Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction — the diamond princess between Xerneas and Yveltal

July 2014: the Pokémon movies move to a new region. The series' seventeenth feature film leaves Unova for Kalos and gives top billing to three creatures players had only just discovered: Diancie, Xerneas and Yveltal. Behind its mineral fairy-tale look, the film tells a simple story — a princess who can't do what her people expect of her. Here's what you need to know about Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction, from its Japanese release to its arrival on French screens.

Contents

• July 2014: Pokémon Movies Enter the Kalos Era
• The Plot: An Underground Kingdom Fading Away
• Diancie, the Star Pokémon
• Xerneas and Yveltal: Kalos's Two Mascots Face Off
• Ash, His Kalos Companions and a Fine Lineup of Trainers
• A Showcase Film for Mega Evolution
• Production: A Canadian Setting and a Team on a Scouting Trip
• Reception and Box Office Results
• The French Release: TV First, DVD Later
• In the Games: Diancie's Distribution and What's Left of It
• Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

July 2014: Pokémon Movies Enter the Kalos Era

The film opened in Japanese theaters on July 19, 2014, distributed by Toho. The date was no coincidence: since 1998, the series has kept to a pace of one feature film a year, timed to the Japanese school holidays — a rhythm broken only once, in 2020, when the pandemic pushed the twenty-third film back to Christmas. This regularity is one of the few constants in the series, and we cover it in detail in our overview of the twenty-three Pokémon movies.

Behind the camera is the usual team from studio OLM. Kunihiko Yuyama directed, as he has nearly every film in the series, from a screenplay by Hideki Sonoda with a score by Shinji Miyazaki. The film runs 77 minutes, a short format that remains the norm for these features designed first and foremost for family audiences.

Above all, it is the first film of the XY era, the era of the Kalos region and the games Pokémon X and Y. The change shows on screen: a new trio of companions around Ash, a new generation of creatures, and above all a brand-new battle mechanic the film makes lavish use of: Mega Evolution.

In Japan, the screening wasn't limited to the feature film. It came with an opening short, Pokémon: Pikachu, What's This Key?, starring the little Klefki — a key-ring Pokémon just introduced in the sixth generation. A prologue mini-film, Diancie: Princess of the Diamond Domain, was also shown beforehand. Neither one counts among the series' twenty-three films: they're extras that came with the screening, not installments in the movie cycle.

The Plot: An Underground Kingdom Fading Away

It all begins with a dying stone. Beneath the surface lies the Diamond Domain, home to Carbink, and powered by a single gem called the Sacred Diamond. That gem is running out of power, and the entire kingdom with it. Only one creature can shape a new one: Diancie, the princess — except Diancie can't pull it off.

The answer lies with Xerneas, whose aura is supposed to awaken in her the power she lacks. So Diancie leaves her kingdom for the surface, a world she knows next to nothing about, and she's immediately hunted: a princess who can make diamonds at will attracts plenty of greed. Jewel thieves, big-time bandits in an airship and Team Rocket all come after her at roughly the same time.

It's during this chase that she runs into Ash, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie, who decide to escort her. Xerneas's trail leads them to a forest no one dares go near anymore: a fire ravaged it long ago, and a huge cocoon has been sleeping there ever since. This cocoon isn't just scenery: it's Yveltal, dormant inside a shell after laying waste to the region.

The film then takes the turn its title promises. The cocoon's awakening turns the forest into a field of stone — any living thing touched by Yveltal's energy is petrified, and the plants wither — and Diancie's quest becomes a race against time. What happens next, including the fate of the Sacred Diamond, is for you to discover on screen: we'll stop here.

Diancie, the Star Pokémon

Diancie is a Rock- and Fairy-type Mythical Pokémon, unveiled in February 2014 in the pages of the magazine CoroCoro, a few months before the film. Its profile describes it as a mutation of Carbink: the same mineral family, but with a crown, a pink diadem and the ability to compress carbon between its hands to create diamonds.

💎 A crown and a pink diadem: that's what Diancie gained by mutating from Carbink; as for jewelry, your wrist can count on our Pokémon bracelets.

Its signature move, Diamond Storm, is a Rock-type move that serves her as both a weapon and a tool of creation. The film plays on that ambiguity: Diancie can make diamonds, but not the only one that matters, the one that keeps her kingdom standing. The character's whole arc lies in that gap between the power others credit her with and the power she truly masters — a device the series would reuse in the very next film.

Diancie also has a Mega Evolution, Mega Diancie, which takes her from muted pink to brilliant pink and replaces her crown with a spray of crystals. It appears on screen and is one of the film's big visual selling points.

Worth noting for players: Diancie was indeed distributed in the games to coincide with the release, and not just in Japan. We come back to this below, with the exact dates and channels.

Xerneas and Yveltal: Kalos's Two Mascots Face Off

The film's two Legendaries weren't picked at random: they're the box-art mascots of Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. Xerneas, the stag with rainbow antlers, embodies life; Yveltal, the scarlet Y-shaped bird, embodies destruction. The pair belongs to the family of opposing duos the series has kept adding since Johto, which we break down in our guide to Legendary and Mythical Pokémon.

