June 2009

Dogasu's Backpack | Old Updates Archive | June 2009

Weekend Round-Up
June 29th, 2009

Dogasu @ 17:43 JST -- I just wanted to update a few things real quick.

One, the List of Anime Episodes has been updated with one new Japanese title (the first episode to air after the premiere of the Arceus movie) and a new English title. Whee.

I've also updated the Video Games section to include HeartGold / SoulSilver's release date. For reference's sake, FireRed and LeafGreen came out on January 29th, 2004, the same day that AG 061 "The Entrance of the Masked Coordinator, 'Phantom'!" ("Disaster of Disguise!"). Haruka got her Fushigidane (which is one of the, if not the, first bit of promotion for the Generation I remakes) thirteen episodes later. So what about the Generation II remakes? How long do you think it'll be before we start to see promotion for the GBC remakes start to trickle into the TV series?

The DVD Guide has been updated with listings for Volumes Three and Four of the Pokémon ElementsDVDs. There's no word yet of what episodes will be included or why the hell Viz is still bothering with these. Guess there' s an audience for these somewhere.

Finally, Amazon has updated the listings for the various CD releases related to Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime. So, I went ahead and put the cover art and the track listings for the CDs up on the Soundtracks page.

I can't wait to go into the CD store and try to avoid the cashier's gaze as he or she wonders why the hell a 26-year old man is buying a couple of CDs that aren't really aimed for anyone over the age of ten. Being an older fan is fun sometimes.

I've already watched "Hypno's Naptime" and have taken down all the notes for it, so I'm slowly getting closer to finishing it. In the meantime, check this funny comic I found while surfing around the Internets the other day. It's funny because it's true.

"Pokémon Fashion Flash"
June 25th, 2009

Dogasu @ 23:40 JST -- So it's been exactly two months since my last Kanto episode comparison. So, why not have another one?

Here's "Pokémon Fashion Flash."

So some of you will notice that I skipped over "Hypno's Naptime." I had originally planned to do the Episode 027 comparison and then do a big review of that first Kanto DVD box set (since that's the last episode on the set), but my copy of the Japanese version of the episode was having some playback issues. So, while I was busy re-acquiring the episode in question, I decided to go ahead and work on the next episode in the meantime.

It also doesn't help that "Pokémon Fashion Flash" had twenty-two paint edits. Which means I had to take a ton of screencaps from both the Japanese and the English versions. And then I had to go and make a small "thumbnail" version in addition to the larger version. And the panshots were kind of a pain in the ass to put together, too.

Of course, you can always leave any feedback over in "Dogasu's Backpack" thread on Bulbagarden.

The way I see it, though, doing the comparison for "Pokémon Fashion Flash" was a nice little warm-up for the eventual "Princess vs. Princess" comparison.

Episode 028 is the first episode on the second Kanto DVD box set, so Viz decided to use a different picture for the first disc's menu. And...well...just see for yourself.

Hopefully, it won't take me two months to complete the "Hypno's Naptime" comparison o_O

"Kokoro no Antena" Lyrics...kind of
June 22nd, 2009

Dogasu @ 22:35 JST -- So I tried to find the lyrics to the ending theme for Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime, Kokoro no Antena. And, well...since the song has only been released unofficially at this point, the lyrics have also only been released unofficially. Which basically boils down to people on various blogs having to rely on what they hear when it comes down to the lyrics. So here are the lyrics to Kokoro no Antena, mondegreens included.

Of course, when the CD single comes out on the fifteenth of next month, I'll correct the lyrics I have up now wherever necessary. I'll also aim to post a translation of the song before the movie's July 18th premiere.

In other DP Movie 03 news, some new characters have been revealed via TCG cards and leaked character model sheets. Next to nothing is known about these new characters, but I went ahead and posted what I could find on the Movie Characters & Pokemon page of my Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime section. Those character model sheets, by the way, were originally found on #pocketmonsters, so big props to them for digging those out and sharing them with everyone.

I've also updated the List of Anime Episodes with some new Japanese and English titles. The Video Games section has also been updated with the titles of the new Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon WiiWare games coming out later this year.

Finally, I've updated the DVD Guide with images of the discs in the next Pokemon TV Anime Collection set that's coming out next month. There's also information about two recently announced discs that will be coming out on July 8th that contain two episodes apiece, bringing the total number of Diamond & Pearl episodes available on Japanese DVD to 50. It's kind of infuriating because the demand for a proper DVD release is obviously there - they wouldn't keep releasing new discs in this series if they weren't selling - yet Media Factory seems content to continue releasing these bare bones, sporadic discs. I guess they just don't want our money badly enough or something. In any case, I updated the So which episodes are available on DVD in Japan, anyway? page with the information from those new discs.

I'm about 75% finished with a new comparison, by the way. I hope to have that uploaded in the next few days as long as I can pry myself away from Melee! Pokemon Scramble (it's really quite fun), Super Mario Galaxy (I've got about 75 stars now) and Final Fantasy XII (hey, I found a copy for less than $10...I couldn't not buy it!) long enough to finish it.

