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| Welcome to Dogasu's Backpack, a fansite for the Japanese franchise Pocket Monsters! For 26 years this website has been your guide for the Japanese version of Pokémon and contains content you can't find anywhere else. Here you'll be able to find detailed comparisons between the Japanese and English versions of the animated TV series, interview translations, information on the latest comics to come out of Japan, a lyrics database, a home video guide, and much more! So whether you're a seasoned veteran or a newbie just getting into Pocket Monsters this site has something for every fan to enjoy. | ||
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| Follow along with
my (re)watch of the Johto portion of the TV series using the #DogasusWatchesJohto hastag over on Bluesky! |
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Manga Guide: Pocket Monsters Special, Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters, Pokémon 4-Koma Gakuen
February 15th, 2026
Dogasu @ 23:33 JST -- It's time for the next batch of Manga Guide updates.
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Pocket Monsters Special: The fourth graphic novel collection came out the end of last month so I've made a page for the release that includes the updated chapter titles, translations of the creators' comments, and the artwork from the volume's back cover. This newest collected volume covers Chapters 19 through 25. These were the first chapters to be released exclusively online, making this volume the first time these chapters have ever been made available in print.
There's also now a summary up for Chapter 29, which was posted on the CoroCoro Online website earlier this month. In this month's chapter Violet and Peper find out how formidable the "False Dragon" is while Scarlet tries to find a way to escape the Team Caph Base. Chapter 30 is due to be released March 6th, 2026.
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Over in the U.S., the fourth volume of Viz's Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, the North American localization of the Pocket Monsters Special comic, was recently released on February 10th, 2026. The Viz releases only cover three chapters per volume (the Japanese ones contain at least six) and so Viz's Volume 3 is actually the equivalent to the second half of Japanese Volume 2. Viz Volume 5 (which is expected to cover the first half of the Japanese Volume 3) is due to come out June 9th, 2026.
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Back in Japan, a new chapter of Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters came out recently and so the usual summary's been added to the site. In the latest chapter a Sleep gets more than it bargains for when it attempts to use its Dream Eater attack on an unsuspecting Pippi.
It's also worth pointing out that later this month the manga series will be celebrating its 30th anniversary; the very first chapter of Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters came out on February 28th, 1996, a mere one day after the release of the Pocket Monsters Red & Green video games!
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Finally, a release date for the ninth Pokémon 4-Koma Gakuen collected volume was recently revealed for February 27th, 2026. This is the first collected volume to be released since I started covering the series on the site (Volume 8 came out way back in March 2024) so summaries for most of the comic strips included in this volume should already be up on the site.
Manga Guide: Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet Chapter 28
January 7th, 2026
Dogasu @ 09:21 JST -- It's time for the first Manga Guide update of the year!
Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet Chapter 28: In this month's chapter "Botan" gets kidnapped, smartphones are passed around from Gym Leader to Champion, and Violet and Peper run across some sushi Pokémon!
In other Pocket Monsters Special news, the series' artist Satoshi Yamamoto posted on X (Twitter) that the next Scarlet & Violet graphic novel, the one that's scheduled to come out January 28th, will cover up to Chapter 25. Amazon Japan's listing the book as being 192 pages, which is quite a lot considering the comics themselves only total up to around 168 pages, so once you factor in things like title pages and Table of Contents it looks like there might be around ten or fifteen pages of new material in this volume, maybe...? We'll find out soon, I guess! In the meantime I've created a placeholder page for the new volume here.
The Plan for 2026
December 31st, 2025
Dogasu @ 14:30 JST -- With 2026 just around the corner I wanted to let you all in on the plans for Dogasu's Backpack for the first half of the year. With the new Episode Comparison I did earlier this month I finally finished up the Orange Islands portion of the series and so the next obvious thing for me to do would be to dive right into the Johto episodes, right? But, there are a few things I want to get done first before diving into the Gold & Silver era.
One, as embarrassing as this is to admit at this point I still haven't actually seen all of Johto. There are some very large chunks of that part of the series I just never got around to watching, and for a lot of the episodes I actually have seen it's been so long since I watched a lot of them I've completely forgotten what happens. I've apparently seen the Johto League Champions episode "Control Freak!," for example, and even did an Episode Comparison for it back in 2002, but I honestly for the life of me couldn't tell you a single thing about it. The same's true for dozens of other episodes in the Gold & Silver part of the series. So I'm going to sit down and actually watch Johto, from beginning to end, so that when I finally do start really diving into the Johto era of Episode Comparisons I'll be coming at it with a better understanding of the saga as a whole.
Two, there are still a few non-Episode Comparison related Generation One stuff I want to work on before I start in on Johto. Missing song lyrics, missing CD information, interview translations I just never got around to doing, features on books and audio content from that era, etc. I don't want to dive into Johto with all these loose ends still hanging over me and so I'm going to take the first part of 2026 to tidy things up here.
