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holmesiantanteiKudo Shinichi is the son of Kudo Yuusaku and Yukiko. Yuusaku is the author of the famous Night Baron series of books, and Yukiko was a famous actress before she married Yuusaku. Shinichi has been taught things by both his parents – he inherited his father's knack for deductive reasoning, and his mother's love of showmanship. Due to a lasseiz-faire environment at home, Shinichi has always been self-independent, something that only increased when his parents left him at their home in Japan when he was fourteen to go off and travel the world.
When he was sixteen, he and his best friend Ran travelled to America by airplane to visit his parents and to see the sights of New York. On the plane journey, there was a murder – Shinichi's first, in fact. He displayed his talent for observation here, leading the investigation with the police officers also on the plane, and solving the murder before the plane landed. Hecaught the criminal from the smallest of clues; she switched the arm used to reach for a bag in an overhead locker due to being poked in the side by the sharp wire hidden in her bra.
Another murder occurred in once they arrived in America, solved through the efforts of Shinichi again, aided by his mother's connections to give him access to the crime scene. This time it was an affair of jealousy, a lead actor in a play having made promises to all the leading ladies and kept none of them, being murdered by one of them for it.
After the murder, Shinichi and Ran stumbled across a serial killer in an abandoned warehouse – Shinichi was retrieving Ran's handkerchief, and Ran got scared waiting alone and ran in after him. They ended up saving the serial killer's life when he slipped off of a rusty set of stairs – when asked why, Shinichi replied 'Why should there be a reason for saving a life?' He let the serial killer go, as Ran had fainted (being ill previously and now much worse off for cold and exhaustion), knowing that the area was surrounded by police anyway and likely to catch him soon. The serial killer was later found dead by apparent suicide.
The serial killer they had met was, in fact, a member of the Black Organisation in disguise, a woman known as Vermouth. It was unsure why she was disguised as the serial killer, or why she faked his suicide, but the meeting proved to be a turning point for Vermouth, as shown later in canon, when Conan meets her for the 'first' time again.
Shinichi returned to Japan and continued solving cases, becoming known as 'The High-School Detective of the East', 'The Saviour of the Japanese Police Force', and 'The Modern-Day Holmes' – he was the media's darling, and could do no wrong. This, of course, affected his ego greatly, as he received fan letters and praise from the community, and what teenager wouldn't get a swelled head?
One day, when he was seventeen, he took Ran to Tropical land as a present for coming first place in the regional karate championships. He solved a murder that took place on a rollercoaster, eliminating two men dressed all in black as suspects, though they were out of place and acting suspicious, eliminated the girlfriend of the man as a suspect despite a framing attempt, and pinned the murder correctly on the man's ex-girlfriend instead.
Drawing towards the end of the day, he noticed one of the two men in black from earlier acting even more suspiciously, and ditched Ran to follow him. He came across a blackmailing taking place and immediately began to take pictures to use as evidence, forgetting that there had been another Suspicious Character present.
The blackmailer's partner, who had no doubt been keeping a watch out for just this very occasion, came up behind Shinichi and brained him over the head with a pipe. They couldn't risk shooting him, since the police were still present from the earlier murder, and a gunshot would be heard far too easily. They used a new experimental poison that their organisation had developed – APTX 4869, designed to be an untraceable poison. It had never been used in the field before, and Shinichi was one of the first human test subjects – not that they cared about results, as they just left Shinichi there to die.
Luckily for him, the poison shrank him to the age of a seven year old. That's what you get for using untested poisons on main characters.
After a small adventure with park security and the threat of child services, Shinichi escaped home (avoiding barking dogs and a heavy lorry), only to find he was now too short to open the gate to his house. He managed to convince his neighbour, Professor Agasa Hiroshi, that he really was Shinichi and not a strange child playing a game of pretend via showing off his deductive powers on the professor – he knew where he'd been for dinner, and what route he'd taken home.
