Pokémon Movie: Jirachi Wish Maker

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Pokémon: Jirachi – Wish Maker, or Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation the Movie: The Wishing Star of Seven Nights – Jirachi as the Japanese title directly translates, is the sixth movie of the Pokémon franchise.

The movie was directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and was voiced by the stars of the corresponding Japanese and English anime series respectively.

It’s the first movie of the new Advanced Generation story arc, and also the first to feature the characters from the Advanced Generation episodes of the anime – May and Max replace Misty on the big screen. It was accompanied by the Pikachu short bonus feature Gotta Dance!, or Secret Base of the Dancing Pokémon as it’s known when directly translated from its Japanese title.

The initial release of the movie came on 19 July 2003, when it first opened in Japanese theatres. The release of the movie was then staggered until late in 2005, when it finally finished releasing in Europe. Some of those releases were DVD and video only, in regions where the film’s predecessors hadn’t performed so well at the box office. And here’s a crazy fact: eleven years after these staggered releases finished, this movie was finally released in Australia on DVD – not sure what happened there!

Distribution and airings

Once again 4Kids Entertainment were responsible for the English adaptation of the film for international audiences, whilst Miramax Films continued to act on the distribution side. In the USA the movie’s release was direct to video and DVD and came on 1 June 2004.

Cartoon Network has aired the movie in the US on numerous occasions, and Toon Disney managed to get an airing on 9 March 2007, most likely due to their connection with Miramax Films (who were a subsidiary of Disney at the time).

The movie complements Pokémon Season 6 – Advanced, and the main setting is Forina, which is based on the Chinese city of Wulingyuan in Hunan Province.

Chronology in relation to the anime
In Japan the film opened on 19 July 2003, between Having a Wailord of a Time (AG034) and Win, Lose or Drew! (AG035), though it only really fits after the gang leave Slateport City a couple of episodes later. Ash is two badges into his Hoenn challenge – the Stone Badge from Roxanne and the Knuckle Badge from Brawly – with Mauville Gym next on the list, and his team is still young: Pikachu, Treecko, Taillow and the newly caught Corphish. May has Torchic and her Wurmple line, Brock has Forretress, Lotad and Mudkip, and Max is still a few years short of a Pokémon of his own – which is exactly why Jirachi choosing him means so much. In the West the film skipped cinemas altogether and arrived on video in June 2004, by which time the dub was well into Advanced Challenge.

Jirachi: Wish Maker is broken down into the following parts

• Gotta Dance! (Secret Base of the Dancing Pokémon) – the Pikachu short, around 20 minutes
• Jirachi: Wish Maker – the main feature, 81 minutes

Story

Gotta Dance! (the short)

Meowth unveils his latest invention at Team Rocket’s brand-new Hoenn secret base: the Dancing PokéBaton, which makes any Pokémon within earshot boogie uncontrollably. Pikachu, Treecko, Torchic, Mudkip and Lotad stumble on the base while rescuing a group of trapped Whismur, the baton goes off, and before long a Loudred and a Ludicolo have joined a dance party so wild that the entire headquarters shakes itself to rubble. It was the last Pikachu short to be shown with a movie for almost a decade.

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The Millennium Festival

Ash, May, Brock and Max arrive at a valley where the Millennium Festival is gearing up for the comet that appears once every thousand years, and watch an entire fairground spring up overnight. The star attraction is the Great Butler’s Magic Show: Butler conjures a Kirlia from a hat, borrows Ash and Max for his Burning Box illusion and sees off Team Rocket, who had hoped to lift a few Pokémon in the confusion. Afterwards Max hears a voice coming from the crystal cocoon on Butler’s stage. Butler and his assistant Diane explain that it holds Jirachi, the Wish Pokémon, which wakes only for the seven nights the Millennium Comet is in the sky – and since Jirachi has chosen Max as its friend, Max gets to keep the crystal. That night May sings a lullaby, the comet rises, the crystal glows and Jirachi hatches. Far away, an Absol senses it and sets out for the festival.

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Seven nights with Jirachi

Max and Jirachi spend the next day tearing round the festival together, though Jirachi is more interested in mischief than in helping when a lighting rig nearly falls on May. Then a mirror shatters and Absol bursts in. Butler declares it a harbinger of disaster; Ash and May’s Pokémon only make it angrier, and Jirachi, panicking, teleports Pikachu and Torchic clean out of the tent before collapsing from the effort. May closes the second panel of her Wishmaker, the little paper charm Bogie the vendor sold her, which grants a wish if all seven panels are closed while the comet shines.

