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File 622 being Okiya Introduction Case.
File 898 being the end of the Scarlet Showdown Case.

To me, the Bourbon Arc is the lowest point of the series:
- Okiya's allegiance and Scar Akai's allegiance was pretty much solved well before even Sera's introduction. Red Shirts Case solidified the allegiances of Scar Akai and Okiya even if we didn't know Bourbon's true face, or even if Scar Akai was Bourbon.
- Scar Akai appears in two cases before Amuro's introduction case, with nearly a 100-chapter gap.
- "Wedge of Steel" Kir does close to nothing, while Bourbon is able to run around and play Tennis with Conan, and has near freedom.
- There isn't a background case like with the Rum Arc (Haneda Kohji Case) or Kir Arc (Hondou Case/plot from 2 years ago)
- Mystery Train shows that Amuro was Scar Akai and Bourbon, and Okiya is Akai, and Sera is Akai's sister. This case would have been great if it served as one of the climax cases with the Bourbon Arc if the Pickpocket Case and Tea Case and Scarlet Showdown were grouped closer together similar to Clash of Red and Black. Because of this, the pacing of the arc is god awful.

Points of concern:
- Kir mentioned "Akai's sister" during the Hospital Case to Gin, so best case is Gosho had some idea of Akai's extended family, and worst case is he made a placeholder character for future use if he hadn't come up with Sera at that point of time.
- I'm going to presume the idea of a "female high school detective" was probably in the early stages of design during the Hospital Showdown Cases as the Female Detective from the High School Detective's Case proved to be popular.
- Okiya was always going to be Akai and not anyone else as Conan's Actions and Speech indicates that he was somebody he knew


My questions are as follows:

If Gosho was going to always have Bourbon be a spy, what is the logical reason/head canon as to why he's roaming around as Scar Akai? Or even why Gosho allowed this to happen? The actions of dressing up as Scar Akai are the actions of a loyal BO member, and not a spy. A spy working to take out the BO wouldn't be taking the risk of being killed by Gin/Chianti during the Red Shirts Case.

If Gosho was going to have Bourbon be a spy, why did Gosho have Akai willing to have Bourbon killed in at least one instance if not two. First being allowing Chianti to kill Scar Akai during the Red Shirts Case, and throwing a Grenade infront of his face during the Mystery Train.

During the Red Shirts case, Bourbon was stated he hates Akai the most.

The presumption during the Bourbon Arc was:
- Bourbon and Akai hate each other, or at least Bourbon hates Akai
- Mystery Train "hinted" at one reason for this being related to Akemi Miyano
- Bourbon started cosplaying as Akai to see if he was really dead by seeing FBI's reactions. Later dressed up to gauge Sera's reaction.
- Bourbon couldn't believe Akai would be killed during the Hospital Arc since he can only kill Akai himself
- Bourbon was skilled Detective as stated by Kir during Okiya's Intro Case
- Gin cancelled the kill order because Vermouth told him something, which was likely something to the effect of: "Bourbon dressed up as Akai to see if the FBI really thinks he's dead". Why Bourbon didn't tell the rest of the BO this, I don't really understand even given the knowledge that he's "Secretive" and with everything up to and including the Red Shirts case.


I'm highly convinced that Gosho reworked the Bourbon Arc's plot and characters after the Red Shirts Case up and to the London Case, or after the Mystery Train Arc.

As a main example:

Vermouth wanted Sherry dead during the Mystery Train Arc by blowing up the Train. Gin wanted Sherry dead and was going to blow up the Train Station upon the train arrival. Why would a spy allow Sherry to return to or get captured by the organisation? If not that, killed. He was the one who found the video of Sherry and told Vermouth and the BO.

Bourbon should have known Sherry was going to be dead for betraying the org the second he leaked that information. Given this information, if _SPY_Bourbon's police friends came to rescue Sherry after he realised Vermouth was determined to kill Sherry, how would he explain this to the BO?


The only real "foreshadowing" of something relative of Bourbon being a Spy that I found pre-Mystery Train was of someone calling the Bomb Squad during the Red Shirts case. An officer hints at an informant regarding the bombs involved, and the second officer dismisses the information saying they just want to save themselves. To me, I believe Scar Akai made that call to the police force, since he was able to solve the case, and likely also figured out the bombs were fake. This dialogue between the officers can still be consistent if Scar Akai was or wasn't a spy -- the informant could have been a background character too. This doesn't exactly matter too much.

