Crown Grading

FILM NOTES

Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in North American theaters in November 1999, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures following its 1998 Japanese release. Produced by OLM, Inc. for Nintendo and Game Freak, the film represented the peak of late-1990s Pokémon cultural saturation and remains a landmark of anime theatrical distribution in the Western market.

This 35mm cell, titled Ash Falling, captures Ash Ketchum in two successive framings within what appears to be the stairway or corridor interior of Mewtwo's castle. The low and overhead angles give the frames an unusual compositional quality, showing Ash with fists raised in a posture of determination — a quiet visual record of one of the film's more physically charged dramatic passages.