Once upon a time a powerful Pokemon was created in a lab. Scientists were trying to use the miracle of cloning to recreate the precursor of all Pokemon and because Arceus hadnt been introduced yet they thought this was Mew. They never quite managed to recreate the adorable psychic catfetus but after accidentally creating countless Dittos they were finally able to clone a Pokemon close enough to Mew to justify all the grant money theyd already spent... The one and onlyat the time Mewtwo. Of course seeing how Mewtwo was not only intelligent capable of using human speech on a telepathic level he was also absurdly powerful and it was only a matter of time before he destroyed the lab killed his creators and fled to a faroff island to try and create more Pokemon like himself an endeavor that also ended catastrophically. Finally after wiping the memories of all who witnessed his existential crisis he fled again this time to an isolated mountain in the Johto region whose lakes contain water so pure that it has medicinal properties... But with two factions from his past converging on his new sanctuary at once he may never be able to outrun his fate. The animation from the Pokemon anime tends to get a bad rap but has it ever actually been that bad? True some of the movies employed some highly questionable CGI and the later shows dove headfirst into some new character and art aesthetics that... Well I havent watched those seasons but Im guessing they look better if you take the time to get used to them? I dont know from the outside looking in they look pretty terrible to me. But I will say that I feel like I was way too hard on the animation of the early seasons when I reviewed the first movie. Yeah the series was incredibly cheap looking but actually going back and revisiting some of it its fine. It was never any kind of visual marvel but for an anime aimed primarily at young children it did its job more than well enough to pass muster. It was fairly well managed insofar as the fact that cheaper and stiffer animation would be used for dialogue exchanges and certain slapstick gagswhich the stilted animation fit pretty damn well and the savings being passed onto battle scenes which were also by no means impressive but they did the job well enough. The reason Im talking about the animation in the series again is because todays subject Mewtwo Returns is actually an official entry in the TV series. Registered as a special so basically its an OVA that aired on TV before hitting video this special didnt have the budget of your average Pokemon movie but it clearly did get a modest financial spike compared to the series proper. Not only is this the first Pokemon entity to be entirely digitally colored giving it a cleaner and brighter veneer than anything that came before it but because it came out in the middle of the Johto season the producers had several years of experience and learning to bring to the table in terms of budget management. Theres very little here that wasnt taken from the series but what is added is attractive enough. The mountain Mewtwo and the other cloned Pokemon have settled on doesnt have any particularly visually striking features but its still a cool looking environment. The few new characters are simple in design but still memorable with one of them being the strongest memory I had of this special up until my rewatch for this review. The soundtrack is your standard Pokemon music sometimes bouncy and jovial and other times exciting depending on the scene with the only departure being Mewtwos appropriately broody and melancholic theme. The English dub is one hell of a nostalgia trip because the entire classic cast was still involved at this point in history with all of the veteran actors weve come to love not yet being swapped out. Theyre all well suited to their roles having played them for years at that point but there are still a few individual performances that are deserving of mention. First off Ikue Ohtani plays two different Pikachu both Ashs and his clone and Ill be damned if she doesnt make them sound like mutually exclusive characters. Meowths clone kept his Japanese voice actor which was a nice touch I support all forms of Nya. Ted Lewis was an intimidating Giovanni in the series where he had limited dialogue but eh the effect kinda wears off when he gets this big of a spotlight. On an equally unfortunate note Mewtwos voice actor from the first movie retired inbetween projects and as legendary as Dan Green is he doesnt have the edginess or worldweary pain to replicate Jay Goede. Also there are two lines where a threat of death is altered to leave this world theyre almost back to back in the same conversation and its hilarious but thats 4Kids for you. At least nobody mentions the shadow realm. Pokemon is stupid. Its always been stupid it will always be stupid and every single thing it does inevitably finds some way to make it more stupid. From the very first entry in the franchise it has never made a lick of sense its flawed all the way down to its basic concept and there is nothing it could possibly do to retroactively fix the infinite ratking of stupid nonsensical bullshit that has become its foundation. Mind you this is coming from a guy who grew up with the franchise was obsessed with it to a disturbing degree for several years and still