Which Pokémon film was released in Japan on July 18, 1998?

Pokémon: The First Movie was released in Japan on July 18, 1998.

The film’s Japanese title is Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back. It was the first theatrical Pokémon animated feature and continued the early anime’s focus on Ash, Pikachu, and their friends.

The main story follows Mewtwo, a laboratory-created Pokémon who confronts questions about identity, creation, and the relationship between humans and Pokémon. The film’s central conflict also introduces cloned Pokémon and a powerful challenge to the heroes.

Later films used numbered or thematic titles, including Pokémon the Movie 2000 and Pokémon 3: The Movie. A computer-animated remake, Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution, was released in 2019, but it is not the 1998 original.