Crown Grading

FILM NOTES

Warner Bros. distributed Pokemon: The First Movie to North American theaters in November 1999, adapting the phenomenon that had overtaken television, trading cards, and schoolyards alike. The film marked the first theatrical outing for the franchise and became one of the highest-grossing animated releases of that year, cementing Pokemon's crossover from imported curiosity to mainstream American cultural fixture.

This cell captures Mew amid what reads as a burst of psychic energy or stylized flora rendered in deep violet, the pale translucent figure holding quietly at center against the radiating forms. A blue line artifact and emulsion disturbance along the lower edge of the strip give the frame a raw, physical character that speaks to the life a theatrical print leads before it reaches a collector's hands.