Pokémon: The Movie – Hoopa and the Clash of Ages

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Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages is the 18th movie in the Pokémon franchise and the second in the XY series. The movie’s Japanese title, when directly translated, is “Pokémon the Movie XY: The Archdjinni of the Rings: Hoopa”.

The movie was originally given the working title of Pokémon the Movie XY 2015, as Hoopa had not yet been revealed. The first we saw of the film was in a teaser trailer at the end of Pokémon: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction. This trailer showed both Kyogre and Groudon in their Primal forms. Later on another teaser was shown on 11 December 2014 via Oha Suta (a Japanese TV show from TV Tokyo) which again showed Kyogre and Groudon and also Shiny Mega Rayquaza as prominent Pokémon in the upcoming movie. But it wasn’t until the February issue of CoroCoro magazine that Hoopa, the titular star of the movie, was officially unveiled.

Release around the world

The movie was directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and was initially released in Japanese theatres on 18 July 2015, followed by showings at Australian and New Zealand cinemas on 5 November 2015. TV broadcasts of this movie kicked off with a showing on Teletoon in Canada on 14 November 2015 and then on the UK’s CITV channel on 12 December 2015. A week later the movie also aired in the USA on Cartoon Network on 19 December 2015 – the last Pokémon movie ever to premiere on the channel – following a double bill of Arceus and the Jewel of Life and the prologue special Hoopa – The Mischief Pokémon.

Once more the DVD and Blu-ray releases began in Japan and, as always, just in time for Christmas, this time with release on 16 December 2015 – though for once Japan was beaten to it, by Australia’s DVD on 2 December. The US DVD release didn’t follow until 8 March the following year and the UK had an even longer wait, getting the DVD and Blu-ray releases on 24 October 2016.

Hoopa and the Clash of Ages, like many of its predecessors, did include a Pikachu short. This one was called Pikachu and the Pokémon Music Squad (its Bulbapedia code is PK27) and again it was only shown to audiences in Japanese theatres, though an English dub reached Pokémon TV in December 2015. To date it is the last Pikachu short ever made.

Chronology in relation to the anime
In Japan the film opened on 18 July 2015, between Rotom’s Wish! (XY081, 9 July) and A Festival Trade! A Festival Farewell? (XY082, 23 July) in XY: Kalos Quest – a fortnight after Serena won her first Princess Key in Dendemille Town. Ash has four Kalos badges (Bug, Cliff, Rumble and Plant) with his Lumiose City Gym battle against Clemont still ahead, and his team is Pikachu, Frogadier, Fletchinder, Hawlucha and the newly hatched Noibat, though only Frogadier does any real work here. Serena brings Braixen and Pancham, Clemont his Chespin, Bunnelby and Luxray, and Bonnie minds Dedenne. For once the placement raises no continuity problems – the gang are simply on a detour to a desert city by the sea. In the dub, Cartoon Network aired the film on 19 December 2015, three months after Rotom’s Wish! reached America.

Hoopa and the Clash of Ages is broken down into the following parts

• Pikachu and the Pokémon Music Squad (PK27) – the Pikachu short, around 20 minutes; shown only in Japanese cinemas, with an English dub on Pokémon TV from 21 December 2015. It is the last Pikachu short to date
• Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages – the main feature, 79 minutes
• Hoopa – The Mischief Pokémon – a TV special broadcast in Japan on 19 June 2015 and in the US on 3 December 2015, in which Hoopa plays tricks on Ash and his friends ahead of the film

Story

Pikachu and the Pokémon Music Squad (the Pikachu short)

In a forest clearing Pikachu and his friends are rehearsing a song for the Berry Jubilee while Meowth and Chespin try to pinch Pecha Berries from a tree guarded by a Torchic, a Trevenant, a Florges, a Sudowoodo and an Aromatisse. The rehearsal keeps falling apart: Hawlucha runs off, convinced it cannot sing, and has to be coaxed back; Chespin and Pancham turn a head-butting contest into a race that wakes a Snorlax and sends it rolling downhill with the pair running on top of it; and Meowth gets squashed. When everyone finally sings together – the Pokémon all perform Roaring All-Stars – Trevenant sets the trees dancing, Snorlax lands on the berry tree and shakes down the whole crop, and the Jubilee is saved.

