Jimmy Kudo

Jimmy Kudo
Case Closed (Detective Conan) character
Jimmy Kudo, shown in his regular form (top) and his "Conan Edogawa" form (bottom)
First appearance	Roller Coaster Murder Case
Created by	Gosho Aoyama
Voiced by	Japanese: Kappei Yamaguchi for Shin'ichi Minami Takayama for Conan English: Jerry Jewell for Jimmy Alison Viktorin for Conan
Profile
Nicknames	modern Sherlock Holmes
Aliases	Conan Edogawa
Age	17 as Jimmy, 7 as Conan
Gender	Male
Known relatives	Booker Kudo (father), Vivian Kudo (mother)

Jimmy Kudo, known as Shin'ichi Kudo (工藤新一, Kudō Shin'ichi^?) in the original Japanese anime and manga, is the main character of the anime and manga Case Closed, known in Japan as Detective Conan (名探偵コナン Meitantei Conan). Viz romanized his original name as Shin'ichi Kudo while Shogakukan's website romanizes it as Shinichi Kudoh.

Character Information

Jimmy is a 17-year old(16 year old in manga) student at Titan High School (Teitan High School in the original Japanese versions) and is already a well-known detective. He dreams of being a great detective like Sherlock Holmes^[1], his idol, and gets his dose of reality from his childhoof friend Rachel Moore (Ran Mouri in the original Japanese). Jimmy's parents, Booker and Vivian (Yusaku and Yukiko) live in the United States^[2] while Jimmy lives in Japan.

After solving a murder at the theme park Tropical Land, Jimmy witnesses an exchange between an unknown man and another person in all black. He is so focused on the exchange (a blackmail over an arms deal) that he does not notice an accomplice sneak behind him. This accomplice, another man in black, hits him at the head and spills into his mouth a newly manufactured poison. This poison, known as APTX 4869, is designed to kill a person and leaves no traces of itself. However, instead of killing Jimmy, it slowly shrinks his body, giving him the appearance of a seven year-old boy.^[3] In desperation, Jimmy finds the only person who may believe his story: his next door neighbor, close family friend, and an eccentric scientist Dr. Herschel Agasa. Jimmy manages to convince Dr. Agasa that he was shrunk and is determined to discover who the men in black are. However, Dr. Agasa tells Jimmy to keep his identity secret lest the Black Organization will come back and kill him for real, along anybody who knows Jimmy's secret.

After Rachel asks for Jimmy's name, Jimmy fashions an alias, Conan Edogawa (江戸川 コナン Edogawa Conan) , after Arthur Conan Doyle and Edogawa Rampo. "Conan" goes to live with Rachel and her father, Richard Moore (Kogoro Mouri), a private detective, and hopes that by living with a detective, he can stay on top of current cases and be able to gather hints about the "Black Organization".^[4] Unfortunately, Detective Moore is so incompetent that Jimmy often has to solve the mysteries for him. Jimmy frequently knocks out Richard with a dart shooting watch and uses his voice-changing bow tie to imitate Richard's voice. Because of this, Richard gets the credit and becomes famous quickly. Cases begin to pile up, occasionally giving Jimmy a chance to gather hints on the Black Organization.

In order to keep Conan's secret safe, Dr. Agasa enlists Conan at Titan Elementary School (Teitan Elementary School), where Conan befriends three classmate children, Amy Yeager (Ayumi Yoshida), George Kaminski (Genta Kojima), and Mitch Tennison (Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya). Together, they form the Junior Detective League (Detective Boys or Shonen Tantei in Japanese). As the story progresses, Conan also befriends Anita Hailey (Ai Haibara), who is a former member of the Black Organization that managed to escape. Anita, being the creator of the APTX 4869, also took the drug and proves to be a valuable to ally as she continues her search for an antidote. Anita is secretly fancying Conan but always denys it. But Conan didn't like her anyway, because he already liked Rachel.

Throughout the series, many people have managed to learn Jimmy's secret. People who know of Conan's true identity include Dr. Herschel Agasa^[5], the Kudo couple (Booker and Vivian)^[6], Harley Hartwell^[7], Anita Hailey^[8], Vermouth^[9], Eisuke Hondou^[10] and Phantom Thief Kid. However, Kid only appears to know Conan's identity in the movies as there is no mention of it in the manga or anime. ^[11] Both Akemi Miyano (Ai Haibara's elder sister)^[12] and Hiroki Sawada (a character in Detective Conan: The Phantom of Baker Street) learned Conan's secret before they died.

