Pokemon: The First Movie Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Pokemon, The First Movie
Year: 1998
Director: Kunihiko Tajiri
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese/English

Pokemon began as a Nintendo Game Boy game and has since proliferated into spinoffs, clones, ancillary rights, books, videos, TV shows, toys, trading cards and a few movies. It is a media franchise owned by The Pokémon Company, and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1995. Essentially it is centered on fictional creatures called "Pokemon" which humans capture and train to fight each other for sport. It's quite a strange description for a franchise aimed at children. In the 90's this was all the rage; I remember battling my friends on the playground in elementary school and trading a few mediocre cards for a holographic Poliwhirl (an evolved tadpole that doesn't resemble a frog in anyway)
 
A scientist has found a way to genetically clone one of the Pokemon) named Mew. His invention is named Mewtwo. Mewtwo then clones other Pokemons on his own. e hero, Ash Ketchum ventures with his friends to the villain's island, where battles take place between lots of different kinds of Pokemon  and their clones.

A world centred around elaborate dog-fighting  and PETA hasn't...oh wait, PETA was absolutely furious and decided to create a game of their own called "Black and Blue". Nintendo sued the company and won. Despite fighting each other with various moves like Fire-Blast the Pokemon don't actually die, they faint, so it's more like a morbid adaptation  boxing or UFC I suppose. With a name like The First Movie it's quite obvious that there will be a sequel- and there was- it was called Pokemon 2000. It's a very contradictory picture as the anti-violent message works entirely against the point of the franchise.

The premise was intriguing for the time, but it lacked substance. Nintendo's target audience was children, and it's very easy to write the lack of a discenrable story due to the demographic, but there are plenty of examples of intelligent animation. Despite the critics, Pokémon: The First Movie was an instant commercial success, debuting at number one on the U.S. box office charts and becoming the highest grossing anime film in the United States. Being only 8 years old when this movie came out, I remember being ecstatic about it due to the hype and being overjoyed when seeing the film in theaters. It certainly doesn't hold up now, and may not have been enjoyable for anyone over a certain age limit back then.

In conclusion, though Nintendo still releases pokemon games every few years (most recently Pokemon X & Y for the 3DS)  it is now clear that the international sensation was a fad that has long passed by. Some movies are relics of their time, and this was one of them. Aside from inducing nostalgia, there is not much to get out of this franchise. 2/5