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Sep 02, 2011 07:09

Character: Edogawa Conan

Series: Detective Conan/Case Closed.

Deviance: D1



Age: 7 (physically 7, mentally 17)

Gender: male

Species: human

Canon Used: Manga (but I’m familiar with the anime and movies and am not adverse to taking elements from both when they do not conflict with the canon established in the manga canon. Although I am familiar with the most recent live-action special and drama, this show differs so dramatically from established canon that I won’t be using any elements from it.).

Appearance: Conan appears to be an ordinary seven year old Japanese kid. He is tiny, less than a metre tall, and weighs only 18 kg. He has bright blue eyes, over-large glasses, and short black hair with a messy fringe and a bit that sticks up at the back. He has an uncanny resemblance to the high school detective, Kudo Shinichi.

His speaking voice is usually light and childish, although when thinking out loud or in reasoning mode, the childish nuances drop and his tone is much more neutral. When talking to characters like Hattori or Haibara that Conan views as equals and has no reason to hide around, he tries to make his voice sound deeper and rougher, and uses a much more casual, slangier vocabulary more suited to a teenager than a child.

Conan is usually wearing Western style clothing or his unofficial school uniform which consists of navy shorts and a blazer, dorky red bow-tie and white short-sleeved shirt. He has been known to make some interesting fashion choices, but is usually wearing sneakers and a watch. He almost never takes the glasses off in public.

Psychology:

Edogawa Conan is an extremely intelligent seven-year-old with a passion for puzzles and mysteries and a knack for getting himself involved in police investigations. Living with Mouri Kogorou, better known as the famous detective ‘Sleeping Kogorou’, Conan has had ample opportunity to get caught up in Kogorou’s cases, and his habit of spotting and remarking on seemingly unconnected details that turn out to have relevance to the crime have endeared him to the local police officers. Conan also tackles mysteries with the Detective Boys, a group of 4 of his classmates who share his love of mysteries (although usually Conan is left to actually solve them).

Conan is usually polite and remarkably mature for his age, displaying extremely good reflexes and the ability to think fast in tense situations. He takes the often frightening and gruesome situations he finds himself in with remarkable composure and is extremely active in pursuing clues and suspects. Around his elementary school friends and in other more relaxed situations, his attitude of politeness slips, and he lets a more opinionated side of his personality show - he is scornful of ghosts and fairy tales, rates Holmes above every other detective and has a habit of making observations more accurate than kind. That aside, he is always ready to help someone in genuine trouble, in particular, coming to the rescue of Ran more than once. Seemingly capable of any amount of bravery to help his friends, Conan is a remarkable child.

Too bad it’s an act.

Conan is the alias adopted by Kudo Shinichi, also known as the Heisei Holmes, a second-year senior high school student who gained fame in Tokyo for his reasoning prowess. A teenage detective genius who often assisted the police on difficult cases, it should come as no surprise that Shinichi was as proud and cocky as he was intelligent, resourceful, ruthless and cool. From his actress mother, he inherited a flair for the dramatic, while his novelist father taught him the rudiments of reasoning and observation and instilled in him his passion for mysteries. Deciding at an early age to mimic his hero, Sherlock Holmes, Shinichi trained his mind, learning a wide amount of crime related knowledge, became adept at soccer to train his body and even took up the violin. Presenting a cool, detached persona to the world (or trying to, at least), Shinichi nonetheless harbours strong feelings for Ran, his best friend and classmate.

Since becoming Conan, Shinichi’s been forced to become more aware of the impact his actions - in particular his disappearance and long absence - has on those around him. In particular, he is very aware of Ran’s loneliness and uncertainty without her best friend. Other incidents that have impacted greatly on him was his failure to anticipate and prevent the murderer in the Moonlight Sonata case committing suicide, as well as his failure to prevent the murder of Miyano Akemi. Perhaps this is one of the reasons he has a rocky relationship with Akemi’s younger sister, currently known as Haibara Ai. Although Haibara is one of the few people to know the full story behind Conan, the pair are often bickering, though it’s clear that there is an element of fondness in their teasing, and there are instances of them showing concern for each other’s well-being - although Conan would claim that it’s nothing more than wanting to protect a valuable lead. Likewise,Conan’s friendly rivalry with the detective from Osaka, Hattori Heiji, has seen him lose his trademark cool in recent chapters to squabble childishly. However, a mutal respect and dependence underlies this rivalry, and Heiji is probably, after Agasa Hakase, the person Conan finds it easiest to talk to.

Despite being widely acknowledged as a reasoning genius, Conan’s subject to blinding moments of dumb, especially when Sherlock Holmes is involved. For example, Conan arranged a trip to London without realising that Edogawa Conan couldn’t travel without a passport simply because he was over-excited at the prospect of visiting his beloved Holmes’ city. He also seems to have a gift for annoying Haibara, and although fully cognisant of the risk to himself and others, can not stay out of a mystery, even if his life depends on it (as it sometimes does). He is reckless, charging into confrontations he is ill-prepared for on the off-chance of securing a lead on the Organisation, and his resolve to stay quiet about his feelings in order to protect Ran did not last long once confronted with an angry and tearful Ran. Conan is also really dumb about girls and romance in general.

