Pokémon 4ever – Celebi: Voice of the Forest

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Pokemon 4Ever: Celebi – Voice of the Forest or when translated directly from the Japanese versions title; Pocket Monsters the Movie: Celebi A Timeless Encounter is commonly known to most simply as Pokemon 4EVER and is the fourth movie in the pokemon franchise.

The movie was directed by the anime series chief Kunihiko Yuyama again and maintained most of the predecessors voice actors from the anime: Rica Matsumoto, Ikue Ōtani, Mayumi Iizuka, Yūji Ueda, Megumi Hayashibara, and Shin-ichiro Miki in the Japanese versions.

The film was adapted to English for international audiences by 4Kids Entertainment and distributed by Miramax Films who took over from Warner Bros Family Entertainment. The English adaption of Pokemon 4Ever was directed by Jim Malone, written by Norman J. Grossfeld and voiced by the voice actors from the English adaption of the anime: Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart, Rachael Lillis, and Maddie Blaustein.

Of particular contrast between the Japanese and international release versions of the movie was the characters voices, the Japanese release had come under fire for the characters sounding too cartoony in a setting that was supposed to be… well quite frankly a bit more epic sounding. 4Kids did a good job in taking this onboard and rectifying it for the English adaptation making the characters sound less cartoony and a bit more serious and appropriate to the story. Future Pokemon movies such as Genesect and the Legend Awakened would draw inspiration from this many years later.

On the DVD released version an exclusive e-Reader card of Suicune was included as a bonus gift and a special mini feature called Pikachu’s PikaBoo was featured as a bonus feature.

Around a decade after its initial release Pokemon 4Ever was re-released a number of times, in the UK for example Optimum Home Entertainment released the DVD again on May 9th, 2011. Then on April 2nd, 2012 Studio Canal released a double Pokemon Movie DVD pack featuring Pokemon Heroes and Pokemon 4ever, this release was timed to come just a week before the dual Pokemon Black & White Movies; Black Victini and Reshiram and White Victini and Zekrom came out. Pokemon 4Ever was also aired on Cartoon Network in the USA as part of a special Pokémon event that they were running in 2005.

Chronology in relation to the anime
The fourth movie belongs to the original series’ Johto League Champions arc, deep into Ash’s journey through Johto. It opened in Japan on 7 July 2001 – two days after The Kecleon Caper (EP205) aired and before The Joy of Water Pokémon (EP206) – and that is where it sits in the Japanese running order. The English dub arrived well over a year later, which is why Western viewers tend to place it in the Master Quest season, between A Corsola Caper! and Mantine Overboard!. Ash is travelling with Misty (and Togepi) and Brock, with four Johto badges in his case and Cianwood City’s Gym next on the list. His team at this point is Pikachu, Bayleef – Chikorita having only recently evolved in Current Events (EP197) – Cyndaquil, Totodile and Noctowl, although the film itself only fields Pikachu and Bayleef (Cyndaquil and Totodile made it onto the posters but not into the final cut). Brock’s Zubat line had reached Crobat by now, which is why it is Crobat and Onix that appear alongside him.

Pokémon 4Ever is broken down into the following parts

• Pikachu’s PikaBoo – the Pikachu short, around 20 minutes long, with no humans in sight.
• Celebi: Voice of the Forest – the main feature, 81 minutes in Japan and 75 minutes in the English release.

Story

Pikachu’s PikaBoo (the short)

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Shown before the main feature in Japan and included as a bonus on the US DVD (it never made it to the UK release), Pikachu’s PikaBoo – Pikachu’s Exciting Hide-and-Seek in Japanese – is the first Pikachu short without a single human in it. Pikachu, Togepi, Totodile, Bayleef, Cyndaquil, Psyduck and a crowd of local Pokémon play hide-and-seek around a sprawling seaside mansion modelled on the Hamptons, until a bad-tempered Larvitar kicks a rock into a dormant lawnmower and brings it roaring to life. The runaway machine chases the gang through hedge mazes, fountains and woodland before they team up to trap it in a tool shed and get back to their game. Larvitar, Corsola, Wailmer and Azurill all make their anime debuts here.

