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Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime
March 28th, 2009

Dogasu @ 10:04 JST -- Busy month!  A lot busier than I thought it'd be!

Just to let you guys know...I actually did start working on updating the movies section on the week after the 13th.  Yet, somehow, real life got in the way of things and prevented me from doing everything I had wanted to do bla bla bla.  But you guys don't care about my explanations.  So I'll just get right into it.

I've updated the Movies & Special section with information about the third Diamond & Pearl movie, Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime.  I've collected just about every piece of information I could find about this movie, but if I left anything out, please let me know.  I've also redesigned the main page of the Movies & Specials Guide.  Before, the page was just a random mess of poorly Photoshopped images and text links randomly placed throughout the page, but all that's been done away with in lieu of a more simple, more uniform look.  Hope you guys like it.

The List of Anime Episodes has also been updated with some new Japanese titles.  I've also updated the awkwardly titled "So which episodes are available on DVD in Japan, anyway?" page with information from the newest batch of "Best of" DVDs.

The biggest news at the moment that doesn't concern a rehash of Diamond & Pearl that has features that quite frankly should have been included the first time around is that the show is going HD as of next week.  Which is a few years later that most other shows on Japanese TV, but whatever.  There seems to be a lot of confusion amongst the fandom as to what "HD" means - a lot of people simply think that "widescreen" and "HD" are the same thing - but this handy little picture I found on Wikipedia might help clear up some confusion.  The actual article itself is bogged down with a lot of technical jargon, so it might be easier to search on Google if you want to know what HD's really all about.

To celebrate, TV-Tokyo's holding a special campaign called "The Pokemon Notched Spirit!"  At the end of the twelve broadcasts between April 2nd and June 25th (there's a break on April 9th), a question will pop up.  If you go to the site I just linked to and enter the answer to the question correctly, you'll get a desktop wallpaper featuring a bunch of pokemon arranged in Pokemon Zukan-like entries.  There's a time limit, though; for the first broadcast (April 2nd), answers have to be in by 7:00pm JST on April 16th, but for every other broadcast after that, the deadline is 9:00pm JST the same night. 

There's a different question and wallpaper each week, and if you manage to collect all twelve desktop wallpapers, you'll have images of all the pokemon we currently know about.  In addition, fans who print out each wallpaper and arrange them around will be able to see a silhouette of a pokemon (hint:  it's Arceus) hidden in the background.

So if you're wondering what those quiz segments are at the end of the show each week from now until the end of June...there's your answer.  An image of the Notch-Eared Pichu will appear during the show as well in order to give kids a hint about the content of the quiz, so expect to see her face plastered annoyingly all over the place as well.

I'm kind of bummed that it's pretty much been confirmed that we won't be seeing any Orchid-Hakase lectures until after summer at the earliest, but what can ya do?

I hope to have another update before the end of the month. 

Housecleaning
March 13th, 2009

Dogasu @ 06:49 JST -- I hope you guys enjoyed the new comparison I posted yesterday.  And now, here are the "other things" I alluded to yesterday morning.

First up is a release that completely slipped my mind:  Pikachu the Movie Song Best 1998-2008.


This three-disc set containing the opening and ending themes to all eleven movies came out on March 4th and seems to have been, for the most part, largely ignored by the fandom.  It was originally supposed to come out on December 19th, 2008 but got delayed a few months without any explanation whatsoever.  But when you compare the track listing we were given back in October to the ones provided by both CD Japan and Play-Asia today, you'll see that the ending theme to the first Darkrai movie, I Will be With You ~Where the Lost Ones Go~, has since been added.  Which means that the reason the CD got pushed back a few months was probably because Pikachu Records had to do some extra negotiating to be able to include the Sarah Brightman song in the set. 

In other disc-related updates, I went into the DVD Guide and got it all up-to-date.  The Pokémon All-Stars page has been updated with the episode listing for the Torchic and Onix volumes, thanks to RightStuf.  Viz's website also updated with the episode listing for the first two Pokémon DP Battle Dimension releases, so I went and corrected the information I had posted before.  I've also added the cover art for the Pokémon The First Three Movies release coming out from Warner Bros next month, for those of you interested.  Finally, I've added the cover art for the batch of Region 2 "Best Collection" DVDs that were released on Tuesday as well as information about the new batch coming out this summer.

Finishing out the updates are two new Japanese titles being added to the List of Anime Episodes. 

I'll try to give the Movies & Specials Guide a much-needed update at the beginning of the week.

"Giratina and the Sky Warrior"
March 12th, 2009

Dogasu @ 06:49 JST -- Hey guys.  I finally finished the first comparison since the beginning of January,"Giratina and the Sky Warrior!"  I've actually been working on this one for quite a while, but I realized that the more I would tweak with it, the more dissatisfied I would become with what I've written.  I still don't think it's very good, but I figured that it's better to just go ahead and post the darn thing instead of dragging things out any longer.  When you finish reading it, please either e-mail me or post a message over on Bulbagarden and give me some feedback.  Thanks.

There are a lot of other things I had wanted to include with this update, but those will have to wait until later tonight. 

A few quick news bits
March 3rd, 2009

Dogasu @ 17:49 JST -- I wanted to point out a few quick bits of news here.

First off, it looks like last year's ANA Pikachu short, "Pikachu's Big Ice Adventure" (ピカチュウ 氷の大冒険) is getting a DVD release this year, if the official Japanese site is to be believed.  We don't have a date or a price or any idea what TV episode is going to be included on the disc, but at least we have confirmation that it is coming.  Here's my translation of the summary that PokeAni provided:

Pikachu and the others, who had come to the ocean to play in the summer breeze, have a big fight with Nyasu and his friends on the playground.  Suddenly, an immensely powerful blizzard sweeps the area, sending everyone flying!  When the pokemon wake up, they see that the entire beach has become "a world of ice."  Can Pikachu reunite with its scattered friends and find its way back to the playground?

I've updated the DVD Guide with a place holder for the title.

In manga news, it looks like Viz is going to be releasing the manga adaptation of the second Diamond & Pearl movie.  According to Amazon.com, "Giratina and the Sky Warrior" is set to be released on May 5th, 2009.  This book is author Hijioka Makoto's (ひじおか 誠) first Pocket Monsters-related manga.  Here's a picture of the Japanese cover art:


Amazon.com has also updated with the cover art for those reprints of Pokemon Adventures that'll be coming out starting in June:


While the Pokémon manga situation in the U.S. is looking better than it has in years, it may not be something that lasts.  Y'see, it looks like the folks at Viz (the company responsible for releasing the Pokémon DVDs and manga in the U.S., among other things) has been feeling the effects of the current economic recession.  According to Anime News Network, the company's started laying people off:

Viz Media is in the process of refining its focus and is restructuring to adjust to changing industry and financial market realities. VIZ feels confident that with these changes, the company will be more streamlined to face the current economic climate.

I wonder what effect, if any, this will have on any future DVD and manga releases.

I've also updated the List of Anime Episodes with three new dub titles.  The current season will probably go for about four more episodes after those are aired, but with the way Cartoon Network's been good about resisting the urge to air more than one episode a week, I don't think we'll have to wait too long before Season 12 starts.

Finally...today's Hinamatsuri ("Girls' Day") in Japan, the holiday that the Kanto episode "Fierce Fighting!  Pokemon Girl's Day!" ("Princess vs. Princess") was based on.  Why not head on over to Wikipedia and get your learn on?