Rum Arc Discussion Thread (Plot + Characters)

[dccd]

Once again Kors quote:

It'd seem that Momiji was indeed thought of as a movie character but Gosho decided to make her show up in the manga too to make people familiar with her by the time the movie came out.
Also, Iori went through several design stages (at first it was a old geezer) before they made him a handsome type (TN: The movie staff, not Gosho)

This is confirmed by Gosho himself, so I think we should kinda stick to it.

So which info can we take from this?
Gosho did not planed to implement neither Momiji nor Iori into the manga.
Gosho did not had impact on the look of Iori.
Gosho did not even had impact on the age of Iori it seems("an old geezer...").
Does this sound like an important rum-arc character to you?

It all comes up to the point that you have to decide whether Gosho is the type of author who changes things afterwards or has a straight plan from the very beginning.
I would rate him as the latter.
(Before one comes up with Bourbon: Bourbon already appeared very early in the arc as Scar-Akai. So literally he was always there and hasn´t appeared only at the end of the arc as some used to state)

To sum it up:
It´s nearly impossible to believe that Gosho would use a character that he hasnt designed by himself, that was created long after the Rum-arc started and that was meant to me a movie-char only in the first place, to be an important Rum-arc-character.

[Chekhov MacGuffin]

Spoiler: Previous posts

Also, Iori went through several design stages (at first it was a old geezer) before they made him a handsome type (TN: The movie staff, not Gosho)

Wait, what - Are you kidding me?!
So basically the movie staff had a way higher impact on creating Iori than Gosho?
Does anybody yet still believe up to that point that Gosho will implement a important character into the Rum-arc which he hasn´t done by himself?

I mean this kinda is the ultimate proof that Iori won´t play any big part (not Rum, not Asaka, not someones helping hand) in the Rum-arc.

Because Gosho totally doesn't take names and ideas, like Takagi, from the anime every now and then... The fact of the matter is that Iori is a mysterious character in the manga now. Look at the soliloquy from june 4th where Gosho trolls with Okita.

There's quite a difference between Takagi who was gradually integrated before being made a proper character and the centre of an entire arc that is Rum.

He doesn't have to be rum. He can't even be a bum in-story via the logic that's being used here.

What logic is that?

The point was that there is no logic behind these arguments. Look, it literally doesn't matter who makes these characters. Toriko had the 8th kings as the main antagonists for its second saga and the strongest of the 8th kings, Moon, was created by a fan. No rule ever existed that Gosho can't use Iori however he pleases, he's the one writing the story anyway.

I am skeptical of any argument that tries to use a dissimilar work by a different author with no genre or stylistic overlap to speak of as a point. Just last page I said assuming author A works like author B rarely ends well. In Goshoville, the fact is that none of the anime or movie-created characters have broken into the main BO plot. The closest example so far, Azusa Enomoto, --who had such a distinguished, earthshaking, and pivotal role as the throwaway disguise Vermouth used in one case-- happened some 550 chapters after her initial manga appearance. So far Iori looks uninvolved while the main three suspects Wakita, Rumi, and Kuroda have all had their initial suspicious moments. Given past patterns, Iori looks most like a sideshow character in a subplot independent of anything related to the BO.

[alphajjc]

I'm concerned people are bringing the butler guy into a Karasuma level of over-glorification. As in, a character that isn't really implied to be connected to the BO plot, yet people like some of the character's qualities (or at least the qualities people think that character has) and try to take said character out of context and connect it to the BO plot. (Only this time there don't appear to be misleading bad translations going on).

I think Iori's introduction with the localized name of Watson made his ties to BO glaring. BO loves their Sherlock and often compares themselves to the protagonists.(They even used the incomplete detective as one of their passwords.)

So, also the Watson was an assistant and friend of Holmes(not his second in command). So if Holmes is Rum, then Iori is Watson to him. The one who does the legwork for Holmes.

Isn't the manga being pretty obvious about what it was going for with this?

Spoiler:

There have been Holmes references in this series that have had no connection to the BO.

In general it feels like you're taking that guy extremely out of context in order to apply suspicions to him. Why would a BO guy (whether he's Rum or just a Rum underling) double as a butler who stalks teenagers?

I get what you are saying and you are right..

Like with the example of when we first met James Black and how suspicious he was and the Moriarty reference we saw Conan make towards the end of a case or even in the middle of it in relation to him. Can't recall when he did but i remember him saying that to Haibara.

He turned out to be a good guy even with the bad guy Moriarty reference. Iori has the reference of the good guy "Watson" and may end up being the bad guy..

