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Anime / Pokémon: Jirachi: Wish Maker

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Your wish is in command of Jirachi.

The sixth Pokémon: The Series film, and the first movie for Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire.

Once every thousand years, the Millennium Comet can be seen from Earth for seven days. By the light of that comet and the bond of one chosen by destiny, a Pokémon that can grant wishes awakens. One man, mocked by his colleagues for his failure, wants to use this Pokémon to finally complete his goal of bringing a legendary creature to life.


This movie provides examples of:

  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: This film gives May and Max's relationship a lot of focus, and it's clear she loves him despite their bickering.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Stated by the narrator before the movie itself begins.
  • Big Bad: Butler. He is the driving force behind the movie's conflict with his goal of getting Jirachi and using its power to create a Groudon.
  • Big "NO!": Jirachi when Butler gets its True Eye (the one on its stomach) to open by having Dusclops torture it.
  • Call to Agriculture: The ending to Lucario and the Mystery of Mew reveals that Butler and Diane have decided to take up residence in Forina, with Butler even taking up farming. Presumably, this is his way of atoning for his actions in this movie.
  • Colon Cancer: The title.
  • Combat Tentacles: The psuedo-Groudon sports several that emerge from either its claws or its spines. They devour any living creature they manage to catch.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • During part of the narration at the beginning of the movie, each Pokémon from the previous movies get a cameo, in chronological order, starting with Mewtwo, then Lugia, Entei, Celebi, and Latias and Latios. Before all of them is Ho-oh, who was first seen in the very first episode.
    • Also, the Pokémon fireworks seen in the movie were introduced in an episode that aired a couple weeks before the movie premiered.
    • The English dub also added in a very heartwarming bit where Ash refers to a friend (obviously Misty) who had to leave him, and who he misses every day.
  • Covers Always Lie: A Groudon is shown on the DVD cover. While a Groudon plays a role in the plot, it looks very different, due to it not actually being a real Groudon. Also, Ash's Treecko and Brock's Mudkip are featured, but neither appear in the film itself.
  • Creating Life: Butler is trying to create a Groudon from a fossil he found. His first attempt was a failure that got him banished from Team Magma, his second blew up in his face, and his third attempt created a monster.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Absol fits his description to a tee. It's not trying to hurt Jirachi, just return it to Forina.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Max, as the movie focuses on his friendship with Jirachi.
  • Doomed by Canon: Butler is horrified by the false Groudon's destruction, calling it evil, as it wasn't the real Groudon. However, anyone that's played Ruby or Emerald at the time would know that Team Magma themselves go through their own crisis with the real Groudon, as it also causes massive destruction and could not be controlled. The remakes make it worse, as Primal Groudon is made synonymous with the end of all life, with a signature move and ability that implies death.
  • Eating the Enemy: Butler uses Jirachi's power to create a Groudon. But the Groudon that's summoned isn't like the Groudon he's familiar with at all. In fact, it proves to be a remorseless monster bent on destroying life. Not only does it kill all the plants it walks near but it uses tentacles made of slime to capture and absorb all people and Pokémon into it's body. Once caught, they can be seen trapped in bubbles in its transparent stomach.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The fake Groudon that Butler creates, which seems to be a rather solid Blob Monster. It sucks the life out of everything around it, killing wildlife and exuding slimy tendrils that grab and absorb any living creature they capture. Its lines perpetually glow unlike the real Groudon's and it doesn't conjure an endless drought.
  • Ending Theme: "Make a Wish". Notable as it's the only movie to feature part of the Japanese ending theme, alongside an English version of the song.
  • Evil All Along: Butler, who initially seemed like a nice enough guy. It's even revealed that he used to work for Team Magma.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Unsurprisingly, Meta Groudon goes out of Butler's control.
  • Expy: Forina was Based on the historic Chinese Wulingyuan area.
