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“Mushitarō-kun, you’ve won! I knew from the start that regular people can’t defeat ability users. But I’m still going to defeat you. Why? Because my friends think I’m invincible.“

— Ranpo Edogawa to [1]

— Ranpo Edogawa to Mushitaro Oguri

Ranpo Edogawa

• Manga

• Anime (2016)

• Anime (2023)

Kanji

江戸川 乱歩

Rōmaji

Edogawa Ranpo

Also Known As

[2][3]

Greatest Detective in the World

Agency’s Sharpest Detectives (with Osamu Dazai)[4]

• For appellations, see Relationships

Namesake

(Japanese mystery writer)Ranpo Edogawa (Japanese mystery writer)

Personal Information

Status

Alive

Gender

Male

Birthday

[5]

October 21

Age

[5]

26 (present)

14-15 (Untold Origins)

Height

[5]

168 cm (5’6″)

Weight

[5]

57 kg

Blood Type

[5]

Likes

[5]

Logical thinking, fantastic tales

Dislikes

[5]

Common sense, useless knowledge

Professional Information

Ability

Super Deduction (non-ability)

Occupation

Detective

Affiliation

Armed Detective Agency

Relationships

Family

Clairvoyant†(father)[2]

(father)

Unnamed Mother†[2]

Appearances

Manga Debut

Chapter 1

Anime Debut

Episode 1

Light Novel Debut

The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency

Portrayal

Japanese Voice

Hiroshi Kamiya

English Voice

Vic Mignogna (Season 1-2)

Landon McDonald (Season 3)

Stage Actor

Ryōki NagaeImage Gallery
Ranpo Edogawa (江戸川 乱歩,, Edogawa Ranpo?) is a member of the Armed Detective Agency. Despite not being an ability user, he is known as one of the best detectives highly sought by the police, renowned by his comrades, himself, and others as the “greatest detective in the world” (世界最高の名探偵,, sekai saikō no mei tantei?).[2][3]

Appearance

Ranpo is a young man with a fair complexion and short, messy black hair. His eyes, which are closed most of the time, are brown.[note 1]

His attire consists of a brown inverness cape that he wears over his shoulders and whose color matches both his hat and his pants. Under that, he wears a dark grey blazer and a white button-up with a light and dark blue striped tie. Under his three-quarter length pants, he wears long white socks that cover the visible part of his legs, and simple black shoes.

When he was young, Ranpo wears a gakuran with matching student cap and coat, with old-fashioned flat satchel hurng around his waist. When he chooses to activate his “ability”, he will put on black glasses which were given to him by Yukichi Fukuzawa.[2]

After the agency’s founding, Ranpo wears simple white long sleeves with checkered tie and a pair of dark trousers.[6]

After the cannibalism, Ranpo wears a white long-sleeved shirt and a sleeveless vest suit together with a black ribbon tie.[7]

After defying Fukuzawa’s orders during the virus ordeal, Ranpo is told to help a sales staff at one of their client’s shopping mall, hence him putting a teddy bear costume.[8]

During the Agency’s frameup, Ranpo borrows a cloak from man and his boater hat as a distraction to get away from the military police.[9] Ranpo also wears a disguise in order to get Doppo Kunikida and Fukuzawa out from detainment, consisting of black overalls and a gas mask.[10] In rescuing Akiko Yosano from her execution, Ranpo wears the same outfit, albeit without the gas mask.[9]

Young Ranpo

Ranpo’s attire after the agency’s founding

Ranpo wearing a kimono in Poe’s novel

Ranpo’s attire after cannibalism

Ranpo wears a teddy bear costume

Ranpo’s attire to distract the military police

Ranpo’s disguise to rescue Fukuzawa

Others

Wan! appearance

Wan! appearance – preschool

Personality

Ranpo takes extreme pride in his “ability” which can solve any mystery in mere seconds, with which he has solved countless cases. With his incredible intelligence, he is commended for it by the rest of the Armed Detective Agency, even more so because he lacks an ability. He is often found bragging about his status as the greatest detective in the world.[11] Ranpo is also shown to be rather childish, frequently teasing the other detectives in the Agency and sometimes refusing to do work or cases for trivial reasons such as laziness or spite.[12][13] Ranpo has been shown to be unable to complete simple tasks such as riding a train or finding his way home when not utilizing Super Deduction.[11]

However, despite this demeanor, Ranpo becomes serious and calm when the situation calls for it.[3][14] Atsushi Nakajima once noted Ranpo’s serious façade when devising their plan in protecting the virus-stricken Fukuzawa, an expression he admitted he has never seen before in the great detective. One of his long-time colleagues, Yosano, also understood Ranpo’s grave concern for the President when placed in trouble.

Because of the Agency’s faith in him, Ranpo equally places his trust in them.[14][15] He recognizes how the Agency members, whom he regards as his friends, see him as invincible, so Ranpo has a sense of conviction to protect them and vowed never to let anyone hurt them.[1] This rings true most especially after the events of Cannibalism: Ranpo admits his failure to catch Fyodor Dostoevsky, which might have prevented a child’s death and consequently Kunikida’s arrest.[8] During such cases, Ranpo does acknowledge that he has limitations himself, but he is nonetheless more than willing to perform any plausible means to solve the situation.

Notably, even though his colleagues seem to think that he is completely oblivious to the fact that he is not an ability user, he is aware that his Super Deduction is in fact not an ability. However, since the Agency puts so much faith into him, he initially refused to openly admit this to anyone in the Agency, as he refused to believe Fukuzawa when the latter straightforwardly told Ranpo that he is not actually an ability user[2] and seemed to dance around the topic with Yosano,[3] yet he outright admitted his lack of ability after the Yokohama fog incident caused by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa[16] and later to Mushitarō Oguri.

