Detective Boys

The five Detective Boys

The Detective Boys (known as The Junior Detective League in the English Funimation adaption) are the pre-adolescent detectives with whom Conan solves the occasional crime in which he and his Teitan Elementary classmates stumble into.

History

The Detective Boys were informally founded when Ayumi Yoshida and Genta Kojima decided to investigate a mansion which was once a murder site and had been abandoned. Conan and his classmate Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya were drafted into accompanying the two, and the foursome entered the house. In the course of this adventure, Conan found out that the house was still inhabited by the mother and son of the murder victim; the son had killed his father in a fit of rage over his abusive behavior, and his mother had subsequently locked her own son in a dungeon beneath the house to wait until the deed's time-bar had passed. After exposing the two, they were arrested and the case was resolved.^[1]

In time, the four kept stumbling into more and more criminal cases, which were resolved thanks to Conan's deductive skills and initiative. Particularly after the case involving a sizable cache of stolen Italian gold coins,^[2] Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko developed a taste for detective work and impulsively decided to become investigators themselves, mostly for fame and glory. After advertising their services in school,^[3] they have become actively involved in many criminal cases provided by their schoolmates, though more often than not they keep accidentally coming upon such during their free-time activities. Some time later, their new classmate (and former Black Organization member) Ai Haibara was drafted into the group. Two adults also joined this group informally, namely Professor Hiroshi Agasa, who provides the group with special gadgets to aid them in their adventures, and their classteacher Sumiko Kobayashi, a mystery novel enthusiast who proclaimed herself their manager.

In most cases, the Detective Boys act more like aides to Conan, who is the group's (mostly undisputed) leader due to his intelligence, extensive criminal knowledge and experience. In this role they function mostly as additional pairs of eyes who provide Conan with trivial-seeming but important clues, and display little investigative brilliance or determination of their own. However, in some cases - especially where Conan is not present or out of commission - the other members, particularly Ai and Mitsuhiko, have demonstrated that the Detective Boys have the potential of becoming skilled investigators in their own right. Famous cases of such include:

(Manga)

The Dangerous Cave Case^[4]
The Kaitou Kid and Kirin's Horn Case^[5]

(Anime)

The Secret of the High Sales^[6] (TV Original)
The Raven Chaser^[7] (Movie)

Note: Caution must be advised for OAVs, Movies and TV Originals, as these are essentially non-canonical with the Manga series and therefore not 100% diagnostically conclusive.