Kudou Shinichi

Authored by Ranmori17

Shinichi Kudo (工藤 新一 Kudō Shin'ichi?) is the high school detective, narrator and main protagonist of the manga and anime Detective Conan. While on a date with his childhood friend and romantic interest Ran Mouri, Shinichi encounters two men from a secret criminal organization who force feed him a strange poison that causes his body to shrink back to first grade age. Shinichi takes up the alias Conan Edogawa and plans to use his immense skill as a detective to make Ran's bumbling private detective father famous in hopes that he will find a case involving the secret organization so he can expose its crimes and acquire an antidote that will turn him back into a teenager.

Viz romanized his original name as Shin'ichi Kudo

At the beginning of the series, Shinichi is already well-known as a brilliant young detective, the "Savior of the police force", for solving many difficult cases the professionals could not.He is extremely intelligent, and even from a young age was very intuitive and observant. Due to the influence of his father and the general laissez-faire environment at home, he has long been an incessant and persistent reader, especially of mystery novels. His father, Yusaku started taking Shinichi to crime scenes as a child, which inspired him to be a detective. Due to his bluntness and matter-of-fact manner, Shinichi can come off as rude and arrogant. However, he cares deeply about human life, unable to understand how any reason could be sufficient motive for murder, and is convinced that driving a culprit to suicide is no better than murder itself. The few times he has been too late to save a life haunt him throughout the series.

Prior to his transformation, Shinichi enjoyed being in the spotlight and was rather arrogant, reveling in making local headlines and receiving fan-mail. Throughout the series, Shinichi's predicament causes him to gain a sense of humility. Shinichi still keeps his flair for the dramatic (like his mother) that can be seen every time he sets out a deduction in pieces building to a climax.

Despite his popularity with the masses and his schoolmates, Shinichi has very few close friends. He is close to Ran and Agasa, and after deaging, 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. Even with his close friends (one being older than him), Shinichi doesn't hesitate to call them "idiot", instead of calmly explaining his reason for doing or not doing something, sometimes causing arguments between him and Ran.

Shinichi also had a tendency, since elementary school, to have an air of being the "distant, cool guy". While he is a truly good and heroic individual, he doesn't make it known to others that obviously, and will make some "deductive reasoning" for why he did such a thing. His insensitive nature is also horrible, which was shown most prominently during the Holmes' Revelation Arc, when Ran started crying because she believed that Shinichi not telling her he was in London meant that he was indifferent to her feelings for him. However, instead of trying to comfort her, Shinichi repeatedly asked her about the strange woman she met, and told her to pull herself together.

Despite his intelligence, Shinichi is rather dense when it comes to love or romantic subjects, though perhaps not to the same extent as Heiji Hattori. He struggled to confess his love for to Ran, even after he knew her feelings (as Conan), and temporarily returned to his original body in the Desperate Revival Arc, he was about to confess to her, but chickened out at the last minute. After several failures, finally succeeded in London. However, he was revealed to be an amazing "wingman" in episodes 253-254.

Shinichi is a 174 cm (5'8.5") Japanese teenager with a thin, athletic build. He has pale skin and a dark brown/black hair with a cowlick in front and distinctive tuft in the back. Shinichi bears a striking resemblance to his father, Yusaku Kudo minus his father's mustache and round glasses. Shinichi has blue eyes in the manga (a trait shared by all the characters), and they are blue in the anime as well.

Shinichi is right handed and right footed, but he is good with both feet because of his soccer skills.

Shinichi often appears in his high school uniform, but he also wears a suit and tie or regular clothing depending on the occasion. When Conan turns back into Shinichi by using baijiu or a temporary antidote, Shinichi will wear whatever appropriately sized clothing he can find at the time. He was also very popular with the girls as he was handsome not to mention a high school detective.