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Here's the thing about the opening: Shinichi's face is shown at the end... and here's the thing about the ending: Ran is also portrayed as "faceless." And this is anime content, not manga. Gosho only really gets involved with the movies—I'm not sure he's involved in the anime at all. So it'd just be the staff hinting—assuming you're correct—not Gosho hinting... and this is assuming that the anime staff have been told by Gosho that Shinichi/Conan will not get a permanent antidote and will not immediately return to his real age, again, when the series ends.

So, we have... Showdown with BO that introduces BO member + immediate followup + revelation of info about BO member (angle/goal that is currently and actively pursued by them, or by a character established to be closely linked to them) = Establishment of premise and currently active threat within 45 Files or so Vs Not having a clean/well-planned start + Solely developing past connections + Unclear effects on things + Info dump mode + Unconnected issues = 80+ Files without an active threat that's unconnected to anything actively developing Som basically, don't wait around with info dumps about vague, unconnected past connections, but, instead, quickly establish an active and currently pressing threat—and thus the premise—of the arc. My question is, does Mary know about the BO's structures and practices? Does she know there's a specific criminal organization apparently killed her husband, and this organization also is responsible for her current state? If so, was it because Elena told her? Is this what led her to suspect who was behind what happened to both her and her husband? Yet. At minimum, she has to know she and her mother are trying to stay under the radar of bad guys. That's the moment I'm waiting for. So the failure here is a failure to reach the level of the Vermouth and Kir arcs, which did design and order plot events so their development would maintain a sense of jeopardy, relevance to other plots, and impact. So you don't mind a lack of addressing meta writing issues as long as you think the fundamental writing issues have been attended to properly. Making it difficult for the experienced—changing up one's trends and tropes—should only be focused on if the writer has time to do so, and has already attended to the fundamentals. All the more reason to not throw Sakurako to the wayside. You bet it'd be a twist. Though I'm more expecting Taka'aki/Koumei to turn out to be Rum—in fact, he's one of my top candidates, at the moment—than Sakurako because he hasn't seen Shiho/Ai, while she has on two occasions (847–849/731–732 and 918–920/814–815). Though it must be said that, if Taka'aki/Koumei was Rum, you'd think he wouldn't just sit there and do nothing about the revelation that Shinichi/Conan is the brains behind Sleeping Kogoro, a man who Gin suspects may have gone after the Organization.

And your example of this done right in DC? When immediate investment and the urge to continue met? For sure, the Kir and Vermouth arcs started this way. The Kir arc was perhaps the fastest arc to do this. It opens with the most action-packed showdown with the BO since the Hyde City Hotel and the brand new BO agent Mizunashi Rena, codename Kir, gets captured by the FBI. Three files later, Ran mentions a transfer student that looks like Rena is enrolling in Teitan. And in the next case the Rena clone, "Hondou Eisuke", pops in Mouri's office and gets all up in the detective agency's business with some probing questions. BO agent? Sibling? Both? What's his angle and why get close to Ran and the Mouri Detective agency? Eisuke continues to establish himself as suspicious quickly after this. The premise starts quick. You are already invested by the time Kir's backstory comes under question and we find out about the BO's efforts to recover her. Vermouth's arc started with the first BO showdown of the manga, involved a temporary antidote and Shiho prominently, and ended with this new lady BO agent sitting in Gin's car indicating she wanted to stay behind in Japan for reasons. Uh-oh! Desperate Revival, although interesting to Vermouth's plot, was not obviously related at the time, so I'm going to ignore it. The next known Vermouth-related case was "Battle Game Trap" ~30 files later where Jodie used Vermouth's trademark line. "The Mysterious Passenger", 15 files after "Battle Game Trap", was in many ways the file that really set the Vermouth arc on fire. We find out 1) Vermouth is a disguise artist (and who knows who she was before now!), 2) we confirm she is looking for someone and meeting with Gin, 3) Haibara confirms that Vermouth is on the bus setting up the three major suspects (Jodie, Araide, Akai), 4) Vermouth already knows "Cool Guy" Conan is a genius and is observing his anti-bus-jacker plan with interest so she's got something personal there. 45 files in and we have the full premise: an amazing BO disguise artist is hunting someone, likely Shiho, and she's maybe picked a disguise of someone close to Conan. Oh yeah, she knows Conan is a genius and thus undoubtedly be compensating for him with her plan. Go find her! The Bourbon arc, if we consider it starting with Kir's message to Jodie in File 622, opened with the reveal of a new Detective-like BO member named Bourbon who is on the move, Okiya's introduction, Haibara's fear of him, and his move into Kudo's house. That's certainly a premise to become invested in, but the arc took it's freaking sweet time developing it. It took 55 files for Scar Akai to show up and add to events, and 20 on top of that for additional information to come out about Bourbon's activities in the 13 red shirts case. The Rum arc, while getting the info ball rolling faster than Bourbon's, doesn't have a clean start and has instead been focusing on developing past connections rather than an active threat. We have a BO agent's name and description (which is an incentive to look for him), but no firm indications of activity. Shrunken Mary, introduced in the Bourbon arc, is certainly part of the premise and interesting as a likely APTX victim, but she's not firmly connected to anything actively-developing yet. Mary's relation to Shiho and Elena hasn't yet bore fruit. We have some Rum suspects, and most are close to the main characters, but without knowing Rum's angle it's hard to assign them a sense of threat. (Compare Vermouth, where we knew she was hunting someone by the time three suspects were announced.) The 17-years-ago Kohji case seems to be a major point, introduced ~45 files into the arc, but other than being a sore point for Rum and the BO, it's unclear how it's affecting things beyond making the BO investigate ASACA things. So far for 80 files, the Rum arc has basically been in info dump mode, and we are awaiting the reveal of a current threat which will start tying unconnected issues together. It's not all bad, but it's not what I would call a well planned start. I really would not over-estimate the information sharing going on between Mary and Masumi. It's almost non-existent in Gosho-land and especially among the Akais. Super Digest Book 80+ Gosho Interview: Q67: Does Sera know about the Black Org? A: She doesn't know. I'm sure Sera can make some guesses, but she really has shown no firm indications she knows anything specific about the BO. Regarding her father's disappearance, until it is shown that she knows a single specific detail about her father, I'm not going to make any speculations at all that she was told anything. Yes, I am super cynical about info sharing. And that's another sign of "sloppy plot setup," right? If so, how could Gosho have avoided this? That is not sloppy in the same sense I am saying Gosho's failure to design and order plot events in the Akai Family subplot so they develop and maintain a sense of jeopardy, relevance to other plots, or impact is sloppy. Designing a mystery and the suspects in a way so that those experienced with the genre will have difficulty is a "meta writing issue", while designing a plot so that it has an early and strong impact is more of a "fundamental writing issue." It's more important to attend to the fundamentals than hit the meta problems. And to be sure, it's hard to address meta issues because you have limited time and limited suspects, and sometimes you just need to do your thing because you need to achieve the fundamentals. The easiest way to game the meta is to buck your past trends and tropes. Gosho certainly uses recurring tropes which are exploitable. A higher level strategy is to "clear" a suspect via a secondary case and have some entirely innocent backstory come out. People tend to put a character out of mind when they are "resolved", and don't suspect a person may have layers. For instance Koumei and Yonehara Sakurako are two characters in the resolved state, because both have been cleared through a case(s) and had some backstory come out. I don't think either of them are Rum because they appear to have fully decent vision, but it would be a pretty twisty twist for the savvy fandom if one of them turned out to be Rum.