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The Archdjinni of the Rings

A hundred years ago, in a small desert village, a gigantic six-armed Pokémon burst out of a ring in the sky and ate the villagers’ food. When they demanded payment it summoned a shower of gold through its rings, and the village grew rich around it; the people built it a house, fed it, and had their every wish granted, until someone asked whether it could win battles too. It could. Egged on by the crowd it summoned stronger and stronger opponents – a Steelix, a Dragonite, Regigigas, Reshiram, Zekrom – and beat them all, and in its pride it began to wreck the very town that worshipped it. A lone traveller stopped it: with the power of Arceus he drew its strength into a bottle, the Legendary Pokémon vanished back where they came from, and he carried the Prison Bottle away so that the darkness inside would never escape.

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Doughnuts and Dahara City

In the present day a man and his Braviary find the bottle in a desert cave, and the moment he touches it the shadow inside possesses him. Meanwhile Ash, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie are cooling off at a desert Pokémon Center when golden rings start opening in mid-air and a small hand steals their doughnuts, swapping Clemont’s for a Tamato Berry. Ash dives after the thief and is pulled through a ring into Dahara City, a glittering metropolis on the shore, where the culprit introduces itself: Hoopa, a cheerfully mischievous Mythical Pokémon that insists on calling him “Ashkan” and Pikachu “Pikan”, and proves its power by summoning a whole horde of Pikachu – five Cosplay Pikachu among them – and daring Ash to find his own. A young woman called Meray, who looks after Hoopa, arrives to tell it off, and Hoopa fetches the rest of the gang through a ring. It can send anything anywhere, it turns out, except itself.

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The bottle opens

On the way to Dahara Tower the man from the cave, Baraz, catches up with them – Meray’s brother, though he says nothing – and uncorks the bottle. The shadow pours into Hoopa, which swells into the monstrous Unbound form of the legend and starts hurling buildings until Pikachu’s Thunderbolt and Meray’s quick reseal shrink it back to its small, dazed self. Nobody can touch the bottle safely, so Clemont whips up a Magnet Rise gadget to carry it. Baraz explains: he and Meray are great-grandchildren of the traveller, their family has always been able to speak with Arceus, and their ancestor settled in Arche Valley with Hoopa, who could not pass through its own rings until it understood why it had been confined. In flashback the children nurse a sick Hoopa through a desert crossing and the old man welcomes them home with the words that it, too, is family.

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Shadow Hoopa

Team Rocket snatch the bottle from the air, Meowth is possessed in turn and lets the shadow out again, and this time Hoopa – steadied by Baraz and Meray – refuses it. The bottle shatters on the ground and the rejected darkness takes on a body of its own, a black mirror of Hoopa Unbound that wants its other half back. Hoopa summons a Lugia to hold it off while everyone scatters: Baraz and Meray will forge a new Prison Bottle in Dahara Tower, using the fire of Serena’s Braixen, the water of Ash’s Frogadier and the earth of a Hippopotas Bonnie spotted in the desert, while Ash, Pikachu and Hoopa keep the shadow busy. Ash’s suggestion that the two Hoopa try getting along goes nowhere, Lugia is shot down and banished back to the sea through a ring, and the chase is on.

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The clash of ages

Ash asks Hoopa to fight fire with fire, and out of its rings come Rayquaza, Latios and Latias for the three of them to ride. The shadow answers with an army: Primal Kyogre, Primal Groudon, Kyurem, Dialga, Palkia and Giratina, and the skies over Dahara City fill with the greatest battle of Legendary Pokémon the series has ever staged while, inside the tower, Braixen, Frogadier and Hippopotas pour their power into a new bottle.

