| abstract
| - Dubbed the "Heisei Holmes" (Heisei being the current "era" of Japanese history), sixteen-year old Shinichi was well-known throughout the Beika District of Tokyo and beyond for being able to solve any crime that the police failed to. However, he was still a teenager, and susceptible to things such as... oh, falling in love with his childhood friend Ran. One day, after solving a murder at an amusement park, Shinichi comes upon a mysterious man in black extorting money from another man. While he's investigating, however, he fails to see the man's partner sneak up on him and knock him out cold with a metal pipe. Deciding that He Knows Too Much, the two force-feed him a poison pill supposed to not only kill him, but leave no trace behind besides "evidence of a spontaneous heart attack". Unfortunately for them, it fails to do the former, and only half-accomplishes the latter: Shinichi has been shrunk into a six-year old. One quick visit to his neighbor Professor Agasa's house later, Shinichi realizes that he must keep his identity secret, lest the two men in black come back and kill him for good. He is adopted by Ran, and now lives at the Mouri Detective agency, much to his (at first) dismay. Every once in a while, he has picked up leads on the two men in black, but in the meantime... murders, thefts, and kidnappings are popping up all around, and what better way to pass the time than to solve them all? Mandatory naming note: "Shin'ichi" has various possible spellings - the one used here is 'new one', possibly referring to his being the 'Holmes of the Twentieth Century/New Era', but may also be a reference to the Japanese writer Shinichi Hoshi. "Kudo" came from Shunsaku Kudo of Tantei Monogatari. Tropes associated with him:
* Accidental Pervert: Most apparently in the Hot Springs Episode when he nosebled, but also in some of the other situations-- his not-girlfriend did not know his identity and did a few things that would be appropriate in front of a pre-teen, but not a boy her own age(which is rather funny; technically Conan's gotten further with Ran than Shinichi has).
* He actually was this in the first episode already. He forgot that he promised to take Ran out on a date to an amusement park, and when she tried to kick him in the head for that, she ended up giving him one Hell of a Panty Shot... when he tried to dodge and ended up with his head under her skirt. He then got a face full of school-bag for his trouble.
* Adorably Precocious Child: Appears to be one as Conan.
* Adorkable: In the beginning of the series the only clothes he's seen wearing are his miniature suit, complete with a bow tie. This combined with his cute ways of expressing his feelings and his Sherlock Holmes obsession create top quality Adorkable material.
* Almighty Janitor: Conan is just a kid (in appearance, at least), and nobody ever listens to kids, at least not for a couple of chapters. New officers usually react this way towards him, but those who know him always appreciate his input. Once he has solved a crime, he usually has to resort to his tranquilizer wristwatch and voice-changing bow tie in order to relay his deductions through a handy field-expedient ventriloquist's dummy.
* Amateur Sleuth
* Berserk Button: Do not ever harm anyone he cares for. But especially his beloved Ran. He can be quite jealous when someone merely shows possible romantic/sexual interest in Ran, but if you ever look at her wrong...
* Also, among all the murderers and criminals he deals with, Conan absolutely loathes Yanderes and Cute Psychos. Criminals of such types often get the most scathing, harsher "Shut UP, Hannibal" speeches from him.
* Born Detective: His dad writes mysteries. And has brought him to murder scenes ever since he was little. And an OVA showed him solving cases at one year old. Figures.
* In the OVA, he actually seems to be doing things just to lead his mother into a Eureka Moment...oddly enough, one of his tactics today.
* Blind Without'Em: Invoked to maintain his Clark Kenting (see below). The dub made it one step further by making dub!Conan say he has retinitis pigmentosa.
* Cassandra Truth: No one believes Conan when he tries to help, and that's why he uses Kogoro, Sonoko, etc. This was later subverted by several adults, who even without knowing his secret either recognize his ability without asking too many questions (Satou particularly), or at least acknowledge his uncanny (and faked) habit of creating Eureka Moments.
* Catch Phrase: A few of them.
* "Edogawa Conan, tantei sa!"
* "Shinjitsu wa itsumo hitotsu!" (Or its American counterpart: "With a keen eye on details, one truth prevails!")
* "Ah re re"
* Conan also has Oi, Oi. There are two fan videos consisting of him saying/thinking the phrase "Oi, oi."
* "Barou!" (as in "Ba(ka-ya)rou!")
* Character Name Alias
* Chronic Hero Syndrome: He can't leave a case unsolved and any hint that a crime might occur in the future has him trying to prevent it. This is lampshaded by several characters, including Ran and Ai.
* Clark Kenting: After being shrunk to a grade-school kid, the title character does the same thing as Clark Kent: wears a pair of glasses (was his father's) to hide his identity. It usually works well, until he slips up and says information he shouldn't have known unless he was really Shinichi Kudo, who was supposed to be a distant relative. This leads to Ran becoming suspicious of him several times, but she always ends up discrediting her own finds because the evidence doesn't quite match up, due to some outside interference (usually planned by the protagonist himself). In one scene, when the character Ai Haibara returns to her original age, Conan offers her his glasses as disguise, saying that they work well enough for Clark Kent. The response from Ai is, "So are you saying you're Superman now?"
