Rum Arc Discussion Thread (Plot + Characters)

[K.O.R.N]

I don't think Kouji has any idea of Rum is a BO member, or even if Rum exists, honestly. To know of BO's existence, you either have to be a member of the org, a spy, or is related to the victims of BO. And the message Asaca Rum can be interpreted in many different ways. It doesn't have to be that Asaka = Rum. It could just mean Asaka and Rum are related to each other in some ways, or that both are involved in this case. It could also be that Kouji intended to write "Rumi" instead of "Rum", pointing to Rumi as a person the police should go ask for help in this case.

[PhantomWriter]

I don't think Kouji has any idea of Rum is a BO member, or even if Rum exists, honestly. To know of BO's existence, you either have to be a member of the org, a spy, or is related to the victims of BO. And the message Asaca Rum can be interpreted in many different ways. It doesn't have to be that Asaka = Rum. It could just mean Asaka and Rum are related to each other in some ways, or that both are involved in this case. It could also be that Kouji intended to write "Rumi" instead of "Rum", pointing to Rumi as a person the police should go ask for help in this case.

I have to agree about the likelihood of Kohji having known Rum under the name Rum is low. However, the problem with that is that most murder victims who have a chance to write something out or leave a message leave a message about their killer. It's also very rare for people not to know their killer's names, too. Keeping that in mind, such a message would be more likely to make the police think she killed him if they found the message.

Personally, I think, through process of elimination, that Wakasa Rumi is Asaka:

• Asaka is smaller in frame, more lithe than broad-shouldered. This eliminates Kuroda, Chikara, Tsutomu, and Wakita, who are all noticeably broad in the shoulders.
• Asaka has long, dark hair. This eliminates Mary, who has blonde hair as her natural color.
• Asaka was a bodyguard 17 years ago, which means Asaka was an adult at the time. This eliminates Iori and Sakurako from the suspect list if their listed ages are accurate. Iori would have been 13 and Sakurako would have been 5 at the time.

This is also not discussing other details, such as Wakasa's choice of pseudonym (because that name either means she has phenomenally bad luck or she is intentionally using it to mark her involvement to possible allies), her strong reaction to blinding/prosthetic eyes, the likely objects in her pocket, her wish not to be in the papers and for people to think she's just a lucky klutz, and her ability to use close-quarters combat like she can.

Mary is possibly MI6, given her UK connections, the "secret service" observation Conan has (MI6 is actually SIS- Secret Intelligence Service), and several hints in the dialogue and her actions and abilities. She's certainly against the Organization, even if she isn't affiliated with MI6, given that they keep trying to murder her family and tried to murder her. I can understand her distrust in Kudo, too. Kudo has a lot of issues with keeping a low profile compared to others.

I'm hesitant to speak of Kuroda at the moment. I need more time to think about him. Wakita, Chikara, and Iori have little information to go by, so that is an issue and I'd rather not make guesses without more information. I just have them mentally tagged as a person of interest for the time being.

As for Tsutomu, we have little information, making it hard to theorize anything about him. The reason why the faked death theories and stuff surrounding Shuichi and Subaru worked was because we had some idea of what he was like before he had to fake his death. Turns of phrase, knowledge, how he acts (such being left-handed and his fondness for bourbon), that sort of thing. We also saw enough of the setup during the Clash for a person to be able to deduce how the trick worked. We never knew Tsutomu and we know little of the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, so we don't have that knowledge. Yet it was acknowledged that nobody found Tsutomu's body in seven years, which could be a red flag or a red herring, puns entirely intended.

[K.O.R.N]

I have to agree about the likelihood of Kohji having known Rum under the name Rum is low. However, the problem with that is that most murder victims who have a chance to write something out or leave a message leave a message about their killer. It's also very rare for people not to know their killer's names, too. Keeping that in mind, such a message would be more likely to make the police think she killed him if they found the message.

Very ingenious thinking from your part, in fact. If Kouji knows Rum, then, I guess, the possibility of Chikara being Rum is much higher, since there's a connection in Shogi. Man, if this becomes true that would be such genious maneuver from Gosho. 17 years ago Chikara was around 30ish, allegedly, since I think right now he's late 40s, something like that. You gotta be someone special, or have some special luck to know the 2nd-in-command of such a mysterious organization.