collects Bulbasaur merchandise to this day. Pokemon is one of the most essential elements of my childhood and while I may not have been there for all of it especially around the middle Ive recently found a new appreciation for it in my thirties that I havent felt since my late teens. Pokemon is a truly special franchise because no matter how stupid it gets no matter how little sense it makes it will always resonate in the hearts of any fan who was fortunate enough to grow up with it. And to test that theory Ive decided to spend my 151st anime review taking a look at what has to be the single stupidest entry in the Pokemon anime. Granted I stopped watching the anime a good way into Johto Journeys and Im pretty sure there are more movies I havent seen then ones I have seen at this point but no Im pretty sure Ive got a serious contender here. This particular special a direct sequel to the first movie goes to some places that I would honestly place right next to the shows refusal to let Ash turn eleven in terms of sheer nonfuckery. Pokemon in general is stupid this is Pokemon on fucking drugs man. Thats not to say there isnt anything good in it and well get to that but there is so much nonstop casual insanity in this one hourlong TV special that I cant believe more people dont remember it. Actually fun fact you DO remember part of it believe it or not. You may not have heard of this special by name but I can guarantee theres at least one part of it that youve seen. Picture if you will Ash Brock and Misty being caught in the rain. Its a spot of rotten bad luck as theyre already running late to catch a bus but its okay. Everythings cool. Brock doesnt have to get wet because he can turn his trusty frying pan... Into a drying pan. Yes that one meme that youve all seen at least once and have probably made references to all your own is from this special. Oh and thats not even the dumbest moment in this special by far trust me its only going uphill from there. But before we get ahead of ourselves what do I like about this movie? Well okay what do I like unironically about this movie? For one thing I like the fact that it exists. I was extremely hyped for this special when it was announced I watched it on TV and everything even though it came out near the end of my love affair with the anime. Even as a kid I never cared for the first movie... The second one was more my jam... So I thought it was pretty boss that a new TV special was going to try and retcon some of its bullshit even if it didnt do a super great job of it. I like Domino shes a really cool character. Also known as The Black Tulip shes a high ranking Team Rocket agent who Giovanni sends to scout out the area so she infiltrates the party pretends to be ditzy makes a few lame jokes cringes at Jessie and James antics and sabotages everyone. Ive always wished theyd bring Domino back like they kept doing with Cassidy and gravelvoice Butch. Still shes not the only oneshot Team Rocket member introduced in a movie/special and shes way more fun than Vicious was... Ooops Im sorry thats The Iron Mask Marauder. Yeah 4Ever was also on some serious substances. Ive heard some people complain like Why did Giovanni send her when he already had photographic proof Mewtwo was there? And I dont know my going theory is that he wanted to make sure Mewtwo was living there and not just sightseeing. Bulbasaur and Chikorita literally my two favorite Pokemon get a handful of nice cameos together. Dont worry though the late Maddie Blaustein still voices the main character Meowth in the dub. Theres a surprising amount of good jokes in this thing. I laughed quite a few times and not just at the stupid shit. Team Rocket has some funny moments and theres a string of gags early on revolving around Mistys fear of bugs that are pretty damn amusing. Going back to Domino her comeuppance was pretty funny too. I like what little continuity this special shares with the first movie what with the two Pikachus communicating via electric shock telepathy and Im too lazy to check but Im pretty sure the clone Pokemon from the first movie are pretty accurately represented here. And speaking of continuity a lot of that stupid bullshit I keep mentioning is a holdover from that movie but well get to that in a minute. Before we get to all that fun stuff what do I not like? Well for starters Mewtwo will not shut the fuck up. He was full of rebellious misanthropic angst in the first movie but at least he did stuff. His role in this special is to be all tell and no show pondering over his existence and whether or not he ethically deserves pretty much anything from the right to live to the right to make decisions for others. Despite the fact that he can understand other Pokemon he still has to repeat everything they say for the sake of the audience. Why not use subtitles like in that one early giantrobotPokemon episode? He has weirdly little agency for a character whom the special is named after hes just trying to protect the status quo while shit goes down around him. Also its worth noting that the pacing in this special isnt great it feels a lot longer than it actually is and thats saying something for a special thats only an hour long. The ending resolution is also bullshit just like the first movie. This is kind of a spoiler but Mewtwos reason for letting