As the 90s went in full swing, Nintendo released Pokemon (Pocket Monsters in Japan) Red/Green in 1995 (and Blue in 1996) for the Game Boy. The USA had a three year delay in being given the very first incarnation of Pokemon in 1998, when Pokemon Red/Blue was released and the anime series first hit television on Kids WB. After 25 years unfortunately, generation 1 has aged badly, especially compared to other games like Jazz Jackrabbit 2 or Spyro the Dragon, and when generation 2 (Gold/Silver/Crystal) was brought out, nobody really bothered to go back to generation 1 with all its’ bugs, difficulty problems, and unbalanced psychic Pokemon. The same can be said for the English dubbing done by 4kids, which was hell bent on preventing any Japanese references (i.e. calling rice balls donuts or popcorn balls) because 4kids was apparently racist toward Japan or had issues with culture being shown to kids.

4kids would fuck up royally though with the first Pokemon movie, which featured the elusive Mewtwo, only found in the Cerulean Cave in Kanto, and the mysterious Mew, which (not including abusing a bug or cheat cartridges) was only given at conventions. The problems critics had were associated with the anti-violence message that completely contradicted the franchise.

Trainers from all over are brought to New Island, where Mewtwo, created by Dr. Fuji under the boss of Team Rocket, Giovanni’s orders. Mewtwo steals everyone’s Pokemon and creates copies of them for his own army of Pokemon.

The Minnesota Vikings are referenced in this presumably as a cheap laugh.

Some still images from this movie were used in Pokemon Puzzle League on the Nintendo 64 (See image above).

Snubbull and Marill were later brought to the games in generation 2. Same with Misty’s Togepi.

Prior to the movie, a 20-21 minute short starring Pikachu was seen, much like how the Prince and the Pauper preceded the Rescuers Down Under in theaters.

Not including Team Rocket and that rough trainer that had the sandshrew, Ash is the one of the only other trainers that’s attempted to assault another Pokemon.

Presumably, the title (Mewtwo Strikes Back) is a reference to the Empire Strikes Back.

No offense, but I don’t like anime. A lot of it seems to be on the cutesy side of things (although not all anime’s like that) and I just don’t get the appeal. This might be associated with the fact that I mainly saw western animated series and any series not made in America were typically made in Canada.

Another franchise, Digimon was one I was semi-aware of mostly because some of the therapists I had in my elementary days would have me looking at things that were associated with that.

Unrelated to the movie, but out of the three starters from gen 1, my go to was Squirtle. Not because my brother had Pokemon Red and he would pick Charmander, but because my mind was always thinking of the seven seas. Most of the time I’d have a water type in my arsenal, whether it was a starter or something like a Crawdaunt, Dewgong, Poliwrath, Gyarados, or Kingler. 1995/1996 footage of myself from southern St. Louis, Piney Point/St. Mary’s City, and Virginia Beach typically had me wearing shirts with fish or other aquatic animals like sharks screen-printed on them, so not a surprise that Blue was my go-to over Red. This same state of mind also is what led me to picking Mudkip or Totodile over the other starters and also why I have Sapphire instead of Ruby.

From what I assume, Mewtwo was (and this was true for the games) possibly inspired by Frankenstein given his backstory of being created and then being considered too powerful.