Renya Karasuma

Renya Karasuma (烏丸 蓮耶 ,Karasuma Ren'ya) is the mysterious head behind the Black Organization, who is respectfully called Ano Kata (あの方 ,That Person) by his subordinates, and the primary antagonist in the entire manga and anime franchise Detective Conan.

His name has been a long-kept secret for most of the series, but on December 13, 2017, Gosho Aoyama finally revealed his identity. Before this revelation, only Minami Takayama, the director and the producer of the anime staff in The Darkest Nightmare knew who was the boss.

Background
Renya Karasuma was born toward the end of the Edo period. He was a wealthy and influential multi-millionaire who is the most powerful person in Japan, with a lot of famous, powerful, and political contacts in the world. He is richer than the Suzuki plutocrats and Ooka family. He is said to have died over 100 years old sometime between forty and twenty years prior to the current timeline, during the Showa period, under quite mysterious circumstances and with his legacy unknown. During his lifetime, he had collected over three hundred pieces of antique priceless art. When his mother died, he inherited the Sunset Manor, a huge western-style manor house, from her and over time filled his vacation home, that personified his nest, with his silver crest which depicts a rolled-up crow.

Forty years ago, he found a clue leading to a vast fortune left by his mother and supposedly hidden in that manor house, but he was unable to solve it himself. Consumed by his own greed for the treasure, he hired people to solve the riddle for him, such as the archaeologist Kyosuke Senma, and then began killing them as motivation for the others to work faster. After his supposed death, the Karasuma family had died out, and the house had fallen into other hands. Hardly anything has been touched since the incident and those murders were the cause behind the numerous old bloodstains found all over the house.

He founded the shady Karasuma Group, a big company in Shinjuku that pay well as a sponsor but there are a lot of bad rumors going around about them. He directs illegal activities and plans crimes to protect and advance the interests of those Conan calls the "Black Organization". While mysteriously operating behind the scenes, he communicates with his subordinates only through text messages. His phone number, encoded as the famous children's song Nanatsu no Ko, is #969#6261. He is responsible for promoting agents deemed worthy and deciding on their alcoholic codenames, but he doesn't have one of his own because he is no ordinary member.

Personality
Though not much is known about his personality, Renya Karasuma is described by the famous detective Furuyo Senma, who hasn't ever met him, as a greedy, corrupt, cruel, and impatient man. He appears to be materialistic as he was driven by his own greed while searching for the hidden treasure inside the Sunset Manor. Furthermore, he seems not to value human life, as he brutally killed numerous people that he invited just as motivation to find the treasure faster. He had become all-consuming for power.

Intelligent and manipulative, he is ruthless, willing to dispatch senior agents who have been extremely loyal to him for many years for a single mistake. Vermouth says that he is always careful to the extreme, the type to ruin the plan by overthinking it. Somehow, he can maintain loyalty and unity within the organization, despite many members disliking or even outright wishing to murder certain others. The FBI believed he was hoping to nip a potential obstacle in the bud because Yasuteru Domon, who is a politician hard on crime and not part of the Diet yet, may have a chance of becoming the next Prime Minister. He thought Shuichi Akai could become a Silver Bullet, someone who is especially dangerous to the entire organization. Unless he brought Conan back alive, Irish thought his true identity is something the boss would find hard to believe.

Appearance
Renya Karasuma is a crow-like man who has only appeared as an ominous shape: the hair extended to the neck, a large nose shaped like a beak, and a somewhat obese body shape. He dressed in black with a white scarf, held a walking stick with a ball handle on his right hand with long nails like a bird's leg, and on his left shoulder there is a pet crow, the creepy bird which is also depicted on his crest. He is right-handed.

Kaitou Kid and the Murder (Manga: 299-302, Anime: 219)
The world's greatest detectives Kogoro Mouri, Saguru Hakuba, Furuyo Senma, Shukuzen Ogami, Harufumi Mogi, and Ikumi Soda were invited to an old mansion covered in blood in the isolated mountains of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, six miles from a lonely gas station. Saguru had long heard of the blood-chilling tragedy only in frightened whispers, but were lies about an out-of-control auction caused by two robbers with marijuana. The host told them that this huge mansion belonged to Renya Karasuma and that there is a treasure hidden inside. That name seems to trigger the guests attention, since he had tremendous influence throughout Japan.

Conan came along with Ran and solved the riddle: using the hands of the only clock in the dining room, which is the switch, as the combination for a lock, a layer peels off the entire outer walls of the black building, revealing solid gold underneath. Only Karasuma could do something on such a scale, and it must be worth a hundred billion yen. Sunset being when the sky shines gold as the sun goes down, it is literally a "Golden Manor".

