Lupin the Third vs. Detective Conan: The Movie 2013

In a dazzling Tokyo caper, Kaito Kid steals a fabulous diamond, but his methods signal a break from his usual playbook. Conan Edogawa hot on the trail seems close to catching him, yet a shadowy swordsman disrupts the pursuit by slicing Conan’s skateboard in half. Only after this sudden clash does Conan piece together a larger truth: the real architect of the evening’s chaos is Lupin the Third, a thief who is not acting freely but is coerced. Lupin’s predicament is tied to his beloved Fujiko Mine, who has been taken hostage with a dangerous collar around her neck that will detonate if Lupin fails to cooperate. The staged diamond heist, which Lupin quickly abandons, was never about the gem itself; it was a test of his abilities, aimed at something far more valuable: a legendary gemstone called the Cherry Sapphire, pursued by a shadowy employer who calls himself Alan Smithee.

As the puzzle widens, the police step in. The Tokyo Police, led by Inspector Megure, turn to Lupin’s would-be nemesis Koichi Zenigata for insight, enlisting the help of Lupin’s allies, including the capable Miwako Sato and the quick-thinking Wataru Takagi. Despite Zenigata’s precautions, Lupin—who has shown himself capable of outsmarting even the sharpest pursuers—disguises himself as Takagi and engineers a bold theft of the gemstone, slipping away with it as the night air hums around Tokyo’s skyline.

Meanwhile, a new player arrives in town: Italian pop sensation Emilio Baretti, whose arrival in Japan is meant to be simple publicity. But Conan notices something hidden in Baretti’s entourage—Daisuke Jigen, the famed marksman, among the group. In parallel, Ran Mouri’s friend Sonoko Suzuki arranges a pre-concert meeting with Baretti in his hotel, only to stumble upon Megure, his team, and Baretti’s manager, Claudia Belucci, along with his producer, Luciano Carnevale. A threatening letter has already warned Baretti to cancel the concert, yet Carnevale pushes ahead, insisting the show go on. Baretti’s perilous world becomes clearer when it’s revealed that Carnevale, affiliated with the Italian Mafia, uses the event as a cover for illicit dealings. As tensions rise, the concert becomes a backdrop for a much larger scheme.

The plot thickens as Conan and Lupin’s paths converge again during a clandestine tour of the Tokyo Skytree. Baretti, once more under pressure, pushes to end the arrangement, believing the danger stems from a plan to sabotage the show. A windstorm pushes them into peril, but Conan, Jigen, and Sonoko intervene just in time to save Baretti. The musician finally concedes that Carnevale orchestrated the threat to force the Japan tour into a high-stakes deal, and that the real objective is not the diamond but a powerful ore. The middleman behind the operation and the true owner of the Cherry Sapphire are revealed to be Daisuke Jigen and Goemon Ishikawa XIII—Lupin’s partners in the larger hunt. Lupin has been hired by the Vespanian government to retrieve a rare ore that makes stealth technology possible, a discovery that could shift the balance of power in a tense international landscape. The enigmatic Alan Smithee aims to use the ore to offset a neighboring nation’s military strength, a scheme that even Queen Sakura and her daughter Mira would not endorse.

As the chase ramps up, Smithee is caught in the crossfire of loyalties and betrayals. He attempts to flee with Conan as a hostage, but Lupin—together with Conan—races to thwart him. Carnevale, trying to escape, fires a minigun at the heroes and damages the flight controls, prompting a perilous sequence of decompression and a desperate struggle for survival. In the end, Lupin reveals that the Cherry Sapphire is crafted in part from Vespanian ore, a crucial detail that allows Conan and Lupin to turn the tables on the attackers. They bail out from the malfunctioning plane with parachutes and are rescued by a submarine crew, with Fujiko Mine and Ai Haibara lending their aid from the sidelines. A post-credits moment shows Baretti safely departing Japan, while Lupin encounters a familiar rival—Kaito Kid—who beats him to another Kansai temple treasure as payback for Lupin dressing as him, keeping the cycle of rivalry alive.

Throughout the film, the threads of deception, loyalty, and risk intertwine, painting a portrait of two legendary factions—Lupin’s roguish ingenuity and Conan’s relentless problem-solving—each chasing a prize that is not just a gemstone but a key to a much larger power struggle. The story moves through crowded streets, high towers, and moving convoys, never losing its core: a tension between freedom and coercion, between personal loyalty and the larger political stage, and between the thrill of the heist and the danger that follows when lives are put at stake. The cast of characters—ranging from the quick-witted Conan Edogawa and the suave Lupin the Third to the calculating Fujiko Mine and the roguish Kaito Kid—weaves a complex, cinematic tapestry that keeps the stakes high and the surprises coming until the final moments.