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This article is about a movie from the Pokémon animated series that has not been dubbed into English. As such, its coverage may contain romanized Japanese names, rather than dub names.
(Japanese: 劇場版ポケットモンスター キミにきめた!Pocket Monsters the Movie: I Choose You!; officially known as Pokémon the Movie 20: I choose you! in Japan) is the twentieth Pokémon movie overall. It premiered with Japanese vocals and French subtitles at Japan Expo on July 6, 2017, and was released in Japan on July 15, 2017.
It was first revealed in a teaser trailer that aired on Oha Suta in Japan on December 15, 2016. The full trailer was later released on March 2, 2017. A new trailer was released on April 8, 2017, officially revealing Marshadow to have a role in the film.
In a departure from the previous movies, this movie is a loose retelling of Ash's original journey through the Kanto region, in celebration of the Pokémon anime's 20th anniversary.
Ash Ketchum, from Pallet Town, is 10 years old today, which means he’s now old enough to become a Pokémon Trainer. Ash dreams big about the adventures he will experience after receiving his first Pokémon from Professor Oak... Yet, on the morning of his birthday, he sleeps in and is late at the Professor’s laboratory. Unfortunately, almost all the Pokémon are already gone. The only one left is Pikachu, and he doesn’t seem to like Ash much. ("You don’t like me?" Ash asks. "I like you a lot!") But the bond between the two will get stronger and stronger, and, on the first day of their journey, they see the Legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh fly over them and they find one of its feathers. Then Ash and Pikachu promise each other: "Someday, we will set on a journey to find this Pokémon!"
In their journey to achieve Ash’s dream of becoming a Pokémon Master, he meets other Trainers, Souji and Makoto, and Ash hears for the first time about Ho-Oh’s legend: "The rainbow feather will show you the way to Ho-Oh, and the one to follow it will become the Hero of the Legend." Followed closely by the Mythical Pokémon Marshadow, Ash goes to Mount Tensei to fight his powerful rival. Will Ash and Pikachu reach the top of the mountain and honor the promise they made when starting their journey? The adventure only begins!
CoroCoro revealed that the special distribution for the movie is Pikachu in a cap, which will be distributed to those who pre-book tickets to the film. There are six variants for this special Pikachu, each based on one of the various animeseriesAsh was in. Regardless of variant, it will come with a serial code that will unlock the special Pikashunium Z, which allows Pikachu to perform the exclusive 10,000,000 Volt ThunderboltZ-Move. In order:
Original Cap Pikachu is distributed between April 15 and May 1;
Hoenn Cap Pikachu is distributed between May 3 and May 15;
Sinnoh Cap Pikachu is distributed between May 17 and May 29;
Unova Cap Pikachu is distributed between May 31 and June 12;
Kalos Cap Pikachu is distributed between June 14 and June 26;
Alola Cap Pikachu is distributed between June 28 and July 17;
In addition, the Pikachu in a cap variants will be redistributed at a later date post-film release. Specifically:
Original Cap Pikachu is distributed between July 19 and July 31;
Hoenn Cap Pikachu is distributed between August 2 and August 14;
Sinnoh Cap Pikachu is distributed between August 16 and August 28;
Unova Cap Pikachu is distributed between August 30 and September 11;
Kalos Cap Pikachu is distributed between September 13 and September 25;
Alola Cap Pikachu is distributed between September 27 and October 9;
The player can only redeem a pre-ticket code booklet once, but the codes themselves can be redeemed as many times as needed.
The same day the second trailer for the movie came out, it revealed that Marshadow along with the bundled item Marshadium Z will be distributed in the Japanese theaters from July 15 to September 30, 2017. It was also distributed during two pre-release events in Tokyo and Osaka on July 2, 2017.
CoroCoro also distributed the serial codes for level 100 Ho-Oh that holds Sacred Ash in August 2017 issue to commemorate the movie.
It also revealed that distributions will be made on Mew for July 11 to August 7, Charizard, Lucario, and Piplup on August 1 to 28 by obtaining the serial codes at the 7-Eleven stores in Japan, with the latter three being based on Ash's Charizard, Souji's Lucario, and Makoto's Piplup, respectively.
A short promotion manga was included with the May 2017 issue of CoroCoro. Another tie-in manga called Get Fired Up, Marshadow! was included with the July 2017 issue of CoroCoro, this manga takes place before Marshadow meets Ash and his friends in the movie.
Trivia
This is the first Pokémon movie not to take place during the timeframe of the anime series running at the time, although the one-shot manga indicates it was a flashback that occurred after Ash won the final trial with Pikachu.