Agasa warned Shinichi that any organisation that the Men in Black belonged to was likely to be powerful, with a long reach and eyes everywhere, and warned him that he should tell nobody who he really was. Unluckily for Shinichi, Ran decided to make that the moment she was going to come looking for Shinichi at his house, worried at the way he'd abruptly vanished from Tropical Land earlier. Shinichi, quite frankly, panicked, despite the fact that he was not recognisable as 'Shinichi' any more, and made a mad dash scramble behind his father's desk, finding an old pair of his glasses to use for a disguise – once he'd popped the prescription lenses out, of course. He cobbled together a name from famous mystery authors – taken from the spines of the books on the shelf behind him, seen in yet another panicked moment. Edogawa Ranpo, and Arthur Conan Doyle gave him the name Edogawa Conan.
Professor Agasa asked Ran if she could take care of 'Conan' for him, since his house was not the best for a child, and she agreed. 'Conan' protested briefly, until Agasa pointed out to him that he could use Ran's father, a washed-up private detective, as a shield and a tool to investigate the Men in Black and their mysterious Organisation. If Conan was careful, nobody should realise who was really making the deductions.
He enrolled at Teitan elementary school and was dragged into forming the 'Detective Boys' or 'Shonen Tantei' by three other children in his class; Yoshida Ayumi, Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko, and Kojima Genta. The exuberance of the other children meant he acted as more of a part-time childminder than anything else. Especially when they decide to investigate things they would have been better to have keep their noses out of, and end up getting caught up in a ton and a half of trouble.
As Conan, Shinichi continued solving criminal cases, usually posing as Mouri Kogoro with the help of special gadgets invented by his neighbour and friend, Dr. Agasa. 'Posing' usually involved drugging Kogoro to sleep with anaesthetic darts and using tiny speakers and a voice-changing bowtie to imitate the detective – this quickly earnt Kogoro the nickname 'The Sleeping Detective' and a reputation for case-solving narcolepsy. Kogoro is bewildered at the sudden competence in his case-solving abilities, but does not question this as he is more than glad about his subsequent rise in fame.
Conan has been made an astounding amount of gadgets by Professor Agasa over the months. These are detailed here, but the main ones that Conan always carries on him are the Anywhere Ball Dispensing Belt, Criminal Tracking Glasses (and the corresponding bugs), Stun-Gun/Flashlight Wristwatch, Power Enhancing Kick Shoes and the Voice-Changing Bowtie.
During his many cases, Conan has sometimes come into contact with the elusive Phantom Thief 1412, also known as Kaitou Kid. He first met him at the Clocktower case as Kudo Shinichi, though they never came face to face, and then again as Conan during the Suzuki Black Pearl cases. Both times the thief was forced to flee without his prize, though Shinichi/Conan failed to capture him – their 'duels' then and since have nearly always ended in a tie. Kid is a master of disguise, able to change his voice without a device – and looks enough like Shinichi that he is able to disguise as him without a mask.
The two Men in Black that Shinichi first met, and who shrunk him to his current 'Conan' state, were only the start of the dark stain in Japan. They were members of a sprawling, subversive network of assassins, scientists and self-serving criminals called the Black Organisation. The two men Shinichi saw were called Gin and Vodka – codenames, of course. Gin is a highly intelligent sociopath, Vodka his subordinate. Another member is Vermouth – she studied disguise techniques with Yukiko, Shinichi's mother, and has the public identity of Chris Vineyard, a famous actress. We also meet Chianti and Korn, sharpshooters; Kir, an undercover CIA agent; Tequila, a short-lived operative who was killed by a bomb shortly after his introduction; Pisco (more details below), Bourbon, an undercover operative who has yet to be revealed; and we are given hints of the existence of a mysterious Boss, ('ano kata', or 'that person').
