If Kaito was a detective...

[MaitreDétective]

Do you think he'd be better than Conan?

He has shown to have deductive reasonings on par with the best detectives in DC and he always wins against Conan/Hakuba. Also I have the feeling his knowledge of magic tricks would be useful...what do you think?

[Borealis]

Kaito would probably better. After all, he also knows the other side of the law

[mangaluva]

Kaito's very manipulative, but he's not necessarily very deductive. Any time he and Conan have been at the scene of a crime together, Kaito always puts the pieces together slower than Conan unless he has access to information that Conan doesn't.

I can see him using disguises to trick suspects, though XD

[Chibby]

I'm going to say no, actually. The reasoning is a little long, but bear with me.

The way I see it, Conan and Kaito approach the problem of a deduction from different sides. Conan looks at the aftermath and works backwards to piece together what had to have happened to end in that result. Kaito does it the other way: he thinks of a way to do it, then has to check to see if it lines up. If it doesn't, he'd think of a different way, with the evidence working as parameters for "available tools," "timing," and "location" -- and he's smart enough to be able to re-evaluate and think of different possibilities on the fly as new evidence/parameters come up. They'd get the same answer, but with different methods. This is mostly because Kaito works with tricks; his mind is more geared towards "how to" rather than "how did." Probably best explained with Kid's "artists and critics" comment to Conan: an "artist" can create something, while a "critic" can identify the techniques used to do it.

What I'm getting at is that Conan is a better detective in the sense of putting the truth together from clues; he's always right when he has all the information. But Kaito has a different way of thinking, and combined with a dose of psychology from his expertise with disguises, can reconstruct the thought-process of the culprit's original planning -- keeping with the artist metaphor, Kaito makes a copy/forgery. He probably gets a few wrong answers before getting the right one (not that we'd ever know, since Conan doesn't really compare notes with Kid the way he does with Heiji). On the other hand, sometimes it ends up being faster than Conan's deductions, especially in situations like the Seiran case where part of the trick was something Kaito was already familiar with.

Short Version: Conan breaks the case down, Kaito reconstructs it. So Conan is still the better detective, but that doesn't mean Kaito isn't plenty good at solving crimes anyway.

[Akonyl]

Nah. Kaito's said before that he doesn't think very highly of what detectives do, so if he was a detective I doubt he' care enough to be good at it

[Borealis]

Have you read the dark knight chapters? He is better than any detective there

[mangaluva]

That's not quite the same thing. Kaito was working on the same inside information as the criminal; yes, he caught the slipup, but only because he was doing the exact same thing that the criminal was doing, scoping out the crime scene in person.

[sonoci]

I'm going to say no, actually. The reasoning is a little long, but bear with me.

The way I see it, Conan and Kaito approach the problem of a deduction from different sides. Conan looks at the aftermath and works backwards to piece together what had to have happened to end in that result. Kaito does it the other way: he thinks of a way to do it, then has to check to see if it lines up. If it doesn't, he'd think of a different way, with the evidence working as parameters for "available tools," "timing," and "location" -- and he's smart enough to be able to re-evaluate and think of different possibilities on the fly as new evidence/parameters come up. They'd get the same answer, but with different methods. This is mostly because Kaito works with tricks; his mind is more geared towards "how to" rather than "how did." Probably best explained with Kid's "artists and critics" comment to Conan: an "artist" can create something, while a "critic" can identify the techniques used to do it.

What I'm getting at is that Conan is a better detective in the sense of putting the truth together from clues; he's always right when he has all the information. But Kaito has a different way of thinking, and combined with a dose of psychology from his expertise with disguises, can reconstruct the thought-process of the culprit's original planning -- keeping with the artist metaphor, Kaito makes a copy/forgery. He probably gets a few wrong answers before getting the right one (not that we'd ever know, since Conan doesn't really compare notes with Kid the way he does with Heiji). On the other hand, sometimes it ends up being faster than Conan's deductions, especially in situations like the Seiran case where part of the trick was something Kaito was already familiar with.

Short Version: Conan breaks the case down, Kaito reconstructs it. So Conan is still the better detective, but that doesn't mean Kaito isn't plenty good at solving crimes anyway.

This is quite possibly the awesomest response to the question. Well done ma'am.

[Suutashi]

Have you read the dark knight chapters? He is better than any detective there

Come to think of it, didn't Kid use deductive reasoning during the Red Tear storyline?

[Jecka]

Kaito(u) can be just as smart as Shinichi. But I would have to say No. Kaito could never be better than him. He and Shinichi are like brothers, but Kaitou is like the little brother that loves to play pranks and joke around. Meanwhile, Shinichi (even as Conan) is the somewhat protective, serious, older brother. Conan is serious and Kid is a little too, well, un-serious to be a better detective than Conan. 
Kaitou's not very good at solving crimes, but he's great at committing them

[Sato]

My answer is same as others as well.

[chongjasmine]

I think Conan is a better detective than Kaitou.
Kaitou will not be a better detective than Conan, just as Conan will not be a better thief than Kaitou.

[Jecka]

I was just watching movie 10 and I noticed

Spoiler:

that when Kaitou was disguised as Hakuba he, as Heiji put it, was "fishing". He wasn't even sure he had to guess to get his answer.

so once again, no.

[lyndsi]

You see, while I think Kaito wouldn't make a good detective. I think that if he would try he wouldn't be like Conan in his way of doing things. Conan's always right, which annoys me to no end, but I think that if Kaito would indeed become all detective-y (which will never happen cause he flat out said he doesn't like the idea) I think that he would make mistakes or make a wrong deduction on more than one way. He would probably go more the thief-like way to do it, use what HE knows to solve the mystery. Using disguises and the like....He has helped in this before (even if it was with Conan's help.) Just my two cents is all.