However, the argument against Chikara is that, for now he doesn't even looks strong at all. But again, Kouji Haneda is a shogi player, not a karate master, so, it's likely that Kouji doesn't know martial arts, or is physically strong enough...with that in mind, Kouji not being strong, and Chikara not strong either (unless 17 years ago he was much fitter than now, and now cloaks a disguise as a shogi player), Chikara still would've struggled to kill Kouji back then...But then there was Asaka the bodyguard. To be hired by an influential person like Amanda, Asaka is no slouch, and should be physically strong. If Chikira is like this, 17 years ago he could've been KO-ed by Asaka actually. But, Rum is a 2nd-in-command so it's still possible that he used some sort of stealth attack, like putting APTX in the tea for delivery service to Amanda, Kouji, and Asaka back then. Knowing that he couldn't go against all these people, he might've sought to isolate the strong Asaka, to kill Amanda first, and then used some stealthy moves to finish off Kouji, who witnessed him run away after he killed Amanda. But unfortunately, Rum wasn't "strong" enough back then to take on both Kouji and Asaka, hence the Kouji's room being in a mess.

Just what I thought. Your sensible approach to the dying message, actually helps me come up with an argument that could point to Chikara, the one with the least appearances, to be the 2nd-in-command, whom we have been longing to see the identity of! Props!

[PhantomWriter]

Hold your horses, Korn. I was merely saying that he wouldn't leave a message pointing at someone who wasn't the killer. Even if he has no idea of who his killer is, making a message to point to a person would be incredibly risky because the police would think that he was pointing to the culprit. That's generally what you do when you're murdered but you have enough time for creating some kind of message.

While Chikara has a similar background to him in terms of shogi and would be old enough to be Rum, the other major Rum suspects are also old enough. He may have been introduced to them or they may have been in the area at the time for other reasons. Such as dealing with Amanda, an influential woman associated with the FBI and CIA. Security would generally be quite lax at a chess tournament.

[MeiTanteixX]

I have to agree about the likelihood of Kohji having known Rum under the name Rum is low. However, the problem with that is that most murder victims who have a chance to write something out or leave a message leave a message about their killer. It's also very rare for people not to know their killer's names, too. Keeping that in mind, such a message would be more likely to make the police think she killed him if they found the message.

Personally, I think, through process of elimination, that Wakasa Rumi is Asaka:

• Asaka is smaller in frame, more lithe than broad-shouldered. This eliminates Kuroda, Chikara, Tsutomu, and Wakita, who are all noticeably broad in the shoulders.
• Asaka has long, dark hair. This eliminates Mary, who has blonde hair as her natural color.
• Asaka was a bodyguard 17 years ago, which means Asaka was an adult at the time. This eliminates Iori and Sakurako from the suspect list if their listed ages are accurate. Iori would have been 13 and Sakurako would have been 5 at the time.

This is also not discussing other details, such as Wakasa's choice of pseudonym (because that name either means she has phenomenally bad luck or she is intentionally using it to mark her involvement to possible allies), her strong reaction to blinding/prosthetic eyes, the likely objects in her pocket, her wish not to be in the papers and for people to think she's just a lucky klutz, and her ability to use close-quarters combat like she can.

Mary is possibly MI6, given her UK connections, the "secret service" observation Conan has (MI6 is actually SIS- Secret Intelligence Service), and several hints in the dialogue and her actions and abilities. She's certainly against the Organization, even if she isn't affiliated with MI6, given that they keep trying to murder her family and tried to murder her. I can understand her distrust in Kudo, too. Kudo has a lot of issues with keeping a low profile compared to others.

I'm hesitant to speak of Kuroda at the moment. I need more time to think about him. Wakita, Chikara, and Iori have little information to go by, so that is an issue and I'd rather not make guesses without more information. I just have them mentally tagged as a person of interest for the time being.

