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"With a keen eye for details, only one truth prevails!"
Detective Conan, released as Case Closed in an edited English release, is a very long-running anime and manga series. Seriously, with over 700 episodes, it's currently at 11th place in terms of total number of anime episodes, and having surpassed 800 issues, it's in 22nd place in terms of manga volumes.
Shinichi Kudo (Jimmy Kudo in the US) is one of the world's foremost detectives. And he's only in high school. His sharp analytical mind allows him to connect points faster than just about anyone else. The local law enforcement agencies frequently ask him for help.
One day, while with his childhood friend Ran Mouri (Rachel Moore in the US) he witnesses a crime committed by two men in black. They see him, knock him out, and give him a pill that is supposed to kill him and not show up in the autopsy. There's about a one in a million chance that the pill will instead de-age him, and that's what it does.
Now, as six-year-old Conan Edogawa (a combination of the names Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edogawa Ranpo [Edgar Allan Poe], two famous mystery writers), he has to find and apprehend the men that shrunk him while keeping his friends in the dark, lest the men in black kill them all for knowing too much. The fact that he witnesses (and subsequently solves) about three murders a week in the process doesn't seem to slow him down.
The North American dub is titled Case Closed. Some believe Conan Properties International demanded this under the impression that the only Conan in existence is Conan the Barbarian (Conan O'Brien ended up paying them to use his own name in his show's title). Others think a distributor demanded a unique trademark.
Tropes used in Detective Conan include:
1 #ABC
2 DEF
3 GHI
4 JKL
5 MNO
6 PQRS
7 TUV
8 WXYZ
#ABC
Absence of Evidence: In one episode, the daughter of a wealthy businessman has been kidnapped and Conan figures out who the kidnapper is when he remembers that no one reported hearing the sounds of dogs barking the previous night. (For clarification, the butler who claimed to have witnessed the kidnapping said that the kidnapper climbed down a tree, but the businessman's dogs routinely barked at anyone who got near the tree.)
This doubles as a Shout-Out to the Sherlock Holmes story, "Silver Blaze"
Actor Allusion: When Conan runs into Two-Mix, everyone notices that he sounds like Minami Takayama (she plays his voice).
Adaptation Distillation: The anime tends to build the cases' backgrounds and characters further than the manga (after all, Talking Is a Free Action). Therefore, cases like the murder of Mina by her sister Masayo over a misunderstanding or the asshole writer killed by his twin brother become much stronger, since we see a smooth transition of the murderers, from keeping their cool to becoming completely deranged.
Adults Are Useless: any and all adults, even if competent detectives or policemen otherwise, are not nearly match to Conan's lightning deduction (and sometimes the unique benefits of having a child's body).
Though Kogoro/Richard gets played like this most of the time as a Defective Detective, he keeps up with the other adult characters and sometimes surpasses them. With some help, he's shown to be very good. What keeps his talents from flowering are his laziness and impatience, especially his tendency to stick with the very first theory he comes up with. In some cases he has the edge over Conan, as being older, he has some insight into people's emotions better than Conan/Shinichi (for instance, he can point out the difference between jealousy of a lover or a father). In a number of episodes, Kogoro almost manages to solve the case by himself (with just a little prompting by Conan), but can't quite make the last connection. Plenty of times, Kogoro is missing the last connections because Conan finds more evidence.
And when it comes to apprehending correctly-identified criminals or defending innocents, he becomes scarily competent. Especially if said criminals have pissed him off personally or threatened Conan and Ran, or if children are at stake. His black belt in judo isn't just for decoration, and it is revealed in the second non-serial movie The Fourteenth Target that he is an excellent pistol marksman as well. *** In fact in one of The Movies, Kogoro not only figured out who the real murderer was before Shinichi, he got it right, when Shinichi accused someone, being wrong. Sort of. It's hard to explain, it being a Gambit Pileup.
Shinichi's and Heizo's fathers are great detectives, even better than their sons, they just basically never show up. Yusaku is just not interested in being a full-time detective, being quite happy as a mystery author, and Heizo's father is probably busy with the administrative kind of police work. Ran's mother, Eri, is pretty effective at being a detective as well. Probably why she's such an effective lawyer. She's just so rarely involved that it doesn't matter.
Adult Fear: Any danger that happens to Conan, who the majority of the characters believe is a six year old kid, or any other children in general. Conan has been alone with murderers before, held at gunpoint or knifepoint, taken hostage, willingly staying in an elevator with a bomb, being kidnapped and so forth. Another example that could applied is in the 15th movie where Conan is buried under an avalanche and they only had minutes to save him.
The Non-Serial Movie Phantom of Baker Street has the computer Noah's Ark taking fifty children participating in a virtual game system as hostages (where at least one child out of the fifty needs to Win to Exit or else, all of them die in real life) while forcing parents to watch as the capsule containing their child turns grey, signalling a "game over" for that child.
When such things happen to teenagers, it's not much better. A good example is the fourth movie, Captured in her eyes, when Ran develops Trauma-Induced Amnesia — suddenly, the girl who always protects and takes care of Conan is the one who needs to be protected, and it takes quite the emotional toll not only on him, but on others as well.
The Stage Magician case brings a BIG one when we find out that the victim's daughter, Ayano, has been kidnapped by the killer. Fortunately said killer was a Sympathetic Murderer and, though she admits that she wanted to kill the girl (since her father murdered her older brother), she decides not to and returns her unharmed before turning herself in.
Aerith and Bob: In the dub, the children of Oscar Hotta are Ryan, Kevin, Karen...and Famke. Famke? While yes, technically it's a real name of Dutch origins, it's so uncommon they might as well have just kept her original name, Famiko.
Aesop Amnesia: During the episodes in which Ran suspects Conan is secretly Shinichi, she treats him with more respect, runs interference for him to investigate, and just generally pays more attention to what he has to say. But let him convince her the resemblance was all in her imagination, and she is back to scolding him for "interfering" in Kogoro's investigations again.
At one point Kogoro is told by the doctor to stop drinking so much—and for a few episodes he actually does. But not long afterward, he is back to boozing as heavily as usual.
Sadly Truth in Television.
All That Glitters: Played with several times. One case had a mansion where the treasure was the view from a hidden window. On Conan revealing this, the villain had a complete breakdown over all they had done to find it - including mass murder and disfiguring their own face. Another episode had the treasure be the experience of the journey to find it...except there was also a real treasure as some robbers had been hiding their gains in the same spot.
In the 11th Non-Serial Movie, Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure, the "pirate treasure" of Anne Bonny and Mary Read turns out to be a hidden but empty pirate ship, built by Anne while waiting for Mary to get out of prison, which crumbles to bits upon being exposed to outside air.
Almost Kiss: Takagi and Satou, so many times. Finally resolved when Takagi was in the hospital.
Shinichi and Ran during the Desperate Revival arc, the New York arc, and the Lupin III crossover special (Ran's dream).
Alone with the Psycho: Mitsuhiko. He was with a serial killer (Numabuchi) from Volume 19, who wasn't the killer in the Osaka Serial Murder Case. The actual killer in that was the police officer who used him for the blame. Numabuchi escaped, apparently, from police custody later.
Always Murder: Proportionally less than The Kindaichi Case Files, but with enough magnitude to be lampshaded in Lucky Star.
Seriously, if it's not about Kaito Kid, it's about murder.
Sometimes Even
Always on Duty: In almost all murder cases taking place in Tokyo, Megure and his team are the policemen in charge. Similarly, other policemen have been established to take this role in regions outside Megure's jurisdiction. Somewhat justified for Inspector Yama, who is a known Fan Boy of Kogoro and therefore frequently gets assigned to cases involving him.
Alternate Character Reading: Very commonly used, especially in Dying Clues.
A strange use happened in Moonlight Sonata case: Seiji Asai pretended himself as a woman just by changing the pronunciation of his name from the masculine Seiji to the feminine Narumi.
Amusement Park: Tropical Land
And I Must Scream: Reika in Billionaire Birthday Blues, who was thought to have been missing (or even been the one responsible for the murders), but was actually bound and taped up in a bathtub, with the cover placed over her....while it gradually filled up with water and drowned her.
Anime Accent Absence: Americans in this series speak more or less fluent Japanese, peppered with Gratuitous English.
Subverted in the London Arc episodes, where all the English Speaking characters speak in Queen's English (and only a few speak Japanese when justified to) while the Japanese characters speak in accented but understandable English and Japanese.
Anime Theme Song: this Long Runner has 28 openings and 36 endings, and is the premier outlet for artists of Being Group.
Art Evolution: Compare the Conan in Volume 1 to the Conan now, especially the chin. Also, there wasn't originally a horn on Ran's hair in the beginning.
Art Major Biology: The whole Apotoxin plot. The apoptosis thing is true, when explained. But one wonders where Haibara and Conan gained enough nutrients for their cells to multiply so quickly. And wouldn't their risk for cancer exponentially increase each time they take the antidote? Let alone that Baigar Is The Antidote...
Asshole Victim: They love this trope. Very often, the killer is in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge due to the victim committing one or more acts of Kick the Dog or being a downright Complete Monster. You can often predict the victim in most of the episodes by seeing which of the newly-introduced characters acts like the biggest jerk.
Tragically Subverted in "The Forgotten Bond": Mindy/Masayo murdered her sister Maya/Miina because she believed that she had knowingly stolen her boyfriend Kenneth/Kenji (which also was the corollary of Miina having spent years imitating her, something that Masayo at first found cute but later thought of as creepy), but the truth was that Kenji fell for Miina all on his own. Miina didn't want Masayo's feelings to be hurt by the fact that Kenji had chosen her over Masayo so she pretended that she had seduced Kenji. A good sister until the end, when Masayo sent her to buy two bottles of cleaning solution (which she intended to mix together and create the poisonous gas that would kill Miina), Miina read the label at the counter, realized that the two chemicals could be dangerous if mixed together, and switched one of them out, not wanting to put her sister's life in danger. Once Conan reveals this, the killer has a My God, What Have I Done? moment and breaks down crying over her victim's body, begging her to wake up.
Also subverted in the Karaoke Murder case. The murderer was the manager of the band, who killed the lead singer for insulting her constantly, despite the fact that they had been going out when they were younger, and she still loved him, to the point that she got plastic surgery, wanting to look nicer for him. Unfortunately, he didn't like that she had done this, thinking she was prettier the way she was. Not knowing how to say this, he started being a Jerkass to her, eventually leading to her killing him. To add insult to injury [1] It was revealed he had written a new song for her, planning to tell her everything. Ouch.
As You Wish: Used as a red herring. Jodie is routinely seen using a catch phrase of Vermouth ("A secret makes a woman a woman"), the Black Organization's Master of Disguise (who bears some resemblance to Jodie). Turns out that Vermouth said the same phrase to Jodie after killing Jodie's parents.
Also used straight the first time Ran suspected Conan's identity. Ran mentioned their PE teacher is marrying. Conan asked "Since when can gorillas get married?" Oh Crap.
Author Appeal: It's clear that Gosho Aoyama enjoys his classic mystery novels. He even brought in his characters from his first ongoing so they could match wits like Lupin and Holmes.
Awful Truth: Ai keeps insisting that if Ran were to know the truth about the Black Organization and Shinichi being Conan, then she will not smile. She will be burdened by the truth.
Dr. Agasa also cautions against telling Ran, but for the far more practical reason that she—and everybody Shinichi/Conan knows—might become a target of the organization.
Badass Grandpa: The superintendent of the art museum in the Art Museum Murder Case. A man in his sixties moving around in a freaking suit of armor and murdering the Asshole Victim of the week with a broadsword. It's quite possibly the flashiest murder in the entire series. Not to mention him calmly accepting his arrest mere minutes after the initial panic, and revealing that he saw right through Conan's little ruse.
Badass Mustache: Richard Moore/Kogoro Mouri. Inspector Megure and Dr. Agasa as well.
Bandaged Face: A couple of cases included one.
A murder happens aboard a boat with a costume/masquerade party, where some characters are dressed as mummies. Also, the detective who solves the murder, thought to be Shinichi but actually Heiji in disguise, is dressed up as the Invisible Man.
Another example - The victim wore bandages on his face after he deliberately burnt down a motel, despite the scars are easily removed by plastic surgery. That fact was used by others to create alibis for the real murders—they disguised themselves as him after he committed suicide.
The first Closed Circle case of this series involves this as well... as for the rest, see Nightmare Fuel.
Batman in My Basement: Both Conan and Ai did that, and they both went to Dr. Agasa's house; for Conan, it was because he is his neighbor; for Ai, she just passed out in front of the Kudo residence.
Beam of Enlightenment: When someone resolves a case (not only Conan, but also Heiji and/or Kogoro), there's an onscreen flash shaped as a light beam.
Belligerent Sexual Tension: Heiji and Kazuha, and Kaito and Aoko if you include the Magic Kaito series.
Berserk Button: Try to hurt Ran, and Conan will make SURE that there is a soccerball-shaped impression in the culprit's face.
Although if you try to take Ran hostage, she can handle things herself, which at times scares even Conan. One time he even warned the culprit not to do it... for his sake. Pity he didn't listen.
Alternatively, threaten harm to Conan or Kogoro and Ran will karate kick you in the chest. A perfect example is when she took out a PRO WRESTLER twice her size who was threatening Conan. With ONE KICK.
Any time Kid pretends to be Shinichi, and ESPECIALLY when he flirts with Ran, Conan nearly blows his cover in his rage. Actually, anyone flirting with Ran or suggesting it gets the Glare of Death.
Best Served Cold: After all, the main plot is to finding ones relating to the organization that turned Conan into a kid.
Beyond the Impossible: Usually averted, as Conan is down-to-Earth and stays true to its 'no magic or super natural' setting. One of the openings, though, shows Kaitou Kid stealing the moon. Yeah, it's meant to be symbolic, but still.
Bitter Almonds: Conan can smell that smell from cyanide victims' mouths.
In manga file #757, Conan points out that there's an element of Fingertip Drug Analysis to this: he smells an almond scent coming from a corpse's lips, but cautions one of the others on the scene against sniffing because he's an "amateur".
Conan: The almond scent is the smell of gas that results from the potassium cyanide reacting with the acid from her gastric fluids!! If you breathe in too much of it, you'll die!!
Everybody Else: ...
Conan: <Sweat Drop> At least, that's what they said in the detective drama...
He then goes on to point out the difference between the smell of bitter and sweet almonds, as mentioned on the trope page.
Bland-Name Product: Whenever a recognizable product logo is shown, it invariably has some letters changed around. For example, Okiya Subaru (who is strongly hinted to be the Black Organization's operative "Bourbon") drinks "Baker's Mark" bourbon.
Blondes Are Evil: Vermouth, Shiho, and Jodie play this trope straight, subvert it, and avert it respectively. Sonoko has her moments too, if you ask Shinichi.
Bodyguarding a Badass: An old man protects his late friend's nephew from Brazil by pretending to be his late friend and having the nephew pose as the bodyguard. In reality, his goal was to be the decoy when one of the family members tries to kill the old man to get a larger inheritance.
Bookcase Passage: Used at least twice, most notably in the Non-Serial Movie Last Magician Of The Century (where the mystery of the final Faberge eggs were disclosed), and the Blue Castle case, where the "hidden treasure" was really... the sunset from the attic.
Bound and Gagged: Also appears in the first volume in the "The Sixth Smokestack" when the young kidnapped victim tries to explain the location where she's held.
Briefcase Full of Money: Just before Gin attacks Shinichi and gives him APTX 4869.
Broken Pedestal: During the "3K's of Osaka" storyline, Conan realizes that his idol, the famous European soccer player Ray Curtis, is the murderer of the week. Not only that, but the rumors about his heroin addiction were, in fact, true.
Which results in Conan giving him the 'I believed in you, you traitor' speech entirely in broken, badly-accented but absolutely beautiful English to Ray in person, just to show him exactly how broken-hearted he is. Technically, you could mark it as the one time he's completely shed his mask on anybody not related to the plot.
