Pokémon: The First Movie (1998)

There are certain films that exist less as standalone works of cinema and more as cultural events, artefacts of a particular moment when a franchise reaches critical mass. Pokémon: The First Movie, released in Japan in 1998 and distributed internationally through Warner Bros. in 1999, is very much one of those films. By the time it arrived in Western cinemas, the Pokémon phenomenon had already swept through schoolyards, trading card collections and Game Boy cartridges with a ferocity that caught more than a few bewildered parents off guard. A feature film was, in many ways, the inevitable next step.

Directed by Kunihiko Yuyama, who had been at the helm of the Pokémon television series since its debut, the film was produced by OLM alongside Shogakukan Production and TV Tokyo, the same industrial infrastructure that had built the animated series into a genuine global sensation. The story centres on Mewtwo, a bio-engineered Pokémon who, resentful of the circumstances of its own creation, sets out to prove its dominance by luring a group of trainers, including the series' protagonist Ash, into a confrontation of enormous scale. It is, as premises go, polished but unremarkable on paper, though the franchise's embedded emotional logic gives it more weight than a bare synopsis would suggest. At 96 minutes, it runs a touch longer than you might expect for what is, at its core, an extended episode of the television series, and it wears that origin fairly openly. For those curious about Japanese animation from this era and how it translated to international audiences, it sits in an interesting bracket alongside other films from the country's output, including The Snow Woman (1968) and more recent entries like Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024), each representing a rather different register of what Japanese cinema can do.

The voice cast in the original Japanese version includes Rica Matsumoto as Ash, a performance with considerable energy and commitment, which is worth noting given that Matsumoto also appeared around the same period in Perfect Blue (1997), a film operating in an entirely different emotional register. Ikue Otani, Mayumi Izuka, Satomi Korogi and Yuji Ueda round out the principal cast, all of them veterans of the television series who bring a familiarity and ease to their roles that grounds the film even when its ambitions outstrip its means. The animation itself is bright and kinetic, very much of its era, built for speed and colour rather than the kind of considered visual craft you might find in, say, Josep (2020), though it was never trying to be that kind of film. It knew its audience, and it served them.

Holy nostalgia blast. I first saw this as a wide-eyed 9-year-old, and it felt like cinematic magic. Years later, I got to show it to my own 9-year-old daughter and somehow, it still held up… kind of. It’s goofy, a little cheesy, and the plot is basically just “gods fight,” but there’s something undeniably charming about it. The animation is bright and bold, the music hits hard when it needs to. And let’s be real, no matter how many times you watch it, you still tear up at the Ash statue scene. No shame. That moment is pure childhood trauma and heart in one shiny, crybaby package. Not a masterpiece, but a milestone. A must-watch for anyone who grew up with Pokémon… and maybe a rite of passage for the next generation too.

Watching it again now, I find myself thinking about what these films actually do, the ones that lodge themselves in a generation's memory not because they are particularly sophisticated, but because they arrive at exactly the right moment in a child's life. My daughter's reaction told me everything I needed to know about whether the film still has that power, and honestly, that counts for something. The craft might be workmanlike in places, and the storytelling is hardly without its rough edges, but there is a genuine emotional sincerity running through it that is hard to dismiss. Films like this don't need to be great to matter. Sometimes it's enough that they're yours.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1998  | Watched: 2025-07-18

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Pokémon: The First Movie (1998) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Rent: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More with Rica Matsumoto: Perfect Blue (1997)
More from Japan: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · Blue (1993) · The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)