Detective Conan Teases Next Movie in New Halloween Illustration

The Onizuka Class from the Metropolitan Police Academy is ready for Halloween in a new image that also teases the next Detective Conan (Case Closed) film.

The new art was uploaded to the series' official Twitter and features various characters from the franchise decked out in classic Halloween costumes, such as a mummy, werewolf, vampire and devil. With this being the first promotional image for the new movie, very little is known about the project at this time beyond an expected release date of sometime in 2022.

The Detective Conan (also known as Case Closed) manga by Gosho Aoyama was first published in January 1994 in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday. The series remains immensely popular with 250 million copies in circulation. The manga recently published its landmark 100th volume in Japan on Oct. 18. Aoyama's manga serves as the foundation for one of Japanese pop culture's most influential and prominent franchises, inspiring a wealth of anime series, films, crossovers, video games and live-action dramas.

The story follows Shinichi Kudo (also known as Jimmy in some localizations,)  an ace detective who solves countless crimes until he is kidnapped by a criminal syndicate and forced to ingest a mysterious poison. Instead of killing him, the substance transforms de-ages his body, transforming him into a literal child. Kudo then adopts the identity of Conan Edogawa -- his first name being a reference to the middle name of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- and despite everyone now assuming he's just a regular kid, continues to help the authorities solve mysteries and stop the plans of the nefarious crime syndicate, the Black Organization.

The new movie will be the first film since the premiere of Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet, which was released earlier this year on April 16. The Scarlet Bullet is one of the second highest grossing film in Japan for the year, ranking just behind Evangelion 3.0 + 1.01: Thrice Upon A Time, the highly anticipated finale to Hideaki Anno's popular sci-fi franchise, and ahead of Belle, the latest work from Mamoru Hosoda, the Academy Award nominated director of Mirai and The Boy and The Beast. The movie was directed by Tomoka Nagaoka, who also directed the previous movie in the series, The Fist of the Blue Sapphire, and has also worked on a number of other anime series, including Nodame Cantabile and Gintama.

The Detective Conan anime series is available to stream on Crunchyroll. The manga is localized and distributed in North America by VIZ Media.

Source: Twitter, via Crunchyroll