Yukiko Kudo

"Yukiko" redirects here. For the medical student, see Yukiko Katsuragi.

Yukiko Kudo
Profile
Japanese name:	工藤 有希子 (Kudō Yukiko)
English name:	Vivian Kudo
Age:	37
Gender:	Female
Date of birth:	Unknown
Relatives:	Yusaku Kudo (husband) Shinichi Kudo (son)
Occupation:	Retired actress
Nicknames:	The Night Baroness
Aliases:	Yukiko Fujimine (maiden name) Fumiyo Edogawa (Fanny Edogawa in the Funimation Dub) Fumiyo Akechi
Statistics
First appearance:	Manga: File 51 Anime: Episode 43
Appearances:	Chapters: 92 Episodes: 55 Movies: 2 Episodes: 1 OVAs: 3 Specials: 1 Openings: 12 Closings: 4
Keyhole number:	Volume 14
Actors
Japanese voice:	Sumi Shimamoto
English voice:	Laurie Steele

Yukiko Kudo (工藤 有希子 ,Kudō Yukiko) is the mother of Shinichi Kudo and, along with her husband Yusaku, one of few characters who knows he is Conan Edogawa. She was once a famous actress, but retired after marrying Yusaku. She was also close friends with fellow actress, Sharon Vineyard, both being excellent masters of disguise.

Background

Yukiko became internationally famous as a talented actress after having played the part of Sakamoto Ryoma's older sister Otome in a historical drama.

Despite her then-tender years as a student at Teitan High, Yukiko had a prospectively prosperous future in the film industry. Thus it came as a major surprise to the world when, practically out of the blue, she married Yusaku Kudo and retired from acting. She still retains good contacts in the acting and film industry, however, and has since become known as the "Night Baroness" (named after one of her husband's characters) after babbling out some clues provided by Yusaku on a live television show which helped solve a criminal case.

During her acting years, Yukiko went to a famous stage magician and disguise artist to learn the finer arts of disguise for a role she was preparing to play. There she met another actress who would become one of her closest friends, Sharon Vineyard. Until Sharon's (supposed) death, the two women stayed in touch, and Yukiko even attended her funeral, but her appearance was overshadowed by a small scandal involving Sharon's 'daughter', Chris Vineyard. Yukiko has since learned from her son about Chris/Sharon's secret life, a revelation which troubles her deeply. She has since confronted her former friend with her knowledge, partially to know for sure, but also to save the life of Ai Haibara, who was being threatened by the Black Organization.

Despite a certain rivalry for popularity in their high school years, which had culminated in a Miss Teitan Election, Yukiko is also a close friend of Eri Kisaki, and (unlike Eri) finds her daughter Ran Mouri, a perfect match for her son.

Personality

Yukiko and her childhood friend, Eri Kisaki.

Despite her adult age, Yukiko still behaves like a teenager. She is bubbly, overconfident and attention-seeking, and prefers to stand in the lime-light (literally) whenever possible. She can be prone to jealousy over Yusaku's occasionally flirtatious behavior, and can demonstrate impulsive tendencies. She is an extremely reckless driver and very sensitive about her age: whenever her son dares to call her "oba-san" in Japanese (in English, the closest equivalent would be "aunt" or "old lady"), she sets up such a furious face that Conan must quickly correct himself by calling her "onee-san" ("older sister" or "young girl").

Yukiko showing her displeasure at being called "obasan"

However, despite her faults, Yukiko is extremely loyal and cares for both her husband and her son (though a heavy streak of mischief causes her to often tease Shinichi). Her loyalty extends to her friends, as she thinks nothing of flying across the Pacific to help a friend from elementary school. She takes pride in being an excellent actress and a mistress of disguise, able to fool even close friends and family with her skills. She is also willing to pressure Shinichi to practice his role, so he won't embarrass her.

Plot overview

Conan Edogawa Kidnapping Case (Manga: 049-050 and 051, Anime: 043)

Yukiko first appearance was disguised as Fumiyo (Fanny in the Funimation Dub) Edogawa, a woman claiming to be Conan's mom.

The Cornered Famous Detective! Two Big Murder Cases (Manga: 131-138, Anime: 096)

After having a quarrel with her husband, Yukiko secretly returned to Japan. She then meets Ran and Conan in front of her house. She successfully covered for Conan who Ran suspected at that time. In the Manga she gives the explanation that Conan is "the nephew of the grandfather of the cousin of the daughter of the brother of my uncle," which produces a family tree showing that Conan is Yukiko's fictitious uncle once removed.

