Shinichi Kudo

Shinichi Kudo (工藤 新一 Kudō Shin'ichi) is the protagonist of the manga and anime. Viz romanized his original name as Shin'ichi Kudo while Shogakukan's website romanizes it as Shinichi Kudoh. At the beginning of the series, Shinichi is a fairly famous high school detective who frequently helps the Tokyo police solve murder mysteries. One day, Shinichi brings his friend Ran to a local theme park called Tropical Land, to celebrate her victory in the Metropolitan Karate Championships. He later ends up solving a murder case there. As they are leaving, Shinichi heads off alone to follow a suspicious man in black, Vodka, who was a suspect in the earlier murder. Shinichi witnesses a blackmail exchange between Vodka and a company president in a secluded area just outside the park, but is too engrossed to notice Gin, Vodka's partner, sneak up from behind. Gin knocks him out and forces him to swallow a new experimental poison known as APTX 4869, and they then leave him to die. However, instead of killing Shinichi, a rare side-effect occurs: his body shrinks into that of his six year-old self. After escaping from well-meaning but skeptical park security, with nowhere else to go Shinichi heads home. He there runs into his next door neighbor and close family friend, Professor Agasa, who warns him that he must keep his identity secret because the Black Organization will kill him and others associated with him should they discover the truth. Despite the fact Toichi and Shinichi only met once prior to Toichi's death, it's worth mentioning Toichi referred to Shinichi as his "older brother" and himself as the "younger brother". This is because of Yusaku, Shinichi's father, created and thus was the father of the moniker Kaitou Kid, Toichi's secret identity. Toichi's son and successor, Kaito, has also only crossed paths with Shinichi as Shinichi once, during the Clocktower heist. Kaito thought Shinichi made the heist harder (and thus less boring) in Saguru Hakuba's absence, and Shinichi found Kid's intention of 'stealing' the Clocktower in order to save it from demolition to be fairly admirable. In their next encounter, however, after Shinichi had become Conan, Kid disguised himself as Ran in order to steal the Suzuki Black Star pearl. When Conan cornered him on the Suzuki cruise ship, Kid suggested that he'd stolen all of Ran's clothes to impersonate her, and left her naked on the deck. While this ended up being a bluff, Conan was shocked and infuriated. In subsequent encounters between Kid and Conan, Conan displays a much more intense desire to capture Kid. In several instances he appears to be able to 'sense' Kaitou KID's presence; knowing Kid is close by often causes Conan to behave far more frenetically. However, in several instances, beginning with the "Big Adventure in the Eccentric Residence" case, when Kaitou KID does Conan/Shinichi a favor, such as saving Genta's life in the aforementioned case, Conan reciprocates by halting his investigation just shy of capturing Kid, thereby allowing him to escape unhindered.