Pokémon the Movie Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction

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Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction is the 17th movie in the Pokémon franchise and the first in the XY series story arc. The Japanese title, although usually much more extravagant than the Western titles, is actually the same this time round once directly translated – The Cocoon of Destruction and Diancie.

The movie is directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and stars the voice cast from the X & Y anime. The movie was seen for the first time in trailer format at the end of Pokémon: Genesect & the Legend Awakened, the trailer revealing Xerneas and Yveltal as well as Chespin, Fennekin and Froakie. The movie’s title was also revealed by CoroCoro magazine in Japan on 15 December 2013, and CoroCoro followed this up in February 2014’s issue, stating that the Mythical Pokémon Diancie would take a prominent role in the movie.

The plot of the movie is based around the Jewel Pokémon Diancie, the Life Pokémon Xerneas and Yveltal, the Pokémon of destruction. Of particular note is that the film debuted Diancie in its Mega Evolved form prior to it being discovered in Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire for the 3DS.

Release around the world

The film was initially released on 19 July 2014 in theatres across Japan and followed in theatres in Australia and New Zealand on 8 November 2014. This was as far as cinema releases went, with the movie airing straight off on Cartoon Network in the United States on 8 November 2014 (the same day as the Australian and New Zealand cinema release) and coming to DVD and Blu-ray in Japan just in time for Christmas on 17 December 2014. The US DVD was released on 17 February 2015.

Once again there was a Pikachu short with this movie, but again it didn’t reach international cinemas. The short was called Pikachu, What’s This Key? and was shown only at Japanese screenings of the movie, though an English dub did eventually appear on Pokémon TV in February 2015. Japanese viewers also got a TV special two weeks before release, Diancie – Princess of the Diamond Domain, which introduced the heroine and her Carbink court.

Chronology in relation to the anime
In Japan the film opened on 19 July 2014, between The Forest Champion! (XY035, 10 July) and Battles in the Sky! (XY036, 24 July) in the XY series. It actually sits a little later than that: Ash’s Fletchinder – evolved in XY036 – is in the film, and Froakie uses Cut, a move it only learned in Forging Forest Friendships! (XY038), so the adventure belongs to the weeks after that, on the road between Cyllage City and the Shalour Gym with two Kalos badges on Ash’s case. Ash is travelling with Serena, Clemont and Bonnie and brings Pikachu, Froakie, Fletchinder and the newly caught Hawlucha; Serena has her Fennekin, Clemont his Chespin and Bunnelby, and Bonnie is minding Dedenne. Had the delayed An Undersea Place to Call Home! aired on schedule, Hawlucha would have made its debut in this film. In the dub, Cartoon Network aired the movie on 8 November 2014, eight weeks after The Forest Champion! reached America.

Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction is broken down into the following parts

• Pikachu, What’s This Key? (PK26) – the Pikachu short, around 20 minutes; shown only in Japanese cinemas, with an English dub on Pokémon TV from 2 February 2015
• Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction – the main feature, 75 minutes
• Diancie – Princess of the Diamond Domain – a TV special broadcast in Japan on 3 July 2014 that introduced Diancie and the Carbink ahead of the film

Story

Pikachu, What’s This Key? (the Pikachu short)

While their Trainers rest at a country cottage, Dedenne gets an old golden key stuck on its tail in the cellar, and a wild Klefki – a Pokémon that collects keys – swoops down to claim it. Pikachu hands it over, and Klefki repays the favour by opening a floating keyhole into its own world, a candy-coloured realm where every key opens a door to somewhere else. Pikachu, Dedenne, Froakie, Chespin, Fennekin, Hawlucha and Bunnelby tumble through doors into a kingdom of clouds (where Victini catches a falling Pikachu), a frozen playground shared with Amaura, Tyrunt, Noibat and Litleo (where Jirachi turns up to play), while Meowth, Wobbuffet and Inkay, who have sneaked in behind them, go treasure-hunting and find only Manaphy’s water world and a very annoyed Darkrai. When the keyholes begin to fade everyone has to race back through Klefki’s world before they are shut out of their own, and they make it home just in time for dinner.

