of what Rumi's relation to the Amanda/Koji double murder... but what would be Kanenori's?

Yep—we aren't shown the picture he's looking at, and this happens right after Hyoue was looking at Rumi's picture in the news. Definitely strikes me as a Gosho mislead.

Rumi's absolutely not Rum, and both Hyoue and Kanenori have many red herring elements to them.

Tsutomu - please be just as dead as Tequilla.

Why?

Rum - I don't like most of the suspects that we have listed currently. I'm really hoping that Rum either hasn't been introduced, or was introduced in the Bourbon arc, but is not that obvious of a suspect.

And which ones do you like?

Tsutomu is one of my strongest candidates,... but the problem is...

...I'm still not sure if he's alive, mostly because of Gosho's ambiguous words in the interview. "unfortunately..." sounds like a death, and "It's a secret" sounds like a damage control, in order to leave the survival option a possibility to the readers. And there's too many assumptions to be made before "Kuroda=Tsutomu" makes sense.

In other words...
Gosho's words have me doubting Tsutomu's survival,...

The way I see it is this—he started by saying, "unfortunately," only to make it sound like he was going to say that Tsutomu was dead, before suddenly saying, "it's a secret!", thus causing a stir.

After all, the text reads: "Unfortunately... it's a secret!", not: "Unfortunately, it's a secret." Note the differences.

True, one must make a lot of assumptions, as we have so little info, at this point.

[MeiTanteixX]

Tsutomu is one of my strongest candidates,... but the problem is...

...I'm still not sure if he's alive, mostly because of Gosho's ambiguous words in the interview. "unfortunately..." sounds like a death, and "It's a secret" sounds like a damage control, in order to leave the survival option a possibility to the readers. And there's too many assumptions to be made before "Kuroda=Tsutomu" makes sense.

In other words...
Gosho's words have me doubting Tsutomu's survival,...

The way I see it is this—he started by saying, "unfortunately," only to make it sound like he was going to say that Tsutomu was dead, before suddenly saying, "it's a secret!", thus causing a stir.

After all, the text reads: "Unfortunately... it's a secret!", not: "Unfortunately, it's a secret." Note the differences.

True, one must make a lot of assumptions, as we have so little info, at this point.

Yes, and that was exactly as I read the text... "Unfortunately...", with "..." dots, implying a continuation to the sentence, but then sudddenly interrupted with "It's a secret".

One thing I'm sure of is the swap. Gosho has no reason to hint towards an actual suspicious event and then roughly disregard it as red-herring, since the way the story was told, the nurse was shocked because of a sudden transformation, which doesn't happen right away because of stress. I believe similarly to the bandaged guy from that old Heiji case(File 150), the bandage is changed after every 2-3 days(a pretty short interval), so I doubt the nurse's reaction was out of lack of knowledge. The whole Hair-colour-change in of itself is actually still not scientifically proven to be possible to happen overnight, unless Original Kuroda had gray(black&white) hair from the start and lost all his black hair strands due to alopecia areata(leaving only white hair strands)(Interesting article).

[DCUniverseAficionado]

Tsutomu is one of my strongest candidates,... but the problem is...

...I'm still not sure if he's alive, mostly because of Gosho's ambiguous words in the interview. "unfortunately..." sounds like a death, and "It's a secret" sounds like a damage control, in order to leave the survival option a possibility to the readers. And there's too many assumptions to be made before "Kuroda=Tsutomu" makes sense.

In other words...
Gosho's words have me doubting Tsutomu's survival,...

The way I see it is this—he started by saying, "unfortunately," only to make it sound like he was going to say that Tsutomu was dead, before suddenly saying, "it's a secret!", thus causing a stir.

After all, the text reads: "Unfortunately... it's a secret!", not: "Unfortunately, it's a secret." Note the differences.

True, one must make a lot of assumptions, as we have so little info, at this point.

One thing I'm sure of is the swap. Gosho has no reason to hint towards an actual suspicious event and then roughly disregard it as red-herring, since the way the story was told, the nurse was shocked because of a sudden transformation, which doesn't happen right away because of stress. I believe similarly to the bandaged guy from that old Heiji case(File 150), the bandage is changed after every 2-3 days(a pretty short interval), so I doubt the nurse's reaction was out of lack of knowledge. The whole Hair-colour-change in of itself is actually still not scientifically proven to be possible to happen overnight, unless Original Kuroda had gray(black&white) hair from the start and lost all his black hair strands due to alopecia areata(leaving only white hair strands)(Interesting article).

Either there was a swap... or Gosho's going to go with that article's explanation and just have Rum be involved in the accident—it's certainly a way Rum could've lost an eye... we still don't know the specifics of said accident.

[MeiTanteixX]

Tsutomu is one of my strongest candidates,... but the problem is...

