On December 2nd, 2014, Mr. Masafumi started with this:

"I'd now like to continue with some untold Rocket-Dan stories.  I wonder how far I'll be able to get..." ロケット団の裏話の続きを せねばw。ん？どこまで呟いたかな〜…。

He follows this up with a series of fifteen tweets that detail information about the beginnings of the radio show.

"(after checking back over my own tweets) That's right, that's how "The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire" was born. When we were making the pilot we had to submit the script ahead of time but we couldn't hire writers or anything like that and so I had to end up writing it myself! Even though, of course, I had never done anything like that before. I did ask the Rocket-Dan for help with the first draft, though →" （自分の呟きを確認して） そうそう、そう やって『ロケット団ひみつ帝国』が生まれたw。番組製作にあたり、シナリオを先に提出せねばならず、しかしライ ターさんなんぞ頼めるわけもなく、自信は無いが書くしかない！しかし、やっぱり、やった事ないしw。で、シナリオ初稿でロケット団の協力を要請→

I think it's fairly obvious that by "Rocket-Dan" he means their voice actors (Megumi Hayashibara, Shin-ichiro Miki, and Inuko Inuyama).

"After that we recorded what would become the special feature on the CDs known as "The Mythical Episode 1." The guest was Mr. Konishi. All of us at the show decided that he would be perfect to have on since he was an easy person for us to tease. Since this was radio, we wanted to use a pre-written sketch to explain why the Rocket-Dan is even doing a radio show in the first place. And that's how the mini-dramas came to be (which would later become hell to do)" のちに、特典CDとなった 「幻の第1話」の収録をする事になる。ゲストは小西さんw。いじりやすい、と言う事で満場一致で決まった。ラジオと言っても、台 本のあるドラマだけに、何故ロケット団がラジオを始めるのか？からスタートしたく、ミニドラマから始める事に（のちに、これが地獄を産むのだが）

You can read more about that rare pilot episode here.

"→We actually didn't have an appointment when we called up director Yuyama to ask him those questions directly. We knew there was a chance that our call wouldn't go through and we'd get forwarded to his voicemail and so that segment really could have bombed. But luckily (?) Mr. Yuyama actually did pick up the phone. Even though we had a script and everything all of us at the program were still very nervous during that recording session.→" →直撃の質問（ターゲット は、湯山監督）は、実際に監督には一切アポは取っていない。繋がらなければ留守電になるオチを考えていた、一か八かのコーナー だったのだ。しかし、幸運？にも湯山監督は出てしまったw。台本があるとは言え、ロケット団もスタッフの我々もドキドキの収録だったのだ。→

"For the guest segment with Mr. Konishi, it would have been boring if we just called him up and had him talk to us normally, so we asked him to mess with the Rocket-Dan and to stay in-character as someone who raises Pokémon as much as possible during his twelve minutes on the show. All in all we ran a test and got about 30 minutes of unusable audio but I still think we had a satisfying show and were able to talk freely. And then, we finally got→" ゲスト（小西さん）コー ナーもただ呼んで話すのでは面白くない。なるべくゲストとロケット団を困らせる様にした。あくまでもポケモンの飼い主と。十二分に 小西さんは、それに応えて頂いた。全ては、テストで世には出ない30分なのに、限りなく満足出来るものになったと思った。そして、遂に番組に→

"...the green light to go ahead with production.  We got an order for thirteen episodes, in stereo from InterFM. So the first thing we had to do was to actually come up with thirteen episodes' worth of content! We didn't really know what we were doing but we worked our butts off and started recording after finishing about six episodes. Since we couldn't coordinate the actors' schedules and since that first drama had already had music and sound effects added to it→" ゴーサインが出たのであ る。13本の限定で、ステレオと言う事でインターFMさんが参加して下さり、枠も決定。まずは、本を13本あげなければ！と慣れな い事に必死になり、6本くらい書いたところで収録スタート。あの3人だったのでスケジュールが噛み合わないのと最初のミニドラマは効果や音楽も→

