Mai Kuraki Extends a 26-Year Run
Mai Kuraki has been attached to Detective Conan since 2000, and "Hallelujah" pushes her tally of songs for the series to 29. Guinness World Records already certified her in July 2017 for the most theme songs by a single artist for one animated series, with 21 at the time. The 2026 special adds another eight on top of that certified figure.
In her statement, carried in full by Japanese anime news site Anime Anime, Kuraki said she wrote the song specifically for the two-hour format, packing in her affection and gratitude for the series. She described the message as accepting yourself as you are, opening your heart rather than sinking into isolation, and turning the world you see into a "hallelujah" together. She closed by saying she hopes the song, "a light born from love," reaches fans so that she can become part of Conan's world too.
A 16-Character Case About Counterfeit Money
The special is titled 名探偵コナン 30号殺人事件 (Detective Conan: 30-gō Satsujin Jiken, roughly "The No. 30 Murder Case"). It's the franchise's first two-hour TV special in ten years, and it's one of the anniversary tentpoles after a summer of crossover episodes with Pretty Cure in June, the J.League soccer league in July, and the Birdman Rally in August.
The setup: Japan has just issued a new 10,000-yen bill featuring the fictional Tōto Tower. Conan, the Detective Boys, Dr. Agasa, Ran, and Sonoko are on a tour of the national banknote printing bureau's Nagano plant when, back at Tokyo police headquarters, document examiner Toko Satomi declares a new bill recovered from a murder scene a fake. It's the 30th counterfeit ever detected in Japan, so the case gets the nickname "No. 30" and the bill itself is dubbed "Ultra 30." Conan and Osaka detective Heiji Hattori head for a printing plant in Osaka where the fakes may have been made, while police fan out to plants on the Shizuoka/Kanagawa and Nagano/Gunma prefectural borders.
That structure is how the show justifies the "largest all-star cast in Conan history" pitch. The new main visual gathers 16 characters, and the cast list reads like a roll call of the series' police: Minami Takayama as Conan, Rikiya Koyama as Kogoro Mori, Chafurin as Inspector Megure, Wataru Takagi and Atsuko Yuya as Takagi and Sato, Ryō Horikawa as Heiji, plus the Nagano, Shizuoka, Kanagawa, and Gunma prefectural police contingents. Akio Ōtsuka pulls double duty as both Yokomizo brothers. Takeshi Kusao voices Toru Amuro, the role he took over from Toru Furuya in early 2025, and Shūichi Ikeda returns as Shuichi Akai.
Actress and model Elaiza Ikeda is the special guest. The source credits her only as a guest, but the Detective Conan Wiki lists her as Toko Satomi, the document examiner whose call sets the whole case in motion.
The production team is the TV series' regular crew at TMS Entertainment. Nobuharu Kamanaka directs, Takeharu Sakurai (screenwriter of the films Zero the Enforcer and Black Iron Submarine) handles the script, Katsuo Ohno composes, and Masatomo Sudo is on character design. The "all hands" PV is up now on the official Detective Conan YouTube channel.
Heiji's Confession Gets an Osaka Skyscraper
The day after the special, the regular Saturday 6pm slot switches to a three-part adaptation of "Akaneiro no Senshūraku" (茜色の千秋楽, roughly "Crimson Closing Night") from volume 106 of the manga. The three parts, subtitled Opening Night, Second-to-Last Show, and Final Show, air September 26, October 3, and October 10, 2026.
The story sends Conan and company to Osaka's Naniwa Art Theater to see a stage play modeled on Kogoro and Heiji. During a backstage visit, Heiji hears that the sunset from the observation floor of Naniwa Harukas is a prime spot for love confessions, and he resolves to finally tell Kazuha Toyama how he feels. Meanwhile, ever since the death of a stage director nicknamed the "puppet devil," people connected to the play have been hit by one misfortune after another. Then a string of murders begins, as if following the curse.
The key visual for the arc flips Naniwa Harukas upside-down, as if the tower were falling out of the sky, with Heiji turning his cap forward and Kazuha looking back at him in the foreground. Naniwa Harukas is the show's version of Abeno Harukas, the Osaka skyscraper, and the building is playing along: its Harukas 300 observation deck runs a "Naniwa Harukas debut" campaign from September 18 through November 29, 2026, built around a tour of the building, with experiences tied to its role as the anime's setting.
Horikawa and Yūko Miyamura, who voices Kazuha, will also appear together on stage at Kyomafu, the Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair, on September 19 from 12:20 to 1:00pm. The panel streams live on the official YouTube channel, and the anime's official X account is taking fan questions for the pair through September 13.
Looking Ahead
The special airs Friday, September 25, 2026 at 9pm on Friday Roadshow, Nippon TV's weekly movie block, across the Yomiuri TV and Nippon TV network. Kuraki's "Hallelujah" is credited to NORTHERN MUSIC. The source doesn't say whether the two-hour special will stream outside Japan.
For the weekly series, Crunchyroll has simulcast Detective Conan (listed there as Case Closed) since 2014, and Crunchyroll and Netflix have been rolling out curated episode collections for the 30th anniversary, so the "Akaneiro no Senshūraku" episodes are the ones most likely to reach international viewers on schedule. On the manga side, Viz Media publishes the series in English as Case Closed and reached volume 98 in April 2026, which means the volume 106 storyline is still a few books away for English readers. Viz also announced a 3-in-1 edition in June 2026 that restores the Detective Conan title and the Japanese character names.