Detective Conan/Characters/The Black Organization
Mandatory naming note: All of the codenames are related to alcoholic beverages.
That Man/Anokata
That Man/Anokata
The leader of the Black Organization.
- Big Bad
- Crazy Prepared: According to Vermouth.
- Expy: The Moriarty to Shinichi's Holmes
- He Who Must Not Be Seen
Gin
Gin/Melkior
Voiced by Yukitoshi Hori (JP)
One of the Black Organization's most dangerous operatives (arguably the most dangerous one of those that have been introduced), and the one who is unknowingly responsible for Shin'ichi's current "vertically challenged" condition.
Tropes associated with him:
- A Sinister Clue: He is left-handed.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Gin is the most dangerous agent of the Organization we have seen so far and also appears to be one of the highest-ranked, as most other members are shown to defer to him and he can threaten even Vermouth without repercussions.
- Badass Longcoat and Badass Long Hair
- Blond Guys Are Evil: In the beginning of the anime, it was later changed to silver to follow the manga.
- But for Me It Was Tuesday: Makes a point of not remembering the faces of the people he kills. This occasionally becomes a handicap, such as when he doesn't remember Shinichi Kudo.
- Career Killer
- Cool Car: Drives a black vintage Porsche 356A.
- Dangerously Genre Savvy
- Death Glare: In episode 176 (Corner of Betrayal Street), a driver attempted to call him out for jaywalking. It only took a brief moment of eye contact to end the argument before it even started.
- The Dragon
- Eyes Never Lie: Shinichi only had to look into his eyes to realize he was a cold-blooded killer.
- Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Gin's eyes are narrow and often at least partially obscured by his black hat or his long hair. What's more, he has unique pupils: Most characters have either large, detailed anime pupils or just black dots, while Gin's pupils are small, devoid of highlights and drawn with an intermittent outline, giving him a very unnerving glare.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: One of the most evil characters in the series and a regular smoker.
- The Heavy: Because the Boss is never seen, Gin is the main antagonist in most confrontations with the Black Organization. For one arc, Vermouth took over this role instead.
- Looming Silhouette of Rage: Before he strikes down Shinichi with a metal pipe in the first chapter.
- Scars Are Forever: Gets a permanent scar when Shuuichi Akai grazes his cheek with a sniper bullet.
- Slasher Smile
- Smoking Is Cool
- The Sociopath: Can kill without remorse and doesn't even remember many of his victims.
- White-Haired Pretty Boy: After a certain period in the anime, to follow the manga's color scheme.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: He can predict his enemies' motives and actions and make accurate deductions from even the tiniest detail, but has no idea that one of his opponents is a genius detective in the body of a six-year old. This leads him to make several grave mistakes, such as not looking for his enemy in places where no adult could possibly hide.
Vodka
Vodka/Kaspar
- Satellite Character: He is Gin's partner and is rarely seen doing anything on his own.
- The Watson: An evil version. Since's he considerably less intelligent and of lower rank than his partner, Gin can explain his plans and those of the Organization to Vodka (and therefore the audience) without having to talk to himself.
Vermouth
Vermouth aka Chris Vineyard aka Sharon Vineyard
Voiced by Mami Koyama (JP)
- Anime Accent Absence: For a supposedly American character, her Gratuitous English can get quite horrible.
- Attending Your Own Funeral: In a flashback, Chris Vineyard is shown giving the eulogy at her mother, Sharon Vineyard's, funeral. They're both the exact same person.
- Blondes Are Evil
- Catch Phrase: "A secret makes a woman woman," spoken in the most godawful heavily-accented Engrish imaginable ("A secret makes a ooman ooman"). One kid even lampshades this in an episode. After he meets Vermouth, he is questioned by Conan, and replies that it was a woman who kept on repeating the word "horse" (uma).
- Cain and Abel: Friends version, with Yukiko.
- Dartboard of Hate: Shown to have one, with a picture of pre-Apotoxin Haibara tacked on the dartboard with a giant "X" drawn over her face.
- Enigmatic Minion: Emphasis on the "enigmatic" part. This especially applies because of the unusual amount of interest Vermouth has in Shinichi, as well as the way she is clearly not always working in the Organization's best interest, and has some sort of hidden agenda.
- Foreign Fanservice
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Is seen lighting herself a cigarette when she's first revealed as a member of the Organization.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: She manages to shoot out the gas tank of a car with a small handgun while driving another car and looking in her rear-view mirror. As Akai remarks, she's very good.
- Latex Perfection: She did, after all, train under the same instructor as the other two Masters of Disguise, Yukiko and Kaito.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The series' prime example of Dark Feminity, especially when contrasted with Ran or Yukiko.