With all that said, here's the plan for the first half of 2026:
- I will be (re-)watching the 161 episodes that make up the Johto portion of the original TV series. I'll probably be documenting the experience over on Bluesky, while also providing trivia and other tidbits about each episode, so go follow me over there if you aren't already.
- Over here on the website, I'll be working on the
aforementioned loose ends related to Generation One. I don't want to
give too much away at this point, but these "loose ends" will include
revamping old sections of the site as well as providing brand new
translations, summaries, and guides to parts of the franchise I just
haven't covered yet. I have everything plotted out on a massive Excel
sheet and have a pretty idea of what I'm going to upload and when, so
the updates should hopefully be a lot more regular than they have been
lately.
- I'll also be brainstorming ways to further
streamline the Episode Comparison process so that when I do start
working on Johto again I'll be able to get the comparisons out the door
a bit quicker than I had been in the past. I'll be
testing some of these methods out on a few miscellaneous Kanto-related
comparisons I plan to release over the next six months to see just how
effective they are.
So until then, Happy New Year, and see you in 2026!
Massive Manga Guide Catch-Up: CoroCoro Ichiban!, Pokémon Fan, CoroCiao, CoroCoro Online
December 29th, 2025
Dogasu @ 10:58 JST -- I've fallen a bit behind with all the Pocket Monsters related manga released in the past month and a half and so today's update is all about getting up-to-date again. I've got eleven brand new summaries up in the Manga Guide so let's jump right in:
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Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet Chapters 26 & 27: In Chapter 26 Nemo tells the Four Heavenly Kings all about Scarlet, a fake Botan runs around Grape Academy, and Violet and Peper start their hunt for the final Spice. In Chapter 27, Scarlet gets some concrete details about the four shrines and the Calamitous Pokémon sealed inside. Meanwhile, the real Botan is kidnapped by the Star-Dan!?
In other Pocket Monsters Special news, a little text blurb on the top of the title page for Chapter 27 reveals that the fourth Scarlet & Violet graphic novel is scheduled to come out January 28th, 2026. Volume 65 of the regular graphic novel release is still TBD, though some online retailers are putting a "late March" date as a placeholder.
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Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters is back from hiatus! In Chapter 53 Pippi and Pikachu get into a fight while in Chapter 54 Pippi faces off against a Mega Fushigibana. In addition to the usual story synopses I've also added translations of comments Mr. Anakubo made about his time off.
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Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~! Mega Chapter, the "Pokémon tries its hand at a Yu-Gi-Oh! type manga" series. I've added two chapter summaries here. In the first one, Retto and Letto get a taste of what it's like to face up against Mega Evolution ex Pokémon with the help of the "Inferno X" expansion pack. In the second chapter, the two face off against the Quiz Master in a series of brain teasers all about the new Start Deck 100 Battle Collection series.
On another note, the series' title underwent a bit of a change lately, going from "Scarlet & Violet Edition" to "Mega Edition," and so I'm taking this opportunity to change the way I cover this series moving forward. From now on I'll be switching over to doing more traditional chapter summaries in lieu of the more hyper detailed play-by-plays I had been doing for this series up until this point. This should greatly reduce the amount of work needed to cover each chapter, freeing me up to work on other sections of the site.
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Pokémon 4-Koma Gakuen, the series of Pokémon related comic strips that runs in CoroCoro Ichiban! In the first collection of comic strips the Pokémon do a bunch of arts and crafts, and in the second collection they work together to do the end-of-year school cleaning.
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Pokémon Frienda Oshiete! Friender-Man, the comic based on the current Pokémon arcade game Pokémon Frienda. In the newest chapter a new character named Makoto Hazama has trouble deciding which Pokémon Frienda picks he should place in his new carrying case and so Friender-Man and Renda decide to help him out. Can Makoto defeat a powerful Hoopa Unbound and add it to his collection?
Pokémon 4-Koma Daihyakka, that other collection of four panel gag comics, though this one runs in the magazine Pokémon Fan. In this newest collection the Pokémon go to a shopping mall run by other Pokémon.
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And finally, a brand new comic came out earlier this month called Hikakin wa Kyou mo PokéCa wo Yaru (ヒカキンは今日もポケカをやる), or "Hikakin's Gonna Play the Pokémon TCG Today As Well." In what appears to be a one-shot comic, famous Japanese YouTube Hikakin plays the Pokémon Trading Card Game with "Masuespar," the editor-in-chief at CoroCoro Comics. It's basically a comic to promote the new Start Deck 100 Battle Collection CoroCiao Ver. and its new card, "Influencer's Introduction." I've got the usual series overview, author bio, character descriptions, and chapter summary.
And that's it for 2025! In the next few days I'll be making a post about my plans for the site as we get ready to dive into the Johto portion of the animated series.
Episode Comparison: "The Rivaly Revival"
December 12th, 2025
Dogasu @ 09:38 JST -- It's time for a new Episode Comparison! Let's see what all was changed in the last episode of the Orange Islands part of the original Pocket Monsters (1997) TV series, "The Rivaly Revival."
