Pokemon Movie 04: Celebi Toki wo Koeta Deai

Serebii, a Legendary Pokémon known for its ability to traverse time, is hunted by an unnamed Pokémon poacher seeking to capture it. Yukinari, a young Pokémon trainer who enjoys drawing portraits of Pokémon, tries to protect Serebii after it stumbles upon him; but in the middle of its escape, both vanish without a trace.

Forty years later, ambitious Pokémon trainer Satoshi hopes to sight rare Pokémon around his local area. White, a boat driver, takes Satoshi to his village. Satoshi is accompanied by his three closest friends: Takeshi, a former gym leader training to be a great Pokémon breeder; Kasumi, a young girl wanting to become a skilled Water-type trainer; and Pikachu, Satoshi's Pokémon partner and first comrade.

Meanwhile, Yukinari and Serebii reappear in Satoshi's present time and run into his group. Masked Lord Vicious, the strongest executive staff member of Team Rocket, desires to capture Serebii. Using the Dark Ball, a variant of Monster Ball that corrupts the Pokémon caught within and draws out their maximum power, Vicious can transform innocent Pokémon into powerful and frightening obstacles—including Serebii itself! Placed in a tough position, Satoshi, Yukinari, and their friends must work together to defeat Vicious and save Serebii and themselves.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Satoshi Main

Matsumoto, Rica Japanese

Pikachu Main

Ootani, Ikue Japanese

Takeshi Main

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Kasumi Main

Iizuka, Mayumi Japanese

Ookido, Yukinari Main

Ishizuka, Unshou Japanese

Celebi Main

Sugiyama, Kazuko Japanese

Kojirou Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Musashi Supporting

Hayashibara, Megumi Japanese

Nyarth Supporting

Inuyama, Inuko Japanese

Gengar Supporting

Yoshikawa, Chouji Producer

Mori, Takemoto Producer

Okuno, Toshiaki Producer

Yuyama, Kunihiko Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Jun 11, 2024

Verdrietig

Recommended

Watching "Pokemon 4Ever" transports me back to a simpler time when the world of Pokemon felt boundless and full of possibilities. The movie captures the childhood of wonder and adventure.The story follows Ash, Pikachu, and friends as they travel through time to protect the mythical Pokémon Celebi from a villainous hunter. The themes of friendship, courage, and the timeless battle between good and evil. Celebi's ability to traverse time adds the little spice that was needed to get the plot going.

In conclusion, "Pokémon 4Ever" is more than just a movie; it's a nostalgic trip that rekindles the joy and excitement of being a kid growing ... up with the games and movies. This might not be everyones opinion but idgaf this is a masterpiece.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 18, 2022

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

I've reviewed quite a few Pokemon related anime as well as the games themselves. This time around we're looking at the fourth film from 2001. So, this was during the time of the best game generation, 2. Let's have a look.

Story:

We open with Celebi being chased by two counters, Houndoom and Scyther. Surprisingly for the anime, the type advantage seems to actually matter and Celebi seems to be in trouble. Until a young boy, Yukinari, comes to the rescue and the two go forty years into the future to escape. We enter the present day with Satoshi, Kasumi & Takeshi taking a ferry ... to explore deeper into the Johto region. They go to a treetop village in search of interesting Pokemon and they just so happen to see a bright light and find the young boy from the past. The group then has to contend with a Team Rocket Pokemon poacher who's using special Dark Balls to turn Pokemon evil. So, kind of the plot of Colosseum but before that game existed.

The big problem with the film is that the environmental themes get overly preachy. It really wants to emphasise the importance of protecting the woods. And, like many environmental works geared towards children, they undermine their message by having the damage that gets caused be easily fixed for a happy ending. You don't need to protect the environment, Kids, the fairy magic can fix any damage that gets done. Literally the most counter-productive way to discuss environmental issues. It's also a little weird that the film goes out of its way to put Celebi against type counters but doesn't worry about type matchups at any other point. I mean, Satoshi puts a Bayleef against a Scizor and multiple protagonist Pokemon are shown as having good matches against opponents they should have no problem with. So, I really don't know why they're going out of the way to use type matchups against Celebi and nowhere else.