Another instance involves a woman who worked at a pastry shop and was kind to Ayumi...who had lured her downstairs neighbor under her window and dropped a flower pot on her head. Ayumi didn't want to believe she could have done it, and was broken-hearted when it turned out she did.
It happened again when the Detective Boys investigated a case of self-defense by a man Mitsuhiko idolized and discovered it was actually premeditated murder.
Ran and Sonoko had a teacher they loved and admired... and happened to be the Sympathetic Murderer of the episode, going as far as setting a Wounded Gazelle Gambit by drugging Sonoko and then pretending somebody else attacked both of them. And before that, it was barely averted when Ran learned a karate champion she fangirled was the killer in a case... but he was trying to deliberately look like the suspect, since the murderer was his Broken Bird girlfriend. In that particular case, he was arrested for Taking the Heat anyway.
Black and Grey Morality: Yeah, sometimes they're murdering or revenge or the like...but that doesn't excuse murder.
Busman's Holiday: No matter where he goes, people die. Lampshaded after a while by whichever of the police officers happens to be on duty in that area. Megure in particular begins to wonder if Kogoro isn't really the Angel of Death, later on more accurately shifting his joking suspicions towards Conan himself.
In one episode, Megure even lampshades the lampshading, saying (after he wonders aloud why Kogoro is at the scene of a murder yet again), "I should just let it drop. It's becoming silly."
Also lampshaded in an episode where the Detective Boys are watching movies in a theater and Ai tells Conan he should relax and enjoy a "child's vacation." When someone is killed at the back of the theater, Ai remarks, "It seems you never have time for a vacation."
And an episode where Heiji says of Conan, "Every time I see that guy a case occurs"…about thirty seconds before a case occurs.
Hell, when you get those two together the bodies literally start falling out of the sky.
And in an episode where the Detective Boys and Ran and Sonoko independently wind up at the same beach, Sonoko says of Conan, "The reason we didn't bring him was because there are always cases when he's around!"
Later in the same episode, Haibara learns where Conan and the others are after they're late returning to their hotel (having discovered a murder while she was not present) by asking the hotel staff if there is a murder being investigated nearby.
At the beginning of the first file of the paper airplane case, Conan notices how he seems to be running into cases all the time. This is the first time he's ever noticed, and this is over 600 chapters into the manga.
Except that in the very first chapter of the whole manga, he tells Ran that murders "happen all the time", which implies that encountering a lot of murders is normal to him. The rate of cases must have ramped up even further for him to notice that something is odd.
The Butler Did It: In the second episode of Season 2 (in the original Japanese series, anyway), the butler reveals that he killed Mr. Hotta because his son was driven to suicide due to his treatment, even though the shunned daughter appeared to have a motive and was quite glad when her father died. However, Poor Communication Kills once again when she reveals that she still loved the dead son.
Actually; it's probably best to call this trope "Zig-zagged". Some cases, the butler or the house/groundskeeper did do it, but in others, it's sometimes pretty obvious they didn't do it, and in some cases are merely there to talk about the skeletons in their masters' closets. Perhaps the most obvious are in "No Immunity for the Diplomat" and the cruise ship murder case, wherein the butlers are obviously not guilty.
There is a case where the butler ends up being arrested. However, it turns out that it was just a ruse to trick the actual killer into revealing himself. It worked.
Call It Karma: See Poor Communication Kills below. But also…
The culprit in anime episode 599, "A Friend of Justice", actually literally did call his act of murder karma (having found out that the murder victim bilked a friend of his out of a great deal of money, leading to her death of shock—though he was ordinarily a kindly and forgiving man, this he could not forgive). However, in a rare example of Call It Karma turning into real Karma, it turned out that the friend had actually forgiven the con men, because of the example the murderer himself had earlier set in being forgiving toward people. In his rage after finding out how his friend had been conned in her diary, he hadn't read her final entry. (Further, one of the surviving con men broke down in tears after finding out the woman had forgiven him.)
Cameo: Played with; Minami Takayama, the lead singer of Two-Mix, appears in a two-parter as herself. However, she's already in the show anyway - as Conan's seiyuu.
Again during the K3 case: Kogoro is commenting on all of the famous singers at the party...all of whom have sung an opening for the anime.
Canon Immigrant: Shiratori (from the movies) and Takagi (from the anime)
Arguably Kaitou Kid. (Originally a series on its own before Gosho began Detective Conan.)
Don't forget Hakuba and Nakamori (They were in the series too).
Eri's assistant also appeared in the anime before being introduced in the manga.
Canon Welding: Detective Conan has the tendency to merge with the universe shared by his previous works, especially Magic Kaito and, to a lesser extent, a Dragon Ball clone called Yaiba!.
Magic Kaito is Aoyama's published at random series characters occur so frequently in Detective Conan as to be considered the latter's recurring characters. Although, Aoyama also drew the line: Detective Conan does not deal with the daily life of the Magic Kaito characters. Though it can be noted that the first Kid Toichi Kuroba has found his way into some significant back story involving the Kudos and Vermouth
On the other hand, Magic Kaito (at least the manga version) is definitively in the same universe of Yaiba!; the characters went to the same school called Ekoda, and the Detective Conan OVA Conan vs Kaitou Kid vs Yaiba was originally a Magic Kaito story arc that followed the same basic plot outline but without Conan's involvement (and without being All Just a Dream, either): Kaito attempts to steal a magic sword, just before he found out what he was meant to be going after. Not to say, Aoko's gossip mill friend Keiko's "very reliable source" is Sayako, the main girl in Yaiba!.
Gosho did several of Magic Kaito chapters that are directly linked to Cases in Detective Conan. First Contact! is a flashback Kaito has right before encountering Conan when attempting to steal the black star. When Kid returns Ryoma's Treasures a thief called Phantom lady is mentioned. Next two chapters of Magic Kaito the next year explain exactly how Kid and Phantom Lady know each other.
Cast Herd: With 70+recurring characters, it is needed. Story arcs usually select from one of the following herds: the Mouri family itself, the folks in the Metropolitan Police Department, the Detective Boys, the Osakans, the Eagle Land law enforcement, and so on. There are times when the herds overlap, though.
Catch a Falling Star: Kaitou Kid has pulled this maneuver a few times over the course of the series, including when Conan is tossed out the window of an airship in the 14th Non-Serial Movie, Lost Ship in the Sky.
Cell Phone: Because Conan's first few years of airing span the ramp-up of Japanese adoption of the cellphone (keitai), it is interesting to watch the evolution of its use in the series. (All the more so since the series is "supposed" to take place over the course of a few months thanks to Comic Book Time. At one point nine or ten years into the series's run, Kogoro reflected on how payphones had all but disappeared over the past five years in favor of cell phones—even though they were all over the place in early episodes!)
Early episodes:
Doctor Agasa gives Conan a miniaturized cellphone "disguised" as an oversized earring with a hands-free cable. (Why a male primary-school student should need an oversized earring is never adequately explained, though it does come in handy for lending to Ran.) Since Conan can broadcast from his voice-changing necktie directly to that phone, at one point he uses it to relay deductions in a case via Ran.
Another of Agasa's "inventions," only seen once, is a cellular fax machine and phone concealed in a bento box. (This nearly gets Conan into trouble with Ran when he uses it to make a Shinichi-call in a client's apartment and Ran hears her shouting echoed from the phone in another room.)
Relatively few characters have cell phones, and they are the cordless-phone-handset-sized models from the mid-90s with few features and no email capability. When victims have cell phones, last-number-redial is often used as an important clue. In one case, a murder victim dials a 3-letter code that turns out to be the abbreviation for an airport whose name was shared by her murderer. Characters mostly use pay phones (and Conan often gets odd looks from bystanders as he talks through his bow tie in Shinichi's voice in payphone calls to Ran).
One episode involves the Detective Boys using a shortwave radio to pick up cell/cordless phone calls between a kidnapper and a worried father, and using clues from the conversation to track down the kidnapper and rescue the victim.
Later episodes:
Conan gets an ordinary flip/camera phone in the late 300s to early 400s, and the earring-phone is by and large not seen again. Also, phones get smaller and add digital displays. Emails through cell phones start to show up as more important clues. In one case, a phonecam picture of Ran in a bikini Sonoko sends to "Shinichi" also contains an important clue. In another, the internal clock on Kogoro's cell phone is used to provide and then disprove an alibi (it was reset by the bartender). In another, a mailed phone-camera shot of a murder victim is used to falsify the time of death.
Ran gets suspicious when she sends a phone-mail to Shinichi and it immediately buzzes on Conan's phone. Conan tricks her by borrowing Agasa's identical phone and swapping it with his own.
The same episode has Conan realize that a famous romance author is still writing the old "two lovers separated by a column, each thinking he was Stood Up by the other" type of Poor Communication Kills story, which in the modern age isn't possible unless one or both wasn't carrying a cell phone. This turns out to be because the stories are actually ghost-written by the "writer's" brother, a murder suspect who has been hiding in the house's attic for twelve years and hence has not had experience with cell phones.
In one episode, Conan startles Ran and Sonoko by pulling up TV listings via his phone's web browser.
One episode has a murder victim leave a "dying message" via cell phone by pressing the "Memo" button to record the incoming call from his murderer gloating over him as he dangled from the window outside his apartment. (Most American cell phones do not have this feature.)
In one confrontation with the Black Organization, Conan overhears the touch tones as Vermouth emails her boss. They correspond to notes from a Japanese folk song. For a while afterward, whenever he sees someone using a cell phone particularly when calling numbers in Tottori, whose area code has the same notes he gets a Flash Back of Vermouth.
In manga volume #770, Conan is shown to carry two identical cell phones, and has Shinichi "call him" on one for a deduction while doing the voice through the other. (Of course, the main reason he carries two is to be able to answer the phone as either Shinichi or Conan, depending on who gets called.)
Cell phones are also frequently used as remote detonators for bombs. ("Trembling Metropolitan Police Headquarters: 12 Million Hostages"; the non-serial movies Captured in Her Eyes and Countdown to Heaven)
Cerebus Syndrome: Together with Art Evolution; what started as a cliche mystery comedy started getting serious in its third year of serialization.
Character Filibuster: Ai and Hiroki were used for such purposes in the Non-Serial Movie Phantom of Baker Street. It's kind of jarring to see the latter switching between a Woobie in the two ends of the movie and this in the middle.
Chaste Hero: While it may just be part-Single-Target Sexuality for Ran and part-Squick, since the girls involved either were or had the body of seven year olds, it's still worth noting that the only thing Conan noticed upon running into a women's' hot spring where Ayumi & Haibara had already stripped down was the male dead body. Also, upon realizing why the one who was older than she looked was upset about the incident, Conan thought "I only saw your butt" would reassure her. It... didn't.
Cherry Blossoms: Movie 7 (Crossroad in the Ancient Capital) starts out with a flashback to when Heiji saw his first love, a girl in a kimono, under a flowering tree, with blossoms floating around her. And seeing how Oblivious to Love Heiji is, you can pretty much guess who it is.
The Lupin III vs. Detective Conan TV special involved a blossoming cherry tree as a major plot point related to a double murder that takes place during the show's opening act.
Clingy Jealous Girl: Kazuha gets a little irrational when she believes that Heiji is seeing someone else; in an early chapter, she even gets irritated because Ran is wearing a similar outfit with Heiji.
In fact, Kazuha's first scene in the anime has her confronting Ran because she believed Heiji was interested in her. She's most embarrassed when Ran cleared it up.
Ran, too, gets terrifyingly intense whenever any perceived infidelity on Shinichi's part pops up.
Ayumi is similarly jealous of Ai's relationship with Conan until Ai assures her she doesn't care about Conan in that way.
Cloak and Dagger: Subverted. The Black Organization, a crime syndicate, seems to have this going on, but some of them decided to still have relationships and friendships. Akemi and Shiho (because they are sisters), Rena and Shuichi, Vermouth and "Ano Kata." Others see each other as tools (Gin).
Clothes Make the Superman: Variant - Conan wears a pair of shoes (not to mention a watch, bow tie, suspenders, and later a belt) that give him super-human power.
Clueless Mystery: Thankfully in the minority.
Though some might as well be in the U.S., given culturally specific, untranslated (untranslatable) clues and sometimes the just plain weird and obscure "evidence" the writer sometimes tries to pull.
One manga chapter involved a tennis player sending a message in Braille by hitting the tennis ball into the net at specific locations. And Conan not only figured it out, he realized it right away like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
To be fair here, the player's mom was blind and the message was intended to warn someone to take the bomb the mom was unknowingly holding away from her.
Code Name: High-ranking members of the Black Organization use the names of alcoholic beverages as their code names. So far, women have exclusively used wines or wine-based cocktails.
Comic Book Time: a more extreme case, as it frequently references the current time of year, with some holidays celebrated more than once, yet after 12 years of episodes, Conan is still in the first grade. A clear example can be seen during the time Conan is investigating Eisuke Hondou; the "Shadow of the Black Organization" arc combines two cases that take place at New Years and Setsuban respectively, while his disappearance in the next plot arc happens at the end of December. The latter arc keeps things vague by referring to an event that happened a few hundred episodes before Eisuke Hondou even appeared as "several months ago". Granted, this is necessary to the whole point of the series; if Conan aged in real time, he would be older than he was before the de-aging.
Chapter 709 confirms that the series currently takes place in 1999 (with October 10 explicitly mentioned to be a Saturday).
October 10 was on a Saturday in 2009. How did you miss that?
But prior to that, it last was a Saturday in 1998.
Chapter 303 states that the year 2000 has already passed.
The anime universe still progressed by five years—in the early Filler that is discussed in All That Glitters in detail, it was 1978 "16 years ago"—or, it was 1994 when the episode happened.
In the 3x episode of the anime, it says clearly Shinichi Kudo and a 1998 date engraved in the special place mentioned by Dr Agasa in his map quest.
Common Eye Colors: Occurs quite a bit with the main characters.
Conan has bright blue eyes that give the idea of piercing through people's emotional armor and lies.
Heiji has green or teal eyes, depending on what episodes you've seen. He is very emotional and, to top it off, he has a very rare trait of darker than average skin.
Haibara is given blue-green eyes. She comes across as philosophical.
KID has indigo eyes. Let's face it, he's a Badass.
Ran also has indigo eyes.
Shiratori, at the very least in the first Non-Serial Movie, had soulless demon eyes.
And yet if you look at the colored manga illustrations, it seems that pretty much everyone ever has blue eyes for some reason.
When asked about it, Gosho stated he liked the contrasting colorful blue eyes better.
Compulsory School Age: See Comic Book Time, above.
Connect the Deaths
Conviction by Contradiction: Happens a bit, sometimes with Fridge Logic. Not as much as in some other series, though.
Conviction by Counterfactual Clue: A few cases were solved by stuff that wouldn't prove anything in other parts of the world, or not everyone would believe it.
Cool Old Guy: Jirokichi Suzuki, uncle of Sonoko/Serena. Kept publicly challenging Kaitou Kid with highly elaborate setups and had Conan steal the limelight every damn one time.
Costume Porn: In-universe case: the "Kimono Goddess" Filler case happens in an inn that possesses LOTS of beautiful and very pricey female kimonos (which make Ran squeal in amazement) and is near the shrine of the aforementioned Goddess. The Asshole victims, Asuka and Ema, appear dead in carefully-arranged crime scenes that involve such kimonos: this is because they caused the death of a girl who was a big devotée of the Kimono Goddess.
Even more so, there's a backstory to the myth of the Goddess, and it also brings up the trope. According to it, a Naive Everygirl named Koharu received a trunk of beautiful kimonos as thanks from a daimyo whose life she saved. The jealous daughters of the village leader accused her of theft to get them, and poor Koharu was executed. That same night, the two girls were found dead—also in carefully-arranged scenes involving these kimonos, which were supposedly caused by Koharu's soul which had become a vengeful spirit. To appease her, she was from then on referred to as the Kimono Goddess.
Couch Gag: Part of the opening and ending are always clips of that episode.
Cranial Eruption (After the Dope Slap.)