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The Diamond Domain

Deep underground lies the Diamond Domain, a glittering kingdom of Carbink ruled by the Mythical Pokémon Diancie – young, curious and not nearly as solemn as her three bodyguards, Merrick, Bort and Allotrope, would like. The elder Carbink, Dace, has grim news: the Heart Diamond that gives the Domain its life is dying, only a Diancie can make a new one, and every diamond this Diancie creates crumbles within minutes. Dace tells her of the day, long ago, when the Allearth Forest was destroyed and he himself was killed, only to be brought back by the Legendary Pokémon Xerneas and its Fairy Aura. If anything can awaken her true power, it is that.

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Avignon Town

In Avignon Town Ash takes on a Trainer called Astrid: Pikachu’s Electro Ball beats her Pyroar, her Meowstic edges out Froakie, and when Hawlucha steps up Astrid Mega Evolves her Absol – Ash’s first close-up look at Mega Evolution, and a loss. Across town Diancie, who slipped away from her bodyguards to see the city, is being chased by two thieves working against each other: the glamorous Merilyn Flame with her Delphox and the masked Ninja Riot with his Greninja. Ash and Pikachu drive them off, and the gang discover that the little Pokémon they have rescued speaks telepathically, has the manners of a princess and can make diamonds – which is exactly why Team Rocket snatch her at dinner and carry her to a clock tower to produce a fortune. A girl with a Chesnaught helps her escape, and Diancie explains that her diamonds vanish anyway, as Team Rocket are about to find out.

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The Steels

The girl is Millis Steel, and she reports back to a stealth airship where her father Argus Steel, a master thief with a Honedge, a Doublade and an Aegislash and a serious chocolate habit, is tracking Diancie, Merilyn and Riot on his screens. They have no intention of helping anyone: they simply mean to let Diancie lead them to Xerneas and take her power at the moment it is awakened. Unaware of any of this, Ash and his friends agree to join Diancie’s search, following the trail of Fairy Aura she can sense by bus and on foot, and that night Ash teaches her how to wish on a shooting star.

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Orsay City

A ferry carries the gang to Orsay City, where Diancie learns what friends are and gives Bonnie a diamond to keep – one that, oddly, does not fade. The shopping mall is mistaken for a castle, Serena and Bonnie take Diancie on a dressing-up spree, and the fun ends when Merrick, Bort and Allotrope appear on the escalators and Diancie flees through the mall with her bodyguards in pursuit and Ash swinging after her on Clemont’s extending ladder. Outside, Merilyn attacks again; Serena borrows a Rhyhorn from a ranch and gallops the others to safety through a Rhyhorn race, Riot drops out of a tree, and the three Carbink throw themselves in front of Diancie to take the blows meant for her. Diancie’s Diamond Storm shatters, Millis and her Chesnaught drive the thieves off, and the Carbink finally explain themselves: they have been hunting Xerneas for months, and their princess ran away from them.

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The Allearth Forest and Xerneas

The Carbink lead everyone home to a Diamond Domain gone dark: the Heart Diamond has died. Diancie breaks down and declares herself unfit to be a princess, and Ash tells her that crying will not make a diamond. Dace takes them out through another passage into the Allearth Forest, a vast, forbidden wilderness where the “Cocoon of Destruction” sleeps and the Pokémon live in peace, and there, in a glade, Diancie finds Xerneas at last. The Life Pokémon has known she was following it all along. It bathes her, the Carbink and Dedenne in its Fairy Aura and tells her that the power to nourish life was inside her from the start.