"→we chose not to have it be a live show but to pre-record everything instead. However, whenever we recorded the show we tried to do it as if we were doing it live as much as possible. The first time we went into the booth we recorded two episodes' worth because we felt like we were really on a roll. In other words, the first and second episodes were recorded on the same day. We had scripts for the stuff other than the mini-dramas as well and everyone had lines and all that but we didn't mind if they ad-libbed some as well.  But, →" のせたかったので、生放送 ではなく録音を選んだ。しかし、内容はなるべく生を意識して。初回の収録は、2本録りにした。「ノリ」のテンポ感が出ると思った からだ。よって第一回と第二回放送は、同日に収録している。ミニドラマ以外も台本としての台詞はあるが、アドリブはオッケー！しかし、あくまで→

"if the Rocket trio was ad-libbing something and they broke character then we'd have to go back and redo it. Something like that happened during the rehearsal for the first episode and so we went back and tried adding it to the script. The guest introduction was kind of not great and so we thought having music that the guests would have to go along with would catch them off-guard and be more interesting. Things like that. But, you may ask, why didn't Mr. Konishi or director Yuyama show up in the show's actual first episode?→" ロケット団としてのアドリ ブで、中の人が出たら、やり直しにした。デモとして第一回をやっていたので、さらにシナリオには手を加えてみた。ゲストの紹介が イマイチだったので、曲に合わせた方が、よりゲストが困りいじりやすくなる？とか…。では、第一回は何故小西さんや湯山監督を入れなかったか？→

"After thinking about it for a bit, it was because we thought we wouldn't be able to top what we had done before. We had interesting segments whose outcomes weren't obvious but we didn't want to just do the same thing all over again. And asking Mr. Konishi to come in and do what he did before, only better, would have been awkward. We also wanted to have other segments that hadn't been done on other radio shows before and so we started thinking of other things that the Rocket-Dan would be interested in.→" 一度消化してしまったもの は、それを越えられないと考えたからだ。オチが見えない所が面白いコーナーでは、同じ事をしたくはなかった。逆に小西さんも同じ 事、それ以上を要求されても困ったであろう。さらに他のコーナーも他の番組ではやっていない事で、さらにはロケット団が興味を持つ事を考えた→

"This wasn't easy since there are about as many radio programs out there as there are stars in the sky. You can't see anything on the radio; you have to rely on your ears. You listen to what's being said and then picture what's being described to you...but what if we did it the other way around? What if we could show what it is we're talking about it to people instead? That's how I thought of using Twitter to help the listeners follow along more easily. That's kind of how the drawing segment came about. However,→" ラジオプログラムが星の数 ほど存在するからには、簡単な事ではない。ラジオは見えない、耳だけに頼る。それは想像しながら聴けるわけで、だったら見えない 事を逆手に取り、さらにはTwitterを使って分かりにくい事はフォローして行こうと考えたのだ。お絵描きコーナーもそのひとつ。しかし、→

"That drawing segment took a surprising turn!? We found out that Musashi was really, really bad at taking what was in her head and putting it down on paper. So of course we had to tease her about that. We reworked the scripts for the episodes that had yet to be recorded to make them go after Musashi as much as we could. Musashi laughing until she cried was real. Musashi discovered how bad she was at drawing thanks to this show." このお絵描きコーナーが意 外な方向に？！ムサシがあれ程頭に描いたものを紙に描けないと言う発見が…。いじるターゲットを確認。以降のシナリオを直し、な るべくムサシを追い込む事にしたのだ。ムサシの泣き笑いは実際のもの。本人さえ、思い通りの絵が描けない事に、この番組を通して知ったのだw

"And then something happened! We got picked up for an additional thirteen episodes! At first I declined. This was because, in addition to me never being able to get the hang of writing the show even after thirteen episodes and having hellish memories of the whole thing, I also had to do the writing, editing, music selection, and the sound effects for the mini-dramas all by myself (we didn't have the budget to ask anyone else to do that, you see)→" そして事件が！なんと13 本だった放送が延長される事に…。まずはお断りをした。13本のシナリオを書くのさえ、慣れなくて地獄の思いだったし、最初のミ ニドラマは、シナリオ、編集、選曲、そして効果音も全て、私一人でやっていたのだからw（効果さん等をお願いする予算が無かったのだ）→