Now when Scotch became involved, a lot of Bourbon's characterisation is changed so the reader can be sympathetic towards him. This is likely due to both Amuro's popularity, and the Seiyuu's popularity in Japan.

Yeah, I think Bourbon arc was poorly written/planned and would definitely have been more tolerable if it weren't for the fact that it lasted 7 years.

I didn't like that whole Scar Akai-schtick in general. Am I the only who thinks disguises shouldn't be the solution to everything anymore? It's "too easy" and kinda lazy writing at this point how big reveals are just something along the lines of "it wasn't actually him/her, but xxx in disguise"/"everyone can basically be anyone, just disguise yourself (or ask xxx to help you disguising)". It was alright the first time around, but it's getting old fast, so I wish Gosho wouldn't use this "trick" heavily anymore, but I probably shouldn't hold my breath.

Smitty wrote:File 622 being Okiya Introduction Case.
File 898 being the end of the Scarlet Showdown Case.

As a main example:

Vermouth wanted Sherry dead during the Mystery Train Arc by blowing up the Train. Gin wanted Sherry dead and was going to blow up the Train Station upon the train arrival. Why would a spy allow Sherry to return to or get captured by the organisation? If not that, killed. He was the one who found the video of Sherry and told Vermouth and the BO.

Bourbon should have known Sherry was going to be dead for betraying the org the second he leaked that information. Given this information, if _SPY_Bourbon's police friends came to rescue Sherry after he realised Vermouth was determined to kill Sherry, how would he explain this to the BO?

Yes, how Bourbon leaked Sherry's whereabouts to the BO makes him really look bad and makes no sense considering he's a spy. So he didn't want Vermouth to get her hands on Sherry and his plan was to have his colleagues from the NPA pick her up? As you pointed out: how would he have justified it to the BO that he took her with him? The only explanation I can think of is that the NPA was maybe hopeful that they would be able to squeeze enough information out of Sherry, so that Amuro could end his undercover mission right there and then (so no need for him to return to the BO and explain himself to them).
It would have made more sense to not inform the BO in the first place about Sherry and just have the NPA ready to take her in.

If Scar Akai was more of a Mystery and his allegiance wasn't basically compromised because of, and involving the characters Gin, Okiya, Jodie and Conan, it probably would of been interesting. The idea of Scar Akai solving cases in the background and hyping up Conan was a nice treat.

If you consider what actually happens during the Bourbon Arc, there isn't a whole lot relative to the status quo.

- Gin realizes Akai's death is being investigated
- Conan realizes Haibara has bulk antitode
- Sherry is confirmed as Dead as for as BO goes now (I don't know why Gosho wrote himself into a corner with this point)
- Bourbon and Akai have a showdown
- FBI knows Akai is alive (and reverses the end of the Kir Arc)
- Bourbon works underneath Kogoro's office, but Conan later finds out he's Police
- As far as BO goes, Akai is still dead

Other stuff happens too, but thats relative to other character arcs and not so much Bourbon's.

Smitty wrote:If Scar Akai was more of a Mystery and his allegiance wasn't basically compromised because of, and involving the characters Gin, Okiya, Jodie and Conan, it probably would of been interesting. The idea of Scar Akai solving cases in the background and hyping up Conan was a nice treat.

If you consider what actually happens during the Bourbon Arc, there isn't a whole lot relative to the status quo.

- Gin realizes Akai's death is being investigated
- Conan realizes Haibara has bulk antitode
- Sherry is confirmed as Dead as for as BO goes now (I don't know why Gosho wrote himself into a corner with this point)
- Bourbon and Akai have a showdown
- FBI knows Akai is alive (and reverses the end of the Kir Arc)
- Bourbon works underneath Kogoro's office, but Conan later finds out he's Police
- As far as BO goes, Akai is still dead

Other stuff happens too, but thats relative to other character arcs and not so much Bourbon's.

I love your discussion points. I mostly agree, at least in terms of the planning of the arc. In the recent Let's Talk, Gosho revealed that he changed Bourbon's allegiance midway during Amuro's intro. This means that his actions as Scar Akai was initially intended to be that of an enemy of the good guys (at least). What do you make of it?

I am interested in that interview if you have a link? I mos likely read it if it was posted here, but at the time I probably didn't think much of it.

