Score: A-

We knew this episode would be all about the collab with Detective Conan and that didn’t disappoint. The mystery was good, the Precure still got their fight of the week, and it was a nice breather for the series. There’s no doubt that things are going to get serious again very soon. So there’s no harm in having a bit of fun with a collab and letting fans of both franchises enjoy it. You won’t find me complaining about that.

They had fun here

In terms of collab episodes I think this was one of the most enjoyable for Precure. Maybe they really wanted to do justice to the Conan character considering how famous that franchise is. Not the kind of character you get involved in and do a weak job with the story or the mystery. Which is probably why this was one of the most polished in the show so far. They let Conan flex his intelligence while not making the Precure out to be complete fools. He is clearly a far superior detective, but Mikuru and Anna showed their capabilities. And considering how much experience they have that’s impressive enough.

Guy worked hard…and got beaten for it!

The most unbelievable thing in all this is Niji being able to pull off a crime this complicated! This guy’s antics start with disguising himself and just grabbing what he needs! If nothing else this is definitely going to be the most involved and complicated theft in the entire show! Which makes sense. If you are going to do a crossover with Conan then the crime needs to be complex enough to warrant that. Honestly the only crime that comes close in complexity would be Arcana Shadow’s caper at the same location as this episode! That one was reasonably thought out and clever. In that sense I’m kind of surprised they didn’t have Luluka be involved in this. She’s smart enough to manage this kind of trick. But maybe they didn’t want to potentially damage Luluka’s reputation as a genius detective by having her clash head on with Conan.

I get why they’d keep Luluka away from this

That does mean that we’ve had the first episode in…a while where Luluka hasn’t transformed into Arcana Shadow much less one where she didn’t appear at all! But that makes sense. They probably wanted to have the collab be flexible enough to appear anywhere. So the only villain that appears is Niji who’s been there since the first episode and is available to be used for an collab like this up until any point where he is no longer a threat. Sometimes Precure swaps out the main villains/minions but sometimes they linger.

It would’ve probably demanded more focus and time if Luluka was in this one. It’s a classic matchup. A genius detective up against a genius former detective that is currently a phantom thief. Admittedly Luluka is more believable when it comes to creating a crime like this, but we also don’t want to see her foiled in terms of a battle of wits. So it probably was for the best that she was conspicuously absent from this one. Still…it’s a personal hit for me since Luluka is the reason I really picked this season up. Plus I can’t realistically throw Luluka up as the episode’s focus picture when…she wasn’t in the episode!

She looks how Niji must feel after this one

I kid in saying that now having Arcana Shadow transform and Usonoir being absent really saved this episode quite a bit of time. But…that’s kind of true. They barely focused on the villains at all until Niji was revealed. That meant all the focus could go to the mystery (which started very early on) and on the characters. Whether one is a big fan of Conan or just of Precure that doesn’t take away from the spectacle. No complaints on the fight either. It had some light and silly elements, but was overall decent. And if nothing else I got a laugh due to Niji getting utterly beat up in this episode! He’ll be glad to go back to focusing on the Precure for the time being.

Until next time!

This was a solid episode and I had a good time. Some Precure Collabs can honestly be immediate skips for me. They can at times get a bit lazy with the collab guest star. But this is one case where that just works fine. Nothing wrong with having Conan get involved with the Precure while they are busy solving a mystery. It was a much more natural integration between Precure franchise and the collab series. Here’s hoping that the main story can start ramping back up again now that we’ve gotten this out of the way.