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This website is now a dozen years old
January 31st, 2012

Dogasu @ 23:46 JST --  This website is twelve years old today!  Here's my annual write-up.


Here's a write-up!  Leave me some feedback, won't you?

"Club Batle Finale: A Hero's Outcome!"
January 21st, 2012

Dogasu @ 02:08 JST --  Well, it was a chore to get through, but I've finally finished all the comparisons for the Don Battle arc!  Check out my essay on the tournament's final episode, "Club Battle Finale: A Hero's Outcome!"


I genuinely like the Nyasu arc that follows, so I will hopefully be able to pump those comparisons out a bit quicker.

Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition
January 14th, 2012

Dogasu @ 13:37 JST --  I've added the box art and release date for Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition to the Nintendo DS page of the Video Games section.  While I was at it, I went through all the links to the official sites on that DS page and updated the ones that no longer worked. 


I've also updated the List of TV Episodes with a new Japanese title and the correct title for English episode 1447.

Finally, this month's CoroCoro Comics announced that they'll be revealing information about Keldeo a pokemon whose identity nobody knows about appearing in this summer's movie. 

DVD Guide update
January 8th, 2012

Dogasu @ 14:30 JST --  The DVD Guide has been updated with the first releases of 2012!


The first of these releases is Viz's first DP Sinnoh League Victors box sets.  The first set is due on February 28th and the second set is due on May 1st.  There will only be twelve episodes left in the season after that, so I'm assuming Viz will throw those on a third and final box set and call it a day.  I wish these were Blu-Ray releases instead of DVD, but I'm sure that Viz is only allowed to put out these standard definition discs due to whatever contracts they have with the Japanese rights holders.

Pokémon Movie: Black - Victini / White - Victini is also getting a DVD release on April 3rd.

In non-DVD news, I've put up another video!  This video shows the "data broadcast" thing that TV-Tokyo's started doing with Best Wishes and should hopefully help illustrate what it actually is.  The network's website has a more detailed description of what this whole "data broadcast" stuff is about here, for those of you who can read Japanese.

Finally, here's Thursday's Gil Thorp, which brings up Pokémon again for some strange, strange reason.


I've got a few projects I'm working on at the moment, and hopefully I'll have some of them ready to post real soon.

"The Club Battle Hearts of Fury, TPCI Versus Awkward Syntax!"
January 3rd, 2012

Dogasu @ 13:48 JST --  I used to do episode comparisons for this site, remember?  Here's my write-up for the rather Engrish-y sounding "The Club Battle Hearts of Fury, Emolga Versus Sawk!"


Next up, I've updated the front page to the Movies & Specials Guide!  The older version of that page just had everything lumped together in an order that didn't really make any sense, so I've moved a few things around and hopefully made everything easier to find.  Speaking of movies, I've updated the page for Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman with the theatrical posters, the movie's release date, a mini synopsis based on what's been revealed so far, and bios for the main pokemon who will appear in the film.

The List of TV Episodes has been updated as well.

Finally, I've made two updates to the Video Games section.  One, I've added the English language title and American release date for PokéPark 2.  Two, I've added information about the upcoming DS game Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition.  I'm particularly excited about this game and plan to pick it up on day one. 

This is pretty old by now, but in case you haven't seen this, jump to the 3:28 mark:


Here I am, weeks later, and I still find this whole thing to be hilarious.  Between this and that South Korean professor using DRAGON BALL to predict the trends of consumers and voters in the coming year, it seems like Japanese animation and politics are, for some reason, starting to work together.  Hilarious.

Let's check my predictions for last year
January 2nd, 2012

Dogasu @ 11:32 JST --  Happy New Year everyone!

Every year, I do a write-up for this site's anniversary on January 31st.  I like to post a bunch of predictions of what I think is going to happen in the coming year and then go back and see how many of them I got right, and that's what I'm going to do today.  Here's what I thought was going to happen in 2011, as originally posted here:

The Best Wishes! TV series is going to have to slow down at some point.  Otherwise, Satoshi will be facing the eighth Gym Leader before the end of the year.  Since Kanto slowed down after the sixth gym, I think Isshu will do the same.