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The Cocoon of Destruction

The Steels’ airship arrives overhead, Merilyn and Riot and Team Rocket pile in, and the brawl over Diancie tumbles all of them into a drained lake – the resting place of the Cocoon. It wakes. Yveltal, the Destruction Pokémon, rises in a shroud of Dark Aura and punishes everyone who disturbed it in turn: its Oblivion Wing turns Riot’s Greninja and Ninjask to stone, then Merilyn’s Delphox and Yanmega, then – despite Chesnaught’s Spiky Shield – the Steels’ Honedge, Doublade and Chesnaught, and finally Team Rocket, trees and all. Pikachu’s Thunderbolt saves the Steels from a second blast; Riot, unmasked, holds a grieving Merilyn as the next one comes.

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Mega Diancie

Merrick, Bort and Allotrope take an Oblivion Wing meant for Diancie and turn to stone with a last plea to Ash to protect her; Ash and Pikachu are blown over a cliff edge and left hanging. Weeping over her failures, Diancie remembers Xerneas’s words – and the diamond she gave Bonnie begins to glow, revealing itself as a Diancite. Diancie Mega Evolves, and the diamond she throws up to shield her friends holds. The Steels, repaying Pikachu, hammer Yveltal with missiles from their airship until it shatters the ship with a point-blank Oblivion Wing and sends it into the lake; its final blast at Ash and the others is knocked aside by an Aurora Beam. Xerneas has come. It blocks Yveltal’s Shadow Ball, speaks to it through its Fairy Aura and lifts the Dark Aura, and the Destruction Pokémon restores the lake and flies away in peace.

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Geomancy

Then Pikachu, clipped on the tail by the last Oblivion Wing, begins to turn to stone. Xerneas uses Geomancy, and in a wave of light Pikachu, the Carbink, the thieves, Team Rocket and the whole petrified forest are restored – while Xerneas itself hardens into a great tree, choosing, Dace says, to sleep and keep the balance of nature; through Diancie it promises that this is not death but the beginning of hope. Mega Diancie creates a new Heart Diamond and the Diamond Domain blazes back to life, Bonnie gives her diamond back as the mark of their friendship, and the gang say goodbye. In the credits Argus and Millis run a chocolate shop whose speciality is shaped like a Honedge, Merilyn works in a boutique and Riot turns up to propose, and Yveltal soars over the mountains while Xerneas stands in the forest as a tree.

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Major Characters

Ash Ketchum (Satoshi) begins a new run of movies with his Kalos companions Serena, Clemont (Citron) and Bonnie (Eureka), and the film gives each of them something to do – Serena’s Rhyhorn-racing upbringing pays off, Clemont’s gadgets save the day in the mall and Bonnie is the one holding the Diancite. Ash fights with Pikachu, Froakie, Hawlucha and Fletchinder, and loses to his first Mega Evolution.
Diancie (Marika Matsumoto / Caitlin Glass) is the Jewel Pokémon, princess of the Diamond Domain and the heart of the film: a sheltered, impeccably mannered, endlessly curious Mythical Pokémon who talks by telepathy, has never seen a shop or a shooting star, and cannot do the one thing her people need her to do. Her Mega Diancie form was the film’s big reveal, four months before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire made it available in the games. Xerneas (Yoshiko Mita / Mary O’Brady), the Life Pokémon, is a serene presence whose Fairy Aura heals and whose Geomancy ends the film at a cost; Yveltal, the Destruction Pokémon, never speaks at all – it is the sleeping Cocoon of Destruction of the Allearth Forest, and its Oblivion Wing turns whatever it touches to stone.

The film has four human villains, more than any other. Argus Steel (Reiji Nakagawa / Pete Zarustica) is a dapper master thief modelled on his own Honedge, with a Doublade, an Aegislash, a stealth airship and a weakness for Hoenn chocolate, and Millis Steel (Shōko Nakagawa / Brittney Lee Hamilton) is his daughter and partner, with a Chesnaught. Merilyn Flame (Marilyn; Rika Adachi / Lianne Marie Dobbs) is a glamorous freelance with a Delphox and a Yanmega, and Ninja Riot (Kōichi Yamadera / Marc Thompson) a masked rival with a Greninja and two Ninjask – the pair bicker their way through the film and end it engaged.

