(2021)
Main
Old Updates Archive
Links
 |
Lists |
List of Pokemon
Pokemon World Atlas
List of Techniques
List
of Items
List of TV Episodes
|
Guides |
Episode Comparisons
Movies
& Specials Guide
CD Guide
DVD Guide
Voice
Actors Guide
Lyrics Archive
Manga Guide
Video
Games
|
Miscellaneous |
Humor
Pokemon Bashing
Features
Rants
Dogasu's
Backpack
| Features
| Magazine Guide (2021)
A lot of the news that comes out about
upcoming episodes of the Pocket
Monsters
TV series -- new episode titles, new screenshots, etc. -- tend to come
from
Japanese magazines. Since the overwhelming majority of the
English-speaking
fandom does not actually live in the country where these magazines are
sold, however, they must rely on whatever images
Japanese fans just happen to post on social media to find out what's
inside.
Unfortunately, a lot of these images are reposted with no context whatsoever, requiring re-posters to frame the whole thing as "Some Japanese magazine posted a new episode title." But come on now; it's the year 2021. Surely we can do better than that, right?
To help everyone properly document where they get certain information from, I've created this Magazine Guide to show you what publications you often see pop up on news sites and social media over and over again. My hope is that you can use this guide to familiarize yourselves with the magazines to the point that, even if you're presented with a random out-of-context jpg, you can sit down and say "OK, today's date is this, and the layout of the image shows this, so that means the image I'm looking at probably comes from this magazine."
This is the first in a series of guides I plan to update about once every year or so.
The first thing we should do is familiarize ourselves with when each of these magazines officially come out. Most of them go on sale at around the same time, month after month, and so it's fairly easy to predict when we can expect new information to drop.
The TV guide magazines are this whole other beast so I'll give them their own little section at the end of this guide.
Sometimes images from one of these magazines will "leak" a few days before they're supposed to go on sale. I put "leak" in quotation marks there because most of the early information you see online isn't the result of some random employee snapping photos inside a printing factory or something like that. No, the overwhelming majority of the early images we sometimes get come from people who find stores that simply break the publications' street dates. Years ago I remember there was this mom and pop newsstand out in the countryside near where I used to work that would sell new issues of CoroCoro Comics as early as three days before they were supposed to. Small stores breaking street dates is a thing that happens, sometimes!
There are a ton of other magazines that feature Pocket Monsters content in some form or another but the ones listed above are the ones you see cited on social media the most often.
Magazine
Name: Televi-kun (てれ
びくん). Also often referred to as "Terebi-kun" or "TV-kun."
Publisher: Shogakukan (株式会社 小学館)
Release Schedule: The 1st of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: Varies, but the average is around 1,300 JPY
Kindle Version Available? For the more recent issues, yes.
Average Page Count: 122 pages
First Issue: May 1st, 1976
Official Website: https://televi-kun.net/
Twitter: @Televi_Kun
About the Magazine: Televi-kun is a magazine aimed at young children primarily centered around tokusatsu, anime, and toys. But don't let the magazine's title fool you; this magazine is not a TV Guide. There are no episode title revelations or programming schedules to be found anywhere in this publication.
When it comes to Pocket Monsters news...well, Televi-kun never really has much of anything of interest. The only reason I'm even bothering to bring it up is because, every now and then, a Pokémon image will appear on the cover that prompts speculation that we're about to get some exciting news, but then when the actual magazine comes out it's always only just a recap of stuff we already knew. A recent example of this was with the March 2021 issue that went on sale February 1st, 2021. An image of a Lucario with a Mega Bracelet on the cover prompted speculation that Satoshi's Lucario was going to Mega Evolve in the near future, but when the magazine actually came out we find that the Lucario on the cover was actually meant to be the one owned by the Kalos Gym Leader Corni.
For this reason, Televi-kun is not a part of my monthly shopping list. The issue I bought for this feature had seven pages devoted to Pocket Monsters; four pages dedicated to Pokémon Mezastar and three pages to the animated series. Pokémon Mezastar is a Japanese-only arcade game so it's not very high on Western fans' radar, and the animated series coverage is just recaps of stuff we already and/or general information.
This two page spread from the May 2021 issue, for example, reviews the evolution information of a lot of the boys' Pokémon. Now at first glance it may be tempting to look at those Galar starters, in particular, and assume that this feature is saying that Gou's Pokémon are going to evolve into their final forms. But the text around each image is basically just "If it does evolve again, this is what it would change into" (さらに進化すると…).
The third page also has the potential to be misleading to someone who just finds an out-of-context image online. Are they saying that Satoshi's getting a Raichu? And that Koharu's getting a Gardie? Nope; Televi-kun is just telling us about Pokémon that fit a certain Pokémon Bestiary category. Satoshi's Pikachu is categorized as a "Mouse Pokémon," for example, and so here are the other five Pokémon that exist with the "Mouse Pokémon" categorization. Wanpachi is the "Puppy Pokémon," so here are the other three "Puppy Pokémon." And so on and so on.
That's basically the kind of Pokémon "coverage" you can expect in an average issue of Televi-kun. The magazine will often use hyperbolic phrases (and/or outright lies) like "brand new information" that lead fans to believe that it'll actually have something of interest but I can probably count on one hand the number of times that's actually been true. I wouldn't get too excited about the release of a new Televi-kun issue if I was you.
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? Nope, I would advise absolutely skip this one.
Magazine
Name: Animage (アニメージュ)
Publisher: Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. (株式会社 徳間書店)
Release Schedule: The 10th of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: 1,080 JPY
Kindle Version Available? Yes
Average Page Count: 158 pages
First Issue: May 26th, 1978
Official Website: https://animageplus.jp/
Twitter: @animage_tokuma
About the Magazine: The next three magazines I'll be talking about -- Animage, Animedia, and Pash! -- only really started covering Pokémon starting with the current Pocket Monsters (2019) series. There might have been a few articles here and there in the past (Animage is the magazine that ran that fantastic Masaaki Iwane interview back in 2015, for example) but ever since the 2019 series began we started to get new features pretty much every single month.
Animage dedicates around four pages to Pocket Monsters each month. The first two pages usually feature a piece of original artwork commissioned just for the magazine with a bunch of text that summarizes what's been happening in the last few weeks' worth of episodes. That artwork is often also printed on a poster that comes with the magazine.
The other two pages usually contain an interview or two with voice actors, staff, or musicians who work on the show. The May 2021 issue, for example, featured a two-page interview with Iris' voice actor, Ms. Yuki Aoi.
While the current weekly TV series starring Satoshi and Gou are what get most of the focus, the magazine did also run a two page feature on Twilight Wings back in its August 2020 issue.
Toward the back of the magazine is a section called the "Character Best 10," a ranking of the Top 20 (yeah, I don't get it either) anime characters for the month as voted on by Animage readers. Pocket Monsters characters sometimes show up but most of the time none of them make the list.