Criminal Mind Games: A number of episodes (especially the longer TV specials) involve some criminal leaving a trail of clues—either because they secretly want to be caught and stopped, or because they're just Ax Crazy. For whatever reason, many of these seem to involve bombs.
One TV special had Conan and Heiji running all over a baseball stadium to try to catch a would-be stadium bomber who sent them clues via abandoned mobile phones with a specific time limit to find the next one.
"Trembling Metropolitan Police Headquarters: 12 Million Hostages" involved a mad bomber who sent a clue to his next target to the timer screen of his current bomb…seconds before its detonation.
This one culprit did it as part of a Sadistic Choice; Either one of the police he hated so much would die to get the hint, or they'd defuse the bomb, saving their own life and dooming hundreds of innocents.
The London Arc had a bomber leaving a trail of Sherlock-Holmes-themed clues all over London for Conan to chase down in order to stop his next bombing.
Crossover: Lupin III vs Detective Conan. No, they don't really use the potential.
The 11th Non-Serial Movie's opening gambit involves a Fake Crossover wherein it turns out that the robbers in a car chase are wearing Lupin and Fujiko masks and Satou is a fan of the manga ("How dare he wear the mask of my first love?").
For that matter, the Lupin III crossover special probably also counts as "fake", from the point of view of overall series continuity. When Lupin is a manga in the movie and a person in the special, and the TV series tends to use Lawyer-Friendly Cameo names to refer to other TV shows ("Kamen Yaiba", "Urban Hunter"), it's hard to tell what Lupin's relationship is to the "main" Conan continuity.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: It's easy to forget about Kogoro's black belt in Judo and marksmanship skills given the way he's portrayed most of the time. He's also got a pretty good head on his shoulders, he just doesn't take time to use it. However, when it's personal, children are at stake, old firends are involved, or the criminal threatened Ran or Conan, he breaks out of it. Takagi also has his moments.
Cut and Paste Note: Often used in blackmail.
Dancing Theme The 8th opening has Conan dancing in a very... serious way.
Date Peepers: Satou and Takagi have a date in an Amusement Park, with half the police force trying to make it fail without being seen. They go so far as to send Agasa and the Detective Boys there (as "thanks for helping solve so many cases"), then call Agasa away in order to saddle Satou and Takagi with the kids.
Deadpan Snarker: Shinichi has his moments, particularly when Richard is around.
Dead Little Sister: Outside of the case of Ai Haibara, dead little sisters (or other relatives), especially as a result of hit-and-run accidents, are a frequent motive for murderers, as well.
Death by Secret Identity: Pisco, a member of the Black Organization, figures out Ai's identity, but he's executed by Gin for screwing up on an assassination before he can say anything. The same scenario occurs in the 13th Non-Serial Movie, with operative Irish executed before he can share his discovery of Conan's identity. Subverted by Vermouth; she also knows, but keeps mum due to her friendship with Shinichi's mother (and because Shinichi and Ran saved her life the previous year) and perhaps also a desire to see whether or not Shinichi succeeds in taking the organization down.
Death in the Clouds
Demon Head: This happens a lot beginning in the late 200s to early 300s when one character is yelling at another (usually in the more comedic episodes). Is usually Ran or Kogoro but could be anyone.
Designated Monkey: Takagi
Though he does lose some of the uncertainty that makes him such a monkey as time goes on. (For instance, in "The Man Who Called for an Ambulance" he ends up delivering a lecture to a more senior detective about jumping to conclusions that Conan silently applauds.) However, it looks like he will always be a monkey where his relationship with Satou is concerned.
Detective Patsy: Several Killers of the Week hire Kogoro as a detective to use him in their alibi. This would usually work if it weren't for Conan, but considering Kogoro's undeserved reputation as one of Japan's greatest detectives, it makes those killers look like idiots for choosing him of all detectives. Once the culprit actually didn't recognize him when picking him as her patsy and was shocked when he revealed himself as Kogoro Mori.
Deus Ex Machina: Oh dear, we need Conan to complete a task we've never shown him having any skill in? No problem! Just say he learned it while he was still Shinichi on a trip in Hawaii with his parents. Shooting a gun? Check. Driving a car? Check. Driving a speed boat? Check. Flying a helicopter? And so on and so forth. (All of these examples come from the Non-Serial Movies, which tend to be more action-oriented than the series and are not necessarily considered canonical, so it's understandable that they might play a little more fast and loose with Conan's backstory.)
Lampshaded in this comic
Disproportionate Retribution: The motive in quite a lot of cases. Your son praticed baseball too hard, and was hit by a truck clearly due to his exhaustion? You pay back by blowing up the company that owns the truck, and attempting to blow up a baseball stadium, potentially killing thousands of innocent people.
There was a Sherlock Holmes related arc in the manga where the murderer killed an author and his own girlfriend, because he wasn't happy the guy wrote a story where Irene Adler laughed at Holmes. That's right, the guy murdered two people in real life (and attempted to kill a third) because of fanfiction.
Dope Slap: Kogoro does this to Conan quite often when he catches the boy snooping where he shouldn't. More often than not he uses his fist (and sometimes even gives Conan a full noogie), resulting in Cranial Eruption. (But this is still played for laughs.)
The Dragon: Arguably Gin and Vermouth; to "Ano Kata."
Dramatic Irony: In the episode with the attempted murder in the wedding, the killer attempts to get back at the police officer who accidentally killed his mother years ago by poisoning the officer's daughter via her favorite drink... but after the killer almost succeeds, it's revealed that she was his childhood love, and it was he who got her into drinking Lemon Tea/Punch in the first place, because he'd bring them to her all the time! Thankfully, it does have a better ending, as Conan reveals that the two still got married years later; and that the culprit was given a light sentence because the bride, having already figured out that her husband-to-be was the boy from her memories, willingly drank the poison.
Also in the ship episode, it's rather ironic how the new groom was the person with the most motive to kill the Hatamoto/Hannigan family. The family company bought out the company belonging to his father, who later committed suicide and left him to be put into foster care. He did want to get close to the family at first, but decided to let bygones be bygones after falling in love with his now-wife. The actual killer of course is well aware of who the first suspect would be.
Dreaming of Things to Come: Heiji dreams that Kudo gets stabbed in the chest and dies. He later gives Conan his good luck charm, and the Pocket Protector prevents Conan from being fatally wounded by a knife.
Driven to Suicide: The aforementioned Asshole Victim was often revealed to have caused one in the past.
Shinichi has also saved at least two suspects from committing suicide after he'd done his Pull the Thread thing, and feels that one of his greatest failures was the inability to prevent such a suicide.
Drives Like Crazy: Kogoro is called out for being a bad (though not necessarily "like crazy") driver in a number of episodes, beginning all the way back in episode 2. (He rents cars rather than owning one, and hence does not have as many opportunities for practice.)
Shinichi's mother, Yukiko, also drives like crazy but at the opposite end of the spectrum: she is an expert driver in all respects (perhaps as a result of her roles as an action movie heroine), but drives only high-performance sports cars and believes that speed limits only apply to other people ("Shinichi's New York Case," "Secret of Tohto Studio").
Officer Satou is another crazy-good driver whose unmarked patrol car is a high-speed sports car. She has the endearing habit of screaming at the top of her lungs because it helps her concentration when she drifts around curves.
Dub Name Change: Played straight in English, where most characters got American names. Averted by Conan.
Dude, She's Like, in a Coma: Subverted. Takagi looked like he was passed out during file 637, a bit before Satou kissed him. He was perfectly conscious afterward. The Shonen Tantei Dan had used the excuse that Takagi had just taken medication before, so Satou and Takagi actually got to kiss, instead of the usual issue where they almost kiss, but always fail.
Dying Clue: Multiple examples listed on that page.
One really has to marvel at the amazingly intricate code messages most normal people in this series can conjure from out of nowhere while bleeding to death.
Early-Bird Cameo: In the anime, the members of Detective Boys got speaking roles in the first episode, before Shinichi was shrunk.
3-year-old versions of the Detective Boys appeared in the Magic File #2 prequel OAV, in which middle-schooler Shinichi helped a man prove his alibi.
Elephant in the Living Room: Conan's increasingly noticeable failure to act as a normal little boy arouses suspicions from just about everyone in the cast not privy to his secret, yet nobody really thinks of just sitting the kid down and asking him just how on earth does he knows so much, rather preferring to harbor vague suspicions relatively forever.
Takagi does get the chance to ask Conan during one of the most famous cases of the series, but Conan replies that he'll tell him in the afterlife. Somehow, Takagi forgets all about it.
Though usually Conan catches their weird looks and claims that he learned it on TV. This is lampshaded by Kogoro in chapter 716, after Conan gives his Condensed History of the Rooster Festival spanning three very wordy panels: "And I suppose all of that was on TV, huh?"
Embarrassing Old Photo: In one episode, an old college professor is killed by one of his former students over two of these. The student had plastic surgery done after graduating and became a fashion model, and the professor wanted to leak two old pre-plastic surgery photos of him to tabloids, including a photo of the student dressed in drag.
Actually, the killer didn't mind the drag photo, and wanted that one sent to the newspaper, as the make-up he was wearing covered his pre-plastic surgery face well enough. It was the professor's insistance that the other photo be sent that was the problem.
Enemy Mine: Even though catching the Kaitou Kid is one of Conan's chief aims, second only to busting up the Black Organization, Conan often ends up working together with Kid to catch bad guys or otherwise avert disaster, especially in his Non-Serial Movie appearances. (For that matter, he has occasionally worked together with Black Organization agents against other Black Organization agents, as well.) His TV-special team-up with Lupin III would probably count as well.
In one case, KID teams up with his self-proclaimed arch-enemy Jirokichi Suzuki out of all people. The reason for this is that his dog, Lupin, had been locked up in a safe together with the instructions to open said safe, and Jirokichi asked KID for help to open it.
Episode on a Plane:
The "New York Arc" started with a flashback episode in which Shinichi solves a variant "locked room mystery" that took place on board a plane in flight.
A case featuring a disgruntled former relief pitcher was solved when Conan realizes that the suspect had taken the same flight they did.
Two thirds of the 8th Non-Serial Movie, Magician of the Silver Sky, is set on a plane. Ran and Sonoko end up taking the plane in for a Crash-Course Landing, aided by Conan and Kaitou Kid.
Almost all of the 14th Non-Serial Movie, Lost Ship in the Sky, is set aboard an airship.
Eureka Moment: Played straight AND subverted. A lot of Conan's epiphanies come in this way and the Detective Boys' sole reason for existing seems to be triggering these; however Conan later makes a habit of artificially creating these moments to lead others in the investigation. After a while, most of the cast seems to be consciously aware of this, with varying degrees of suspicion.
Evil Overlord List: Kaitou KID and Vermouth apparently have read it.
In this case, KID has obviously missed the rules #11, #58, #64, #92, #114, #126 (yes, one, but dozens?), #199, #215, #222 and #237. And you could argue about #47.
Yeah, well, the fact that he's not an evil overlord makes the list only partially applicable. If you're a trickster archetype, you've gotta tease and leave clues, if you're a performer you have to strike a pose, and if your rule is 'nobody gets hurt' you really can't kill the kid just 'cause he's out to bring you down.
Expy: Many characters have equivalents in the Sherlock Holmes canon and/or Magic Kaitou manga.
Eyes Always Shut: Sonoko's older sister, Ayako, is never seen with her eyes open. (Also, "Sleeping Kogoro's" eyes are always shut when he is "solving the case," though granted this is because he literally is asleep.)
Some guest characters are also fox-faced, and Okiya Subaru's eyes are just evil little white dots in the middle of black eyelid lines.
Everyone Is a Suspect: Pretty much every case, although sometimes you can narrow it down based upon a few hints and the obvious. (The main characters never did it) During the "Billionaire Birthday Blues" case, you can spot that one person isn't shown drinking coffee, other than Conan. They actually give a closeup of everyone's face, but the killer actually deliberatly avoids holding the coffee up to his mouth.
Everybody Lives: Even without counting the non-Always Murder cases, this happens occasionally, especially if the victim has been hospitalized. If, after the case has been solved, a policeman bursts into the scene saying something along the lines of "Inspector! The victim, (s)he's...", then you can bet that on the next page they will finish with "... going to be alright!" Notable instances are the poisonings of Sayuri Matstumoto and Kiwako Todou.
Failure Is the Only Option: If Conan's identity is revealed, Kogoro and Ran (among others) will be targeted and likely killed by the organization that shrunk him.
Likewise, if Conan is ever permanently restored to his adult identity, there will no longer be a "Detective Conan" for the show to be about.
Ironically, played in Conan's favor for the same reasons whenever it comes to his identity and the Black Organization. Vermouth excluded, any Black Org. member who discovers his or Haibara's identities is instantly given an appointment with The Plot Reaper scheduled at "just before you get to tell Gin".
Fake-Out Make-Out: Ai Haibara talks one of her classmates into faking intimate contact so she could figure out whether she was being tailed by the Organization, only to scare him with the intense expression on her face.
Earlier, Takagi and Satou had pretended to date on a few occasions to tail a suspect (Takagi couldn't enjoy their time together at all because Satou is pretty damn scary when in Work Mode).
Fake Ultimate Hero: any episode where Conan's deductions are credited to Kogoro (most of them), boosting Kogoro's reputation as a detective. Kogoro is typically unconcious, but takes credit when he wakes up regardless.
Sonoko will do the same thing whenever Conan has to use her instead.
Family-Unfriendly Death: From Chapter 1, someone is decapitated on a roller coaster via piano wire. Notably, it's the last crime Jimmy solves before he reverts to a kid.
Finger-Licking Poison
Fingertip Drug Analysis: At least once when Conan identified heroin, in the Moonlight Sonata case.
First-Name Basis: An arc had as a side plot Ayumi trying to work up the nerve to call Ai by her first name. She's the only one of the children (including Conan) who does so (or has permission to).
Five-Man Band: The Detective Boys.
The Hero: Conan
The Lancer: Ai
The Smart Guy: Mitsuhiko
The Big Guy: Genta
The Chick: Ayumi
Flash Back: TV episodes adapted from manga, especially multi-part episodes, frequently employ flashbacks and in-dialogue recaps to pad out the run time (as well as occasionally replaying the last several minutes of the previous episode as the beginning of the current one), since otherwise there wouldn't be enough material to fill the full episode length. It's not uncommon to have seen the same footage 3 or 4 times (counting the first time it was shown) by the end of a multi-part episode. (It's especially noticeable when viewing multiple-part episodes in one sitting.)
Fountain of Youth: If not for APTX-4869, there's no Conan Edogawa or Ai Haibara.
Foreshadowing: possibly a coincidence, but after one of Koguro's drinking binges, he says he had " some gin, some vodka, bourbon." "Bourbon" being the current mysterious Black Organization member
Forgotten Childhood Friend: Kogoro gets called to the mansion of a wealthy man to search for one of these. Said search is sidetracked by a murder.
Framing the Guilty Party: In one episode, the killer is a woman named Tina. Her boyfriend found the crime scene and saw that the victim wrote "Tina" in his own blood as he died, so he changed the message to "Ringo," the name of another suspect. Then Ringo found the crime scene and changed the message again to a phrase that happened to indirectly point right back to... well, you know.
Note that this example is taken from the English version; the original Japanese version does the equivalent with kanji characters that are changed by adding strokes (but this was obviously Lost in Translation).
Also subverted on at least one occasion where the killer tried to plant evidence to suggest she was framed. It didn't work because Conan found much more conclusive evidence pointing to her.
Free-Range Children: The kids are basically allowed to run off anywhere in Tokyo without any adult supervision as long as they are home by bedtime. Then again, this is Japan, a country perceived to be safer than the standards.
Deconstructed in a backstory arc when Eri and Kogoro, before separation, found Yukiko and Yusaku's laissez-faire parenting gotten a bit annoying.
From the Mouths of Babes: Referenced by Kogoro when talking about Conan during an investigation.
