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Isshu Pokemon
September 25th, 2010

Dogasu @ 12:25 JST -- The List of Pokemon has been updated!

I basically studied each name, one by one, and tried to come up with what I feel is the most sensible romanization.  I could be wrong on a lot of these, of course, but I feel fairly confident in my choices and believe I can defend just about all them.

If I'm being perfectly honest, though, about 90% of the information I used to compile that list came from PokePale.  Without that site, this list wouldn't have been possible.

Here are explanations for some of the names I felt were more unusual:


Like I said, I can pretty much defend just about every choice I've made.  But if any of you have a better altrenative, I'd love to hear it.

Miscellaneous updates here and there
September 24th, 2010

Dogasu @ 07:47 JST -- I've been spending this week doing a lot of mundane, tedious, behind-the-scenes type updates that most of you won't notice but were necessary all the same. 

So since it's been a while since I've updated any real content, I decided to dust off some old lyric translations I had finished but never bothered to post.  So today, I offer new translations of Kimi no Soba de ~ Hikari's Theme~ and Kimi no Mune ni La La La.  I've also uploaded the lyrics to Best Wishes!, the theme song to the new series that started last night.


I've also updated the List of TV Episodes with the newly updated title for the fifth Best Wishes episode.

I'm working on my List of Pokemon, so expect that in a couple of days.

"Showdown at Dark City"
September 19th, 2010

Dogasu @ 23:44 JST -- I figure the number of people who go to Dogasu's Backpack for the newest Black & White information is exactly zero.  So rather than try to play catch up to all those other sites, I'll just do what I do best.

Today's update will be a new comparison!  More specifically, the comparison for "Showdown at Dark City."


This comparison took a while to finish, for a number of reasons, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  As always, you can give me feedback through this site's Facebook page, the thread on Bulbagarden dedicated to this site, or via e-mail.

In other news, the DVD for the fourth Diamond & Pearl movie, The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark, has been announced!


The DVD's coming out on December 17th, 2010 and will include the standard special features you've come to expect from a Japanese DVD release.  One new addition this year is footage of the location hunting done for the movie as well as a sneak peak at next year's movie.  In music news, a CD single for the first opening and ending themes to Pocket Monsters Best Wishes, Best Wishes! and Fanfare of the Heart, has also been announced.  I'm not complaining or anything, but it will be nice when these CD releases slow down and my wallet gets a chance to breathe.  The single will be coming out on November 24th, 2010 and will include four pieces of background music from the Best Wishes TV series.  Both the DVD Guide and the CD Guide have been updated with information on these new releases.

This weekend is a three-day weekend in Japan (Monday's Respect for the Aged Day), so I'll try to whip up something to upload tomorrow.

New CoroCoro
September 16th, 2010

Dogasu @ 17:24 JST -- Still sick!  But, I'm almost better.

The October issue of regular CoroCoro Comics came out yesterday and it included another chapter of Master!! Pokemon Black & White.  It doesn't really seem to be a direct continuation of the first chapter - Bel is nowhere to be found and everyone has a bunch of new pokemon - but it's still an interesting read nonetheless.  I've posted a summary in the manga's section and updated the character bios with Monta's and Cheren's new team members.


I've also updated the List of Pokemon for probably the last time before the whole thing is filled in.  As usual, some of the romanizations I use differ from what everyone else uses.  Here's my reasoning for some of them:

• Janovy, I think, comes from the phrase ja no michi wa hebi (蛇の道は蛇), which is a proverb that's roughly the same as "set a thief to catch a thief."  The Japanese proverb deals with snakes.  The -vy part seems to come from ivy (アイビー), which is what the tsuta in the name of its pre-evolved form means.
• You guys know how the starters are all supposed to represent different areas of the world, right? Mijumaru = Japan, Pokabu = China, and Tsutarja = the West?  Well, when it came to deciding how to romanize Charbu's name, I had some trouble because the chao part (pronounced like chow, not like the first part of the word chaos) seems to be Chinese, and romanizing Chinese appears to be more problematic than romanizing Japanese.  I eventually went with char which, aside from showing off the pokemon's fire typing, is also the first part of a pork dish called char siu.
• Baffaron seems to be a mix of buffalo and afro.  The latter is the reason I chose to use an r instead of an l.

Finally, in the uncharacteristically serious chapter of Pocket Monsters that was in this month's CoroCoro Comics, Balkie seems to have actually left the group.  The pokemon was captured waaaay back in the eleventh volume (twenty-four have been released altogether), so this is pretty big news.  The chapter ends with Red, Pippi, and Pikachu stumbling into a bunch of Isshu pokemon, so it looks like we'll be with Red and his friends for a few more years at least.

Finally, I've updated the List of TV Episodes.

I'm almost done with the comparison for "Showdown at Dark City," so I should be able to get that up before long.  I'm also working on a number of other side projects, one of which I gave a sneak peak of on the Bulbagarden thread for my site, so I'm pretty excited about those as well.

"TV Animation Pocket Monsters Original Soundtrack Best 1997-2010" Track Listing
September 11th, 2010

Dogasu @ 17:53 JST -- You know how I said that "this week has been kicking my ass?"  Well, said ass-kicking has resulted in me getting sick, which has limited me from working on this site as much as I wanted to.