The magazine also has a TV guide-type listing in the back that often reveals new episode titles. The exact same information (plus more!) can also be found in Animedia, but I'll go more into that later.
It should be noted that Animage absolutely does not like people posting images from their magazine on social media. If you go through the Tweets & replies section of their Twitter page you'll see that they frequently send out the following message to anyone who posts images to their own Twitter:
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? From a news point of view it doesn't really have anything you can't find in other magazines but the exclusive staff and cast interviews, as well as the original artwork, can certainly be worth the magazine's rather hefty price tag to some.
Magazine
Name: Animedia (アニメディア). Be careful not to confuse this with its
sister magazine Seiyuu Animedia (声優アニメディア).
Publisher: Gakken Plus Co., Ltd. (株式会社学研プラス)
Release Schedule: The 10th of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: 1,070 JPY
Kindle Version Available? Yes
Average Page Count: 144 pages
First Issue: June 9th, 1981
Official Website: https://cho-animedia.jp/
Twitter: @iid_animedia
About the Magazine: Animedia's coverage of Pocket Monsters is usually anywhere from two to four pages a month. Like Animage, interviews with voice actors and summaries of upcoming episodes are the norm, and many issues include posters featuring original artwork drawn just for the magazine.
The magazine will sometimes pose quick little Q&As to whatever voice actors they happen to be interviewing that month. In the February 2021 issue, for example, Daiki Yamashita got asked how he thinks Gou would spend his Valentine's Day. And in the March 2021 issue the main cast get asked questions like "Who do you think is the one likely to stay up late - Satoshi, Gou, or Koharu?" They're light-hearted "What If...?" questions that are purely meant to be fun and nothing more.
Animedia will also sometimes fill space by listing out all the Pokémon that appear in the episodes that aired the previous month, which is more or less what the various Pokémon Wiki pages have been doing for years.
The magazine also features a monthly "Character Ranking" column. Pocket Monsters characters sometimes make the list whenever there's an article about them in a recent issue; Kibana, Dande, Gou, and Satoshi all made the list the month after the magazine had an eight-page feature on the show. Some people try to frame the results of the Animage and Animedia polls as evidence of certain trends among the Japanese fandom but the magazine's extremely small sample size (affluent anime nerds willing to shell out the more the approximately US $10 a month it costs to buy each issue) make it a fairly unreliable way of gauging "the Japanese fandom's" preferences. It's a fun conversation starter, sure, but that's pretty much it.
Animedia also has a TV guide in the back of each issue called "Anime Hunter Plus." Animage has a similar feature called "Animation World" but "Anime Hunter Plus" tends to have more information. The May 2021 issue of Animedia, for example, has summaries for all four of the episodes listed ("Drippy Drippy Jimeleon," "A Showdown! The Pokémon Water Obstacle Course!!" "Everybody Hates Absol," and "Dragon Battle! Satoshi vs. Iris!!") while the May 2021 issue of Animage only has summaries of those first two.
These Animedia / Animage listings is where fans get those new episode titles, summaries, and staff lists that come out every month. Posts like the ones you see on the right are usually translations of the Animedia summary on the left here:
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? Animedia has pretty much exactly the same type of content as Animage, but it's not a copy / paste job. The interviews and artwork are all completely brand new so if you buy one for the interviews / art then you might as well pick up the other one while you're at it.
Magazine
Name: Pash! Monthly (月
刊 パッシュ！), though most of the time
it's referred to simply as "Pash"
Publisher: Shufu to Seikatsu Sha Co., Ltd. (株式会社 主 婦と生 活社)
Release Schedule: The 10th of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: 1,250 JPY
Kindle Version Available? Yes
Average Page Count: 109 pages
First Issue: April 2007
Official Website: https://www.pashplus.jp/
Twitter: @magazine_pash
About the Magazine: The third of the anime magazines to come out on the 10th of the month, Pash! is described by its publisher as being "an anime magazine aimed at women" (女性専用アニメマガジン). The magazine covers anime that is thought to be popular among girls and includes interviews with male voice actors about their private lives. Like Animage and Animedia, Pash! Monthly usually comes packed with posters, clear files, and other stationary like items.
Pocket Monsters related content usually takes anywhere from two to four pages. When there are only two pages there usually isn't much to note; a summary of what's been happening in the show lately coupled with a bunch of screenshots.
In the months where the magazine devotes four pages to the series, however, those final two pages are usually taken up by interviews with the cast and crew of the show. In recent months these interviews have included Koharu's voice actor Kana Hanazawa (January 2021 Issue) and a joint interview with both Daiki Yamashita (Gou's voice actor) and Daiki Tomiyasu (May 2021 issue).
The August 2020 issue featured Pocket Monsters on the cover and devoted ten whole pages to the series, though the magazine devoting that much coverage to the series is rare.
Like Animage, Pash! doesn't really like it when people repost images from their magazines online. Here's an example of one of the tweets they've sent out in the past:
In other words, I would think long and hard before reposting anything from an issue of Pash!
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? Pash! Monthly has some great interviews and original artwork, just like Animage and Animedia, but if you try to pick up all three of these magazines then you're going to need quite a bit of money. Still, Pash! Monthly is a great magazine so I'd say go for it.
Magazine Name: Monthly
CoroCoro Comics (月刊コロコロコミック).
The magazine's name is also sometimes written out as Koro Koro.
Publisher: Shogakukan (株式 会社 小学館)
Release Schedule: The 15th of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: Varies, but the average is around 600 JPY
Kindle Version Available? No
Average Page Count: Over 700 pages
First Issue: April 15th, 1977
Official Website: https://corocoro.jp/
Twitter: @corocoro_tw
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKtxF3ufOkuJohTeKyNbYrQ
About the Magazine: CoroCoro Comics is arguably Japan's most popular children's comic anthology magazine. A sort of Weekly Shonen Jump for the preschool crowd, this 700+ page a month absolute brick of a magazine is a collection of news and advertisements for whatever anime / manga / video games / toys that are deemed popular among the preschool and elementary school crowd. It has been home to such popular manga series as Doraemon, Duel Masters, and dozens of manga based on popular video games such as Super Mario Bros and Minecraft.
Back in the day CoroCoro used to be the place to find news about Pocket Monsters. New video game reveals, new Pokémon reveals, info about the TV series; they had it all! "Leaks" happened pretty much every single month, though, and so Game Freak's big announcements would end up getting spoiled sometimes as much as a full week before they were meant to. From a PR point of view CoroCoro was starting to become a bit of a liability.