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Other Characters & Pokémon Debuts

Dace (Daii; Shōzō Iizuka / William Tost) is the elder Carbink who was killed and revived in the Allearth Forest long ago, and Merrick (Majima; Kensuke Satō / David Wills), Bort and Allotrope are Diancie’s long-suffering bodyguards. Astrid (Miyuu Sawai / Kate Bristol) is the Trainer whose Mega Absol beats Ash in Avignon Town, and the Pikachu-owning Trainer Uschi is voiced in Japanese by footballer Atsuto Uchida. The World of Pokémon opening is a parade of Mega Evolutions – Diantha’s Mega Gardevoir, Mega Venusaur, Mega Charizard X and Mega Blastoise, and Kalos Elite Four member Wikstrom with his Mega Scizor, the first Elite Four member ever to appear in person in a movie – and the credits add Mega Charizard Y, both Mega Mewtwo, Mega Garchomp, Mega Lucario and Mega Blaziken. Jessie, James and Meowth actually meet Ash for the first time in a movie since Giratina and the Sky Warrior, get a brief bath in diamonds, and are turned to stone for their trouble.

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Pokémon making their anime debut in the film

The first Kalos movie introduced thirteen Pokémon to the anime, led by the two Legendary mascots of X and Y. Diancie herself had debuted a fortnight earlier in the TV special Diancie – Princess of the Diamond Domain, so its Mega Evolution is the film’s true debut.

• Xerneas#716 · the Life Pokémon, Active Mode
• Xerneas#716 · Neutral Mode, as a tree
• Yveltal#717 · the Destruction Pokémon
• Mega Diancie#719 · before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
• Chesnaught#652 · Millis Steel’s
• Doublade#680 · Argus Steel’s
• Aegislash#681 · Shield Forme
• Aegislash#681 · Blade Forme
• Skiddo#672
• Pyroar#668 · Astrid’s (male)
• Phantump#708
• Trevenant#709
• Flabébé#669 · several flower colours
• Floette#670 · several flower colours
• Clawitzer#693
• Barbaracle#689 · the opening battle

Debuting in the Pikachu, What’s This Key? short

Two more Kalos Pokémon made their first appearance in the short.

• Klefki#707 · the Key Ring Pokémon
• Litleo#667 · in the ice world

Cast

The voice cast of both the Japanese and English versions. Marika Matsumoto voices Diancie and veteran actress Yoshiko Mita is Xerneas; Shōko Nakagawa returns to the movies as Millis Steel, and Kōichi Yamadera adds Ninja Riot to his long run of movie villains. In the dub, Pete Zarustica – Drew in the 4Kids-era series – voices Argus Steel.

Character	English voice actor	Japanese voice actor
Ash Ketchum (Satoshi)	Sarah Natochenny	Rica Matsumoto
Pikachu	Ikue Ōtani	Ikue Ōtani
Serena	Haven Paschall	Mayuki Makiguchi
Clemont (Citron)	Mike Liscio	Yūki Kaji
Bonnie (Eureka)	Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld	Mariya Ise
Dedenne	Megumi Satō	Megumi Satō
Jessie (Musashi)	Michele Knotz	Megumi Hayashibara
James (Kojirō)	Carter Cathcart	Shin-ichirō Miki
Meowth (Nyarth)	Carter Cathcart	Inuko Inuyama
Wobbuffet (Sonans)	Kayzie Rogers	Yūji Ueda
Argus Steel	Pete Zarustica	Reiji Nakagawa
Millis Steel	Brittney Lee Hamilton	Shōko Nakagawa
Merilyn Flame (Marilyn)	Lianne Marie Dobbs	Rika Adachi
Ninja Riot	Marc Thompson	Kōichi Yamadera
Astrid	Kate Bristol	Miyuu Sawai
Uschi	—	Atsuto Uchida
Diancie	Caitlin Glass	Marika Matsumoto
Xerneas	Mary O’Brady	Yoshiko Mita
Dace (Daii)	William Tost	Shōzō Iizuka
Merrick (Majima)	David Wills	Kensuke Satō
Bort (Knight)	—	Tsuyoshi Nakagawa
Allotrope (Joke)	—	Kenta Miyake
Narrator	Rodger Parsons	Unshō Ishizuka