...I'm still not sure if he's alive, mostly because of Gosho's ambiguous words in the interview. "unfortunately..." sounds like a death, and "It's a secret" sounds like a damage control, in order to leave the survival option a possibility to the readers. And there's too many assumptions to be made before "Kuroda=Tsutomu" makes sense.

In other words...
Gosho's words have me doubting Tsutomu's survival,...

The way I see it is this—he started by saying, "unfortunately," only to make it sound like he was going to say that Tsutomu was dead, before suddenly saying, "it's a secret!", thus causing a stir.

After all, the text reads: "Unfortunately... it's a secret!", not: "Unfortunately, it's a secret." Note the differences.

True, one must make a lot of assumptions, as we have so little info, at this point.

One thing I'm sure of is the swap. Gosho has no reason to hint towards an actual suspicious event and then roughly disregard it as red-herring, since the way the story was told, the nurse was shocked because of a sudden transformation, which doesn't happen right away because of stress. I believe similarly to the bandaged guy from that old Heiji case(File 150), the bandage is changed after every 2-3 days(a pretty short interval), so I doubt the nurse's reaction was out of lack of knowledge. The whole Hair-colour-change in of itself is actually still not scientifically proven to be possible to happen overnight, unless Original Kuroda had gray(black&white) hair from the start and lost all his black hair strands due to alopecia areata(leaving only white hair strands)(Interesting article).

Either there was a swap... or Gosho's going to go with that article's explanation and just have Rum be involved in the accident—it's certainly a way Rum could've lost an eye... we still don't know the specifics of said accident.

So your other option is that there was no swap?
Whether Rum was involved in that accident(Which I personally believe he was) or not is irrelevant to this specific topic about the transformation...
Or am l missing something in regards to the article?

[DCUniverseAficionado]

Tsutomu is one of my strongest candidates,... but the problem is...

...I'm still not sure if he's alive, mostly because of Gosho's ambiguous words in the interview. "unfortunately..." sounds like a death, and "It's a secret" sounds like a damage control, in order to leave the survival option a possibility to the readers. And there's too many assumptions to be made before "Kuroda=Tsutomu" makes sense.

In other words...
Gosho's words have me doubting Tsutomu's survival,...

The way I see it is this—he started by saying, "unfortunately," only to make it sound like he was going to say that Tsutomu was dead, before suddenly saying, "it's a secret!", thus causing a stir.

After all, the text reads: "Unfortunately... it's a secret!", not: "Unfortunately, it's a secret." Note the differences.

True, one must make a lot of assumptions, as we have so little info, at this point.

One thing I'm sure of is the swap. Gosho has no reason to hint towards an actual suspicious event and then roughly disregard it as red-herring, since the way the story was told, the nurse was shocked because of a sudden transformation, which doesn't happen right away because of stress. I believe similarly to the bandaged guy from that old Heiji case(File 150), the bandage is changed after every 2-3 days(a pretty short interval), so I doubt the nurse's reaction was out of lack of knowledge. The whole Hair-colour-change in of itself is actually still not scientifically proven to be possible to happen overnight, unless Original Kuroda had gray(black&white) hair from the start and lost all his black hair strands due to alopecia areata(leaving only white hair strands)(Interesting article).

Either there was a swap... or Gosho's going to go with that article's explanation and just have Rum be involved in the accident—it's certainly a way Rum could've lost an eye... we still don't know the specifics of said accident.

So your other option is that there was no swap?

Indeed.

[MeiTanteixX]

Tsutomu is one of my strongest candidates,... but the problem is...

...I'm still not sure if he's alive, mostly because of Gosho's ambiguous words in the interview. "unfortunately..." sounds like a death, and "It's a secret" sounds like a damage control, in order to leave the survival option a possibility to the readers. And there's too many assumptions to be made before "Kuroda=Tsutomu" makes sense.

In other words...
Gosho's words have me doubting Tsutomu's survival,...

The way I see it is this—he started by saying, "unfortunately," only to make it sound like he was going to say that Tsutomu was dead, before suddenly saying, "it's a secret!", thus causing a stir.

After all, the text reads: "Unfortunately... it's a secret!", not: "Unfortunately, it's a secret." Note the differences.

True, one must make a lot of assumptions, as we have so little info, at this point.

One thing I'm sure of is the swap. Gosho has no reason to hint towards an actual suspicious event and then roughly disregard it as red-herring, since the way the story was told, the nurse was shocked because of a sudden transformation, which doesn't happen right away because of stress. I believe similarly to the bandaged guy from that old Heiji case(File 150), the bandage is changed after every 2-3 days(a pretty short interval), so I doubt the nurse's reaction was out of lack of knowledge. The whole Hair-colour-change in of itself is actually still not scientifically proven to be possible to happen overnight, unless Original Kuroda had gray(black&white) hair from the start and lost all his black hair strands due to alopecia areata(leaving only white hair strands)(Interesting article).

