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Review M23: Koko

The anime has been on the decline in Japan for quite a while. The combination of that and the movie being released during an outbreak was always going to lead to this. There is a reason why they changed the formula when Sun and Moon started, and there is a reason why there wasn't a preview following this movie. They are trying to offset that decline, and hopefully they do. At least the games are doing better now, so anything can happen. However, Pokemon hasn't been an event movie in Japan since Sinnoh.
 
The Demon Slayer movie being such a huge success is one of those "lightning in a bottle" type moments that film studios are for sure going to try replicating. A few corrections / additional information about the film:
  • The movie actually came out twelve weeks ago (October 16th), not last week. It has an eleven week head start on the Pokémon movie.
  • It was one of the first major film releases after theaters reopened and so people were chomping at the bit to go to a theater to see any new film.
  • For those of you who don't know, Season 1 of the Demon Slayer TV series was 26 episodes long. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba The Movie: Mugen Train is a continuation of that story and is, for all intents and purposes, Episodes 27 - 30. Season 2 will presumably pick up where the movie left off (unless they do a Battle of Gods / Resurrection F type scenario, which I think is pretty unlikely) so if you don't see this film then you'll be lost whenever Season 2 rolls around. So the incentive to not skip this one is pretty high.
  • It's a movie that has a "sad" death in it, and Japanese audiences absolutely eat that shit up.
Pocket Monsters movies are summer vacation movies. Releasing the film during the end of the year -- when box office performance is usually not all that great anyway -- was bound to negatively affect its performance. Add in a global pandemic and the slightly more limited audience (Demon Slayer attracts fans from all walks of life) and it's no wonder we're seeing the numbers we're seeing.

Johtoo said:
Pokemon hasn't been an event movie in Japan since Sinnoh.

That is absolutely not true. Even the worst-performing film in the franchise (Magearna) did well enough to beat and/or hold its own against the other summer blockbusters that year. Pokémon films also tend to remain in the Top Ten about twice as long as a lot of their competitors.
 
That is absolutely not true. Even the worst-performing film in the franchise (Magearna) did well enough to beat and/or hold its own against the other summer blockbusters that year. Pokémon films also tend to remain in the Top Ten about twice as long as a lot of their competitors.

I think if Pokemon were truly an event film, the audience would have turned out stronger than what it has, like they did for Demon Slayer. Pokemon is, like you said, a summer vacation hit, but it really isn't anything more than that. There also hasn't been a Pokemon movie in the top 10 Japanese yearly box office takings since Sinnoh (which was my point of reference). I wasn't trying to take away from the product, and it's still hugely successful, despite it's minor decline, but event films typically draw an audience no matter when it's released. Demon Slayer would have performed no matter when it was released. As would Avengers or Harry Potter. Pokemon, on the otherhand, is more suited for the summer casual audience.

On a counterpoint: I wonder when the next movie will be released? Releasing one next summer would be a risk and probably impossible considering the covid outbreak, and releasing it next christmas when it isn't suited for that would be unusual.
 
Movie is a success, seems to be doing well in the box office now regardless of the virus/pandemic (finished number two after Demon Slayer Movie). They'll release M24 next year regardless of how the situation is, this proves that any Pokemon Movie released literally any time of the year in any situation can do well. Unless of course if the pandemic delays causes some production delay, though since it's been almost a year since the anime hiatus, they have surely found a way to work around it.

Of course box office sales may not reflect the quality of the movie.
 
Johtoo said:
I think if Pokemon were truly an event film, the audience would have turned out stronger than what it has, like they did for Demon Slayer. Pokemon is, like you said, a summer vacation hit, but it really isn't anything more than that.

Pokemon, on the otherhand, is more suited for the summer casual audience.

I don't agree with the intention behind saying Pokémon is "just" a summer vacation hit. A lot of franchises would absolutely *kill* to be considered "just" a summer vacation hit!

There also hasn't been a Pokemon movie in the top 10 Japanese yearly box office takings since Sinnoh (which was my point of reference).

Maybe not, but if you look at the yearly lists you'll see a lot of high profile movies performing worse than Pokémon has. "I Choose You!" beat out "Spider-Man: Homecoming," for example.

Still, I'm sure Toho and everyone else involved with the films is holding all these emergency meetings right now to figure out what the hell's happening with the box office performacne of this year's film.

On a counterpoint: I wonder when the next movie will be released? Releasing one next summer would be a risk and probably impossible considering the covid outbreak, and releasing it next christmas when it isn't suited for that would be unusual.

My current theory is that the next film will come out July 2022. Even if COVID-19 infections weren't at an all-time high here in Japan (which they absolutely are) I doubt any of the people involved with the film want to make their next move until things have calmed down a bit.

I'm thinking Movie 24 comes out in 2022, and then Movie 25 will come out 2023, aka the 25th anniversary of the release of Pocket Monsters The Movie "Mewtwo Strikes Back" & "Pikachu's Summer Vacation." That would make the most sense to me.