The film features both of Xerneas's forms: Neutral Mode, a subdued silhouette with plain antlers, and Active Mode, the one in the official artwork, with colorful antlers and blue eyes. Between appearances, Xerneas retreats into the form of a tree — an image the film uses to make it a creature of cycles rather than a mere fighter.

Yveltal, for its part, plays the role of disaster. Its energy doesn't wound: it petrifies, and the film doesn't shy away from showing familiar Pokémon frozen into statues. It's one of the most striking scenes of the entire XY cycle, and probably what 2014 audiences remembered first.

This mythological reading — a principle of life, a principle of destruction, and a third party that arbitrates between them — runs through the whole Kalos region and ties into the founding tales the series writes region after region, as detailed in our feature on regional legends and mythologies.

Ash, His Kalos Companions and a Fine Lineup of Trainers

The trio around Ash in this film is the one from the XY series: Serena, Clemont and his little sister Bonnie. It's a detail not to mix up from one film to the next: the companions change from one cycle to another, and placing Brock or Dawn in a Kalos film is the most common mistake when people talk about the series from memory. Ash's full journey, region by region, is traced in our feature on the Trainer from Pallet Town.

As for the team, Ash travels with Pikachu, Froakie, Fletchinder and Hawlucha. Serena has her Fennekin, Clemont his Chespin, his Bunnelby and the Dedenne that Bonnie carries around everywhere. It's a very precise snapshot of a moment in the series, which even makes it possible to place the film between two specific episodes of the season.

🎒 The Dedenne registered on Clemont's team is the one Bonnie carries around everywhere; for your own things, there's our Pokémon backpacks and school bags.

The antagonists come in two sets, and it's a smart piece of writing. On one side, Millis and Argus Steel, a father and daughter in an airship who want to exploit Diancie's gift; on the other, Marilyn Flame and Riot, two jewel thieves far more lighthearted than the series' usual villains. The director had said he wanted livelier opponents than usual, betting on bickering rather than pure menace.

The film also slips in several well-known Kalos figures: Astrid and her Absol, Wikstrom and his Scizor, and Diantha with her Gardevoir. And of course Jessie, James and Meowth, whose Team Rocket plays its usual role here as the opportunistic third wheel.

A Showcase Film for Mega Evolution

Mega Evolution was the big new feature of the sixth generation, and this film uses it as a selling point. It shows up from the opening sequence, with Mega Venusaur, Mega Charizard X and Mega Blastoise, then keeps coming back throughout the film: Astrid's Mega Absol, Wikstrom's Mega Scizor, Diantha's Mega Gardevoir, not to mention Mega Diancie.

The end credits push the showcase even further, lining up Mega Charizard Y, Mega Mewtwo Y, Mega Blaziken, Mega Gardevoir, Mega Garchomp and Mega Lucario. It should be taken for what it is: an in-house trailer for the flagship mechanic of the games of the day, at a time when Mega Evolution was still new.

One point of chronology often gets muddled, though. This wasn't the film that brought the first Mega Evolution to the big screen: that honor goes to the sixteenth, Genesect and the Legend Awakened, released a year earlier. The seventeenth film, however, is the first to make it a recurring visual motif from start to finish. To understand everything about the mechanic, its stones and its conditions, our complete guide to Mega Evolution covers it all.

Production: A Canadian Setting and a Team on a Scouting Trip

The film's setting is openly inspired by Canada. The team explicitly cites Ottawa and the Rideau Canal, the village of Merrickville, the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, Toronto, Quebec City and Niagara-on-the-Lake. The castle glimpsed in the opening credits is modeled on the Château Frontenac, and the opening battle takes place on a terrace based on the Dufferin Terrace.

This isn't secondhand inspiration: Kunihiko Yuyama said his team had gone location scouting abroad, something it hadn't done since the twin films of the Unova generation. You can feel it in the texture of the backgrounds, especially the waterfalls and autumn forests, which are among the most polished of the XY cycle.

The Japanese score is by Shinji Miyazaki, the go-to composer for the movie series. The international version, from which the French version is derived, relies on arrangements by Ed Goldfarb. As for songs, the film opens with an XY version of the Pokémon theme and, in the French version, closes with the song Pour que je gagne.

The French dub was recorded in Belgium, with the team that has worked on the series for years: Aurélien Ringelheim voices Ash, with Sophie Frison as Serena, Thibaut Delmotte as Clemont, Elsa Poisot as Bonnie and Béatrice Wegnez as Diancie.

Reception and Box Office Results

In Japan, the film grossed 2.91 billion yen at the box office, according to Eiren's annual statistics. It's actually one of the weakest results of the decade: of the ten feature films released between 2010 and 2019, only the next two, the Hoopa and Volcanion films, did worse, and you have to go back to Pokémon Heroes in 2002 to find a lower Japanese gross. The $28 million figure often quoted for this film doesn't come from any named conversion: what Box Office Mojo reports is $28.6 million across all territories, including $26.9 million from Japan alone, with the rest split between South Korea and an Italian release in February 2015.

