Sonoko Suzuki

Sonoko Suzuki
Profile
Japanese name:	鈴木 園子 (Suzuki Sonoko)
English name:	Serena Sebastian
Age:	17
Gender:	Female
Relatives:	Shiro Suzuki (father) Tomoko Suzuki (mother) Ayako Suzuki (older sister) Jirokichi Suzuki (uncle)
Nicknames:	Deduction Queen Sonoko Annoying Sonoko (Genta)
Statistics
First appearance:	Manga: File 40 Anime: Episode 6
Appearances:	Chapters: 261 Chapters: 35 Episodes: 217 Movies: 27 Episodes: 4 OVAs: 11 Specials: 9 Openings: 41 Closings: 14
Keyhole number:	Volume 8
Actors
Japanese voice:	Naoko Matsui
English voice:	Laura Bailey
Drama actor:	Mayuko Iwasa (1st) Sayaka Akimoto (2nd)

Sonoko Suzuki (鈴木 園子 ,Suzuki Sonoko), known in the Funimation English dub as Serena Sebastian, is a character from the manga and anime Detective Conan. Sonoko is Ran Mouri's best friend and is the girlfriend of Makoto Kyogoku, with whom she currently is in a long-distance relationship. Conan Edogawa sometimes has to knock her out with his stun gun watch to use her as his mouthpiece. Because of this, Sonoko has claimed to be a great high school detective in her own right, "Deduction Queen Sonoko".

Background

Sonoko is the daughter of Tomoko and Shiro Suzuki, heads of the extremely wealthy family and large company. Sonoko has an older sister, Ayako, and an uncle named Jirokichi, who is often involved in trying to capture the Kaitou Kid. Sonoko and Ran have been close friends since before Junior High School.

Personality

File:Sonoko is scary.png

Sonoko is rather expressive.

At the series' start, Sonoko's primary interest was in boys and in trying to snag the "perfect boy". She often tried multiple avenues to attract a boyfriend, including dressing up specifically to attract a boy, making a boy chocolates, trying to impress a boy while wearing a bikini, or going to various events that young guys were going to attend. Whenever Ran's company diverted the attention of Sonoko's target, Sonoko would feel jealous and disappointed. However, this changed when Sonoko met and began dating Makoto. Although Sonoko is still easily attracted to other men, she is loyal to Makoto and tries to act the way she thinks a girlfriend should, including making him gifts and planning romantic rendezvous.

Sonoko loves to go on big vacations, like expensive ski trips, and loves to buy fancy clothes and items. She also loves to go to festivals where sugary sweets are on display, often picking up gigantic plates filled with various cakes. She has even used Conan for the sole purpose of having a children's discount on food. She is also a big fan of the band LEX, and various other people in pop music, including Two-Mix.

Conan has had to use Sonoko sometimes when he needs to do a deduction show. At first he struggled to mimic Sonoko's mannerisms and feminine speech patters, but now he is better at it. However, because he has had to use Sonoko so often for a deduction, Sonoko, like Kogoro Mouri, completely buys into her whole "sleeping" person, calling herself the best detective in Teitan High School, and a "Deduction Queen." This makes Conan sometimes regret using her to solve a case, though he does admire her courage in certain situations. Sonoko is sometimes able to solve little things on her own, and can figure things out when she is provided some assistance by Conan, such as when Conan was sick and had to communicate to Sonoko, Kogoro, and Yamamura in charades and sign language.

Like many other people, Sonoko is a big fan of the Kaitou Kid, due to his style, charm and daring exploits. She keeps cheering him on in trying to steal something, even when that something is a rare treasure of the Suzuki family. She wishes to meet Kid up close (and have it develop into something more), and sometimes almost gets her wish, but is very disappointed when she doesn't.

Appearance

When not in the Teitan High School uniform, Sonoko often wears a bandanna holding back her fringe, a skirt, and a cute shirt. Her clothes often show more skin compared to Ran, mostly for the purpose of attracting guys. In Countdown to Heaven, she temporarily changes her hairstyle to a perm.

Plot overview

Deduction Queen Sonoko (Manga: 40-44, Anime: 34-35)

Deduction Queen Sonoko appears!

