Is Pokemon’s Next Movie Teasing Celebi’s Return?

Before Pokemon shared an interesting experiment in which they released an entirely CG animated remake of the very first film in the franchise, Mewtwo Strikes Back, it began a new film canon in which a rebooted take on Ash in the films took on familiar movie stories with a twist. This was seen in Pokemon! I Choose You and Pokemon: The Power of Us, and all evidence released through promos for the upcoming next film, Pokemon the Movie: Coco, seems to point at another rebooted take on an old favorite.

In the first promo for Pokemon: Coco, there’s a brief shot of a shrine that fans have pointed out looks very familiar to the shrine first seen in Pokemon 4Ever: Celebi – Voice of the Forest. Here’s an example of the shrine in question shared by @El_Aleph87, so you can compare the two:

With the previous two films recreated Ash’s first meetings with Pikachu and the Legendary Bird Pokemon Lugia, this shot in the promo seems to tease that this new film will be re-imagining Ash’s first meeting with Celebi. It’s a different kind of forest, and a different kind of new human protagonist introduced, but the films also have a much different version of Ash than previously seen before.

This re-imagining of the older stories falls in line with Pokemon’s recent methodology of highlighting the past of the series rather than just the new additions introduced in the Pokemon Sword and Shield games too. It’s been the focus of the newest anime series too, which has Ash and new hero Go exploring previous regions introduced thus far.

Pokemon the Movie: Coco is currently slated to release in Japan on July 10th, but there’s currently no confirmed English language release as of this writing. Story details for the new film (such as whether or not Celebi actually is making its return) are currently being kept under wraps, Tetsuo Yajima will be returning to direct Pokemon: Coco after directing The Power of Us for OLM. Atsuhiro Tomioka has also been tapped to write the script for the new film, but casting and other staff details are currently unknown as of this writing.

Would Celebi’s return to the film franchise be a big deal? Would it make you excited to see the new film yourself? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!