Later in the series, another main character, Haibara Ai, appears. A former member of the Black Organization, codenamed "Sherry", she is actually Miyano Shiho, a gifted chemist who developed the poison APTX 4869 which turned Shinichi back into a child. After her sister was murdered by members of the Black Organization, she tried to get out and was held captive, awaiting execution. She attempted to commit suicide by taking a dose of APTX 4869, but instead was transformed into a child as well, and managed to escape. She then enrolled in Conan's school under the pseudonym Haibara Ai. She knows Conan's true identity and helps him in his quest to bring down the Black Organization.
Another ally of Conan's is the Osakan high-school detective Hattori Heiji, who first showed up looking for Kudo Shinichi so that he could see which of them was the better detective. He leaves after solving a case with suspicions of Conan – which are confirmed the next time he meets the shrunken detective. Conan uses the dart watch on him to solve a case, but underestimates the Osakan detective's intelligence, as Heiji quickly figures out that Conan is Shinichi. Conan is annoyed (and slightly frightened) at first, but accepts the other boy as a firm ally soon enough.
Conan gets the chance to place a tracking device on Gin's car, made distinctive by it's colour and rarity of the model. He and Ai track him to a large event, where a BO-organised murder is to take place. Ai is recognised by the BO agent there as he knew her as a child. Pisco kidnaps her while Conan is preoccupied with the murder. Conan and Ai hatch a plan for Ai's escape; she is suffering from a mild cold, so drinks some of the Baigar in the wine-cellar she is being held in. She returns to her normal size, just escaping Gin and Vodka as they arrive to the room, tracing the bug that Conan placed on his car.
Gin follows Ai to the roof and shoots her, thinking she was the one who had bugged him. Ai falls back down the chimney, to a waiting Pisco. Conan has arrived by that time, and saves her life. Pisco is then killed by Gin for being caught on camera by a reporter whilst he was committing the earlier murder. Pisco dies before he can tell Gin about the shrunk Ai, thus meaning Conan's secret is safe.
(I find myself incapable of summarising all 700 chapters of Detective Conan so you get stuck with me brushing over the main plot points. TO BE FINISHED AT SOME LATER POINT IN TIME WHEN I FEEL INSANE ENOUGH TO TRY THIS AGAIN ;o;)
When he was sixteen, he and his best friend Ran travelled to America by airplane to visit his parents and to see the sights of New York. On the plane journey, there was a murder – Shinichi's first, in fact. He displayed his talent for observation here, leading the investigation with the police officers also on the plane, and solving the murder before the plane landed. Hecaught the criminal from the smallest of clues; she switched the arm used to reach for a bag in an overhead locker due to being poked in the side by the sharp wire hidden in her bra.
Another murder occurred in once they arrived in America, solved through the efforts of Shinichi again, aided by his mother's connections to give him access to the crime scene. This time it was an affair of jealousy, a lead actor in a play having made promises to all the leading ladies and kept none of them, being murdered by one of them for it.
After the murder, Shinichi and Ran stumbled across a serial killer in an abandoned warehouse – Shinichi was retrieving Ran's handkerchief, and Ran got scared waiting alone and ran in after him. They ended up saving the serial killer's life when he slipped off of a rusty set of stairs – when asked why, Shinichi replied 'Why should there be a reason for saving a life?' He let the serial killer go, as Ran had fainted (being ill previously and now much worse off for cold and exhaustion), knowing that the area was surrounded by police anyway and likely to catch him soon. The serial killer was later found dead by apparent suicide.
The serial killer they had met was, in fact, a member of the Black Organisation in disguise, a woman known as Vermouth. It was unsure why she was disguised as the serial killer, or why she faked his suicide, but the meeting proved to be a turning point for Vermouth, as shown later in canon, when Conan meets her for the 'first' time again.
Shinichi returned to Japan and continued solving cases, becoming known as 'The High-School Detective of the East', 'The Saviour of the Japanese Police Force', and 'The Modern-Day Holmes' – he was the media's darling, and could do no wrong. This, of course, affected his ego greatly, as he received fan letters and praise from the community, and what teenager wouldn't get a swelled head?