So, while it is late, here's the track listing for the "TV Animation Pocket Monsters Original Soundtrack Best 1997-2010."  I also kind of reorganized a few things to make everything look nicer.


I've also put up the cover art for the next CD release, the soundtrack to Pocket Monsters Black & White.

Now, it's back to bed for me.  See you whenever I feel better!

"With the Easiest of Grace!"
September 9th, 2010

Dogasu @ 18:18 JST -- Yeah, sorry about that delay.  This week has been kicking my ass.

Here's the comparison for "With the Easiest of Grace!"


I also wanted to remind you guys that the TV Animation Pocket Monsters Original Soundtrack Best 1997-2010 CD came out yesterday.  I don't have my copy yet because Amazon Japan is dragging their feet about it for some reason, but the folks over at Pocketmonsters.net seem to have it and have posted a track listing.

Master!! Pokemon Black & White
September 7th, 2010

Dogasu @ 06:44 JST -- I was going to put the finishing touches on my comparison for "With the Easiest of Grace!", but I decided to hold off on that for a bit to bring you this:


This is Master!! Pokemon Black & White, a new manga series that just started in the October 2010 issue of CoroCoro Special.  If that last part sounds familiar, it's because it's the same magazine that revealed the whole "Combination Techniques" feature in Black & White.  Pretty much every site that's not Dogasu's Backpack covered all the news pieces in the magazine but completely ignored the manga included in that same issue, so I decided to fill in the gaps left by those other folks.  By clicking on the above link, you'll be able to read a detailed synopsis of the chapter that's out now, character bios, and what little I've been able to dig up on the series' author.

I've also updated the List of TV Episodes with three new dub titles.

My plan is to have the comparison for "With the Easiest of Grace!" up later tonight.  Once that's out of the way, I'll start work on the comparison for "Showdown at Dark City."

Edit @ 22:47:  I'm not going to be able to finish the comparison tonight.  But, I've added Yanappu to the List of Pokemon, finally.

My spellchecker wants to replace "Kohdai" with "Chad"
September 3rd, 2010

Dogasu @ 19:35 JST -- I'm out of town for the weekend (seems to be a recurring theme, doesn't it?), so no updates for the next few days.  Hopefully these will be able to tide you over until then.

I guess the biggest update I'm making today is to the section for the manga adaptation of the fourth Diamond & Pearl movie, The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark.  I've added a summary to the final part of the story (the part that's only available in the graphic novel version), added some more information about the author, and have made a major update to the Differences Between the Movie and the Comic page.  I'm also happy to say that I think I've figured out exactly how to set my scanner to produce the best quality images, so I'm excited about using those in the future.

I've also updated the page for The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark with the latest box office information.  Since this past weekend was apparently the last weekend the movie's going to be out in theaters, the Cinema Today website I use included a box office tally this time.  Apparently, the fourth Diamond & Pearl movie has made 3,869,476,089 yen in the eight weeks it's been out.

The official North American Pokémon site, Pokémon.com, has updated its Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs page with a bunch of new information regarding the English version of the game.   According to the site,

• Reinbow Island is going to be called Renbow Island, and Dorop Island is going to be called Dolce Island.  So I guess they're going to keep the same solfège naming convention used in the original then?
• Booker keeps his Japanese name.  Red Eye, for some reason, is being called Red Eyes.  Panema is being called Nema, and Danza, the big dark-skinned guy in the past who helps you out with the Wireless Multiplayer Missions, is being called Tanvir.
• Natsuya's default name is going to maybe possibly be Ben.  Maybe.  We don't know if whoever was playing the save file that these screenshots were taken from used the default name or if they were just using their own, so "Ben" isn't really 100% confirmed at the moment.

I've updated the "comparisons" for the two Pokemon Sunday special episodes with this information.

I've also updated the List of TV Episodes with that third Best Wishes! episode title.  Text that showed up on-screen during last night's episode confirmed that the first two episodes will be airing together as part of an hour-long special, so that's why I have those episodes listed as airing on the same day.

Finally, I just wanted to say that I hate, hate, hate the new clothes the Rocket-Dan will be wearing in the Best Wishes series.  We've waited thirteen and a half years for them to get a costume change, yet all they can be bothered to do is a lazy palette swap?  Gah!
"Dawn of a Royal Day!"
September 2nd, 2010

Dogasu @ 00:03 JST -- Apologies for the lateness of this; real life kind of kept happening and prevented me from getting this done any quicker.  I also had Internet connection problems for a while, but those all seem to have been sorted out.  So anyway, here's the comparison for "Dawn of a Royal Day!"


I've also completely revamped the main Episode Comparisons page!  The old version was looking pretty awful, I thought, so I reworked it to include more graphics and better organization.  I spent a lot of time picking scenes that I thought were representative of the entire "saga," edit-wise. and I hope my decisions made sense.

I've also updated the List of TV Episodes with the title for the Metamon episode.  I'm going to hold off on posting the new Best Wishes title that's been floating around for a while until the next update.

I'll do my best to have the comparison for "Showdown at Dark City" up by sometime next week.  I know there's no way in hell I'd get it finished this week (it's one of those episodes that just has so much going on, edit-wise and Japanese culture-wise), so next week is going to be the best I can do.  Quality over quantity, right?  I actually have a few non-comparison related things on my computer that just need to be polished a little bit before they get posted, so maybe I'll get around to uploading those in the meantime?