Ai Haibara

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Shiho Miyano in her real appearance before taking APTX-4869

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Ai Haibara (灰原哀, Haibara Ai^?) is a character in the manga and anime Case Closed (Detective Conan). She first appears in the 2-hour special episode #129 The Girl from the Black Organization and the University Professor Murder Case and manga volume 18 file 6:a transfer student.

1 Character Information
2 Trivia
3 Note
4 Navigation
5 Sources, references and external links

[edit] Character Information

Ai Haibara, in appearance of a 6-years-old girl

Ai's real name is Shiho Miyano (宮野志保, Miyano Shiho^?). She is the daughter of an English mother and a Japanese father, also members of the Black Organization, both of whom are dead. A prodigy, she was sent to the United States for education and at the age of eighteen, then came back to Japan to continue her parents' unfinished project on corporal reanimation, obtaining the codename of Sherry in the process. Her dissatisfaction over the usage of one of her test compounds -- the APTX 4869-- for killing purposes and her open questioning over the death of her sister Akemi Miyano caused her imprisonment and scheduled execution by the Organization. Being in a desperate situation, she decided to commit suicide by taking a pill of APTX 4869. However, it made her shrink into a body of a six-year-old girl, mostly due to her special constitution. With her new small body form, she easily escaped, ran away and fell unconscious in front of Dr.Agasa's house. She now lives with Hiroshi Agasa and attends Teitan Elementary school, along with Conan Edogawa, Amy Yoshida (Ayumi Yoshida in Japan, Amy Yeager in the English anime), George Kojima (Genta Kojima in Japan) and Mitch Tsuburaya (Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya in Japan).

She seems to have feelings towards Conan Edogawa, which is suggested in many episodes though she denies that she has any romantic interests towards him when being asked by Ayumi and Mitsuhiko. She even tells Conan about her feelings towards him and ends up with "just kidding", which Conan always gets confused after that. As a consequence she may be jealous of Ran Mouri for at least some time, but eventually warms up to her, especially since she saves her life from Vermouth and Calvados after they had attempted to kidnap her.

She also has a good relationship with her fellow detectives Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko, and considers them - along with Conan - as the first real friends she has ever had. Her constant worry, however, is that the Organization will eventually track her down and her friends will be killed along with her, so she is very cautious about taking risks with her former colleagues, even to the point of paranoia.

Popular theory believed there was a relationship between her and Shuichi Akai, an FBI agent. However, as of Manga Chapter 599, it is revealed that Shuichi actually had a relationship with her older sister, Akemi, and was the last one she had contacted before her death (this made more sense, as Shiho is only 18, and Shuichi is just as old, or older, than her older sister).

Her name comes from two different source (given by Hiroshi Agasa):

V.I. Warshawski (for 'Ai') (Note: Agasa proposed the homophonus kanji 愛(love) for the name but she deliberately chose 哀(sorrow); possibly to reflect her mental situation.)
Cordelia Gray (for 'Hai' in Haibara, which means gray)

She is still working on the antidote for the APTX 4869.

The English-language Case Closed trading card game website mentions her as Anita Hailey, with her real name being Sherry. FUNimation has not chosen a name for her yet.

Her character voice role is done by Megumi Hayashibara in the Japanese version.

[edit] Trivia

According to the Japanese Wikipedia she truly has special feelings for Conan. Conan Edogawa/Shinichi Kudo asked about her feeling to him since episode 280, but it is constantly obscured by her "just kidding".
The reason why she saved Conan Edogawa in Movie 6:Phanthom of Baker's Street is that Conan Edogawa is the the first true friend she ever had in her life.

[edit] Note

Ai Haibara's name is a confliction with the name Cordelia Grey and V. I. Warshawski.

V. I. Warshawski → Ai

Cordelia Grey → Haibara(When "Grey" is in Japanese, it is "Hai".)

There are also people who believe that Ai Haibara's name is a confliction with Irene Adler as Sherlock Holmes(Name of the author's character Kudo took his alias from.) shows interest to her and her interest towards him in the novels.

Irene → Ai

Adler → Haibara