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"Pikachu The Movie Premium Box"
June 26th, 2012

Dogasu @ 06:36 JST --  I'm taking a break from playing Pocket Monsters White 2 (OMG DOGAS HAS A THEME SONG THIS IS THE GREATEST GAME EVER) to talk about some exciting new DVD / Blu-ray releases coming out in Japan this fall.


Remember those two "Pikachu The Movie Box" DVD sets that came out to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary in 2006?  Well, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the franchise, Media Factory is releasing a new set in this series entitled "Pikachu The Movie Box 2007 - 2010."  This five disc set will include all four movies from the Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl era (Dialga vs. Palkia vs. Darkrai, Giratina and the Sky Bouquet, Shami, Arceus - To the Conquering of Spacetime, and The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark) and a fifth disc containing the theatrical trailers for all these films.  It comes out October 24th and will cost 10,500 yen.


The second set, and the one that more of us are paying attention to, is "Pikachu The Movie Premium Box."  This Blu-ray set will collect the series' first thirteen movies - the five Pocket Monsters films, the four Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation films and the four Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl films - all in one massive set.  Last year's film Victini and the Black / White Hero, Zekrom / Reshiram is already out on Blu-ray, so that's probably why it's not being included on this set. 

A fourteenth disc will collect the Pikachu shorts that accompanied these films.  Included will be Pikachu's Summer Vacation, Pikachu Exploration Party, Pikachu's Nervous Hide-and-Seek, The Glittering Starlit Camp, and The Dancing Pokemon Secret Base.  That's only five shorts, though...what about Pichu and Pikachu, the short that aired with the Entei movie? 

The current theory - and one I see as being completely plausible, knowing Japan the way I do - is that the short is now sort of "banned" due to the arrest of its narrator and ending theme performer Sakai Noriko.  She was arrested for drug possession in 2009, so everyone involved with this franchise in Japan is trying to pretend like she never had anything to do with it.  The short doesn't air on KidsStation anymore, and it was missing from last year's budget re-release of the third movie DVD as well.

The original DVD cover (left) and the 2011 reissue cover (right).  Click on the image to see a larger version.

Luckily, the Pikachu The Movie Song Best 1998 - 2008 CD set came out several months before her arrest; if it had come out after, I'm sure Tomodachi Kinenbi (Disc One, Track 10) would not have been included.

Japanese drug laws are some of the most strict in the developed world, and this collection of "Drugs in Japan" related tidbits (especially the Japanese Celebrities and Schoolgirls on Drugs section) is a great way to see how Japan does not eff around with this stuff.  Add in the fact that Pocket Monsters is a primarily a franchise for children - which always bring the overprotective parents out - makes this the next Porygon and Plasma-Dan.

So anyway, this Blu-ray set is going to cost 38,640 yen (that's about US $485), which is insane but is also consistent with the way Japanese companies price these kind of things.  I've added all of this information to the DVD Guide.

In other site news...I have a few more updates I want to make before restarting the whole Episode Comparison thing.  Bear with me just a little longer!

"Pocket Monsters B2 - W2 ~ A New Legend ~" Chapter Two
June 21st, 2012

Dogasu @ 06:41 JST --  The second chapter of Pocket Monsters B2 - W2 ~ A New Legend ~ was printed in the July 2012 issue of CoroCoro Comics.  In it, Arata faces off against Homika, who's kind of depicted as a bit of a douche in this series for some weird reason.  Stealing pokemon from Araragi-Hakase's assistant, forcing Arata to make a really unfair wager, constantly berating her opponent...I don't know what the author has against her, but I wish I knew.


I've also updated the Character Bios page with information on Bel and Homika.

I've already pre-ordered my movie ticket, by the way
June 17th, 2012

Dogasu @ 02:03 JST --  So I was looking at the competition that this year's Pocket Monsters movie will be facing in theaters like I've been doing for the past two years.  The Victini movie had to go up against the final Harry Potter movie in 2011, and the Zorro'ark movie found itself pitted against Toy Story 3 the year before that.  What big summer blockbuster will Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo find itself going up against this year?

The competition this year is pretty much non-existent, actually.  There are like fifteen movies coming out the same day as Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo, but they're all low profile films that aren't going to pull in any huge numbers.  I don't imagine tons of moviegoers paying the 1800 yen per ticket for a movie like Shark Night or The Human Centipede II, y'know?  While not all the movies look terrible - Every Day is Alzheimer's (毎日がアルツハイマー) seems like it could be worth a watch, and I do want to check out Helter Skelter (ヘルタースケルター) when it eventually comes out on BluRay - none of these are really going to offer the competition that movies like Harry Potter and Toy Story did.  The last two movies were pretty much damned to second place the instant their competition was announced, but I don't think this year's Pocket Monsters movie will have that same problem.


So speaking of that movie, I've updated the Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo page with a bunch of new information.  The voice actors that have been confirmed since the last update have been added and bios for both Meloetta and Malin have been written.  And speaking of Meloetta...I just found out (because I don't really keep track of these things) that both of its Formes got renamed in the English versions of the games, for some reason?  I always get told that the terms used in this franchise get changed to make them easier for English speaking kids to remember, but things like changing "Step" into "Pirouette" tell me that, in reality, they're just changing things for the sake of changing things.