Rereading/Rewatching the Bourbon Arc episodes is most definitely painful knowing the outcome of Scarlet Showdown. I don't blame Gosho for changing the plot given Amuro's popularity -- it must of occurred either after Mystery Train in the manga (which was printed in Shonen Sunday in the summer of 2012), after Detective's Nocturne's anime adaptation (in Fall 2012), or at the latest, after Mystery Train's anime adaptation in Summer of 2013.

FBI is also HIGHLY nerfed in terms of their skills and importance during this arc for whatever reason. I think even Gosho knows Team Conan was getting too big and too skilled to take on BO, of which, we don't even know their day-to-day operations of most of their members. Given Amuro is a spy, maybe Gin and Anokata are the only bad guys, and everyone else is a spy, and the entire plot of Conan is a gag.

The Bourbon arc introduces "extender" characters who get involved, or will likely get involved with future characters:

Nagano Duo -> Koumei -> Kuroda
Sera -> Akai Brothers -> Sister from the Domain -> Papa Akai
Sera + Yumi -> Shuukichi
Yonehara was introduced during a Nagano case (EYE Case)
Yuzuki Fukui is an interesting case character who got a Keyhole so she likely has importance later on.

Gosho typically "shows" that characters are not allowed to meet each other, i.e.: Haibara was conveniently not around when Bourbon appeared during the Takagi/Wataru case. I think Sera not being allowed to go to the EYE case is a hint of something related to Yonehara, who then was upgraded from a case character to a recurring character. She was a topic of discussion back in 2011 during the EYE Case Manga's adaptation.


I think parts of the RUM arc being adapted from parts Gosho's original vision of the Bourbon arc.

We have alot more "meat" given the Rum Arc:

- Identity of RUM, or any of the RUMs if Rum is actually 3 people
- Kuroda, Rumi Wakasa, and Wakita
- Roles of other characters like Scotch, Yonehara, Chikara Katsumata
- If Scotch and Koumei are brothers, will this actually advance the plot, and what is the significance of this relative to the status quo/Conan's view/or the plot in general?
- The case from 17 years ago, why Haneda Kouji and Amanda Hughes were killed
- Who is Asaka?
- Why did Asaka go into hiding? Who is the one posting the case online asking for help?
- How/why/what did RUM screw up?
- Gin's investigation of Kogoro
- Everything related to Mary/Papa Akai (which is sort of an extension since this plot began in the Bourbon Arc)

From the beginning of Bourbon arc till the end the switch was literally flipped. As scar Akai a loyal BO member made more sense to me than a Rat. If anything, a positive reaction(which Bourbon expected from Akai contacts if Akai was truly alive) would have screwed Kir quite considerably. Also why would a Rat want to kill another Rat when BO is mostly convinced of Akai's death.

Now switch got flipped when Conan expected Amuro to flee after Mystery train, which he did not. Thus Conan got the wind of Amuro's plans and the reader got the idea that Amuro was probably a spy who hates Akai's guts for some reason. Later it lead up to the Scarlet arc and we got stuff.

But it was based on Gosho's whim, that Amuro is too cute to be a Villain.
TBH, I was surprised to see someone else trying to ponder on these points.(Whenever I tried to discuss on it in discord, that how this whim of Gosho has severely compromised the quality of Bourbon arc, nobody seems to get the point.)

Smitty wrote:I am interested in that interview if you have a link? I mos likely read it if it was posted here, but at the time I probably didn't think much of it.

http://forums.dctp.ws/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13485#p879427

Q: "Please tell us about Amuro's debut."
A: "Truth to be told, Amuro wasn't from the Public Safety (PS) when he made his debut. He was actually a very bad guy. But when I was drawing the conclusion part of his debut episode (see Note 2) I thought that he was a cool guy, that I wanted him to be one of the good guys. So I suddenly changed that mid-way and turned him a PS guy. Since I was thinking of making a PS character appear. I wanted to make the case be something Amuro had set up to lure Kogorou out into the open but I gave up on that, too. "

Smitty wrote: Yuzuki Fukui is an interesting case character who got a Keyhole so she likely has importance later on.

That's not necessarily indicative of anything. There are a bunch of characters who appeared only once or twice, got a keyhole and didn't turn out to be important beyond their role in the case they appeared in. (Midori Megure, Fusae, Kazumi Tsukamoto, Kyosuke Haga, Natsuki Koshimizu, Hikaru Hinohara, etc.)

Natsuki Koshimizu is the most important character in Detective Conan, so please.