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Mega Rayquaza and the tower

Latios, Latias and Rayquaza Mega Evolve to match the onslaught; Kyurem answers by fusing into Black Kyurem and then White Kyurem, and a blast knocks Ash off Latios’s back until a ring from Hoopa drops him safely back on. Ash has Rayquaza spin a Twister around Dahara Tower, braced by Latios and Latias’s Psychic, to keep the bottle-makers safe, but the shadow breaks it and corners Hoopa – and at that moment Baraz arrives with the finished bottle and seals the shadow inside. The bottle flies from his hand, Ash catches it, and the darkness pours into him instead. The possessed Ash rounds on Hoopa, and Hoopa heals the shadow’s anger with the one thing it has: its memories of Baraz, Meray and their great-grandfather. The evil fades to light, and a calm, whole Hoopa Unbound is left inside the bottle; far off, the summoned Legendaries roar in surprise.

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Family too

Too many Legendary Pokémon have been pulled through too many rings, and a rift in space and time opens around the tower, swallowing everything it touches. Hoopa asks Ash to use the bottle: in its true Unbound form it opens rings to evacuate the whole tower, Team Rocket included, until only its friends are left – and Hoopa, which cannot follow. Ash shrinks it back and begs it to try; it bounces off its own ring three times, each time pushing someone else to safety, until only Baraz remains and the rift is almost on them. Then it stops. Arceus itself has halted it, long enough for everyone on the far side to lend Hoopa their strength and for Hoopa to remember the old man’s words – it is family too – and pass through at last, pulling Baraz after it through a ring the size of a bangle. Arceus looks down on the ruins of Dahara Tower and departs; Hoopa stays to rebuild it, and wishes Ashkan luck on his journey.

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Major Characters

Ash Ketchum (Satoshi), Serena, Clemont (Citron) and Bonnie (Eureka) return from Diancie, with Ash doing most of the riding and Serena’s Braixen, Ash’s Frogadier and a borrowed Hippopotas supplying the fire, water and earth for the new bottle. For the second time in the series Ash is possessed by an evil spirit.
Hoopa is two Pokémon in one. The small, impish Hoopa Confined (Rie Kugimiya / Lori Phillips) is the Mischief Pokémon of the games, a prankster who steals doughnuts and nicknames everyone, whose golden rings can fetch anything from anywhere – a horde of Pikachu, a Lugia, a bucket of seawater – and who alone cannot travel through them. Hoopa Unbound (Kōichi Yamadera / Ryan William Downey), the six-armed Archdjinni of a century before, is its true form, and the separated shadow of its old arrogance is the film’s real villain. Baraz (Barza; Tatsuya Fujiwara / Daniel J. Edwards), a Trainer with a Braviary and a Solrock, and his sister Meray (Meari; Shōko Nakagawa / Emily Woo Zeller) are the great-grandchildren of the traveller Ghris (Toshiyuki Morikawa / Wayne Grayson), the man who first bottled Hoopa and raised it as family in Arche Valley.

And then there are the Legendaries – thirteen of them, more than in any other Pokémon film. On Ash’s side a Lugia, Latios and Latias and a Shiny Rayquaza, all three of the latter Mega Evolving; against him Primal Kyogre, Primal Groudon, Kyurem in all three of its forms, Dialga, Palkia and Giratina; in the prologue Regigigas, Reshiram and Zekrom; and watching over all of it, Arceus.

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Other Characters & Pokémon Debuts

This is the only XY movie without a human villain, so the supporting cast is thin: Jessie, James and Meowth are blasted off three separate times and Meowth briefly becomes the shadow’s host, a Pokémon Center’s Nurse Joy and the people of Dahara City fill out the crowd, and Clemont’s robot Clembot makes a cameo. The five Cosplay Pikachu of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire – Rock Star, Belle, Pop Star, Ph.D. and Libre – turn up in Hoopa’s Pikachu horde, a Hippopotas and its Hippowdon herd make the species’ first anime appearance in years, and the Marill and Azumarill of Arche Valley are Hoopa’s childhood neighbours. The novelisation says the Lugia Hoopa summons is the one from The Power of One, and the opening shows Latios and Latias flying over a city that looks very like Alto Mare.