Kaitou Kid had come for Karasuma's treasure disguised as Kogoro, but it was too big for him to carry away. Ogami, who was in serious trouble since he had put himself into massive debt to buy the house two years ago and wanted to kill the maid Aki Ishihara and all the others blaming Kaitou Kid once the treasure was found for him, and Senma, who killed him and almost created another same tragedy to decipher that riddle her father left for her before turned herself in to the Tokyo police, were possessed by Renya Karasuma all along.

Stradivarius Murder Case (Manga: 470, Anime: 385)
Conan visualizes the boss as a big black figure behind Gin, Vodka, and Vermouth, with an evil aura in the anime version to distinguish him from all the other minor criminals.

Suspicious Cellphone Case (Manga: 479, Anime: 398)
Conan visualizes the boss as a black figure behind Gin, Vodka, and naked Vermouth in the anime version. It'd be a bad idea to send a message to that address, but Conan is calm, sure that he'll get his chance one day and he'll contact the boss.

Missing Maria Higashio Case (Manga: 1008, Anime: 942)
Yusaku Kudo and Subaru Okiya have reached the conclusion that "ASACA" and "RUM", the dying message left at the scene of Kohji Haneda's murder, is actually one single name: "CARASUMA". When Yusaku reveals it to his son and Professor Agasa, Conan visualizes Renya Karasuma as a shape before Gin, Vodka, naked Vermouth, Chianti, and Korn, his crest and the pet crow on his left shoulder. That's why Shinichi's parents decided to stay in Japan and think of a plan, just what Conan wanted.

TV Drama Filming Site Murder Case (Manga: 1025, Anime: TBD)
When Haibara reminds the drug her parents were forced to create by the Black Organization, which shrunk Shinichi and Haibara's bodies, she visualizes Renya Karasuma as a shape behind her parents, the pet crow on his left shoulder, and that drug.

Trapped at Hatoyama Farm (Manga: 1051, Anime: TBD)
When Rumi Wakasa, talking with Sumiko Kobayashi about someone named "Karasuda" as a crow, imagines that person all black and sly, a conspirator who's hard to get close to, Conan visualizes Renya Karasuma as a shape and the pet crow on his left shoulder, suspecting that she is a candidate for being the organization's second-in-command, Rum.

The Black Organization...Revealed (Special Manga: 294, Anime: TBD)
When she reveals Conan the organization's plan to use Generic's drug to manipulate one's memories to have complete control of the world, Haibara visualizes the boss as a black figure clutching a globe.

A criminal wasn't made in a day (Hanzawa the Criminal: 20, Anime: TBD)
Hanzawa-san visualizes Renya Karasuma as a shape, his crest and the pet crow on his left shoulder.

Appellations
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 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Furuyo Senma.jpg
 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Furuyo Senma
 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Karasuma Renya Karasuma Renya
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 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Ikumi Soda.jpg
 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Ikumi Soda
 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Karasuma
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 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Kyosuke Senma.jpg
 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Kyosuke Senma
 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Karasuma
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 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Kyosuke Senma.jpg
 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Kyosuke Senma
 * style="text-align: center; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0.2em;"|Karasuma
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Rum
Rum is the second-in-command in the organization, meaning that Karasuma must trust him the most.

Gin
He trusts Gin enough to make him an executive agent and the third-in-command in the organization, and for good reason: Gin is among the most loyal of the high-ranking members. Gin follows the boss' orders closely and virtually never acts against the organization's greater interests, and in return the boss entrusts Gin to direct critical missions and key assassinations. The boss often issues orders to Gin directly by text message for him to disseminate to the others, and the two are implied to contact each other fairly often about instructions and suspicions. Although Gin follows all orders from the boss, he acts on his own initiative on more than one occasion, as deciding to poison Shinichi Kudo with the recently approved APTX 4869 or to kill Vermouth if she does anything weird even if she is his favorite. For this reason, the FBI thought Gin would be able to lead them to the boss if they captured him.

Vodka
Vodka fears consequence to act without the boss' permission, but Gin takes full responsibility for his partner in the general oversight division.

