Shinichi Kudo

Shinichi Kudo (工藤 新一), is a Famous High School Detective who is also known as the "Detective Of The East" (東 の 探偵) who was shrunken by APTX 4869 and now goes by the alias Conan Edogawa (江戸川 コナン). He is the childhood friend and the romantic interest of Ran Mouri and the main protagonist in the manga and anime franchise Detective Conan.

Background
Shinichi is the son of Famous Mystery novelist Yusaku Kudo and Yukiko Kudo a famous as a talented actress. He had a great interest in Sherlock Holmes and read many Mystery novels since he was a child in a huge library with dozens of shelves filled with Mystery novels from all over the world in his house which has inspired him to become a Detective.

When he went into Kindergarten where he first Met Ran Mouri, he has her give him a Sakura Badge made by her so she won't be bullied by the children. When Ran realizes this, she befriends Shinichi and the two of them have been close friends ever since then.

Once, when Shinichi was in Elementry School, he went to investigate the "Ghost" that Sonoko Suzuki had seen. Ran followed him, to which he didn't say she needed to follow.

Sometimes when Shinichi was around fourth or fifth grade he was given to role to play 'Ikkyu-san' in a play suggest by Sonoko and his parents made him practice his role.

A year before Shinichi became Conan Edogawa Shinichi went on a trip on a plane to Los Angles with Ran coming with him while on the plane a murder occurred and Shinichi went to investigate the incident which became the very first case he solved a detective.

Appearance
Shinichi has a striking resemblance to his father, Yusaku Kudo, sporting the same dark brown hair with a cowlick in front and distinctive tuft in the back, and slightly paled skin.

Personality
Shinichi is highly intelligent and was very intuitive and observant even from a young age. Due to the influence of his father and the general environment at home, he has long been an incessant and persistent reader, especially for mystery novels. His father, Yusaku started taking Shinichi to crime scenes as a child, which inspired him to be a detective.

Shinichi is a calm and cooled person and sometimes acts cocky and due to his bluntness and matter-of-fact manner, He can appear as a rude and arrogant person; calling elders or classmates and friends "idiot"s. Despite his popularity with the masses and his schoolmates, Shinichi has very few close friends. He is close to Ran and Agasa, and after dealing, he befriended Heiji, Haibara, and to some extent the other Detective Boys. Another reason for his lack of close friends was because his arrogant personality was a negative turn-off to many of his classmates and even teachers, making it hard to befriend him. Instead of calmly explaining his reason for doing or not doing something, sometimes causing arguments between him and Ran.

Despite this, he cares about human life, unable to understand how any reason could be a sufficient motive for murder, and believes driving a culprit to suicide is no better than the murder itself as shown where told Heiji that he would be no better than a murderer if he allows a criminal to commit suicide.

Before his transformation to a child, Shinichi enjoyed being in the spotlight, reveling in making local headlines and receiving fan-mail and still has a flair for the dramatic like his mother that can be seen every time he sets out a deduction in pieces building to a climax.

Because of his predicament of being shrunk into a child he gained a sense of humility and began hiding his involvement in the cases, he solved as Shinichi.

Intellectual Abilities
Consistently, Shinichi has proven himself to be a very sharp-witted and calculating individual. While only in high school, his passion mysterious have lead him to be a very well-read and methodical in investigations. His detective skills often earns him comparisons to Sherlock Holmes.

Physical Abilities
Shinichi has an amazing athletic ability. Shinichi is an extremely skilled soccer player, having been professionally scouted while only in middle school, but he chooses to stay at the amateur level. He initially played to hone his reflexes and often juggles a ball to clear his mind, but he is also an enthusiastic fan of the sport in its own right. He can also play the violin, as seen in one of the movies. Shinichi also has perfect pitch, and he is fluent in English.

Aside from sports, Shinichi exhibits a knack and impeccable accuracy for handling firearms due to his father taking him to shooting ranges from time to time. During the Clocktower Heist, Shinichi is able to shoot and dislodge the support beam of a giant projection screen with a single shot from a moving helicopter. Additionally, in The Fourteenth Target, Conan shot a bullet at Ran's leg with such precision, that while it rendered her unable to walk to force the criminal to let her go, but afterward her leg healed cleanly with no lingering signs or damage.