- Master of Disguise: Learned from the master, Toichi Kuroba, the first Kaito KID.
- Meaningful Name: Her codename alludes to her relationship with Gin, as mixing Gin and Vermouth is the recipe for that most famous of cocktails, the Martini. Her real name, Vineyard, might also hold significance, seeing how all female agents of the Organization have wine-based beverages as their codenames.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Sharon Stone.
- Older Than They Look: Vermouth is shown in a flashback set at least twenty years ago. She looks exactly the same as she does now when she kills Jodie's father. She also is impersonating her own daughter, having first been Sharon Vineyard and then assuming the identity of Chris Vineyard as of Sharon's funeral.
- Phenotype Stereotype
- Secret Keeper: Down to her Catch Phrase. She is also one of the few people who know that Conan is really Shinichi, as well as Haibara's real identity.
- Woman in Black: Wears black both in her secret and her public identity.
Akemi Miyano
Akemi Miyano / Kendra
Voiced by Sakiko Tamagawa (JP)
A rather sympathetic member of The Syndicate. Akemi is Ai Haibara/Shiho Miyano's dead older sister, having been murdered by the Syndicate.
- Anti-Villain: Type I or II.
- Ascended Extra: Got an additional TV episode to herself to fix any plotholes coming from her early appearance.
- Broken Bird
- Children Are Innocent: Her innocent smile quenched a Killer of the Week's thirst for murder years ago. He was hoping for her to visit him once more and dissuade him again, but she was killed before she could return.
- Dark Chick
- Dead Little Sister: She is Shiho's Dead Older Sister, and the trigger for her Heel Face Turn.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Conan's.
- Even Evil Has Standards: In her first anime episode, she was very disgusted when one of her accomplices tricked her into killing another with poison.
- Lady in Red: Wore a red suit in the first case she appeared in after shedding her schoolgirl disguise.
- Woman in White: In her other episode, she wore a white Office Lady suit. And then she died.
- Manipulative Bitch
- Master of Disguise
- Masako Katsuki as Masami the schoolgirl
- Meganekko: Wears glasses as part of her disguise.
- Necessarily Evil: Only worked for the Organization so they would let her sister go. Of course, they were just using her all along.
- Out-Gambitted: Subverted. Akemi met up with Gin and Vodka and told them they wouldn't kill her or they'd never know where she put the money she stole for them... but they shot her fatally and took the key to the locker where she hid it. However, Akemi had the last laugh: said locker key was false, and she gave the real one to Conan before dying.
- Punch Clock Villain: Unlike her sister, she had a normal life outside the Organization.
- Older Than They Look: She managed to make herself pass as a schoolgirl in her first appearance.
- Red Herring Shirt: When Akemi was killed, she was a Mook. It was 16 volumes later when she was ascended into a Posthumous Character for being Ai Haibara's Dead Elder Sister, then being Shuichi Akai's girlfriend, which caused some problems for the animators discussed in Schrödingers Cast, below.
- As a result, this was less obvious in the anime: the episode where Akemi gets killed is the one immediately before the one where Haibara is introduced--yet Conan says in the latter episode that the Akemi case was "some time ago".
- Retirony: In the anime, she had intended to leave the Syndicate alongside Shiho as soon as she made a last robbery for them. The Syndicate thought otherwise.
- Schrödinger's Cast: The infamous anime fixup, as the anime adaptation of the relevant chapters (episode 12) changed the end to made her not a Mook of the Dark Organization and she was kept alive, but since she needs to die for Ai's Backstory to continue, an original episode (episode 128) was made before Ai's appearance at 129 so that she's Killed Off for Real.
- Tall, Dark and Bishoujo
Atsushi and Elena Miyano
Atsushi and Elena Miyano
Ai's and Akemi's parents who worked on the APTX 4869 project. They died shortly after Ai's birth, supposedly in an accident. Ai later took over their research, but its exact goal and purpose has not yet been revealed.
- Emotionless Girl: Elena gave this impression to Agasa and others.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: We have not yet seen Atshushi's face.
- Hidden Eyes: Elena's eyes are not visible beneath her reflecting glasses.
- Hidden Depths: Ai has never known them, but after meeting Conan's loving mother Yukiko she becomes bothered by the fact that her own parents both had an extremely unflattering reputation. She later finds out they were better people than commonly thought:
- Atsushi was rejected by the scientific community as a deranged mind, but Agasa claims he was an open and friendly man when he met him.
- Elena was known as Hell's Angel in the Organization and appeared cold and unapproachable even to Agasa. Turns out she was also a warm and caring mother: Before she died, she recorded 20 tapes for Ai, one for each of her first 20 birthdays, so that Elena could be close to her daughter on her way to adulthood.