Gag Boobs: In one story, Yukiko rides a motorcycle cross-country carrying Conan in her cleavage.
Gambit Pileup: Volume 26 of the manga, or the "Desperate Revival" arc of the TV series. Dr. Araide's was to make out with Ran, which was ripped apart by Shinichi showing up. Heiji was planning on showing up, dressed as Shinichi, to help him out of Ran's suspicions. This was ruined by Kazuha, who ended up the Spanner in the Works. Haibara's was to have her dress up as his little kid identity, while he tried the prototype antidote, to allude suspicion. Sonoko's, which was spur of the moment, was to get Ran and Shinichi to hook up. This ended up being ruined by the murder. Ran's was using any occurrences to her advantage to get Shinichi to confess, though it wasn't planned out. This was ruined by Haibara's plan. Shinichi was, if you listen to the fans, going to propose to Ran, but this was ruined by the murder. And the second murderer's plans were ruined by Shinichi.
The climactic confrontation with Vermouth is also one of these: Vermouth, posing as Dr. Araide, attempted to kidnap Ai—but Ai was under the protection of Jodie, who was trying to lead Vermouth in a trap set by an FBI agent. Except Vermouth figured this out and dismissed the agents while disguised as Jodie and set off her own trap—and this is when Conan dramatically reveals that he's been disguising himself as Ai (while Heiji, elsewhere, pretended to show up as Shinichi). Then Ai herself shows up, intending to turn herself in to the organization, which causes Vermouth to knock Conan out with his own needle. Just as Vermouth is about to shoot Jodie, Ran, who was hiding in the trunk of the car because she saw Jodie's pictures of her friends in the bathroom and assumed that Jodie was spying on the school, jumps out to protect Ai from both Vermouth and the sniper. When Shuichi Akai shows up to take out the sniper and disables Vermouth, Vermouth manages to get away by taking Conan hostage and blowing up the other car. Except Conan had anticipated Vermouth's get away (or at least was Crazy Prepared) and hooked himself up to a wire to capture the cell phone number Vermouth called. But Vermouth got the last laugh, as she knocked them both out with sleeping gas, then forced herself awake and slipped into the night, but not before destroying Conan's equipment. Phew.
Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: The exposition sequence at the beginning of the movies always end with Conan pointing at the camera to deliver his ultimatum. There is only one truth!
Also, the detectives often point dramatically at the suspect when making their accusation. (Especially Mouri Kogoro, who is usually wrong.)
Gaslighting: A criminal does this to Kogoro/Richard as part of an attempt to frame him for murder. It's only made worse by the "blackouts" Conan has given him throughout the series.
Gratuitous English: This series has its share of Caucasian FBI/CIA agents and American members of The Syndicate, yet when they speak English, they speak Engrish. In fact, Heiji Hattori speaks far better English than any supposedly-american character in the show (save for a few noteworthy exceptions who do speak Surprisingly Good English). Also, the famous "Need Not To Know" in the fourth Non-Serial Movie.
"A secret makes a woman woman." (Granted when Vermouth says it it sounds more like "ooman", but I digress.)
In one episode, Conan is able to tell the difference between a British accent and a Texan accent in spoken English—which is really quite impressive when you consider that the words were actually spoken with a "read phonetically by a Japanese actor" accent.
Engrish pronunciation was the key to figuring out the culprit of a case during the Clash of Red and Black arc. "Shiranpuri" = "Sit down please"?
ZARD, we love you and all and although it still might be too soon to mention this after your death, "Glorious Mind" has some of the strangest Engrish ever.
Gray and Gray Morality: Several cases actually have this show up, in which the motive was revenge for something else. Sometimes it's actually because they caused the death of a loved one or ruined their life somehow.
The cruise ship murder...just...the cruise ship murder. The first victim was clearly a Jerkass to the extreme, having bullied around all of his family members (sans one granddaughter and the butler), so outside of the obvious culprit (See Dramatic Irony), nearly everyone had reason to kill him (Money, revenge). Surprisingly, though? The most obvious culprit actually wasn't the murderer!
There was also one case in which the victim was blackmailing the culprit, and the culprit was trying to put an end to it, feeling guilty enough about it, even bringing a knife to threaten him away. However, the Jerkass victim attacked her first, and during the struggle, she stabbed him and killed him. Don't know about Japanese law, but at least in some western countries, that'd only be Manslaughter at most, she only threatened him as she intended, and killed him in self-defense.
A shining example of Grey and Grey Morality comes in the June Bride case. The culprit in this case is the groom, trying to get revenge on the bride's father. 20 years prior, the bride's father (a police officer) was chasing a culprit, and a woman was struck by a car. The woman's son (the murderer) tried to get the police officer to help, but the officer didn't see the woman and though he was just a kid in the crossfire. The mother died, and the boy was adopted. He then meets the bride, and hatches a revenge plot. The sad part was, the bride and groom were actually knew each other in childhood before it happened, and were each other's first loves. Even Conan, who often condemns murderers using Kogoro or Sonoko who justify their acts, could only think he was a sad man.
Great Detective: It's in the title, after all.
Green-Eyed Monster: Shinichi, Ran, Kazuha, Heiji, Satou, Ayumi, etc. have all shown jealousy when someone hit on/liked their respective love interest or their respective love interest showed 'interest' in someone else (though more often than not it was just an misunderstanding.)
The Detective Boys are a veritable love parallelogram in the making: Mitsuhiko and Genta have crushes on Ayumi, and Ayumi has a crush on Conan.
Mitsuhiko also has a crush on Haibara and Haibara is believed to have a crush on Conan.
In a rare vulnerable moment in episode 246, Haibara expresses jealousy of Conan's feelings for Ran, comparing herself to a cold shark and Ran to a friendly dolphin (they're on the beach at the time). Conan, naturally, completely fails to understand what she's talking about. She expresses similar jealousy of Ran in the 14th Non-Serial Movie, Lost Ship in the Sky.
At the end of Lost Ship in the Sky, Conan is left wondering what it was Kaitou did to Ran that he (Shinichi) wouldn't have done that gave away that Kaitou really wasn't Shinichi after all. (He thinks it's kissing her—but it was actually groping her bottom while he kissed her.)
Almost every unmarried man in Megure's department has a crush on Officer Satou, to the point of forming a "defense organization" to try to torpedo the budding romance between her and Takagi (whom they resent). (Shiratori was the leader of this organization until he met Kobayashi-sensei and realized his affections had been misplaced.) Because Satou is Oblivious to Love, she doesn't notice any of this…and her mischievous co-worker Yumi shamelessly takes advantage of this blind spot to pull pranks on those jealous men. (Such as the time she innocently gave Satou a ring to wear…)
Hero Stole My Bike: In the first Non-Serial Movie, Conan stole a bike from a boy to dispose of a time bomb he found.
Somewhat subverted since it's implied that Conan would have returned it if he could, and actually asked Kogoro to replace it.
He's Dead, Jim: Practically every episode with a corpse. Sometimes a pulse is checked on those without obvious injuries, but usually they are immediately proclaimed dead. Dead people are usually depicted open-eyed, with the pupils the size of pin pricks and the mouth agape.
Subverted once, as it was used as one of the clues to the killer in one case.
Hey, It's That Voice!: Um...everyone? Seriously the show has so many single episode focus characters and has been running so long, that literally every Seiyuu in Japan has been on it at some point.
You can also hear several familiar voices in the dub.
Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Usually played for laughs, Kogoro would yell at, throw, and even punch Conan for simply opening his mouth. Though, it seems punching is a valid form of punishment in this show.
He even went as far as placing his fist on Conan's head and saying "Killing move... DRILL PUNCH!" and delivering the noogie from hell.
Hollywood Tone Deaf: Shinichi/Conan, whose mastery of music is so bad his old elementary school teacher almost discovers the truth about him because she recognizes his terrible singing.
Holodeck Malfunction: The Non-Serial Movie The Phantom of Baker Street is basically this; specifically, Noah's Ark hacked into a VR gaming system and took the 50 players as hostage: Win to Exit, or their brains will be literally fried!
Honorifics: The way Shinichi/Conan refers to Ran in particular has some focus.
At one point, Ran scolds Conan for using the wrong name/honorific when speaking to Hattori. (Conan is addressing him as an equal, when from Ran's point of view he should be addressing him with -san.)
Hot Amazon: Ran. One scene has her grabbed in the Standard Female Grab Area, only for her to beat the crap out of her abductor. She's also a quite attractive young girl who once was handpicked by a designer, and might have become a good Idol Singer if not for the murder that happened at the office.
Hot Springs Episode: There are a number of episodes set at onsens over the course of the series (given that Kogoro/Richard is a big fan of hot springs).
In an early episode we have one of the more memorable scenes where Ran and a rather shaken Conan return from the springs after they bathe together. Kogoro notices that Conan is unusually quiet and, when Ran tells him what they've been doing, he wonders out loud if he's dumsbtruck after seeing Ran naked, and Conan has an epic Nosebleed at the suggestion. Later the episode, we have Kogoro's Crowning Moment of Awesome: This time, both the victim and the murderer were dear friends of Kogoro, so he goes into a full Its Personal mode and we get to see that with a bit of nudging from Conan (who wanted to solve it at first but was moved by the other's determination), Kogoro * can* solve cases by himself.
Hyper Awareness: Unavoidable since we have Great Detectives here. One example:
At one case, Shinichi sees a girl reaching for her murdered boyfriend's bag on a cabin overhead luggage compartment, remembers something, tells her story and then pulls the bag off the compartment. What we notice is the story she told us, what Shinichi notices is that she used her right hand before she told her story, and then she switched to her left hand afterwards. It was important because the murder weapon is a sharp object; the bra worn by the girl is underwired, one piece of which is sharpened. She wears the bra during the scene (since she can't throw it away) and the sharp edge grazed her skin when she raised her hand and hence, she switched to her left hand.
Identical Stranger: Several.
Shinichi Kudou and Kaitou Kid. Also Okito, the high school kendo champion.
There are so many Shinichi look-alikes it's not even funny anymore. Invoked by the one murderer who underwent plastic surgery so he could ruin Shinichi's reputation.
In the Lupin III vs. Detective Conan crossover, Ran and Princess Mira look enough alike that Mira makes Ran her unwilling royal double for a while --and then Ran is drugged and taken back to Vespania to continue the role.
The Detective Boys' schoolteacher Kobayashi-sensei has an uncanny resemblance to Officer Satou with glasses. In later manga issues (ep. 568-9 of the TV show), Shiratori realizes that his affection for Satou was misplaced because he had met a police-obsessed Kobayashi at a bookstore when they were both children, and had subsequently mistaken the adult Satou for her. At one point, Satou doubles for Kobayashi to take care of a stalker.
There's another person who looked like Satou, whom Shiratori met just before Kobayashi.
There are two people who superficially look like Kogorou, both pretending to be him for various reasons. Poor Yamamura, believing that his idol would be Driven to Suicide.
Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Most anime story arc titles end in "murder case."
Idiot Ball: Because the show is named Detective Conan, Conan has to be the one to solve pretty much every case, so pretty much every police officer and detective gets one of these whenever a body is found. No officer will ever find any relevant evidence, no matter how quickly it should have shown up in the case of a routine investigation, or figure out the real killer/method, no matter how obvious the clues.
Well, they can FIND relevant evidence; they'll just never interpret it properly (at first) or make the right connections.
Certain recurring characters are immune; In "The Red Wall" Kansuke Yamato figures out the culprit simultaneously with Conan, and Komei beat them both to it.
Worst of all would be Sonoko, who finds nothing strange about randomly falling asleep in the middle of a murder investigation, only to be woken by random people congratulating her on solving a case she knows nothing about. Many separate times. This, however, was implied to be ego on her part; "ohmigod; I solved a mystery while I was asleep! I must be some kind of GENIUS!"
Still, there was at least one case where, in the manga version at least, Satou noticed something wrong with the culprit's actions way ahead of Conan (in the anime version, it looks like they notice it at the same time), and thus was able to prepare to take the culprit down without being around for even a second of the Sleeping Kogoro routine. Heavens help Beika's already-beleaguered criminal element when she and/or Takagi reach Shiratori's rank...
Idiots Cannot Catch Colds: Often used if somebody within the Detective Boys gets a cold, and then Genta gets involved.
If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten: Gin forces Kir to kill FBI agent Shuuichi Akai to prove her loyalty to the Organization.
Ill Girl: In general, Ill Girls are used as a motive and Ill Boys are character attributes in this series.
Female Examples:
A strange variation happened in one case: our Villain of the Week had a bad heart, but it was she who killed the loanshark who drove her boyfriend to suicide over the money for "that operation." (See Finger-Licking Poison for the murder itself.) God, is she a bitchy chain smoker.
In her confession, she mentions that her boyfriend was her Morality Pet and the only one who ever loved her after her parents's deaths.
In another (Filler) case, this was played heartbreakingly straight with Kaori, a young girl whose brother Toshiya Todakoro is the ghost writer for the Victim of the Week, writer Daisuke Torakura, who used to pay for her hospital bills in exchange for the guy's hard work. We later learn the horrible truth: Kaori actually died six months ago, because Complete Monster Torakura actually bribed her doctor into keeping her on painkillers only instead of paying for crucial and expensive treatment abroad (as per his end of the bargain), so Todakuro could remain indefinitely time as his subordinate, which ultimately killed her. And when poor Todakuro found out from the guilt-ridden nurse who used to tend to the girl, he went nuts with pain and murdered Todakura.
Male Examples: Prominent enough to have them listed on the character sheet.
I'm Melting: The rare deaging side effect of APTX makes survivors feel like their bones melting and smoke comes out from their bodies.
Important Character, Important Evidence: Minor characters will only find evidence if it's there to throw them off track.
Impairment Shot (Volume 9, Ran was nearly drowned after being drugged. She assumed that her savior was Shinichi (It was him, as Conan, before the whole Improbable Antidote incident.) This also occurs whenever anyone in the anime goes back and forth when they were being shrunk by Apotoxin or going back with Baiganr. with funky colors and blurred outlines. The manga has a negative version of the outlines and is either black or white, besides when Shinichi first became Conan and Aoyama decided to show his eyes wide and his entire form literally steaming as his insides 'melted', leaving you to wonder exactly how that feels.)
Improbable Antidote: The toxin can be temporarily canceled out by a certain type of liquor and a head cold.
Incredibly Lame Pun: Doctor Agasa's quizzes in the non serial movies.
In a special, Kogoro makes a lame joke involving Heidi and Alps seating, and it ends up being the final clue to prevent a bomber from exploding a baseball stadium. Actually, Kogoro uses puns often, to the disgust of.... virtually anyone listening, but especially Conan.
Inner Monologue: Conan uses it constantly, and other characters such as Ran do so to a lesser extent.
Often used for somewhat redundant recaps during multi-part cases.
Innocent Flower Girl: An anime case revolves around ikebana, therefore it has two of them. One is a woman named Nozaki, who reaches the Despair Event Horizon due to her corrupt sponsor Shiraki supporting her rival Rika Aokano and stealing her secret formula to make flowers bloom eternally, so she commits suicide before the case comes up. The other is her younger sister Midori... the Sympathetic Murderer: she manages to drug and kill Shiraki, but gets caught by Conan before she finishes her Thanatos Gambit that would've killed both herself and Rika on stage.
Innocent Innuendo: Between Heiji and Kazuha
Inside a Computer System: The main premise of the Non-Serial Movie Phantom of Baker Street is the virtual reality gaming console "cocoon" that puts players into the gaming world by neural stimulation. Of course, being a movie, we have the obligatory Holodeck Malfunction...
Inspector Lestrade: Most police officers, but specially Megure.
Few notable exceptions include Misao Yamamura, the thoroughly incompetent inspector from the Gunma prefecture, and, on the other side of the spectrum, Kansuke Yamato and Taka'aki Morofushi, who somewhat get to hop into the Competence Zone and keep up with Conan.
