Sinichi Kudo @ Ran Mouri

And here. we. go.

We start off watching a youngish Shinichi being a soccer ace for a couple of little kids in a park. A man comes up to him and asks whether Shinichi had seen him in the park on Thursday morning. Shinichi says no, why would you ask me? I would have been in school. Duh. The man walks over the a group of girls playing tennis, and you can practically hear Shinichi muttering 'weirdo' under his breath. Then he notices the two men standing under a tree, watching the first man question people.So, after the man finishes questioning everyone, Shinichi goes back over and lets the man know he's been stalking observing him. He identifies the two men under the tree as police officers, and asks why he was questioning everyoneIt turns out that the man is trying to get witnesses for his alibi; being passed out, drunk, in the park on Thursday morning. His grandmother, whom he was supposed to visit that day, was murdered at the time he was out coldNaturally, things aren't quite so simple. The man was flustered when the police first questioned him, and told them that he was at his apartment. Naturally, they're suspicious of him now, and watching him like hawks (not Watson) as he works to clear his name.Shinichi asks if the man remembers anything in particular. After some convenient audio stimulation, the man remembers that he saw a woman walking a black dogShinichi tells the man to come back during the week; he'll meet him there, and they can question the people who would normally be at the park at 10:30. The man points out that Shinichi should be in school; Shinichi makes it clear that his priorities are with his detective work. :smirk:So, next we see Shinichi and Ran walking to school. Shinichi tells Ran that he's going to be skipping out of second period for a case, and tells her the particulars. Ran mentions that there's a woman who walks a black lab on the road, just behind the wall of the park.Shinichi's...very excited about this possible breakRan ponders. Shinichi continues to look like an utter dorkJust when you thought he couldn't look any dorkier, Shinichi proves you wrong.Shinichi's just realized the problem with what Ran told him. If the dog and owner walk behind the wall, they couldn't have seen the man in the park, and he couldn't have seen themRan says that the man must have ESP! Clearly, he saw the woman and dog through the wallAnd then, Shinichi was like, "Aw, no she didn't!Yes, this temper tantrum was hilarious and amused me greatly.Ran's not nearly as amused. Especially since Shinichi just called her an idiot in a couple of different waysShinichi meets the man (and his two police shadows) in the park, and start to look for witnesses. And, lo and behold..Turns out, the day care group did pass that way. And yes, that's a preschool Shounen Tantei group. So it should surprise no one that, while the teachers saw nothing, they did see the man passed out in the bushes.Haha, it's so sad that the answer would probably be 'yes' if this scenario had occurred a few years later..Shinichi thanks them for their help, and they go off to join the rest of the group. Unfortunately, their evidence alone isn't enough for the cops; so Shinichi still needs to find out if the woman and her dog passed through the park.After engaging his dog telepathy, Shinichi discovers that the woman and her dog were outside of the park walls. They didn't see the man, and he could have seen them.Despite the major setback, Shinichi naturally refuses to give up. His pride as a detective is on the line. The man can't take any more time off work, so Shinichi goes it alone for the rest of the week, and we get a great montage of him sneaking out of several classes--PhysEd, choir.....and chemistryThat's just disturbing. Obviously, Shinichi's always been a sneaky-ass little bastard. He clearly possessed the traits and law-breaking tendancies before he was Conan, they just didn't surface much.But, he obviously has no problem whatsoever circumventing authority whenever he deems it necessary. It's one of the things I find really interesting about himIn that way, he's eerily (and for him, uncomfortably) similar to Kaito. And yes, we're still looking at Shinichi, no matter how much it looks like our favorite magician/prankster/thief.No more leads are forthcoming. Shinichi meets with the man again at the end of the week; the man now remembers that he had the impression that the black dog was a seeing eye dogAfter checking out that lead, Shinichi's still coming up with nothing, so he engages in his own type of meditation; allowing the books in his library to comfort him. I'd do it too, if I had a library that awesome.Yukiko's adorable. She and Yuusaku come in, and ask him about the case. She prompts Yuusaku to try to give Shinichi a hint, but he states that he wants to solve the case on his own.Shinichi gets his Holmes on, and Yuusaku tries to get him to play the violin. Shinichi goes off on a mini fanboy rant about how Holmes played between cases, not during them, and goes to put the violin back in its case. And then...ohhhh...Yeah, I know. What? Well, the guy was either drunk or hung over, so to his bleary eyes, a woman carrying a guitar case looked like a woman leading a seeing eye dog. It...kinda makes senseThey police agree to accept the man's alibi. And then they get a phone call saying that the grandmother was murdered by a robber, and that the culprit has just been picked up. Shinichi's very positive about his win, apparently not seeing it as a grand waste of time for over a week.Shinichi returns to school, triumphant, and ready to share with Ran, but then finds out the hard way that she's still pissed and giving him the silent treatment. Well, it's his own fault.Still giving him the silent treatment on the way home. Honestly, he's been ignoring her for over a weekLearning about women and grudges the hard wayThey both hear a woman singing "Amazing Grace" very beautifully in a van down by the river. After pausing to listen, they resume walking, and Ran inquires about the case. Conan gives a short voice over about how he'd never expected the song that ended their week-long argument to be involved in an important case three years later.