Ninzaburo Shiratori

Ninzaburo Shiratori
Profile
English name:	Nicholas Santos
Age:	26
Gender:	Male
Statistics
First appearance:	Anime: Movie 1 Manga: Chapter 209
Appearances:	Chapters: 64 Episodes: 55 Movies: 22 OVAs: 1 Specials: 0 Openings: 31 Closings: 5
Keyhole number:	Volume 23
Actors
Japanese voice:	Kaneto Shiozawa (Movies 1~4, Ep. 146~157) Kazuhiko Inoue (Ep. 205~present)
English voice:	Eric Vale

Ninzaburo Shiratori (白鳥 任三郎 ,Shiratori Ninzaburou), also known as Nicholas Santos in the Funimation dub, is a character on the Detective Conan franchise.

Background

Inspector Shiratori shows his badge.

Shiratori's debut was in the first movie, The Time-Bombed Skyscraper, acting as a member of Megure's police force. At first, Shiratori only appeared in movie roles, playing key roles in the first three Detective Conan movies. At some point, Shiratori later became a full-fledged inspector.

As a child, Shiratori studied diligently to one day become a lawyer, and had even memorized some laws by heart. One day, he witnessed a young girl confronting two juveniles trying to steal mangas from a bookstore. To thank him for helping her out, the girl bought him a drink and made a sakura petal pattern from the straw wrapper, saying the sakura was the symbol of courage for the Japanese police (due to the distinct form of the Japanese police badge). It was because of this incident that Shiratori decided to become a cop rather than a lawyer.

Shiratori later joined the Tokyo Metropolian Police Department and worked alongside Inspector Megure, often acting as an extra officer or pair of eyes, though he later became an inspector of his own. When Miwako Sato joined the department, Shiratori believed that he had found his childhood love again, and as a result both he and his younger colleague Takagi considered each other rivals for Sato's affections. Shiratori would often try to show off in front of Takagi by asking Sato on a date, but she always rejected him, much to his dismay. However, he has since come to date Sumiko Kobayashi, whom he finally discovered to be his true love.

Personality

Shiratori comes from a wealthy family, and he has shown a large background in skyscrapers and fancy wines. Because of his background, Shiratori acts much more conceited than his counterpart, and rival for Miwako Sato's affections, Wataru Takagi. In fact, Conan even believes that Shiratori is a suspect in the first movie, and Kogoro Mouri even at one point concludes that Shiratori is the one planting bombs, due to his heavy interest in skyscrapers and buildings.

Shiratori, like Sato and Takagi, believes that Conan has a lot of intelligence for a boy his age, but unlike Takagi and Sato, he usually tends to care not much for Conan's opinion. He often feels that Conan gets in the way, and that he himself could have figured out the case without Conan's help, though Conan always proves otherwise. However, unlike Kogoro, Shiratori will take notice and suspect something if Conan points something quite interesting. Shiratori's attitude is often very cocky, but Conan and even Takagi have shown to beat him to the punch in a deduction. However, while a bit conceited, he is a fair and considerate man and has even shown that he truly cared for Takagi when they were not battling for Sato's affections.

Relationships analysis

Family & Friends

• Miwako Sato

Shiratori also shows affection for Miwako Sato, whom he believed to be his first love interest from his childhood days. He would often ask her out on dinner dates but always end up being turned down, much to his dismay. He also knows that Takagi also has feelings for Sato, and often will put down Takagi while in front of her, by showing off how he is wealthy and wants to take her to fancy dinner dates. However, Sato does not feel the same way for him, and always turns him down. In later episodes, Shiratori is the leader of a police force that is mostly hellbent on getting Takagi and Sato to break up, especially when Sato and Takagi begin to move further in their relationship. Shiratori once even tries to sabotage a date at Tropical Land that Sato and Takagi are having, have the police lie to Megure that they are working, so that they can secretly pretend to be staff members of Tropical Land, and try to ruin the date.

In another situation, Shiratori almost marries Sato, through an arranged marriage set up by Shiratori's family and Sato's mother. However, thanks to an ultamatium set up by Sato, Takagi is about to stop the marriage, with the help of Conan and Dr. Araide, before Sato and Shiratori can kiss.

• Kobayashi-sensei

After learning that Kobayashi is his first love, he has been frequently phoning her and visiting her at the elementary school under the guise of warning her of dangerous activity in the area. He has also resigned from his "position" as Chief Executive of Miwako Sato's Line of Defense, telling the other officers to let Takagi and Sato be.

During the investigation of the Loan Shark Murder Case, Kobayashi is brought to the police station as a witness and learns that she resembles Sato and that Shiratori used to be in love with her. This upsets her, and she behaves coldly and harshly towards Shiratori, even claiming to not remember their first meeting when he tries to confess his feelings to her, saying that it must have been Sato he met instead. After saving her from the culprit, Shiratori finally confesses his true feelings to Kobayashi, and the two begin dating.

Character popularity

• eBookJapan held a character popularity poll from April 12, 2011 to May 12, 2011 in which readers of Detective Conan (international included) could vote for their favorite character. Shiratori placed 22nd in the poll with 22 votes out of the 5,883 that were cast.

Name origin

His name comes from Ninzaburo Furuhata, a fictional police detective from a drama of the same name.

See also

• Characters