Chekhov MacGuffin

You are fine as long as you don't require people to play at DCW during an outage. If the people who decided to stay away from DCW can come back and get right back into playing without problem, it's okay, there is no need to pause. (Incidentally, the only reason I am here right now is because the stats on the malware downloads indicate it stopped a couple days ago, and I heard it was a rogue script which I know how to block.)

I heard that the administrators of a certain forum game were removing players for not posting on the thread while DCW was being blocked by some browsers for distributing malware. Forcing people to choose between the security of their computer (which may be used by multiple people) and a game is inappropriate. Next time, please use common sense and put the game on pause, start over, or try to arrange for the players to meet at a different website. If this happens again, I will lock the offending game's thread. DCW values its creative forum game playing community, but demanding that players go to a website that was distributing malware to keep playing is extremely irresponsible. It's no fun to have your computer full of viruses and your personal information stolen.

Please don't reply to, and especially don't quote spammers. If you ignore them, we can ban them and delete their messages and there won't be any confusing replies to deleted messages in the discussion sections. Even worse, when you quote them, the moderators have to manually delete the spam from your comments too to remove the advertising. It's extra work for us. Just report it with the button. Nobody reported this guy...

The writer of the series, Gosho Aoyama, had nothing to do with the English language anime team who decided to change Gin and Vodka's names into Kaspar and Melkior (presumably to make them sound more cool/evil to American audiences). The English names are non-canon. (The definition of canon is the work that is considered official - for Detective Conan it is only the manga written by Gosho). Anything that comes from non-canon sources, like English adaptations of the anime, is irrelevant because they can't validly be used as clues: Gosho doesn't pay attention to changes made by the English anime team when writing his storylines.Edit scooped by Black Demon... by at least an hour. That said, Gosho is a big fan of the Gundam series and based the character Akai Shuuichi off of the main antagonist, Char Aznable, of the original Gundam series. On his personal website he has a little picture of Akai as half of Char Aznable. Naming Okiya Subaru after Char Aznable was intended to be a cute hint for readers who pay attention to Gosho's thematic naming - other characters related to Akai like Andre Camel, Sera Masumi, and Amuro Tohru are also named after Gundam characters.

Sorry, it's just that normally people overestimate Gosho's power in controlling the production, economics, and dissemination of DC. Misconceptions about Gosho's power obscures the things Gosho does have the ability to influence - which can be validly praised or criticized. For instance, people tend to center on Gosho only for issues like why cases are less gory (shifting public values -> editorial pressure avoidance), influential financial incentives (what you mentioned), or official authorial approval of "flawed" derivative works (eg Case Closed, recent movies). On the opposite end, people underestimate Gosho's ability to control pacing (Shogakukan really needs DC financially, but Gosho isn't dragging individual arcs out for that reason), or utilize controversial plot developments like major character deaths or romance. (Early on when Gosho was still building repute, their suggestions had more sway (eg. introduce a rival (Hattori)), but now Gosho has relatively free reign after having "proven himself".) TLDR: Chekhov is picky, but presumes to have good reasons for being so.

That was a blatant teaser. The chances of a recent plot character getting anywhere near the movie besides a cameo is practically nil. The main detective of the movie (besides Conan) seems to be Heiji. Most of the news about the Movie is being posted in this thread: Movie 17: Private Eye in the Distant Sea. I'd try to migrate over to that thread, until the movie comes out at least.

I'm sure Gosho likes money like most people, but authorhood doesn't give you the power you think it does. It's likely the anime team and shogakukan have as much say in movies as Gosho does. The publisher holds most of the power (especially at first, remember they told Gosho to write a detective story to compete with Kindaichi), so it would be legally normal for Gosho to have signed over most of his rights to Detective Conan in a contract to be able to publish in Shounen Sunday. Think of the usual contract terms for books and songs. Why would manga be different? Remember, the magazine and the anime team get money for DC movies too. I'm sure Gosho saying no would be important (and they would listen to him) because the publisher and anime team respect him for his work done so far and don't want him to get upset and stop writing, but it would probably damage Gosho's standing somewhat and make negotiations for salary and assistants and all that other jazz a little harder. (well, if we had the money from a movie we could offer you ¥X, but...) Gosho doesn't want that or to spend precious time arguing, so he has the incentive to go with the flow.