A chase through the forest

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A celebi is in a forest running from a persistant pokémon hunter. A young boy enters that forest and is warned by a young lady about the Voice of the Forest. As the young boy meets and tries to protect the celebi, it uses its power to time travel taking the boy with it.

Forty years later

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Forty years into the future, a powerful Team Rocket member coerces the Pokémon hunter into revealing where he had met that celebi. The masked grunt has a giant mecha and is armed with Dark Balls which will turn a pokémon evil and force it to level up to its maximum potential.

Ash arrives in Arborville

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Meanwhile, Ash and company decide to explore a forest near Arborville in Johto. Ash calls Professor Oak about sighting a strange pokémon that is identified as a suicune. The professor reveals that he had seen one of these rare legendary pokémon once himself. When they arrive at the forest entrance, an elderly woman warns the travelers about the Voice of the Forest and meet her granddaughter, Diana. Soon after entering the forest they hear a strange sound that guides them to the young boy, Sammy, who is unconscious. The grandmother recognizes him and tells the group about the celebi who protects the forest and the Lake of Life in the center of it. Sammy is worried that the celebi still needs help.

Rescuing Celebi

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They recover the celebi only to be stopped from getting it to a PokéCenter by the Team Rocket grunt with the mecha, who is revealed to be the Iron Masked Marauder. They are able to escape him, and are guided by a chain of pokémon to the Lake of Life where they are able to restore the celebi to full health. While camped for the night Sammy shows Ash his sketch book of drawings of the Pokémon he has seen which now has a drawing of the sleeping Pikachu and the celebi.

The Dark Ball

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The next morning Iron Mask is able to catch the celebi with a Dark Ball. Releasing the dark celebi, Iron Mask has it create an all-natural mecha powered by the dark celebi. The mecha then starts to destroy the forest and foul the lake. Iron Mask now decides that he no longer needs to serve Giovanni. Ash, Sammy, and company are joined up by Diana, her grandmother and an air ship pilot. The suicune is also aware of the danger and rushes to the forest to rescue the celebi.

Breaking the Marauder’s hold

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With the help of the suicune and Brock’s onyx, the boys are able to get inside the mecha to help the celebi fight the control of the Dark Ball. Eventually the celebi does this and the feedback destroys the Dark Ball. But celebi is now dying, and the poisoned water of the lake cannot heal celebi. Suicune uses its power to purify water to restore the lake, but celebi is too far gone.

The Voice of the Forest

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Ash, Sammy and their friends are grief stricken, and the pokémon of the forest, including the suicune, cry out in despair. Just then another voice of the forest is heard as a portal in the sky opens up. Hundreds of celebi throughout time and forests appear to heal the sick celebi. They return and the celebi flies about in joy. But Iron Mask makes one last desperate attempt to capture celebi only to be stopped by Ash and Pikachu, and captured by the forest pokémon. The suicune takes its leave, and the celebi and Sammy return to their own time.

Farewell to Sammy

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Ash calls Professor Oak and everyone tells him about the adventure and the rare pokémon they have seen. Professor Oak then cheers Ash up by telling him he will surely see Sammy again, calling him by name without being told it. The kids are amazed at his knowledge as they board the ferry for their next destination. Professor Oak is then inspired to reminice by paging through his old sketch book, pausing at his sketch of a pikachu and celebi sleeping back-to-back.

Major Characters

Sam – or Sammy (Yukinari in Japanese) is a quiet, kind-hearted young Trainer from forty years in the past who sketches every Pokémon he meets in a battered notebook. He rescues Celebi from a poacher and is whisked into the future alongside it, where he befriends Ash and fights to protect the little Pokémon with his Charmeleon. Sharp-eyed viewers will clock who he grows up to be long before the dub spells it out.

Celebi (Serebī) is the Time Travel Pokémon, the Mythical guardian of the forest. Shy and playful, it can heal the woodland around it and leap through time, which is exactly what makes it such a prize for hunters. Captured in a Dark Ball, it is twisted into a mindless destructive force – and it takes the Voice of the Forest, and the Celebi of other eras, to bring it back.