But besides all of this just think about it...how many more "good guys" is Gosho gonna give us? Even if you think Gosho is just having a harmless story about a butler helping a teenage girl get her crush Heiji....even if you think so something is not right. Maybe it would be harmless hundreds of chapters ago when we were still doing Detective Boys filler cases.

But there HAS TO BE A REASON bottom line where multiple times Conan has had a suspicion about this guy..what other good guy roles are there to play? Most likely Koruda is Akai SR possibly from the CIA.. We have had KIR in the CIA.. We have had Bourbon in Secret Police..James Black/Akai JR/Jodie in FBI.

Gosho knows already that we have had more than enough undercover operatives in BO. I can't see that again.

You guys are mentioning how him being involved in cases with a teenage girl is just his role to play and we expect too much.. But let us not forget before we found out Rei was Bourbon didn't we also have him in a couple silly cases?

Even if he is not Rum or a BO member, he has to be somebody. He is definitely not just a random background character.

Look at what Conan said about Iori in the pic you quoted in your previous post. We know alot of times what Conan says gives us the answer right there. When he brought up being a Watson to whoever Holmes was. Holmes is the strategist shogi player Chikara and Iori may possibly be the one who does the field work.

[jimmy_kud0_tv2]

Look at what Conan said about Iori in the pic you quoted in your previous post. We know alot of times what Conan says gives us the answer right there. When he brought up being a Watson to whoever Holmes was. Holmes is the strategist shogi player Chikara and Iori may possibly be the one who does the field work.

Holmes was Momiji, who solved the case. He was doing the field work on Heiji for Momiji. He was speaking on the phone to Momiji.

[dccd]

I might be wrong aswell, but:
I think it is not about Iori being Watson (and therefore being good or bad) but about Momiji being Holmes.

Thats the "solution" of the reference.
You put the reference in a completely wrong context as far as I can see.

Ok...someone was faster

[k11chi]

Spoiler: Previous posts

Also, Iori went through several design stages (at first it was a old geezer) before they made him a handsome type (TN: The movie staff, not Gosho)

Wait, what - Are you kidding me?!
So basically the movie staff had a way higher impact on creating Iori than Gosho?
Does anybody yet still believe up to that point that Gosho will implement a important character into the Rum-arc which he hasn´t done by himself?

I mean this kinda is the ultimate proof that Iori won´t play any big part (not Rum, not Asaka, not someones helping hand) in the Rum-arc.

Because Gosho totally doesn't take names and ideas, like Takagi, from the anime every now and then... The fact of the matter is that Iori is a mysterious character in the manga now. Look at the soliloquy from june 4th where Gosho trolls with Okita.

There's quite a difference between Takagi who was gradually integrated before being made a proper character and the centre of an entire arc that is Rum.

He doesn't have to be rum. He can't even be a bum in-story via the logic that's being used here.

What logic is that?

The point was that there is no logic behind these arguments. Look, it literally doesn't matter who makes these characters. Toriko had the 8th kings as the main antagonists for its second saga and the strongest of the 8th kings, Moon, was created by a fan. No rule ever existed that Gosho can't use Iori however he pleases, he's the one writing the story anyway.

I am skeptical of any argument that tries to use a dissimilar work by a different author with no genre or stylistic overlap to speak of as a point. Just last page I said assuming author A works like author B rarely ends well. In Goshoville, the fact is that none of the anime or movie-created characters have broken into the main BO plot. The closest example so far, Azusa Enomoto, --who had such a distinguished, earthshaking, and pivotal role as the throwaway disguise Vermouth used in one case-- happened some 550 chapters after her initial manga appearance. So far Iori looks uninvolved while the main three suspects Wakita, Rumi, and Kuroda have all had their initial suspicious moments. Given past patterns, Iori looks most like a sideshow character in a subplot independent of anything related to the BO.

Can't say that there's any real pattern to see right now with the lack of examples. Closest one would be Kaito Kid since right now his story is considered about as canon to DC as Yaiba's or the movies. Coincidentally all of these examples have been going through the motions during the last couple of years of the manga. I'm not sure if Gosho cares to personally differentiate what happens in his franchise (are the different "alternate universe manga" different to him from the alternate universe anime?)...

[dccd]

So your basically saying, this is what happened:

Gosho saw the character made up by the movie-crew and said to himself: Ok! Thats a cool character. I will include him into my Rum-Arc as "somebody" (important)(i guess thats what you mean by somebdoy).

Right?

[k11chi]

Nothing even suggests anything like that that I've said. Also since when has the "design been done by someone else" = "not Gosho's idea." We don't know the reasons behind his design changes, it could be something like Gosho telling them the guy can't be too old.

