A Legendary Pokémon Has Recently Been Added to One of the Film's Official Anime Canon

As the Pokémon anime under Ash Ketchum comes to a close, its action-packed penultimate episode has finally provided some fans with the confirmation they’ve been waiting for: that the Pokémon films are anime canon. Some films, such as Mewtwo Strikes Back, were already obviously official, but disagreements over whether other films are canon to the franchise have raged for years. Since the initial appearance of Latias in Aim to Be a Master, fans have pondered if this is the same Latias from the fifth Pokémon film, Pokémon Heroes: Latios & Latias. The setting of the film, Alto Mare, does appear at the end of the episode, and Latios and Latias soaring through it are spotted by the original Latias’ illusory human form. With a special appearance, the penultimate episode of Pokémon with Ash has finally proven that the movies are canon to the series. A Legendary Pokémon Has Recently Been Added to One of the Film’s Official Anime Canon.

Pokémon

Pokémon (Japanese for “Pocket Monsters”) is a Japanese media franchise controlled by The Pokémon Corporation, which was formed by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. Satoshi Tajiri invented the brand in 1996, and it is centred on fictitious creatures known as “Pokémon.” Pokémon Trainers are those that capture, train, care for, and battle Pokémon. The franchise’s English slogan is “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!” Currently, there are 1015 Pokémon species. 

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Pocket Monsters: Red and Green (later renamed Pokémon Red and Blue outside of Japan) was a pair of video games for the original Game Boy portable system created by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in February 1996. Pokémon quickly became a media mix property, with the Pokémon Trading Card Game debuting in October 1996, the Pokémon Adventures manga debuting in Japan in March 1997, and the Pocket Monsters: Original Series debuting in April 1997. Pocket Pikachu was launched in Japan in March 1998, followed by the first Pokémon film, Pokémon: The First Movie, in July 1998.

Returning to Pokémon Heroes

The Latias who has been following Ash throughout the miniseries has several of the same powers as the Latias in the movie, which piqued Ash’s interest at first. Latias, on the other hand, does not recognise Ash, which it would if it remembered the events of Pokémon Heroes. This Latias, however, is not wholly unrelated. The Latias from the film is shown flying beside two juvenile Latios at the end of Pokémon Heroes, implying that it had children. While there was no mention of a Latias child in the film, Latias and Latios are nearly always portrayed as sibling pairs, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if one was born. The fact that it didn’t recognise Ash but did return to Alto Mare reveals that Latias and the Latios it needed help rescuing were the film’s Latias. 

Aside from returning to the city, the girl Ash met there, Bianca, is visible, confirming that the locale is the same. Latias used its skills in the film to create an illusion of Bianca with whom it communicated, and that illusory Bianca is also featured here, watching the invisible Latios and Latias fly by overhead. While many fans had hoped that Ash would capture Latias or Latios (or both), letting them go free allowed the story to tie back to a movie that fans had supposed had been forgotten. At the very least, Ash was able to command Latios in combat, assisting it in defeating the Pokémon Hunter who had hurt it and Latias in the first episode of the miniseries.

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