#(so i spent a whole lot of time timing bilibili subs to my ep 345 blu-ray here for those caps 😩)

[marshmallowgoop]

There's a lot of talk about Heiji's tendency to drop everything and go to Tokyo to help—or even just to see!—Shinichi, and rightfully so. It's something Heiji unabashedly admits to (Episode 278, Magic File 5)...

Heiji: If any other suspicious persons show up, just call me! I'll run right over!

Ran: Hattori-kun saw that incident on the news and rushed over because he was worried about you, Conan-kun. Heiji: Grabbed the first bullet train in the mornin'!

And I still can hardly believe that Heiji's canon, actual, real-deal reaction to a request to put his life on the line and impersonate Shinichi... is an immediate "OK" composed out of heart emojis (Episode 345).

Seriously. That happened. Heiji couldn't not help.

Heiji (internally): I had no choice. After all, Kudo e-mailed me asking me to do this.

But in Shinichi's first appearance since being poisoned (Episode 49), after seemingly refusing to show his face to Ran or Inspector Megure or anyone else in town for who knows how long, he unabashedly claims that he dropped everything to meet Heiji. He smiles about it!

And of course it's a lie, but there's a smidgen of truth to it, too. Conan did accompany Heiji, despite feeling terribly sick and harboring zero interest in the (apparently) non-murderous case, because he was intrigued. Because he was impressed with what Heiji had uncovered about him already and was nervous about what else his so-called "rival" could reveal.

Conan (internally): I don't wanna go, but there's no telling what this guy might say!

But even without that context, Shinichi's easy, immediate cover story gets to me. He really, truly, unhesitatingly asserts that meeting Heiji was important enough to jump right on a train to get there.

It reminds me of Shinichi's excitement when he first learns of Heiji (File 520), and his grin when he thinks of meeting Heiji for real one day (File 522):

Shinichi: Really? Then he's just like me!

Shinichi (internally): We'll meet each other again... on that mysterious stage...

I think I could totally buy that Shinichi actually would have done exactly what he claims in the clip. He is interested in other detectives like himself, and with the pain of the antidote wearing off in Episode 49, that smile's gotta be genuine.

Finally, while it's Not That Deep, there's maybe something to be said about how Heiji is symbolically the key to Shinichi's true self, since it's Heiji's alcohol that transforms Conan back into Shinichi. With this clip, Shinichi underlines the same idea. It's Heiji who brought him back after so long. It's because of Heiji Hattori that Shinichi Kudo makes his first appearance after vanishing.

And I love how forthright Shinichi is about it.

#detective conan #case closed #shinichi kudo #heiji hattori #ramblings #long post #video #funimation english dub script #because i've devoted a lot of time and effort into mixing my german blu-ray footage with my funimation dvd english dub audio #and everyone needs to look at it lol #(really though it's a lot easier now that i know to change the 'fps' of the audio but it's still a lot of work...) #(i match up the japanese audio track from the blu-ray with the japanese audio track from the dvd and copy any cuts needed to the eng audio) #(not hard just tedious... i'm dying for an official hd english dub release so that i don't have to do this lol) #(but any official english video releases for this show at all would be great...) #(i don't want to use bilibili screencaps anymore because there's a big watermark now) #(so i spent a whole lot of time timing bilibili subs to my ep 345 blu-ray here for those caps 😩) #(more tedious than other eps because bilibili splits up multi-part specials so i had to string together four different .srts) #(gosh i do *the most* lol plz official releases i'm dying) #anyway just was thinking about this because of my hd english dub project! he really says this #wanted to post this before the end of the year for one more essay but alas... took way longer to write than i thought ^^; #as per usual amirite ^^; ^^;