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Butler’s true colours

In the small hours Butler takes Jirachi, straps it into a machine and has his Dusclops force open its “true eye” so that it will drink in the energy of the Millennium Comet. The comet throws the beam straight back, wrecking the machine and badly hurting Jirachi. When Max refuses to hand its friend over, Absol – who was never the enemy – attacks Butler and Dusclops, and the gang escape with Jirachi and Diane aboard Butler’s tour bus. On the road Diane tells them the truth: Butler was once a Team Magma scientist, humiliated when his device for creating a Groudon failed in front of the whole organisation, and he means to use Jirachi’s power to prove them all wrong. Unknown to anyone, Butler’s Mightyena has planted a tracker on the bus.

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The road to Forina

The group decide to take Jirachi home to Forina, the land of rock pillars where it has slept for a thousand years. The journey takes several days – mud, stone-skimming, campfires and, for Max, the growing dread of saying goodbye. Ash tells him about a friend he had to part with once himself. At last they reach Forina, a valley of Altaria, Tropius, Vibrava and Nuzleaf watched over by a wild Flygon, and May closes the sixth panel of her Wishmaker as the comet climbs for its final night.

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Meta Groudon

On the seventh day Absol leads everyone to the cavern where Jirachi slept, beneath a skylight that frames the comet. As Jirachi begins to turn back into its cocoon, Butler arrives with a rebuilt machine, snatches it again and forces the true eye open once more. This time the comet’s energy pours through his spikes and etches a Groudon into the valley floor. Absol and Flygon smash the spikes pinning the group down; Ash and Max ride Flygon into the fight, Ash keeping Butler’s Salamence busy while Max and Pikachu short the machine out with a Thunderbolt. It is too late. What rises from the ground is not Groudon but a twisted copy – Meta Groudon – which feeds on the life of the valley and swallows anything it touches, Diane, May and Brock included. Horrified, Butler switches sides and suggests reversing the machine so Jirachi can drain the monster. When Butler is knocked down, Ash throws the switch himself.

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Make a wish

Jirachi blazes with light and launches a meteor of pure energy – its Doom Desire – that hauls Meta Groudon up into the sky, where it bursts apart against the comet in a shower of fireworks. A gentle rain falls and everyone Meta Groudon swallowed reappears. Jirachi floats down with one last wish of its own: that everyone sing the lullaby together. As they do, it seals itself back into its crystal and sinks into the earth, Max promising it will always be in his heart. Next morning Butler and Diane decide to stay in Forina, and May discovers she never did close the seventh panel of her Wishmaker – which is fine, she decides, since we all have to make our own dreams come true anyway.

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Major Characters

Ash Ketchum (Satoshi) and Brock (Takeshi) are joined for the first time on film by the Hoenn newcomers May (Haruka, voiced by KAORI in Japanese and Veronica Taylor in English) and her little brother Max (Masato, voiced by Fushigi Yamada and Amy Birnbaum). This is Max’s film more than anyone’s: too young to own a Pokémon, he gets seven days with a Legendary one, and the movie is built around how hard it is to let a friend go.
Jirachi (voiced by Tomiko Suzuki, who sadly died ten days before the Japanese premiere, and by Kerry Williams in English) is the Wish Pokémon, a star-shaped Steel/Psychic Mythical that sleeps for a thousand years at a time and wakes only while the Millennium Comet crosses the sky. Playful, greedy for sweets and genuinely able to grant wishes – up to a point – it also carries a devastating “true eye” on its belly that the villain is desperate to exploit.
Butler (Butler, voiced by Kōichi Yamadera and Wayne Grayson) is the Great Butler, a flamboyant stage magician with a Kirlia, a Mightyena, a Dusclops and a Salamence – and a former Team Magma scientist who was laughed out of the organisation when his Groudon-making machine failed. Diane (voiced by Riho Makise and Megan Hollingshead) is his childhood sweetheart and assistant, the first to see where his obsession is leading. Bogie (Bōgi, voiced by comedian Papaya Suzuki) sells May her Wishmaker, while Absol and the wild Flygon of Forina are the film’s unlikely heroes – Absol spends half the film mistaken for the bad guy. Jessie, James and Meowth turn up disguised as circus clowns and briefly go to work for Butler.

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Other Characters & Pokémon Debuts

Forina is home to a whole cast of Hoenn Pokémon seen on the big screen for the first time – Altaria and Swablu drifting between the pillars, Tropius, Vibrava, Breloom, Nuzleaf, Linoone, Electrike and more – while the festival crowds bring Delcatty, Numel, Camerupt and Solrock. Meta Groudon, the corrupted copy of the legendary continent Pokémon that Butler’s machine spits out, is the film’s monster, and both Groudon and Kyogre appear in the opening legend. Butler’s team – Kirlia, Mightyena, Dusclops and Salamence – give the Hoenn generation plenty to show off.

Pokémon making their anime debut in the film

As the first Hoenn-era film, Jirachi: Wish Maker set a record for debuts that stood for years: twenty Pokémon were seen in the anime for the first time, most of them months before Ruby & Sapphire reached the West.