Trailer

The official English trailer for Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction, from the official Pokémon YouTube channel.

Trading Cards

Japan’s card game marked the film with four pieces of merchandise, all released on opening day, 19 July 2014. The Xerneas Movie Commemoration Set and Yveltal Movie Commemoration Set each carried a Cracked Ice holo promo of their Legendary (051 and 052/XY-P); the Theater Diancie Movie Commemoration Set, sold at cinemas screening the film and at the Pokémon Centers, held a Diancie (053/XY-P); and the Seven & I Diancie Movie Commemoration Set, exclusive to the Seven & I store chains such as Ito-Yokado, held a second print of it (054/XY-P). All four cards carry a “Pokémon the movie XY” stamp and the film’s logo in the artwork. Before that, anyone pre-ordering a ticket received a Darkrai promo (037/XY-P) – a nod to its cameo in the Pikachu short – and 7-Eleven’s Summer Campaign pack that July included a Carbink (058/XY-P).

Every one of them was later reprinted in English: the Diancie as a regular card in Phantom Forces (71/119), Xerneas and Yveltal as XY31 and XY32 in the Battle Arena Decks of October 2014, Darkrai as XY22 in the Phantom Forces three-pack blisters that November, and Carbink in Roaring Skies the following year. Everything is catalogued in our Trading Card Game section.

• The four Movie Commemoration SetsJapan, 19 July 2014
• Diancie053 and 054/XY-P · Diancie Movie Commemoration Sets (English: Phantom Forces 71/119)
• XerneasXY31 · 051/XY-P Xerneas Movie Commemoration Set
• YveltalXY32 · 052/XY-P Yveltal Movie Commemoration Set
• DarkraiXY22 · 037/XY-P advance-ticket gift
• Carbink058/XY-P 7-Eleven Summer Campaign 2014 (English: Roaring Skies 47/108)

Movie Ads & Posters

Posters and home-video artwork for Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction – the Japanese teaser and theatrical posters, the limited Mega Diancie poster that came with the theme-song single, the English digital poster, promotional art and the CoroCoro reveal of Mega Diancie, the artwork for the Diancie game distribution, and DVD and Blu-ray releases from Japan, the US and Australia. Magazine clippings and adverts are always wanted.

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Trivia & Facts

• In Japan the film was released between The Forest Champion! (XY035) and Battles in the Sky! (XY036), but Froakie uses Cut, which it learned in XY038, and Fletchinder had only evolved in XY036, so the story sits a few episodes later. Had An Undersea Place to Call Home! aired when planned, the film would have been Hawlucha’s debut.
• Kunihiko Yuyama, writer Hideki Sonoda and composer Shinji Miyazaki scouted Canada for the settings: the streets of Ottawa and Stratford, Ontario, Quebec City, Toronto, Niagara Falls and Bruce Peninsula National Park. They wanted a road movie that moved from European-style streets through untouched wilderness to a big city, with nature as the backdrop for Xerneas and Yveltal’s cycle of life and death.
  

  

• With Argus, Millis, Merilyn and Riot it has more human villains than any other Pokémon movie. Wikstrom of the Kalos Elite Four is the first Elite Four member to appear in person in a film, and Argus Steel is drawn to look like his own Honedge. The chocolates he cannot stop eating are imported from Hoenn – a wink at the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remakes announced two months earlier.
  