Suicune (Suikun) is the Legendary beast that guards the Lake of Life, purifying the water with every step it takes across the surface. Aloof at first, it comes to the heroes’ aid when the forest is in peril.

The Iron-Masked Marauder (Bishasu, “Vicious”) is a high-ranking Team Rocket agent – a very different proposition from Jessie and James – armed with Dark Balls that turn any Pokémon they catch evil and utterly obedient. He commands Scizor and Sneasel, later unleashes a Dark Tyranitar, and pilots a bizarre spider-legged mecha; for the first time in a movie, Team Rocket work directly for him.

Ash, Misty and Brock (Satoshi, Kasumi and Takeshi) are passing through Arborville on their Johto journey when Sam tumbles into their time. Ash and Pikachu form an instant bond with the boy and his Celebi; Misty has only Togepi along for the ride, while Brock fields Onix and Crobat. Professor Oak (Ōkido) is on the other end of Ash’s phone calls throughout – and the film’s final moments quietly tie him to the story in a way fans have treasured ever since.

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Other Characters & Pokémon Debuts

Diana (Miku) is Towa’s granddaughter, who lives among the tree-houses of Arborville and guides Ash’s group into the forest. Towa is the village’s elderly matriarch – and, as a girl forty years earlier, the one who handed a young Sam a piece of bread and warned him about the rare Pokémon living in the woods. Mr. White (Howaito) is the eccentric pilot of a boat that converts into a flying blimp in a matter of seconds. The Pokémon poacher, with his Scyther and Houndoom, chased Celebi in Sam’s day and is tracked down and interrogated by the Marauder decades later. Dundee is the Croconaw Trainer who battles Ash at the dock – silent in the Japanese version, he was given a name and an Australian accent in the dub as a nod to Crocodile Dundee. Team Rocket – Jessie, James, Meowth and Wobbuffet – spend the film in the Marauder’s service before being blasted off, while Tracey Sketchit (Kenji) appears at Oak’s lab alongside Muk (Betobeton) in a scene that was trimmed from the English version.

Pokémon along for the ride include Sam’s Charmeleon, Brock’s Onix and Crobat, Misty’s Togepi, the Marauder’s Scizor and Sneasel, the poacher’s Scyther and Houndoom, Dundee’s Croconaw and, of course, the Dark Tyranitar.

Pokémon making their anime debut in the film

• Celebi#251 · Mythical
• Croconaw#159
• Tyranitar#248 · Dark Ball
• Sneasel#215
• Jumpluff#189
• Piloswine#221

Debuting in the Pikachu’s PikaBoo short

• Larvitar#246
• Corsola#222
• Wailmer#320
• Azurill#298

Cast

The voice cast for the original Japanese release and the English dub.

Character	Japanese Voice Actor	English Voice Actor
Satoshi / Ash Ketchum	Rica Matsumoto	Veronica Taylor
Pikachū/Pikachu	Ikue Ōtane
Doctor Yukinari Ōkido (Orchid) / Professor Sam Oak	Unshō Ishizuka	Stuart Zagnit (as Stan Hart)
Kasumi / Misty	Mayumi Īzuka (as Mayumi Iizuka)	Rachael Lillis
Musashi / Jessie	Megumi Hayashibara	Rachael Lillis
Takeshi / Brock	Yūji Ueda	Eric Stuart
Kojirō / James	Shin’ichirō Miki	Eric Stuart
Nyāsu / Meowth	Inuko Inuyama	Madeleine Blaustein (as Maddie Blaustein)
Yukinari / Sammy	Keiko Toda	Tara Sands (as Tara Jayne)
serebī / the celebi	Kazuko Sugiyama
Towa [Diana’s grandmother]	Mami Koyama	Veronica Taylor
suikun / the suicune	Masahiko Tanaka
Howaito (White) / Mr White [flying boat pilot]	Takashi Fujii	Marc Thompson
Miku / Diana	Anne Suzuki	Roxanne Beck
Bishasu (Vicious) / the Iron Masked Marauder	Shirō Sano	Dan Green
young Towa	Mami Koyama	Kerry Williams
the (pokémon) hunter	Kōichi Yamadera
Dundee [the croconaw trainer]	[see Trivia below]	Amy Birnbaum
Iwāku / Onix	Unshō Ishizuka
Korobatto / Crobat	Shin’ichirō Miki
Matadogasu / Weezing	Unshō Ishizuka	Eric Stuart
Bishasu’s hassamu / Iron Mask’s scizor	Katsuyuki Konishi	Eric Stuart
Bishasu’s nyūra / Iron Mask’s sneasel	Yumi Tōma	Kayzie Rogers
Beirīhu / Bayleef	Mika Kanai
Yukinari’s rizādo / Sammy’s charmeleon	?	Eric Stuart
the hunter’s sutoraiku / scyther	Kōichi Sakaguchi	Eric Stuart
the hunter’s herugā / houndoom	Tomoyuki Kōno
Togepī / Togepi	Satomi Kōrogi
Sonansu / Wobbuffet	Yūji Ueda	Kayzie Rogers
the arigeitsu / Dundee’s croconaw	Masaru Motegi	Michael Haigney (as Roger Kay)
Kenji / Tracey Sketchit	Tomokazu Seki	[see Trivia below]
narrator	Unshō Ishizuka	[see Trivia below]
Betobeton	Unshō Ishizuka	[see Trivia below]