Credit to Zenthisoror of the DCTP spoiler cbox who gives a synopsis of the official Movie 17 website Also the trailer is on the official website above, if the youtube ones get taken down The trailer says, "A strange vessels filled with explosives..." But it then follows it with, "A body without a left arm..." which sounds grim... The story sounds as though there's a spy on board the Aegis, and they're going to have find him. Conan says, "If things go on like this, Japan will be in danger!" Movie 17 Story: A murdered defense force member! A spy on board the Aegis! And the hands of evil getting closer to Ran... A supremely dangerous emergency mission! Target: The whole of Japan! Floating upon seas struck by the early light of morning, was a strange ship, filled with explosives...that ship was the beginning of everything... Kyoto: Maizuru Bay Supported by the Defense Force Navy, the valuable Aegis has been opened up for visitors to go on a navy experience cruise. Conan, Ran, Kogoro and the Detective Boys are enjoying an immensely exciting cruise on the (okay, forgive me the literal translate here. I don't really know much about technology systems in English) electronically weaponized high-tech ship. Suddenly they hear a loud roar...and an unsettling, uneasy feeling permeates the ship... and not long later, they find a body without a left arm. And it's the body of a defense force member. They note a number of strange things about the body... As Conan investigates, they find out that the spy 'X', working for an unspecified country, is aboard the ship. Who is spy 'X'? And what is his link with the mysterious boat at the start? The shadow of the creeping spy eventually begins to fall upon Conan and his friends... A great conspiracy beyond anything imaginable upon the seas, that could rock the whole of Japan, had been hidden away upon the Aegis! Edit: The ship is called Aegis, and is not the same named missile defense program used by some Self Defense force ships

He was. That said, dating Akemi was for his job, at least at first. It's a dirty job, but spies do get asked to do this kind of thing, although usually it happens more with female spies seducing men than the other way around. I think I remember reading in the spy museum in DC that sometimes even married men/women have been asked to seduce. Intelligence is nasty business, and can find itself on the wrong side of morality and legality.I think I side with Kleene in that I understand why Akai was double timing, and he did the right thing by eventually breaking it off with Jodie when he decided he wanted to get serious with (or was already serious with) Akemi. That said, I am not sure I agree with how he explained it to her though. Telling Jodie he was "sacrificing her" to have a better chance at taking down the Organization is a half lie. He was doing it because he didn't want to be personally conflicted, which to his credit he does say in his next line (can't love two women...). He shouldn't have said anything about the Organization at all, just told her that he developed feelings for Akemi and he doesn't feel right holding onto them both.

Akai Shuuichi was still dating Jodie Starling at the same time he was dating Miyano Akemi as part of his mission to infiltrate the Black Organization. He broke up with Jodie at some point in favor of Akemi. I noticed a few people had mentioned it earlier, but some posts by Carpet Crawler caught my eye when he said this scene cost Akai a lot of respect. Any thoughts about this in particular or other aspects of Akai's character? References notes and scene translations for convenience (no spoilers)

That's pretty brilliant. I'd love to see some other screenshots of the game if you have any.

That was to hide that "Sharon" was actually younger than she looked. The problem is why Vermouth's face is the same as it was 20 years ago and why she had to pretend to age in the first place.

What Monsi said. Reps aren't valuable points or a popularity contest: Many great posters everyone here on the forum knows have only a few relative to the number of posts they make, and some posters with relatively few posts have a lot (i.e. translators). You use reps instead of posting "I agree" or "thank you" for a good or insightful post. Someone with a high rep means they post things other people might be interested in (Sometimes I look at the comments of someone with a high rep to look at the posts everyone liked) so using them for a game dilutes the intended meaning.

Most of the time they are just a macguffin related to the motive, like someone caught someone else smuggling drugs so the smuggler killed them, like in the Moonlight Sonata Murder Case. The only time I remember drugs actually being important to the plot of a case is The Gathering of the Detectives! Shinichi Kudo vs. Kaitou Kid where smoking marijuana somehow inspired all the attendees to violently massacre each other. That's not a very realistic depiction of how people behave under the effects of marijuana, but I have heard that on average Japanese are not very informed about the real level of danger. The social blowback and legal penalties are very harsh for possession which reinforces this perception. (Wikipedia says possession of any amount, as little as 0.1 g, is punishable by jail sentence for up to 5 years and/or a fine of up to 30,000,000 yen (USD 344,790). Moreover, the defendant has to stay in police custody for at least a few weeks until a court decision is made.)Edit: forgot about The 3 "K"s of Osaka Case. Ray Curtis had been taking heroin and marijuana I think. Conan said his "famous" line "Even if you are facing a bitter aspect of life, drugs and murder are foul without an excuse. Deserve a red card, for a loser." Personally I think equating murder and drug use cheapens the foulness of murder, but this line does give you an idea of what good, law abiding Japanese are supposed to think about drugs, if you think of Conan as a model upstanding citizen.

Do you mean the imaginary drugs Shiho and the Black Org are making, real medicine-type drugs (eg Glyceryl trinitrate), or real recreational drugs (eg. marijuana)?

The very first thing on your list happens in episodes 671-674: Detectives' Nocturne (Conan is kidnapped by a case suspect, Amuro helps the Mouris rescuing him, while Sera follows them from behind. Haibara and Agasa try to locate Conan inside Okiya's car. During the chase, Okiya and Amuro notice each others. Amuro recognizes Sera. Vermouth arrives at the scene and gives Bourbon a call.) The anime is currently at Episode 675-676 which is The rest of the stuff hasn't been animated yet. Detective Conan has a manga, and the manga is 9 months or so ahead in the storyline compared to the anime. The rest of items on the list are chapters 802 to current. I also fixed the references on the timeline page to point to which chapter and anime episode they correspond to.