"Delay in launch?"
In a small apartment in Osaka, a man in his thirties snapped up from the couch, his eyes wide open after reading a message on his phone. He exclaimed furiously, "This must be a joke!"
Frowning, he turned to the man in front of him—Haruki Suno, associate editor of Weekly Shonen—and snapped sternly, "Weekly magazines are sustained by the regularity of their publication! Breaking that rhythm without a justified cause ruins the trust we have cultivated for years with our readers. It's completely irrational!"
A publication like Weekly Shonen is not built overnight. These are years of loyalty, expectations and reading habits. If the calendar is suddenly changed without a clear explanation, readers will begin to doubt, distrust, and eventually drift away. And worst of all: it's disrespectful to the other mangakas who also work tirelessly.
"Tomato-sensei, please calm down!" pleaded Haruki, visibly sweating from tension. His voice was a desperate attempt to calm the veteran artist." The publisher did not take this decision lightly, he assured. But Mirai-sensei has shown an incredibly committed attitude to her new arc in Detective Sherlock. Everyone in the newsroom wants to support him."
"And that's it? Because he's a 'genius'?" growled Tomato-sensei, whose real name is Yuanhua Takeda, a veteran cartoonist with a long career at Hinotori Publishing. Again that absurd preference for 'prodigies'! No matter the publisher, it's always the same!"
Haruki didn't know what to answer. Prior to joining Hinotori Publishing, Takeda-sensei had worked at a rival publishing house, where he was also displaced after a dispute with a promising young man. Despite having found a new publishing home, his scars were still latent. And now, the same pattern seemed to be repeating.
He was a dedicated, disciplined professional, a man who had achieved what he had only through perseverance. His natural talent was limited, but his tenacity had brought him here.
Haruki recalled, as a sudden revelation, an old comment by a colleague:
"Takeda-sensei had a confrontation with a mangaka who later became an idol of the masses..."
Wasn't Mach-sensei, the author of the acclaimed adaptation of Detective Sherlock? Now everything made sense. Mach-sensei and Mirai-sensei were both considered geniuses. That was why Takeda-sensei was so out of his mind. It was as if the past came to haunt him once again.
Haruki tried to calm the atmosphere by diverting the conversation to other topics, without much success.
Takeda-sensei would not forget this easily. His anger was not a passing tantrum.
Early the next day, Takeda showed up at a bookstore in the central station. He wanted to see with his own eyes what kind of work had justified the delay of the new issue of Weekly Shonen. If the content turned out to be just another generic arc, if it was just smoke with a good cover, then it would have to rethink its future. What was the point of continuing in a publishing house that prioritized geniuses and neglected the real lives of other authors?
Finally, after a day of waiting, the issue was published.
To his surprise, the bookstore looked emptier than usual. Takeda couldn't help but crack a sarcastic smile. Apparently, the incident of the delay had demotivated several readers. Still, there was still movement: several young men were still buying the copy, and there were only three copies left on the shelf when Takeda stepped forward and picked one up.
And then it stopped.
The cover left him speechless.
There it was: a mysterious figure, its face covered by the shadows of a high-brimmed hat. He wore an immaculate white suit and a monocle adorned his right eye. Standing on the rooftop of a skyscraper, surrounded by helicopters in the air and a bright city as a backdrop, his silhouette was elegant, ethereal, unreachable.
He was like a modern magician who dominated the Osaka night sky.
"Kami-sama! How handsome he is!" exclaimed a girl next to him, unable to contain herself. His reaction interrupted Takeda's thoughts, and he looked at the illustration with a bitter mixture of admiration and jealousy.
That painting... that hypnotic beauty... it was something he could never replicate. The composition, the colour, the atmosphere... It wasn't just talent: it was vision, it was narrative instinct in the form of an image. It was one of those works that one sees and recognizes immediately: this was drawn by a genius.
Mirai-sensei, that irritating young man, had done it again.
Takeda, frowning, opened the magazine. As expected, Detective Conan once again led the list of serializations. And right next to it, Detective Sherlock occupied the main page of the new chapter. What story was it telling now? A murder linked to a wizard? Or was it just a flashy cover to attract attention?
