Favorite DP movie

I don't have too much to say about this movie. Dawn uses Ash's full name when telling him to wash his hands before eating. That's always fun. I liked Shaymin being a jerk to Ash. Distortion world was ok, but there should've been more to it.
This movie I had never seen before. The others I watched once each 10+ years ago.
The first 2 minutes of the movie looked very promising. As a reminder, within the first 2 minutes these 2 things happen:

• A battle between Ash and Ethan(? Gold), Even though they did nothing with it, it was cool having Ash&Co meet another of the game protagonists. They do like to put them at the start of movies while the narrator is talking, but never around Ash and the others. The only exception so far is Lyra who they gave tons of episodes. Unless Casey counts somehow since Crystal ended up looking very similar, though is a separate character even in the anime.
• BACCER. I was hoping to see some Pokémon sports depicted in the anime after "seeing" so much about them on TV in BW and SM, I think. That and I know there's that stadium for human sports in Nimbasa in the games, which I also hope to see in the anime when they get there. Setting myself up for disappointment! awww yeah baby. Seriously though, I really hope to see more of this kind of thing... I liked that they had SOMETHING for Pokeathlon in the anime, even if it was only 1 episode.

I, unfortunately, knew about a few things that happened in this movie before watching. Namely, the transformations. Weirdly though, had no idea a Zorua or any of the legendary Pokémon were in it. All I knew Pokémon-wise was Zoroark. And all these years I've apparently been pronouncing that name wrong. I've been saying Zo-roar-k. According to the movie, it's Zo-ro-ark.

ANYWAY, the movie felt like it was gonna be something more. Would've preferred watching that Baccer World Cup and having the movie revolve more around that and the other athletes. A little bit like how I felt with the Darkrai movie and Dawn's contest. It's weird how they have this "Pokémon being able to talk through telepathy" excuse, but rarely use it. I did like how Dawn would get angry at Zorua for transforming into her. Way to set herself up as a target. Would've been nice if there were more transformation scenes. Had this been any other anime, you know they'd have one with Zorua as Dawn jumping on Ash or something like that.

Also there was that girl they did nothing with who looked like a proto-Iono from SV because of the magnets in her hair. After seeing her weird dance at the start, I thought she'd be the one they'd be hanging out with throughout the movie.

This had the best opening, the full version of High Touch during a double battle. That's something Giratina and Zoroark were really missing. They didn't have music at the start like all the other movies. Though, I would've preferred the movie version of High Touch being different than the second version of High Touch used in the episode intros.

I liked how they brought the previous 2 movies together with this. Always cool to see people get into fights and not just Pokémon. I mean, it wasn't much at all, but still. Reminds me of the Electric Tale of Pikachu manga and how Ash roundhouse kicks James on the head right after having jumped and broken through a window, then gets punched in the gut by Jesse...


Another version of Dawn's theme at the start of the movie. Wish they made a longer version of this. It cuts short just as it gets going. Same song is used at the very start of DP141. Song is here if you want to give it a listen.

There was this shipping screenshot from the movie that kept showing up back in the day. To be honest, I couldn't remember seeing it in the movie itself back then, and never went to go look for it. Despite that, the screenshot was burned into my mind as I kept seeing it come up as the screenshot itself or fanart around it. I'm glad I didn't skim through the movie for it, as seeing it now while watching normally was the best way to experience that. So too now is the scene burned into my mind.
Remember the Alamos!

I really wish more was done with nightmares. There's so much they could've done with that, but they like to keep the movies locked into their own worlds. Ash's nightmare was very quick. Would've been nice to watch Dawn's contest play out rather than only seeing stills.

SIDE NOTE
In the movie, Dawn buys a Lunar Wing (prevents nightmares caused by Darkrai) which is proven to be real. There was an episode later on in which another Darkrai appears and causes everyone to have nightmares. Dawn shows off her Lunar Wing early into the episode. However, it doesn't work for her and she still has a nightmare? wut. They even explained the entire thing just before the nightmares happened! Oh well. They had a great chance of showing off all the different nightmares everyone could have, but they didn't use it.


The intros with music helped Darkrai/Arceus, but they weren't the main reason I liked them above the others. It was a hard choice between the two. In fact, I had Arceus above Darkrai while typing this all out. Will say though, Arceus had the better opening.

Movie MANGA order I liked least to most
5. Giratina by Himeno Yoshikazu
4. Zoroark by Momota Inoue (localized)
3. Arceus by Makoto Mizobuchi (localized)
2. Darkrai by Ryo Takamisaki (localized)
1. Giratina by Makoto Hijioka (localized)

For these I'm not going to explain at all. I feel way less people have actually checked these out, so I'll leave it to you to solve this mystery. I don't know if there's others since Giratina has at least 2 different manga.