In more recent years, with the advent of things like Nintendo / Pokémon Directs, CoroCoro's relevance as a Pokémon news source has dropped significantly. The magazine will still get a few bones thrown its way from time to time -- they got to be the ones to reveal Iwanko and Nekkoala during the lead-up to the release of Sun & Moon, for example -- but for the most part the magazine just kind of regurgitates the same info revealed in whatever Nintendo Directs and/or social media posts came out that month. The way I see it, CoroCoro Comics is only really continuing to cover Pokémon as a formality to honor the magazine's 20+ year history with the franchise.
The coverage of the TV series is basically nothing at this point. The May 2021 issue featured a single page summarizing the Mythical Pokémon Mew but that's about it. Whenever a new movie's about to come out the magazine will sometimes feature some original artwork but even that is rarely seen these days.
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: At the moment the magazine is home to Machito Gomi's Pocket Monsters ~ The Story of Satoshi & Gou! ~" a series that retells select episodes of the TV series. Viz Media is set to start releasing an English version of this manga starting November 2021.
Should you import it? When it comes to news about the Pocket Monsters (2019) animated series in the year 2021, you can pretty much skip CoroCoro Comics. The 700+ page count means the international shipping fees are going to be absurd, especially when you factor in the fact that the magazine only devotes a few pages to the franchise each month. The manga adaptation of recent episodes of the TV series are fun, I guess, but those eventually get collected into graphic novels anyway so just get those instead.
Magazine Name: CoroCoro
Icibiban! (コロコロイチバン！)
Publisher: Shogakukan (株式 会社 小学館)
Release Schedule: The 21st of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is two months out from when the magazine actually goes on sale. The January 2021 issue came out November 21st, 2020, the February 2021 issue came out December 21st, 2020, the March 2021 issue came out January 21st, 2021, and so on.
Average Price: Varies, but the average is around 1,200 JPY
Kindle Version Available? No
Average Page Count: 230 pages
First Issue: March 25th, 2005
Official Website: https://corocoro.jp/
Twitter: @corocoro_tw
About the Magazine: CoroCoro Ichiban! is an off-shoot of CoroCoro Comics. The magazine is primarily a manga anthology magazine that targets an even younger crowd than its big brother publication, as evident by the number of gag manga collected in its volumes.
Now the first thing I want to do is to point out that CoroCoro Comics and CoroCoro Ichiban! are not the same magazine. Let's look at the two of them right next to each other; regular CoroCoro Comics is on the top while CoroCoro Ichiban! is on the bottom.
The magazine is known for coming packed with a lot of physical extras; toys, stationary, trading cards, plastic items you can use for arcade games, and so on. In fact, a big part of the magazine's promotional material is them talking about all the extras that are packed in. The June 2021 issue, for example, came with a box to hold the little plastic tags you can use for the Pokémon Mezastar arcade game, an Armorga tag for the aforementioned arcade game, a Ko'orippo card for the Pokémon Card Game, a New Pokémon Snap Lental Region Poster, a 48-page Crayon Shin-chan manga, a Detective Conan board game, and a book filled with Nintendo-themed gag manga.
The information found in CoroCoro Ichiban! is usually only ever a copy of what you can find in the issue of CoroCoro Comics that came out the week before. We'll sometimes get some news on the animated series like very brief summaries of upcoming episodes but that's about it.
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: At the moment it is the only print magazine that's still running the Pocket Monsters Special manga. All the other magazines that used to run it have either ceased publication (the Shougaku ___-Nensei series) or have just stopped running the series for some reason (Pokémon Fan), forcing the manga to go for a hybrid of being printed in CoroCoro Ichiban! and online.
It also runs Let's Play the Pokémon Card Game (Sword & Shield) (ポケモンカードゲームやろうぜ～っS&S 編), a manga based on -- you guessed it -- the TCG. A series of Four-Panel gag comics, The Pokémon Four-Panel Academy (ポケモン4コマ学園), also runs in the magazine.
Should you import it? You might get a new screenshot or two from an upcoming episode but that's about the only "news" CoroCoro Ichiban! has to offer. The manga and the physical extras are all pretty neat, though!
Magazine
Name: spoon.2Di
Publisher: prevision (株式会社プレビジョン)
Release Schedule: The 30th (31st) of each month
Cover Date: spoon.2Di assigns each issue an issue number in lieu of a month / year the way most of the other magazines in this guide do. Issue 73 came out in April 2021, Issue 74 came out in May 2021, Issue 75 came out in June 2021, etc.
Average Price: 1,194 JPY
Kindle Version Available? Yes
Average Page Count: 80 pages
First Issue: April 30th, 2015
Official Website: https://2di.theshop.jp/
Twitter: @spoon_B
Instagram: spoon.2di_magazine
About the Magazine: spoon.2Di is a "culture magazine" (カルチャー誌) released on the final day of the month.
The number of pages the magazine devotes to Pocket Monsters varies wildly from issue to issue. In the issues I picked up from the year 2020, for example, the amount of coverage was huge: Issue 61 devoted 12 pages to the series, Issue 62 devoted 22 pages, Issue 67 devoted 16 pages, and so on. Those pages would be filled with multiple interviews, every month, from various members of the show's cast and crew. But starting in the year 2021 the amount of coverage was drastically reduced to only two pages per issue; Issues 70, 72, and 73 all only devoted two pages apiece.
I actually translated the content from Issue 63 a while back so take a look if you want to see what kinds of things the magazine posts.
These days the coverage consists mostly of summaries of upcoming episodes of the show coupled with screenshots, many of which are exclusive to spoon.2Di. The magazine can be told apart from the crowd thanks to its unique pop art layout to it; if you see screenshots with English lettering like this then chances are you're looking at an image from an issue of spoon.2Di.
In recent months the magazine's Twitter page has joined Animage and Pash! in putting up notices that "reproducing all or any part of the contents is prohibited." The fact that this message is printed in English and only seems to appear on ads featuring franchises that have large international followings (Pokémon, SK8) makes it pretty clear who the target audience for these warnings is.
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? The oddly named magazine is usually a good source of new screenshots and some great interviews so yeah, go for it.
Magazine
Name: Pokémon Fan (ポケモンファン). The magazine is also sometimes referred
to simply as PokéFan.
Publisher: Shogakukan (株式 会社 小学館)
Release Schedule: Whenever the hell they feel like it (more on that below)
Cover Date: Pokémon Fan assigns each issue an issue number in lieu of a month / year like most of the other magazines in this guide. Issue 71 came out in December 2020, Issue 72 came out in February 2021, Issue 73 came out in April 2021, etc.
Average Price: 950 JPY
Kindle Version Available? No
Average Page Count: 108 pages
First Issue: October 16th, 2007
Official Website: http://www.corocoro.tv/coro1/pokefan/
Twitter: N/A
About the Magazine: Unlike the other magazines on this page, Pokémon Fan (sometimes referred to as simply PokéFan) is a publication that is 100% dedicated to the Pocket Monsters franchise. It covers everything you could possibly want; the video games, the animated series, the TCG, Japan-only arcade games, merchandise, events...you name it. The magazine also has a few activity pages; a "Where's Wally?" type games, quizzes, word searches, mazes, etc.