As for Tsutomu, we have little information, making it hard to theorize anything about him. The reason why the faked death theories and stuff surrounding Shuichi and Subaru worked was because we had some idea of what he was like before he had to fake his death. Turns of phrase, knowledge, how he acts (such being left-handed and his fondness for bourbon), that sort of thing. We also saw enough of the setup during the Clash for a person to be able to deduce how the trick worked. We never knew Tsutomu and we know little of the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, so we don't have that knowledge. Yet it was acknowledged that nobody found Tsutomu's body in seven years, which could be a red flag or a red herring, puns entirely intended.

Well said. This assessment is clean. I agree with you on this fully. Although I'm not in a rush to pin Rumi as Asaka(since that could easily be a red-herring and we could still get more new characters), she is definitely the one you are left with through process of elimination, appearance-wise(which is all that we got on Asaka's part at the moment).

[DCUniverseAficionado]

I can understand her distrust in Kudo, too. Kudo has a lot of issues with keeping a low profile compared to others.

The key is, what does she think has changed about him over the course of 10 years?

Unless you combine the problematic implications of him not keeping a low profile now, and his tendency to be a sentinel for murders even when he actually was 7—he didn't need to keep a low profile, back then—I find it hard pressed to buy that the primary cause of her sudden "keep your guard up around that monster lurking in the dark" attitude is how much of a low profile he keeps.

On the topic of Rumi = Asaka, I do have to wonder whether or not she was a BO agent, as well, 17 years ago. I have to wonder whether or not she became Amanda's bodyguard on the BO's behalf (to give Amanda a false sense of security, which Rum would then have a free hand to exploit)—she was perfectly fine with standing by and getting Amanda murdered (just like with the golfer's girlfriend)—but the unexpected murder of Koji (since he may very well have been Rumi's boyfriend or brother) turned her against the BO (just like the death of Shiho's/Sherry's loved one turned her against the BO).

[PhantomWriter]

I can understand her distrust in Kudo, too. Kudo has a lot of issues with keeping a low profile compared to others.

The key is, what does she think has changed about him over the course of 10 years?

Unless you combine the problematic implications of him not keeping a low profile now, and his tendency to be a sentinel for murders even when he actually was 7—he didn't need to keep a low profile, back then—I find it hard pressed to buy that the primary cause of her sudden "keep your guard up around that monster lurking in the dark" attitude is how much of a low profile he keeps.

On the topic of Rumi = Asaka, I do have to wonder whether or not she was a BO agent, as well, 17 years ago. I have to wonder whether or not she became Amanda's bodyguard on the BO's behalf (to give Amanda a false sense of security, which Rum would then have a free hand to exploit)—she was perfectly fine with standing by and getting Amanda murdered (just like with the golfer's girlfriend)—but the unexpected murder of Koji (since he may very well have been Rumi's boyfriend or brother) turned her against the BO (just like the death of Shiho's/Sherry's loved one turned her against the BO).

Perhaps it's his puppeteering of Kogoro? That's something I think we as readers/viewers have gotten a bit too used to. She perhaps rightly guessed the intention with Agasa and Conan's original plan to make Kogoro into a great detective- to use him as a lure to dig into Org. related cases. Problem is, with how the Org. acts, that is likely to get Kogoro in a lot of hot water if one isn't careful. While I don't doubt that the various adult characters of certain stripes are used to more morally ambiguous actions, the fact that someone her daughter's age is acting like that and seems to have no problems with using the father of someone he cares about as bait would be disturbing.

Considering his contradictory actions, too, that could compound matters. By contradictory actions, I mean how he wants to find out what's going on with her. However, every time Masumi approaches him or tries to get him to come alone to speak with Mary, he flakes or he brings people along, essentially cancelling the meeting. Especially weird, since it should be obvious that Masumi is an ally and, before the flashback, it should have been obvious that Mary was shrunken with the hints Masumi gives about her family makeup. He's supposed to be intelligent and he knows for a fact that the shrinking effect exists. But, when there's a murder or when he's with people who don't know about the Org. or the poison, THEN he decides "I need to investigate the mysterious girl living with Sera right now," even though it's quite obvious she's in hiding. It comes across as him being short-sighted, especially since that would raise questions about who Mary is and why Masumi kept lying to everyone about things like "I'm living alone" and "My dad's dead. I only have an older brother in Japan- the other died in the line of duty- and my mother's back in America."

