Conan Edogawa

**Conan Edogawa** is a character from the *Detective Conan* anime and manga.

Conan is the alias used by Shinichi Kudo in his shrunken form. Shinichi took the appearance of his six or seven year old self after being exposed to a prototype poison called APTX 4869, which he had been forced to swallow by two men in black later revealed to be members of the Black Organization. The poison de-aged Shinichi's entire body except for his nervous system and therefore he still has the personality, memories, and incredible deductive ability of his teenage self. Conan's goal is to hunt down the Black Organization and have them arrested for their crimes, as well as find an antidote to the APTX 4869. To do so he plans to make the washout detective Kogoro Mouri famous in hopes of attracting cases related to the Black Organization.

Conan is often treated as a separate character from Shinichi by fans, and often viewed as the main character of the series while Shinichi is viewed as a recurring character. He has become a popular figure in Japan and even appeared at numerous occasions in different anime series as well as other medias.

In the AWA fics, Conan is a student at the AWA Academy.

## **Appearance**

Conan has dark brown hair which mostly hangs downwards just above his blue eyes, but there are also a few strands that stick up at the front and back of his head. Conan's usual outfit consists of a blue blazer with a single button and a pair of shorts, red trainers and white socks, even though he has taken to wearing more casual clothing as time goes on. He also wears a red bowtie and his dad's old glasses. Both these items were later specifically modified by Professor Agasa to include a voice changer, microphone, and homing device, to aid in Conan in his cases. His red shoes have also been modified to harness electric and magnetic fields to stimulate pressure points on Conan's foot, greatly enhancing his kicking power.

Additionally, much like Hattori and Shinichi, Conan is incredibly popular. Ayumi and Haibara both have crushes on him, he has been hit on by girls around his shrunken age repeatedly, and even Jodie and Vermouth have both been charmed by his charisma. One even promised to make him her husband. Additionally, in the Red, White, Yellow case, Conan was specifically referred to and asked for help by a fellow classmate.

## **Personality**

As Conan, Shinichi tries to behave like a child. He refers to Ran as "Ran-neechan" (*nee-chan* meaning older sister, a common nickname Japanese children give to teenagers and young adults they look up to), and refers to Shinichi as "Shinichi-niichan" (*nii-chan* meaning older brother). He also refers to Kogoro as "Oji-san" or "Occhan" (both meaning Uncle), although he also does this as Shinichi. As Shinichi, he refers to Conan as usually "Conan-kun" or the "Kid in the Glasses". Shinichi treats Conan as a separate person completely, thinking for example, "changing back into Conan".

Conan remains very close to Ran, who in return is very protective of him. However, because Ran is unaware of his true identity, Conan often finds himself in awkward situations with her, such as when she confessed her feeling for Shinichi to him and when she made him bathe with her at a hot spring.

Conan's intelligence remains intact even though he has shrunken into a child. As Shinichi, his deductive ability earned him the monikers "Heisei Holmes" and "Savior of the Japanese police force". Conan maintains an extraordinarily broad knowledge of many subjects and trivia that help him solve cases and escape tricky situations. Conan tries to speak in a child-like manner when dealing with adults, but he often gets caught up in the current case and begins speaking like an adult, referring to advanced topics and using reasoning much too complex for a normal child. When this happens, he often tries to pass it off as "something [he] heard on TV" or "taught by uncle Kogoro/professor Agasa/Shinichi-niichan".

Likewise, he makes no effort to hide his love for Sherlock Holmes and soccer, so if he called out for talking about either subject in too much detail, he tries to escape suspicion by saying it was something Shinichi told him about. Although as the series has progressed the adults around him have become more used to his "being quite smart for a child", causing him to behave more like himself around them, he still tries to pass as a normal child. The only police officers with whom Conan can speak in a professional manner are the FBI, especially Jodie Starling, Shuichi Akai, James Black, and Inspector Kansuke Yamato of the Nagano Police, all of whom suspect that there is more to Conan than meets the eye.

Conan tends to act more like himself around the Detective Boys, even to the point that they find it odd when he acts like a child around adults. He will often play games like baseball with the Detective Boys, but he is too used to soccer to perform well and will even instinctively use soccer techniques, such as kicking in games that do not call for it. Because he is unfamiliar with popular games and TV shows, and bad at video games, Genta and the others tend to think of him as dumb. This annoys Conan so much that he will secretly watch TV in the living room after Kogoro and Ran go to sleep to get more "practice" in.

While he thinks that criminals should be punished, he also seem willing to give culprits, who has attempted murder due to misunderstandings and fail, a second chance and let them off the hook.

After he had one time failed to stop the culprit from committing suicide, he began to believe that a detective who has cornered a killer and just let him kill himself is no better than a murderer, and therefore he tries to do everything to stop it. At times when he fails to save the killer it haunts him.

## **Abilities**

### **Detective Skills**

All of Shinichi's detective skills carry over to his Conan form, although Conan does not the have the reputation Shinichi had. He repeatedly demonstrates the ability to remember every detail of an investigation or other topics he cares about, and may have a photographic memory to manage such perfect recall so consistently. Conan's fastidious attention to detail allows him to notice minor inconsistencies in crime scenes and suspect testimony that other people miss, and using astute logic he uncovers the reasons behind those inconsistencies in order to link them to the crime. Conan has extraordinarily broad knowledge of many subjects and trivia that help him solve cases; something he likely acquired from his incessant reading in his "first childhood". There are only few people like Heiji, Hakuba and Yusaku who are at the same detective level as Conan, with Yusaku be the only person who is noticeably better than Conan.