It's been a little over five years since I started really diving into the Orange Islands portion of the TV series again. I posted an updated comparison for "A Scare in the Air" back in September 2020 and have been going through the Orange Islands part of the show one episode at a time ever since. At the rate of about one new comparison a month I should have finished all this by the end of Summer 2023 or so, but obviously things ended up taking a bit longer than expected. Still, we're finally here, and I'm so happy I can now say I have comparisons up for each and every episode of the Generation One portion of the animated series.
The next episode is the start of Johto, obviously, but there are also a few things I'm going to want to get out of the way first before I really dive into the Gold & Silver era of the show and so I'm not going to start right away. I'll provide more details on my plans in a later update.
Until then, enjoy the newest comparison!
Manga Guide Updates: September/October 2025
November 3rd, 2025
Dogasu @ 12:23 JST -- Apologies for the lack of updates this last month; October was an incredibly busy time for me at work. Things have calmed down a little bit, so let me catch up on all the Manga Guide updates I missed from the end of September up until today.
First up, the issues of CoroCoro Ichiban! of Pokémon Fan that came out in the end of September gave us new chapters of the usual:
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Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~!, the "Pokémon tries its hand at a Yu-Gi-Oh! type manga" series. In this month's chapter Retto and Letto try out the new "MEGA Starter Set: Mega Gangar ex" and "MEGA Starter Set: Mega Diancie ex" expansions. Can Letto and his Mega Gangar ex break through Mega Diancie ex and its "Diamond Coat" defense?
Pokémon Frienda Oshiete! Friender-Man, the comic based on the current Pokémon arcade game Pokémon Frienda. In this month's chapter a new player, Mamo Arino, is introduced to the basics of the Pokémon Frienda arcade game while also trying out a Koraidon Support Pokémon Ticket.
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Pokémon 4-Koma Gakuen, the series of Pokémon related comic strips that runs in CoroCoro Ichiban! In this month's collection the Pokémon start tending a garden.
Pokémon 4-Koma Daihyakka, that other collection of four panel gag comics, though this one runs in the magazine Pokémon Fan. In this newest collection the Pokémon enjoy holding a music concert.
There are two other comic series running in Pokémon Fan but I'm not really covering them at the moment.
The first one is Pokémon Chou Dajare Club (ポケモン超だじゃれクラブ), or "The Pokémon Super Pun Club," by TAK.BR / Santa Harukaze (TAK.BR/春風邪三太). It's yet another four-panel comic strip series, only this time its punchlines are all centered around untranslatable Japanese puns that make coverage of the series take way, way more time and effort than it's probably worth.
The other series is Pokémon Quiz Puzzle Land Pikachu no Takara Sagashi (ポケモンクイズパズルランド ピカチュウの宝さがし), or "Pokémon Quiz Puzzle Land: Pikachu's Treasure Hunt," with the comic portion being done by Kemon Kawamoto (河本けもん) and the puzzles by Hiroshi Takase (嵩瀬 ひろし). In the current iteration of this series, Pikachu and the Paldea starters help whatever Pokémon needs help that issue, with the twist being that every page has a quiz or puzzle that readers are invited to solve. So the comic will be something like "Let's try looking under this rock...oh look! A Pokémon themed word search!" And then half that page will taken up by a word search, or a maze, or a rebus, etc. And this repeats over and over for like nine pages. Covering a series like this would require me to translate and/or post all the puzzles, something that, again, takes more time and effort than it's probably worth.
Now let's move into October:
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Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters series is, unfortunately, still on the hiatus that started back in June. I check in on this series about once a month to see if there are any updates but unfortunately there aren't any at this time.
Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet Chapter 25: In last month's chapter, Peper and Violet go up against a pair of Paradox Pokémon in the Roast Desert! Meanwhile, Nemo's asked to share details about her friend Scarlet.
And with that, I'm now up-to-date! I'd also like to take this time to point out that I have now been officially covering the latest Pokémon related manga releases on a monthly basis for a whole year at this point. The comics are a part of the franchise that is so often overlooked and so if I'm able to help shine a spotlight on a bunch of series that would otherwise fall completely under the radar then I'm happy to do so.
Episode Comparison: "A Tent Situation"
October 3rd, 2025
Dogasu @ 21:07 JST -- Now that I've got the whole "why did Takeshi leave the show" thing out of the way, it's time to cover the episode featuring the character's return to the show! Today let's take a look at the differences between the Japanese version and the English dub of the penultimate episode of the Orange Islands arc, "A Tent Situation."
How did 4Kids do with Brock being upset about what happened back on the islands? Did they really have Ash give his trophy away to his mom? Why is food like "fried chicken" and "spaghetti" all of a sudden taboo now? All this and more in the newest Episode Comparison!
Found an error or omission? Please help me keep this page current and error-free by e-mailing me with a description of the issue.