As for Asaka and Rum, we don't have enough information to determine if Asaka was Org. or not, unless Ai's reaction in that camping case was her Org. sense going off. There's so little that we know and it makes sense that we don't know a lot. It's a cold case from seventeen years ago. An investigator vanished, as did the prime suspect, and the murderer (assuming they're different people). And the files/photos of the investigation are under a completely different country's jurisdiction, leaving us only with the information the uploader gave, which may be incomplete.

Morally ambiguous actions aren't the purview of the Organization alone, either, so I wouldn't necessarily assume Wakasa's willingness with that golfer case to be a sign that she's in the Org. We've seen characters driven so strongly by vengeance that they will do things otherwise repugnant in the pursuit of their endgoal. Rei's a pretty good example of that, considering how his plans for Akai would get Kir killed, too, and killing off two useful allies would hurt his organization's presumable goal of "bring down the Black Org."

But, for the sake of argument, the main scenario I could see the idea of Asaka being Rum's lackey working with would be if they suspected that Amanda knew something incredibly important and was going to spread that information very soon, thus killing her ASAP was a priority. Otherwise, if the Org. had an inside person like that, why not wait until another place or another time, when there'd be less risk of someone walking in on them or finding out something and them needing to be killed in turn? (Which is precisely what Rum had to do anyway- kill another person, who in turn had enough time to leave a message pointing to the culprit that Rum didn't have time to clean up.)

[DCUniverseAficionado]

Perhaps it's his puppeteering of Kogoro? That's something I think we as readers/viewers have gotten a bit too used to. She perhaps rightly guessed the intention with Agasa and Conan's original plan to make Kogoro into a great detective- to use him as a lure to dig into Org. related cases. Problem is, with how the Org. acts, that is likely to get Kogoro in a lot of hot water if one isn't careful. While I don't doubt that the various adult characters of certain stripes are used to more morally ambiguous actions, the fact that someone her daughter's age is acting like that and seems to have no problems with using the father of someone he cares about as bait would be disturbing.

Considering his contradictory actions, too, that could compound matters. By contradictory actions, I mean how he wants to find out what's going on with her. However, every time Masumi approaches him or tries to get him to come alone to speak with Mary, he flakes or he brings people along, essentially cancelling the meeting. Especially weird, since it should be obvious that Masumi is an ally and, before the flashback, it should have been obvious that Mary was shrunken with the hints Masumi gives about her family makeup. He's supposed to be intelligent and he knows for a fact that the shrinking effect exists. But, when there's a murder or when he's with people who don't know about the Org. or the poison, THEN he decides "I need to investigate the mysterious girl living with Sera right now," even though it's quite obvious she's in hiding. It comes across as him being short-sighted, especially since that would raise questions about who Mary is and why Masumi kept lying to everyone about things like "I'm living alone" and "My dad's dead. I only have an older brother in Japan- the other died in the line of duty- and my mother's back in America."

That means she didn't find out about it until Detective of Souls, then—if that was the dealbreaker, then her knowing about it before that case should've made her this wary well beforehand (in other words, this only works if Detective of Souls is what made her aware of that situation in the first place).

But it would be very interesting for this to be the reason behind Mary's seemingly sudden wariness—it would mean that Shinichi/Conan might actually be called out on this... especially after not immediately distancing himself from Kogoro after what happened during Black Impact. After the consequences-near-miss that was Scarlet Showdown, I can definitely get behind Shinichi/Conan having to develop as a character due to being faced with consequences due to something he did (be it getting called out or watching someone actually get hurt because he didn't distance himself from Kogoro after Black Impact).

You mean one time (903–905/787–788)? And I don't know about you, but Mary seemed to blame Masumi for that.

Morally ambiguous actions aren't the purview of the Organization alone, either, so I wouldn't necessarily assume Wakasa's willingness with that golfer case to be a sign that she's in the Org.

Yeah, she could be a 3rd party/completely independent from both government agencies and the BO.

[K.O.R.N]

Yeah, I agree that right now Asaka's a wild card and so it's very hard to pinpoint exactly what the person is up to. If you assume that Asaka is Rumi, then it makes things somewhat easier, but, not entirely certain at this point yet. From all I know, being hired by Amanda means that Asaka's identity is of top secret and no one in Amanda family knew of Asaka at all. I think it's safe to assume that Asaka is a a secret agent and is aware of BO's existence, as well as Rum.