Trailer

The 2002 US theatrical trailer – Miramax, via YouTube.

Trading Cards

There were a few different trading cards given out with admissions to cinemas/theatres and DVD/VHS releases. The cards were all Black Star promos and were produced by Wizards of the Coast. Check them out below.

The two left cards were given out when people bought tickets to theater showings of Pokemon 4Ever in Japan and the rest of the world respectively. The Suicune promo card was bundled with the DVD and VHS releases of the movie, a very similar card to the Suicune promo was released in the Aquapolis set of the Pokemon TCG.

The e-Reader insert was included in the pack with Western releases of the Celebi Black Star Promo given at theatrical showings of the movie.

You’ll find these and every other promo catalogued in our Trading Card Game section.

• CelebiJapanese print of Black Star Promo #50
• CelebiWizards Black Star Promo #50 · US cinema giveaway
• SuicuneWizards Black Star Promo #53 · DVD & VHS release
• e-Reader insertpacked with the Celebi promo

Movie Ads & Posters

The English and Japanese movie posters for Pokemon 4Ever can be found below. We’re also on the lookout for any magazine scans/ads from gaming/movie magazines during the build up to the movie’s release, if anyone has any please email luke. Thanks!

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Trivia & Facts

• Eric Stuart did voices for more characters than anyone, with a total of seven. Three of them are characters he performed regularly throughout the anime. The next actors to do almost as many (five) is Unshō Ishizuka and Tara Sands, but only Ishizuka did continuing characters.
• Professor Oak’s Japanese name, Ōkido, is the Japanese romaji spelling for Orchid. That’s right, in Japan he’s Professor Orchid.
• The Croconaw trainer never had any dialogue.
• Despite Rodger Parsons (as Ken Gates) being in the credits, there was no narration in the English version.
• Despite Ted Lewis (as Ed Paul) being in the credits, Tracey had no dialogue in the movie, because the only scene where he spoke had been cut.
• The scene where Tracey’s dialogue had been cut also had Muk in it. So Muk as Betobeton only appeared in the Japanese version.
• They had cut the scene and replaced it with another, because the American cast didn’t get the hints from the Japanese original that Sammy and Prof Oak were the same person. The Japanese did pick up on it though. It could have been more easily done, if they would have listed the characters that the actors portrayed in the end credits, instead of just the names of the actors. For the English version, they would have given Prof Oak’s name as Prof Sam Oak in the end credits.
• The film’s working title during production was simply Pokémon 2001.
• It was the first Pokémon movie distributed by Miramax (and by Alliance Atlantis in Canada) after Warner Bros. bowed out – and it showed: the US release opened in just 249 cinemas, against 2,675 for Pokémon 3.
• Cyndaquil and Totodile appear on the posters but never in the film, and Togepi is the only one of Misty’s Pokémon to show up at all.
• A movie of firsts: the first in which a Pokémon evolves on screen (a Metapod becoming Butterfree), the first in which Team Rocket blast off, the first in which they work directly for the villain, and the first to feature a Mythical Pokémon being caught.
• The English dub kept Shinji Miyazaki’s Japanese score largely intact – the first dub to do so, a practice that continued right up to Genesect and the Legend Awakened.
• Meowth compares the Iron-Masked Marauder to a “Mexican wrestler” – a rare real-world reference in the series.
• The events of the film were later made canon in For Ho-Oh the Bells Toll! (EP227), and according to director Masamitsu Hidaka it was this film’s use of Celebi that led the anime to quietly abandon the GS Ball storyline.
• Sam’s sketchbook can be spotted in Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee!
• In the Japanese version the only clue that Sam is a young Professor Oak comes during the credits, when Tracey finds his faded sketch of Celebi and Pikachu among Oak’s belongings; the English dub added new scenes – an extra phone call to Oak and the sketchbook reveal – to make it explicit (compare the two).