Physical extras like stickers, video game serial codes, arcade game chips, and keychains are also often included.
When it comes to coverage of the animated series you can usually count on it getting around six pages per issue. One telltale sign that the image you're looking at online is from an issue of Pokémon Fan is the fact that the magazine loves to divide its coverage up into large two-page spreads like this:
It's a pretty great magazine, but there is one annoying catch; nobody can tell you when the hell it actually comes out. Unlike every other magazine on this page, Pokémon Fan has no regular release schedule. It literally just comes out whenever the hell Shogakukan feels like it. There's generally a two month gap in between issues, but sometimes -- like with the gap between Issues 73 and 74 -- there's three months in between issues, for seemingly no reason.
The only real pattern I've been able to determine is that new issues pretty much always come out the same day that the year's newest movie hits theaters.
The magazine's official website is pretty useless, and the publication has absolutely no social media presence whatsoever so nobody's actually promoting this thing. It's almost like Shogakukan doesn't want anyone to buy it! Probably the best way to know when the next issue is coming out is to hope that somebody actually buys the one that's currently on shelves, looks at the date printed on the ad for the next issue in the back, and then posts that date online.
Despite this rather weird and unnecessary hurdle, the magazine is absolutely a great one for any Pokémon fan (pun intended) out there.
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: Manga-wise, the magazine has Pokémon Quiz Puzzle Land - Pikachu's Exploration Team (ポケモンクイズパズルランド ピカチュウたんけんたい), which is really just a bunch of activity sheets (mazes, word searches, etc.) disguised as manga, and The Great Pokémon Four-Panel Encyclopedia (ポケモン4コマ大百科), a series of four-panel gag comics different from the ones that run in CoroCoro Ichiban!
Should you import it? Of all the magazines on this page Pokémon Fan is going to be the best bang for your buck. If you only bother to import one Japanese magazine for Pocket Monsters content then this is the one you're going to want to get.
First, let's take a look at the release schedules for the various TV guide magazines out there.
Now I didn't actually go out and buy all nine of the TV guide magazines listed above, but I did at least pick up the issue of TV Life (テ レビライフ) that came out April 21st, 2021 so I can show you what the actual TV section looks like:
You may notice that each show doesn't get a whole lot of space. This is a problem that pops up in a lot of the TV guide magazines; cramming several networks' entire days' worth of programming onto a single page means that there's only so much room these magazines can dedicate to each show. Accordingly, some episode titles get abbreviated. Back in August 2020, for example, one of the weekly TV magazines listed Episode 037 "I'm Back, But Also, Nice To Meet You Alola!" (ただいま、はじめましてアローラ!) as simply "I'm Back, Alola!" (ただいま、アローラ！) and Episode 038 "The Miraculous Restoration of the Fossil Pokémon!" (奇跡の復元、化石 のポケモン！) as simply "The Fossil Pokémon" (化石のポケモン！). I've seen people speculate that these shortened titles are an attempt to hide some kind of spoiler but I think it's probably mostly a case of "well, we would have gone over our character limit if we tried to print the whole thing so we fit what we could."
If an episode title is revealed via a TV guide magazine then do be aware that the title may not be complete.
Should you import it? Unless you have a hobby of collecting foreign countries' TV guide magazines then no, absolutely not. Just rely on social media posts for the information here.
So let's say you want to actually purchase one of the many magazines listed above. How do you go about doing that?
If you don't live in Japan, your best bet is going to be to find an online retailer that ships internationally. Both Amazon Japan and CD Japan have proven to be reliable but you do have to be careful because the shipping fees can get really expensive really fast. The general advice is to therefore wait until you can buy a bunch of stuff all at once to help offset the amount you'll be spending to deliver these items to your door.
Links to each of the places where you can buy the magazines are below:
If you don't care about having a physical magazine to hold in your hand then digital may be an even better option. Check the chart above to see which magazines can be purchased and downloaded to your Kindle and/or Kindle app. Some initial setup to link an Amazon Japan account with a Kindle is required but it is doable as long as you're willing to spend a little time on Google to figure out how.
There are other digital stores that sell these magazines but most of them are Japan-based apps that may or may not work for you overseas.
And that's it for this year's magazine guide! As mentioned at the top of this page, this is a guide I hope to update every year or so to help fans outside of Japan make heads or tails of the various magazines that fans depend on for the latest Pocket Monsters (2019) related news. Got any feedback? Let me know via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, or BMGf!
Unfortunately, a lot of these images are reposted with no context whatsoever, requiring re-posters to frame the whole thing as "Some Japanese magazine posted a new episode title." But come on now; it's the year 2021. Surely we can do better than that, right?
To help everyone properly document where they get certain information from, I've created this Magazine Guide to show you what publications you often see pop up on news sites and social media over and over again. My hope is that you can use this guide to familiarize yourselves with the magazines to the point that, even if you're presented with a random out-of-context jpg, you can sit down and say "OK, today's date is this, and the layout of the image shows this, so that means the image I'm looking at probably comes from this magazine."
This is the first in a series of guides I plan to update about once every year or so.
| General
Release Schedule |
| Televi-kun | Animage | Animedia | Pash! | CoroCoro Comics |
| CoroCoro Ichiban! | spoon.2Di | Pokémon Fan | TV guide magazines |
| How To Buy |
| Televi-kun | Animage | Animedia | Pash! | CoroCoro Comics |
| CoroCoro Ichiban! | spoon.2Di | Pokémon Fan | TV guide magazines |
| How To Buy |
| General
Release
Schedule |
The first thing we should do is familiarize ourselves with when each of these magazines officially come out. Most of them go on sale at around the same time, month after month, and so it's fairly easy to predict when we can expect new information to drop.
| Date |
Magazine |
| The
1st of every month |
Televi-kun |
| The 10th of every month | Animage |
| Animedia |
|
| Pash! |
|
| The
15th of every month |
CoroCoro
Comics |
| The
21st of every month |
CoroCoro
Ichiban! |
| The
30th (31st) of every month |
spoon.2Di |
| Whenever
the hell they feel like it |
Pokémon
Fan |
The TV guide magazines are this whole other beast so I'll give them their own little section at the end of this guide.
Sometimes images from one of these magazines will "leak" a few days before they're supposed to go on sale. I put "leak" in quotation marks there because most of the early information you see online isn't the result of some random employee snapping photos inside a printing factory or something like that. No, the overwhelming majority of the early images we sometimes get come from people who find stores that simply break the publications' street dates. Years ago I remember there was this mom and pop newsstand out in the countryside near where I used to work that would sell new issues of CoroCoro Comics as early as three days before they were supposed to. Small stores breaking street dates is a thing that happens, sometimes!