Vermouth
Vermouth is known as Karasuma's favorite member by the other members although the reason for the favoritism is unknown, to the point of giving her limited independence and protecting her from other members who hate, mistrust, and wish to kill her. Bourbon reveals that there is some sort of connection between Vermouth and the boss, implying that her relationship with the boss goes further than merely being his favorite member. Bourbon also notes that he has arranged for her secret to be revealed to the whole organization in case something happens to him, and points out that the other members would be quite surprised if they knew the nature of the relationship. However, even then, he still willingly sends her into deadly missions. He has also unintentionally allowed Vermouth to undermine the organization by protecting someone she thinks is especially dangerous: Conan Edogawa. During a Halloween party, he discovered that Vermouth was up to something without the organization's knowledge, so he ordered Gin and Vodka to investigate. Aboard the ship, a man that Vermouth blackmailed to murder a director began screaming someone called Vermouth was to blame. Later on, he sends a text message to Vermouth's cellphone: "It looks like I have given you too much freedom. Come back to my side, Vermouth." Conan tried to force Vermouth to surrender and take him to find the boss, but failed. Jodie Starling hopes to capture Vermouth, who could lead the FBI to the elusive boss.

Chianti
Chianti fears him even more than she proves to fear Gin and must work with Vermouth due to direct orders from the boss. In order to avenge Calvados' death, she would've killed Vermouth a long time ago, if she wasn't his favorite, but swears she'll definitely kill her in the end. She proves to be envious for what Kir has used to make him let her join their group four years ago.

Kir
He promoted Kir because she had uncovered a spy and confronted him. The spy, Ethan Hondou, overpowered and tortured her for information, but Rena Mizunashi remained silent. Although completely crippled, Rena bit Ethan's wrist to force him to drop his gun, and then killed him. The bite marks and Ethan's recording device corroborated her story, so he promoted her to the codename Kir in recognition of her loyalty and sheer savagery. In truth, he was fooled. Ethan Hondou was Kir's father and they both are CIA spies infiltrating the organization. Rena had made a mistake and was about to be uncovered as a spy. Ethan, who had prepared appropriately ahead of time in case this happened, told Rena to tell the organization she discovered he was a spy and tried to confront him. Ethan then committed suicide after maiming himself and his daughter to prove that the story was true. He orders Kir to assassinate the politician Yasuteru Domon while holding an interview. However, his assassinate plot was averted by the combined efforts of the FBI and Conan. The injured Kir was then captured by the FBI and was hospitalized in Haido Central Hospital for weeks. After the organization easily retrieved Kir from the FBI, Gin became suspicious of how ineffective the FBI's plan was and that Shuichi Akai did not make a strong move. Gin thought that Shuichi is hiding something and relays his doubt to him, who also agrees. He and Gin plan a test of Kir's loyalty. Meanwhile, Andre Camel becomes a suspect in a coincidental murder case. The organization hears about it, and taking advantage of the FBI's distraction, Gin calls out Kir and tells her his order. In order to regain his trust, she is to call Akai out to meet with her and kill him. Kir meets with Akai at Raiha Pass and apparently kills him. However, he was fooled again. Conan, Akai, and Kir conspired to fake that death.

Bourbon
He dispatches Bourbon to search for the escaped scientist Sherry. However, Bourbon received his permission to execute a second, secret mission: verified Shuichi Akai's death by disguising himself as Akai and approaching his FBI colleagues. In truth, with the indirect support of the National Police Agency, Rei has been persevering to turn in Shuichi to the organization to earn higher ranks to get closer to the boss.

Sherry
He orders the execution of Shiho Miyano after she boycotted the development of APTX 4869 and rebelled against the organization. However, before she could be executed, Sherry manages to escape. Naturally, he ordered the organization to hunt the traitor down and murder her, and to get rid of anyone associated with her. Conan later uncovers his phone number, but Ai Haibara warns him of the danger of calling it, likening it to Pandora's Box for his safety. Of course she knows all this from the start, the email address and the person behind it, but this important secret is extremely dangerous, so Haibara has been hiding his true identity because she fears Conan will make a rash move and get himself killed.

Miyano family
Twenty-five years ago, he wanted to buy the pharmaceutical company where Atsushi Miyano worked as part of a drug development team, but it went badly and that company was suddenly shut down. During the time Atsushi and his wife Elena were running their private clinic, they received invitations from him many times, but Atsushi had always refused his offer. However, nineteen years ago they went to his group's lab after all, so he sponsored their research to make APTX 4869. A plan was intended to create an acceptable reason to eliminate their eldest daughter Akemi, but backfired badly when her ability was underestimated. As a consequence, their second daughter Shiho, the lead researcher for that project, ultimately defected and escaped.

Pisco
Pisco is a big auto manufacturer chairman who had served him for many years. Gin relayed his orders to Pisco: silence Shigehiko Nomiguchi, a politician who was going to be arrested for bribery, and use APTX 4869 if it was necessary. This revealed his existence to Conan. Pisco successfully assassinated the target, but he was accidentally caught on camera in the act of murder, showing him holding his gun in the newspaper. Fearing that Pisco may expose the existence and goals of the organization to the public, he ordered Gin to kill Pisco and burn his house to the ground, which the former does even though Pisco knew where Sherry was.