[DCUniverseAficionado]

Yeah, I agree that right now Asaka's a wild card and so it's very hard to pinpoint exactly what the person is up to. If you assume that Asaka is Rumi, then it makes things somewhat easier, but, not entirely certain at this point yet. From all I know, being hired by Amanda means that Asaka's identity is of top secret and no one in Amanda family knew of Asaka at all. I think it's safe to assume that Asaka is a a secret agent and is aware of BO's existence, as well as Rum.

Assuming Rumi = Asaka...

She was either a 3rd party/completely independent from government or BO bodyguard hired by Amanda (maybe even due to a recommendation from either her lover or her brother, Koji), who then got overpowered by Rum when he made his move to kill Amanda, leaving her powerless to stop the deaths of Amanda and Koji, and she ultimately fled (taking crime-scene evidence with her) because she feared she'd have no chance of not being convicted for the murder, and, thus, have no chance to get vengeance for Koji...

...or...

She was a BO agent who was part of the plan to kill Amanda, and managed to get hired by Amanda (maybe even due to a recommendation from either her lover or her brother, Koji), who then let Rum walk by her, but she couldn't stop Koji from becoming a witness, leading to Rum killing him, as well, leading her to immediately drop all allegiance to the BO, and flee (taking crime-scene evidence with her) because she didn't want to own up to her own misdeeds, and/or feared she'd have no chance of not being convicted for the murder, and, thus, have no chance to get vengeance for Koji...

Either way, she's out for vengeance against Rum—and the whole BO, by extension. Given what she was doing in the last panels of Page 16 of 1,005, in the wake of Shinichi's attention-attracting appearance in Kyoto, she may very well have finally realized just who Conan Edogawa really is. Now why would she test the skills of/want the help of Shinichi/Conan of all detectives? I'm waiting to hear that from her, when she and Shinichi/Conan have a talk about all this (I'm also waiting just as much for Shinichi/Conan and Mary to have their conversation about the how and why of her situation/circumstances). All I can say is that Rumi may very well have taken notice of Shinichi/Conan at the time that Mary seemed to suddenly become very wary of him (951–953/863–864).

[MeiTanteixX]

Summary of my Rum theory:

Spoiler:

[Kor]

Movie designs seem to disagree...?

Is Conan suspicious too?



Not entirely sure what's the point of connecting it all back to Karasuma, though. Nor do I understand how someone supposedly being blond makes them seem old.

[PhantomWriter]

Is Karasuma a possible reading of the kanji in Iori's name? That seems a bit of a stretch if that isn't the case...

[MeiTanteixX]

Spoiler:

Movie designs seem to disagree...?

Spoiler:

Q: What about [character] settings in the movies and manga? Are they the same or are they different?

A: I'd like to say that they're the same but they're contradicitng themselves in some spots... Sorry but I can't give you a short answer. Well! The movies are the movies and the manga is the manga.
"Let's Talk With Aoyama-sensei Day" (01/03/17)

Spoiler:

Is Conan suspicious too?

Spoiler:

Is there a consistency with Conan? what's the point of suspecting someone without there actually being a pattern? Although Muga only had two instances for us to observe(which hardly can be called a pattern), that they didn't contradict each other is a sign of consistency(we will have to wait and see until he ever wears glasses again).
This Conan pic is from File 979, the Rumi case, and it was most likely intended to parallel her.

Nor do I understand how someone supposedly being blond makes them seem old.

Just like with Kansuke and his cane, if seen from afar, someone could mistake him for an old man because of his light hair-colour(commonly associated with old age). Because it's manga, we can't tell if it would be whitish or blond, but assuming that he has European blood ties, his hair could easily be extremely light blond to the point of being mistaken as white from a distance.

[Zerozaki4869]

If I'm not mistaking then we have also seen one Instance when Iori was looking back at Heiji after keening that fake-Tengu by his left eye. If that was a prosthetic the whole action is an anomaly and at the same time he realized it was Heiji as he said it Momiji. So that fake eye doesn't hold good anymore.