As a child, Conan can attract less suspicion while investigating crime scenes, get away with searching people's personal property, and ask innocent questions without setting suspects on guard, although it comes with the drawback of not having Shinichi's authority or reputation. He is also shown able to read lips.

### **Athletic Ability**

Conan is just as skilled as Shinichi in soccer, but a lot less powerful because he only has the strength of a young child. To make up for this, Conan uses Agasa's Power-enhancing kick shoes. Conan uses signature, powerful precision kick to knock out criminals using soccer balls or whatever substitute is handy. Like Shinichi, Conan's kick is accurate over distances and he is capable of mentally reckoning the angle of impact necessary to rebound a soccer ball off a wall and strike an attacker from behind. He is also good at skiing, snowboarding, and ice-skating.

Conan also has some skill with firearms despite the recoil being much more severe for a child's body. He shoots out a bus window during a bus hijacking, and precisely grazes Ran's leg to render her useless as a hostage in the second movie.

Conan's nimbleness is especially noticeable in the non-canon movies. For example, in the sixth movie, Conan is seen to fight with various antagonists, and he even holds his own against Jack the Ripper, a notorious serial killer who bests even Ran in combat. In the fourteenth movie, Conan does a back flip on his skateboard in order to avoid being killed by the blimp's hijackers. Conan shows a proclivity for skateboarding. In the movies and anime, Conan can easily perform very complicated tricks and dodges with his skateboard at high speed.

### **First Aid**

Conan has repeatedly dispensed first aid to stabbed/shot/cardiac/poisoned/hurt victims before the rescuers arrive.

### **Music**

Conan cannot sing on key in the slightest so he is often accused of being tone deaf. Despite being a hilariously awful singer, Conan has perfect pitch and can identify notes accurately even in difficult contexts like the sound of phone button presses forming a melody. In Episode 11: The Moonlight Sonata Murder Case, he knows that the piano is in tune and deciphers a message at the end just by listening to the notes that are played. Haibara directly described Shinichi Kudo as having perfect pitch in the last scenes of the twelfth Detective Conan movie, Full Score of Fear. He also manages to replicate and sing dial tones for a phone, showing that the reason he can't sing is because he simply doesn't have *relative* pitch. In File 728 (Episode 614), Conan stated he isn't very knowledgeable about music but identified the untuned piano key whereupon Haibara joked about his sharp ears despite being tone-deaf.

Also, to be like his favorite detective, Sherlock Holmes, he plays the violin. This was confirmed in movie 12 of the 'Full Score of Fear' when he played "Amazing Grace" for Ran. However, he is stumped on what Ran meant when she said, "He has a funny habit when he plays."

### **Bomb Defusion**

Conan can defuse a bomb effortlessly without external instruction. This has been demonstrated once in canon, and multiple times in movies.

### **Criminal Psychology**

Conan shows a keen understanding for criminal psychology, occasionally being able to sense if someone is the true criminal. He can also predict movement and plan of the criminals, and in some cases, he used this skill to "bluff". By deliberately giving wrong deduction, he managed to make the criminal reveal the key evidence of the case, confess, abandon suicide's attempt, or lead them to the wrong ends (if they are chasing Conan).

In non canon, it was shown that if the criminal doesn't conform to the general intellectual pattern, Conan will have trouble deducing their crime, even if it is so obvious that the Detective Boys can deduce perfectly.

### **Computer Skills**

Conan has some programming skills, for being able to create Mouri Detective Agency's website. He doesn't have the knowledge of hacking, at least he is not able to crack Black Organization's encrypted data.

### **Kaitou Kid Radar**

Conan occasionally seems to be able to sense if Kaitou Kid is present at a crime scene. Unlike Haibara's "Black Organization smell" sense, Conan's Kid detector isn't very reliable.

## **Trivia**

* Conan's bad singing came to light as a joke after the anime began airing because Conan's voice actress Minami Takayama is a well-known singer. In Volume 15 of the manga, Takayama herself is kidnapped and Conan, who sounds similar to her, tries to take her place at a concert. However, despite having similar voices, they sound completely different when it comes to singing.

* He owns two cellphones, the one he uses as Conan and one that he uses as Shinichi. He is also shown using different kinds of cellphones throughout the series.
* Conan often uses the expression "Ah-le-le?" when he is trying to point out a clue, something that is usually said by Japanese grade-schoolers. The expression was even said by Kogoro out of irritation at Conan (right before Conan tranquilized him). Conan's habit of acting juvenile to disguise his real abilities also draws the ire of the Detective Boys.
* Conan/Shinichi and Ran share the same blood type.
* Conan/Shinchi's favorite food is lemon pie and favorite drink is iced coffee. Shinichi's favorite food is lemon pie and was first shown in The Memories of First Love Case and is also shown in Lupin III vs. Detective Conan: The Movie when Daisuke say's that he isn't the only one who drinks iced coffee throughout the year.
* Conan is a big fan of Haginyan, a cat mascot (as seen in episode 891).