There are a ton of other magazines that feature Pocket Monsters content in some form or another but the ones listed above are the ones you see cited on social media the most often.
| Televi-kun |
Magazine
Name: Televi-kun (てれ
びくん). Also often referred to as "Terebi-kun" or "TV-kun."Publisher: Shogakukan (株式会社 小学館)
Release Schedule: The 1st of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: Varies, but the average is around 1,300 JPY
Kindle Version Available? For the more recent issues, yes.
Average Page Count: 122 pages
First Issue: May 1st, 1976
Official Website: https://televi-kun.net/
Twitter: @Televi_Kun
About the Magazine: Televi-kun is a magazine aimed at young children primarily centered around tokusatsu, anime, and toys. But don't let the magazine's title fool you; this magazine is not a TV Guide. There are no episode title revelations or programming schedules to be found anywhere in this publication.
When it comes to Pocket Monsters news...well, Televi-kun never really has much of anything of interest. The only reason I'm even bothering to bring it up is because, every now and then, a Pokémon image will appear on the cover that prompts speculation that we're about to get some exciting news, but then when the actual magazine comes out it's always only just a recap of stuff we already knew. A recent example of this was with the March 2021 issue that went on sale February 1st, 2021. An image of a Lucario with a Mega Bracelet on the cover prompted speculation that Satoshi's Lucario was going to Mega Evolve in the near future, but when the magazine actually came out we find that the Lucario on the cover was actually meant to be the one owned by the Kalos Gym Leader Corni.
 |
 |
For this reason, Televi-kun is not a part of my monthly shopping list. The issue I bought for this feature had seven pages devoted to Pocket Monsters; four pages dedicated to Pokémon Mezastar and three pages to the animated series. Pokémon Mezastar is a Japanese-only arcade game so it's not very high on Western fans' radar, and the animated series coverage is just recaps of stuff we already and/or general information.
 |
This two page spread from the May 2021 issue, for example, reviews the evolution information of a lot of the boys' Pokémon. Now at first glance it may be tempting to look at those Galar starters, in particular, and assume that this feature is saying that Gou's Pokémon are going to evolve into their final forms. But the text around each image is basically just "If it does evolve again, this is what it would change into" (さらに進化すると…).
 |
The third page also has the potential to be misleading to someone who just finds an out-of-context image online. Are they saying that Satoshi's getting a Raichu? And that Koharu's getting a Gardie? Nope; Televi-kun is just telling us about Pokémon that fit a certain Pokémon Bestiary category. Satoshi's Pikachu is categorized as a "Mouse Pokémon," for example, and so here are the other five Pokémon that exist with the "Mouse Pokémon" categorization. Wanpachi is the "Puppy Pokémon," so here are the other three "Puppy Pokémon." And so on and so on.
That's basically the kind of Pokémon "coverage" you can expect in an average issue of Televi-kun. The magazine will often use hyperbolic phrases (and/or outright lies) like "brand new information" that lead fans to believe that it'll actually have something of interest but I can probably count on one hand the number of times that's actually been true. I wouldn't get too excited about the release of a new Televi-kun issue if I was you.
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? Nope, I would advise absolutely skip this one.
| Animage |
Magazine
Name: Animage (アニメージュ)Publisher: Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. (株式会社 徳間書店)
Release Schedule: The 10th of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: 1,080 JPY
Kindle Version Available? Yes
Average Page Count: 158 pages
First Issue: May 26th, 1978
Official Website: https://animageplus.jp/
Twitter: @animage_tokuma
About the Magazine: The next three magazines I'll be talking about -- Animage, Animedia, and Pash! -- only really started covering Pokémon starting with the current Pocket Monsters (2019) series. There might have been a few articles here and there in the past (Animage is the magazine that ran that fantastic Masaaki Iwane interview back in 2015, for example) but ever since the 2019 series began we started to get new features pretty much every single month.
Animage dedicates around four pages to Pocket Monsters each month. The first two pages usually feature a piece of original artwork commissioned just for the magazine with a bunch of text that summarizes what's been happening in the last few weeks' worth of episodes. That artwork is often also printed on a poster that comes with the magazine.
 |
The other two pages usually contain an interview or two with voice actors, staff, or musicians who work on the show. The May 2021 issue, for example, featured a two-page interview with Iris' voice actor, Ms. Yuki Aoi.
 |
While the current weekly TV series starring Satoshi and Gou are what get most of the focus, the magazine did also run a two page feature on Twilight Wings back in its August 2020 issue.
Toward the back of the magazine is a section called the "Character Best 10," a ranking of the Top 20 (yeah, I don't get it either) anime characters for the month as voted on by Animage readers. Pocket Monsters characters sometimes show up but most of the time none of them make the list.
 |
The magazine also has a TV guide-type listing in the back that often reveals new episode titles. The exact same information (plus more!) can also be found in Animedia, but I'll go more into that later.
 |
It should be noted that Animage absolutely does not like people posting images from their magazine on social media. If you go through the Tweets & replies section of their Twitter page you'll see that they frequently send out the following message to anyone who posts images to their own Twitter:
| "This is the Animage Editorial
Department. With the exception of those allowances made by Japanese
Copyright Laws, taking
copies, scans, screen captures,
photographs, etc. of
pages from our magazine and posting then them to the public without
permission infringes on copyrights and likeness rights and is therefore
forbidden. Please
remove these images immediately. Thank you." アニメージュ編集部です。誌面を無断で転載したり、コピー、スキャン、キャプチャー、写真撮影し、ネット上に公開することは、著作権法等における一部の例 外を除き、著作権や肖像権等を侵害するものとして禁じられています。こちらの画像はただちに削除して下さい。よろしくお願いいたします。 |
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? From a news point of view it doesn't really have anything you can't find in other magazines but the exclusive staff and cast interviews, as well as the original artwork, can certainly be worth the magazine's rather hefty price tag to some.
| Animedia |
Magazine
Name: Animedia (アニメディア). Be careful not to confuse this with its
sister magazine Seiyuu Animedia (声優アニメディア).Publisher: Gakken Plus Co., Ltd. (株式会社学研プラス)
Release Schedule: The 10th of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: 1,070 JPY
Kindle Version Available? Yes
Average Page Count: 144 pages
First Issue: June 9th, 1981
Official Website: https://cho-animedia.jp/
Twitter: @iid_animedia
About the Magazine: Animedia's coverage of Pocket Monsters is usually anywhere from two to four pages a month. Like Animage, interviews with voice actors and summaries of upcoming episodes are the norm, and many issues include posters featuring original artwork drawn just for the magazine.
 |
The magazine will sometimes pose quick little Q&As to whatever voice actors they happen to be interviewing that month. In the February 2021 issue, for example, Daiki Yamashita got asked how he thinks Gou would spend his Valentine's Day. And in the March 2021 issue the main cast get asked questions like "Who do you think is the one likely to stay up late - Satoshi, Gou, or Koharu?" They're light-hearted "What If...?" questions that are purely meant to be fun and nothing more.
