The Japanese anime "Detective Conan 2009: The Raven Chaser", the 13th movie of the Conan manga series, will show in Chinese cinemas during the 2010 new year season, its domestic publisher has confirmed.

Big news for China's many Detective Conan fans, the announcement marks China's first theatrical screening of the series, which debuted in 1997 and has run for 13 years.

Detective Conan, a serialized manga started in 1994 and written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama, follows the adventures of Kudo Shinichi, a 17-year-old detective who has to solve a series of crimes after being transformed into a child while investigating an illegal trade.

The Detective Conan TV episodes helped fuel its popularity in other parts of Asia, as the comic series has been aired outside of Japan for almost a decade.

Since 1997, each of the 13 feature films based on the comic sensation has been released in April. The latest one earned over 3.4 billion yen in Japan, the highest-grossing film of the series.

One Chinese-dubbed version of the 2009 Conan film will be screened alongside the original Japanese one during its run in China's theaters.

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