Let's start off with what I liked in this movie.

THE COAI SCENES.

This movie was the ultimate ship-bait for this couple. 2023 was their fucking year. The creators shipped CoAi hard this year. This was from making this movie, re-releasing the Bell Tree Express episode into a Haibara Ai-focused movie called "The Black Iron Train", the sale of official CoAi Uniqlo x ShonenJump shirts, and even an official ShinShi poster. It was like, CoAi suddenly had the spotlight - which was weird since canonically we know they aren't a couple.

There were several scenes that CoAi fans loved a lot. Two of them stood out to me:

The first was the scene where Conan gave Ai his glasses. It was a reference to the Haido Hotel case scene.

I think this was really one of the most iconic and romantic scenes in the series. Him placing glasses on her as a reassurance, and they even did a little Superman-Louis Lane kind of reference.

Granted, I still preferred the scene in the actual anime or the manga panel. They stayed in that scene longer. But it was definitely a callback to the older DetCo episodes.

Believe it or not, Uniqlo even made a shirt out of this scene. This was around in 2023 when Uniqlo would collaborate with Shonen Jump and when they sold Detective Conan shirts, one of the shirts were of this scene. Which I find really odd given that there was no sale of ShinRan shirts (I don't recall ever having one).

The Uniqlo shirt design can be found here. I actually even got this particular shirt. I just had to.

The second scene in the movie that everyone was talking about was the underwater CPR "kiss" scene.

But since the movie was going to have a submarine, I figured there would be a scene where they would be underwater.

The other movie I remember that had an underwater "CPR" kiss was in Movie 2, "The Fourteenth Target". It was between Ran and Conan. It was the scene where they were underwater and Conan was losing oxygen so Ran gave him a "kiss".

But I never thought they'd actually go through with this kind of scene with CoAi. While yes, she's trying to give him CPR because he is drowning, we all know what they were trying to do with this scene. She also attempted it not once, but three times. And their ascend to the top of the water's surface was very romantic. She also seemed unhappy when she thought she had to leave him, but Conan noticed her sadness and reassured her. There was also a flashback to him in that bus episode - "The Mysterious Passenger". That episode where Conan saved Haibara Ai from an exploding bus and told her "Do not run away from your fate". I think that was a great callback too.

I also squealed when Ai acknowledged that they kissed! It was like, OH WOW HAIBARA YOU KNEW. It sucked that Conan is still clueless ever, but that was a fangirl moment for me.

There was also more spotlight on Haibara Ai, of course. Given how she's popular, we got to know snippets of her childhood. I got emotional upon knowing that Ai stood up when Naomi was getting bullied, but that in turn she got bullied and became a social outcast. I think that it is very characteristic of Ai to be a social outcast, given that she appears cold and quiet at first. But my heart ached for her as well, because she was very kind towards Naomi and she suffered so much as Shiho Miyano.

I also liked that there was more spotlight on the agents, like Sena (Kir), Rei (Bourbon) and Akai.

The scene of Ran vs Pinga was great too. Now, I'm not a big fan of ShinRan, but I am fond of Ran as a person. I do think as a character she's a Mary Sue, but as a person, VERY ADMIRABLE. She's sweet, kind and the fight scene was quite intense. I also liked how in the second battle she lost, because I would like to see Pinga win a bit (because he has to have good fighting skills if he is in the criminal organisation, it would have been embarrassing if he lost to Ran).

Now onto the things I didn't really like:

The Detective Conan Movies with Black Organisation as a plot often felt the same. There was a threat, but nothing ever changed because the movies are not supposed to affect the canon manga plot. Hence, Gin and Vodka etc. will never know Shinichi and Shiho's identity as Conan and Ai. They will have their suspicions, but it will always have a roundabout way of them brushing it off. The highlighted characters in the movie like Curacao and Pinga are then killed off in the movie because they are not supposed to exist in the manga. That's why movies with the Black Organisation plot will always seem underwhelming, and they will not be as good as the actual manga plot arcs like Clash of the Red and Black arc.

Another plot hole I didn't like is that the plot or threat was kinda "eh". I was also baffled by how the Interpol's security system is so poor, they can get hacked in seconds and also get infiltrated in the Pacific Buoy so quickly. But you know, it's for the plot purposes, I guess.

The other scene that I really found unnecessary and that I predict that most people would also find it odd and out of place was the scene where Ai kissed Ran to "give back" the kiss Ai took from Conan. Like wtf was that. It's like the creators needed to reassure the audience that Ran was the main girl. It's like "ok guys, chill, we wanted CoAi to kiss, but end of the day we can't make them canon". We all know Ran is the main girl, but let us CoAi fans have this moment. It's like giving us a huge bait for us to bite, only to get it ruined by the last particular scene. There was also no built-up for Ai to feel guilty regarding the kiss. It was a very big surprise and there was no follow-up scene on why she did that, like "I really care for you but you love someone else and it will be selfish for me to do this" moment.

Ran was also understandably stunned that Ai (whom she would think is a 7-year-old child) would kiss her like that. It would have been a good moment for Shiho/Ran shippers, but it's not Shiho kissing Ran. I felt so bad for Ran in that moment because she seemed so confused and there was no explanation (if they could actually explain to her) and the scene was really out-of-place. Conan also didn't seem to question Ai about her odd actions on that part.

The last part I didn't like was that the end of it seemed abrupt. There was no scene where they were back in Tokyo and Conan/Ai having a last moment together. It sort of sucked that the last scene we saw was Ai kissing Ran, which ruined the momentum of CoAi. I was waiting for something in the end credits, but the end credits that rolled was the teaser for the next movie in 2024.