"However, P (the producer) wouldn't give up. They tried to bargain by saying things like "what if we got rid of the mini-dramas?" But I still wouldn't budge... And that's when they came up with the idea of a "Secret Live!" (I'm finally getting around to talking about the reason I started tweeting about all this in the first place). I got interested in writing scripts with the goal being the final episode leading up to a live show...that is, a public recording.→" しかし、Ｐ（プロデュー サー）は譲らず。だったらミニドラマは無しなら？の条件を出したが、受け入れられず…。そこで飛び出したのが「シークレット LIVE」だったのだ！（やっと本題に辿り着いたw）最終回をLIVE、つまりは公開録音にして、そこに向けてのシナリオなら書ける気がしたからだ→

"I started looking for a venue for the live show at the same time I was writing the new episodes. I even went and checked a few places out myself. At first I visited Tokyo Skytree, which was really popular at the time. It had a hall called the Musashi (634) Hall, you see. However, even though it was called a "hall" it didn't have a stage or anything like that and so we couldn't use it. But the name was so perfect though...→" 延長のシナリオと同時に、 公開録音の場所探しもスタートした。下見にも出掛けたのだ。最初に訪れたのは、当時話題だったスカイツリーだった。スカイツリー には634と言うホールがあるからだ。しかし、ホールと言ってもステージ的な演出が出来ないので、断念。ネーミングは最高なのだが…。→

This is a common type of Japanese wordplay known as goroawase (語呂合わせ) where phonetic values are substituted with numbers based on the numerous ways each number can be pronounced in Japanese. So, for example, one of the ways 634 can be pronounced is "Mu-Sa-Shi." More information can be found here.

The website for the Tokyo Skytree Sky Restaurant Musashi can be found here.

"For the Secret Live we wanted to use silhouettes. We wanted people in the audience to be able to see their outlines clearly. We wanted people to be able to tell that they were looking at the Rocket-Dan whether they were sitting far away or close up. So we really had trouble finding a venue. It was OK if it wasn't that big as long as you could see the silhouettes. And then, we received a cruel announcement. The Secret Live was going to be canceled. Once again, it came down to money." シークレットLIVEは、 影絵をやりたかったのだ。シルエットを綺麗に見せたかった。近くて遠い、そんなロケット団の3人に。だから、会場には拘った。広 くなくても良いから、印象に残るシルエットを…。しかし、残酷なお告げが。シークレットLIVE中止…。またも予算の問題だった。

"Ack! The shop is closing!? But I was just getting to the good part...but it's already 4:00am. I've got to be in the studio in the morning tomorrow (well, today). I guess I should stop for today. I'll continue these tweets another day and touch upon the truth behind the Secret Live! I say, even though it's not really all that great a story." ぬぉーっ！店が閉店？！今 から確信の部分に…。って言うか、もう4時かw。明日（正確には今日だが）も朝からスタジオだし。引き上げますかw。では、この 呟きは次回につづく〜♪では、何故にあのシークレットLIVEが？！の真相に触れます！って、そんな大袈裟なもんじゃないしw

"The shop is closing!?" makes me think that Mr. Mima was typing all this out on a computer at an Internet cafe.

On December 21st, 2014 Mr. Mima picked up where he left off.

December 21st, 3:47am JST

"That's right, I was also in the middle of the Rocket-Dan story. I tweeted up to the part where the plans for the live event fizzled out, right? Well from there we continued working on the remaining episodes and decided to have the Rocket-Dan members out in the audience sing together in a chorus for the final episode. But we had more submissions than we expected and the whole chorus thing was a huge success. I want to use this opportunity to thank everyone for their cooperation!" そうそう、ロケット団の話 も途中でしたねw。イベントが立ち消えたところまで呟いたかな？そこで最終話を団員の合唱と言う事にして、本を進める事にしまし た。これは、想像以上に団員の皆んなが協力して下さり、大成功でした。この場を借りて御礼申し上げます！

December 21st, 3:52am JST

"With about five episodes left to do, P (our producer) suddenly started talking about bringing the Secret Live back?! But it was already too late...the fire I had for the event had already cooled down. So I just handed over the proposal I had written up and left everything else up to him. Fast forward to the day of the event. I had wanted to go as a regular audience member→" ラジオも残り5本くらいに なって、突然P（番組プロデューサー）から、イベント復活の話が？！しかし、時すでに遅し…。私の中では、熱が冷めてしまったの です。それで、イベント（シークレットLIVE）の企画書だけを渡して、託しました。そしてイベント当日。お客として行こうと心に決めて→

Translation note:  I'm not sure whether or not the producer he's talking about is a man or a woman.