• Jirachi#385 · the Wish Pokémon
• Absol#359
• Kirlia#281 · Butler’s
• Dusclops#356 · Butler’s
• Salamence#373 · Butler’s
• Vibrava#329 · Forina
• Flygon#330 · Forina
• Tropius#357 · Forina
• Linoone#264 · Forina
• Breloom#286 · Forina
• Swablu#333 · Forina
• Altaria#334 · Forina
• Delcatty#301
• Numel#322
• Camerupt#323
• Electrike#309 · Forina
• Manectric#310
• Solrock#338
• Groudon#383 · as Meta Groudon
• Kyogre#382 · opening legend

Debuting in the Gotta Dance! short

Two more Hoenn Pokémon showed up first in the short, with Loudred and Lotad also along for the dance.

• Whismur#293
• Ludicolo#272

Cast

The voice cast of both the Japanese and English versions of Jirachi: Wish Maker.

Character	English voice actor	Japanese voice actor
Ash Ketchum (Satoshi)	Veronica Taylor	Rica Matsumoto
Pikachu	Ikue Ōtani	Ikue Ōtani
May (Haruka)	Veronica Taylor	KAORI
Max (Masato)	Amy Birnbaum	Fushigi Yamada
Brock (Takeshi)	Eric Stuart	Yūji Ueda
Jessie (Musashi)	Rachael Lillis	Megumi Hayashibara
James (Kojirō)	Eric Stuart	Shin-ichirō Miki
Meowth (Nyarth)	Maddie Blaustein	Inuko Inuyama
Wobbuffet (Sonans)	Kayzie Rogers	Yūji Ueda
Jirachi	Kerry Williams	Tomiko Suzuki
Butler	Wayne Grayson	Kōichi Yamadera
Diane	Megan Hollingshead	Riho Makise
Bogie (Bōgi)	Eric Stuart	Papaya Suzuki
Absol	Eric Stuart	Megumi Hayashibara
Flygon	Shin-ichirō Miki	Shin-ichirō Miki
Narrator	Mike Pollock	Unshō Ishizuka

Trailer

The US VHS/DVD trailer for Jirachi: Wish Maker (Miramax Home Entertainment, 2004).

Trading Cards

With no Western cinema release there were no theatre giveaways for Jirachi: Wish Maker, and for once no promo card was packed into the DVD either. Japan, as usual, did things properly. From opening day on 19 July 2003 cinemas sold the Movie Commemoration VS Pack (Eiga Kōkai Kinen VS Pack), a 19-card half deck built entirely from the film: Forina’s Jirachi, Forina’s Absol and Forina’s Flygon alongside Nuzleaf, Breloom, Tropius, Linoone and Altaria, Butler’s Kirlia, Dusclops, Salamence and Mightyena, and Trainer cards for Butler’s Magic Trick and the Wishmaker itself, complete with a Jirachi coin. None of it was ever printed in English.

Jirachi did make it to the West in another form: this was the first movie whose star was given away as an event Pokémon for the games. Japanese fans could download one through Pokémon Channel in 2003, and American players received theirs from the Pokémon Colosseum Bonus Disc in 2004, which also carried this film’s trailer. Every card below, and the rest of the set, is catalogued in our Trading Card Game section.

• Movie Commemoration VS PackJapanese cinema half deck · July 2003
• Forina’s JirachiMovie Commemoration VS Pack 004/019
• Forina’s AbsolMovie Commemoration VS Pack 008/019
• Forina’s FlygonMovie Commemoration VS Pack 006/019
• Butler’s DusclopsMovie Commemoration VS Pack 010/019
• Butler’s SalamenceMovie Commemoration VS Pack 011/019
• Butler’s Magic TrickMovie Commemoration VS Pack 018/019
• Wish MakerMovie Commemoration VS Pack 019/019

Movie Ads & Posters

Posters and home-video artwork for Jirachi: Wish Maker from around the world – the Japanese one-sheets and teaser, the Gotta Dance! poster, the English posters, and the DVD and VHS releases from Japan, the States, the UK, Europe and Australia. Magazine clippings and adverts are still wanted – if you have any, please get in touch.

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Trivia & Facts

• In Japan the film was released between Having a Wailord of a Time (AG034) and Win, Lose or Drew! (AG035), though it takes place a little later, after Ash and friends have left Slateport City.
• The prologue is a roll call of previous movie legends – Mewtwo, Lugia, Entei, Celebi, Latios and Latias all appear – but Mew, the legendary birds and Suicune are left out.
• A film of firsts: the first Pokémon movie to go straight to video in America, the first in which a villainous team other than Team Rocket appears (Team Magma, in Butler’s flashback), the first to feature May and Max, the first without Misty in the travelling party – though Ash alludes to her – and the first not to play the season’s theme song over the opening credits.
• The ending song, Make a Wish, was the first time the English dub kept a Japanese ending theme, blending it with English lyrics performed by Cindy Mizelle. May’s own singing voice was also retained in the dub.
• Jirachi’s Japanese voice actress Tomiko Suzuki died of a heart attack a week and a half before the film opened in Japanese cinemas.
• Although the TV series had already switched to digital animation, this movie and the three that followed were still made with hand-inked and painted cels.
• Team Rocket’s clown outfits were dusted off years later for the Sinnoh episode Not on MY Watch Ya Don’t!
  

