Netflix Will Apparently Break a Curse with its Upcoming Pokemon Movie

While the Pokemon film franchise has returned to telling original stories with traditional 2D animation with its next release, Pokemon The Movie: Coco, it definitely threw fans for a loop last year when it announced it would be celebrating a special anniversary with a full CG animated remake of the very first movie, Mewtwo Strikes Back. Mewtwo Strikes Back EVOLUTION had hit theaters in Japan last Summer, but there were no longer any signs of whether or not the film would be getting an official release in other territories. That was until Netflix stepped in.

It was confirmed that Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back EVOLUTION would be hitting Netflix on February 27th, and that was already an exciting prospect of its own, but recent clues spotted by fans seem to tease that we’ll be getting the Japanese language release of the film along with the standard English dub release we usually get.

As spotted by @FelipoDepot on Twitter, the Netflix trailer for Mewtwo Strikes Back EVOLUTION also features a Japanese audio and subtitle track. This would mark a major shift for the anime’s releases as we’ve never gotten an original Japanese release for any of the Pokemon anime projects over the years. It’s always been with a full English dub.

This is far from an official confirmation that we’ll be getting an official Japanese language release for the film outside of Japan, but it would fall in line with previous statements given by the directors behind the film, Kunihiko Yuyama and Motonori Sakakibara. During a panel at Anime Expo 2019, the two expressed their desires for Japanese dub releases of the film in the West.

Sakakibara confidently stated, “Please count on it! And you can look forward to that,” and Yuyama agreed with this sentiment as well, “So in Japan, actually both the subtitled version and also both languages sometimes are shown at the same time. So hopefully that is an option that you’ll have here in the United States in the near future.”

Are you excited to see Mewtwo Strikes Back EVOLUTION when it hits Netflix? If the Japanese language track is available, would you want to see it? Do you prefer the Japanese or English dub releases? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!