* According to an interview with Gosho Aoyama, the glasses really were based on Superman.
* Constantly Curious: Conan routinely interrogates suspects by pretending to be an obnoxiously curious kid, at least for as long as he can pull it off without being scolded. The Detective Kids behave like this at times as well, though in their case they aren't pretending. Sometimes Conan uses this trick to pass information to the adults (usually Kogoro) to allow them to solve the case if he can't or doesn't want to use the Stun Gun Watch.
* Deadpan Snarker: He mainly snarks the Detective Boys, Kogoro, Ran etc.
* He snarks everyone, actually, if they ever act or give some comments which he considers stupid.
* Deliberately Cute Child: Conan often does this to throw people off from suspecting he's really seventeen year old Shinichi Kudo. Though he can on occasion take it too far and has a time or two been called out by his kid friends for doing it.
* Gadget Watches: His include a stun gun and a torch.
* Genre Savvy: Has read all the great detective stories and knows their tropes by heart.
* Goggles Do Something Unusual: Conan's glasses have been given upgrades throughout the series. Initially they contained a screwed-in GPS bug that could be taken out and placed elsewhere while the glasses tracked the device's location with its own minimap. Agasa later replaced the glass with bulletproof glass and the bug was updated with listening functions and its own frequency. The listening device is also designed so it "Stimulates the eardrum," thus only the wearer can hear it.
* Hollywood Tone Deaf: He has perfect pitch but simply can't sing.
* In the manga he is completely unable to translate the notes he hears into music using an instrument or his voice himself; in the anime, however, he has enough skill for his own very awkward-sounding (to this musically-qualified troper) theme tune and one song on the violin - since he's such a huge Sherlock Holmes lover that he would try it himself. Note that Holmes himself was never at all accomplished at the violin and merely played how he felt at the time.
* Hyper Awareness
* Identity Impersonator: As Ran often comes close to discovering Conan's identity, he has found a couple of ways to have "Shinichi" on the phone when Conan is in the room. The masterstroke came one time when he was in his original body and Ai disguised herself as Conan.
* Improvised Weapon User: His only weapon of assault is his super shoes that only increased the power of things he kicked on. Sometimes, strange results would happen: he tried to kick a cabbage, but it broke immediately. The other time he had to kick an entire hospital bunk-- well, got the villain, but sprained his ankle in the process.
* Inner Monologue: Conan does this all the time. In some dubs, including the American dub, this inner monologue is even in Shinichi's voice!
* Intelligence Equals Isolation: Not as bad as Hiroki Sawada, but as Shinichi he had some issues in regards to relationg to people. More than once his classmates and teachers would remark on him being arrogant and hard to approach, with Ran as almost the only exception.
* Limited Wardrobe: In the earlier part of the series, Conan nearly exclusively wore a blue suit, a white shirt, and a red bowtie. Later he was seen with a better variety of clothes.
* Line-of-Sight Name: Shinichi came up the name Conan Edogawa by seeing books of mysteries by Arthur Conan Doyle and Edogawa Rampo.
* Meitantei: Why, the Japanese title is Meitantei Conan.
* Lonely Rich Kid: After his parents moved to the US. That said, this does not induce I Just Want to Have Friends but rather enforced his Otaku image.
* The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Averted.
* And then she appears as herself for two episodes, both in the manga and the anime adaptation. The Detective Boys quickly point out the similarity between their voices, and the irony given by the contrast between Shin'ichi/Conan's Hollywood Tone Deaf status and Minami's Idol Singer talent.
* Must... Have... Caffeine...: He is commonly depicted as one in fanon.
* My Greatest Failure: The Moonlight Sonata case. The only notable case where Conan FAILED to stop the suicide of a Sympathetic Murderer.
* Mystery Magnet: Poor kid can't go anywhere without a murder happening. Occasionally lampshaded--the police inspector, upon realizing that Detective Mouri just HAPPENED to be near when the crime occurred, has a tendency to raise his eyebrow and vocalize his incredulity. Sadly, he never seems to follow up on this.
* New Powers as the Plot Demands: He always has previously unmentioned special skills in Non Serial Movies, conveniently explained away by "my dad taught me at Hawai'i." Attained Memetic Mutation status, at least in Taiwan. Lampshaded in this fanfic.
* Nosebleed: Conan gets some of these during Accidental Pervert situations.
* Not Now, Kiddo: Nobody ever listens to kids. Early on, Conan has to use Professor Agasa's voice-changing necktie just to tell the police to look under a table. It has been averted slightly as time goes by in that most of the police inspectors eventually learn to pay attention to Conan's observations--and some even recognize the kid's innate intelligence rather than thinking he is just accidentally inspiring them.
* Not So Above It All: He has picked up some of Kogoro's most annoying habits. Hilariously seen in the Masami Hirota case: when the stranger that Ran caught took off his sunglasses, they started laughing in exactly the same way and at the same time.
