Thirty Years of Saturday Nights, Now on One Ballot
Detective Conan has held the same Saturday 6:00 p.m. slot on the Yomiuri TV and Nippon TV national network since January 8, 1996, and the anime passed its 30th anniversary in January 2026. That run explains the number: 138 separate opening and ending sequences, all of them eligible.
The campaign is called "Minna de Erabu Meitantei Conan Best Hit OP / ED," roughly "Everyone Picks the Detective Conan Best Hit OP / ED," and it runs through a dedicated site operated by Yomiuri TV, the Osaka broadcaster behind both the anime and the music special. Fans pick their favorites, the votes become a ranking, and the results will be announced during the Best Hit Kayosai 2026 broadcast.
The anime is animated by TMS Entertainment (Lupin III, Detective Conan's entire 30-year run) and adapts Gosho Aoyama's manga, which is still running in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday. Earlier in the anniversary year, the official Detective Conan anime YouTube channel posted a full compilation of the series' past opening and ending videos, a useful reference for anyone working through a 138-entry ballot.
Mai Kuraki Occupies a Large Share of the Ballot
Any 138-item Detective Conan playlist runs into Mai Kuraki fast. In September 2026, Guinness World Records certified her for the most theme songs performed by the same artist for an anime series, with 30 songs across the TV anime and the films. The certification updated a record she already held, set in July 2017 at 21 songs, and it landed as her 30th theme debuted as the show's current ending sequence.
Her first was "Secret of My Heart" back in 2000, which puts her on this soundtrack for 26 of its 30 years. Whether that volume translates into votes is another matter: a fan ranking rewards the sequence people remember from childhood, not the longest résumé.
What Best Hit Kayosai Brings to It
Best Hit Kayosai is older than the anime by nearly three decades. The program started in 1968 as the All Japan Yusen Broadcasting Awards, named for Japan's wired music-broadcasting services, and it reaches its 58th edition in 2026, with many artists again scheduled to perform.
The broadcast date, performers and song list are all still unannounced, according to the October 3 report on the collaboration from Japanese anime news site Anime Anime. For now, voting is open and the reveal has no date attached.
Looking Ahead
No closing date for voting has been announced, and neither has the Best Hit Kayosai 2026 air date. Both are expected in a later announcement.
For international fans, most of the catalog this vote covers is still out of reach in English. Rather than licensing the full run, Crunchyroll and Netflix have been adding curated episode selections; the third of those, a 12-episode set built around the series' FBI characters, arrived in 2026 with a new English dub produced by Studio Nano. Those releases carry the Detective Conan title rather than the older English name Case Closed.
The manga side is considerably further along. Viz Media publishes it in English as Case Closed, and volume 100 is due on October 13, 2026. On the music end, Mai Kuraki's best-of album collecting all 30 of her Detective Conan themes is set for November 11, 2026, which covers a large chunk of the ballot in one release.