Sinnoh Arc

Ash sets off to Sinnoh with his trusty friend Brock, and his Partner Pikachu (and Aipom who comes along for the adventure), to see what new challenges await him in this new land. Once there he becomes friends with a younger trainer named Dawn (who like May has an interest in Pokémon Contests), and Ash quickly learns tough challenges await in this interesting region.

Ash as always caught a group of memorable Pokémon, including a Buziel, Turtwig, and Chimchar. For once though, a Pokémon who wasn’t Ash’s become very well loved, and that was young Dawn’s Piplup. The friendship which was built up between Piplup and Pikachu was a truly special one, and I’m sure most people will agree it will be one remembered for a long time to come in the history of Pokémon.

Like the Hoenn generation of the anime, Sinnoh was also split into four different seasons when dubbed which went by the names of: Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension, Pokémon DP: Galactic Battles, and Pokémon Sinnoh League Victors. Each of the first three seasons contained almost the same amount of episodes. Diamond & Pearl featured 51, Battle Dimension had 52, and Galactic Battles was also 52. However, Sinnoh League Victors stands alongside the Orange Island season for being one of the shortest so far. It only included 34 episodes overall.

Dialga VS Palkia VS Darkrai

Now this move marked two special things. It was the first of the fourth generation, and it also kicked off a story which would be nodded towards in the two movies to follow, something which hadn’t really been done before. It was also the first Pokémon movie to be released in the UK on DVD for a number of years.

This movie placed Ash and Dawn in the spotlight as the heroes of the film (Brock does tend to feel left out throughout the following movies), who would go on to save the day. While the overall story did focus on Darkrai and the people of Alamos Town, clear hints were being given about a battle between Dialga,and Palkia, one which would be nodded towards in future movies.

Giratina and the Sky Bouquet: Shaymin

Shaymin. Shaymin is a cute little Pokémon that seems like it wouldn’t have any trouble revolving around it….Right? Well wrong, because it did. It doesn’t take long for Ash, Dawn, and Brock to be dragged into a battle between Giratina and Dialga. Said battle is also a nod towards a bigger plot which the next movie was set to finish.

Nothing every goes to plan for poor Ash and co does it? Just trying to get the slightly ‘lost’ Shaymin to the Flower Garden in order for it to fly off with its friends is a much harder task then it really should be. Made harder by the fact Giratina seems to be after the gang, and in Shaymin's own words “wants to eat” the poor Pokémon. Will it ever make it to the Flower Garden?

Shaymin is charming enough in its Land form for people to quickly fall in love with it, and the nod towards a bigger plot was a very nice thing. Overall fans were pretty happy with the movie.

Arceus: To the Conquering of Space-Time

This was set to be the movie which finished off the plot which had been building up throughout the last two. It properly explained more about why Giratina, Dialga, and Palkia had been fighting, and just what was actually happening to cause all this unbalance in the world. The movie also gave us Arceus, and explained its part in this whole exciting tale.

Arceus seems to have been turned on by humans in the past, because of this it is back to be take revenge. Unable to stop Arceus in the present day Dialga sends Dawn and Ash back to the past in the hopes they can stop whatever awful event caused Arceus to stop trusting in humans, but will they manage it?

The movie ended a somewhat impressive storyline quite well. While many have always felt it could have brought a more exciting ending to the tale, overall fans were still pleased. It is also worth noting that when the movie was released in Japan it quickly became the highest grossing animated movie of its year of release (2010) for the country.

Ruler of Illusions: Zoroark

The fourth and final movie in the fourth generation of movies was set to be both a sad and fun movie. It marked the very last movie to feature Brock, which is of course very sad, but on the plus side young Zorua turned out to be quite the entertaining (if not somewhat cheeky), Pokémon.

In places the story could pull at heartstrings, Zorua has been taken away from Zoroark in a heart-breaking manner, but with the help of Ash, Pikachu, Celebi, and the gang hopefully Zorua can find and rescue Zoroark.