Bell Train arc (Manga: 818-824, Anime: 701-704)

Yukiko turns out to be the lady who had been visiting Subaru Okiya at the Kudo house. On the Bell Tree express, with Conan and Subaru's help, she foiled Bourbon and Vermouth's plans to capture and kill Shiho Miyano respectively while also tricking the Black Organization (except for Vermouth) into thinking Sherry died. Her part of the plan involved removing Haibara from danger when she tried to run away, and then challenging Vermouth in order to draw her attention. Yukiko then kept Vermouth occupied, so that she was unaware that she was being tricked until it was too late. At the same time, Yukiko also extracted a promise from Vermouth that she would truly give up on trying to kill Sherry.

The Scarlet Return (Manga: 891-893 and 894-898), Anime: 779-783)

Yukiko helping Shuichi disguising as Subaru

Yukiko disguised as Yusaku to attend Macademy Awards. After finishing the job, she returned home to meet Shuichi Akai and disguise him as Subaru Okiya once more. Shuichi had learned to how to apply the disguise himself satisfactorily, which makes Yukiko a little disappointed since she has no reason to meet Shuichi anymore. Conan becomes annoyed that Yukiko liked seeing Shuichi a little too much. Yukiko nearly outed Conan's secret identity as Shinichi in front of the three FBI agents.

Plot exposition

List of disguises used

Yukiko prefers relatively simple female disguises, with the exceptions being her medusa halloween costume and later taking her husband's place at an awards ceremony. These are the known ones used so far.

• 

  Conan's fictitious mom.

• 

  A woman with glasses and a hat.

• 

  Medusa for a Halloween themed mystery

• 

  Disguise as an old lady

• 

  A suspicious woman in London

• 

  As a mysterious woman with Subaru

• 

  With the aid of a voice-changer, Yukiko filled in for Yusaku Kudo at the Macademy Awards.

Appellations

Picture	Name	What they call Yukiko	What Yukiko calls them
	Yusaku Kudo	Yukiko	Yusaku Yu-chan
	Shinichi Kudo	Mom (Kāsan)	Shin-chan Shinichi
	Conan Edogawa	Mom (Kāsan) Yukiko-obasan Yukiko-onēsan	Shin-chan Conan-kun Shin-Conan-kun Conan-chan Conan Shinichi
	Ran Mouri	Shinichi's mom (Shinichi no okāsan)	Ran-chan
	Eri Kisaki	Yukiko Yuki-chan	Eri Eri-chan
	Kogoro Mouri	Yuki-chan	Kogoro-kun
	Vermouth	Yukiko	Sharon Sharon Vineyard
	Hiroshi Agasa	Yukiko-san	Professor Agasa (Agasa-hakase)
	Heiji Hattori	His mom (aitsu no okan)	Heiji-kun
	Fumiyo Edogawa	-	Fumiyo-san

Picture	Name	What they call Yukiko	What Yukiko calls them
	Shuichi Akai	Yukiko-san (as Subaru)	Shu-chan (Gosho's thought)
	Subaru Okiya	Yukiko-san	-
	Misao Yamamura	Fujimine Yukiko-san Yukiko-san	Poor detective (Heppoko keiji)
	Juzo Megure	Yukiko-san	Inspector Megure (Megure-keibu)

Picture	Name	What they call Yukiko	What Yukiko calls them
	Toichi Kuroba	-	Kuroba Toichi Famous Japanese magician (Yūmei na Nippon no magician)
	Ai Haibara	Your Mother (talking to Conan)	Ai-chan Haibara Ai
	Masumi Sera	-	Sera
	Kaito Kuroba	Old lady (Obasan)	Little boy (Boku)
	Kaitou Kid	-	Kid
	Minerva Glass	-	Grass Court Queen (Shiba no Joō)

Relationships analysis

Family

Yusaku Kudo

Not much is known about Yusaku and Yukiko's backstory before they get married. The most notable scene was from 20 years ago, when Yusaku and Yukiko met in a high end restaurant. Yusaku observed a murder crime, quickly solved it and suddenly proposed to a startled Yukiko, which she accepted. Yukiko can be really angry with Yusaku if he has flirtatious behavior, but they truly love each other. Yukiko has also helped her husband's writing career in some ways, by acting as Night Baroness (partner of the main character Night Baron in Yusaku's series), and accepting a writing award in Yusaku's disguise.