Rikumichi Kusuda
For assurance, he sends Rikumichi Kusuda to Haido Central Hospital to act as a patient while searching for Kir, who is currently held captive by the FBI. Kusuda continues to write to his e-mail address every day, until he was cornered by Shuichi Akai and killed himself.

Irish
He orders Irish to infiltrate the police and retrieve a memory card with the personal information of all their agents that have infiltrated various organizations, before the police catch the serial killer and discover what the card holds. The killer Kazuki Honjou took the card from the black agent Masaaki Okakura, who murdered before them, without knowing what is on it. When he discovers Conan's true identity, Irish plans to capture and bring the boy before him to discredit Gin, who killed Pisco, whom Irish respected like a father. Irish believes that he would definitely demote or have Gin killed for carelessly leaving Shinichi alive. However, because his cover was blown, Irish was killed by Chianti under Gin's orders before Conan can force him to reveal the boss' true identity.

Generic
He soon gives Generic orders to leave Sherry in her experiments and start on his own experiment of a drug to control memory. He is trying to use that drug to control the memories of all the important people around the world, such as to let the president of US think that he is one of the organization's members, in order to bring the whole world under his power. However, Generic also runs away from the organization.

Shinichi Kudo/Conan Edogawa
Shinichi Kudo, the high school student and world's greatest detective, currently shrank into a little kid, Conan Edogawa, due to Gin and is the arch-enemy of Karasuma's organization. As responsible for shrinking his body with their pill, Conan is determined to take action against their mastermind and cause the destruction of the "Black Organization", as he calls it, all for the sake of returning to his original form. He is indirectly responsible for Shinichi's current situation, but he has no idea someone like Conan exists. An extremely dangerous man, far worse than everyone else in the organization, he is a diabolical presence that chilled the boy to the bone. Every time he sees someone on a cell phone, Conan gets flashbacks to Vermouth, from whom he got a vital clue, the email address that could lead him to the name and whereabouts of the boss, and suddenly he looks pale and frightened. From now on, until this comes to a close, anyone associated with Conan is in a do-or-die situation.

Shuichi Akai
Capturing a high-ranking member of the organization who could lead the FBI to the boss was the goal of Shuichi Akai's spy mission. After three years of infiltration, he gave the undercover FBI agent the codename "Rye" and ordered him to work under Gin. The FBI's plan to capture Gin fell apart when Akai's true allegiance was uncovered due to a mistake made by Andre Camel. In the two years since the mission failure, he came to believe Akai could become the organization's silver bullet, the threat whom he fears the most, and is more like Vermouth than Gin.

Speculation
The fact that his supposed 'death' should have occurred almost fifty years ago could fit with Haibara's thought that Shinichi had gotten involved in a project that the organization had worked on for half a century, and that there could be some unbelievable people, that are not supposed to be a part of this world.

It is clear that to be still alive, he must have been rejuvenated and be another person who has already appeared somewhere in the story, just like Shinichi/Conan.

Name origin
"Karasuma" literally means "crow circle", as his crest. It is a very unusual surname that can also be translated "Karasumaru", then modeled after the noble Karasumaru family.

"Renya" is a name also used for women, written with the kanji for "lotus" and "father".

Character inspiration
Gosho Aoyama was inspired by the fictional character Professor James Moriarty, the main antagonist in the Sherlock Holmes' series, to create the Black Organization's head. Just like the "Napoleon of Crime", he doesn't show his face and works as a shadow behind the scenes, only pulling the strings on the crimes from far away, sort of like Al Capone did. He is depicted as a cold-blooded person who controls underworld and doesn't leave a single scrap of evidence, remaining anonymous to the public, and the shape similar to Moriarty's in the novels.

Trivia

 * The anime version's huge painting in his manor's dining room is a replica of Lucas de Heere's The Queen of Sheba visits King Solomon, but with an inverted orientation. Just like the story of Solomon, the wisest but later corrupt king in the Old Testament, since sunset also indicates an idea of "glorious sun that goes out" as the wrath of heaven, he was the richest and most powerful man in all of modern Japan, but eventually became like Dracula for his own personal profit.
 * Due to his obese and aristocratic appearance, as well as his bird-like face, he bears a resemblance with the Penguin, the famous Batman villain, one of the author's favorite US comics.
 * His central role as the hero's archnemesis is just like the alien boss of the evil organization Jocker in the children's show Kamen Yaiba.