Conan and Ran visit Sonoko's mountain villa to see the autumn leaves and meet up with some old friends. On the way to the front they see a strange bandaged man in a dark cloak crossing the bridge. When they see him he turns around, shocking them with his face and eye contact as he quickly makes a retreat around the side of the house. Everything seems fine as Ran tries to find her room, accidentally walking in on the men also staying the house. When everyone is asked about the bandaged man he is brushed off as possibly a crazy man with nothing better to do. However, he is taken far more seriously when Ran is attacked in the woods, to be scared off by Conan, and later one of the women is seen being carried off by him from the windows. Conan and the other men give chase and find her dismembered body in the woods.

Everyone decides that it's best to go to bed for the night, when he strikes again, this time trying to kill Ran in her sleep. Conan saves Ran by waking her up to defend herself, but when the bandaged man retreats Conan wonders why Ran is a target. Everyone decides to stay up for the night and keep together to throw off the murderous man in bandages. Conan suspects that Ran saw something that made her a target, and the culprit is one of the people staying there. When Conan solves the case. Kogoro isn't there to be put to sleep, so he decides to solve the case by Ran. When he shoots the anesthetic needle, however, Sonoko end up in the way and she falls asleep. Left with no choice, Conan reveals the killer via Sonoko. While Sonoko doesn't remember making the deductions, she is very proud of having "solved" the case.

An Important Date (Manga: 105-107, Anime: 32)

At the end of the case, Conan asks Ran if she was meeting Shiro Wakaoji, a young man who was in the coffee shop with plans to take advantage of a "naive" teenage girl he met while skiing, despite his already having a girlfriend. She says no, but Shiro tries to flirt with her just before Sonoko announces her presence—Sonoko was his intended date, but she overheard Conan revealing Shiro's intentions. She slaps Shiro and storms away.

Makoto's Introduction (Manga: 219-221, Anime: 153-154)

Sonoko, Ran, and Conan go to Izu, where Sonoko's schemes to get a boyfriend. At the beach, Sonoko takes a picture of Ran fixing her bathing suit and threatens to send the picture to Shinichi, since she teases Ran and Shinichi frequently about being an "old married couple". Sonoko also laments about her lack of a love life, just before a college student, Michiwaki, asks her out to lunch. Ecstatic at the romantic attention, she agrees to lunch and then also to dinner as well. However, due to being nervous, she has Ran and Conan come along for lunch. During the meal, Michiwaki tells a story that young brunette girls have been found murdered in the woods not far from the restaurant, once a year ago and once much more recently, but he offers to keep Sonoko safe.

The serial killer tries to kill Sonoko...

Later, Sonoko is attacked when she interrupts a suspicious figure searching her belongings, and bites him before he escapes. The stoic and somewhat unfriendly high school student that is working at the ryokan moves the group to another room. Ran thinks she has seen him somewhere before but cannot remember where. Michiwaki arrives muddy and wet and Conan suspects him of attacking Sonoko, but he does not have a bite mark on his arm. Makoto has a bandaged bicep and falls under suspicion but Sonoko says he wasn't the attacker because the attacker was hairy. Michiwaki, Sonoko, Ran, and Conan decide to have dinner at the ryokan because Michiwaki says his car broke down. Conan speculates that Sonoko's attacker was looking for the photographs she was taking during the trip, but cannot figure out why. Conan does not think there are any incriminating photos, but perhaps the murderer overheard Sonoko talking about the photographs and misunderstood.

The next day, Michiwaki, Ran and Conan go eat at a restaurant while Sonoko tries to doze in the car. Suddenly, the car starts rolling toward the nearby cliff edge, and Sonoko barely escapes with her life. However, there is not evidence pointing toward a culprit. Ran and Conan go to report the incident while Michiwaki keeps Sonoko company. When alone on a walk in the forest, Michiwaki reveals that he is the serial killer and Sonoko is his target. Before he can hurt her, Makoto appears and saves her with an impressive martial arts display. Ran realizes that Makoto is a champion she's seen in competitions before; Makoto confesses awkwardly that he loves Sonoko, to Sonoko's surprise and delight. Though Makoto is often traveling for tounaments, he and Sonoko maintain a long-distance relationship.