The Akai family part certainly wasn't in the cards back in '07—had it been, we probably wouldn't have had that year and a half plot break (September '09–February '11), and the Post-Mystery Train part (825–898/705–783) wouldn't have taken 2 years (July '12–June '14). It should've been Kir arc length (~120 Files) at the shortest, and probably shorter than Vermouth arc length (150–170 Files) at the longest. Shuichi's reintroduction/Subaru's introduction – 622–624/509–511 Rei's/Toru's non Scar-Akai introduction – 793–795/667–668 Gap – ~170 Files/~160 Episodes Yeah... this was pretty off. Bourbon Arc Act I – 622–704/509–581 Act II – 705–767/582–645 Act III – 768–824/646–704 Act IV – 825–898/705–783 Act III is by far the fastest paced of all the acts (if that's your word choice when you go beyond divvying up the overall story into arcs, and divvy up the arcs, themselves), and, even then, the Bourbon arc is so long, that the acts are, at least, around 60 Files. Rei/Toru and Masumi should've been introduced in Act I, when Shuichi/Subaru was (re)introduced... they were instead introduced in Act III. Masumi, thanks to her age, appearance and hints that she'd met Shinichi and Ran before—and thus knew who Shinichi/Conan was—was a dead ringer for another younger sibling of an intelligence agent, and so soon after the Kir arc. Thus, it was Shuichi/Subaru Vs. Rei/Toru, in terms of who was Bourbon... and with all those things about Shuichi/Subaru, well... a 203 File/196 Episode wait and a 277 File/275 Episode wait wasn't, to some (or even many), worth the answers to these mysteries. He could've certainly been introduced in the Red Wall case (682–686/558–561), though this may have lessened him as a suspect, as I presume (due to you comparing him to James) he would've been revealed to be Rei's/Toru's superior at the NPA, thus making him aware of not only Rei's/Toru's true allegiance, but Shuichi's survival, as well—and leaving him with the conclusion that Hidemi/Rena/Kir is, if not a NOC, a traitor to the BO—I find it very unlikely Rum would not take immediate action on both these pieces of knowledge, especially the latter. I personally think she was potentially involved as early as the Adultery case (856–858/740–741), since I see no reason for Masumi to take a picture of Shinichi/Conan, there, unless it was to show to Mary—unless it was a prelude to her showing him a picture of Mary (872–875/754–756). Thus, we have the non-Mary part of the Akai family subplot only really lasting from Mystery Train to the Adultery case (822–846/703–728)—you can include 768–821/646–702 (the period in which she was a Bourbon suspect), if you really care to—it's not a very long period, in terms of Masumi, if you ask me. Include Shukichi's intro, and it's only 3 Files/2 Episodes more, as the appearance of mid bro's hand comes the case after Mary's earliest potential involvement. Considering Chikara Katsumasa is one of my top Rum suspects, I expect that to be how Shukichi will be tied into the plot—beyond being the brother of someone who faked his death due to the BO, and the son of someone who ended up like Shinichi/Conan and Shiho/Ai due to the BO—maybe even put in danger, should Chikara Katsumasa turn out to be Rum. But in terms of tension in the Bourbon arc, relating to Shukichi? You're correct in that—and the "mystery?" Forget it. Maybe it should've been him who was kidnapped, instead of Yumi. Eh, in that one case, you can argue. She is to Shuichi and Shukichi (and Mary, even) what Shinichi is to Yusaku, in terms of why she and Shinichi ended up as smart as they now are. I'm still waiting for the origins of the "Guess I'm a bad girl, after all" thought (812–814/690–691). Wasn't expecting that case to be so short, either. Well, 2016 was a pretty good year for DC (being the year that brought about the latter two points), and we have File 1000 fast approaching (with 998 marking 100 Files since the Rum arc started, bringing us even closer to Kir arc length).