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"Pokemon Ranger!  The Headran Rescue Operation!" and "An Elite Coverup!"
August 28th, 2010

Dogasu @ 21:41 JST -- I actually forgot that I had promised to have the new comparison up the other day and kind of didn't push myself as much as I should have.  Whoops.

So first, here's a placeholder comparison for the episode TPCI skipped (at least for now), "Pokemon Ranger!  The Headran Rescue Operation!"


Next, here's an actual comparison, this time for "An Elite Coverup!"


This one actually had a couple of actual, honest-to-God rewrites, so it's definitely worth your time to check it out.

I've already done a lot of the prep work for the episode that's airing today in the U.S., so with any luck I should be able to get that comparison up fairly soon.

Miscellaneous News Updates
August 25th, 2010

Dogasu @ 19:08 JST -- Well, so much for that plan.

I got home this past Monday and found that my computer wouldn't start.  No power, nothing.  Well, to make a long story short, I had to end up getting the motherboard replaced.  It was all under warranty, which was awesome, but the downtime prevented me from doing the updates I had planned.

I'm not quite ready to start doing comparisons again, so I'll update a few things here and there until I get everything settled.

For starters, I've updated the box office information for The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark.  The site I use isn't listing the film's weekly earnings anymore (I guess they don't bother once a movie's been out for a while / gets below a certain rank), so that 2,828,182,670 yen figure from the eleventh may end up being the most recent number we'll get.

In music news, the soundtrack for Pocket Monsters Black & White has finally been announced.  The four-disc set will come out on October 20th and will contain 153 tracks.  The HeartGold & SoulSilver soundtracks, by comparison, had 270 tracks spread across three CDs, but that included two regions' worth of music as well as all that Game Boy Player stuff.  The CD Guide has been updated with information on the CD.


The only other disc I can imagine coming out in 2010 is a single for the opening and ending themes to Pocket Monsters Best Wishes.  Looking back, this has been a pretty great year for Pocket Monsters music, huh?

I wanted to end this post by reminding you of a couple of releases coming up.  Today, in Japan, the *deep breath* Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl "The Decisive Battle!  The Ginga-Dan!!  The Shin'ou Time-Space Legend Complete Edition" DVD DVD comes out.  I figured it's a release that's going to go mostly unnoticed, so I wanted to make sure that you guys didn't forget that this was coming out.  After all, how often do we get any of the Japanese episodes on DVD?  In the U.S., the last two Pokémon Elements DVDs will be coming out tomorrow, August 26th.  A box set containing the first five volumes will be released on the 31st of this month, so if you love repackaged DVDs containing random episodes, then that will be the release for you.  Lastly, in manga news, Volume 36 of Pokemon Special will be out on August 27th in Japan.

Assuming my computer doesn't die on me again, I should be able to have a new comparison up tomorrow.

"Wake Up Snorlax!"
August 19th, 2010

Dogasu @ 16:35 JST -- Here's the comparison for "Wake Up Snorlax!," which officially brings me to the halfway point of the Kanto Region.


This one took me a bit longer to finish than I would have liked, but I kept holding off on posting it because I didn't want to release a half-assed version.  I'm still only about 95% happy with how it turned out, but I think I'll go blind if I re-read it one more time and decided to just go ahead and upload it anyway.

I've also added the North American release dates for Pokemon Ranger and the Tracks of Light and PokéPark Wii Pikachu's Big Adventure to the Video Games section.

I'm heading out of town this afternoon, so I won't be able to update the site until early next week.  Once I get back on Monday / Tuesday, I'll do a comparison for "An Elite Coverup!" and then start work on "Showdown in Dark City."  My overall goal is to be finished with that one sometime in the middle of next week and then get "March of the Exeggutor Squad" out at the end of the week so I can go into next weekend having finished all the syndication-era episodes. 

"Keeping in Top Forme!"
August 16th, 2010

Dogasu @ 23:49 JST -- Dogasu's actually keeping to one of his self-imposed deadlines?  What?

Yeah, it looks like I got this finished by the time I said I would.  So here's the comparison for "Keeping in Top Forme!"


By the way, me listing the English episode number as "1312" is not a typo.  That's what Pokémon.com has listed despite the fact that "Keeping in Top Forme" should be the eleventh episode of the season, not the twelfth.  *shrugs*  Speaking of the official website, their synopsis for this episode is pretty hilarious:

Brock does a good deed when he rescues a curious girl named Marley, whose boat is about to plummet over a waterfall! Once safely on land, the gang decides to accompany the girl over a mountain to where her Shaymin awaits. But Team Rocket is lurking nearby, waiting for their opportunity to snatch the elusive Pokémon! Will Shaymin be kidnapped, or will it find a way to fly away?

I've also corrected errors present in my two most recent comparisons ("Teaching the Student Teacher!" and "The Battling Eevee Brothers") that have been brought up by visitors to my site.  Thanks, guys!

I'll try to have "Wake Up, Snorlax!" up in the next few days.  That's going to be the best time frame I can give you since the amount of time it takes to do Kanto comparisons can vary so much.  I don't anticipate it taking long to do, but I never really know until I sit down and actually do it.

I also meant to post this a while ago, but never got around to it, for some reason.  I hope you weren't planning to go to sleep tonight.

"The Battling Eevee Brothers"
August 13th, 2010

Dogasu @ 18:04 JST -- Let's take a look at "The Battling Eevee Brothers," shall we?


If you take a look at the main page for the Kanto comparisons, you'll notice that the first little table I have there now has a comparison for every episode listed.  Pretty exciting!  Before long, I'll have made it halfway through the Kanto Region episodes and will be able to work on episodes that have never been showcased on this site before.  It also won't be long before I can finally get rid of that legend that's been on the main Episode Comparisons page for the better part of a decade.

