Lupin III vs. Detective Conan

Lupin III vs. Detective Conan (ルパン三世VS名探偵コナン Rupan Sansei VS Meitantei Konan?)  is a 2009 Lupin III TV Special and a crossover with Detective Conan. It is the 21st Lupin III TV Special and was a joint production between Nippon TV and Yomiuri Television. This special has the same name as the later movie Lupin III vs. Detective Conan.

Production details
Most of the music used in the special was regular background music from the Lupin III anime series, and the classic Lupin III Theme was used for the opening and ending themes. The Detective Conan Main Theme was also used in various scenes focusing on Conan.

Original character designs varied between the Monkey Punch and Gosho Aoyama styles.

Because Detective Conan is considered a family show by Japanese audiences, there was very little adult humor in the special, in contrast to most Lupin specials. Lupin III himself even points this out in a scene where he is trying to sleep with Fujiko and he breaks the fourth wall by "thanking the regular fanbase for being patient all this time". Also, in the last scene, Jigen and Goemon wonder aloud, "Is this an adult movie?"

Situation
During a hunt in her private hunting ground, Queen Sakura, sovereign of the European kingdom of Vespania, is suddenly killed. All indications suggest that she was accidentally shot by her son, Prince Gill, who immediately after the event commits suicide, overcome by guilt. After Prince Gill committed suicide, he was found by his uncle, Duke Gerard, who felt so sad saying that it was too late to stop it.

Therefore, the title of heir to the throne of Vespania passes by Gill to his sister, Princess Mira, a tough nineteen-year-old girl and a bit selfish, who coincidentally resembles Ran Mouri. The coronation ceremony, however, is threatened by a growing popular movement that believes Princess Mira is unfit to govern; therefore, taking into account the risk to Princess Mira's safety, Count Keith, the chief of commons, makes Daisuke Jigen, former trainer of the regular army, a personal guard of the princess.

Simultaneously, Lupin III reaches Vespania; his and Jigen's plan is to get their hands on the crown for the queens of the realm, revealing several nice memories for the king of thieves, but it seems clear now that Lupin is pursuing another purpose.

Furthermore, to increase the princess' popularity, it organized a trip to the state in Japan, and the festival is held at the Grand Hotel West City Tama. Kogoro, Sonoko, and Conan are also at the party. Whenever the announcer asks questions to Princess Mira, she isn't answering because of the tragedy of her mother and brother. Count Keith answers for her instead saying that it's Princess Mira's first time coming to Japan and she loves to eat sushi. Later, when Princess Mira is about to give a toast, Conan exposes the fake sommelier attempting to kill the princess by putting poison in her wine. The fake sommelier runs away but got caught by Kogoro. In the confusion that follows, since the princess wants nothing more than to escape from her condition, she manages to escape, but is noticed by Conan, who follows her trail.

In her escape, she meets Ran Mouri, returning from evening classes, and noting their resemblance the princess decides to trade places with her, so she can gain the thrill of freedom, although her initial thought is to lose all its tracks against Ran. Ran, dressed as the princess, goes back to the hotel and explains what happened, and Count Keith, to avoid leaks that would result in a diplomatic incident with Japan, "forces" Ran to continue to play the role of Mira.

The princess has now been collected by Fujiko, saying that she knows her identity and offers to take her around Japan with her as Mira's bodyguard. Conan tracks the princess and chases the pair aboard his skateboard, but Fujiko loses him and disappears. Meanwhile, the second objective is the light that led to Lupin Vespania: hidden beneath the kingdom is a mineral that thanks to its "complete stealth powers" may be totally invisible to radar. Using the dowsing rods Lupin has located the mineral.

Count Keith breaks his promise to return Ran after the press conference at the airport and brings her to Vespania. And to allow her daughter to follow, Inspector Megure assigns Kogoro as personal assistant to his ICPO friend, Inspector Zenigata, who is going to turn to Vespania to chase Lupin, which allows him to follow his daughter into Vespania. Conan, who had noticed that Count Keith was doing, manages to board the plane while clutching the basket, and is saved from hypothermia by Count Keith, who claims to be doing everything only for the princess.

The princess, Mira has since been reported to be back in Vespania through Fujiko who is spending time with her. Lupin learns how the princess's character transformed into a cynical and selfish one due derivatale anguish, her status as princess and grief due to the death of her mother and brother. It turns out that Fujiko was hired by Count Keith himself precisely to remove a little princess from court life to make her feel, at least for a while, the typical teenage experience. After meeting with Ran and Kogoro, Conan begins to investigate the murder of the queen, with the forced and involuntary help of Jigen. Lupin meanwhile, helped by Goemon, has entered the vault of the building, but finds out that crown has been stolen by Fujiko. However, he is forced to give up and flee the building as it has become completely surrounded by police after the alarm sounds.

Mira, after visiting the place where her brother and mother died, decided to assume her duties as the future queen, and agrees to return to the palace.

Resolution
Hide= Princess Mira is just in time for Conan to start his reasoning show, revealing to all, including her the truth about this alleged incident. Conan tries to put Kogoro to sleep with his usual tranquilizer needle, but fails to hit Kogoro (which is actually disguised Lupin), and hits Zenigata instead. Zenigata quickly wakes up after 30 seconds (Conan calls him a monster for doing so). Lupin, revealing his secret identity to Conan, helps resolve the case by pretending to be the true Sleeping Kogoro, and together they reveal the truth: The murderer of the queen and the crown prince is the work of the Vespanian duke, Gerard Musca Vespaland. Immediately afterwards, Gerard had also killed Gill to make it appear that the prince had killed himself out of remorse of accidentally shooting his mother.The decisive evidence for Gerard's guilt is the fact that Queen Sakura disapproved of killing innocent lives, and therefore had secretly converted the hunting cartridges into blanks, meaning that neither Gill nor Gerard could have used their rifles to kill even if they wanted to. In addition, the twig shot off the cherry tree indicated that Gill was not the culprit, as he would never hurt anything his mother cherished. Gerard's motive was that he could ascend the throne and get rich by selling the rare ore the queen had forbidden to sell and use, due to her pacifist nature and the potential of the ore to be used in war.
 * -|Show=

Thanks to Conan, Lupin and Lupin's hoodwinked stealth device, the culprit is apprehended, and Princess Mira becomes the new queen of Vespania. Ran and Kogoro are welcomed as saviors of the kingdom, and Zenigata yearns for yet another fight with Lupin. The final scene shows Conan be taken in a car by members of the Japanese embassy. The people in the car are actually Lupin and his gang, who have decided to help Conan return to Japan due to Conan lacking a passport (since Conan Edogawa was an alias he made up and he illegally entered the country).

Lupin explains that he returned to honor a promise he made to Queen Sakura; he had successfully stolen the royal crown years before, but after seeing that Sakura was infatuated with him, he returned the crown to her to remind her of her responsibility to her country and its people. Additionally, Lupin and his associates demonstrate surprising knowledge about Conan's true identity, calling him Shinichi Kudo, while Conan promises them that if one day they cross paths again, he will definitely arrest them all. Once loaded aboard a submarine provided by yet another of Fujiko's "good friends", Conan finds himself the unwanted object of intense "scrutiny" by Fujiko, who wants to closely examine the effects of the APTX 4869.

Trivia

 * In A Beauty, Lies, and Secrets, while Conan speaks in the car along with Misaki Takizawa, the music that plays in the background is quite similar to one of those from the anime series Lupin III, which even plays in the backgrounds from this TV special.