The most telling comparison is within the series itself: the three films of the XY cycle follow a steady downward slope, from this seventeenth installment to the nineteenth. Pokémon movies remain a reliable summer event in Japan, but they no longer draw the crowds of Mewtwo Strikes Back.

Critics, for their part, have never been these films' home turf, and this one is no exception. Its main strengths are its mineral art direction, Yveltal's petrifying interlude and the sheer energy of its thief duo. Viewers looking for the emotion of the Sinnoh films will find a story here that's more showy than moving — a contrast we also own up to in our overview of the series.

The French Release: TV First, DVD Later

In France, the film never played in theaters. It first aired on March 10, 2015, on Gulli, nearly eight months after Japan. That lag has been the norm since the early 2000s: only the first three feature films got a genuine theatrical release in France, between April 2000 and June 2001.

The French DVD arrived on November 4, 2015, released by Francetv Distribution. In the meantime, the film had aired in the United States as early as November 8, 2014, on Cartoon Network — a sequence that shows just how much the series' release schedules vary from country to country.

The story also got a manga adaptation by Kenji Kitamura, published in Japan in 2014 by Shogakukan, then in French by Kurokawa in 2015. It's a format that regularly accompanies the Pokémon movies and lets you revisit the story without going back to the screen.

In the Games: Diancie's Distribution and What's Left of It

In Japan, Diancie was distributed directly in movie theaters, from July 19 to September 30, 2014, with earlier sessions in Tokyo on July 6 and in Aichi Prefecture on July 13. The Pokémon came at level 50, in a Cherish Ball, with Diamond Storm at the top of its moves.

Europe got its own wave in fall 2014, as a code to enter in Pokémon X and Y, handed out in stores. In Europe, the code remained valid until February 25, 2015. A detail that matters to collectors: once transferred to Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, this Diancie made it possible to obtain a Diancite, and with it access to Mega Diancie.

💠 The Diancite required a code entered in Pokémon X and Y before February 25, 2015, then a transfer to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire; the little Pokémon item you carry with you, on the other hand, is waiting in Pokémon accessories, with no expiration date.

This is where the film serves its real purpose in the Pokémon ecosystem: acting as a launchpad for a creature that nothing in the game let you obtain any other way. The series has repeated the operation with nearly every feature film, with clockwork regularity.

The bottom line: this seventeenth film opens the Kalos chapter at the movies, a run of three feature films packed with rare creatures. The next one would push that logic to the point of absurdity, bringing together just about every available Legendary around a single mischievous Mythical Pokémon.

Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the exact French title of the seventeenth Pokémon movie?
  Its French title is Pokémon, le film: Diancie et le cocon de l'annihilation (in English, Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction). It is not a translation of the Japanese title, 破壊の繭とディアンシー, which literally means "The Cocoon of Destruction and Diancie." As is often the case in the series, the French title was reworked for the local release.
• Was the movie released in theaters in France?
  No. In France, it first aired on television, on Gulli, on March 10, 2015, then came out on DVD from Francetv Distribution on November 4, 2015. Only the first three films in the series got a genuine release in French theaters, between April 2000 and June 2001.
• Do you need to have seen the previous films to understand this one?
  No. Like nearly every Pokémon feature film, this one is written to be watched on its own. All you need to know is that Ash travels with three companions, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie, and that Team Rocket is hot on his trail. No knowledge of the Sinnoh or Unova films is needed.
• Who are Xerneas and Yveltal in this film?
  They're the two Legendary Pokémon featured on the boxes of Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. Xerneas, the stag with rainbow antlers, embodies life, and its aura is what Diancie comes looking for. Yveltal, the scarlet bird, embodies destruction: it's the one sleeping in the cocoon of the title, and its energy turns everything it touches to stone.
• How did you get Diancie in the games when the film came out?
  In Japan, Diancie was distributed directly in movie theaters from July 19 to September 30, 2014. In Europe, it was offered in fall 2014 as a code to enter in Pokémon X and Y, valid until February 25, 2015. Once transferred to Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, it gave access to a Diancite, the stone needed for Mega Diancie.
• Does this film show the first Mega Evolution in a Pokémon movie?
  No. The first Mega Evolution seen in one of the series' feature films appears in the sixteenth film, Genesect and the Legend Awakened, released in 2013. The seventeenth film, however, makes it a recurring motif, from the opening credits to the end credits, notably with Mega Absol, Mega Scizor, Mega Gardevoir and Mega Diancie.
• Is the short film with Klefki one of the twenty-three films?
  No. Pokémon: Pikachu, What's This Key? is an opening short, shown in Japan before the feature film. Like the series' other shorts, it isn't on the official list of twenty-three Pokémon films, which only counts animated feature films.

In short