Animedia will also sometimes fill space by listing out all the Pokémon that appear in the episodes that aired the previous month, which is more or less what the various Pokémon Wiki pages have been doing for years.
The magazine also features a monthly "Character Ranking" column. Pocket Monsters characters sometimes make the list whenever there's an article about them in a recent issue; Kibana, Dande, Gou, and Satoshi all made the list the month after the magazine had an eight-page feature on the show. Some people try to frame the results of the Animage and Animedia polls as evidence of certain trends among the Japanese fandom but the magazine's extremely small sample size (affluent anime nerds willing to shell out the more the approximately US $10 a month it costs to buy each issue) make it a fairly unreliable way of gauging "the Japanese fandom's" preferences. It's a fun conversation starter, sure, but that's pretty much it.
 |
Animedia also has a TV guide in the back of each issue called "Anime Hunter Plus." Animage has a similar feature called "Animation World" but "Anime Hunter Plus" tends to have more information. The May 2021 issue of Animedia, for example, has summaries for all four of the episodes listed ("Drippy Drippy Jimeleon," "A Showdown! The Pokémon Water Obstacle Course!!" "Everybody Hates Absol," and "Dragon Battle! Satoshi vs. Iris!!") while the May 2021 issue of Animage only has summaries of those first two.
|
 |
| Animage
(left) vs. Animedia (right) |
|
These Animedia / Animage listings is where fans get those new episode titles, summaries, and staff lists that come out every month. Posts like the ones you see on the right are usually translations of the Animedia summary on the left here:
 |
 |
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? Animedia has pretty much exactly the same type of content as Animage, but it's not a copy / paste job. The interviews and artwork are all completely brand new so if you buy one for the interviews / art then you might as well pick up the other one while you're at it.
| Pash! |
Magazine
Name: Pash! Monthly (月
刊 パッシュ！), though most of the time
it's referred to simply as "Pash"Publisher: Shufu to Seikatsu Sha Co., Ltd. (株式会社 主 婦と生 活社)
Release Schedule: The 10th of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: 1,250 JPY
Kindle Version Available? Yes
Average Page Count: 109 pages
First Issue: April 2007
Official Website: https://www.pashplus.jp/
Twitter: @magazine_pash
About the Magazine: The third of the anime magazines to come out on the 10th of the month, Pash! is described by its publisher as being "an anime magazine aimed at women" (女性専用アニメマガジン). The magazine covers anime that is thought to be popular among girls and includes interviews with male voice actors about their private lives. Like Animage and Animedia, Pash! Monthly usually comes packed with posters, clear files, and other stationary like items.
Pocket Monsters related content usually takes anywhere from two to four pages. When there are only two pages there usually isn't much to note; a summary of what's been happening in the show lately coupled with a bunch of screenshots.
 |
In the months where the magazine devotes four pages to the series, however, those final two pages are usually taken up by interviews with the cast and crew of the show. In recent months these interviews have included Koharu's voice actor Kana Hanazawa (January 2021 Issue) and a joint interview with both Daiki Yamashita (Gou's voice actor) and Daiki Tomiyasu (May 2021 issue).
 |
The August 2020 issue featured Pocket Monsters on the cover and devoted ten whole pages to the series, though the magazine devoting that much coverage to the series is rare.
Like Animage, Pash! doesn't really like it when people repost images from their magazines online. Here's an example of one of the tweets they've sent out in the past:
| "Request: Posting copies,
snapshots, scans of our magazines like Pash! and 2D☆STAR on social
media, Internet sites, etc. without permission infringes on the
authors' copyrights. Please also stop reposting images or articles from
this account or the PASH!+ website without permission. We ask that you
also refrain from transcribing the full text (or significant portions)
of the contents of our magazines." 【お願い】PASH!＆2D☆STARなど誌面の無断転載、写真撮影、スキャンしてＳＮＳなどインターネットに掲示する行為は著作権等を侵害します。本ア カウントやPASH!＋に掲載した画像・記事の無断転載もおやめください。記事内容の全文起こしなど、過度な引用もお控えいただきますようお願いいたしま す |
In other words, I would think long and hard before reposting anything from an issue of Pash!
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? Pash! Monthly has some great interviews and original artwork, just like Animage and Animedia, but if you try to pick up all three of these magazines then you're going to need quite a bit of money. Still, Pash! Monthly is a great magazine so I'd say go for it.
| CoroCoro
Comics |
Magazine Name: Monthly
CoroCoro Comics (月刊コロコロコミック).
The magazine's name is also sometimes written out as Koro Koro.Publisher: Shogakukan (株式 会社 小学館)
Release Schedule: The 15th of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is one month out from when the magazine actually goes on sale, meaning that the February issue comes out in January, the March issue comes out in February, the April issue comes out in March, etc.
Average Price: Varies, but the average is around 600 JPY
Kindle Version Available? No
Average Page Count: Over 700 pages
First Issue: April 15th, 1977
Official Website: https://corocoro.jp/
Twitter: @corocoro_tw
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKtxF3ufOkuJohTeKyNbYrQ
About the Magazine: CoroCoro Comics is arguably Japan's most popular children's comic anthology magazine. A sort of Weekly Shonen Jump for the preschool crowd, this 700+ page a month absolute brick of a magazine is a collection of news and advertisements for whatever anime / manga / video games / toys that are deemed popular among the preschool and elementary school crowd. It has been home to such popular manga series as Doraemon, Duel Masters, and dozens of manga based on popular video games such as Super Mario Bros and Minecraft.
Back in the day CoroCoro used to be the place to find news about Pocket Monsters. New video game reveals, new Pokémon reveals, info about the TV series; they had it all! "Leaks" happened pretty much every single month, though, and so Game Freak's big announcements would end up getting spoiled sometimes as much as a full week before they were meant to. From a PR point of view CoroCoro was starting to become a bit of a liability.
In more recent years, with the advent of things like Nintendo / Pokémon Directs, CoroCoro's relevance as a Pokémon news source has dropped significantly. The magazine will still get a few bones thrown its way from time to time -- they got to be the ones to reveal Iwanko and Nekkoala during the lead-up to the release of Sun & Moon, for example -- but for the most part the magazine just kind of regurgitates the same info revealed in whatever Nintendo Directs and/or social media posts came out that month. The way I see it, CoroCoro Comics is only really continuing to cover Pokémon as a formality to honor the magazine's 20+ year history with the franchise.