people remember the events of the film makes just as little sense as his decision to make everyone forget the events of the first movie. And now what you all came here to see stupid bullshit Or as I like to call it the plot and story or at least some of the highlights anyway. First off youre never given much cause to feel sympathy for the plight of the clones. Theyre genetically identical to natural Pokemon and nobody would notice the difference if they werent told. The only exception to this is Charizard Venusaur and Blastoise who all have strange markings on them but like strange markings are cool. My cat has strange markings thats one of the reasons I adopted him. They honestly look cooler than their shiny forms do. Even so were given no examples whatsoever of any of the clones going through any kind of hardship or discrimination were just constantly told by Mewsnooze to feel bad for them. Theres a good variety of Pokemon IN the clone faction but aside from the clones of Pikachu and Meowth none of them really do anything special to justify their inclusion in the story with the sole exception being the fact that they were the clones from the first movie so they have to be accurately represented here. The movie starts with Ash Brock and Misty wanting to take a bus that arrives only once a month but in an astounding string of coincidences it leaves today its leaving slightly early and they just missed it but oh wait they have the opportunity to travel with a researcher who happened to arrive that very day with a mole in toe. Thats like Murphys martial law right there. Theres hurricanestrength winds blowing around the mountain but they only factor into two scenes before being forgotten and never appearing again. Mewtwo is caught by machines and instead of using their Pokemon Ash and Brock try bodychecking it themselves and they dont summon their Pokemon until after its destroyedfun fact I totally forgot Brock had a Pineco. They get trapped in a jail cell with all the clone Pokemon despite almost all of them being capable of destroying a jail cell... They have a fucking Charizard with them for Christs sake. The water is poisoned with pollution but a flock of bug Pokemon attacking the factory causes someone to drop a blowtorch which somehow destroys the whole building and I guess that gets rid of all the pollution because its never mentioned again. Mewtwo is injured Ash decides to bring him to the water and throw him in even though the smart thing to do would have been catching him in a pokeball and sending him to Oak. Mewtwo is astounded by Ashs compassion even though he distinctly remembers Ash for his compassion. The researchers protest to Mewtwo entering the water and possibly sullying its purity despite all the pollution thats already happened and they saw baby Nidoqueen drinking out of it earlier... OH YEAH DID I MENTION THERERE BABY NIDOQUEENS? And I mean that literally baby Nidoqueens. Not Nidoran females. Literal baby Nidoqueens like miniature versions of her. This is the stupidest thing thats ever happened in Pokemon. Not just the anime but all of it. This is stupider than anything 4Kids ever did. Its stupider than anything Ash ever did from forgetting about Pidgeot to refusing to trade away his Tauros despite having thirty of them. This is stupider than Misty giving away Starmie because her sisters said so or the lack of payoff for the GS Ball or even Ash never turning eleven. Thats it. Theres no coming back from this. Everything else Ive mentioned so far is just your typical stupid bullshit that you should have come to expect from Pokemon but Baby Nidoqueens? This special is officially the holy grail of stupidity in Pokemon and as far as Im concerned you should buy a copy for that alone. Mewtwo Returns is long out of print but its fairly easy to find on DVD ranging in price from 15 to 20 dollars on average if youre looking on Ebay. As a bonus the special features include the original deleted opening vignette of the first movie which 4Kids initially decided was too dark for the kiddies but due to fan demand its been faithfully dubbed and restored on this DVD release. It really is tragic that as weird and casually batshit insane as this special was the only thing people remember it for today is a lame pun that Brock made. I have a soft spot for it myself as I like what it was trying to do but even I have to admit that it didnt do it very well. The bar for quality in Pokemon movies had dropped pretty low at that point and nobody was really expecting anything out of a TV special that plays very much like three episodes stitched together but it till delivers on everything the series has always been good at. Face it nobody comes to the Pokemon franchise for coherent storytelling consistent lore and actual continuity. Thats not to say they dont exist but it really is a series thats best enjoyed if you turn your brain off and while I may be a jaded critic who hates doing that for most franchises Pokemon is easily one of my few exceptions. Its kind of like modern day WWE with the difference being that while that company feels like its actively trying to piss you off Pokemon just wants you to have fun and for what its worth I did. Theres a lot of good in this special but even the bad stuff is mostly worth checking out. I give Pokemon: Mewtwo Returns a 4/10.