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Pokémon making their anime debut in the film

Hoopa itself had made its anime debut a month earlier in the TV special Hoopa – The Mischief Pokémon, so the film’s one true debut is its Unbound form – the first Pokémon movie since Genesect to introduce so little.

• Hoopa Unbound#720 · the Archdjinni of the Rings
• Hoopa Confined#720 · debuted in the TV special

Debuting in the Pikachu and the Pokémon Music Squad short

The short introduced three Kalos Pokémon, including Jessie’s Gourgeist – whose evolution from Pumpkaboo had not yet aired on television.

• Florges#671 · Red Flower
• Gourgeist#711 · Jessie’s
• Binacle#688

Cast

The voice cast of both the Japanese and English versions. Rie Kugimiya – Celebi in Zoroark – voices the small Hoopa and Kōichi Yamadera the Unbound form; actor Tatsuya Fujiwara (Battle Royale, Death Note) is Baraz and Shōko Nakagawa makes her ninth movie appearance as Meray.

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
Hoopa Confined	Lori Phillips	Rie Kugimiya
Hoopa Unbound	Ryan William Downey	Kōichi Yamadera
Baraz (Barza)	Daniel J. Edwards	Tatsuya Fujiwara
Meray (Meari)	Emily Woo Zeller	Shōko Nakagawa
Ghris (the Traveller)	Wayne Grayson	Toshiyuki Morikawa
Narrator	Rodger Parsons	Unshō Ishizuka

Trailer

The official English trailer for Hoopa and the Clash of Ages, from the official Pokémon YouTube channel.

Trading Cards

Japan’s cinema gift returned in 2015, and on a grand scale: the first three million people through the doors from 18 July received a Hoopa promo card (155/XY-P) together with a Hoopa piece for the Pokémon Tretta arcade game. The same day the Hoopa Movie Commemoration Special Pack went on sale with two more promos, a Pikachu (156/XY-P) and a second Hoopa (157/XY-P), and in the run-up to the film a “Hoopa’s Appearance!” campaign in June offered Kyogre, Groudon, Latias and Latios promos (143–146/XY-P) as lottery prizes.

The Special Pack’s Pikachu and Hoopa reached the West as XY89 and XY90 in the BREAKthrough Collector Chest of November 2015, and Hoopa-EX had already headlined the Ancient Origins expansion that August. Everything is catalogued in our Trading Card Game section.

• Hoopa155/XY-P · cinema gift with a Hoopa Tretta, from 18 July 2015
• HoopaXY90 · 157/XY-P Hoopa Movie Commemoration Special Pack
• PikachuXY89 · 156/XY-P Hoopa Movie Commemoration Special Pack
• Hoopa Movie Commemoration Special PackJapan, 18 July 2015

Movie Ads & Posters

Posters and home-video artwork for Hoopa and the Clash of Ages – the “Pokémon the Movie XY 2015” teaser that hid Hoopa, the Japanese and English posters, CoroCoro’s reveal page, promotional art and the artwork for the Hoopa distribution, and DVD and Blu-ray releases from Japan, the US, the UK and Australia. Magazine clippings and adverts are always wanted.

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Trivia & Facts

• In Japan the film was released between Rotom’s Wish! (XY081) and A Festival Trade! A Festival Farewell? (XY082), and for once it fits there without any trouble.
• The production team scouted Dubai for Dahara City, and the resemblance is not subtle: the tower is the Burj Khalifa, the harbour hotel is the Burj Al Arab, and the desert, the sea and the glass skyline all come straight from the Gulf.
  