Other Skills/Abilities:

Being shrunk has not impacted Conan's ability to reason and solve crimes with the best of them! Likewise, he's kept his soccer skills, his knowledge of English, the violin, perfect pitch, sense of smell, all of the talents he developed as Shinichi. He has sharp reflexes and can move fast when the occasion calls for it.

To make up for the loss of strength and the fact that no one respects the seven-year-old, Professor Agasa has come up with some inventions to help him. In addition to the watch containing the sleeping dart and the voice-changing bow-tie (which allows Conan to mimic any voice that he knows the sound of), Conan's 'power-inducing sneakers' amplify the force of his kicks, allowing him to kick soccer balls, drink cans and other small, portable objects with the force necessary to knock people out. His belt can dispense soccer balls for him to kick (although they go flat within about ten seconds) and he has especially strengthened braces that can retract at the push of a button.

Probably the only cool thing he has on him are his glasses which in addition to being bullet proof, allow him to view the locations of his tracking devices, can zoom in on distant objects and have an infra-red mode. It's worth noting that Conan has perfect vision, so anyone picking up the glasses and trying them on may wonder why he wears them at all.

Other Weaknesses:

Conan is short, skinny and weighs all of 18kg. He is immensely portable and often finds himself powerless to stop himself being physically removed from crime-scenes. In the course of his investigations he has been kidnapped, shot, taken hostage and memorably, thrown from a blimp. Conan is extremely physically vulnerable -- and his pride as Shinichi often means that he doesn't ask for help when he needs it.

Because of this vulnerablity, and the fact that he appears to be seven, Conan's opinion's are often discarded or viewed as childish, and his actions are hampered by other people's intentions to protect him. The fact that he has to protect himself and his friends by concealing his identity means that he is effectively lying to everyone he meets. Although he is a good actor, thanks to his mother, he's not going to be able to maintain Conan all the time, and as the gaps in the mask show, his relationships are going to become compromised.

Despite having perfect pitch, Conan cannot sing in tune to save his life. He’s also really bad at slicing cucumbers and dealing with girls.

History:

Kudo Shinichi had just established himself as a brilliant teenage detective, when he and Ran made a fateful decision to visit a theme park together. Noting two men acting extremely suspiciously, Shinichi ran off to follow them - a bad decision as the men turned out to be members of the Black Organisation, a top secret criminal group of expert assassins and spies. Caught in the act of photographing an illegal transaction between the two men and a prominent businessman, Shinichi was first knocked out and then fed an experimental poison that was intended to kill him without leaving any trace. Shinichi, however, had a one in ten thousand reaction to it and was shrunk to the size of a seven-year-old. Knowing that if the Black Organisation found out he was alive, he and everyone around him would be in danger, Shinichi adopted the name Edogawa Conan (a combination of Edogawa Ranpo and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), and under the guise of being a relative of Professor Agasa (one of the few people who knows Conan’s true identity), went to live with Ran and her detective father. Determined to solve crimes even in his new persona, Shinichi begged Agasa to invent some sort of device to make this possible. Using a watch that fires a sleeping dart and a voice-changing bow-tie, Conan first knocks Kogorou out and then impersonating his voice flawlessly unmasks the true criminal.

As Edogawa Conan, Shinichi’s established a new life for himself, attending Teitan elementary school, hanging out after school with his elementary school classmates, accompanying them on camping trips, tagging along on Mouri’s cases, and going shopping with Ran and her other best friend Sonoko. Ran has become genuinely attached to her young charge, and Conan’s established something of a reputation among the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and has even generated unwanted media interest for some of his antics.

I’m taking Conan from the most recent chapters, so he has returned to his original body via temporary cures on four occasions, confessed his feelings to Ran in London, met Sera and has Subaru installed in his house. Thanks to his efforts, Mouri Kogorou is known widely as Japan’s most famous detective and enjoys considerable celebrity. Conan’s also survived several close shaves with Organisation members, made friends and allies among the FBI and Tokyo Metropolitan and enjoys minor celebrity as ‘the kid that almost caught the Kaitou Kid that one time.’

Canon Point: Most recent chapter - File 787. Note: This is the first part of what I assume will be a 3 part story that I don’t think will have any huge character impact which is why I’m taking him from a slightly awkward point.

Reality Description:

Modern Japan, with a side of suspension of disbelief - if we are to take the frequency of ingenious and expertly committed murders in Detective Conan as any reliable indication, Japan is populated only by frustrated and homicidal mystery buffs. The series has a floating timeline, so despite starting 15 years ago, all the action takes place within one year, and that one year is intended to be present time, as seen by the evolution of technology within the series (the pay phone Conan first uses to call Ran being replaced by celphones and the functions of those celphones becoming more advanced as the series progresses).

The Black Organisation is under cover but there, carrying out murders with devastating accuracy and efficiency, to the point that the police and public don’t know they exist. The effects of the apotoxin - let alone things like magic and super powers - would be widely greeted with disbelief, and although Agasa’s mad inventions occasionally work, and Akako from the Magic Kaito (which crosses over with Detective Conan occasionally and is set within the same universe) series is presented as possessing genuine magic, the setting is realistic within the framework of the detective genre.
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