Illogical and Irrational Behavior

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Within the Detective Conan universe, one of the most notable recurring tropes is the illogical, irrational, or outright contradictory behavior of a considerable number of characters. A meta-explanation is that Gosho Aoyama often prolongs a story arc beyond its reasonable duration. For that to be possible, he has to prevent a quick breakthrough in the main story. In that regard, the irrational behavior is an effective tool. The (main) characters who exhibit poor judgement are nonetheless protected by a plot device known as plot armor, which prevents anything too nasty from happening to them. The other possible explanation is that the irrational behavior is intrinsically required by the universe itself for certain cardinal elements to be possible in the first place (e.g., the Sleeping Kogoro act).

Instances

Conan Edogawa

Conan tends to rush some of his actions, ignoring the possible consequences.

• He usually runs towards the source of ominous noises, despite the possibility that armed criminals might overwhelm and/or outnumber him.
• He often does not share the evidence he collects at crime scenes with the police, until his final exposition as Sleeping Kogoro. By acting in such manner, he puts the chain of custody of several pieces of evidence in jeopardy.

Ran Mouri

Ran has agreed without any question to take care of Conan, when they first met at Agasa's house. As Kogoro appears to be financially unstable at the time, it seems odd that she would take in a never seen before 7 years old. Especially since, to her knowledge, he has a relative who can take care of him.

Kogoro Mouri

• Kogoro is as responsible as Ran for taking in Conan, despite struggling economically.
• He meets some of his clients in remote and unfamiliar locations together with Ran and Conan. Not only such careless behavior is wrong from a deontological point of view, but also often puts the lives of two underaged students in danger, as the plot unfolds.
• He underestimates his frequent episodes of amnesia, and loss of consciousness (both caused by Conan), and never seeks the help of medical professionals to understand the cause, or get some treatment.
• He keeps taking credit for solving cases, even though he does not remember how (see previous point), without any further questions on the matter.
• His mannerism is hopelessly inappropriate, ranging from sexism and sexual harassment to defamation of innocent people, physical assault, etc. It is unclear how he was able to join the police force in the past, and how can he still receive so much credit, despite his unrepentant nature, and persistent unacceptable behavior.

Reaction to Kogoro's unprofessional behavior

Kogoro's behevior is deeply unprofessional, inappropriate, and, sometimes, borderline criminal. Nonetheless, he always faces little to no consequence for it.

• Harassed women do not report him to the authorities, despite showing clear signs of annoyance in response to his sexual advances. A similar point can be made about those (including law enforcement personnel) who witness the numerous episodes of harassment, and do nothing in response. The most backlash, usually, comes from a disgruntled Ran.
• He regularly accuses innocent people of having committed various crimes (usually murder) without evidence. Despite that, his acts of defamation are quickly forgotten, and always remain unpunished. No one ever seeks any kind of compensation in a civil court, either. While the accusations are promptly retracted by Sleeping Kogoro (often with the cliché excuse that it was just a clever ruse to make the real culprit lower their guard), it seems unreasonable that Kogoro always gets away with them.
• Nobody other than Ran criticizes Kogoro for punching Conan, or grabbing and throwing him out of the way, despite such behavior potentially constituting child abuse. The list of individuals who do not react includes law enforcement members. The same applies to his verbal abuse of Conan, and the Detective Boys.

Reaction to the Sleeping Kogoro act

The way bystanders react to the sleeping Kogoro act is inconsistent. The conditions for the ruse to be discovered by other characters appear to be arbitrary. It seems odd that no one notices that Korogo is sleeping and not talking. Yet, someone does realize it every so often (Eisuke Hondo, Tooru Amuro, Subaru Okiya, Masumi Sera, etc.). Therefore, the level of intelligence required to discover the truth is unclear. Additionally, people just remain calm and listen to a seemingly coming out of nowhere speech, without, at least, acting to check Kogoro's condition. That is even more illogical for medical professionals and first time spectators of the act.

Ai Haibara

• Haibara has exhibited both a hopeless self-immolation behavior (e.g., during the bus hijacking case), and determination, strong temperament and power of will. While her character has developed during the story arcs, the two faces of her behavior still coexist, as of file 1090. Unless she has some mental disorder, for which no evidence or hints are provided, her actions are contradictory.
• Her approach to the research for an APTX 4869 antidote is fundamentally anti-scientific, as no real research has been shown to be performed on surviving apotoxin victims, in order to gather data and test theories. For instance, the effect of the baijiu liquor on the shrunken body of the victims has been largely ignored and not scientifically investigated, when it would have constituted a good starting point.

Japanese law enforcement

The police is known for not taking any issue with children, teenagers, and other unauthorized individuals being present at, and messing with crime scenes. Conan, Haibara, the Detective Boys, Ran, and Sonoko are usually reminded not to interfere with any ongoing investigation, but no real effort is made by any officer to remove them from the scene, or to prevent them from entering it in the first place. Other than Kogoro occasionally punching Conan for being bothersome and insistent, being at a crime scene when not supposed to, does not bear signficant consequences. Furthermore, even if a character is effectively removed from a crime scene, nobody cares to guard its perimeter to prevent a re-entrance. While the presence of adult detectives such as Kogoro, and teenage detectives such as Shinichi, Heiji, and Masumi can in principle be tolerated, any contamination of the crime scene could both hinder the investigation, and render the collected evidence inadmissible. As such, the police is not doing a good job at restricting crime scenes, and enforcing those restrictions.

Crime perpetrators

• Kogoro has the reputation to be able to find the perpetrator of a given crime with exceptional accuracy. Therefore, it would makes sense for wannabe criminals to delay their intents as long as Kogoro is present at the crime scene. While there are cases where not seizing the day would render the criminal act impossible for the foreseeable future, most of the crimes can be delayed by a few days without major consequences. Even excluding unplanned crimes, the majority of the criminals still proceed with their actions, despite knowing that an infallible detective is around them.
• None of the criminals ever object to the opaque and unclear chain of custody of several pieces of evidence which seemingly come out of nowhere during Conan's exposition as Sleeping Kogoro.
• Criminals often confess when confronted with mostly circumstantial evidence which would hardly be conclusive in a criminal trial.

F.B.I.

The F.B.I. team lead by James Black has been behaving sub-optimally for most of its mission:

• No collaboration with the Japanese law enforcement has ever been seeked, despite no real obstacle existing, and the potential benefits for the mission.
• No explicit collaboration with the C.I.A. has ever taken place, despite the shared common knowledge of Hidemi Hondou's allegiance.
• Team members have been keeping secrets from each other which not only has hindered the quest against the Black Organization, but has also put many colleagues' lives in danger.

Black Organization

• Several members of the Black Organization always wear conspicuous clothes which do nothing to draw random people's attention away from them. As members of a major criminal organization, it would make much more sense to try to go unnoticed. Gin and Vodka are among the worst offender when it comes to being inconspicuous. Gin's black and peculiar car only adds to the problem.
• Most of Vermouth's actions are the epitome of illogical behavior. She has discovered the secret identities and plots of powerful enemies of the organization, yet has a massive double standard when it comes to act against them. Even discounting her vow not to harm Conan and Ran, on one side she consistently allows them to harm and weaken the Organization and thwart its plans, while on the other side she displays a ruthless attidude versus other enemies such as Haibara. Vermouth's goals are not fully clear, and it is possible that she is experiencing an internal crisis. However, whatever her goals, her actions do not aid any of them. She also does not seems to mind too much that fact that Bourbon knows her secret relation to the Boss.