The case of the latter two are lampshaded by their Theme Naming; for example Morofushi's name refers to... Zhuge Liang. (Specifically, the characters of Zhuge Liang's courtesy name, Kongming, is read in Japanese as "Koumei"... which also happens to be an alternate reading of the characters in Morofushi's name.)
Instant Sedation: Played straight with Conan's wrist-watch tranquilizer needle gun. Kogoro barely has time to mumble a few words before keeling over. Ditto with other attackers or culprits.
Also nicely subverted in that Conan, who is stuck as a six year old, will go down quicker when knocked out compaired to the teenagers and adults... But the method of sedation is normally a cloth covered in narcotics or chlorophorm, instead of intramuscular injection.
Averted by Gin who stays conscious long enough to shoot himself in the arm to keep awake—and then climb down a chimney into a burning room to murder a fellow agent whose cover was blown and then climb back up said chimney using said shot arm.
Intergenerational Friendship: Shinichi and Agasa.
Interservice Rivalry: The FBI versus the CIA.
In the Blood: The Non-Serial Movie The Phantom of Baker Street started out with sensible social commentary on Japan's hereditary culture but hits this trope around the revelation that the bad guy is a descendant of Jack the Ripper and thus couldn't stop the murderous nature in his gene-- or, at least, killed people because he was found he was the descendent thereof.
Of course it's not so much this as the bad reputation such a revelation would cause if it went public that scared him, because the hereditary culture would turn him into that character in the eyes of the people. And then at some point his panic caused his common sense run a red light or two and hit a streetlight, a little understandably. Basically, it could be about how concentrating on erasing the mistakes of one's ancestors can make you repeat them.
The said social commentary is actually subverted; see It Runs in The Family, below.
Irony as She Is Cast: Hollywood Tone Deaf Conan's Japanese voice actress is the lead singer in the J-pop band "Two-Mix."
I Thought It Meant: Again, this is not about Conan the Barbarian as a sleuth.
It Only Works Once Per Episode At Most: Conan's tranquilizer-needle wristwatch only has one shot, which means Conan has to save it until he really needs it. Sometimes Conan uses the watch early in the mystery (or, less frequently, misses his shot or the watch gets damaged) only to discover that the next time he needs to use it he's already shot his one bolt (and he must then work by the slower method of dropping hints or else find some other way to knock Kogoro out).
It Runs in The Family: Shinichi's father is the mystery writer who does not investigate because he is Brilliant but Lazy; Heiji's father is a well-known police investigator; Ai's parents were scientists; and even Ran's parents were highly proficient in martial arts. This made the Author Filibuster in the sixth Non-Serial Movie pretty weak, as Nozawa borrowed the mouths of Ai and Hiroki (whose father is also a proficient programmer) to do that.
Jack the Ripoff: A man is murdered in a similar modus operandus as a serial killer whose original slayings neared the Statute of Limitations, but Conan deduces that the victim was the murderer, killed by one of the victims' vengeful family members through the victim's Dying Clue. ( The dead man put blood on the CTRL and C keys and died grabbing the mouse by its cord to imply that the murderer was a copy cat.)
It was Defied in the Naniwa Serial Murder arc, when Heizo, like what the trope page's lead mentioned, withheld some information from the press (Namely, a knife was stabbed through the victims' wallets) so that he was sure further incidents were not due to this trope.
Jack the Ripper: See In the Blood, above.
Japanese Holidays: Many a clue comes from expected knowledge of these. Also, as the films are released during Golden Week... so the first one was set during Golden Week, amusingly enough.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While Kogoro may appear to be an egotistical jerk, he does have his moments where he shows that he does care about Ran and Conan, and also shows quite the moral restrains towards murderers and some co-workers.
Jigsaw Puzzle Plot
Just a Kid: Applies to the high schoolers as much as the elementary age kids.
Just One Little Mistake: Literally almost every episode ends with this, immediately preceding the Motive Rant.
Just the Way You Are: Very cruelly applied in the Karaoke Murder Case. An Idol Singer is murdered by his scorned ex-girlfriend, who dumped her because he turned psychologically abusive to her after she had a nose job. It turns out that not only he liked her better when she was just a sweet Girl Next Door, but the woman had specifically gotten plastic surgery to please him, which he could never forgive her and himself for.
Victim (in a flashback, talking to an old friend of both him and the killer): Can you imagine it? She altered her face for me! I never asked her for anything like that, I loved her so much when she was herself! Why, why did she change just to please me...?
And she didn't even get a hint when he made her sing Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. Conan categorized this as Poor Communication Kills.
Kansai Regional Accent: Heiji Hattori's usage is most noted by characters, also Maria from episode 460. Also, the Black Organization agent Tequila is also mentioned to have spoken in Kansai-ben.
The Kansai dialect is sometimes used as a source of humor. In the "Holmes Freak Murder Case," when Conan imitates Heiji's voice to solve the murder, he notably has trouble speaking in the unfamiliar dialect (and Heiji, who wakes up partway through, ribs him about it later on). But in one of the OAVs, which involves a speaker of the Tokyo dialect whose voice is otherwise identical to Heiji's, Heiji is shown to be unable to speak a simple phrase in Tokyo-ben.
Kansai-Ben is also used to smoke out a murderer. In the Ama-chan case, after Conan outs the culprit, he starts talking in an exaggerated Kansai accent so the murderer will blow his top and admit he's from Osaka.
Killed Off for Real: Shinichi Kudo. Not a case of That Man Is Dead. Not The Hero Dies either. It's a case of Name's the Same.
Kissing Cousins: In one of the earlier cases, the killer's motive for killing his grandfather, was that he had been in love since childhood with his cousin and the heiress of the family fortune, as she was the old man's favorite grandkid, and the older man brutally forbid them to marry and mocked him. The killer's parents were also cousins, and the patriarch only very reluctantly agreed their marriage. Note that Japanese culture consider cousin marriages as more or less acceptable.
Lampshade-Wearing: Kogoro is a heavy and frequent drinker, and possibly borderline alcoholic (at one point, his doctor advises him to cut back, and he actually obeys this for a few episodes until the audience forgets). He is often depicted as drinking, sometimes to the point of tying his necktie around his forehead. (Though he sobers up quickly if he is in this state when a murder happens nearby.)
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Ran has a habit of forgetting things she finds unpleasant; in one Non-Serial Movie, this resulted in forgetting about everyone in her life because she witnessed someone getting shot and believed it to be her fault.
Latex Perfection: KID seems to have brought this down where he can fool Shinichi that he is Ran, or vice versa. This is scary (and at the same time, hilarious, seeing as Shinichi has known Ran for years. Yukiko (a prize-winning actress) and Vermouth also manage to do this. Enough that throughout the series the only way muggles can make sure someone was not impersonated is by literally pinching their faces.
Subverted in the 8th Non-Serial Movie, Magician of the Silver Sky, and the 14th, Lost Ship in the Sky, as well as the OAV "Kid in Trap Island". A number of times, Kaitou takes advantage of his close physical resemblance to Shinichi to disguise himself without a mask, so he passes the pinch test.
Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Kiss Note, anyone? Or Urban Hunter?
The Urban Hunter appearance is especially worthy of note since the voice actor for Kogoro at the time was also the voice actor for City Hunter Ryo Saeba.
As well as the popular kids' action show Kamen Rider Yaiba (which is also a namedrop of an otherwise-unrelated manga called Yaiba from the same mangaka as Conan). This one has been lampshaded in the Conan vs. Kaitou Kid vs. Yaiba OAV in which the Detective Boys meet Yaiba in an episode-long dream sequence and accuse him of lying about his name because he is obviously not Kamen Yaiba.
Left Hanging: Elena Miyano's last message to Shiho on some tapes she recovered.
Lethal Chef: The direct reason for Kogoro and Eri's separation is the latter's cooking was too awful ( aside of him once having to shoot her to save her from death). Even Shinichi knows how bad Eri's cooking is.
Let's Get Dangerous: In precious few situations, Kogoro can be motivated enough to devote his full attention to a case and actually do an excellent job.
Little Old Lady Investigates: The series has one story where Kogoro is invited to a gathering of other famous detectives in the adult category as opposed to Shinichi's teen detective peers. Numbered among them is a little old lady detective who seems to have worked frequently with the two-fisted man of action private detective perhaps because their opposite strengths combine effectively. Turns out that this "Little old lady" WAS the killer
For extra information, Heiji was invited, but couldn't make it, as was Hakuba, who we actually got to see with a gun. Which was both awesome and freaky, given he pretends to threaten a female detective while being as chivalrous as possible--and then was seemingly shot himself.
Live Action Adaptation
Loads and Loads of Characters: The official anime website listed 47 characters at one point. Even excluding important one-off characters, the count of recurring characters is currently at 70+.
Locked Room Mystery: Many. And they STILL look shocked every time they discover one.
One of the first examples in the series is possibly one of the creepiest ways to go about this - a Japanese diplomat is found poisoned in his office, with opera playing in the background to cover up any noises he made and the key in his trouser pocket. Heiji deducts that the criminal used a simple trick with a piece of string to pull the key into the pocket - but he's actually wrong because this is physically impossible. The murderer (his wife) actually poisoned him when she brought Conan and the gang into the room and set up the Locked Room scenario by unlocking the door to show them in. Shinichi downright called this an application of a psychological locked room.
Lolicon: Referenced. Haibara asks Conan if a specific man (Shuichi Akai) was a loli-con. Conan's reaction was pure shock, so she said, "I was right, then?" What makes the scene particularly hilarious is the fact that Akai and "lolicon" just don't belong in the same sentence.
Long-Distance Relationship: One murder suspect's motive is that his longtime girlfriend ditched him for another guy while they were separated, and it turns out that said other guy had been hiding the suspect's letters.
Sonoko's boyfriend Makoto, a karate champion, also travels around a lot due to his schedule.
And Shinichi has taken considerable effort to make Ran think that they're in one, despite the fact that they actually live in the same apartment.
Long Runners: The manga started 1994; anime started 1996.
Loose Canon: Detective Conan has an ongoing Spin-Off manga series called Detective Conan Special Edition that is going on on a children's manga magazine. While it agrees with most canon elements of the main series, it's not drawn by the original mangaka (and hence has some Off-Model issues) and The Syndicate never appeared outside of the First Episode Spoiler. It's lack of firm link with the canon can be demonstrated by... despite being a Long Runner itself (>30 volumes), its story are very rarely adapted into Anime.
Lost in Translation: Any case where the victim left a message or Japanese wordplay is a vital clue is utterly unreadable and unsolvable in any other language. (When the mangaka heard that his series was being translated, he wished the translators the best of luck.)
Love Makes You Evil: Many, many murderers have this as their motives, since their Asshole Victims are generally people who crapped out big time on the killers's girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, siblings, children, etc.
Any time the murderer has no obvious motive for murdering the victim, if you assume the victim killed the murderer's boyfriend/girlfriend/brother/sister in a hit-and-run accident, you will be correct more often than not.
Mad Bomber: Subverted in Non-Serial Movie The Time-Bombed Skyscraper. The bomber is the architect who built all of the buildings he either blew up or nearly blew up. He did it because he was an extreme Neat Freak who considered all of them Old Shames.
Make It Look Like an Accident: Some of the murders.
Magic Antidote: In Heiji's debut, Conan is feeling poorly so he gives Conan a dose of Baiganr (a kind of alcohol) claiming it to be an old family tradition and a surefire cure for the cold. It does, in fact, make him feel better-so much better, in fact, that it temporarily counteracts the poison and makes him return to his sixteen-year-old self. He literally has just enough time to rush to the scene of the crime of the week, solve it, and rush off so that he can regress again without breaking The Masquerade. He puts two and two together and tries to sneak a larger dose in hopes of permanently returning to normal, but Ran catches him and chases him off, telling him that it's not really good for children and the first time was a special case on account of him being sick. (Later he succeeds in filching the bottle and drains it, but apparently his body has built up a tolerance because all that happens is he gets drunk.)
Later, he is able to talk Haibara through using the Baiganr antidote (when she is trapped in the liquor storage room of a hotel and needs to be bigger to climb out the chimney), and it forms the subsequent basis of her research into a temporary cure that doesn't require booze to use.
Magical Security Cam: A particular episode of Detective Conan when a murder scene recorded on camera was shown even with flashing backgrounds. Subverted in this incidence, as the killer deliberately place the cam to let the police see what happened in the way he wanted to be.
Subverted in the Holmes Freak case, where the security cameras placed everywhere in a vacation manor are revealed to be nonfunctional dummies.
Mama Bear / Papa Wolf: One of the few things that make Kogoro act serious is when Ran or Conan are directly threatened.
Also, Ran has gone into Mama Bear mode more than once to protect Conan.
Once, Conan and his friends were almost killed by a literal Mama Bear who had horribly lost her cub to a very cruel hunter.
Market-Based Title: As noted above, called Case Closed in the U.S. due to copyright and trademark issues with Conan Properties International.
Marshmallow Hell: Conan is subjected to this in Magic File 4 by a couple of high school fangirls. Keep in mind that Conan is actually a high schooler himself.
Master of Delusion: Ran almost figured it out in the first volume, with many other close calls. Hundreds of chapters later and she's still clueless. Though, to be fair, every time Ran has figured out that Conan is Shinichi, Conan has had help from others in on the secret (as well as the otherwise-realistic universe's natural Weirdness Censor—who would believe that a high-schooler could de-age ten years given any even vaguely plausible alternative?) to convince her she was imagining things. Ran nearly got it right the first time, though...
Ran: You took one of Dr Agasa's weird chemicals, didn't you!?
For that matter, she had a similar theory the second or third time time, too ("I thought you needed to hide and had Dr. Agasa create some kind of shrinking drug.") prompting Conan to remark to the audience about how close she got.
Master of Disguise: Five: Shinichi's Hot Mom Yukiko, former prize-winning actress and Black Organization member Vermouth who actually trained with Yukiko; the Kaitou Kids who also starred in Magic Kaito — Kuroba Kaito currently and Kuroba Toichi formerly (who trained Vermouth and Yukiko), and Phantom Lady who trained Kuroba Toichi—and may have married him.
Meaningful Echo: "My mom said it's bad luck to waste even one grain of rice", in the 5th Non-Serial Movie.
Meitantei
The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Brutally averted. Conan and Haibara both keep their mental states in their childish bodies. Played with when Conan takes an experimental antidote. He has become used to being treated as a child by others and thus slips up twice because of it.
Million-to-One Chance: For the other 999,999, Our Fountain of Youth is a deadly poison.
Mistaken for Murderer: In one episode, Ayumi hides in the trunk of a car that seems to be carrying a murder weapon and stolen money. Based on overheard conversation through the badge, Conan and the other Detective Boys assume the car's occupants are criminals and they might harm Ayumi if they discover her, and race to the rescue. It turns out that they're actors for a community theater and the money and weapon are props for a play.
Mistaken Nationality: Inverted from the usual case; in the episode introducing James Black, kidnappers mistake Black for the wealthy American owner of a trained dolphin show. Conan explains to the Detective Boys that, just as All Asians Are Alike to many Westerners, all Caucasians look alike to many Asians. At the same time, this is subverted when Conan is able to differentiate Black from the show-owner because he speaks English with a British rather than Texan accent (at least for the show's purposes. However, he actually speaks it with a "Japanese actor reading phonetically" accent).
The Moles(?): Vermouth is seen talking on the phone to someone about "gaining trust, per our agreement" with Conan & Co. at the same time mysterious transfer student/teen detective Sera, mysterious houseguest/Sherlock Holmes fanboy Subaru, and mysterious private eye/Kogura fanboy Tooru answer their phones. And it seems that Tooru knows Sera...
Momma's Boy / My Beloved Smother : A quite weird case. Conan and the detective kids actually find a "haunted house" where a mother keeps her son locked in the basement to keep him from being incarcerated as his father's murderer until the end of the statute of limtations, even when the guy is guilty and does want to go to jail, to atone for his crime. Eventually, Conan helps the culprit convince her mother to let him go and turn himself in.
Moment Killer: Before Takagi and Sato got their first kiss, every time they tried to gets ruined.