December 21st, 3:56am JST

"but was asked if I could get there a little early to help out instead. I got there a little after the Rocket-Dan did and got in trouble for that... So to begin with, getting the silhouettes just right for the live event was extremely difficult and had everyone scrambling around hectically. We wanted to be able to see their hands but not their mouths, but we couldn't get it right and had to give up on that. I told them→" いましたが少しでも早く 行って、お手伝い出来ることがあればと、ロケット団の入りの時間ちょい過ぎに行くと…。も、揉めてるw。そもそも「影絵」の LIVEなんて難しいお題だったので、皆んなてんやわんや！手は出しても、口は出すまいと思っていたのですが、我慢出来ずw。あれこれと→

December 21st, 4:03am JST

"what I had pictured in my head when I made the proposal but changed what they needed to change. We adjusted the positions of the lights and the locations of the props many, many times until we were finally able to get a nice, clear look at the Rocket trio. Unfortunately this caused us to have to push back the start time and inconvenience all the people waiting outside." 自分のイメージを伝え、変 えられるところ は変えて頂きました。何度もライトの向きやら、小物の置き場所を変えて頂き、やっと団員達にお見せ出来る形に…。 しかし、開場、開演時間がかなり押してしまい、本当にご迷惑をお掛けしました。

As I note in my write-up for the Secret Live, we were supposed to be let in at 1:30pm but didn't get to enter until around 2:10pm.

December 21st, 4:06am JST

"This picture here ended up being used for the CD liner notes but was originally taken with my cell phone camera during the dress rehearsal to check on the Rocket-Dan's silhouettes. I kept looking at this picture as reference when we were doing the multiple wardrobe checks to make sure we could see the Rocket-Dan's silhouettes clearly→" この写真、CDのライナー にも使われたも のですが、実はそのリハーサルで、私がロケット団にシルエットチェックの為に携帯のカメラで撮ったものなんです w。この写真を見ながら、ロケット団は綺麗にシルエットが出る様に、何度も自らが衣装のチェック→

December 21st, 4:09am JST

"We did this over and over. We attached rubber tape to the Rocket-Dan's uniforms many, many times until we got the silhouettes we wanted just right. We didn't want to disappoint the fans who had won the chance to see the show, after all. And this goes without saying, but we really worked our butts off on this. This picture is maybe the first time it's been shared to the public? Here's what Nyarth looked like behind the curtain." を繰り返していたのです。 ロケット団の制服にガムテープを付けて、シルエットが綺麗に出る様に、何度も何度も…。選ばれた団員達をガッカリさせないよう に。当たり前の事ですが、全てを必死に。この写メは初公開？幕の中のニャースですw

December 21st, 4:14am JST

"This one's also never been shown publicly before. I really wanted to show this one to you in color but I made a promise with the Rocket trio that I wouldn't...you can see the marks all over on the uniforms where the rubber tape was placed. The event started more than 30 minutes late but the Rocket-Dan members in the audience greeted us warmly regardless →" これも初公開。本当ならカ ラーでお見せしたいのですが…（ロケット団との約束なのでw）。制服の端々にガムテープで貼った努力の跡があります。こうして、 30分以上開場が遅れ、しかしながらも団員達はあたたかくロケット団を迎えてくれたのです。→

December 21st, 4:17am JST

"We could breathe a sigh of relief at that moment. However, as far as I'm concerned, the "Rocket-Dan's Secret Live" isn't over yet. I want to have another event like this in the future where we can communicate directly with the Rocket-Dan members. I can't say when it'll come back but I definitely want to make it happen someday!" ひとまず安心…。しかし、 私の中にはまだ「ロケット団シークレットLIVE」は完成していないのですw。再度、この様なイベントで団員達とのコミュニケー ションを持ちたいと思っています。まだ復活を「いつ」とは断言出来ませんが、必ず実現したいと思っています！

December 21st, 4:22am JST

"I didn't have time to get on Twitter but I did it anyway. Well, it looks like the shop is closing soon. This year is rapidly coming to an end!  Thank you for your time." Twitterタイムでも 無いのに呟き続けてしまったw。そろそろ、お店も閉店のようだ。さて、今年もあと僅か〜元気に家路に急ぎますか！ お疲れ様でした。

On March 19th, 2015, Mr. Mima tweeted once again about the possibility of the radio show making a comeback.


