Hello. My name is Sarah, and I'm an adult Poke-maniac.

It all started pretty harmlessly. I started watching the cartoon show, just one episode a day. Sometimes I missed the show, and all day I wondered what incredible adventures Ash, Misty and Brock had managed to get into. It seemed like it wasn't a big deal... But I ended up getting hooked. Pretty soon I was getting up way early on Sundays just to watch the show, and it all slid downhill from here.

I bought a color Gameboy just so I could play Pokemon. I have the Red version. I doubt that I'll ever get all 150 Pokemon (actually there are 151, but there are only 150 in the game) because I don't have any friends who have the game so I can trade. (Which, as all Poke-maniacs know, is the only way to get all 150.) And I can't just walk up to some 10-year-old on the street and say, "Hey, wanna trade?" because their parents will freak.

I've found others like me... Other adults who play the game and watch the shows and try to complete their Pokedex. But we're spread far and wide. Perhaps it's for the best.

And now the movie has come out.

I thought I would have to see the movie alone. All my friends said, "Whoa... I am not going anywhere near that movie." They didn't understand. I had to see it.

Much to my delight I found out that my sister also wanted to see the movie (she's 16.) And so tonight we both went to see the short film Pikachu's Vacation and the feature film Pokemon: the First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back. The theatre was packed with kids, even though we chose a late show. I think I was the oldest person there without kids in tow.

...But that's just the trials and tribulations of an adult Poke-maniac. I'm used to it by now.

Pikachu's Vacation is acid for kids. In between scenes of a cute story about Pikachu trying to keep track of Togepi and a group of Pokemon helping Charizard get his head unstuck, there are these... Images. Images of Pokemon against bright paisley backgrounds. Way trippy. The animation in the short was pretty good, much better than the TV show's. It was also neat that they didn't really show the humans, apart from some legs and an arm. The Pokemon were the focus of the short, and just showing bits of the trainers made it seem like the movie was told from the point-of-view of the Pokemon.

Then the feature started.

Are they allowed to make kids' films with so much existential angst? Mewtwo, who was cloned from the rare Pokemon Mew, awakens in a lab and immediately asks, "Who am I? Why am I here?" When he discovers that he is just an experiment, he destroys the lab. The scientists set out to create the most powerful Pokemon ever, and they succeeded. Too well, it seems.

Giovanni, Team Rocket's leader, takes Mewtwo under his wing to help teach him how to focus his incredible power. But Giovanni wants to use Mewtwo, and Mewtwo isn't going to have any of that. He destroys Giovanni's castle and sets out alone on a quest to rule the world. Step one: destroy all other Pokemon and their trainers.

Cue title sequence.

Pretty heavy stuff for a kid flick, if you ask me.

The rest of the movie plays out like a long TV show episode. Ash, Misty and Brock are invited to New Island for a battle with the "most powerful Pokemon master in the world." (Mewtwo, of course.) Ash can't wait to go, and his cohorts (and Team Rocket) tag along. Once they get to the island, Mewtwo reveals himself, reveals his powers, reveals his cloned (and powerful) Pokemon, and reveals his goal: world domination.

The Pokemon battle to end all Pokemon battles then ensues. When the dust clears, Mewtwo learns a valuable lesson: "Fighting is wrong." Mewtwo takes his cloned Pokemon someplace else (where? They never say) and transports everyone back to the mainland, minus their memories of everything that happened.

Cue credits.

I have a few problems with the movie.

First of all, I could have done without the morality play. I understand that it's a kid flick, but the main message is "Pokemon aren't meant to fight." Wha? Hello! That's what you do with Pokemon. You catch them and you battle them. I suppose that the deeper meaning was "You shouldn't fight simply because of how you were born." (You know, cloned Pokemon vs. regular Pokemon.) Whatever. It annoyed me.

The animation was "eh" at best and wildly non-continuitous. In one scene the animation would be really good, and in the next it looked like a bad 70's cartoon, with big thick black lines around everything. I kept finding myself wishing they would pick a style and stick with it. That annoyed me, too.

And I have a little nit-pick. When Ash, Misty and Brock enter Mewtwo's fortress, they are told to release all their Pokemon from their Pokeballs. Ash releases Pikachu (well, he didn't release Pikachu, but you know what I mean), Squirtle, and Bulbasaur. Misty releases Psyduck. Brock releases Vulpix. Where, may I ask, is Pidgeotto (or Pidgey, I can't remember which Ash has)? Where are Misty's Starmie and Goldeen? Where are Brock's Onix, Zubat, and Geodude? And when Mewtwo brings out his first three cloned Pokemon, Ash releases Charizard. Don't these kids know how to listen to a megalomaniac, ultra-powerful Pokemon? Sheesh.

But besides all that, it was a good movie. It has some memorable scenes, like when Ash dives between Mewtwo and Mew to try to stop the battle. Or when Team Rocket appear as some Vikings, with Meowth (not to be confused with Mew or Mewtwo) tied to the prow as a figurehead. I know that this movie was altered a lot from the Japanese version, and hopefully I'll be able to see that someday. Something seemed... missing. I'd like to know what it was.

Then again, that may be just the daydream of an adult Poke-maniac.