Motive Rant: Almost every single murderer/con artist/blackmailer goes into this.
Musical Trigger: Movie 12 Full Score of Fear.
My God, What Have I Done?: Happens to a few of the murderers when Conan reveals that their motives for murder were completely unjustified.
My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Although the show is set in a "realistic" universe, and young Shinichi pooh-poohs the idea of clairvoyance in one of the prequel OAVs, certain characters nonetheless exhibit something along those lines. Sherry/Haibara Ai is able to sense when members of the Black Organization are near, and Conan is sometimes able to sense when Ran is in danger. (In the Strategy Above the Depths Non-Serial Movie, Conan was drawn back to the sinking cruise ship when Ran was trapped inside, though he did not at first know why.)
Mystery Writer Detective: The protagonist's father is a mystery writer who occasionally steps in to solve mysteries when his son is stumped.
Myth Arc: All of the recurring story lines fall under this.
Never Suicide: Inverted in the third case of the series, but eventually used straight several times.
Nightmare Fetishist: All the teen detectives, ever, and occasionally the Shonen Tantei. Particularly Shinichi in the very first arc. ("Stop crying, Ran; this kind of thing happens all the time!")
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In the thirteenth movie, The Raven Chaser, Conan has the crap beat out of him at the ending by Irish, gets shot at multiple times, and has no real way of fighting back since Agasa's inventions have been put out of commission by this point. To make matters worse, Ran also loses the upperhand against Irish after trying to protect the injured Conan and even gets slammed into a wall. It's hard not to cringe at these two scenes.
Heck, the first case Conan runs into, he gets the everloving crap beaten out of him by the suspect, prompting him to find ways to compensate for his smaller size. (Enter the magical shoes.)
No Longer with Us: When Conan first finds out who Ai really is, he demands to know what she's doing at the professor's house. Ai replies that the professor is "no longer in this world", Conan barges into his house... and sees him on the internet. Of course, this was written in 1997, when people still used modems.
No One Could Survive That: Gin and Vodka's original opinion on the effects of APTX4869 to Shinichi.
Non Serial Movies: Conan has gotten one of these per year since a couple years after the show first started airing. Due to the relative scarcity of arc-based stories in the mostly-picaresque TV and manga series, the movies do not usually pose story-based continuity difficulties the way other series' non-serial-movies can. They do involve a number of considerably different elements to the main series, however, which sometimes makes it a little hard to reconcile the two.
The movies are considerably more action-packed, giving Conan a lot more physical things to do (and putting him in a lot more jeopardy). Over the course of the various movies he has crash-landed a helicopter, rocket-skateboarded the length of an amusement park (including along a roller coaster track), parasailed, jumped a car from the top floor of one skyscraper to the roof of another, been shot at by a helicopter gunship on the roof of the Tokyo Tower, fallen out of and jumped out of a helicopter onto a blimp, and more. His secret identity should have been blown by now from the things other people saw him do alone.
And speaking of his secret identity, Kaitou Kid knows exactly what it is in the movies, whereas the TV series and manga have always been more cagey about it. Also, Kid and Conan almost always end up working together to some extent in their movie appearances, whereas they're always more at odds everywhere else.
Events that take place in the movies may be referenced in other movies, but are never brought up in the TV series. Also, the movies only rarely mention events from the TV series except in general terms. (An exception being the 13th movie, Raven Chaser, which built heavily on earlier Black Organization arcs.)
Two more points are also disputed by the fandom: should the Backstory between Kogoro and Eri in the second movie be considered canon? And should Noah's Ark be listed under the people who knew the truth?
Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon
Now That's Using Your Teeth: in one case, it looks like an old man had committed suicide in his room; then Conan deduces that the victim had his hands bound behind his back, and then the rope that was looped around his neck was also threaded through his teeth so that if he called for help or his jaw gave out he would hang himself.
Obfuscating Disability
Off with His Head: The first case. Particularly gruesome when you add the High-Pressure Blood. Even the Japanese had to censor by changing the blood into a beam of light.
In the Mountain Villa Bandaged Man Murder Case, the victim Chikako is killed by having her head chopped off with an axe and have her other remains distributed.
Oh Crap: the look on Conan's face when he realizes that the murderer he was confronting alone in the forest at night brought fifty armed men along with him to help dispose of the evidence. Que Big Damn Heroes moment when Ran and then Makoto shows up and beats the crap out of all of them.
The look on Conan's face in the thirteenth movie when after being caught by surprise by the sudden appearance of a helicopter loses his sudden advantage over Irish when Irish takes back his gun and holds it firmly on Conan's forehead. Yikes.
One-Scene Wonder—The character sheet has a special part for these. Jinpei Matsuda, though, worths specific mention.
Only Six Faces: Look at Shinichi and Kaito. Or Ran and Aoko.
In fact, it's even a plot point in several cases, particularly one of the latest, where Ms Kobayashi gets mistaken for Satou several times in the police station and worries Shiratori is only dating her for the semblance between the two.
Also a plot point in the Lupin III vs. Detective Conan TV special, in which Ran is a Fake King lookalike of a European princess.
Opening Narration: All of the movies have Conan explaining the basic plot of the series to the current version of the main theme. All of the Japanese episodes state that he's an adult trapped in a child's body opening the intro animation.
Original Video Animation: Conan Vs. KID Vs. Yaiba. Rule of Cool.
Out of Character: The Non-Serial Movie Phantom of Baker Street is accused of doing this to Conan, specifically:
Was he a bit too calm in response to Ran killing herself in-game by jumping off with Jack the Ripper?
Considering he knew he was in a game entering a Heroic BSOD over losing the most obvious way to save her real life seems completely in character.
The controversy was on his Heroic BSOD itself, specifically, his feeling like giving up.
Shouldn't he stop Hiroki from committing his second suicide? (For background info for this, also read the relevant entry in Driven to Suicide.
Paper-Thin Disguise: The only thing that keeps Conan from being recognized as age-regressed Shinchi are his Clark Kent glasses and other characters' Selective Obliviousness. He is otherwise not much good at Clark Kenting—he does not make much effort to hide his other Shinichi-like mannerisms (even Ran remarks on how much like Shinchi he is when he kicks a soccer ball around while thinking), and sometimes when his glasses have come off Ran has noticed how suspiciously similar to Young Shinichi he looks.
Painting the Fourth Wall: The Detective Boys run into TWO-MIX (and thus Minami Takayama, Conan's voice actress), who get kidnapped because they inadvertently heard a murder; in another case, a party being held by some famous celebrities have several of the seiyuus in attendance.
Patricide: In the The Shaking Restaurant Case Saki Yoshizawa killed Hanaoka who is very implied to be her father because he had abandoned her mother and not even sent her any news which made her pass away while still waiting for him for twenty years.
The Perfect Crime: A number of murderers intentionally arrange to have "Meitantei" Mouri Kogoro witness their crime, so confident are they that they can have the "Great Detective" himself provide them with a foolproof alibi. (And often they would be right, even with Conan on the job—save for some completely coincidental bit of bad luck that provides the crucial evidence necessary to link them to it.)
Phone Booth: Before he gets his Cell Phone, Conan uses a phone booth to make voice-disguised Shinichi calls to Ran (to the occasional passer-by's startlement).
Also, in a manga story involving a trip to London, Conan is trapped in a phone booth by Ran seeking Shinichi, and has to use a dose of apotoxin (that had been reserved for getting him past customs to return to Japan) to do a Superman-style quick change to Shinichi in order to avoid awkward questions.
Pirate Girl: Anne Bonny and Mary Read's secret treasure (as well as their close friendship) is a plot point in Detective Conan: Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure.
Plot Induced Stupidity: After how many cases Kogoro solved when he was unconscious, wouldn't people have actually realized that something was up by now? Especially Ran, considering she's there at almost every one of his crime scenes?
Kogoro does lampshade this by saying he doesn't remember most of his cases (in the TV murder episode) so it's probably considered part of his character to practically fall unconscious and then solve the murder.
And forget Kogoro - he's a detective, people often would expect this. Sonoko is often used as a dummy detective when Kogoro isn't available. (At least in the dub, Conan says, "Time to make her say something useful.) Here is a boy-crazy teenaged girl who is somewhat of a ditz...who also sometimes falls unconscious around crime scenes. During which, she mysteriously is able to tell who did it..wouldn't someone (Especially Ran) point out how out of character it is?
Pocket Protector
In one episode, Heiji loans Conan a good luck charm he wears after having a premonition of Conan's death. The charm ends up saving Conan's life when someone tries to stab him.
In another episode, Conan's anesthetic needle hits Ran in the butt after she steps between him and Kogoro--but it was stopped by the hotel baggage claim tags in her back pocket.
Police Are Useless: Almost none of the police inspectors seem able to solve murders by themselves. In most cases, this is because the focus of the series is on Conan—hence the only cases we see them working on are the intricate ones Conan has to solve for them. It can be assumed that they are more able when it comes to routine crimes.
Subverted in the second case of the Osaka Double Mystery when Hattori Heiji's father rips into him over not stopping a second murder despite the police making the same failure, only for it to turn out that he already knew who the murderer was and was using Heiji as bait in a Batman Gambit to catch the perp of a far earlier crime.
The exception that proves the rule is Inspector Yamamura, who is the poster boy for police incompetence—and who, to Conan's chagrin, was elevated to the rank of Inspector solely on the basis of having closed some cases Conan actually solved behind the scenes.
Many of the Police seemed to merely be taking over the crime scene.
Poor Communication Kills: Some specially tragic cases in the TV series and manga alike. Often, this could be seen as a form of Call It Karma, or possibly even true Karma, as the killer is invariably stricken with horror and grief upon learning that he killed an innocent person because of a misunderstanding.
For example, we have had an injured American tourist recuperating in a Japanese household and falling in love with a young woman. Because of a mouth injury, at first he could only communicate by writing out Japanese phrases phonetically. As he was leaving, the young woman asked if he loved her, and he wrote down the word "shine", referring to his earlier words that he wanted a "shining bride", but which she quite naturally interpreted as "shi-ne," which happens to be Japanese for "go die", since the note was handed to her by her sisters who thought Robert was being mean. The woman committed suicide after he left, and when he came back he ended up murdering part of her family in revenge. What an Idiot!.
In another episode, a woman named Masayo kills her younger sister Mina for stealing her boyfriend when in fact Mina had actually asked the boyfriend not to reveal that he had confessed to her because she didn't want to hurt Masayo's feelings. It certainly didn't help that there was a sort-of sisterly rivalry history before, since Mina kept imitating Masayo by copying her tastes to a degree that creeped the heck outta Masayo, but still...
In "The Kappa Conundrum", eleven years after the death of a 10-year-old boy in a flooded river, the boy's former teacher kills the boy's father out of the belief he caused the boy's death by making him dress up as a kappa (Japanese water spirit) to lure tourists to his inn--but it turns out that dressing up had been the boy's own decision and the father simply covered it up out of respect for his memory.
In a TV episode involving a male and female comedy duo who were also lovers, the woman arranges to murder the man after overhearing him making what seemed to be insensitive remarks to their manager about wanting to tell her to quit comedy, and no longer being her boyfriend. Afterward, she receives a note accompanied by a ring that he had arranged to have delivered, telling her that he wanted her to quit comedy for her health, and he was going to "quit being her boyfriend" by proposing to become her husband.
In one tragic early case, the lead singer of a band was murdered. It turned out it was the manager of the band. They had been in a teen band together, and when he (the lead) started a new band, he asked her to be the manager. She was not very pretty, so before joining, she had plastic surgery done. Immediately after that, he started acting like a total jerk. The night she killed him, he had insulted her yet again, and that was the final straw. The real Tear Jerker came when it turned out he had loved her all along, but hated that she changed her face for him. It was because of that that he had teased and mocked her so. The worst part? That night, he was going to sing a song for her, telling her his true feelings.
Potty Dance: Conan fakes a Potty Emergency during a case this way (in order to Pull the Thread on the suspect).
Potty Failure: One arc humorously applied this; Eri Bound and Gagged Kogoro on his sofa, and while Eri was out with Ran and Conan, Kogoro complained about Potty Emergency... When they came back, they noticed a strange smell from the sofa, which Kogoro said was "dog pee."
Power Walk: A number of the OPs have various members of the Conan cast doing this.
"Previously On...": In multi-part episodes, the couple of minutes before the title card for all episodes after the first one is used for showing what happened in previous episodes. This is often redundant because Conan will provide his own recap in Inner Monologue every so often. (In one episode, "The Alibi of the Black Dress", Conan recapped twice in the first episode (including a fairly lengthy one right before the end) and again in part two, in addition to the ""Previously On..."" segment!) This may be done as a time-filling method when a manga-based case is too long for one part but not long enough for two.
But the manga itself is also guilty of this. Since there's no way to know whether the person reading the current issue missed the previous one(s), each segment of a multi-part case after the first will usually feature exposition of the important plot points from earlier issues via somewhat unrealistically-detailed dialogue.
Public Secret Message: In "The Secret of the Sun, Moon and Stars", Professor Agasa and Shinichi Kudo (really Conan Edogawa) suggest that the drawings of the sun, moon, and stars found on various objects in the home of Agasa's late uncle were a code much like the Dancing Men from the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Dancing Men".
Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: The climax in the second Non-Serial Movie.
Red Herring: Conan can see past most attempts at framing innocent suspects, but he's gone down the wrong track a few times; most importantly, the readers were being set up to expect that Jodie was Vermouth, but this turns out to be completely wrong.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Invoked several times over in this series, with romantic, friendship, and enemy connotations. Ran and Shinichi/Conan are red and blue respectively. Kazuha and Heiji are orange or red and green, KID is dressed in white and Hakuba all in black. The Black Org. is red and black and Conan is blue. Ran and Sonoko are red and blue.
Red String of Fate: The Time-Bombed Skyscraper - confronted with a Wire Dilemma, Ran can't bring herself to cut the red one because of the association with the String of Fate (which is a good thing, because earlier the bomber had overheard her talking about how red was her favorite color and rigged it to go off on the red wire).
Retirony: A high diver in "The Last Dive" / "Sports Club Murder Case".
Revealing Coverup: In one episode, a criminal attempts to acquire a demo tape that implicates him in a murder. It's especially note worthy that before the criminal's attempts to acquire the tape Conan thought nothing special was on it. (He had listened to it previously in hopes of finding out why the artist was being stalked).
Revenge by Proxy: In the June Bride case, a suspect poisons his new bride to get revenge on her policeman father, who'd neglected to notice that the perp he'd been chasing had run over the suspect's mother (and she then bleeds to death later). Subverted in that the bride found out that the suspect was the Childhood Friend she had a crush on, guessed that he'd attempt something like this, and willingly drank the poison to show that she had suffered a lot after their separation. And apparently, once he was released from jail, he got her forgiveness and properly got married.
Another in the London case, in which Hades goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against champion tennis player Minerva Glass for losing a match on which he bet all the money need to pay for his mother's life-saving operation. All the money was lost and Hades' mother died. In turn, Hades plants a bomb in a gift lent to Minerva's mother during the Wimbledon Championship that will be triggered at the end of the game so that Minerva will lose her mother in return for Hades losing his.
The London case isn't exactly Revenge by Proxy since it's revealed that the reason Minerva lost the match was because her mother wasn't at the match and therefore the mother is to blame.
Reverse Psychology: KID challenges Jirokichi not to rely on children to protect his MacGuffin. Jirokichi, thinking it's because KID cannot disguise as somebody several heads smaller than himself, promptly asks the Detective Boys for help. Just as KID planned...
Reverse Whodunnit: Used quite a bit.
Rich Bitch: Sonoko may be a subverted case, but some Asshole Victims are playing this straight.
OTOH, a very spoiled Rich Bitch once invited Kogoro, Ran and Conan to her huge b-day party as payment for them finding her lost pet puppy...but she and one of her suitors ended up murdered soon afterwards. A friend of both of them was the culprit, having found out that they killed the granddaughter of the girl's nanny (whom he had feelings for) by letting her drown to save their own lives during a boat wreck. So he first drugged and drowned the man in a fountain with his own hands, and then left the bound and gagged girl to drown in a covered bath tub, to let them know why they were being killed as well as experience a death similar to the one they inflicted on the girl he loved.
