New Pokemon Movie Announced for 2018

The Pokemon anime is getting another movie. The Pokemon Company confirmed that Ash and Pikachu would return for their twenty-first movie adventure via a brief teaser at the end of the just released Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You.

No other details were announced about the movie besides confirmation that the movie would come out in Japan in summer 2018.

The news shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to Pokemon fans, as the franchise has had at least one movie come out every year since 1998. While no longer released in US theaters, the annual Pokemon movies are still popular in Japan, in part because the Pokemon Company ties the movies to the release of several Legendary and Mythical Pokemon.

The next movie will likely be the first movie to be set in the Alola Region, the setting for Pokemon Sun and Moon. Ash and Pikachu are currently living and exploring the tropical Hawaii-like region in the current season of the anime.

The new movie, Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You, retold Ash and Pikachu’s origin to commemorate the anime’s 20th anniversary. Set outside anime continuity, the movie received criticism recently for replacing Brock and Misty with two new characters.

We’ll likely have to wait several months for more information about 2018’s Pokemon movie. A teaser trailer for this year’s film wasn’t released until late December of last year.

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