It actually slowed down after the third gym, with 26 episodes between the Arti battle and the Kamitsure battle.  So I'll give myself points for predicting the slowdown but then take them back for being wrong about which gym the slowdown will start.

Unfortunately, it seems like the series is picking up the pace again, as there are only ten episodes between the Kamitsure and Yakon battles.  So, there's that.

I think there will be a total of fifteen Best Wishes! episodes released in 2011 in which the Rocket-Dan do not appear at all.  We’ve already had two Rocket-less episodes so far, so I don’t think that number is so far-fetched at all.

Last year had twenty episodes without the trio, which is five more than I predicted.  And in most of the episodes they do appear in, they're only around for like 30 seconds, if that.

I love how the writers have "changed the Rocket trio for the better" and then never give them any screentime, ever.  It's like they're determined to give as little to the "the BW Rocket trio is so much better!" crowd as possible.

Now that a handful of Best Wishes! episodes are out, I think Japan might finally try releasing the series on DVD again.  Now's as good a time as ever, right?

I guess the Best Collection DVDs count, right?  It's not the nice set of releases we got when Jouto started, but at least it's something.

I also think this will be the year we’ll see our first Pocket Monsters-related Blu-Ray.  It's about damn time, right?

Yup!  In Japan, the two Victini movies were released on Blu-Ray at the end of the year.  The US, meanwhile, got a disc with Pokémon Heroes and Destiny Deoxys coupled together, for some strange reason.  What's nice is that the U.S. and Japan are both in the same Blu-Ray region (Region A), so American Blu-Ray players can play the Victini movie and Japanese Blu-Ray players can play the Heroes / Deoxys disc.

Since Viz seems to be releasing Pokémon DVDs again, I think we’ll actually see a home release of Zoroark - Master of Illusions before the end of the year.  I also think they’ll finish up DP Galactic Battles and start releasing DP Sinnoh League Victors on DVD before the end of the year.

The Zoroark movie came out in September, and the final DP Galactic Battles set came out in November.  DP Sinnoh League Victors, however, isn't coming out until next month. 

As far as video games go, we already know we’ll be getting Battle and Get! Pokemon Typing DS in the spring.  It was also recently announced that a 3DS and a Wii game are in the works.  I think the 3DS game will be a spin-off (Pokemon Snap 2, please?) and the Wii game will be a game similar to Coliseum and XD.  I don’t think we’ll see any main series Pocket Monsters games released for the 3DS’ e-store anytime this year (or ever, really), but I do think we’ll possibly see the puzzle games released for the service.

The 3DS game was Super Pokemon Scramble, which really isn't as terrible as the Internet would have you believe.  I would have loved a Pokemon Snap 2, but I think it's pretty obvious by now that Nintendo has no interest in producing a sequel.  The Wii game was PokePark 2 ~ Beyond the World, which isn't anything like the GameCube RPGs, so minus one point for me.  None of the Pocket Monsters have been released on the 3DS' e-shop yet, but I still stand by my assertion that we'll only ever see the puzzle games available for download.

Viz will continue releasing Adventures, and will maybe release the manga adaptation of the Zorro’ark movie, but I think that’ll be it.  I don’t see the company releasing any other series in 2011.  I can see Viz putting the series online for their iPad app, though.

I was right about everything except the iPad app.  Inoue Momota's adaptation of the Zorro'ark movie came out in the US on September 20th, 2011, and that was the only non-Adventures title released by Viz all year.

On the music side of things, we’ll get TV Animation Pocket Monsters Original Soundtrack Best 1997-2010 Vol. 2, a soundtrack for Victini and the Dark Hero, Zekrom, and at least three releases for the ending theme (regular, special edition, and regular version + DVD).  I also think it’s likely we’ll have a new opening and ending theme premiere before the end of the year, so we’ll be getting CD singles for those as well.

So close!  Everything there happened exactly as I said it would except for the debut of a new opening theme, something we still don't see any signs of.  I'm not too bothered by it and actually wouldn't mind if they stuck with Best Wishes! for the entirety of the series' run, but I know I'm in the minority there.  I also missed predicting the Matsumoto Rika compilation CD, but I won't be too hard on myself since that sort of came out of left field.

I'll post my predictions for 2012 in my twelve year anniversary write-up later in the month.