  • Fictional Constellations: The film's closing credits rolls across a number of constellations, which turn out to be based on various Pokémon from the franchise. The very last constellation appears as a single, shiny star that dissolves into one of the dots on Pikachu's cheeks.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: Butler made a machine that he believed would create a Groudon from scratch. The "Groudon" that resulted, well, wasn't. It was an Eldritch Abomination that was different from Groudon in every conceivable way except for its general shape.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Team Magma plays this role in the film. Butler used to work for them and his entire motivation for wanting to use Jirachi's power to resurrect Groudon stems from the fact that he hasn't gotten over being kicked out of Team Magma after his initial experiment to create a Groudon failed.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Diane goes against Butler to drive Ash, Jirachi, and the gang back to Forina.
    • Butler himself in the end.
  • Homage: This movie is very reminiscent of the works of Steven Spielberg, bearing a particular resemblance to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
  • Implacable Man: The psuedo-Groudon. Fire a Razor Wind at it? All you did was attract its attention. Use Hyper Beams or Flamethrowers to ward off its tentacles? They'll be back in the next moment or so. Hit the monster itself with said attacks? That won't do a thing. Reverse the machine's polarity so that it drains its energy? That works as long as you can keep it up and might even kill it eventually, but even then you might need to hit it in some way with the energy you stole from it to finish it off, just to be sure.
  • It's Personal: Butler's goal is motivated out of pure hate and spite for being banished from Team Magma.
  • Keep It Foreign/Too Long; Didn't Dub: A rare musical example. 4Kids Entertainment (through Disney), rather than creating a new ending theme like they do with every Pokémon movie, decided to do a version of the film's original ending theme that alternated between English vocals and the original Japanese vocals, building up to the point where both singers have a duet in their respective languages.
  • Lighter and Softer: For most of the film, anyway, since a lot of focus goes to Max's friendship with Jirachi.
  • Love Martyr: Diane pushes Butler out of the way from one of Meta Groudon's tentacles.
  • Love Redeems: Butler's new goal after his creation goes horribly wrong is to save Diane after she gets absorbed by Meta Groudon. Jirachi lampshades it.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Said by Butler when Meta Groudon runs amok.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: A situation where this trope mingles with Trailers Always Spoil- other than the teaser, the English trailers really play up Meta Groudon's rolenote . This is despite Meta Groudon only having 10 minutes of screentime, near the end of the movie.
  • No-Sell: Conventional Pokémon attacks are pretty much useless against Meta Groudon.
  • Protagonist Title: "Wish Maker" is what Jirachi calls Max, and is presumably what he call all of the friends it make during his awake.
  • Reverse Polarity: Butler believes that putting his machine in reverse would enable them to drain energy out of Meta Groudon. It works, and the monster starts rotting away and melting into sludge right before it tries to absorb Jirachi.
  • Scatting: May's lullaby consists of her singing, "Doo-doo-doo."
  • She's a Man in Japan: Jirachi is referred to with male pronouns in the English dub, while the Brazilian dub uses female pronouns. In the games it is genderless.
  • Teleport Spam: One of Jirachi's abilities. During the battle with Meta Groudon, it's used for Teleportation Rescue several times.
  • Throw It In!: In-Universe — when Max rushes up on stage with Ash following him, Butler improvises by using them in his next trick. He then continues improvising when Team Rocket crashes the show.
  • Tracking Device: Butler's Mightyena puts one on the RV when Diane uses it to help Ash and his friends escape. It falls off mid-trip, though.
  • Walking Wasteland: Meta Groudon kills everything near it. Almost immediately after it's created, the plant-life around it withers and dies at an alarming rate.
  • What Song Was This Again?: The original ending song, Chiisaki Mono ("Tiny Thing"), is a valentine to the memory of growing up and the friend that helped you do it. The English ending song, Make a Wish, is about believing in yourself and achieving your dreams. As fancy as it sounds to play both the English and Japanese lyrics in Make a Wish, the lyrics are thematically incongruent.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Butler at least thinks his intentions to prove the truth to Team Magma are right and not at all misguided.
  • You're Insane!: Diane calls Butler "mad" when he reveals that he intends to steal Jirachi's power. His response?
    Butler: Not mad. Just a little angry and maybe a wee bit impatient to get on with the show.

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