Either there was a swap... or Gosho's going to go with that article's explanation and just have Rum be involved in the accident—it's certainly a way Rum could've lost an eye... we still don't know the specifics of said accident.

So your other option is that there was no swap?

Indeed.

Hope that Gosho chooses the scientific route then.

[rainexcvi]

kuroda - i have a feeling that he's a good guy. my guess is he's amuro's boss

wakita- red herring of the arc. for me his introduction case doesnt have an impact. another eisuke for me

rumi- gf of kohji and asaka.

daddy akai- alive!!!!

case uploader- it looks like Mary for me, asking for help

[DCUniverseAficionado]

Updating my list:

Hyoe
1A. Tsutomu in disguise
1AA. Real/Pre-Coma Hyoue was a person of authority at the NPA—so, now, Tsutomu is Rei's/Toru's boss at the Security Bureau
1AB. Real/Pre-Coma Hyoue was Rum—so, now, Tsutomu is Rum
1B. Rei's/Toru's boss at the Security Bureau
2. Rum... but only if he doesn't remember what Shiho/Sherry looked like and then the BO basically goes, "Oh, she's dead, no need to inform him about anything related to her! We won't even bring her up!"

Rumi
1. Asaka (On top of being Amanda's bodyguard, she had a personal connection to Koji (I think that it's more likely that they were lovers rather than family members, though)—she witnessed the double-murder, escaped, and, now, is out for revenge against Rum—she's now testing Shinichi/Conan to see if he can help her)
1A. Former BO Agent; Current Intelligence Agent
1B. Intelligence Agent Currently Infiltrating the BO
1A/B A. NPA Security Bureau / MPD PSB
1A/B B. Other (FBI, CIA, etc.)
1C. Currently Infiltrating the BO (but she's not an intelligence agent)
2. BO member
2A. Vermouth
2B. Other

Kanenori
Either:
Codenamed BO member
A. Not Rum – This, I think, is the reason for Gosho making him a Rum suspect; Gosho wants us to think Kanenori is Rum so people won't see the twist coming, the twist that he is a BO member... but he's not Rum.
AA. A high-ranked BO member
AB. Not a high-ranked BO member
B. Rum – He's more likely to be Rum than, say, Sakurako or Rumi, but I think it's far more likely he'll turn out to be a Rum red herring.
And/Or:
Connected to plot-relevant character
A. Rei/Toru/Bourbon
AA. Former boxing coach; Loyal BO member (Rum or not; High-ranked or not)
AB. Former boxing coach; Current NPA / MPD PSB affiliate/agent
AC. Literally just his former boxing coach and currently-wandering chef who happens to be into mysteries
B. Other
Or:
Just a wandering chef who happens to be into mysteries

Uploader
1. Asaka
1A. Rumi
2. Other
2A. Tsutomu

Tsutomu
1. Alive
1A. Disguised as Hyoue
1B. Disguised as another character
1C. In hiding
1CA. Shrunk due to APTX?
1D. Is Rum (and has had that codename—and has been a BO member—for over 17 years)
2. Dead

Muga
Either:
BO
A. Rum
B. Not Rum
BA. Not High-Ranked (But still codenamed)
Or:
Literally just Momiji's butler
Or, just maybe:
Intelligence Agent
A. NPA, MPD PSB, FBI, CIA, etc.

Asaka
1. Rumi
2. Other
3. Rum

Who Rum is not
Rum ≠ Mary

Rum ≠ Sakurako

Rum ≠ Rumi

Rum ≠ Kiyonaga

Rum ≠ Inspector Momose

Rum ≠ Ryujiro Uematsu

Unsure
Tsutomu (I just can't be as sure about him not being Rum—as in, him being Rum all along, as far back as 17 years ago—as sure as I am about Rumi, Sakurako or Kiyonaga not being Rum... and, of course, if Real/Pre-Coma Hyoue was Rum, Tsutomu/Post-Coma Hyoue can be Rum, that way, too. Ultimately, my bet's on the latter option, in terms of him being Rum, but I can't yet completely discount the chance that he was Rum all along... but that option is nowhere near my first choice)

Asaka (This is really a question of whether Rum was able to become Amanda's bodyguard, or whether Rum simply came to the room and overpowered the bodyguard—my bet, though, is that Rumi is more likely to turn out to be Asaka than Rum)

Who Rum might just be
Kanenori; Hyoe (whether Tsutomu has replaced him or not) – Least likely

Muga – I have mixed feelings about this (you can thank MeitanteixX for this), but he's higher on the list because of just how low other suspects are.

Taka'aki; Heizo – Here's the most likely candidates for the "Rum turns out to be a character introduced before the arc that bears his name" twist (according to Chek's vision tests, so far, Taka'aki is not hiding an artificial eye—therefore, he's gets knocked down a peg, and that's in addition to his frequent interactions with Shinichi/Conan)

Chikara Katsumata – My #1 candidate for Rum's true identity