National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in American theaters in November 1999, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and produced by OLM, Inc. for Nintendo and Game Freak. Released at the height of the franchise's cultural dominance, the film represented a landmark moment in anime's crossover into mainstream Western cinema, drawing enormous audiences and cementing Pokémon as a generational phenomenon beyond its video game and television origins.

This cell captures two of the film's most emotionally weighted figures during its climactic sequence. Ash Ketchum appears in close-up, his face drawn and overcome, while Pikachu is rendered small against the sweeping dark architecture of New Island's interior. The confirmed title, Ash Ketchum - Pikachu Falling, places these frames at the heart of the film's most remembered and affecting passage.