- Ice Queen: Elena had this reputation even within an Organization full of unrepentant killers.
- Mad Scientist: Atsushi's peers thought he was this. The fact that he was apparently brillant and immoral enough to join the most dangerous criminal organization in the world and take on their most important research project lends credence to this, but we ultimately don't know his reasons or the goal of his research yet.
- Posthumous Character: Both of them died long before the present story. Elena left tapes to Ai, however, which may or may not turn out to contain significant secrets.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: In the few pictures we have seen of Elena, she sports these.
Tequila
Tequila
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Got killed by a bomb by mistake.
- Hair-Trigger Temper
- Jerkass
- Kansai Regional Accent
- Kick the Dog: Hits Conan for slowing him down.
Calvados
Calvados
- Better to Die Than Be Killed: Having been injured by Akai and about to be taken into custody, he killed himself to avoid capture and a posterior "You Have Failed Me...".
- Cold Sniper
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Vermouth doesn't seem to care about his death. Chianti and Korn, however, do not forget him and resent their group for "letting him die"
- Subordinate Excuse: Seemed to have feelings for Vermouth.
- Sunglasses at Night
Pisco
Pisco aka Kenzou Masuyama
- Death by Secret Identity
- Evil Old Folks
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Another member of the Organization who enjoys the occasional cigarette. This turns out to be his undoing when he stands in a puddle of high proof liquor and the fumes catch fire, allowing Ai and Conan to escape from him.
- You Have Failed Me...: Was killed by the Black Organization because he was caught on photos while killing a politician.
Chianti
Chianti
Voiced by Kikuko Inoue (JP)
- Blood Knight
- Dark Action Girl and Dark Chick
- Facial Markings: A tattoo under her left eye
- Kick the Dog: Willing to shoot civilians for the heck of it.
- The Gunslinger
- Trigger Happy: Comments that if Gin takes too long to decide whether she should shoot the target, she'll do it regardless of his orders.
- Woman in Black
Korn
Korn
Irish
Irish
- Big Ol' Eyebrows
- Death by Secret Identity
- Master of Disguise: Impersonates Matsumoto.
- Noble Demon: He at least claims to be one, saying that he wants revenge for Pisco's death. It doesn't stop him from beating up Ran and Conan, tho.
- Taking the Bullet: Conan tried to save an already wounded Irish, but Gin saw him and shot at him. Irish took the bullet and then kicked it, his Famous Last Words being a sort-of challenge to Conan/Shinichi: "Shinichi Kudo... keep coming after us!"
- Would Hurt a Child and A Girl : Beats up both Ran and Conan
Kir
Kir
See Rena Mizunashi
Rye
Rye
See: Shuuichi Akai
Kiichiro Numabuchi
Kiichiro Numabuchi/Cornelius Graver
A certain Serial Killer who has some ties with the group...
- Anti-Villain: Toyed with. While he has commited many crimes, the story often plays him up more as a frightened victim with animalistic reactions who kills when he cracks under pressure, rather than a fully malicious Complete Monster who kills For the Evulz. OTOH, Haibara openly says he shouldn't be pitied as he's just too crazy to handle and did kill others for the heck of it.
- Beard of Sorrow: More like Beard of Psychosis.
- Chekhov's Gunman
- Friend to All Living Things: Having lived near a forest when he was a child, he likes animals quite a lot. Specially fireflies, whom Numabuchi considers "his friends".
- Expository Hairstyle Change: We see him well-shaved and with short hair in an old photo. We "meet" him with a Beard of Sorrow and longer hair. And in his last appearance when he's in the forest with Mitsuhiko, his hair has grown past his shoulders.
- Kick the Dog: In the Naniwa Murder case, he tries to stab Ran to escape when cornered. Conan took the hit for her and was barely saved due to a Pocket Protector that Heiji loaned him.
- Knife Nut
- Looks Like Cesare: Pale skin, black hair, hollow eyes...
Genta: So we have to search for someone who looks like a skeleton?
- Pet the Dog: When finally caught by the police, he doesn't offer resistence and simply asks them to turn off their lights... since the fireflies will get scared. It turns out he wanted to see the forest of his childhood and the fireflies one last time before being executed for his deeds.
- Psychopathic Manchild
- Red Herring: Invoked: Yusuke Sakata wanted to use them as one by killing and then framing him for the murders that he commited, since Numabuchi was involved in his father's death.
- Serial Killer
- Psycho for Hire: Was supposed to be this in the Organization, but was just too psychotic despite his physical strenght and inhuman reflexes.. He was then slated to be the guinea pig for the APTX 4869, but that sent Numabuchi into a psychotic breakdown (again) and he ran away, killing several people in his crazy escape.
- Villainous BSOD: Has many of these.