Name: Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway
Director: Takahiro Hasui
Genre: Animation, Action, Mystery, Crime
Released: 2026-06-12
Duration: 109 min
Cast: Minami Takayama, Wakana Yamazaki, Rikiya Koyama, Miyuki Sawashiro, Ryūsei Yokohama

A black motorcycle that answers to no rider is the engine of Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway, and almost everything the film does is built around the problem of catching it. The machine tears along the elevated expressways above Yokohama while the Kanagawa Prefectural Police roll out a new pursuit bike of their own, and the case the boy detective is handed is less a body to account for than a question of physics and intent: who, or what, is steering a vehicle that appears to steer itself.

That premise hands the franchise’s long-running procedural machinery to a road-chase thriller, and it puts a guest at the wheel. Chihaya Hagiwara, who leads the prefecture’s motorcycle division and has earned the nickname the wind goddess, is the closest thing the film has to a second lead, and the script keeps her competence and the runaway bike on a collision course from the opening reel. The mystery is genuine, but the picture is organised around motion first and deduction second, which is a different balance from the parlour-puzzle entries the series also makes.

The voice casting is where the film states its intentions. Miyuki Sawashiro takes the role of Hagiwara, stepping into a register the franchise lost with the death of Atsuko Tanaka, and the decision reads as both tribute and recalibration — Sawashiro plays authority with a cooler, more clipped edge than the warmth Tanaka brought to her detective-world work. Around her the production leans on stunt casting drawn from live-action screens: Ryūsei Yokohama and Mei Hata both make their voice-acting debuts here, as Kazuaki Omae and Minato Tateoki, the kind of crossover booking the series uses most springs to pull a general audience toward a genre title.

Behind the camera, in a manner of speaking, is Takahiro Hasui, taking sole directing credit on a Conan feature for the first time after handling the photography on the franchise’s submarine entry. A filmmaker trained on how images move rather than how a room is blocked is a logical fit for a picture whose set pieces are about speed, sightlines and the geometry of an interchange, and the marketing footage suggests the chase sequences are the reason this installment exists. The series rotates its directors, and each new arrival tilts the balance between the puzzle and the spectacle; Hasui’s tilts hard toward the road.

The harder craft problem sits with the screenplay. Takahiro Okura, a mystery novelist by trade, has to graft a single-film protagonist onto an ensemble that has been accumulating relationships across three decades, hand her a backstory an audience can absorb inside two hours, and still service the regulars who actually buy the tickets. It is a dramaturgical balancing act the franchise performs every spring, and it only works when the guest’s private stakes are legible without a primer. Whether Hagiwara registers as a character or as a delivery system for set pieces is the line the film walks.

What the picture does not promise is reinvention. Guest-led Conan films tend to park the franchise’s central conspiracy off to one side, and a one-installment character rarely outlives her closing credits, however cleanly drawn. A newcomer walking in cold — which is precisely the audience English-language distribution now invites — will have to take a great deal of accumulated history on trust, from the chemistry of the regulars to the rules of the world. A record-breaking opening proves appetite, not depth, and the two are easy to confuse when the queues are this long.

The credited principals keep the series’ core voices in place: Minami Takayama as Conan Edogawa, Wakana Yamazaki as Ran Mouri and Rikiya Koyama as Kogoro Mouri, with Yuko Sanpei, Michiko Neya, Yuya Uchida and Toshiki Masuda rounding out the guest roster. Yūgo Kanno scores the film, and MISIA performs the theme song, “Last Dance Anata to.” TMS Entertainment handles the animation, and the picture is rated suitable for all ages.

The commercial case is already settled. In its home market the film opened at number one, knocked the season’s Doraemon feature into second place, and set a new three-day opening record for the series; cumulative takings have since passed eleven billion yen on more than seven and a half million admissions, the fourth year running a Conan film has cleared the ten-billion-yen line. That is the context, and the expectation, that English-speaking audiences now inherit.

Trinity CineAsia opens Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway in cinemas across the United Kingdom and Ireland on 12 June, subtitled and in selected premium formats. It is already playing in Japan and has rolled out across parts of Asia, with Taiwan screenings set for 24 June and Hong Kong and Macau to follow on 9 July; a South Korean release is expected over the summer. The running time is 109 minutes.