  

  

• It was the third Pokémon film shown on Toon Disney in the US, and the last to carry an audio commentary from the original English voice cast.

Errors

• They wanted to make the sound and dialog of the English version of the film less cartoony and cute to match the animation effects, but still gave the film a cute title.
• When the Marauder interrogates the poacher, the poacher’s right eye is drawn as a normal eye rather than the bionic one he has in the present day.
  

  

• In the opening flashback Ash is in his usual clothes rather than the pyjamas he was wearing in Pokémon – I Choose You!
• Mr. White’s gloves vanish and reappear during the flying-boat scenes, and his mouth doesn’t move while he speaks at the waterfall.
• After climbing out of the lake, Sam’s clothes are only wet to the knees despite his having been fully submerged.
• After the explosion, the front panel of Ash’s cap is coloured red instead of white – the very same slip that crept into Pokémon 3.
• A Sentret near the Lake of Life has mis-coloured ears.
• The English credits misspell The Pokémon Company as “THE POKEMAN COMPANY”.

Reviews & Reception

Pokémon 4Ever had a rough ride in the West. Warner Bros. had walked away after Pokémon 3, and by the time Miramax picked up the rights in April 2002 the film was already fifteen months old. It crept into just 249 US cinemas on 11 October 2002, widened a fortnight later, and took a mere $1.7 million domestically. Japan, where it had been the big summer release of 2001, told a very different story with around ¥3.9 billion at the box office, and the film finished on roughly $28 million worldwide.

Critics were unimpressed: 16% on Rotten Tomatoes from 38 reviews, and 25 out of 100 on Metacritic from 16 critics. The common complaints were a muddled opening act and an ending that kept on ending, though a few reviewers conceded it felt fresher than the two films before it. Fans have been far kinder, and Celebi’s time-hopping tale – with its bittersweet Sam twist – has grown into one of the more fondly remembered entries in the series. As one of our own contributors put it:

Who cares what someone who knew/cared nothing about Pokémon thought? People liked the movie enough to pay for movie tickets and buy the videos. The movie made enough money to encourage The Pokémon Company to continue making fifteen+ more Pokémon films in this series. –White Phoenix

The film arrived on home video in Japan on 8 February 2002 and on VHS and DVD in the States on 18 March 2003 (the DVD bundling the Suicune e-Reader card and Pikachu’s PikaBoo). Echo Bridge released a 4Ever / Heroes Blu-ray twin pack in the US in 2012, and Paramount reissued the DVD in September 2020.

Scores at a glance (as of October 2026)

• IMDb – 5.8/10 user rating
• Rotten Tomatoes – 16% Tomatometer (37 reviews) · 54% audience score“Its save-the-planet message clashes with its crass marketing” – Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post
• Metacritic – 25/100 Metascore (16 critics) · 7.4/10 user score“Less moldy and trite than the last two” – Loren King, Chicago Tribune
• Letterboxd – 3.2/5 average from 34,000+ ratings
• Anime News Network – “Skippable” tier in ANN’s ranking of every Pokémon movie“Little more engaging than any given episode of the TV series” – Callum May