One day, when he was seventeen, he took Ran to Tropical land as a present for coming first place in the regional karate championships. He solved a murder that took place on a rollercoaster, eliminating two men dressed all in black as suspects, though they were out of place and acting suspicious, eliminated the girlfriend of the man as a suspect despite a framing attempt, and pinned the murder correctly on the man's ex-girlfriend instead.
Drawing towards the end of the day, he noticed one of the two men in black from earlier acting even more suspiciously, and ditched Ran to follow him. He came across a blackmailing taking place and immediately began to take pictures to use as evidence, forgetting that there had been another Suspicious Character present.
The blackmailer's partner, who had no doubt been keeping a watch out for just this very occasion, came up behind Shinichi and brained him over the head with a pipe. They couldn't risk shooting him, since the police were still present from the earlier murder, and a gunshot would be heard far too easily. They used a new experimental poison that their organisation had developed – APTX 4869, designed to be an untraceable poison. It had never been used in the field before, and Shinichi was one of the first human test subjects – not that they cared about results, as they just left Shinichi there to die.
Luckily for him, the poison shrank him to the age of a seven year old. That's what you get for using untested poisons on main characters.
After a small adventure with park security and the threat of child services, Shinichi escaped home (avoiding barking dogs and a heavy lorry), only to find he was now too short to open the gate to his house. He managed to convince his neighbour, Professor Agasa Hiroshi, that he really was Shinichi and not a strange child playing a game of pretend via showing off his deductive powers on the professor – he knew where he'd been for dinner, and what route he'd taken home.
Agasa warned Shinichi that any organisation that the Men in Black belonged to was likely to be powerful, with a long reach and eyes everywhere, and warned him that he should tell nobody who he really was. Unluckily for Shinichi, Ran decided to make that the moment she was going to come looking for Shinichi at his house, worried at the way he'd abruptly vanished from Tropical Land earlier. Shinichi, quite frankly, panicked, despite the fact that he was not recognisable as 'Shinichi' any more, and made a mad dash scramble behind his father's desk, finding an old pair of his glasses to use for a disguise – once he'd popped the prescription lenses out, of course. He cobbled together a name from famous mystery authors – taken from the spines of the books on the shelf behind him, seen in yet another panicked moment. Edogawa Ranpo, and Arthur Conan Doyle gave him the name Edogawa Conan.
Professor Agasa asked Ran if she could take care of 'Conan' for him, since his house was not the best for a child, and she agreed. 'Conan' protested briefly, until Agasa pointed out to him that he could use Ran's father, a washed-up private detective, as a shield and a tool to investigate the Men in Black and their mysterious Organisation. If Conan was careful, nobody should realise who was really making the deductions.
He enrolled at Teitan elementary school and was dragged into forming the 'Detective Boys' or 'Shonen Tantei' by three other children in his class; Yoshida Ayumi, Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko, and Kojima Genta. The exuberance of the other children meant he acted as more of a part-time childminder than anything else. Especially when they decide to investigate things they would have been better to have keep their noses out of, and end up getting caught up in a ton and a half of trouble.
As Conan, Shinichi continued solving criminal cases, usually posing as Mouri Kogoro with the help of special gadgets invented by his neighbour and friend, Dr. Agasa. 'Posing' usually involved drugging Kogoro to sleep with anaesthetic darts and using tiny speakers and a voice-changing bowtie to imitate the detective – this quickly earnt Kogoro the nickname 'The Sleeping Detective' and a reputation for case-solving narcolepsy. Kogoro is bewildered at the sudden competence in his case-solving abilities, but does not question this as he is more than glad about his subsequent rise in fame.