Role Called: At least in Japan. In America, it was retitled Case Closed.
Rope Bridge: In a number of episodes. Frequently used as something that can be cut and strand the characters overnight in the spooky-old-mansion-du-jour, or occasionally as a hazard that can go out while being crossed.
Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts: Quite a few of the murders invoke this trope.
Rule of Three: Whenever there are multiple suspects in a case, there is a great chance that they will come in groups of three, either because there were only three other people to begin with or because Conan or somebody else uses some bit of evidence to narrow it down to that. This is particularly frequent in cases involving public locations and just generally any group of people where the participants were not previously established as related. Usually, there will be a big, gruff guy, a kind of asshole-looking guy, and a meek guy or a woman.
Most of the time, the murders are split into three parts, the introduction of the characters & murdered, the investigation, and the revelation of the culprit.
Shinichi/Conan also, so far, has used 3 awake people for his acts, 3 detectives, and has three-later four- aides in the detective boys.
Satchel Switcheroo: One case involved a double Invocation of this: A wants to kill B, and switched his bomb-loaded suitcase with B's. B, however, is selling information to a member of The Syndicate and planned to exchange information in the same way... Result: Syndicate member bombed to death.
Say My Name: I can't even count. Latest instance was Ayumi calling conan after he passed out in "Vermilion Bird".
Scary Shiny Glasses: Everyone who has them, including Conan.
Schrödinger's Cast: Granted, the series (manga or anime) had a case of Cerebus Syndrome, and the manga-side change happened after the anime has been aired for a year. The problem for the producers and writers of the animated show was that they had removed all references to The Syndicate in the first season. This causes two very gratitous examples of this trope:
The Chekhov's Gun from episode 12--The Syndicate killing their Mook—was removed in the anime, by changing it to generic-evil-guy-seriously-hurting-but-not-killing-a Mook. However, Aoyama fired the gun by making the murder victim a Red Herring Shirt and the Dead Older Sister of a new character. Result? Continuity Porn was applied by killing her again, this time by The Syndicate, in a Filler 116 episodes later. A lampshade was hung by Ran asking Conan if they had seen that character any time before. This arc is the Billion Yen Heist. It was pertinent because Akemi Miyano had to die under the organization's hands to bring her little sister Shiho aka Ai in, because she is Ai's Dead Elder Sister. This also resulted in the series running in a very Restricted Expanded Plot so as to prevent Continuity Snarl by preventing any of the writer's Chekhov's Guns to be removed.
If that wasn't gratuitous enough, see this: in episode 4 (involving the bomb on the train), the villains were supposed to be Those Two Bad Guys, and in the manga Conan overheard their name as Gin and Vodka. Again, in the anime they were changed to some other Long Coat Badasses. The anime writers didn't even try to Hand Wave that; Gin and Vodka's names were inserted into Conan's memory in the second season!
Scooby-Doo Hoax: A number of episodes feature this sort of thing—since the series is set in a strictly rational world (with just one or two notable exceptions), any invocation of the supernatural can be assumed to be a Scooby Doo Hoax. (That doesn't stop normally-stalwart Action Girl Ran from cowering whenever she suspects she may be up against ghosts, however.)
Screwed by the Network: US, arguably
Secret Identity:
The Kaitou Kid has it better, however. For some reason, even the daughter of the police inspector assigned to catch him is incapable of noticing anything strange about a high school student named Kaito whose hobby is stage magic.
This may be why Conan and "Kaito" never seem to meet up; Conan would probably see through that secret identity right away.
To be fair, 'Kaito' is a legitimate Japanese name for a boy, (used among others for the boy-classmate of the Shonen Tantei in the episode Okiya Subaru is introduced), and his interest in magic is also legitimate as his father was a world-reknown magician. What also has some readers baffled and has sparked some debate, however, is his surname; 'Kuroba' almost seems like a reference to 'Kuro Baron', an in-universe famous character from Kudo Yuusaku's novels. This may however be a case of the author making another inter-fandom nod.
Kuroba is is also a homophone of how the Japanese pronounce the English word clover. What possessed the original Kid to run around with a hint to his last name dangling next to his face after he turned that outfit into his thief attire is confounding.
Serial Killings, Specific Target: A serial arsonist turns out to be doing this, inspired directly by The ABC Murders.
Sherlock Scan: Played straight in the first episode by Shinichi just for amusement and in the second episode to convince Agasa Conan is really Shinichi, though later on he keeps it to himself as Conan. Used sparingly when he needs and can afford to make a suspect uncomfortable. (Often, Conan will take "shortcuts" in his deductions though — spin them out longer just to impress the one he's scanning, e.g., spinning out a series of deductions to explain why someone is a tennis fan when he actually noticed a tennis brochure sticking out of his pocket. Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, this sort of inductive reasoning—working backward from a conclusion to get facts rather than work forward from facts to get a conclusion—is what Conan Doyle actually used to invent Holmes's original deductive Sherlock scans.)
Used in a manga story involving a trip to London, when Conan needed to convince a boy that Conan was "Sherlock Holmes's apprentice" so he would hand over a threatening letter for Conan to investigate.
Subverted in the OAV Magic File 4, in which a number of coincidences lead Conan and Hattori to draw a completely wrong conclusion.
She Is Not My Girlfriend: No, really! We're Just Friends- in fact, we're Like Brother and Sister. Heiji and Kazuha could say it a hundred times, but it's not going to change anyone's opinion because Everyone Can See It. A random stranger has TOLD Kazuha to ask Heiji out. Trope can also be applied to Ran and Shinichi.
Subverted as the series progresses for Shinichi and Ran. Shinichi is quite acutely aware of his feelings for her (having in fact liked her before she liked him, a rare case for Shonen Manga) while living with Ran removed any possible lingering doubt he might have had on reciprocation. As time passes in-universe and Shinichi continues to remain missing, Ran drops almost all pretenses of 'just friends' behaviour and denial whenever he is mentioned or he calls. The subversion culminates in later chapters/episodes where Shinichi has finally confessed his feelings to Ran. She has, however, yet to reciprocate directly.
Ship Tease: Conan and Haibara Ai. She even confessed and then threw it off with a "just kidding! ^_^" (though at other times she has expressed veiled jealousy of his feelings for Ran). This caused quite a lot of Ship-to-Ship Combat (see the entry on the YMMV page).
Shrine to the Fallen: In one mystery on Case Closed, Conan deduces that the name placard of such a shrine is the hiding place of a valuable stamp.
In another, Heiji and Kazuha almost fall to their deaths investigating a memorial rock that has incense placed on it.
In yet another, a similar rock commemorating the drowning of a young boy is the plot point to the mystery.
Shoot the Hostage: The Fourteenth Target
Shotacon: Sonoko jokingly thinks this might be the reason why Sera seems to be more interested in Conan than her classmate Ran's company.
Shout-Out:
One of the mysteries taking place at a mansion has No Celebrities Were Harmed versions of famous detectives.
Jodie Starling is most likely named after Jodie Foster and the character she played in Silence of the Lambs, FBI agent Clarice Starling.
The biggest Shout-Out of all is Shinichi and his environs; judging by names one can safely say he has been living in London rather than Tokyo. ("Beika" Street, "Haido" Park…)
Just about all of the characters have Theme Naming to a famous detective; some of the victims and suspects also have had names reminiscent of The Shinsengumi or Jidai Geki big names.
Movie 6 has Ran actually copying a trick from Die Hard, hoping it works like in the movie.
Hattori Heiji may well be related to Hattori Hanzo, especially considering how good he is at Kendo.
In volume 17, Kogoro exclaims 'Hellooo Nurses!' most likely referencing Vaudeville or Animaniacs.
The beginning of episode 608 has a commercial for a fictional chocolate-brand filmed in the style of 24, complete with Picture-in-Picture, a digital clock and beeping sounds.
An entire story in the 63rd tankoubon is a shout-out to Initial D. Why so? First, the case happened in Gunma in a place named Mt. Fuyuna.[2] Second, the 'legend' is named Fuyuna's Silver Ghost.[3]
In episode two, the dub changes the kidnapped girl's name from Akiko Tani to Michelle Tanner.
Shut UP, Hannibal: Shinichi's sense of justice is such that he has very little tolerance for even the most sympathetic Motive Rant; he even shut up one suspect by Hannibal Lecturing at him.
Single-Target Sexuality: Shinichi and Ran. Particularly Shinichi, and definitely supported by the Asami arc. There's also Shiratori towards Satou. Or so he thinks. Satou's actually a false positive of sorts. His decades-old feelings are actually for Kobayashi-sensei. However, because Satou and Kobayashi have such similar features, and because Kobayashi idolized police, Shiratori thought fate was bringing him together with his old love when he ran into Detective Satou. Sorry, but no, Shiratori...
Snap Back:
With few notable exceptions (such as Heiji Hattori, or members of the Organization), whenever anyone notices Conan is significantly smarter than he should be or that most of Kogoro's deductions while awake come from hints dropped by Conan, they invariably forget about it by the end of the episode. For example:
In "Trembling Metropolitan Police Headquarters: 12 Million Hostages" (when Takagi and Conan are trapped in an elevator with a bomb and believe they're going to die), after Conan has demonstrated a remarkable degree of intelligence and maturity, Takagi asks Conan "who [he] really [is]". (And Conan replies, "I'll tell you…in the next life!") However, nothing is ever made of this after the episode is over—Takagi drops right back into oblivious Butt Monkey mode.
In one two-hour episode where Ran suspects Conan is Shinichi, she observes that he is always "coming up with things" and makes a point of interceding with Kogoro to give him free reign to make his deductions—even lending him a pen to make notes. However, in subsequent episodes (the rest of the series thus far) she is back to scolding Conan for wandering around and "interfering with Kogoro's investigations", and picking him up and hustling him away whenever a police officer complains about a little kid at the crime scene.
In another episode where she suspects Conan of being Shinichi because his cellphone beeped when she sent Shinichi an email, she notices how Conan is stage-managing the investigation through hint-dropping—but again seems to forget all about it after she is convinced she was mistaken.
It is very much an either-or proposition: outside of the episodes where she suspects Conan is Shinichi, Ran by and large fails to take notice of his unusual intelligence—or if she does, it is trumped by his young age.
This was somewhat averted after a long while. Many of the less-oblivious characters around Conan (and some guest investigators from other precincts) eventually came to realize that he keeps noticing useful stuff and that things he tends to say (supposedly) at random end up leading them on to solve the cases. Satou caught onto his usefulness almost immediately (and is so sharp in general that Conan has come to realize he dares not pull the "Sleeping Kogoro" act when she is around lest he risk her catching on).
The "death" of Noah's Ark in the sixth Non-Serial Movie can be said as a minor example, to prevent the risk of adding in another Canon Immigrant as people who knew Conan's secret are, otherwise, important characters.
Snooping Little Kid: The Detective Boys, with the exception of Conan and Haibara, best fit this category—they are not actually smart enough to be true Kid Detectives. But they sure do snoop around and get themselves into trouble a lot.
Social Services Does Not Exist: Where do I begin? Obviously, Kogoro is alcoholic and is regularly hung over, (Although to be fair, he's more of a "Happy drunk" than an angry drunk, the latter kind you hear about in alcoholic abuse cases. Happy drunks are rarely abusive, and Kogoro actually does know not to drive while drunk.[4]) Conan and Ran are regularly exposed to dead bodies and often extremely violent murder cases once or twice a week, sometimes are the ones who find the dead bodies, are sometimes actually put in danger, are often clearly in view of the police and yet nobody seems to find anything wrong with this. One can assume the inspector has probably noticed that they don't seem to be too disturbed or injured by it, and has been keeping social services away, especially since Conan seems to be pointing out stuff the police missed.
However, Shinichi's parents were no better. They were implied at regularly disappearing, Shinichi was living alone for awhile (Even if Ran can take care of herself, she at least lived with her dad and had indirect access to her mom), they actually did show up a few times in disguise to take Conan back only to provide some excuse so Conan can stay with Ran and Kogoro longer.
Sock It to Them: A sock full of coins is used as a murder weapon.
Sock Puppet: People in at least two different cases have used this to form an alibi.
Something Only They Would Say: Subverted and then played straight in episode 2: Conan reveals he knows about the mole on Agasa's butt to try to convince Agasa he's really Shinichi in a kid's body—but Agasa just assumes Shinichi's been blabbing. Then Conan uses a Sherlock Scan to demonstrate that he really is Shinichi.
Used as a red herring later where Jodie is routinely seen using a catch phrase of Vermouth ("A secret makes a woman a woman"), the Black Organization's master of disguise (who bears some resemblance to Jodie). Turns out that Vermouth said the same phrase to Jodie after killing Jodie's parents.
Used and abused by Kaitou Kid in the 14th non-canonical movie, where Kid accidentally overhears Shinichi tell Haibara and Agasa that Ran mistook the first airship she saw for a UFO. Kid later uses this nugget of information to convince her that he IS Shinichi, after he passes her pinch-test, but she still suspects him using Shinichi as a cover identity because they have 'similar faces'.
Spank the Cutie: Happens to Conan at the end of episode 90.
Spanner in the Works: Kazuha Toyama, whenever Heiji has a plan that involves him dressing up as someone else...
Stab the Scorpion: Ai and Tsuburaya are scared away from a crime scene by a gunshot, but Conan eventually deduces that the man who shot at them did it to keep them from being mauled by a pissed off (literal) Mama Bear.
Stage Magician: The mangaka, Aoyama, seems to be a big fan of stage magic, since stage magicians (both professional and amateur) appear as the subject of episodes time and time again.
Kaitou Kid is third in a line of famed stage magicians, and his secret identity is known to be a magic fan.
Kaito is not actually a 'fan' of magic, but a very good magician himself as thought by his father Toichi, so much so that Nakamori - detective in charge of catching Kid... amongst other things - occasionally calls him to crime scenes to test out their defenses. Little does Nakamori know...
Starts with a Suicide: The Non-Serial Movie Phantom of Baker Street started with the suicide of Hiroki Sawada, moments after he was introduced to the audience.
Also, the Kimono Goddess case starts with the suicide of Sakurako Suzuka. Her sister Eri is actually the Sympathetic Murderer, and the cruel Alpha Bitches who drove Sakurako to kill herself become the Asshole Victims.
Status Quo Is God: Subverted, but only just barely. The plot does move forward and progress is made, but the entire series moves at such glacial pace it might as well be standing still to someone not following it closely. Of course, anything that threatens to cause TOO big a change too quickly is certain to be rolled back almost instantly.
Statute of Limitations: One criminal got caught because time spent overseas didn't count towards the statute and his plane was held up at the gate due to inclement weather; another featured a series of murders that happened as the statute expired on a bank robbery gone wrong.
The Stinger: A feature of the anime and the Non Serial Movies. The TV episodes, OAVs, and movies all have one last scene—sometimes several minutes long—after the end titles roll. The only exception comes in non-concluding parts of multiple-part episodes, which just show the trailer. (Though in the first couple of seasons, even these had content, though it was often just the first scene of the next episode.)
Strange Minds Think Alike: At the end of the fourth movie, Captured in Her Eyes, Conan is just a little disgusted with himself to learn that he proclaimed his love for Ran the same way Ran's father did her mother.
Strong Family Resemblance: Yusaku and his son Shinichi look almost exactly the same (Yusaku has glasses and a funky mustache, Shinichi has a cowlick and a pointy rat-tail). The same goes for Kaitou Kid and Shinichi; even though nobody knows whether or not they're related. Supposedly, Gosho Aoyama has said that the resemblance between them is not a coincidence.
Subverted in "The Culprit is Genta's Dad": The Kojima adult who looks most like Genta turns out to be the culprit but not Genta's father. Genta turns out to look nothing at all like his father—he takes after his mother.