[Zerozaki4869]

It's not the reference of Momiji being Holmes and Iori being Watson. The last panel says otherwise, which I elaborated in the following paragraph.
But what intrigues me more that Iori's abilities are very butler unlike and he's Momiji's errand boy, he's more sort of Archie Goldwin to Nero Wolfe. Goldwin is Nero's assistant and is on his payroll. Watson was not on Holmes' payroll.
So the hint was for the readers and Momiji was a misdirection. People will relate Momiji as she solved the case and passed on the hint through Iori over the phone. But the problem is it's very Nero Wolfe like setting,(Archie gathers data, sends it Nero, Nero solves it and relays the info to Archie.) also sending your Butler to stalk your crush is quite Nero Wolfe like eccentricity.
So Iori wasn't playing Watson to Momiji but to someone else, that's what was Gosho's reference.
I'm pretty intrigued that why Gosho thought of introducing them in the manga if they were Movie only characters. It's also mentioned that Gosho changed Iori's designs, question is why?
Why Gosho didn't mention the Bishonen nature of the butler in the first place?

Which suggests to me that Gosho needed a Bishonen male character to fit somebody who lacks a description, body-type w,as mentioned in Canon but never introduced.
Under current situation, Gosho needed a body for Asaka(as in plot there's only one word "Asaka" to encompass the presence of Asaka, but in Manga you need a body for Asaka. It's more like getting a body for an wandering spirit.)

[k11chi]

Iori praising Momiji for her deductions kind of gives it away that she's the Holmes and Iori is the Watson who is being instructed to do everything.

[MeiTanteixX]

Also since when has the "design been done by someone else" = "not Gosho's idea." We don't know the reasons behind his design changes

Besides, If Iori happens to be Rum, I doubt they would disclose details like how much Gosho was involved in the final design version of Iori. After all, for him to pull that off, they obviously have to be in on the plan(just like how Gosho had to reveal Boss related stuff so that they don't mess up the Rum movie).

Either way, Iori being canon, having a lot of unique details to his design and characterization, as well as a whole case dedicated to his introduction(unlike Momiji) and that the case involves a BO member is enough signals to tell us that he's not a normal recurring side-character.

[Zerozaki4869]

Iori praising Momiji for her deductions kind of gives it away that she's the Holmes and Iori is the Watson who is being instructed to do everything.

It only gives away that Momiji was the one who relayed the correct deductions to Iori over the phone. It doesn't prove that Iori is playing Watson to Momiji. To the contrary it proves Iori is the live-in assistant of an eccentric armchair detective and is on the payroll of the said detective(when it gets revealed that Iori is the butler and all).

Which nullifies the assumption that he's Watson to Momiji playing Holmes. Holmes and Watson were two flatmates, Watson wasn't Holmes' butler, Watson wasn't Holmes' employee, he accompanied Holmes only to get his kicks not because he was Holmes' employee.

So Iori being Watson to Momiji's Holmes is a logically flawed simile and very uncharacteristic of Gosho. What I find interesting is that by using Momiji, Gosho is very well covering his tracks about the usage of "Wada Shinichi".
Any unsuspecting reader would be happy to think Momiji is Holmes and drop the issue, but what he'll fail to explain that Gosho in-spite of being a logical, fair and consistent storyteller is convoluting Holmes' realationship with Watson just over the usage of a fake name of a side character? Why would Gosho go out of his skin to project a forced Holmes-Watson relationship on Iori and Momiji only to justify a fake name's use by Iori. I find it a very low probability assumption.

Thet's why I'll stick to my interpretation that Iori is Archie Goldman to Momiji's Nero Wolfe and Iori is Watson to Rum's/Chikara's Holmes.

[dccd]

Just speechless.
After even the worlds most obvious facts/references you just cant get rid of you ideas.

It´s ok - you guys won.
Guess it has to be the manga itself to prove you wrong.

[MeiTanteixX]

Here is an interesting official comic diving into Gosho's involvement in M21 and Movies overall(which seems to be relevant to the current Iori discussion and how much Gosho actually lets on to the reasons for changes in the Movies).

[Zerozaki4869]

Just speechless.
After even the worlds most obvious facts/references you just cant get rid of you ideas.

It´s ok - you guys won.
Guess it has to be the manga itself to prove you wrong.

Just being speechless about how people are interpreting the most nebulous/inappropriate reference as true fact.

Mtx, it was a nice post, it proves the requirement of Iori and Momiji in the Canon.