I've also added the latest box office information for The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark.  The movie slipped down another spot this past weekend, down to number seven.  To date, the movie has earned 2,828,182,670 yen.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the comparison.  I'm going out of town for the weekend to watch the Macarena bon-odori, but I'll be back on Monday with "Keeping in Top Forme!"

"Teaching the Student Teacher!"
August 11th, 2010

Dogasu @ 16:26 JST -- OK, now I'm up to date.  Until Saturday.

Here's the comparison for "Teaching the Student Teacher!"


In totally unrelated site news, I've finally added another page to the CD Guide!  You can find a listing of all the music CDs released in the year 2007 here.  Back in the year 2010, I've added the newly updated cover for the background music soundtrack that's coming out in less than a month.

I'll have a comparison for "The Battling Eevee Brothers" up soon!

"Pokemon Ranger and the Tracks of Light"
August 9th, 2010

Dogasu @ 18:58 JST -- The update that nobody's been waiting for! 

Today, I've written up "comparisons," if you want to call them that, for the two four-minute Pokemon Ranger and the Tracks of Light specials that aired on Pokemon Sunday back in February and March.  Here's Part One:


And here's Part Two:


The reason I'm even bothering to post these is because 1) we've reached the point in Diamond & Pearl where these things aired, and 2) because I know that if I don't do a write-up for these now, I'd probably never get to them.  I thought about combining both parts of the special into one page, but I ultimately decided that since they aired on two different days, it should get two different pages as well.

I actually feel bad for the third Ranger game, in a lot of ways.  When it came out in Japan, everyone was too busy with the English release of HeartGold & SoulSilver to pay any attention to it.  Yet, when it finally comes out in English later this year, people will be busy with the Japanese releases of Black & White.  The third Ranger game is one of my favorite Pokemon games ever, and it's a shame that it's going to be the victim of terrible timing.

I've also reorganized the Episode Comparisons section a bit.  I thought that combining the theatrical films and the miscellaneous specials made things too cluttered, so I separated them.  Moving around those files has caused some of the URLs to change, and even though I've done my best to make sure all the links are up-to-date, I'm certain I've missesd a few.  If you come across a link in that section (or any section, really), please let me know.

I'd go ahead and separate the Movies & Specials Guide into two or more sections, but doing that would require me to go through every single html file and change the links manually.  I assume you all want to see another Kanto comparison sometime this decade, so I'll hold off on that for the time being.

I've also updated the List of Anime Episodes.  It looks like TPCI is skipping over the episode of the TV series where Natsuya appears for the moment (they're probably waiting until we get closer to the game's actual release before airing it), so that's kind of screwing up the whole numbering for the English version.

The List of Pokemon has also been updated with a few new names that have sprung up in the past week or so.  This brings us to a total of 34 new pokemon so far. 

This week, I'll post a comparison for "Teaching the Student Teacher!"  I also went to the theater this past Friday and saw The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark for a second time, so I'll make some updates to that page highlighting the differences between the comic and the movie.  I also picked up the graphic novel version of the adaptation yesterday, so I'll post the final part of the summary for that this week as well. 

"The Fleeing Tower of Sunyshore!"
August 5th, 2010

Dogasu @ 16:11 JST -- I've finally gotten caught up!  Here's the comparison for "The Fleeing Tower of Sunyshore!"


Am I the only person who has to pause before typing out "Sunyshore" to make sure I don't inadvertently add a second n in there?

I've also posted the newest box office figures for The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark.  The movie placed in sixth place over the weekend, which kind of sucks, but that's still better than the new Naruto Shippuden movie that just came out this past weekend, which is kind of awesome.  The fact that it beat Naruto, that is..."awesome" is not a word I'd ever use to refer to Naruto.  </unprovoked hatin'>

I want to do a few updates here and there before I dive back into Kanto, but don't worry!  I'll be working on those comparisons very shortly.

"Flint Sparks the Fire!"
August 4th, 2010

Dogasu @ 14:06 JST -- Sorry for the lateness, but here's "Flint Sparks the Fire!"


Wow, Brock's dad looks different somehow.

I've also updated the List of Anime Episodes with information about the final episodes of Diamond & Pearl and a new English title.  It seems that TPCI is going to skip over the Mai episode to get to the Pokemon Ranger episode a week early even though that the third Pokemon Ranger game doesn't even have a release date yet.  Or, they could just be skipping the Mai episode because they found something wrong with it.  The episode is basically the plot of the Giratina movie whittled down to a half hour, so if it does end up becoming a banned episode for some reason, it at least won't be that huge of a loss.

Speaking of Pokemon Ranger and the Tracks of Light, the first of the short four minute specials originally aired during the Pokemon Sunday episode that came after "Flint Sparks the Fire!" in Japan.  There isn't any evidence that it's going to be dubbed at the moment, so I guess I'll write something up for that for my next update.

In other news, the soundtrack to The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ari comes out today.  That's pretty exciting.

Speaking of soundtracks, I had a thought in regards to the TV Animation Pocket Monsters Original Soundtrack Best 1997-2010; the CD will probably contain Kimi no Mune ni La La La.  The song hasn't gotten a CD single release and isn't scheduled to get one anytime soon, and I can't imagine the producers will release one after Best Wishes begins.  So, this release may be the only chance we'll have to get this ending theme.  This is all speculation, of course, but I think it seems fairly likely.

I'll work to get the comparison for "The Fleeing Tower of Sunyshore!" up soon.