2019 is looking like a golden year for Pokémon fans. Not only are we expecting the announcement of a fully-fledged Switch entry in the RPG series very soon, but we also have the very promising looking Detective Pikachu hitting cinemas on May 10th. Those two things are hogging most of the limelight, but there’s also another big Pokémon film arriving this summer: Toho Studios’ Pokémon The Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution.
All we’ve seen so far is a teaser trailer showing Mewtwo streaking through the night sky and a tiny glimpse at Mew, but it seems like a given that this project will be a remake of the fondly remembered Pokémon: The First Movie, which hit cinemas at the peak of the first wave of the franchise’s popularity in November 1999.
Now, courtesy of Japanese magazine CoroCoro, we’ve got a further look at some of the characters, and you can check them out in the gallery down below:
Given how familiar we are with 3D renders of Pokémon after endless games, their appearance here doesn’t offer up many surprises. Mewtwo and Pikachu look pretty much how they do in Smash Bros Ultimate, and while Mew is a little rarer to see, he pretty much appears how you’d expect him to.
What’ll perhaps be most interesting to find out is whether Pokémon The Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution gets a theatrical release outside of Japan. Nothing’s confirmed just yet and Legendary Pictures have big plans for their Detective Pikachu universe, including their own spinoff about Mewtwo. This means that there’s an outside chance they could put in a word to The Pokémon Company and request that this only gets a home video release.
Even so, fans of a certain age will surely want to see how the story’s been updated, and whether the movie will once again be able to wring a tear out of them with its cheesy yet heartwarming ending sequence in which Pikachu’s tears revive Ash. I’m welling up just thinking about it…