Ranpo Edogawa

Ranpo Edogawa (江戸川 乱歩,) is a member of the Armed Detective Agency. He is known as one of the best detectives out there, despite not being an ability user.

Appearance
Ranpo is a young man with a fair complexion and dons a medium-brown hat in his short, messy black hair. His eyes are brown, granted he often has his eyes closed. Over his shoulders drapes a brown Inverness cape that matches his hat and pants. Under that, he wears a dark grey blazer and a white button-up with a light and dark blue striped tie. On the occasion when he chooses to activate his "ability," he will slip black glasses onto his face. He believes this is what activates it and causes it to occur.

Under his three-quarter length pants, he wears long white socks that seem to cover what would be the visible part of his legs, and simple, black shoes.

Personality
Ranpo takes extreme pride in his "ability" which can deduct any mystery in mere seconds, with which he has solved countless cases. He is often found bragging about his status as the Greatest Detective.

He 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. However, he can become serious and calm when the situation calls for it. He is also incredibly intelligent, and is commended for it by the rest of the Armed Detective Agency, even more so because he lacks ability. It's possible that his childish demeanor is a coping mechanism for how he was traumatized in his childhood.

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 refuses to openly admit to anyone in the agency, as he seems to dance around the topic with Akiko Yosano, yet outright admitted his lack of ability to Mushitaro Oguri and did so too in Dead Apple.

Ranpo has been shown to be unable to complete simple tasks such as riding a train or finding his way home when not utilizing his Super Deduction.

Ability
His uncanny aptitude, self-named "Super Deduction (超推理,)", allows him to deduce the "truth" about a certain situation/crime and giving him complete information 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 are 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. Ranpo however, if not unaware of this fact, denies it and continues to believe that he is an ability user.

Background
His parents were both famous detectives, possessing even more deductive ability than he does. However, they both died, leaving Ranpo on his own.

At some point in the past, Ranpo who happened to be in the scene of murder because he was looking for an interview, met Yukichi Fukuzawa. The murder victim was the client of Fukuzawa, who was working as his bodyguard. Ranpo identified the murderer with ease, causing Fukuzawa to owe him a favor.

Even though he did not want to get involved with Ranpo, Fukuzawa didn't want to simply leave him be. Ranpo, whose view of the world was collapsing out of fear of being misunderstood due to his capabilities, was told that he was an ability user - a lie - by Fukuzawa. This seems to comfort him greatly, which explains why he is so attached to the prospect that his extraordinary intellectual prowess is caused by having an ability.

After this, Ranpo would go on to track a criminal down by himself and get kidnapped. However, before anything unfortunate could befall him, he was saved by Fukuzawa. The latter realized that in his own, the genius would be in constant danger, his intelligence would become the target of many.

For Ranpo's sake, Fukuzawa created the Armed Detective Agency, where ability users can utilize their abilities for good. The ability users of the agency provide combat power, while Ranpo's intellect provides a means for the agency to investigate criminal activities and thus continue operating.

Plot
Ranpo first appeared along with Kenji, Yosano, and Kunikida, arriving as the reinforcements Dazai asked to secure the perimeter of the warehouse where he planned to capture the Man-Eating tiger. He seems to share the bafflement of the other agency members (save for Kenji) regarding Dazai's sudden decision to recruit Atsushi into the agency, stating that he was an idiot for making such a decision.

Armed Detective Agency Raid
Ranpo makes a brief appearance when the agency was raided by the Port Mafia's Black Lizard. He seems to have remained idle during the entire raid, simply sitting through it while drinking from his bottle.

Murder on D Street
Ranpo showed no concern for the raid of the Black Lizard, doing nothing to help defeat the assailants nor to clean up in the aftermath. He then stated that he had to assist the police with a murder case, proudly claiming that his deduction skills were the best in the agency if not the entire nation, however taking Atsushi along with him as an assistant anyway because he did not know how to take the train.

He arrived at the scene of the murder and was greeted by Minoura, who showed him the body of Yamagiwa, who was found floating in the river after having been shot thrice in the chest. Minoura admitted that the police couldn't find any evidence regarding the case, prompting them to string a net across the river to capture any evidence that may have gone in it. The net however, captured Dazai instead, who ended up helping with the case.

Minoura continued to decline Ranpo's assistance, stating that all of his subordinates are superior to any private detective the agency may have to offer. Upon hearing this, Ranpo requested Sergeant Sugimoto - Minoura's and Yamagiwa's (former) subordinate - to solve the case within sixty seconds. He failed, and Ranpo activated his Super Deduction to conclude that the murderer was, in fact, Sugimoto himself.

Atsushi managed to prevent the sergeant's escape, and he was brought to the police station for questioning. There, he revealed that he was a mole put in by the politician whom Yamagiwa was investigating. He was tasked to get rid of the evidence and shot Yamagiwa by accident. Ranpo then guessed her last words correctly ("I love you"), proving that he indeed knew everything about the murder.

On the way back to the agency, Dazai revealed to Atsushi that Ranpo was not an ability user. He knew this for certain, as when Ranpo was using his "ability", he pinched a bit of his hair, which should have neutralized the effect of Super deduction if it really was an ability.

Azure King Arc
During the reemergence of the Azure King, Ranpo seemed to be working on a case in Kyuushuu, thus being unable to help the agency to solve the bombing case.

The Beauty Is Quiet Like a Stone Statue
Ranpo was inside the agency building when Tanizaki reported Atsushi's abduction. While Tanizaki thought that the agency should save Atsushi, Ranpo and Kunikida both seemed to share the opinion that they should not. Ranpo stated that the agency was not his foster home, nor did Atsushi come to the agency for protection.

Seeing the indecisiveness of the agency in taking an action, Naomi brought Fukuzawa, who immediately decided to save Atsushi. Ranpo seemed to disagree with this, however still chose to obey and respect the director's decision.

Later, he even helped locate Atsushi's whereabouts, using his Super Deduction to point out a sea vessel which was carrying the abducted agency member when Fukuzawa promised to praise him should he do the deed.

The Three Companies Conflict Arc
To prevent the possibility of being annihilated should an all-out raid by The Guild come to the agency, Fukuzawa ordered his subordinates to go into hiding. The agency members are then divided into three teams, Ranpo being in the defensive team along with the director himself and several others.

Later on, in a plan to set the Armed Detective Agency and The Guild against each other, Ougai Mori sent Chuuya Nakahara as an envoy to deliver the Port Mafia's message. He offered the position of two Guild members to the agency. Ranpo correctly deduced that the Port Mafia had lured in The Guild with bait so appetizing they could not resist even when they already suspected a trap.

Chuuya revealed that the bait was in fact members of the agency, Naomi and Haruno. He also stated that the Mafia did not have to take any action, as this way the two organizations will take each other out.

Trivia

 * He along with several other characters made a guest appearance in the mobile game Love Heaven as limited time characters.
 * He is named after the Japanese author, Edogawa Ranpo, who also played a significant role in developing Japanese mystery fiction. His name is a pun on Edgar Allan Poe, whom he admired. This admiration is inversed in the series.
 * On that same note, Edogawa Ranpo was simply the pseudonym his author counterpart went by. His real name was Hirai Tarō.
 * Ranpo seems unable to sleep if it is pitch black.
 * Ranpo is the only known  Ability user  whose Ability name is not a reference to a work of the author they are named after. This is an early hint to the fact that it is not an Ability at all, and he is not an Ability user at all.