Relationships

Rachel Moore

Rachel is Jimmy's childhood friend and love interest. When Jimmy disappeared at Tropical Land, Rachel took in Conan from Professor Agasa, not knowing that Conan is actually Jimmy. Conan promises not to tell Rachel about his true identity in the fear that the Black Organization might harm Rachel and Richard if his secret is known. Knowing that Rachel misses him, Conan calls her over the telephone and imitates Jimmy's voice so that she is not worried about him. He convinces her that he is off solving a very difficult mystery and will return once the investigation concludes.^[13] Due to striking similarities between Conan and Jimmy as a child, Rachel often suspects Conan of Jimmy^[14], but every time she does, Conan does something childlike to make her ignore the idea. Larger schemes, created by Jimmy and his friends, has been used to convince Rachel that Conan is not Jimmy. This usually follows an extremely long story arc.^[15] In such arcs Conan tends to drop his guard in order to save someone or to fully investigate a crime. In more recent stories, Rachel becomes really sure of Conan's true identity and asks him to admit the truth. Sometimes, Jimmy feels that he cannot trick her anymore. Jimmy gets close to telling her, but then something usually happens which hinders him to do so. After his first encounter with Harley Hartwell (Heiji Hattori), Conan discovers the poison that was fed to him could temporarily be deactivated through drinking Chinese alcohol. He makes this discovery when he temporarily turns back into Jimmy after Harley gives Conan some Chinese liquor as some kind of cold remedy.^[16] This is one of the three occasions when Jimmy turns back into his teenage form. Despite being separated from each other, Rachel and Jimmy still love each other and Rachel is always constantly waiting for Jimmy to return.

Gadgets

It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article entitled List of Conan Edogawa's gadgets. (Discuss)

Conan has gotten many gadgets from Dr. Agasa to help him solve crimes even as a kid.

• The power-boost sneakers, (First introduced in Episode 5) when turned on, send a mild current through Conan's legs, effectively supercharging them for short periods. This is a critical device for Conan, for with the shoes on, Conan can briefly run fast, jump high, and kick even harder than he did when he was in his original body. They come in most handy in clutch moments.
• The voice-changing bow tie^[17] allows Conan to take on another person's voice. Another of his critical devices, he will often change voices to point out clues and disguise himself as Richard^[18] to reveal solutions. Every so often, he also has to use it to reassure Rachel by mimicking his original voice in a phone call^[19].
• The stun dart watch^[20] is armed with tiny tranquilizer darts that can put a person to sleep for a number of minutes and a face that flips up to become a sight. Richard has gone to sleep via these darts often; Conan will afterward pose Richard and pretend to be him at the end of a case. This device has one shot only, however.^[21]
• The radio badge, emblazoned with the Detective Boys logo and given to Jimmy and the junior detectives, allows continuous but covert contact between them. Also, they have a transmitter that can be detected by his tracing glasses.
• The solar-powered skateboard is able to propel itself so long as there's sunlight to power it: a handy means of getting around town when short legs just don't cut it. It used to run on nothing but solar power and would shut off when the sun went down. Recently however, it has been installed with a 30 minute battery.
• Tracing glasses: These glasses can pick up radio signals from special transmitters that Conan frequently sticks onto a suspect. Conan's glasses aren't corrective, since he has good vision already. Originally, he just pushed the lenses out of his father's spare pair of glasses and used him as part of his disguise. Dr. Agasa later gives him different glasses with various abilities, but the lenses are always just plain glass. Once, however, he had Dr. Agasa fit the frames with bulletproof glass in preparation to defend himself against a criminal (Detective Conan: The Last Wizard of the Century).
• Soccer ball making belt: a belt that is made to form 1 soccer ball of any size, and is greatly used with the power-boost shoes, but at some points, he uses it for soft landings.
• Portable Bento Box Fax: a bento box with a fax machine hidden in it. Also contains real food.
• Ear Cell Phone: A gaudy looking ear ring that is also used as a cell phone.
• Mini Speaker: A speaker that allows Conan to communicate remotely through the bowtie. Usually used in situations where he needs to be a significant distance from Richard when solving a case.

Trivia

Shinichi Kudo/Jimmy Kudo in Detective Conan, the anime series in Japan.

• Jimmy's birthday is May 4^[22], the date when Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty fought over Reichenbach Falls.
• His zodiac sign is Taurus.
• Jimmy's favorites:

Food: Lemon Pie.^[23]

Sport: Soccer.^[24]

Detective: Sherlock Holmes.^[25]

Detective Story: The Sign of Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle^[26]

Phrase: "One Truth Prevails" (English version), "There is Only One Truth" ("真実はいつもひとつ Shinjitsu wa Itsumo Hitotsu" Japanese version)

• Jimmy knows a note when he hears one but can't for the life of him create music with his own voice. This often leads people to think that he's tone-deaf. He has special interest in violins because Sherlock Holmes plays one.^[27]

• Jimmy's first name in Japanese is Shin'ichi, this came from martial artist Shin'ichi "Sonny" Chiba whom Gosho Aoyama is a fan of. According to Volume 18, his last name came from fictional detective Shunsaku Kudo from the Japanese drama Tantei Monogatari ("Detective Story").

• Jimmy is a proficient marksman, as seen in the second movie Detective Conan: The Fourteenth Target, having been taught by his father at a shooting range in Hawai'i. This somewhat develops into a gag, for example, in the fourth movie Detective Conan: Captured in Her Eyes, Ran asks Conan where he learned how to drive a boat, and he answers "My father in Hawai'i". In the fifth movie Detective Conan: Countdown to Heaven, the Detective Boys ask Conan where he learned how to drive, and he answers that his father taught him in Hawai'i. In the eighth movie Detective Conan: Magician of the Silver Sky, he says that he learned how to fly a plane by his father in Hawai'i.

References

Sources and external links

• Case Closed Jimmy Kudo page
• Case Closed Conan Edogawa page
• Role-playing write up

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