The coverage of the TV series is basically nothing at this point. The May 2021 issue featured a single page summarizing the Mythical Pokémon Mew but that's about it. Whenever a new movie's about to come out the magazine will sometimes feature some original artwork but even that is rarely seen these days.
 |
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: At the moment the magazine is home to Machito Gomi's Pocket Monsters ~ The Story of Satoshi & Gou! ~" a series that retells select episodes of the TV series. Viz Media is set to start releasing an English version of this manga starting November 2021.
 |
Should you import it? When it comes to news about the Pocket Monsters (2019) animated series in the year 2021, you can pretty much skip CoroCoro Comics. The 700+ page count means the international shipping fees are going to be absurd, especially when you factor in the fact that the magazine only devotes a few pages to the franchise each month. The manga adaptation of recent episodes of the TV series are fun, I guess, but those eventually get collected into graphic novels anyway so just get those instead.
| CoroCoro
Ichiban! |
Magazine Name: CoroCoro
Icibiban! (コロコロイチバン！)Publisher: Shogakukan (株式 会社 小学館)
Release Schedule: The 21st of every month
Cover Date: The date on the cover is two months out from when the magazine actually goes on sale. The January 2021 issue came out November 21st, 2020, the February 2021 issue came out December 21st, 2020, the March 2021 issue came out January 21st, 2021, and so on.
Average Price: Varies, but the average is around 1,200 JPY
Kindle Version Available? No
Average Page Count: 230 pages
First Issue: March 25th, 2005
Official Website: https://corocoro.jp/
Twitter: @corocoro_tw
About the Magazine: CoroCoro Ichiban! is an off-shoot of CoroCoro Comics. The magazine is primarily a manga anthology magazine that targets an even younger crowd than its big brother publication, as evident by the number of gag manga collected in its volumes.
Now the first thing I want to do is to point out that CoroCoro Comics and CoroCoro Ichiban! are not the same magazine. Let's look at the two of them right next to each other; regular CoroCoro Comics is on the top while CoroCoro Ichiban! is on the bottom.
 |
The magazine is known for coming packed with a lot of physical extras; toys, stationary, trading cards, plastic items you can use for arcade games, and so on. In fact, a big part of the magazine's promotional material is them talking about all the extras that are packed in. The June 2021 issue, for example, came with a box to hold the little plastic tags you can use for the Pokémon Mezastar arcade game, an Armorga tag for the aforementioned arcade game, a Ko'orippo card for the Pokémon Card Game, a New Pokémon Snap Lental Region Poster, a 48-page Crayon Shin-chan manga, a Detective Conan board game, and a book filled with Nintendo-themed gag manga.
The information found in CoroCoro Ichiban! is usually only ever a copy of what you can find in the issue of CoroCoro Comics that came out the week before. We'll sometimes get some news on the animated series like very brief summaries of upcoming episodes but that's about it.
 |
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: At the moment it is the only print magazine that's still running the Pocket Monsters Special manga. All the other magazines that used to run it have either ceased publication (the Shougaku ___-Nensei series) or have just stopped running the series for some reason (Pokémon Fan), forcing the manga to go for a hybrid of being printed in CoroCoro Ichiban! and online.
 |
It also runs Let's Play the Pokémon Card Game (Sword & Shield) (ポケモンカードゲームやろうぜ～っS&S 編), a manga based on -- you guessed it -- the TCG. A series of Four-Panel gag comics, The Pokémon Four-Panel Academy (ポケモン4コマ学園), also runs in the magazine.
 |
 |
Should you import it? You might get a new screenshot or two from an upcoming episode but that's about the only "news" CoroCoro Ichiban! has to offer. The manga and the physical extras are all pretty neat, though!
| spoon.2Di |
Magazine
Name: spoon.2DiPublisher: prevision (株式会社プレビジョン)
Release Schedule: The 30th (31st) of each month
Cover Date: spoon.2Di assigns each issue an issue number in lieu of a month / year the way most of the other magazines in this guide do. Issue 73 came out in April 2021, Issue 74 came out in May 2021, Issue 75 came out in June 2021, etc.
Average Price: 1,194 JPY
Kindle Version Available? Yes
Average Page Count: 80 pages
First Issue: April 30th, 2015
Official Website: https://2di.theshop.jp/
Twitter: @spoon_B
Instagram: spoon.2di_magazine
About the Magazine: spoon.2Di is a "culture magazine" (カルチャー誌) released on the final day of the month.
The number of pages the magazine devotes to Pocket Monsters varies wildly from issue to issue. In the issues I picked up from the year 2020, for example, the amount of coverage was huge: Issue 61 devoted 12 pages to the series, Issue 62 devoted 22 pages, Issue 67 devoted 16 pages, and so on. Those pages would be filled with multiple interviews, every month, from various members of the show's cast and crew. But starting in the year 2021 the amount of coverage was drastically reduced to only two pages per issue; Issues 70, 72, and 73 all only devoted two pages apiece.
 |
I actually translated the content from Issue 63 a while back so take a look if you want to see what kinds of things the magazine posts.
These days the coverage consists mostly of summaries of upcoming episodes of the show coupled with screenshots, many of which are exclusive to spoon.2Di. The magazine can be told apart from the crowd thanks to its unique pop art layout to it; if you see screenshots with English lettering like this then chances are you're looking at an image from an issue of spoon.2Di.
 |
 |
In recent months the magazine's Twitter page has joined Animage and Pash! in putting up notices that "reproducing all or any part of the contents is prohibited." The fact that this message is printed in English and only seems to appear on ads featuring franchises that have large international followings (Pokémon, SK8) makes it pretty clear who the target audience for these warnings is.
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: None
Should you import it? The oddly named magazine is usually a good source of new screenshots and some great interviews so yeah, go for it.
| Pokémon
Fan |
Magazine
Name: Pokémon Fan (ポケモンファン). The magazine is also sometimes referred
to simply as PokéFan.Publisher: Shogakukan (株式 会社 小学館)
Release Schedule: Whenever the hell they feel like it (more on that below)
Cover Date: Pokémon Fan assigns each issue an issue number in lieu of a month / year like most of the other magazines in this guide. Issue 71 came out in December 2020, Issue 72 came out in February 2021, Issue 73 came out in April 2021, etc.
Average Price: 950 JPY
Kindle Version Available? No
Average Page Count: 108 pages
First Issue: October 16th, 2007
Official Website: http://www.corocoro.tv/coro1/pokefan/
Twitter: N/A
About the Magazine: Unlike the other magazines on this page, Pokémon Fan (sometimes referred to as simply PokéFan) is a publication that is 100% dedicated to the Pocket Monsters franchise. It covers everything you could possibly want; the video games, the animated series, the TCG, Japan-only arcade games, merchandise, events...you name it. The magazine also has a few activity pages; a "Where's Wally?" type games, quizzes, word searches, mazes, etc.
Physical extras like stickers, video game serial codes, arcade game chips, and keychains are also often included.