  

• It is the first movie in which Team Rocket actually meet Ash since Giratina and the Sky Warrior – also released on 19 July – and the first with their redesigned Meowth balloon. It is also the first since Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea without a cameo by the mother and daughter, and the first since then in which Jessie’s or James’s Pokémon appear. A pair of Floatzel make the species’ first appearance in over four years.
• Mega Diancie was revealed here four months before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and the film is a showcase for Mega Evolution generally: Astrid’s Mega Absol beats Ash, Diantha’s Mega Gardevoir, Mega Venusaur, Mega Charizard X and Mega Blastoise appear in the opening and Mega Charizard Y, both Mega Mewtwo, Mega Garchomp, Mega Lucario and Mega Blaziken in the credits. Xerneas and Yveltal play out the plot of Jirachi: Wish Maker in miniature – a red-game mascot that drains life, a star Pokémon that undoes it and then goes to sleep.
  

  

• The English title was announced before the Japanese release, a first, and Australia and New Zealand were again the only places outside Japan to see the film in cinemas. In Japan cinema-goers could download Diancie for X and Y – the first legitimate way to obtain it – and the TV special Diancie – Princess of the Diamond Domain aired on 3 July to introduce her.
• As with the first three films, the dub replaced most of Shinji Miyazaki’s score with its own music; V (Volt) was swapped for Pokémon Theme (Version XY) and the ending Daybreak Meteor Shower for Open My Eyes. The Cartoon Network premiere cut scenes to fit its slot, ran the opening without lyrics so the dialogue could be heard, and dropped the credits sequence – chocolate shop, boutique and proposal included.
• Pete Zarustica, who voices Argus Steel, was Drew in the 4Kids dub of the Advanced Generation series; the Pikachu short is the first since Gotta Dance!! to feature humans and the first since Snorlax Snowman to show Ash and his friends, if never their faces, and it marks Darkrai’s first anime appearance in nearly four years.

Errors

• No continuity errors or animation slips have been catalogued for this film so far – if you spot one, let us know.

Reviews & Reception

The Cocoon of Destruction and Diancie took around ¥2.91 billion in Japan – roughly $28 million – the third annual decline in a row and the lowest gross in the series to date, though Diancie herself was a merchandising hit and the game distribution drew queues. Overseas the pattern of the previous year held: cinemas in Australia and New Zealand, television everywhere else, with Cartoon Network premiering it on 8 November 2014 and the UK following on Christmas Day.

Reviews were scarce and lukewarm: the consensus was a bright, good-natured road movie that leaned heavily on Diancie’s charm and the Mega Evolution showcase, with a villain quartet played mostly for laughs and a Legendary showdown that arrives late. Fans are fonder of it than critics – the shopping-mall sequence and Diancie’s princess manners are much loved, Yveltal’s petrifying rampage is one of the darkest passages in any Pokémon film, and Xerneas’s transformation into a tree is a quietly affecting ending – but it is generally ranked in the middle of the XY movies.

On home video Japan released the DVD and Blu-ray on 17 December 2014, Viz Media’s US DVD followed on 17 February 2015, and Australia had both a standard Region 4 disc and the now-customary 3D lenticular edition. The Pikachu short, unseen outside Japan at the time, surfaced on Pokémon TV in English in February 2015.

Scores at a glance (as of October 2026)

• IMDb – 5.5/10 from around 2,100 user ratings
• Rotten Tomatoes – 57% audience score (250+ ratings) · no critics’ score – only two reviews“The script tries doing something new” – Sebastian Zavala Kahn, Más Gamers
• Letterboxd – 2.9/5 average from 10,000+ ratings
• Common Sense Media – 3/5 stars · age 6+“New characters, fierce action in colorful anime adventure” – Renee Longstreet
• Anime News Network – “Skippable” tier in ANN’s ranking of every Pokémon movie“Very little story left after so many superficial interactions” – Callum May