Love in the Time of Trepidation

Love in the Time of Trepidation is a 2022 Japanese-British-American anime action-fantasy romantic-drama film based on and featuring characters from the Pokémon anime series created by Satoshi Tajiri, Junichi Masuda and Ken Sugimori and the action role-playing video game Pokémon Legends: Arceus, whom the film secondarily serves an promotional adaptation of. Produced by The Pokémon Company, OLM, Inc., TMS Entertainment, Annapurna Pictures, BBC Films, CBBC, the British Film Institute, KatzSmith Productions, and Imagine Entertainment and distributed by Altitude Film Distribution, Universal Pictures and Toho, film was directed, written and executive produced by Epicocity in their first time making a film and features the voices of Sarah Natochenny, Ikue Ōtani, Haven Paschall, Mike Liscio Jr., Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld, and Marc Diraison reprising their respective roles from the Pokémon anime, with Olivia DeJonge, Levi Miller, Keegan-Michael Key, Ken Watanabe, Jane Lynch, Cameron Esposito, Wallace Shawn, Josh Gad, Amy Poehler, Michael Kovach, Jessica DiCicco, Jackie Chan, Kristen Wiig, Yeardley Smith, Tom Holland, Josh Hutcherson, Jordan Peele, Kristen Schaal, Natasia Demetriou, Tom Hiddleston, Jophielle Love, Anya Taylor-Joy, Brady Noon, Rachel House, Rose Byrne, Seth Rogen, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Schwartz, Meryl Streep, Georgie Kidder, Suki Waterhouse, and Judi Dench joining the voice cast. It follows Ash Ketchum and his friends from Kalos as they are transported back in time to the region of Hisui and must find a way to return home while making new friends, overcoming fears and trepidations, and ending an overarching plot threatening to disrupt the balance of space and time.

The film was announced in February 31, 2021, five days after the announcement of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, as a promotional adaptation for the game and as a collaboration between production houses from Japan, Britain and America. Later that month, Epicocity, who previously had no filmmaking experience whatsoever and wrote a series of fanfictions based on the Pokémon series known as the Ancienverse, was chosen to direct and write after the people working at The Pokémon Company read their fanfictions and considered to be better than anything they could ever officially do for the anime. The full voice cast was revealed in a special Pokémon Direct presentation on June 7, 2021. In an interview with the Nerdly, Epicocity said that while it would retain enough of the family-friendliness that the Pokémon anime was known for, the film wouldn't shy away from darker themes, elements and imagery if the film needed to be that way. The animation for the film was provided by Production I.G., with additional animation services provided by TMS.

Love in the Time of Trepidation had its world premiere in Tokyo on June 2, 2023, and was theatrically released worldwide on August 7, 2022 in RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX, IMAX 3D, 4DX, and ScreenX formats. The film received instant universal acclaim from critics, general audiences and Pokémon fans alike for its animation, voice acting, humor, action sequences, emotional weight, themes, music, direction, screenplay, faithfulness to the source materials, and particularly for its realistic depictions of the human condition and deemed it to be the best Pokémon film, and was also a stupendous commercial success, grossing $1.668 billion at the box office. It usurped the position of the highest-grossing animated film of all time and the seventh-highest-grossing film to date from Disney's photorealistic remake of The Lion King from 2019 and became the highest-grossing film in the Pokémon franchise. It won all twelve of its Academy Award nominations at the 95th Academy Awards, including Best Director for Epicocity.