Character Profile: Jimmy Kudo

Jimmy Kudo had his life all planned out, even at the young age of 17. His father is a renowned mystery writer who took off abroad in search of inspiration, but Jimmy wanted to do something different. He didn't want to write mysteries. He wanted to solve them; not create fictional detectives, but be one in real life. So he studied the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the style of the famed fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

Using Holmes as a model, Jimmy began honing his observation skills to a razor edge, even as he applied his observations to deductive reasoning. To keep physically fit, he took up soccer and was even on the school soccer team for some time (before he shrank, he had a mean kick). By the time the series begins, his powers of observation and deductive reasoning are downright scary. Inspector Meguire had come to rely on Jimmy to take on those cases where nothing seemed obvious. And just like with Holmes, Jimmy put his skills to work and made the links that cracked the cases.

Then his life took a turn for the smaller. Pursuing a couple of black-robed criminals, he observes a blackmail in progress when he's jumped by one of the pair, who had stayed back in case someone followed. They then proceeded to try something out-- force-feeding Jimmy a supposedly untraceable poison. When Jimmy came to again, he eventually found out that his body had shrunk back down to that of a eight-year-old! In order to disguise the fact that the supposed poison had not worked, Dr. Agasa told Jimmy that he'd need to change his name...and quick, for his girlfriend Rachel had shown up. He quickly looked at his father's library and spotted two books: One by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and one by Japanese author Ranpo Edogawa. He quickly cooked up his new name: Conan Edogawa, and from then on, that's how everyone knows him.

Fortunately for Conan, the poison had left his highly-trained mind intact. Dr. Agasa asks Rachel and her father, private detective Richard Moore, to look after Conan. So now Conan continues his pursuit of solving crimes, hoping that one day he'll find the mobsters who tried to poison him and recover some of that poison, use it to create an antidote, and return to his original self. However, the fact that he is now just a kid means that he can't say his conclusions as easily. Most of the time, no one believes him, so with help from Dr. Agasa, Conan applies various tools and gadgets (as well as some clever thinking) to get his conclusions out. Still, he has to be careful, especially around Rachel. He has to be sure that no one knows that he's really Jimmy, lest the mobsters come to finish the job.

And as if his situation couldn't get any more complicated, his time is split between hanging out with Rachel and her father (hoping for a break) and working with three other classmates that have started searching for mystery and adventure.

These days, Conan carries a wide array of devices created by Dr. Agasa to help compensate for his diminutive stature. These five are among his most useful:

The power-boost sneakers, 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 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 to reveal solutions. Every so often, he also has to use it to reassure Rachel by mimicking his original voice in a phone call.

The stun dart watch 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.

The radio badge, emblazoned with the Detective Boys logo and given to Jimmy and the junior detectives, allows continuous but covert contact between them.

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.

Lastly, 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 never for correcting vision.

Jimmy was a great soccer player, and amazing detective. He had hopes of being the next Sherlock Holmes, but one night he witnessed a crime, was caught, and drugged. But instead of killing him, it transformed him into a 8 year old boy.

Taking the name Conan Edagawa until he can find a cure, he has gotten many gadgets from Dr. Agasa to help him solve crimes even as a kid. Two of these are his watch, which can knock out anyone with a tiny dart, and his bow tie voice changer, which he uses to pretend that Richard Moore is solving the case.

Using his appearance of a eight year old, he's able to talk to the suspects to figure out who they are without them knowing that he's more than just a curious child.