Conan has been made an astounding amount of gadgets by Professor Agasa over the months. These are detailed here, but the main ones that Conan always carries on him are the Anywhere Ball Dispensing Belt, Criminal Tracking Glasses (and the corresponding bugs), Stun-Gun/Flashlight Wristwatch, Power Enhancing Kick Shoes and the Voice-Changing Bowtie.
During his many cases, Conan has sometimes come into contact with the elusive Phantom Thief 1412, also known as Kaitou Kid. He first met him at the Clocktower case as Kudo Shinichi, though they never came face to face, and then again as Conan during the Suzuki Black Pearl cases. Both times the thief was forced to flee without his prize, though Shinichi/Conan failed to capture him – their 'duels' then and since have nearly always ended in a tie. Kid is a master of disguise, able to change his voice without a device – and looks enough like Shinichi that he is able to disguise as him without a mask.
The two Men in Black that Shinichi first met, and who shrunk him to his current 'Conan' state, were only the start of the dark stain in Japan. They were members of a sprawling, subversive network of assassins, scientists and self-serving criminals called the Black Organisation. The two men Shinichi saw were called Gin and Vodka – codenames, of course. Gin is a highly intelligent sociopath, Vodka his subordinate. Another member is Vermouth – she studied disguise techniques with Yukiko, Shinichi's mother, and has the public identity of Chris Vineyard, a famous actress. We also meet Chianti and Korn, sharpshooters; Kir, an undercover CIA agent; Tequila, a short-lived operative who was killed by a bomb shortly after his introduction; Pisco (more details below), Bourbon, an undercover operative who has yet to be revealed; and we are given hints of the existence of a mysterious Boss, ('ano kata', or 'that person').
Later in the series, another main character, Haibara Ai, appears. A former member of the Black Organization, codenamed "Sherry", she is actually Miyano Shiho, a gifted chemist who developed the poison APTX 4869 which turned Shinichi back into a child. After her sister was murdered by members of the Black Organization, she tried to get out and was held captive, awaiting execution. She attempted to commit suicide by taking a dose of APTX 4869, but instead was transformed into a child as well, and managed to escape. She then enrolled in Conan's school under the pseudonym Haibara Ai. She knows Conan's true identity and helps him in his quest to bring down the Black Organization.
Another ally of Conan's is the Osakan high-school detective Hattori Heiji, who first showed up looking for Kudo Shinichi so that he could see which of them was the better detective. He leaves after solving a case with suspicions of Conan – which are confirmed the next time he meets the shrunken detective. Conan uses the dart watch on him to solve a case, but underestimates the Osakan detective's intelligence, as Heiji quickly figures out that Conan is Shinichi. Conan is annoyed (and slightly frightened) at first, but accepts the other boy as a firm ally soon enough.
Conan gets the chance to place a tracking device on Gin's car, made distinctive by it's colour and rarity of the model. He and Ai track him to a large event, where a BO-organised murder is to take place. Ai is recognised by the BO agent there as he knew her as a child. Pisco kidnaps her while Conan is preoccupied with the murder. Conan and Ai hatch a plan for Ai's escape; she is suffering from a mild cold, so drinks some of the Baigar in the wine-cellar she is being held in. She returns to her normal size, just escaping Gin and Vodka as they arrive to the room, tracing the bug that Conan placed on his car.
Gin follows Ai to the roof and shoots her, thinking she was the one who had bugged him. Ai falls back down the chimney, to a waiting Pisco. Conan has arrived by that time, and saves her life. Pisco is then killed by Gin for being caught on camera by a reporter whilst he was committing the earlier murder. Pisco dies before he can tell Gin about the shrunk Ai, thus meaning Conan's secret is safe.
(I find myself incapable of summarising all 700 chapters of Detective Conan so you get stuck with me brushing over the main plot points. TO BE FINISHED AT SOME LATER POINT IN TIME WHEN I FEEL INSANE ENOUGH TO TRY THIS AGAIN ;o;)