Conan Edogawa / Shinichi Kudo

Shinichi is her son. When Shinichi shrunk into Conan, Yukiko staged a fake kidnapping scheme with Yusaku and Professor Agasa to make Shinichi realize the danger of the organization he was trying to investigate. As a mother, she truly cares for his wellbeing (sometimes too much, much to Conan's annoyance) and assists him when it comes to cases. Nevertheless, their relationship is quite dynamic: Yukiko enjoys teasing Shinichi/Conan; in addition, she sometimes disguises to fool him. In return, Conan often makes sarcastic remarks about Yukiko being old (obasa-san) and retired for many years, which earned him death glares and even physical blows from Yukiko.

Friends

Eri Kisaki

20 years ago from the current timeline, she and Eri were rivals in Miss Teitan, a beauty contest that shook the country. Yukiko had a charming beauty that attracted men, while Eri had a more bookish look, relying her advantage on academic talents. The vote was split at 20000 votes for each before the competition was canceled, with Mouri Kogoro having the last uncounted ticket.

In later years, despite their previous intense competition, the two are actually in good terms with each other, supporting the other party emotionally. On relationships of their children, Shinichi and Ran, Yukiko shows her full support, at one point even calls Ran her future daughter in law; however, Eri is more reluctant. Eri doesn't like Yukiko's hand off approach with Shinichi and constantly reminds Ran to be beware of Shinichi, remarking on her rocky marriage as reference.

Ran Mouri

Yukiko treats Ran like her own daughter in law, and often teases her about her romantic relationship with Shinichi. She is also able to read through her thoughts; in Episode 96, when Ran suspected that Conan is Shinichi. Despite that Yukiko covered for Conan telling Ran that Conan is a smart kid who learnt deductive skills from Shinichi, Yukiko found the last smile that Ran made was a bit weird, realising that the girl wasn't convinced about Yukiko's answer; which turned out to be true in the Desperate Revival arc.

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. Yukiko placed 17th in the poll with 37 votes out of the 5,883 that were cast.

• In honor of the release of the 800th manga chapter, Shonen Sunday held a popularity poll/contest containing 91 Detective Conan characters to choose from. Yukiko placed 20th overall with 34 votes.

Name origin

The name Yukiko Fujimine (藤峰) name comes from Lupin III character Fujiko Mine and actress Yukiko Nikaido (the original voice of Fujiko). Her alias, Fumiyo (文代), comes from Fumiyo Akechi, wife of Rampo Edogawa's Kogoro Akechi.

Different looks

Yukiko's "Before" Appearance (Episode 96)	Yukiko's "Middle" Appearance (Episode 418)	Yukiko's "After" Appearance (Episode 621)
Yukiko's Appearance in Magic Kaito 1412 (Episode 11)

Quotes

“	Hey, you may be looking at my future daughter-in-law.	„
— Referring to Ran, Episode 286

“	There's only two reasons for a girl to look at a boy like that: he has something on his face or she likes him.	„
— Talking to Conan about Haibara, Episode 335

Trivia

• Aoyama has stated in Super Digest Book 10+ that Yusaku and Yukiko met because Yukiko had been chosen to play the main character of a drama based on one of Yusaku's books.
• In Episode 286, it is revealed that Yukiko has (or had) a California Driver's License. Her ID is 471108628. This would seem to be inconsistent with the actual ID number system used by the State of California in issuing driver's licenses, in which only eight digits are used.

In other languages

Language	Given Name	Family Name
Japanese	有希子 Yukiko	工藤 Kudō
Arabic	يوكيكو Yūkīko	كودو Kōdo
Bahasa Indonesia	Yukiko	Kudo
Catalan	Yukiko	Kudo
English	Vivian	Kudo
Finnish	Yukiko	Kudo
French	Yukiko	Kudo
German	Yukiko	Kudo
Italian	Yukiko	Kudo
Korean	하연 Ha Yeon	이 Lee
Russian	Юкико	Кудо
Thai	ยูกิโกะ Yū-ki-koa	คุโด้ Khu-dô
Vietnamese	Yukiko	Kudo

Gallery

• 

  Yukiko Kudo 10 years ago

See also

• Characters
• Kudo family
• Yukiko Kudo Appearances