Dynamic_Fusion said:
Movie is a success, seems to be doing well in the box office now regardless of the virus/pandemic (finished number two after Demon Slayer Movie).

It ranked #2, sure, but its box office income is the lowest in the franchise's history by a fairly huge margin. Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution managed to make more in its first week than Koko's been able to make in two. If the movie pulled these kinds of numbers during a regular non-pandemic summer then it would be considered an absolute flop.
 
Serebii also doesn't live in Japan so he, personally, has no way of seeing the movie.

I've thought about writing a summary but it's such a labor-intensive task for a movie that's going to be available in English within a few months (probably) anyway so it doesn't exactly feel like the best use of my time.

But if you have any other questions then I'd be happy to answer them.
 
There was no Movie 24 teaser at the end of this film.



Karen and the other Biotope Company employees stay behind to help repair the forest from the damage Dr. Zed did to it with his mecha.

Koko leaves the forest to set off on a journey to learn more about the human world so that he can understand that half of him.



That's correct, Zarude does not speak human language.
If Koko is going to try to understand his human heritage, a good song for the English dub if they can get permission would be the song "Strangers Like Me" written by Phil Collins. What do you think?

I think I already have some of the English cast/crew set.
Sarah Natochenny: Ash/Delia
Ikue Ohtani: Pikachu
James Carter Cathcart: James/Meowth
Michelle Knotz: Jessie
Rodger Parsons: Narrator
Megan Hollingshead: Nurse Joy
And TBD:
Koko:
Dr. Zed:
Karen:
The Molybdens:
US Production: Iyuno Media Group
Voice Direction: Lisa Ortiz
Script Adaptation: James Carter Cathcart
Original Japanese Score: Shinji Miyazaki & Taiiku Okazaki
Additional Music: Phil Collins (with permission)
M23_English_poster.png

Image Courtesy of Bulbapedia.
 
If Koko is going to try to understand his human heritage, a good song for the English dub if they can get permission would be the song "Strangers Like Me" written by Phil Collins. What do you think?

It would match very well, Koko is like the Pokémon version of Tarzan. The problem is that I really don't think Disney will let Pokémon use one of their songs, I would love to see an amv of the movie using it though.
 
It would match very well, Koko is like the Pokémon version of Tarzan. The problem is that I really don't think Disney will let Pokémon use one of their songs, I would love to see an amv of the movie using it though.
If they did get permission, they wouldn't have to use Phil's vocal version. They could ask anyone like Jason Paige, who performed the season one opening theme.
 
If they did get permission, they wouldn't have to use Phil's vocal version. They could ask anyone like Jason Paige, who performed the season one opening theme.

Phil Collins isn't actually the problem, it's Disney, they never share their songs, and even if they did it wouldn't be for free, it would cost money, probably too much money just to use a song. But I can't deny that a Jason Paige's version of "Strangers like me" would be very epic.
 
Thus ends the silly AU experiment.
I think they have already given up on movies, ever since that Giratina Movie with that annoying S****in, 99% of the Pokemon movies have been downright terrible. It seemed they were trying in a sense starting with Gen 7 (starting the AU timeline). M20 & M22 were pure cash grabs that sold more than each BW & XY Movie. I think they will keep AU going on but everything from now on will be cashgrabs, remakes of older movies, having to do with nostalgia, basically something along those lines.

I also wonder if this might reduce the TV Anime's budget. I think they use the earnings from the Movies. Merchandise, etc for the Anime, though I am not 100% sure, I think it is likely.

AU also had a lot of potential. They could have done something with AU Timeline Ash & Main Series Ash meeting each other, but hey they chose not to.
 
I think they had it right in Sinnoh. Create a trilogy that asked fans to return so they could see how the story would conclude. The AU movies were interesting to begin with, but after the Power of Us it became apparant that there was no reason to watch it. The Ash there has no direct relevance to the Ash seen on the anime, so you couldn't see him use his Pokemon or be seen with his traveling companions. The AU movies also didn't continue from the previous ones, so fans of the AU movies didn't have to watch it because the Charizard that Ash caught in ICY somehow didn't exist anymore. I get what they were doing. They were trying to create a movie that had no ties to the anime so it would be more welcoming to those who didn't watch the anime, but they created a movie universe by doing it and they did nothing with it. Imagine if Marvel rebooted Spiderman, and went through the whole Uncle Ben fiasco again and ended up with Mary J by the end of the movie, then in the sequel he's randomly in San Fransisco doing something completely different and there were no Mary J or Uncle Ben and even his suit changed. You cannot establish a character, then reset it again. It just doesn't work that way. They didn't even explain why Ash is randomly hopping between regions or what he was even doing there. It was just confusing and the movies felt like they were really meant for no one in the end.
 
Am I wrong or this scene does not appear in the movie?
E8291947-5B54-4A29-B7E5-E1973809D3EE.png
 
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