Jodie's Introduction (Manga: 271-273, Anime: 226-227)

Sonoko thinks about Makoto

Sonoko, Ran, and Conan are at the arcade taking sticker photos, which Ran realizes Sonoko suggested because Sonoko wants to put a sticker with her face on a letter to Makoto. Sonoko blushes but doesn't deny it. Soon after, they encounter their High School English teacher, Jodie Saintemillion, who is an avid gamer. Jodie introduces Ran to a virtual reality fighting game which uses mechanics to simulate a real fight. Ran loses to a gamer named Kengo Bito who taunts her for losing before going on to fight against his rival, Takayasu Shimizu. The battle is projected on a large screen, showing Bito's avatar overwhelming Shimizu's until just before the final blow. At the strange behavior, spectators check on Bito and discover that he is dead.

The police investigate and after reviewing the security camera's footage, they limit the suspects down to four people. When Conan deduces the culprit, he uses Sonoko again as he mouthpiece to expose the murderer. On the way home, Jodie says that Sonoko was like Kate Martin, and Ran says Sonoko was just like Shinichi. Ran and Sonoko part with Jodie on good terms.

Girl Clubbing Case (Manga: 284-286, Anime: 217-218)

Ran and Sonoko are shopping for a sweater as Sonoko wants to buy for Makoto Kyogoku; Sonoko gets scolded by Ran when she learns that Sonoko wants to make it pass as if she had knitted the sweater for him. Sonoko arrives to the pasta shop right then and upon seeing the girls's pictures she identifies them as Ganguro, girls who change their looks drastically to look fashionable and exotic and as a way to rebel against Japanese society. Sonoko calls Ran to ask where she is. She says she's in a parking lot and then she screams in terror because she has just found another victim. Said victim is a 20 year old girl named Tae Aizawa, who used to work at the same store: again, a very young woman with bleached hair, tanned skin, and wearing the special jewelry gifts. Unlike the others, however, Aizawa is actually dead. After discussing some more details, Takagi returns and confirms the information already given. Conan and Ran see that Sonoko isn't with them; Ran mentions that Sonoko was supposed to go to the car and then to the restroom, and then Conan realizes that Sonoko was wearing platform boots... like all the victims. Ran calls Sonoko to her cellphone, and Sonoko says she's looking for a safe way out since the lights are out. She then gets scared since it looks like she's being followed, and as she turns, the culprit is right in front of her and she starts screaming.

Sonoko... saved!?

Sonoko manages to avoid the culprit's pipe and throws her phone at him, revealing his face. She tries running downstairs, with the man being horrified since she saw him clearly. Conan says that the killer saw Sonoko with Mouri's keys and mistook her for the driver, hence why he's chasing her now. Sonoko's phone lands near a purikura machine located near a restaurant in the tenth floor, so they deduce Sonoko and the killer are not too far away from it. Megure takes active part in commanding the police, and both Matsumoto and Mouri notice how pumped up he is. Sonoko runs aimlessly in the tenth floor, and when she's about to reach the gates she trips over her boots and falls to the ground. Ran and the police find her phone on the stairs and deduce she's in the apartment store as no one has seen her in the restaurants. Meanwhile, the maddened killer starts ranting about how all the fashionable girls are bitches in sheep's clothing who should be all killed. Sonoko screams again and this time Ran, Conan, Megure and Co. hear her; they also hear the sound of several things falling, Go stones among them, which allow them to see she's now on the fourth floor (the only one with such arrangments). Sonoko again dodges the pipe, as the culprit rants about how he only wanted to teach her a lesson, but after seeing his face, he had to kill her. Cornered again, Sonoko cowers as he tries to hit her directly... and then Megure shows up. He takes the hit for her and gets struck in the head, but the blow is softened by his hat. At the end, Ran and Sonoko are moved to tears, thinking Megure's girlfriend died.

Murderous Pottery Class (Manga: 305-307, Anime: 228-229)

File:Sonoko228.png

Sonoko looking at Ran's vessel.