March 19th, 2015 11:11pm JST

"Currently going over the sound effects and music. That reminds me, I would like to announce that we've had to go back to the drawing board in regards to the return of "The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire." However, we won't give up! We'll do up another proposal and go from there! Why am I so persistent when it comes to the Rocket-Dan? Well, of course it's because →" 現在、効果、音楽直し 中〜。そう言えば、ロケット団ひみつ帝国の再開が白紙になりました事をご報告致します。しかし、諦めてはおりませんよ？改めての企画 書から再スタートします！何故、ここまでロケット団に執着するのか？それは3人のチームの魅力に

March 20th, 2015 12:04am JST

"→I've been won over by the trio's charm.  It's because of the late writer Mr. Takeshi Shudo, the man who created...no, the man who raised the Rocket-Dan, and I want to take good care of the treasures he left behind for us. It's because he gave life to the Rocket-Dan members from the games. It's because they help Satoshi and the others shine even more brightly by shining so brightly themselves." →惹かれているのは勿論で すがw。彼らを作った、いや育てたのは、今は亡き作家の首藤剛志さんだから。首藤さんが残してくれた財産を大事にしたい。ゲーム の中のロケット団の一員に、「命」を与えてくれたのだから。敵であるロケット団が光ってこそ、サトシ達の存在が更に輝きを放つのだから。

It's not really anything new but it is nice for him to see how much respect he has for Mr. Shudo even after all these years. 

Mr. Mima received a lot of responses to these tweets, and while a lot of them aren't interesting enough to include here there are still some good ones worth bringing up. Here's one from あっちょむ on March 19th, 2015 at 11:36pm:

"@Sunma47 The Rocket-Dan have been really amazing in XY. They put on this show of being these amazing bad guys but they also have a deep camaraderie. I'm definitely cheering for Satoshi-kun in the Pokemon League and want to see him make it to the end ^^ I hope the Pokémon TV series continues for a long time." @Sunma47 XYでのロケット団の活躍が凄いですもんね。凄い悪役っぷりを披露することもあれば、仲間思いの面を披露したり、でもきっと最後には、ポケモンリーグでサ トシ君を応援してる姿を見たいですね^^これからもアニメ、ポケモンが長く続くことを願っています。

And his response:

March 20th, 2015 4:04am JST

"@xxxTAKAAKI_90 The Rocket trio have a connection. I want to treat this connection that Mr. Shudo embedded in Nyarth, Musashi, and Kojirou with great care. I struggle to do right by them every time we're in the recording booth." @xxxTAKAAKI_90 ロケット団の3人には「繋がり」があります。首藤さんが生んだ、その「繋がり」をニャース、ムサシ、コジロウは大事にしています。アフレコも毎回が戦いで すw。

Here's a response from しぃか on March 19th, 2015 at 11:15pm:

"@Sunma47 I see...but I'm still going to pray for the return of the Secret Empire! The Rocket-Dan Forever!!" @Sunma47 そうなのですか…でもいつかひみつ帝国が再開されることを祈ってます！ ロケット団よ永遠に…!!

And his response:

March 20th, 2015 4:28am JST

"@R_shiika51 It's because The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire is my baby!" @R_shiika51 ロケット団ひみつ帝国は、私の「ポケモン愛」ですから！

This last one's from Saty (さてぃ) on March 19th, 2015 at 11:13pm:

"@Sunma47 I see...but I believe this is still just a temporary setback! (TдT)" @Sunma47 そうですか…いっときの悲報だと信じています(TдT)！

And his response:

March 20th, 2015 4:27am JST

"@flash_saty Yes!  The Rocket-Dan will definitely hijack the airwaves once again!" @flash_saty はい！必ずやロケット団電波ジャックをw！

Mr. Mima's and the fans' optimism that the show will come back is certainly nice, isn't it? Let's hope we don't have to wait too much longer for the show's return.

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