Also a very important plot point in the Naniwa Murder case: Yusuke Sakata's huge physical resemblance to his Disappeared Dad Inaba makes a Serial Killer blurt out the truth about Inaba's strange death 20 years ago, allowing Yusuke to start a serial murder spree to punish whoever had a hand on it. And on the other hand, seeing a picture of Inaba is what allows Heiji and then Conan to unmask Yusuke as the Sympathetic Murderer.
Stuck on a Ski Lift: At one point this becomes an opportunity for murder.
Sue Donym: Conan nearly did this at the very beginning, before he came up with Conan Edogawa, he nearly said "Shinichi."
Suck Out the Poison: Volume 17 of the manga.
The Summation: Every case. Frequently involves a Summation Gathering, often orchestrated by Conan phoning Megure in Kogoro's voice and vice versa.
Surprisingly Good English: The Americans' voice actors during the anime adaptation of the "3 K's of Osaka" storyline, and the taxi driver in "Shinichi's New York Case". Also, Hattori Heiji's English is almost perfect apart from one or two tiny pronunciation issues - not surprising, as his voice actor learned English from an American exchange student when they stayed at his house during adolescence.
In the London arc, most of the dubbers, all the important characters at any rate, speak very good British English.
Sweat Drop: Conan, when Kogoro says or does something stupid (especially at the very end of an episode).
Although not an example of the comedic use of the trope, lots of people break out in cold sweats during the episodes—usually the murderer, or those who are considered suspects. Sometimes the murderer can be picked out by being the only one out of all the suspects who is sweating, but this is often a Red Herring.
Also a symptom of Conan/Shinichi's impeding change from child to adolescent and vica-versa. Actually lampshaded by Heiji in the moving car strangulation case, where just before the first symptoms are felt by Shinichi, Heiji worriedly notices that he's sweating a lot.
The Syndicate: Pretty much the entire Black Org (who have actually been called "the Syndicate" on some occasions).
Sympathetic Murderer: Many. They love this trope just as much as they do Asshole Victim. (To the point where one could guess the victim by who's shown to be an asshole before the murder takes place.)
Take My Hand: Subverted when Heiji and Kazuha are in a Literal Cliff Hanger. Trying to make a Heroic Sacrifice, Kazuha stabs him with an arrowhead to make him let her go. He still holds on.
Take That: The sixth movie, Phantom of Baker Street, seems to be one geared at how Japanese society promotes conformity.
Talking in Your Sleep: Richard Moore, after drinking himself to sleep in episode 6.
Richard: No, sir, I'm sure I gave my math homework to the pink monkey in the golf cart...
Talking to Himself: When Conan runs into Minami Takayama, his voice actor. It's even pointed out that they sound alike.
Also, any scene with Takagi and Genta, considering they have the same seiyuu. (His name: Wataru Takagi. Mad props for having an official manga character named after you!)
That One Case: Since a large amount of the characters are policemen or detectives, several of them have this:
Kogoro's That One Case ended with a Shoot the Hostage, with the hostage being his wife; he quit the police and separated from his wife soon after this. The Non-Serial Movie "The Fourteenth Target" circles around the suspect supposedly taking revenge for this incident.
Sato has two That One Cases, both of them "inherited": in one, her father perished chasing the suspect from a bank robbery, and in another, she lost her former partner to a serial Mad Bomber (who himself had an earlier That One Case that lost his prior partner).
Subverted with Megure's That One Case, where a serial hit-and-run driver critically injured both himself and the girl who offered herself up as bait—turns out that was how he met his wife and he's embarrassed to tell the tale.
Conan himself considers the death of Ai's sister and his inability to stop the murderer of the Moonlight Sonata from committing suicide his greatest failures.
Theme Naming: Listing all examples of this trope in this series is as an exercise of futility as listing all LesYays in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. The main characters are all named after fictional detectives. The Black Organization uses alcholic drinks as codenames. All of the characters in Magic Kaito that appear have a color in the kanji for their name. And then the characters in many cases have their own theme namings, and those are often clues to solving the case...
Suspects often come conveniently grouped into theme names which the victim can point to in a dying message. In one case, each suspect had an airport in his or her name, and the victim dialed a three-letter international airport code on her cell phone to indicate which one did her in. In "The Red Wall," each former resident of the mansion had a color in his or her name. In the Non-Serial Movie The Fourteenth Target, each person targeted for murder had a number as part of his or her name. One can only suppose there is some kind of psychic force at work in Conan's world that causes otherwise-unrelated strangers to be drawn together into groups of people named along a particular theme.
One such Theme Naming is even Lampshaded by the FBI: Rena Mizunashi, Kir's cover name, could be an allusion to 007.[5]
Theme Park: Tropical Land. Also, Paradise Land from the Non-Serial Movie The Detective's Requiem.
Theme Tune Cameo: The Detective Boys keep singing openings/endings of the series when they go camping. The theme songs also frequently appear when characters sing karaoke.
There Are No Therapists: One of the many Fridge Logic elements that goes along with the ridiculous number of murders Conan witnesses; shouldn't anyone worry it might be a little disturbing? Conan himself seems to have little trouble with seeing brutally murdered people on a daily basis likely because of his upbringing, the same could be said for Heiji. Ai's past seems to suggest she'd be used to it as well, but the only three genuine little kids in the series (Ayumi, Genta, Mitsuhiko) have probably seen more than a couple hundred warm corpses over the course of the series with no apparent repercussions. In general, the teenagers Ran and Kazuha tend to have stronger immediate reactions, but don't develop any psychological problems either.
In Captured In Her Eyes, there's only one psychiatrist available to help Ran when she gets amnesia, and he's the killer. There are, literally, no therapists.
In another case, there is actually a therapist, but he's the murderer and manipulated one of his patients into believing he was committing the crimes while sleepwalking and therefore taking the blame for the therapist's deeds.
There Is Only One Bed: Actually, there's two but Ran chooses to sleep with Conan one night anyway because she's damn scared after a murder. That actually saves her from being killed as well; the Killer Of The Week attacks her in her sleep since Ran supposedly knows something she shouldn't about the aforementioned murder, but Conan manages to wake Ran up in time and they jump away from danger.
They Fight Crime: He's an age-regressed Sherlockian super-sleuth, she's his unwitting girlfriend/baby-sitter. They Fight Crime!
Tokyo Tower: Particularly in the "Trembling Metropolitan Police Headquarters: 12 Million Hostages" special which involved a time bomb rigged in an elevator, and the scene of the climax of the 13th Non-Serial Movie Raven Chaser in which Conan bungee jumps off the top with his suspenders.
Trademark Favorite Food: Genta's eel and rice. (An argument could also be made for Kogoro's beer, sake, and other alcoholic beverages…)
Tranquillizer Dart: Conan's wrist-watch tranquilizer needle gun. The victim barely has time to mumble a few words before keeling over. So far, very few characters have proven resistant to it. Gin shoots himself in the arm to overcome the sedation with a rush of pain and adrenaline and Inspector Zenigata from the crossover with Lupin III goes down quickly, but is so tough that the effect wears off in no time. Both times, this catches Conan completely off-guard.
Tsundere: Ran is a Type B Tsundere, meaning she's normally in deredere ("hot" or "sweet") mode but can rapidly change to tsuntsun ("cold" or "bitter"). Kazuha gravitates more towards the Type A (tsuntsun, "cranky") type around Heiji.
In "The Steam Murder" (issue 722 of the manga, episode 597 of the anime), when an actress who played a kind female lead in the original Kamen Yaiba series brushes the Detective Boys off coldly, Genta wonders aloud, "Is she tsundere?".
Undead Tax Exemption: Conan Edogawa and Ai Haibara not only have assumed names, but they can even use those identities to attend public schools and, given the show's nature, haven't even have their legal identities suspected by the police officers they meet oh-so-frequently...
But subverted in that Conan's lack of a true identity and, thus, a passport is brought up as a plot device whenever the story requires him to travel to another country (as in the Lupin III crossover special and a manga story involving a trip to London).
Underwater Kiss: The way the 2nd movie gets Ran to kiss Conan. Also Heiji and Kazuha in Volume 20 of Detective Conan Special manga. Both are Type Bs.
Victorian Britain: The main bulk of the Non-Serial Movie Phantom of Baker Street is in a VR version of this, or, more precisely, a Sherlock Holmes AU.
Victoria's Secret Compartment: Once again, Conan gets to ride in his mom's shirt.
Victorious Childhood Friend: Gosho Aoyama LOVES this trope. Right now, there's Shinichi/Ran, Heiji/Kazuha, Kaito/Aoko, Kogoro/Eri, Shiratori/Kobayashi (technically not friends, but they met when they were children) and so on and so forth... Detective Chiba has also found a pairing between him and a traffic enforcer named Miike Naeko.
And quite a few of the suspects/potential victims they run into along the way are childhood friends who become couples.
The Watson: Countless characters take turns playing Watson, Conan even pretends to be Kogoro's Watson constantly.
Wedding Deadline: A storyline in revolved around an arranged date between the policewoman Satou and the snobbish superintendent Shiratori. Another policewoman, Yumi, tried to get Satou out of it by sending her "help", who Satou correctly guesses to be the shy Takagi, who also loves her. The brash Satou makes a deal with Shiratori that if Takagi doesn't show up before sunset, she will marry him. Unfortunately, Takagi is involved in a robbery case, with three witnesses all giving contradicting details on the culprit. Luckily, the main character gives Takagi some tips that helps him solve the case... but the culprit escapes, forcing him to give chase... a few minutes before sundown. In the end, he never actually makes it to the restaurant that Satou and Shiratori are at; the main character uses a decoy to trick both of them into thinking that Takagi actually showed up, then lures Satou to where Takagi actually is.
Weirdness Censor: In order for The Masquerade to be sustained, there are a number of details that the cast is forcibly required to ignore, otherwise the whole charade would fall apart rather quickly. With time, most of these have been either Lampshaded to death or even seriously acknowledged by the cast.
Kogoro's (and occasionally Sonoko's) "habit" of stumbling to the ground and delivering brilliant deductions while appearing soundly asleep, especially after spending most of the investigation making inaccurate and counter-productive guesses, was at best only treated as "quirky" for a long while. Eventually, he earned the nickname of "Sleeping Kogoro" for this, to the point where most of the people assisting the investigation eagerly await the moment of sudden inspiration, and find it strange when he solves cases without falling asleep.
Subverted in that the first time this happens in front of Officer Satou, she is unable to resist playing with Kogoro's mouth, and afterward Conan is extremely reluctant to put Kogoro to sleep in front of her again because he is afraid she will notice Kogoro isn't really talking.
Following the previous point, Kogoro and Sonoko never had much of an issue taking credit for deductions they have no recollection of. Both cases are somewhat Handwaved as ego-stroking and, in Kogoro's case, a simple "Meh, whatever" attitude where he doesn't care so long as the job is done. He eventually becomes vaguely aware of his unexplained bouts of somnolence, but doesn't really pay it much attention.
Conan's involvement in the investigations, particularly him wandering around the crime scenes finding or noticing things, was for a long time treated as simply annoying behaviour from a nosy kid. Unlike the previous two points, this became an actually recognized point when several characters became aware that the stuff he comes up with tends to be important and ends up leading everyone else with the investigations. Satou was the first adult to consider him useful, and eventually Ran, Megure, Takagi and others accepted it as well. Nevertheless, Heiji is still the only one who actually drew the right conclusion from it instead of simply treating it as quirky.
What Does She See in Him?: This is pretty much how Sonoko sees Ran's relationship with Shinichi; for Sonoko Shinichi is just a mystery Otaku.
Whole-Episode Flashback: Multiple
Wine Is Classy: A number of episodes, movies, and OAVs have significant plot points concerning the tasting of fine wines.
One of the characters in the second Non-Serial Movie, The Fourteenth Target, is an expert sommelier who is able to identify the exact vintage of wine by its sight, smell, and taste. It turns out the sommelier is the culprit, and is in part taking revenge for an accident that robbed him of his sense of taste.
At least two of the television episodes involve crimes that take place in or around wine cellars. In one, the murder uses a clothesline to deposit the body of the victim in the middle of the cellar without actually entering himself. In another, an assault victim at a wine-tasting ruins a bottle of fine wine by heating and shaking it up as a message that his attempted murderer has imprisoned him in the cellar.
Averted with Kogoro Mori, a heavy drinker who professes to enjoy fine wine but is completely unskilled in the handling and drinking of it—and (as is revealed when Ran switches bottles on him) is incapable of distinguishing fine wine from cheap wine. He frequently gets drunk on wine, sake, or beer, and ends up with his necktie around his head.
Win to Exit: See Holodeck Malfunction, above.
Wire Dilemma: The Time-Bombed Skyscraper
The 2-hour special "Trembling Metropolitan Police Headquarters: 12 Million Hostages" has several of these. Three years earlier, Sato's boyfriend on the bomb squad sacrificed his life by not disarming a bomb in order to text Sato a clue to the location of a bomb in a populated area that was given 3 seconds before the bomb went off. This is then subverted by Conan choosing to disarm the same culprit's current bomb in a similar situation before it can go off--he is able to figure out the location of the larger-population bomb from only half the clue.
Subverted in the first Detective Conan live-action special, in which the culprit made the bomb with all wires the same color so that it could not be disarmed. Shinichi ends up soccer-kicking it through a skylight in one of the most blatant special-effects ever.
Wise Beyond Their Years: Most of the adults who don't know the truth, especially those in law enforcement, think this of Conan and Ai.
Woman Scorned: The motive of many a murder; Ran also got very tsun when a young girl showed up claiming to be Shinichi's girlfriend (the little boy she was babysitting had been kidnapped and she was looking for Shinichi to help, using the "girlfriend" claim as her cover).
The Worst Seat in the House: In one story, Conan and company end up in the nosebleed section (called "Alps seats" in Japan) and Kogorou makes an Incredibly Lame Pun in regards to this. Of course, this ends up helping them solve the Mystery Of The Day.
Would Hurt a Child: More than one case had children being hurt or even killed. Conan himself isn't immuned. Shortly after he was de-aged, Conan was beaten up by the suspect, prompting him to later find ways to compensate for his smaller size. In the 13th movie The Raven Chaser, Irish not only beats up Conan badly but also hurts Ran when she protects Conan.
Xanatos Speed Chess: The various highschool detectives are very good at this, though it usually only shows up in special, plot-relevant episodes. One good example is the Halloween party murder two hour special (ep 345). For that matter, Kaitou Kid excels here as well, and it shows up anytime one of the tantei is pitted against him.
Yamato Nadeshiko: When Ran and Sonoko get fortunes at a rooster festival telling them what their boyfriends' "ideal type" is, Ran's tells her to be this. The words "yamato nadeshiko" can be heard in the dialogue. (It turns out this was actually Sonoko's fortune; she switched it with Ran's real one that just said "be yourself" because she didn't like it.)
You Just Told Me: An incident with Ran and Conan early on in the story.
You Know the One: Near the end of each case where the culprit is not yet known to the audience, Conan says words to the effect of, "It's THAT person!" when he has figured out whodunnit. This sounds much more awkward in English translation since the pronouns normally used in English are gender-specific but the Japanese expression does not express gender (to avoid giving any hints as to the villain's identity).
This is also used by characters when the writers want to avoid giving away the identity of someone who is not an episode culprit: "Ano Kata," the name by which people refer to the Black Organization's Big Boss, literally just means "that person". Sometimes this can get a bit silly, however: when Ran is slipping out to see her mother in the episode that introduces her, Ran has an internal monologue in which she calls her own mother "that person".
↑ (...so to speak...)
↑ Takumi's home course is named Mt. Akina; that place is based on a real-world place named Mt. Haruna.
↑ Bunta/Takumi in the AE86 is known as Akina's White Ghost
↑ not that he drives any better when he's sober...
↑ First, arrange in Japanese order of Mizunashi Rena. Then the explanation: "nashi" means "nil," referring to zero. "Ren" is a reading of the kanji for "zero." As for "na," see Seven Is Nana.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl