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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: August/September 2026
September 6th, 2026
Dogasu @ 20:18 JST -- It's time for another Manga Guide update! Here are all the new Pokémon related manga to come out since mid-August:
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Poco a Pokémon 4-Koma Biyori, or "Poco a Pokémon: It's a Perfect Day for a Four-Panel Comic." In the latest collection of comic strips based on the Nintendo Switch game, the Pokémon enjoy a day at the beach.
Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~! Mega Chapter, the "Pokémon tries its hand at a Yu-Gi-Oh! type manga" series. In the latest chapter Retto tries out the soon-to-be-released "30th Celebration" expansion pack. How can he hope to win against an opponent with a whopping eight Pokémon on her Bench?
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Pokémon Frienda Oshiete! Friender-Man, the comic based on the current Pokémon arcade game Pokémon Frienda. In the newest chapter Renda learns about "XT" Pokémon and how using them over and over can lead to some game-changing advantages.
Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters, Chapter 62: Pippi and Pikachu take on a wild Dorapult! Can they defeat the dual Dragon/Ghost-Type Pokémon!?
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Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet, Chapter 36: Now that Scarlet's battle against Biwa's over, it's time for Violet to take on Ortega! Can he defeat the final Star-Dan Boss?
Finally, Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet Volume 5 was released late last month so I've added chapter titles, author comments, and other information about the release over on its own page here.
And that's it for now! The next chapter of Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters is scheduled to come out at the end of the month, and the 100th (!!!) issue of Pokémon Fan scheduled to come out on the 30th will likely have another Poco a Pokémon 4-Koma Biyori collection in it, but other than this should be it for the month.
Movies & Specials Guide: Pokémon: Wild Card
September 1st, 2026
Dogasu @ 21:49 JST -- This past weekend was the 2026 Pokémon World Championships, a competitive Pokémon event held in California, USA, and during its closing ceremonies a brand new animated Pokémon film was announced as being in production for a 2027 release!
The new full-length feature film will be called Pokémon: Wild Card and it seems to be focusing on the Pokémon Trading Card Game. There isn't really much known about the film at this point other than a few staff details, but I've taken what little we do know and put it on its own page here. This section will be updated as more information becomes available.
Manga Guide: The Path to Being a Plakoro Master!
August 23rd, 2026
Dogasu @ 10:37 JST -- The September 2026 issue of CoroCoro Comics featured a surprise new one-shot manga, The Path to Being a Plakoro Master!, and so the Manga Guide's been updated accordingly.
The new comic is essentially an eight-page tutorial on how to play "Plakoro," a dice-based Pokémon battle game that went on sale last month in Japan. A Story Synopsis, Character Bios, and Author Bio have all been added to the comic's page on the site.
This comic appears to be a one-shot and so I'm not expecting to have to make any more updates, but if additional chapters are ever made I'll be sure to add them to the site.
Celebrating 30 Years of Pokémon, The Pokémon Short Movie Festival ~ Pocket Monsters The Movie Short Movie Masterpiece Selection 2 ~
August 17th, 2026
Dogasu @ 07:14 JST -- Back in May the Jimbocho Theater in Tokyo -- which just happens to be owned by Pocket Monsters publisher Shogakukan -- held a film festival in which they brought three of the Pikachu shorts back to the big screen. Apparently that festival was a success because they're doing it again in an event they're calling Celebrating 30 Years of Pokémon, The Pokémon Short Movie Festival ~ Pocket Monsters The Movie Short Movie Masterpiece Selection 2 ~.
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The three shorts being shown this time around are:
- "Pikachu's Exploration Party" (originally shown alongside "Revelation Lugia")
- "Pikachu's Exciting Hide-and-Seek" (originally shown alongside "Celebi A Timeless Encounter")
- "The Dancing Pokémon Secret Base" (originally shown alongside "The Seven Nights' Star of Wishing, Jirachi")
Pre-order tickets go on sale starting Friday, September 4th.
Manga Guide: Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters, Pocket Monsters Special
August 8th, 2026
Dogasu @ 21:22 JST -- A new pair of chapters of Pocket Monsters comics are out, so I've made the usual update to the Manga Guide.
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Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters, Chapter 61: A group of Metamon decide to prank Pippi and Pikachu by transforming into Red while he's off shopping!
Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet, Chapter 35: Scarlet faces off against Biwa to take down the Star-Dan's Team Caph base! Can she defeat the Star-Dan leader? Plus, Nelke confronts Botan!
In other Pocket Monsters Special news, artist Satoshi Yamamoto recently posted on Twitter that after he finishes work on this chapter (Chapter 35) and the fifth collected volume (which comes out August 28th), he and the rest of the team are scheduled to have a meeting where they'll work to figure out the release date for the next regular volume of the series. Volume 64 was released way back in February 2023 and so any news on Volume 65, no matter how minor, is certainly welcome!
New Feature: Japanese Streaming Guide
August 2nd, 2026
Dogasu @ 21:12 JST -- I have a list of pages I want to get up on the website before I start diving back into doing Episode Comparisons again (which has now gone from starting "sometime around July" to "TBD" because of how long it's taking me to finish my Johto (re)watch), and one of those pages is a guide dedicated to the streaming services that are showing the Pocket Monsters animated series. And so today, I'm happy to introduce the newest addition to the Features section, the Japanese Streaming Guide.
This guide takes a look at each of the streaming services that offer Pokémon content and breaks down what episodes, movies, specials, and other videos they have up. Some of them have all the TV series, some of them only have the current series, some have the movies, some have content exclusive to that particular streaming service...there's a lot of variation out there! So this guide tries to help make sense of all that.
Pocket Monsters related physical media isn't really much of a thing anymore in Japan (the last Blu-ray was released back in 2024) so streaming is, like it or not, the best way to legally view the Japanese version of the series in the year 2026.
Due to the nature of streaming services this page will likely need to be updated constantly. I won't post about it here each and every time I make an update to the page, but I'll try to check in at least once a month to make sure it's as up-to-date as it can be.
Manga Guide: June & July Updates
July 29th, 2026
Dogasu @ 22:05 JST -- I promise this website isn't just going to be Pokémon manga update site from now on and that I will be doing more animated stuff soon, but...today's update is also a Pokémon manga update.
The Manga Guide's been updated with the following:
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Poco a Pokémon 4-Koma Biyori, or "Poco a Pokémon: It's a Perfect Day for a Four-Panel Comic." Summaries of two new collections of comic strips based on the Nintendo Switch 2 game Poco a Pokémon (released in the West as "Pokémon Pokopia") are now up on the site. In the first one, the Pokémon learn how to cook from Yokubarisu (Cook), and in the second one the Pokémon sing and dance to music provided by Rotom (Stereo Rotom).
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Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~! Mega Chapter, the "Pokémon tries its hand at a Yu-Gi-Oh! type manga" series. In the latest chapter Retto and Letto have to answer a series of questions about the new Pokémon Trading Card Game "Abyss Eye" expansion pack. Can they use their knowledge of the deck's special features to get all the right answers?
In other news, the third volume in the Scarlet & Violet series came out yesterday under the title "Fierce Battles! Trainers' Pokémon Edition." I've actually already covered all but one of the chapters in this volume so I've created a page for the collection that includes links to all the chapter summaries as well as new translations of chapter titles and author comments.
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Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters, Chapter 60: Pippi tries to convince a pair of Pokémon to stop their battle so they'll stop wasting so much water.
Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet, Chapter 34: Scarlet and Violet prepare for their impending Star-Dan boss battles while Nelke and Inugaya work to figure out who the true leader of the organization might be.
In other Pocket Monsters Special news, Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet Volume 5 has been announced with a release date of August 28th, 2026. There's no cover art yet, but based on the reported page count (192 pages) we can assume the volume will cover Chapters 27 through 32. In the United States, meanwhile, Viz is releasing Volume 6 their own version of the series, "Pokémon Scarlet & Violet," on October 13th, 2026. The Viz volumes only cover half of what's in the Japanese volumes so Volume 6 will probably cover the second half of the third Japanese volume.
Manga Guide: Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~! Mega Chapter & Pokémon Frienda Oshiete! Friender-Man
June 15th, 2026
Dogasu @ 22:33 JST -- Summaries of the newest chapters of the two Pokémon related comics that'll probably never get released outside Japan have been added to the Manga Guide.
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Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~! Mega Chapter, the "Pokémon tries its hand at a Yu-Gi-Oh! type manga" series. In the latest chapter Retto and Letto try out the new "Ninja Spinner" expansion pack. Who will come out victorious, Mega Gekkouga ex or Mega Floette ex?
Pokémon Frienda Oshiete! Friender-Man, the comic based on the current Pokémon arcade game Pokémon Frienda. In the newest chapter Renda tries out the newly released version of the Pokémon Frienda arcade game, "Pokémon Frienda BT5." What new updates have been made to the new game, and how will Renda defeat a super powerful Mimikkyu?
As always, behind-the-scenes information and other trivia have also been included with each chapter summary.
New chapters of both these series, as well as Poco a Pokémon 4-Koma Biyori, are scheduled to be released in the issue of CoroCoro Ichiban! that goes on sale this coming Thursday.
Manga Guide: Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters, Pocket Monsters Special
June 7th, 2026
Dogasu @ 10:10 JST -- Summaries of the newest chapters of the two longest running Pokémon related comics have been added to the Manga Guide.
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Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters, Chapters 58 & 59: In a move that's pretty uncharacteristic for this series the two chapters here are actually somewhat related to each other...!? Red tries to get his hands on an Eevee (with a Master Ball, no less!) while Pippi focuses on resurrecting a decades old gag.
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Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet, Chapters 32 & 33: Now that the Secret Spice storyline's wrapped up the series is now focusing on taking down the final two Star-Dan Bases! Scarlet takes on the Team Caph Base while Violet take down the Team Rachbah Base, all while various rebel factions make their big move!
As always, each summary is supplemented by behind-the-scenes info and other trivia.
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.