Sonoko tells Ran she is attending pottery classes to make a gift to Makoto, a big vessel. Ran decides to join too. One day, Conan follows the girls to the pottery class. Ran is making an earthel vessel and Sonoko wants to see that, but Ran doesn't want. Joking, the vessel fell. All the class heard a noise, and Sonoko thins Ran's vessel is broken. But no, Ran has got the vessel in her hand. Conan, Ran, and all the class go to find the origin of the noise, and Sonoko attempts to uncover Ran's vessel. Ran tells her if she do it, their friendship will be broken. Motoo Mino is killed and they try to discover the truth. Suddenly, Conan find out the truth: the master murdered Motoo! The little detective uses 'Deduction Queen Sonoko' to solve it.

At the end, she is talking with Ran and Conan, and they see a photo that Makoto send to Sonoko. In the photo, he is with friends and he put flowers in Sonoko's vessel. She is sad because he thought it was a vase.

Halloween Party (Manga: 429-434, Anime: 345)

Sonoko as a witch

Kogoro Mouri receives an invitation to a Halloween cruise; the Halloween cruise is famous for hiring guests to star in a horror film. At the beginning, Sonoko is making-up Kogoro as a monster, specifically as a vampire. He can bring a friend, and Sonoko wants to go with him because Ran doesn't want, she is afraid by zombies, witches and monsters in general. The day of the party, she goes with Kogoro there, wearing a witch costume. When they are in a taxi, the taxi driver was disguised as a monster too and scared them. During the cruise, the party members are divided into groups with team devil consisting of Kogoro, Sonoko, and people disguised as a werewolf, a mummy, a medusa and an invisible man. Sonoko and Kogoro meet Medusa and they talk a lot with her.

During the party, the host is shot by a crossbow, attached to the arrow is a card from team devil. First, Sonoko thinks, as Kogoro, the mummy is the culprit, because he is the only who hasn't got the card. When Kogoro calls to his house for explain the situation to Ran and nobody picks up the phone, she says Ran could be having a shower. Later, when the invisible man gets rid of his bands and is Shinichi Kudo, she is very surprised. Kudo explains the culprit is the werewolf. The murderer says someone called 'Vermouth' forced him to kill the captain. After, she discovers, at the same time than Kogoro and the others, that the 'invisible man' Shinichi was a faker, and he really is Heiji Hattori.

Sonoko's disguise is entirely black, with a large hat with a stripe in the center, black too. The dress reaches to the thighs, with peak shape. She also wears high boots and long gloves, both black. She carries a broom too. She looks very happy for go to the party, disguise as a "sexy" witch and search cute and handsome monsters. We don't know if Sonoko knows Medusa is really Yukiko Kudo.

Jodie's Truth (Manga: 435, Anime: 346)

At the begin, Sonoko is with Ran visiting Jodie at the hospital. She is very surprised because miss Jodie is a FBI agent. She thinks she was infiltrating the high school. She talks with Ran about her friend did while she was in the 'horror cruise'. She says that this attitude is typical of Ran. Also, they talk to Jodie's photos.

Dark Photograph (Manga: 582, Anime: 484)

At the beginning of the case, Sonoko is walking with Ran and Conan to return home after school. She says it's very hot and and she should do as Eisuke, which disappears after school.

The Culprit is Sonoko (Anime: 602)

Is Sonoko the culprit?

Sonoko, Ran and Conan are playing tennis in a court. Sonoko likes Takao Goto, the tennis club vice-captain. But suddenly, Goto dies. Inspector Yamamura goes to investigate the mysterious case. There are three suspects: Yuka Tsuchida, Fumihiro Azuma and Chie Otake. Yamamura surprisingly accuses Sonoko as the culprit. Conan discovers the truth and he uses Sonoko to solve the case. Sonoko then proves her innocence.

In the end, when she solves the case and reveals the murderer is Azuma, Ran says she was worried. Sonoko got very upset with Yamamura of accusing her as the culprit.

Relationships analysis

Family & Friends

Ran Mouri

Sonoko hugging Ran

Sonoko and Ran have been best friends ever since they were little. Sonoko is often there to help Ran whenever she is bullied by other school children, more often there than even Shinichi was. They were often shown hanging out with each others on the way home after school. Sonoko usually invite Ran to join her on trips, attend some activities of her family (most of the times are her uncle's showdowns with Kaitou Kid), even enjoy expensive services, or simply just go shopping together.