When it comes to coverage of the animated series you can usually count on it getting around six pages per issue. One telltale sign that the image you're looking at online is from an issue of Pokémon Fan is the fact that the magazine loves to divide its coverage up into large two-page spreads like this:
 |
| A two-page spread
about Iris' upcoming appearance. |
 |
| Next, we get two pages
about the start of Project Mew. The page on the left goes over the Pokémon who Satoshi's left at Dr. Ookido's laboratory. |
 |
| Finally, we get a
two-page spread teasing the battle with the legendary Pokémon
Fire. |
It's a pretty great magazine, but there is one annoying catch; nobody can tell you when the hell it actually comes out. Unlike every other magazine on this page, Pokémon Fan has no regular release schedule. It literally just comes out whenever the hell Shogakukan feels like it. There's generally a two month gap in between issues, but sometimes -- like with the gap between Issues 73 and 74 -- there's three months in between issues, for seemingly no reason.
|
Pokémon
Fan Release Schedule
Issue 70: October 29th, 2020
Issue 71: December 25th, 2020 Issue 72: February 27th, 2021 Issue 73: April 28th, 2021 Issue 74: July 16th, 2021 Issue 75: September 30th, 2021 Issue 76: Who knows????? |
The only real pattern I've been able to determine is that new issues pretty much always come out the same day that the year's newest movie hits theaters.
The magazine's official website is pretty useless, and the publication has absolutely no social media presence whatsoever so nobody's actually promoting this thing. It's almost like Shogakukan doesn't want anyone to buy it! Probably the best way to know when the next issue is coming out is to hope that somebody actually buys the one that's currently on shelves, looks at the date printed on the ad for the next issue in the back, and then posts that date online.
 |
Despite this rather weird and unnecessary hurdle, the magazine is absolutely a great one for any Pokémon fan (pun intended) out there.
Currently Running Pokémon Manga: Manga-wise, the magazine has Pokémon Quiz Puzzle Land - Pikachu's Exploration Team (ポケモンクイズパズルランド ピカチュウたんけんたい), which is really just a bunch of activity sheets (mazes, word searches, etc.) disguised as manga, and The Great Pokémon Four-Panel Encyclopedia (ポケモン4コマ大百科), a series of four-panel gag comics different from the ones that run in CoroCoro Ichiban!
 |
 |
Should you import it? Of all the magazines on this page Pokémon Fan is going to be the best bang for your buck. If you only bother to import one Japanese magazine for Pocket Monsters content then this is the one you're going to want to get.
| Various
TV Guide magazines |
 |
Most of the TV
Guide-like magazines that come out in Japan don't ever have anything Pokémon related of note.
But sometimes, when the stars and the planets align just so, we'll get
a new episode title or two out of them.
First, let's take a look at the release schedules for the various TV guide magazines out there.
| Date |
Magazine |
| Weekly (every Wednesday) |
Weekly
TV Guide (週刊TVガイド) |
| Weekly
The Television (週刊ザテレビジョン) |
|
| NHK Weekly Stera (NHKウイークリーステラ) | |
| Bi-Weekly (every other Wednesday) |
TV Life (TV LIFE) |
| TV Station (TVステーション) | |
| Monthly (the 24th of every month) *If the 24th falls on a weekend then the magazine will come out the Friday before |
Monthly TV Guide (月刊TVガイド) |
| Monthly The Television (月刊ザテレビジョン) | |
| TV fan (TV fan) | |
| TVnavi (TVnavi) |
Now I didn't actually go out and buy all nine of the TV guide magazines listed above, but I did at least pick up the issue of TV Life (テ レビライフ) that came out April 21st, 2021 so I can show you what the actual TV section looks like:
 |
You may notice that each show doesn't get a whole lot of space. This is a problem that pops up in a lot of the TV guide magazines; cramming several networks' entire days' worth of programming onto a single page means that there's only so much room these magazines can dedicate to each show. Accordingly, some episode titles get abbreviated. Back in August 2020, for example, one of the weekly TV magazines listed Episode 037 "I'm Back, But Also, Nice To Meet You Alola!" (ただいま、はじめましてアローラ!) as simply "I'm Back, Alola!" (ただいま、アローラ！) and Episode 038 "The Miraculous Restoration of the Fossil Pokémon!" (奇跡の復元、化石 のポケモン！) as simply "The Fossil Pokémon" (化石のポケモン！). I've seen people speculate that these shortened titles are an attempt to hide some kind of spoiler but I think it's probably mostly a case of "well, we would have gone over our character limit if we tried to print the whole thing so we fit what we could."
If an episode title is revealed via a TV guide magazine then do be aware that the title may not be complete.
Should you import it? Unless you have a hobby of collecting foreign countries' TV guide magazines then no, absolutely not. Just rely on social media posts for the information here.
| How
to get your hands on these |
So let's say you want to actually purchase one of the many magazines listed above. How do you go about doing that?
If you don't live in Japan, your best bet is going to be to find an online retailer that ships internationally. Both Amazon Japan and CD Japan have proven to be reliable but you do have to be careful because the shipping fees can get really expensive really fast. The general advice is to therefore wait until you can buy a bunch of stuff all at once to help offset the amount you'll be spending to deliver these items to your door.
Links to each of the places where you can buy the magazines are below:
| Amazon
Japan |
Kindle Version Available? |
CD
Japan |
|
| Televi-kun |
Link |
Yes |
Link |
| Animage |
Link |
Yes |
Link |
| Animedia |
Link |
Yes |
Link |
| Pash! |
Link |
Yes |
Link |
| CoroCoro
Comics |
Link |
No |
Link |
| CoroCoro
Ichiban! |
Link |
No |
Link |
| spoon.2Di |
Link |
Yes |
N/A |
| Pokémon
Fan |
Link |
No |
Link |
If you don't care about having a physical magazine to hold in your hand then digital may be an even better option. Check the chart above to see which magazines can be purchased and downloaded to your Kindle and/or Kindle app. Some initial setup to link an Amazon Japan account with a Kindle is required but it is doable as long as you're willing to spend a little time on Google to figure out how.
There are other digital stores that sell these magazines but most of them are Japan-based apps that may or may not work for you overseas.
And that's it for this year's magazine guide! As mentioned at the top of this page, this is a guide I hope to update every year or so to help fans outside of Japan make heads or tails of the various magazines that fans depend on for the latest Pocket Monsters (2019) related news. Got any feedback? Let me know via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, or BMGf!
| General
Release Schedule |
| Televi-kun | Animage | Animedia | Pash! | CoroCoro Comics |
| CoroCoro Ichiban! | spoon.2Di | Pokémon Fan | TV guide magazines |
| How To Buy |
| Televi-kun | Animage | Animedia | Pash! | CoroCoro Comics |
| CoroCoro Ichiban! | spoon.2Di | Pokémon Fan | TV guide magazines |
| How To Buy |
Found an error? Spot an omission? Please help me keep this page current and error-free by e-mailing me with a description of the error or omission.