The mere doubt forced him to continue reading, although inside it burned.
However, the beginning of the story left Takeda-sensei baffled. He looked for the man on the cover on the front pages, but he was nowhere to be found. He didn't seem to be a magician either. The premise was simple, even simple for such a visually striking start: the detective agency where Conan-kun worked had been commissioned to protect a collection of jewels, after a direct warning: an international thief planned to steal them that same night.
He was a legendary criminal, with global fame. He had committed robberies in a dozen countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France. His specialty was the theft of priceless works of art and jewelry. The number of stolen pieces exceeded 150, and the code with which he signed his crimes was a disturbing 1412.
"A thief...??"
Could it be possible that the man on the cover—elegant, almost theatrical—was that thief? Isn't a criminal supposed to move in the shadows, cover his face, and sneak away without a trace? What was the point of dressing like a magician to steal? It didn't make any sense...
Intrigued and skeptical, he continued reading.
Conan and his companions patrolled the exhibit hall, but found no trace of the thief. After returning to the detective agency, after nightfall, Conan-kun secretly left on his own. By that time, he had already cracked the code that the thief had left as a challenge. He had followed him in silence, until he cornered him on the roof of a skyscraper.
And then it happened.
The thief appeared, falling from the sky like a night owl. His figure was serene, impeccable. Its entrance, a perfect mix between theater and audacity.
It was him!
The man on the cover!
Takeda froze. How could he simply "appear from heaven"? And how could it be drawn so gracefully, without breaking the coherence of the scene? I had never seen a thief represented with such charisma, with that level of elegance. Neither in novels, nor in manga.
"Kaito Kid..."
The name was softly pronounced by Conan-kun in the vignette. Takeda read on with a mixture of jealousy, fascination, and genuine excitement.
As always, Conan activated his relentless logic. He had prepared fireworks in advance to divert the attention of the police. Under normal conditions, it would have been enough to catch any criminal.
But Kaito Kid was not a common criminal.
The thief took out a walkie-talkie with absolute calm, imitated the voice of the police chief and began issuing false orders to all nearby units. And the most unexpected thing: he called all the police forces to the building where he himself was.
Within seconds, he was completely surrounded by patrol cars and helicopters.
"But what the hell is he doing?!" muttered Takeda-sensei, not understanding anything.
Why the hell would he get caught? If he was in control of communications, why not use them to escape? Everything was confusing!
The answer came a few pages later...
"Hey, little brother... Let me tell you something. If a thief is like an artist who steals treasure with creativity and style, then a detective is nothing more than a critic... who arrives late, judges from the stands and complains about what he can no longer recover."
Kid said this to Conan-kun, calmly, even elegantly, while he was completely surrounded by the police.
And suddenly...
A smoke bomb fell from his sleeve. In a second, his figure vanished into the haze. Yes. The thief disappeared from the roof.
No one saw how he did it.
He was surrounded, he was cornered, and yet... he vanished like a true magician.
Takeda-sensei felt a chill run down his spine. That character, Kaito Kid, was a charming demon. Mysterious, seductive, charismatic and dangerously intelligent. In a single chapter, Mirai-sensei had created a figure so powerful, so unforgettable, that even professional authors were shaken. It was evident that Kaito Kid was going to cause a phenomenon among readers.
And yet... wasn't it risky?
That thief had shattered the myth of Conan's infallible reasoning. To what extent was it appropriate to alter the balance of the series in this way? Could that narrative tension be maintained without damaging the logic of the world?
Then came the last page. A large advertisement covered half a panel:
"This is the first volume of the Kaito Kid arc in Detective Conan! Next week, in the 'Detective's Only Book', the second volume of the Kid's case will be included as a special gift!"
Takeda-sensei gasped.
It all made sense. It was not only a visually striking chapter, but a meticulous editorial strategy. A perfect, step-by-step campaign designed to capture the reader's attention and drag them to buy the special volume as well.
It was terrifyingly effective.
Mirai-sensei was even more dangerous than Mach-sensei. Because if Mach possessed technical brilliance, Takumi had an even more powerful quality...