On the positive side, the pacing is pretty solid. The film has some slow, quiet moments to showcase the beauty of the forest and allow the atmosphere to build. It's also pretty good about introducing its important elements early. There are also some cute scenes of Celebi just playing around that are reminiscent to the scenes in the first Pokemon film with Mew while also being their own thing.

Characters:

The characters are barely worth mentioning if I'm being honest. The main cast is the same boring trio we're already familiar with. The only thing semi compelling about Yukinari is the twist that you get at the very end and it's very much a case of "if they'd leaned into it earlier and actually gone somewhere with it it might have been interesting." The antagonist is just a one note arsehole who couldn't get hired as a CEO and decided to join Team Rocket as a backup.

Art:

OLM did a pretty good job with the artwork. The Pokemon look good. The nature scenes are very nice. The animation is pretty well done. The character designs aren't the best. The antagonist looks really dumb. The side characters are just kind of boring looking and I'm including Yukinari.

Sound:

The acting is fine. Matsumoto Rica, Hayashibara Megumi, Iizuka Mayumi, Ueda Yuuji and all of them deliver decent enough performances. They're just kind of limited based on how dull their characters are. The music is fine as well.

Ho-yay:

There isn't any.

Areas of Improvement:

1. If you're going to have environmental themes, don't go over the top with them. I get it, trying to keep the planet habitable by ourselves and dogs is very important. But when you go over the top, it hurts the message you're trying to convey. It makes it seem like environmental villains are these over the top caricatures and makes it difficult for people to recognise the more subtle, actual environmental villains who are usually causing damage for expediency or profit.

2. If you want your message to stick, you can't have everything undone through magical means. And I understand that that means you can't have a fully happy ending but sometimes a bittersweet ending just works better.

3. The characters really need more development. I understand that your main trio along with Musashi, Kojirou & Meowth aren't going to change ever but at least do something with your side characters and the film's antagonist.

Final Thoughts:

This film is pretty mediocre. Its ideas have some potential and seeing Celebi play around happily is cute but those ideas ultimately fall short through underdevelopment and it ultimately doesn't do much. My rating is going to stand at a 5/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 13, 2023

Chaotic_beauty

Not Recommended

Pokemon 4EVER is not only the worst English Pokemon title, but also the worst movie among the original five. Shallow in every way, there's not much good you can say about this movie. Frankly, the only positive constant throughout the movie is the gorgeous art. In a few of its quiet moments you really feel like you've been transported into a heavenly forest. There's also a single fun sequence consisting of a fight with a pokemon trainer and the ensuing battle against time, as Ash runs to an already departing ferry. If that sounds like very little, that's because it is.

On a more critical side ... of things, the cringeworthy introduction of the main antagonist is hard to watch. As his terrible (in both dub and sub) evil laugh spreads throughout the forest, your brain hurts - how did he invent pokeballs that turn pokemon souls evil and have an effect of leveling them to level 100? As you wonder, he suddenly pulls out an awkward spider mech. Movie, can we please go back to Ash?

Another poor victim of the movie is the dialogue. After the pretty good (subbed) dialogue in the first movie, servicable dialogue in the second and some really good lines in the third, this movie treats us to really cringey writing period. Beyond that, the whole plot is filled with contrivances and nonsense in general. Following the bad choices from the second movie, all science and logic are thrown out of the window. Nothing makes sense and nobody tries to explain anything. The movie presents us with the first braindead Pokemon fantasy ride instead of a realized Pokemon world.

Character development doesn't happen. There's no complexity to anyone and there's a single forced designated character development scene, which, frankly, doesn't work. The movie feels like a made for tv production aimed at kids aged 3 to 5, inducing only cringe in anyone older when it turns to self parody as Ash graciously flaunts Celebi's dead body towards the screen as a cheap way of making us care (before reviving him because you can't have death in a Pokemon movie).

In conclusion, there's not much good in here. It simply exists. I can only tentatively recommend it to extremely hardcore pokemon fans who watched the whole anime series and after all of that have no standards left whatsoever. If that's you, you might enjoy some comfy moments it offers. For a few minutes at least.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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