[Meeting…] Kaito Kid

Gosho Aoyama is a manga artist and screenwriter who gained worldwide fame thanks to his extremely long-running work Detective Conan.

However, many years before giving life to Shinichi Kudo and his alter ego Conan Edogawa, Aoyama had already created a lot of short stories (which you can find in compilation volumes) and a couple of long series of some success, such as Yaiba or Magic Kaito, a character I will talk about below.

Magician and thief by tradition

Kaito Kuroba is a high school student, somewhat lazy when it comes to classes but very determined and hardworking when it comes to doing the magic tricks he learned from his late father, Toichi Kuroba, who was one of the most famous magicians in the world.

The victim of many of his tricks and pranks is usually Aoko, his high school classmate with whom he has a romance with negative feelings on both sides (come on, the typical thing is that they like each other, but they would never admit it and despite this they are always together and live in romantic situations even if involuntarily).

Despite their strong friendship, Kaito and Aoko are very different in many ways, he is mischievous and likes to attract attention, while she is studious and generally takes things seriously. But If there is one thing that separates both characters, it is their opinion on the thief Kaito Kid, since Kaito adores him, and Aoko detests him (partly because her father is the police inspector who has failed dozens of times to try to capture him).

Kaito Kid is a famous and elegant Japanese thief Dressed in a white suit, cape and hat, he sometimes wears a mask of the same color to keep his face anonymous. Their specialty is stealing rare and very valuable jewels and disappearing using some trick to distract the police.

After years of thefts, Kaito Kid disappeared overnight and did not reappear until 8 years later. His return caught everyone's attention and meant a change in Kaito Kuroba's life, as he discovered that the original Kaito Kid had been his late father and that his recent incarnation was actually Konosuke Jii, an old family friend. After unmasking Jii, Kaito discovers that his father died under strange circumstances related to the robberies he committed as Kaito Kid.

Neither short nor lazy, Kaito Kuroba decided to become the new Kaito Kid and begin to steal things without any apparent meaning (since he neither enjoys them nor sells them, sometimes he even returns them to their bearers) making it clear that the only reason for stealing (besides to satisfy his ego) was to try to find out something about his father's death. Kaito uses his wide range of magic and illusion tricks, as well as a huge number of impossible disguises and resources to emerge unscathed after each robbery.

The attitude of this new Kaito Kid is much more daring than that of the previous ones (perhaps due to his youth or the ego of Kaito Kuroba himself) so that he will not only do tricks that are increasingly more striking and difficult (which will make him gain a lot of popularity) but he will also definitively leave aside the mask that the previous Kaito Kid sometimes used to show his face, using only a monocle as a sign of distraction.

Master of escapes

Despite the fact that he is armed with a gun (which fires sharp cards instead of bullets) and sometimes uses chemicals (sleeping gases) or uses violence on occasion (to knock out the people he is going to impersonate) Kaito Kid has never killed anyone, nor does he intend to do so. He is a thief who causes no victims, except perhaps the mental health of police inspector Ginzo Nakamori (father of Aoko, Kaito's friend).

The reappearance of Kaito Kid meant that Ginzo was once again between a rock and a hard place (laborally speaking) because in the past he failed countless times to catch him and now he is not able to capture this new incarnation either.

No matter how numerous the special device is, nor the security systems they add, Kaito Kid always manages to outmaneuver the Japanese police and make a fool of Ginzo. In addition to his natural ability to deceive and escape, Kaito takes advantage of being Aoko's friend to be at the scene of the robberies or even "help" the police inspector prepare the security measures to arrest Kaito Kid.

It is therefore not strange that other detectives are interested in the unattainable thief, this being the case of Saguru Hakuba, the son of the police inspector, who is also a tremendously methodical and observant detective who seems to imitate Sherlock Holmes (he even dresses like him). He is certain that he knows that Kaito Kuroba is Kaito Kid, but he cannot prove it, although due to this (and the unwritten laws of manga and anime) he will end up studying in the same class as Kaito Kuroba and Aoko Nakamori, leading to a mental confrontation both in the robbery scene and in class.