With his vision and desire not to lose to Fyodor nor to anyone again, Ranpo carefully learned Fyodor’s ways and willingly took in the Conjurer himself, illustrating Ranpo’s exceptional resolve to do anything that he can for the sake of protecting the Agency. He claimed that such intimidation surpasses that of a typical deduction skill, which can defeat even detective killers and evidence suppressors—the great detective’s weaknesses—like Mushitarō.[1] He even put up a contingency plan to ensure that the Agency would be given all the help they need, especially from Mushitarō, in their battle against the Decay of the Angel, as he threatened to expose Mushitarō’s friend’s legacy to the public that might defame the late author.[17]

In addition, Ranpo has a certain kind of charisma that plants an apparent change in his former adversaries into people who aid him subsequently in different manners. One notable example is Edgar Allan Poe, once his sworn rival whom Ranpo defeated in a deduction battle six years ago,[3] who gradually becomes one of Ranpo’s trusted allies in his later pursuits and cases, such as the Cannibalism strategy,[18] its aftermath,[8][19][1] and in rescuing Agency members and affiliates during their frameup.[10][9] Another is Mushitarō himself, who prides himself as the infallible detective killer who challenged Ranpo but later warned the great detective of the Decay of the Angel’ threat out of his own volition.[20]

Minoura, a police officer who initially doubted Ranpo’s detective skills, eventually sought his occasional help[21] and later broke him out from arrest[22] together with 30% of Yokohama’s police force.[23] Through his words of persuasion, Ranpo was able to turn such percentage of the military police into believers in the Agency despite being a wanted terrorist at the time.[9]

Ranpo also appears to have a great memory, as he is able to remember his duel with Poe from six years ago and identify Minoura as the “man whose subordinate he arrested”.[21] In his 12 years of solving baffling cases as a detective, he seems to remember some of his clients, as hinted when he turned to a specific police officer out of the many arresting him, whom he possibly recognized to have helped out some time in the past.[9]

Ability

Main article: Super Deduction

His uncanny aptitude, self-named “Super Deduction” (超推理,, Chō Suiri?), allows him to deduce the “truth” about any crime by giving him every information about it such as where to find evidence and who the culprit is within a matter of seconds. Ranpo “activates” this ability by putting on a pair of glasses given to him by the director.

His ability seems to not only be applicable to crime scenes but to other scenarios as well. When Ranpo decides to activate his “ability,” he will be able to find information and clues about a certain situation no matter how small, and with them instantaneously make extremely precise predictions. In fact, so far none of his deductions have been known to be erroneous or inaccurate.

This is shown when he easily solved the murder of Yamagiwa, which was deemed almost impossible by the police due to the severe lack of evidence.

Eventually, it is revealed that he is able to deduce everything simply due to his own extraordinary intelligence and that he does not possess an ability. Though he is not unaware of this fact, he initially denies it and continues to believe that he is an ability user. However, after some time, Ranpo has come to accept that he is a non-ability user, albeit occasionally still putting on his glasses to “activate” his ability and perform deductions.

Background

Ranpo was born somewhere outside Yokohama to two genius parents, namely the legendary detective known as the Clairvoyant and an equally intelligent housewife. He was raised in the countryside until their deaths when he then moved to Yokohama shortly afterward per his father’s suggestion. He soon attended the Yokohama Police Academy and lived in a dorm, where he found the strict rules to be a hassle. He soon ended up getting into an argument with the warden and exposed his past exploits with women, causing Ranpo to get kicked out of the academy.

Since then, Ranpo wandered around Yokohama, including living and landing a job at a military post, working at a construction site, and delivering mail. However, he eventually got expelled, as he exposed the military post chief’s embezzlement and disposed an unnecessary letter in the postal delivery; or left of his own accord, since he found the construction site’s corporate hierarchy to be quite bothersome.

At some point, Ranpo managed to secure an appointment interview with S&K Corporation as an apprentice office clerk. However, the company’s president was assassinated, so Ranpo settled to find a government-issued document for job searching somewhere in the president’s office to turn it in to the government and keep receiving financial aid and information. During this time, he encountered Fukuzawa, the bodyguard hired to protect the company president; Ranpo also met the president’s secretary, whom he easily deduced was the actual killer instead of the suspect, identified as the boy assassin Sakunosuke Oda, “caught” and detained in the other room.

Eventually, Fukuzawa took Ranpo with him and treated him to a café. From then on, with nowhere to go, Ranpo sought Fukuzawa’s help, who decided to bring him to his next assignment at Theatrum Mundi, where a mysterious “V” had delivered a death threat. Ultimately, after Ranpo vented out his fear and bewilderment towards the “strange” world, Fukuzawa persuaded that he was an ability user who could see the truth in a single glance and gave him a random pair of glasses to “control” such ability. Realizing that he was indeed special rather than alien to others, Ranpo solved the theater case, which he deemed to be a trifle compared to a bigger one.

This latter case led him to Jun Mitamura, a member of V, who attempted to scout Ranpo into their organization of ability users bent on getting rid of other ability users. Ranpo declined his offer, and Fukuzawa arrived in time to rescue him. Subsequently, Ranpo and Fukuzawa formed a partnership and were requested by various clients for their services. Sometime later, at Fukuzawa’s behest, Ranpo located Sōseki Natsume, a man rumored to hold connections throughout Yokohama who helped them secure a Skilled Business Permit. Fukuzawa then used this to establish the Armed Detective Agency, where Ranpo became its first member.[2]

Battles

Main article: List of Battles