This is not directed to anyone in particular...
June 17th, 2009

Dogasu @ 19:05 JST -- oH MY GOD THIS JUST IN!!11!!1111!!!! KaNTo wiLl b in teh GoldSilver REmaKeS!!!!!

In other breaking news, we've just learned that Gym Leaders, items, Pokemon Centers, Monster Balls, bicycles, random battles, and everything else that was in the original fucking games will be there, too.

Grow a brain, people.

Chapter Three of the "Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime" Manga
June 16th, 2009

Dogasu @ 19:52 JST -- I had a really busy week last week. This week should hopefully be better.

So tonight, I've written up a summary of the third chapter of the manga adaptation of Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime. The chapter doesn't wrap everything up and sort of ends on a cliffhanger, so we'll have to wait until the individual chapters are collected in tankoubon form before we can find out how the manga ends. Ah well. This chapter also brought to my attention that Gishin's two main pokemon - Doutakun and Headran - are wearing some kind of armor thing. I don't know why I hadn't noticed that before, but I went back into the Chapter Two summary and added that bit as well.

Other than that, the only things left to do with that manga is scan some images (no, I haven't forgotten about that) and go see the movie so I can see what differences, if any, there are between the two versions. And buy the graphic novel when it comes out.

In other DP Movie 03 news, it looks like the ending theme, Kokoro no Antenna, has been showing up online lately. I'll try to have the lyrics for that up, along with a translation, later in the week.

I've also updated the DVD Guide with the cover art and the episode listings for Volumes Three and Four of Pokémon DP Battle Dimension as well as the second Pokémon All-Stars DVD box set. The former is interesting because, according to RightStuf, Viz is skipping over the two Riolu episodes in the DVD release and going on ahead as if they don't exist. Will those episodes be released on a later set? Will they be packaged separately, as a special? Or will it just be skipped altogether? Who really knows at this point?

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a Melee! Pokemon Scramble to buy.

Keeping things up-to-date
June 6th, 2009

Dogasu @ 15:30 JST -- I'm leaving town for the weekend, so I just wanted to upload a quick update before I head out.

First of all, I wanted to remind everyone of the manga that came out in the U.S. this past week. Pokémon Adventures Volume One is unflipped and has some content that the previous Viz version did not, but they've apparently kept the Blue/Green mixup intact. We also saw the release of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure! Volume Four. Pick them up if you have a chance and help support the release of Pokémon manga in the U.S.

In movie news, Amazon.com has updated the cover art for two of the soundtracks being released for Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime is coming out. The two covers we have are the High Touch and Moeyo Pichu single and the movie's OST, and they've both been added to the soundtracks page in my section for the movie on this site. Still nothing about the Kokoro no Antenna singles, though.

In video game news, it looks like a vague release date of "Autumn 2009" and an English title has been given for Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon - Sky Rescue Team. I also have some information for the new WiiWare game that was recently announced, Melee! Pokemon Scramble. I'm actually moderately excited about the latter and might actually pick it up on the June 16th release date, but the fact that I have such a huge backlog of stuff right now makes it kind of hard to justify plopping down the money for that.

I've started work on dusting off those first 26 Kanto comparisons, but I'm not quite finished with everything yet. Hopefully I'll be finished next week?

The comparison nobody asked for!
June 2nd, 2009

Dogasu @ 10:30 JST -- Let's see if I can manage to have more updates in June than I did in May. Shouldn't be too hard :(

So today's major update is a comparison for something a little different...the first opening theme, "Mezase Pokemon Master." I actually did a comparison between Mezase Pokemon Master and Pokémon Theme a long time ago (lol "gym badges"), but I think this one is a lot more useful. It took me a while to figure out exactly how I wanted to approach the two songs, what I wanted to examine, and how best to convey all of that information onto a single html page, and I hope the solution I came up with works. I'm really, really interested to see what you guys think about it, so please either send me an e-mail (yes, I do check it) or post on that thread over on Bulbagarden and give me some feedback.

I also updated the lyrics page for Mezase Pokemon Master with the translation I did and a few other tweaks here and there. I would have gone ahead and translated the full version of the song (and not just the TV version), but I don't currently have anything here in Japan with me that has the full song written out in its original Japanese. And I don't want to use other fansites' transliterations because I'm weird like that :P I've also updated the General Edits page with information about the Season 12 opening.

I've also updated the List of Anime Episodes with three new Japanese titles and two new English titles. The Japanese titles have some interesting information in them that's fueling a lot of speculation around the Interwebz these days, so instead of adding to that I'll just chime in and say that the latest titles officially bring us halfway through the dub's twelfth season. Whee.

E3 is this week, so maybe we'll have some new video game news then?

Previous Month

Back to the Old News Archives

Next Month