Occasionally, Kaito Kuroba will have the protection of Akako, a beautiful and popular student who has a crush on him (partly because he is the only boy in school who doesn't pay any attention to her) and who, because she is a witch, knows that Kuroba is also Kaito Kid, and cannot allow the police to arrest him until he falls in love with her.

Due to the fame of this thief, it is not surprising that other detectives try to catch him (such as Shinichi Kudo) and that other thieves retain him or try to ally with him.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Thieves and their impossible stratagems to escape are always interesting characters. I remember that the anime character (based on the literary character) Lupen III was tremendously original and fun in this regard. However I can't say the same about Kaito Kid. for several reasons.

Although I admit that I really like the concept of a wizard thief and the way Kaito Kid looks during his robberies, in general I don't find the character too interesting. The main reason is his actual motivation (or lack thereof), as the character is supposedly stealing to find out who killed his father, but in reality, most stories have nothing to do with that. In fact, Kaito finds out about his father's death in the first story and that matter is not taken up until very late in the third volume of the 4 volumes that make up his adventures. At that moment and after knowing (more or less) the reason for Kaito's father's death, the story improves slightly. Even if it's exactly the same as before, at least there's a reason why (and that's why it's so similar to the secret organization of Detective Conan that it is impossible not to imagine that they are the same people).

El segundo motivo que hace que Kaito Kid no termine de agradarme es que nunca se toma de manera mínimamente realista la huida del personaje, que por momentos parece Doraemon pues es capaz de sacar decenas de cachivaches (patinetes, aladeltas, muñecos de tamaño humano y globos aerostáticos) de la nada. Obviamente es un manga y la exageración forma parte de su encanto, pero el hecho de que esas huidas sean tan fáciles (y repetitivas) hace que pierda parte del encanto, ya que sabes que no importa lo mal que  lo pase el personaje, siempre terminará ganando.

Por último, creo que lo que rodea a este personaje (su amiga-novia Aoko, la chica popular enamorada de él, el rival del instituto que es un detective y sabe su secreto) no deja de estar dentro de las expectativas de este tipo de obras, no sorprende demasiado.

Admito que siento cierto aprecio hacia los policías y el inspector Ginzo Nakamoji (que curiosamente se parece bastante a Kogoro Mouri en aspecto y actitud) pues ellos sí parecen estar atados a la realidad a la hora de llevar a cabo sus actuaciones policiales.

También es interesante cuando aparecen otros ladrones o el autor se hace sus autohomenajes introduciendo personajes de Detective Conan o Yaiba, ya que al menos así, existe más de un personaje habilidoso en extremo y la narrativa se complica ligeramente.

Debido a que la trayectoria del personaje no es muy prolongada, es bastante fácil seguirle la pista en caso de que queráis disfrutar de sus aventuras.

Magic Kaito es la colección donde aparece Kaito Kid y afortunadamente no es demasiado extensa, ya que solo la forman 5 tomos. Debido a que Gosho Aoyama siente mucho cariño por este personaje (dice que es su favorito) sus historias continúan de manera lenta pero segura (el primer y segundo tomo son de finales de los 80, el tercero de mediados de los 90 y este 2017 acaba de aparecer en Japón un quinto tomo). Los 4 primeros fueron publicados en castellano por parte de Planeta de Agostini (Planeta Cómic), el quinto tomo aun no ha sido traducido, pero diría que hay bastantes posibilidades de que así sea.

A partir del año 2010 se crearon  una docena de episodios de Kaito Kid en anime, y este personaje también aparece de vez en cuando en la serie y manga Detective Conan. De hecho, existe un manga llamado Detective Conan VS Kaito Kid donde se recopilan los enfrentamientos entre ambos personajes.