* OTOH, he once started a'hootin' and a'hollerin' when his favorite soccer team won a big game, prompting Haibara to snark that "the Master Sleuth was just a jumpy little boy when it came to soccer."
* Obfuscating Stupidity: Conan repeatedly makes a very awkward use of this to disguise his investigations and artificial Eureka Moments. This usually consists of Conan making a very adult speech or explanation, followed by everyone looking strangely at him, followed by Conan hastily saying in deliberately-cute mode, "At least, that's what I saw on TV!" In general, he gets away with it more because he looks like a child than his questionable acting skills.
* Oblivious to Love: A minor example; in a strange reversal of his usual eye for small details, Conan usually completely fails to notice the few occasions when Ai expresses her jealousy of his relationship with Ran.
* Older Than They Look: Main premise of the show.
* Otaku: Em, some of classmates would rather call him suiri-otaku (mystery geek), especially Sonoko. Ran also tends to use it as an insult when's irritated with his supposed preoccupation with difficult cases causing his prolonged absence.
* Parental Abandonment: His parents moved to the United States two years before the stories; mainly in Los Angeles but also seen in Hawaii and New York. He still keeps contact with them and they've helped him out more than once, though.
* Secret Identity: He FAILS to keep it well, while still succeeded in keeping it. Specifically, as advised by Dr Agasa, Conan Edogawa must hide the fact that Kudo Shinichi survived poisoning by the Organization in order to protect the safety of friends, family, and loved ones.
* Except, all things considered, he seems to be doing a pretty lousy job of it, as Conan is unable to keep from appearing too clever for his own good. Not only does he (as Shinichi) regularly telephone Ran, but he also telephones Inspector Megure (as Shinichi) from time to time to drop clues (but makes sure the police officers know not to tell anybody about his involvement). It seems to be a fairly open secret as of episode 250 that Kudo is in frequent contact with the Mouri Detective Agency. During the "Desperate Revival" arc, while under the influence of a temporary apotoxin antidote, he even appeared as his teenaged self before an entire auditorium full of high school students. But it was all right, because afterward they all promised not to tell anybody. (Yeah right.)
* Certainly, other clever people take notice. When even Ran is able to figure out that Conan is Shinichi (several times over the course of the series), that can be a problem. (And it doesn't help matters that Heiji is prone to calling Conan "Kudo" even when in the presence of others.) In "Trembling Metropolitan Police Headquarters: 12 Million Hostages" (when Takagi and Conan are trapped in an elevator with a bomb and believe they're going to die) even Takagi asks Conan "who [he] really [is]". If you cannot even keep the fact that you are concealing your true identity secret from Takagi, you FAIL at secret identity.
* Moreover, every time a case with Kid comes up, Conan is treated by the media as Kid's nemesis, effectively making him a celebrity. This would likely be detrimental to keeping a secret identity given that he looks exactly like a young Shinichi Kudo and the Organization is already suspicious of everything surrounding Kogoro--but luckily for him, any of his accomplishments and fame are completely forgotten in any chapter not starring Kid, only to come back next time the thief shows up.
* The fact that Conan's identity remains secret from the Black Organization is probably attributable more to luck (and script immunity) than skill. The members of the Black Organization who have uncovered the truth about Conan's and/or Ai's shrinkage either had their own reasons for not divulging it to the rest of the group (Vermouth, Kir, Irish in Raven Chaser, Bourbon (at least so far)) or were killed before they could do so (Pisco). The one other member of the group who might be intelligent enough to figure it out, Gin, is handicapped in that he makes a point of not remembering the people he's killed; he probably forgot who Kudo Shinichi was five minutes after feeding him the poison. (Also, Conan has somehow managed not to directly catch his eye.)
* Shorter Means Smarter: Look at his height compared to the other Detective Boys.
* The Short Guy with Glasses: Conan was the second shortest member of the regular cast, shorter than Ayumi. Subverted as Shinichi; he is of normal height for his age.
* Significant Birth Date: Shinichi's birthday is 4th of May, the day when Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Moriarty supposedly fell of the Reichenbach falls.
* Single-Target Sexuality: Shinichi's pretty much Ran-sexual, as the arc with Asami suggested.
* Surrounded by Idiots: Oi, oi. Lowered eyebrows optional.
* Teen Genius: Limited similarity to Sherlock Holmes' field of knowledge; he certainly knew all that knowledge for all his cases, but he was not shown to be that good academically. (Of course, he's not Kindaichi bad.)
* Thou Shalt Not Kill: He found the Moonlight Sonata case (see Narumi Asai, below) as His Greatest Failure.
* Tricked-Out Shoes, which that deliver an electric current through his legs. This greatly enhances his kicking ability.
* Wimpification: Certainly Detective Conan is not a Boys Love series, but Shinichi/Conan is universally considered being Uke to practically everyone for all Yaoi Fangirls of the series. It might be really jarring to see Conan being uke to Hiroki (see below), who may have more uke stereotypes than Conan is.
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