Detective Conan: The Lost Ship in the Sky – Review

Kid has his eyes set on the “Lady of the Sky” jewel aboard Bell 3, the largest airship in the world. However, a mysterious terrorist group called Red Shamu-neko has hijacked the airship itself, along with Conan and his allies Kogoro and Ran. What are their purposes? What will happen between Conan and Kid?? Do you even care? You should! Detective Conan (known as ‘Case Closed’ in the United States) is one of the longest-running and most popular manga series on the shelves today, with over seventy volumes in print. This success has also been adapted into over 600 anime episodes, countless specials and over a dozen movies. You can imagine my excitement when a new movie was released and I had a chance to screen it. The film had a good balance of action and dialogue and it really did have me guessing until the end. In this film, Conan must work with everyone – including his arch-rival, Kid – in order to prevent the terrorists’ nefarious plans from coming to fruition.

After the encounter of Conan and the Black Organization in the 13th movie, Kaitou Kid takes the limelight as he again faces his greatest rival in the 14th movie of Detective Conan. Even worse is that this group has possession of a recently stolen bioweapon and appears to be planning to use it against the population of an entire city by releasing it in the sky as the dirigible passes by. Conan, Kaitou Kid, and Hattori must uncover enough of their nefarious plot before time runs out and find out if there is something far more sinister to their plot than just what they allowed the world to know about. Conan’s deductions come off as either incredibly premature or incredibly obvious, because the pacing of the film runs in fits and starts. There were some characters that I was unfamiliar with, but a deep, intimate understanding of all the characters is not necessary to enjoy the show. It also helps that the plot is fairly straightforward, even though it takes a bit of time to really get the ball rolling.

Probably the most crucial element of all is that even though there are some entertaining points, I’m afraid to say that just as I’ve outgrown my love for Hardy Boys novels, so it is that I’m just a bit too old to truly appreciate this simplistic mystery movie. You know straight from the get-go who the “bad” people are so there isn’t too much mystery but the extents that people go for their goal is always interesting. Given all that, I am familiar with the basic story and the premise, even though I’ve never really paid attention to the franchise. For those who have I can imagine that you will get a slight kick of of this film but not much more.

Detective Conan: The Lost Ship in the Sky is a rather bizarre and difficult series to give an accurate rating for Western audiences, especially since I am attributing my lack of interest in my general age range. Really, in the end, it’s no different from an animated version of Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew. I believe FUNimation knows that this caters to mystery genre fans and I don’t think they mind that. This is also the first film for Rikiya Koyama as the new voice of Mouri Kogoro, who was previously voiced by Akira Kamiya. Kamiya left the role September this year. It is always a welcomed aspect when a capable voice actors joins a project. A passable anime film in the end with too many twists and turns and not enough depth in its characters and story.