  

• It is the first film since Celebi: Voice of the Forest not written by Hideki Sonoda – series head writer Atsuhiro Tomioka took over – and Shinji Miyazaki’s score is built on remixes of his earlier movie music, from The Power of One and Pokémon Heroes to Arceus, Kyurem and Genesect, plus a remix of the original series’ “To Be Continued” sting (replaced in the dub). Latios and Latias are first seen over a town that looks exactly like Alto Mare, and the novelisation confirms that the Lugia is the one from The Power of One.
• With thirteen Legendary Pokémon it holds the series record, and it is the only XY movie without a human antagonist. Giratina is the only one of the summoned Legendaries never shown in its home dimension. The Hippopotas and Hippowdon are the species’ first anime appearances in more than five years, and this is the second time Ash has been possessed by an evil force, after Battling the Enemy Within.
  

  

• Beyond Home Entertainment put the film out on DVD in Australia and New Zealand on 2 December 2015, before its US and UK television premieres and before Japan’s own home-video release – a first for the series. The Pokémon 20th anniversary website later listed the US premiere a week early, on 12 December. It was the last Pokémon movie to premiere on Cartoon Network, and the last to be accompanied by a Pikachu short.
• A couple of moves are animated differently from the TV series: Frogadier’s Water Pulse rises as a column of water rather than forming a sphere in its hands, and Braixen breathes Flamethrower like a Fennekin instead of firing it from her wand.
• In Japan cinema-goers could download Hoopa for X, Y, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire – the first legitimate way to obtain it – and over the following year Kyogre, Groudon, Dialga, Palkia, Kyurem, Giratina and Arceus were distributed in Japan and Korea with the Trainer name “Désert City”, Dahara City’s Japanese name. In a February 2021 poll on the official Japanese website it was voted the most popular of the XY movies.
  

  

• The dub swapped the ending theme Tweedia for Every Side of Me and removed the Japanese captions naming each Legendary in the World of Pokémon opening. The Cartoon Network cut dropped the whole flashback of young Meray and Baraz carrying a sick Hoopa across the desert – leaving Ghris’s “and now you have returned” referring to something viewers never saw – and played the credits over black.

Errors

• When Giratina fires a Shadow Ball at Dahara Tower after Shadow Hoopa breaks the Twister barrier, Mega Latios’s forehead briefly turns completely white as it dodges.
  

  

• When Ash holds the purified Prison Bottle, part of his left glove is missing and his bare hand shows through.

Reviews & Reception

The Archdjinni of the Rings: Hoopa took around ¥2.61 billion in Japan – roughly $22 million – the fourth consecutive year-on-year fall and a new low for the series, despite a marketing blitz built on the parade of Legendaries and a Hoopa giveaway to the first three million cinema-goers. Overseas it followed the now-familiar path: cinemas in Australia and New Zealand, television in Canada, the UK and the US, where it closed the series’ long run on Cartoon Network.

Critics who saw it treated it as a greatest-hits package – a thin story used as an excuse to put every Legendary Pokémon of the past fifteen years on screen at once – and the fairest reviews allowed that, as spectacle, it delivers. Fans were considerably warmer: Hoopa Confined is one of the best-loved movie Pokémon of the decade, the Legendary free-for-all over Dahara City is pure fan service of the kind the films had rarely attempted, the soundtrack’s callbacks to earlier movies were noticed and appreciated, and in 2021 Japanese fans voted it their favourite XY movie.

On home video Australia’s DVD came first in December 2015, Japan’s DVD and Blu-ray two weeks later, Viz Media’s US DVD in March 2016 and the UK’s DVD and Blu-ray not until October 2016.

Scores at a glance (as of October 2026)

• IMDb – 5.9/10 from around 2,500 user ratings
• Rotten Tomatoes – 47% audience score (100+ ratings) · no critics’ score – only two reviews“For the fans, it’s a solid, emotional and entertaining movie” – Sebastian Zavala Kahn, Más Gamers
• Letterboxd – 2.9/5 average from 17,000+ ratings
• Common Sense Media – 2/5 stars · age 7+“Confusing plot, annoying voices; for die-hard fans only” – Brian Costello
• Anime News Network – “Worth Seeing” tier in ANN’s ranking of every Pokémon movie“The most exciting battles within the Pokemon universe” – Callum May