Sonoko once said to a murderer what she thought about friendship: "So what if friendship is unreliable and fragile! That way when you communicate with your heart, you can feel the warmth inside. If it were as hard as some chattering iron plate, you wouldn’t feel the warmth, y’know?"

Meanwhile, even though Ran knows that Sonoko has a lot of money, she always makes sure that money never gets involved in their friendship, not going to ski vacations with Sonoko because she doesn't have the money, when she knows that Sonoko would pay for her to go. This, along with other things, has helped strengthen the bond between both Ran and Sonoko.

Before meeting the man of her own, Sonoko was sometimes envious that Ran always got the attentions from boys, however, this didn't affect the deep friendship between them.

Conan Edogawa

Whenever Conan is near at Sonoko, she gets annoyed.

Makoto Kyogoku

Sonoko originally met Makoto Kyogoku while on a vacation, when he worked at his father's hotel in his spare time. At first, neither she, Conan, nor Ran recognized him, because he wore glasses to hide his features. He later saves her when he takes a knife in the arm for her, to protect her from getting killed by a crazed serial killer. This is when Ran finally realizes that he is the famous karate champion. After defeating the killer, he confesses his feelings for her, which leaves Sonoko dumbfounded and flustered. According to Makoto, he originally met Sonoko during one of Ran's tournaments, and loved how feisty and firey she was in trying to cheer her friend on. After this, Sonoko and Makoto begin a long distance relationship.

Sonoko presenting the chocolate she made to Makoto.

Makoto often saves Sonoko from dangerous peril, like in a snow lodge, and in a forest. Sonoko loves to use some kind of concocted scheme to get Makoto to come to her, usually in some romantic way, to create a romantic and dreamy experience for her. This, however, doesn't always end in success, but he sometimes does stumble through her little schemes. He often warns her of the way she is dressed, because he believes that guys will try to come after her because of it.

Sonoko gives the chocolate she made to Makoto.

Sonoko often wants to show Makoto that her feelings for him are stronger than he thinks, planning simple ideas to make him feel special. However, these often go in awry, as she either cannot make what she had planned to make, like when she promised to make him a home-made sweater, but had to resort to buying one in a mall, or Makoto has no idea what she gave him is, like when he believed that the pottery she sent him was supposed to be for flowers. Sonoko keeps a photo of Makoto in her bag, and uses it as a good luck charm for when she takes exams. She has also made him a chocolate, trying to make him feel jealous by not saying who it was for, thus forcing him to visit her in a snow lodge to ask her what was going on. When he finds out that indeed, she made him the chocolate, he gets very embarrassed himself.

Although long distance relationships can be hard to be in, Sonoko has stayed faithful to Makoto, other than dreaming of meeting up with the Kaitou Kid, though this is mostly to see him up close more than anything else.

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. Sonoko placed 7th in the poll with 86 votes out of the 5,883 that were cast.

Different looks

Sonoko's "Before" Appearance (Episode 6)

Sonoko's "After" Appearance (Episode 627)

Quotes

“	Are you an idiot? So what if friendship is unreliable and fragile! That way when you communicate with your heart, you can feel the warmth inside. If it were as hard as some chattering iron plate, you wouldn’t feel the warmth, y’know?	„
— Sonoko spoke to Shodo.

Trivia

• Sonoko has been shown to be very aggressive. For example when Genta called her "Auntie Sonoko", she punched him extremely hard, and when she was interrupted by a soccer ball, she threw it back at the kicker, causing him to fall back.

In other languages

Language	Given Name	Family Name
Japanese	園子　Sonoko	鈴木 Suzuki
English	Serena	Sebastian
Catalan	Sonoko	Suzuki
French	Sonoko	Suzuki
German	Sonoko	Suzuki
Malay	Sonoko	Suzuki
Vietnamese	Sonoko	Suzuki
Arabic	سوكو 　Soko	Suzuki سوزوكي
Korean	보라 Bo Ra	정 Jung
Finnish	Sonoko	Suzuki
Thai	โซโนโกะ	ซึซึกิ

Gallery

• 

  Sonoko and Ran clutching Conan in fear in a haunted house in Episode 625-626.

• 

  Sonoko in 10 years of the future, as shown in OVA 9

See also

• Characters
• Suzuki family