Hair in Detective Conan
Besides large ears, Detective Conan is known for its distinct and highly recognizable character hairstyles.
Contents
Ran Mouri
Description
Ran Mouri's trademark feature is a large lock of hair many fans refer to as her "horn". Over the course of the manga, Ran's hair seems to have grown longer and pointier. Ran's hair is remarkably resilient, staying pointy even when soaking wet; however the power of Sera's voice has been shown to bend it backwards.[1]
Speculation
Some fans have hypothesized Ran's horn is, in fact, an abnormal growth.
- At one of Gosho's interviews, a fan asked whether the "horn" on Ran's head is a bone. Gosho laughed and said that it's not a bone, it's just the hair style.[2]
- It could be part of secret offensive martial arts technique where the hair is honed into a precision stabbing point that enables the fighter to disembowel their attacker with a single swish.
- If Ran's hair is caused by a genetic condition, Hattori Heiji may have the same alleles with lower expressivity.
Shinichi Kudo and Conan Edogawa
Shinichi Kudo and his shrunken form, Edogawa Conan, have a large cowlick of hair in front and a distinct gravity defying tuft in back. Even though no other character in the series has such a hairstyle, no one seems to be able to use this fact to piece together that Shinichi and Conan are the same person.
Speculation
Conan's hair tuft may be an antenna attuned to murder cases, subconsciously leading him to locations where crime is about to occur. The evidence for this is it is a well known fact that Conan runs across an abnormally large amount of murder cases. On average in Japan, there are about 0.5 cases per 100,000 people per year. Given a population size of about 128,000,000, an estimated 640 murders should occur on average across the country in a year. Conan has been involved in approximately 244 cases in the manga alone and an additional 100 or so in anime only episodes. Noting that less than a year has passed since Shinichi has shrunk, and assuming two-thirds of those are murder cases with on average 1 victim each, that means Shinichi has encountered approximately 162-229 murder cases. This represents 25%-36% of all murders in Japan for the given year. This abnormally high encounter rate cannot be explained by conventional means.
As additional evidence, Kuroba Kaito, who has a very similar hairstyle but no tuft, does not encounter the same degree of murder cases as Shinichi. However, as soon as Kuroba Kaito changes his hairstyle to match Shinichi's as shown in Movie 8, Movie 14, and OVA 10, he begins to encounter murders and other dangerous situations. This suggests that the tuft of hair is a critical factor in encountering cases.
Gin
Gin is well known for his distinctive, abnormally long, silver hair. Gin has his hair cut into bangs which often obscure his eyes. Somehow this does not reduce his shooting accuracy. The boss may have specially selected Gin's codename just to make a pun about it. Gin pronounced with a hard "g" like "gun" in Japanese (ぎん Gin) means "silver" (銀). Incidentally, this pun was used by a victim to implicate Gin as his killer in Countdown to Heaven. Its unusual color makes it unclear if Gin is Japanese or if he is a foreigner.
Manga and anime differences
Gin's hair design has drastically been changed throughout the anime. At first, his hair is actually light brown, and the line structure is not as detailed. In addition, part of his hair comes down his face across his nose. As the series progresses Gin's hair is blond, and the line structure is strongly detailed. Moreover, there is no hair that comes down across his face anymore. Gin's hair color changes once again in Opening 24 where it is then silver to match his manga depiction.
Speculation
It is notable that an assassin of an incredibly secretive Organization has chosen a distinctive hairstyle. This may reflect a desire to inflict fear into the hearts of his enemies who hear dark rumors of a wicked man with long silver hair. Some have also speculated that it serves the same function as Kaitou Kid's white uniform, people looking for Gin naturally seek out his hair, so he can more easily evade detection simply by covering it up.
Sango Yokomizo
Affectionately called "Coral Head", Sango Yokomizo's curly hair is his only feature that distinguishes him from his buzz-cut identical twin brother, Jugo. Despite having hair resembling an aquatic creature, Sango cannot swim and is generally terrified of getting too close to large bodies of water. His puffy hair may be beneficial when he interrogates suspects; by leaning in very close to suspicious individuals, Sango's apparent size increases, thus making him fifteen times more scary.
Snake
Snake is easily identifiable by his large horseshoe mustache. It is notable that Snake has been remarkably unlucky so far in looking for Pandora and eliminating Kaitou Kid. According to legend, a horseshoe is said to bring good luck; however, the horseshoe needs to be hung with ends facing upwards in order to hold any good luck that happens to float by. Hanging it ends down will cause the luck to drain out. Snake may be more lucky in the future if he reverses the direction of his mustache.
Hondou family
Eisuke Hondou, Hidemi Hondou, and their mother all have unusually long magatama-shaped eyelashes. Their father Ethan Hondou lacked said long eyelashes, suggesting it is a dominant trait according to Mendelian inheritance theory.
Subaru Okiya / Shuichi Akai
Shuichi Akai used to have waist length dark hair which he cut after the death of Akemi Miyano "to freshen up." While most people agree that he cut it because he was grieving over the death of his girlfriend, it is also possible he switched hairstyles because he was tired of being asked if he was related to Gin.
When Akai disguised as Subaru Okiya, he chose a straighter blond hairstyle. There seems to be an important secret to it, as he was forced to hide the comb he was using when Masumi Sera walked in on him in Yusaku Kudo's Cold Case.
Fusae Campbell
Fusae Campbell is of Japanese-American descent and has blond hair which is rare for a Japanese person. Feeling self-conscious about this (presumably aided by some teasing from intolerant schoolmates), she became very timid and came to wear a low hat to cover her hair.[3] When she was in fourth grade, Fusae met Hiroshi Agasa. One day under the ginkgo trees behind Teitan Elementary where the animals were kept, her hat blew off revealing her brownish blond hair. She pleaded for Agasa not to look at her hair because she didn't want to be made fun of for looking different. Agasa instead tells her that he likes it and it is as beautiful as a ginkgo leaf.[4] Agasa helped her overcome her timidness, and eventually Fusae started an accessory fashion line with a ginkgo leaf-themed brand. Fusae's hair was thus a pivotal event in determining her future.
References
- ^ Detectives' Nocturne
- ^ Let's talk with Aoyama Gosho-sensei day held Jan 3, 2013. Translation by Black Demon
- ^ Manga Volume 40, File 8, Agasa's First Love
- ^ Manga Volume 40, File 9
