#the lack of heiji in the holmes arc is maybe a big contribution to my feeling that those are easily the weakest antidote!shinichi episodes

[marshmallowgoop]

[Image description: A screenshot from Episode 49 of Detective Conan/Case Closed. Shinichi, sweating, smiles as he says, “You [Hattori] got it all wrong!” End image description.]

Also, I know it’s an over-analysis, but I think a lot about how Heiji’s first appearance in Detective Conan coincides with Shinichi’s first return to his body after being poisoned. Because it’s much more than mere coincidence—Heiji’s presence is what literally draws Shinichi out. It’s unmistakably the alcohol Heiji brings that triggers the change.

[Image description: A screenshot from Episode 48 of Detective Conan. Heiji hands Conan a cup, saying, “Here ya go!” Conan holds the cup, answering, “Oh, thanks....” End image description.]

But in a more metaphorical sense, the fact that Heiji’s introduction, even prior to offering Conan a cup of baigar/paikal/baijiu, is so loudly and explicitly tied to locating his missing rival, can’t help but be meaningful to me. Heiji enters the series purely to find Shinichi, and he does. Practically instantly. Almost as if Shinichi physically cannot keep hiding behind Conan when Heiji is present.

I’m particularly fond of Heiji’s opening lines in FUNimation’s English dub because his words quickly become unambiguously directed to Shinichi. The third sentence he ever utters on the show is an emphatic, “Yo, [Kudo], can you hear me?”, which he then follows up with, “You can stop hiding now! I’m waiting!” 

And Shinichi can’t seem to help doing just as Heiji says. Conan stumbles through the Mori Detective Agency door, and as Conan puts it later, when advising Ai to drink the baigar/paikal/baijiu in Episode 177, Heiji “[casts] the ultimate magic spell” on him. Just as Conan gets Ai out of the locked wine cellar, Heiji gets Shinichi out of Conan. He’s able to truly be himself, to solve a case as himself, for the first time since Episode 1. All because of Heiji.

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Episode 177 of Detective Conan. In the first image, Ai, wearing Conan’s glasses, holds a bottle of baigar/paikal/baijiu. In the second image, Conan, with an earphone and a microphone, smiles broadly. He says, “I’m going to get you out of that room. By casting the ultimate magic spell on you.” End image descriptions.]

Of course, that Heiji gives alcohol to a six-year-old he doesn’t even know is grossly inappropriate. But paradoxically, you could say that it’s exactly what he needed to do. There’s no way that Conan would have ever thought to drink alcohol, let alone baigar/paikal/baijiu specifically, as an antidote for his condition. But because Heiji seeks Shinichi out and places the cure in Conan’s hands, the wrong person isn’t imprisoned for the murder of Isao Tsujimura. Heiji himself doesn’t (generally) continue to treat unsolved crimes as games to win or lose. Ai doesn’t lose her life to the Black Organization when she’s held captive by Pisco. While Ran’s right and she should say it when she shouts Heiji out for his actions— even unhesitatingly calling him “conceited” and “thoughtless” in FUNimation’s English dub—it’s undeniable that those very actions drastically change and save lives, too.

I also take interest in how Conan genuinely does seem to view the baigar/paikal/baijiu he receives from Heiji as a magical panacea, directly implicating it as the basis for the temporary antidote he receives in “The Desperate Revival”:

[Image description: A screenshot from Episode 194 of Detective Conan. Conan, a hand over his chin in thought, walks beside Ai. He says, “I guess with only Paikaru’s ingredients, a full antidote can’t be made.” End image description.]

Notably, it is strongly implied that Conan isn’t fully correct here; Ai did manage to save the APTX 4869 drug data she transferred from Pisco’s computer, and that undoubtedly at least aided in the creation of a cure. Yet, the significance Conan places on the alcohol isn’t totally misplaced, either. If it weren’t for the baigar/paikal/baijiu, Ai likely never would have managed to procure that information in the first place.

And I know it’s an over-analysis, I do. But as much as I love that Heiji so quickly sees Conan for who he truly is, and how he always thinks of Shinichi as himself afterwards, I also love and think a lot about how Heiji’s gift—and by extension, Heiji himself—literally serves as the key to free Conan and Ai’s true selves. I think a lot about how Heiji is present near every time Shinichi returns to his own body, and how he’s right there supporting Shinichi when he struggles with the drug wearing off, and that the sole time Shinichi takes a temporary antidote in the films is for Kazuha and Heiji’s sake in Crossroad in the Ancient Capital, and I think a lot about all the implications of that, like how it seems to say, to me, that Heiji unlocked this door, and he’s darn well gonna be there on the other side of it, where Shinichi wants him to be!

It just. Really gets to me.