  

• The movie left its mark on the games. In Pokémon Colosseum the Trainer Rider Zalla uses Jirachi, Flygon, Absol, Kirlia, Mightyena and Dusclops – the film’s whole line-up – and in the Sinnoh games two Ace Trainers on Route 229 have teams based on Butler and Diane, sharing their names in the Japanese versions. May’s rival Drew would later own both an Absol and a Flygon.
• The ending credits pair constellations with Pokémon: Ursa Minor becomes Teddiursa, Ursa Major is Ursaring, Draco is Milotic, Ophiuchus is a Machoke wrestling a Seviper, Scorpius is Gligar, Aquila is Kyogre and Virgo is Gardevoir.
• Treecko and Mudkip are on the box art but never appear in the main feature. Tropius, meanwhile, makes a “slurp” sound effect rather than its usual anime cry.
• This was the last Pokémon movie released on DVD in the UK until The Rise of Darkrai years later, the last to be shown with a Pikachu short until Kyurem VS. The Sword of Justice almost a decade on, the last 4Kids movie with Megan Hollingshead in the cast, and the last Pokémon VHS to come in a clamshell case.
• It is the only Hoenn-era movie in which no Generation IV Pokémon sneaks in, and the only one of the series to use different CGI title sequences for the Japanese and dubbed versions – while being the first in which the title fanfare is the same in both.
• An instrumental version of the Advanced Adventure theme plays as the group travel to Forina, and again on the DVD’s main menu. Italy didn’t get to hear any of it until 16 March 2012, almost eight years after the American release.

Errors

• When the group runs to the cliff, Brock has his guidebook in his right hand; by the time they reach the edge it is in his left, and then it vanishes altogether.
• When May sits down beside the sleeping Max and the crystal, Brock’s sleeves are drawn with an orange lining.
• Jirachi uses Teleport – a move it cannot legally learn in the games.
• When Ash tells Flygon to watch out, Salamence’s lower jaw is coloured blue instead of grey; the same slip happens after Ash tells Pikachu and Max to free Jirachi.
• During the magic show the English dub has Butler call for an attack called “Capitata”; in the Japanese version he shouts “Onibi!”, the Japanese name for Will-O-Wisp.
• The original German DVD cover used the artwork and logo from Destiny Deoxys. The art was eventually corrected, but the wrong logo stayed.
  

  

Reviews & Reception

Because Jirachi: Wish Maker skipped cinemas outside Japan there is no Rotten Tomatoes consensus to argue with, and the Western press largely ignored it. In Japan, however, The Wishing Star of Seven Nights was a genuine comeback, taking around ¥4.5 billion – roughly $33 million – and comfortably out-grossing Pokémon Heroes the year before. It remains one of the better-earning films of the Advanced Generation era.

Among fans its reputation is warm. Max and Jirachi’s friendship, the gentle lullaby that threads through the film, and a villain with an actual motive make it one of the more emotionally satisfying entries in the series, even if Meta Groudon’s rampage in the final act is a step down from the character drama that precedes it. The Pikachu short Gotta Dance! is also fondly remembered as the last of its kind for many years.

The Japanese DVD and VHS arrived on 19 December 2003 from Media Factory. In the US the film went direct to VHS and DVD through Buena Vista Home Entertainment on 1 June 2004 – only the second Pokémon film after Mewtwo Returns to do so – and the UK finally got a DVD on 23 October 2006 to tie in with the Pokémon 10th Anniversary Tour. Echo Bridge Home Entertainment later bundled it with 4Ever, Heroes and Destiny Deoxys in a Miramax multi-feature on Blu-ray and DVD on 3 April 2012, and Australia at long last received a DVD in 2016.

Scores at a glance (as of October 2026)

• IMDb – 5.8/10 from around 5,400 user ratings
• Rotten Tomatoes – 61% audience score (10,000+ ratings) · no critics’ score – only one review“May and Max get involved in really annoying situations” – Sebastian Zavala Kahn, Más Gamers
• Letterboxd – 3.1/5 average from 19,000+ ratings
• DVD Talk – Recommended“The end was well worth the wait” – John Sinnott
• Anime News Network – “Skippable” tier in ANN’s ranking of every Pokémon movie“Fails to present anything particularly unique within the Pokemon universe” – Callum May