Review of Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You! (2017) by Charlie P — 29 Mar 2018

Ash Ketchum (Sarah Natochenny), a young boy of Pallet Town in the Kanto region, has finally grown old enough to start his Pokemon journey. However after oversleeping, the only Pokemon left for him is an unruly Pikachu. After saving Pikachu's life from a group of angry Spearow and retrieving a Rainbow Wing from the legendary Ho-Oh, Ash and Pikachu become friends and vow to someday find that legendary Pokemon...

For the 20th movie in one of the longest running anime shows in existance, rather than giving a feature length adventure to the base braking Sun and Moon series, The Pokemon Company instead take a " New 52" approach to the first season in the original series, with the main focus being, a what-if tale of Ash and Pikachu finally encountering Ho-Oh, who as any fan of the show will tell you, was the first ever Generation II Pokemon to ever appear in the franchise, way back in the first episode where it appeared at the end , flying over a rainbow which told viewers that had played the Generation I Games, that the world of Pokemon was much bigger than they thought.

Speaking of other generations, although the story takes place in Kanto, a lot of Pokemon from other generations such as Piplup, Lucario, the three legendary Johto beasts, Raikou, Entei and Suicune and even some Alola Pokemon such as Inciniroar and Midnight Lycanroc are heavily featured, which is a good thing that sets this film apart from the first season.

The animation, from the forest backgrounds, the lighting on the characters and the character animation is so beautiful to look at and admire, especially during battle scenes, that it's hard to believe that the same company that's responsible for the ugly cartoony look of Sun and Moon.

Although Sarah Natochenny does her best job yet as Ash, and his relationship with Pikachu is given greater depth especially during the third act, what people seem to have a major problem is the characters of Verity and Sorrel replacing fan-favourites, Brock and Misty.

Although these two characters share a lot of elements with Ash's past companions with Verity being a mish-mash between Misty's Water type focus, Dawn with her Piplup and Iris's sarcastic attitude and Sorrel being a mix between Clemont and N in terms of backgrounds, they both do have interesting backstories with the latter's containing some of the film's darkest moments. Although the show has dealt with Pokemon deaths before, this is the first time you actually see a dead Pokemon onscreen.

However this film does have it's fair share of problems. Team Rocket, in terms of this contunity is absolutely pointless and makes no sense as these are different versions who have never met Ash and Pikachu before, while the main antagonist Cross, like Trip from the Best Wishes series, is just another carbon copy of Paul from Diamond and Pearl only instead of abandoning Chimchar, it's a Charmander that gets abandoned. Although It's interesting to see the fan-favourite character Charizard undergo a slightly different arc than in the original series by remaining loyal to Ash and being a much more likeable character, Butterfree on the other hand, is solely there to re-enact Bye Bye Butterfree and although the character of Marshadow does manage to get across both it's cute and creepy elements, it's solely there as a last-minute boss battle in the story.

Overall, Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You is the best Pokemon film in eight years. Paying tribute to elements from all of the arcs especially during the tear-jerking end credits, the beautiful animation and giving depth to Ash and Pikachu's friendship, it reminds us that even though the franchise may going through another dark age anime-wise, the writers haven't forgotton the reason why fans have remained loyal to the show for all of these years...