He is nimble, as well as strong, he can swing from tree to tree and can perform a capable amount of what acrobatics can.

While never as passionate about it as Ran, Shinichi is also well-trained in karate and judo, having learned from watching and being taught by Ran. He has been able to skillfully dodge a kicking assault from an angry Ran, something very few have ever managed. With his proficiency, as seen in Shiragami Case, he disarms the culprit trying to commit suicide, and even against the expert judo practitioner Kogoro, in Drama Episode 13, he avoided Kogoro and take him down as he tries to hurt him. He has a strong sense of coordination giving him the abilities of shooting darts like in The Detective Boys Get Out of the Rain, when he throws them to a giant Gomera puppet so it can fall on the culprit.

Shinichi cannot sing, to which he is accused of being tone-deaf. Despite his ability of hilariously awful singing, he has perfect pitch, and knows what Hertz each phone number produces. To be like his favourite detective, Sherlock Holmes, he plays the violin. This was confirmed in Full Score Of Fear, when he played "Amazing Grace" for Ran. Although he gets a bit stumped when Ran says he "has a weird habit when he plays".

Conan Arc
Shinichi first appearing in the middle of a case where a murder was committed during a party at a private mansion where one of the guests, President Yamazaki of Yatsubishi Bank, was found dead with a bullet in his heart. The police, led by Inspector Megure, have been investigating the crime scene, but have no conclusive evidence as to who the killer is Shinichi declared that he figured out who the murderer is and concludes that the murderer could only have been someone who knew the mansion very well and eventually points his finger at the landlord. The latter, being in a wheelchair, then starts to laugh, claiming that he's in no position to be able to commit such a crime. Shinichi then grabs a globe and throws it towards the owner who immediately jumps out of his chair to avoid it. The maid and guests are all in shock. Shinichi then says that he's been healed for a while now as reported by his doctor, which Megure confirms. The Landlord attempt to escape but Shinichi stop him with soccer skills. Later Megure thank Shinichi for his help where Shinichi tells Megure to called him to solve another difficult case

When Heiji Hattori a High School Detective arrives at Mouri Detective Agency looking for Shinichi in order to determine which of them is the better detective. A strange combination of having a cold and drinking the baijiu that Heiji had brought along allows Conan to briefly grow into Shinichi once again. However, he appears to develop an immunity to alcohol and cannot replicate the transformation.

Sherry Arc
Shinichi return back to his original body with an antidote made by Ai in order to fool Ran into thinking that Shinichi and Conan are two separated people after learning that Ran was certain of his identity after donating blood to him when he was shot in stomach. He reveal himself as the Knight in the school play.

Bourbon Arc
Shinichi returns back to the original body after taken an antidote for APTX 4869 that was accidentally given to him by Agasa while investigated a previous case that solved where the person involved in the case claimed he made a mistake in the deduction.

Shinichi return back to his original body via taking the antidote made Haibara one for the trip and ibe back to Japan so he is able to take a flight to London as he couldn't travel overseas as Conan. When Ran calls Shinichi for advice on the riddles. Conan, tells Ran the first riddle "A rolling bell rises me", refers to Big Ben, and which made Ran believe Shinichi is in London.

Realizing Ran will discover Conan's true identity if she finds him, Conan and Agasa flee from her. Conan becomes cornered in a phone booth and is forced to take the antidote, APTX 4869, for the return trip and confronts Ran as Shinichi. Ran confesses her pain of liking Shinichi believing he is indifferent to her feelings and runs away as Shinichi is left chasing after her.

When Shinichi finally caught up to her and answers Ran's hurt feelings over his behavior with the fact that he cares for her and that he likes her which surprised her.

Rum Arc
Shinichi returns back to the original form to take part in the Kyoto trip with Ran and their friends. After he manages to get Haibara to give him the series of antidotes to him. Each time Conan takes an antidote, he has to wait 8 hours after the back shrinking before taking another one.

Shinichi and Ran secretly hope that Ran will give an answer to Shinichi's love declaration back in London. On the Kiyomizu-Dera, Shinichi meets Keiko, an actress and old friend of his mother, who stays in the same hotel as Shinichi and his class, with some university friends with which she shot a blockbuster revolving around a tengu and other monsters. She asks Shinichi to help her to decipher a mysterious code written and sent by their late friend Michio Dekuri, who committed suicide some time ago.

The code was received by Nishiki, the movie's screenwriter, along with red aralia leaves, typical from Kyoto. Shinichi tries to solve it, while enjoying Kyoto with his friends, in particular Masumi, who knows Conan is Shinichi but still keeps it a secret. The group of friends visits Kyoto's temples and their gruesome crimson ceilings, which were at first the temple's floors spilled with the blood of samurais who committed mass suicide/seppuku and left many footprints, it was so astounding that the floors were kept and turned into ceilings.

A mysterious tan man with a big backpack looks at his watch all the while gazing at Shinichi. Back to the hotel, Shinichi still struggles with the code when Keiko calls him in an emergency, he rushes to Nishiki's room and they find the screenwriter stabbed to death, with two bumps on his forehead, his notes spread everywhere, and his room's ceiling covered with blood and footprints that lead to an opened window.

Trivia

 * Shinichi Kudo's Given Name "Shinichi" (新一) is a pun on "One Truth". The "Ichi" (一) means "One" and "Shin" (真) can be read as "Truth", however the Kanji actually used for "Shin" (新) in Shinichi's Given Name means "New".
 * Shinichi Kudo's Given Name "Shinichi" (新一) may have come from the name of the Famous Violinist "Shinichi Suzuki", since Shinichi Kudo also plays violin.
 * Shinichi Kudo's Family Name "Kudo" (工) comes from the Fictional Detective Shunsaku Kudo from the Japanese TV Series Tantei Monogatari.
 * "Kudo" (工) means "Craft" or "Construction" and "Wisteria".
 * Gosho Aoyama stated that Shinichi Kudo's Hair Style was designed in about one minute. Shinichi Kudo's Hair Style was also based on Conan Edogawa's.
 * While creating Shinichi's Hair Style, Gosho smoothed Yaiba's Hair from Yaiba and added a Tuft on the back of his head modeled after the Apostrophe Hairstyle of Kabu from Sally the Witch.
 * Shinichi's Tuft on top of his head comes from the Fictional Character Shichimi from Niji-iro Tohgarashi.
 * Shinichi Kudo's Speech Habits were meant to be slightly rough like Joe from Ashita no Joe.
 * Shinichi Kudo and other Detective Conan Characters have been mentioned and parodied in many other Anime Series which include the following:
 * Angelic Layer - Episode 22
 * Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
 * Black Cat - Episodes 13 & 14
 * Hayate the Combat Butler
 * Inuyasha - Episodes 128 & 200
 * Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple - Episode 5
 * Operation Love - Episode 10
 * Sonic X - Episode 39
 * Yakitate!! Japan - Episode 48
 * Shinichi Kudo and Kaito Kuroba have similar Character Designs and the same Voice Actor as an Adult.
 * Shinichi Kudo, due to the popularity of the Detective Conan Series, was used as a Role Model to encourage people to follow the Japanese Law.
 * Shinichi Kudo seems to have Plane Narcolepsy which also shows up when he is Conan Edogawa as well.
 * Shinichi Kudo/Conan Edogawa's Favorite Food is Lemon Pie and Favorite Drink is Iced Coffee, which were first shown in Episodes 100-101 and in Movie 18.5, respectively.
 * Shinichi Kudo/Conan Edogawa and Ran Mouri share the same Blood Type, although their Blood Type still remain unknown.
 * Shinichi Kudo is right-handed.
 * Shinichi's birthday is a reference to the date of Sherlock Holmes and James Mortiarty's battle at Reichenbach Falls.