I've also removed Musashi, Kojirou, and Nyasu from the Cast List on the main page for the movie because it's looking more and more like they're not going to show up the closer we get to the premiere.  They haven't appeared in any of the trailers yet and they don't show up in a single panel in the manga adaptation, so it's really looking like they're skipping out on this year's movie.


Speaking of the manga adaptation, my summary of the first chapter has been added to the Manga Guide.  I did a shorter Pocket Monsters Special sized summary instead of the long ones I usually do for these manga adaptations because I'm pretty sure Viz is going to get around to releasing this someday, and one of the policies I have for my site is to write shorter summaries for the manga that's (pretty much) guaranteed to come stateside.  I think you guys will still get the gist of what goes on in the chapter, though, so it's maybe not that big a deal?

I've also updated the CD Guide with the newly released cover art for both releases of Memories, the opening theme to Best Wishes! Season 2, and the soundtrack to the Kyurem movie.

Finally, here's a little FYI regarding last year's movie, Victini and the Black / White Hero, Zekrom / Reshiram.  TV-Tokyo always airs the previous year's movie the Thursday before the new one comes out, but this year they have a problem because two movies came out last year instead of one.  So, they're having viewers in Japan vote on which of the two movies they'll air this year.  Right now the Reshiram movie is winning by almost 30,000 votes, so that's probably the movie that'll end up airing on July 12th.  Voting ends on June 21st.

"Perhaps more outdated than other sections of the site is the Manga guide" - Bulbapedia page on my site
June 10th, 2012

Dogasu @ 23:49 JST --  Kusaka Hidenori's and Yamamoto Satoshi's Pocket Monsters Special has released three new BW chapters since I last updated the Manga Guide, so here are the long overdue summaries for said chapters:


Next, let's talk about the new manga that started in last month's issue of CoroCoro Comics, Pocket Monsters B2 - W2 ~ A New Legend!  I've got a synopsis of the first chapter and character bios for the four-ish main characters we've been introduced to so far, so check it out!  The first chapter wasn't really anything special, but hopefully the story will start to pick up some steam with the next installment. 


Finally, I've gathered what little information there is about the manga adaptation of Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo that was announced in last month's CoroCoro.  The first chapter will be printed in the issue that goes on sale this Friday and will be a whopping 80 pages long!  The author of this adaptation is the same lady who did the last two (both of which have been released in English!), so we can expect this adaptation to be just as faithful to its source material as the other two were.


In a completely unrelated note, I've also added the cover art to Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! Pikachu's Summer Bridge Story to the DVD Guide.

The next update will be all about the aforementioned Kyurem movie as well as that BW2 promotional short.

Video games, aka that thing this entire franchise is based around
June 6th, 2012

Dogasu @ 22:48 JST --  Here are some Video Game updates!


Two new apps are coming out for the Nintendo 3DS this summer in Japan.  The first one, Pokemon AR Searcher, comes out on June 23rd and will let players capture pokemon by using the 3DS' Augmented Reality capabilities.  There's not a whole lot else to say about it at the moment other than look, NOA is trying to hide the fact that the reijuu Formes exist, LOLZ.


The next one is the Pokemon National Illustrated Encyclopedia Pro, coming out on July 14th.  This will contain information on all the currently known pokemon instead of just those in the Isshu region, something that will come in handy with Black 2 & White 2 coming out so soon.


Some people are upset at the price of the new Pokemon Zukan app, saying that 1500 yen (which, in today's money is around US $19) is way too expensive for something like this.  But I think 1500 yen is actually quite a steal.  The book equivalent will run you about 1000 yen.  You then have to remember that this 3DS app will be a lot easier to carry than a 519 page brick and feature fully animated 3D models of all the pokemon and their various Formes.  It will also enable you to search for pokemon with just a few taps, search for pokemon by type or by those who can use certain techniques, listen to their in-game cries...like I said, 1500 yen is an absolute steal. 

The Manga Guide will be the next section to get some much-needed updatin'. 

I guess they want me to go broke from June to August
June 3rd, 2012

Dogasu @ 14:59 JST --  So we go nearly six months without any news of any new Pokemon CDs and then all of a sudden BAM! - eight releases announced at pretty much all at the same time.  Let's take a look at each release in the order they'll be coming out.


So first up is Momoiro Clover Z's new single Z Maidens' War.  These CDs will have the show's current ending theme Mite Mite ☆ Kotchi-tchi in addition to two other songs by the group.  The cover art seems to be the only difference between the two versions of the single, so it's up to you whether or not you want the CD with five teenage girls on it or the one with a random assortment of pokemon.

The next few have yet to have their CD covers revealed yet.  The first one is Memories, the ending theme to this year's movie as sung by Rola.  Those two releases - one regular edition and one limited one - go on sale July 11th.  The next is Become an Arrow!, the opening theme to Best Wishes! Season 2.  In addition to the new opening theme sung by Matsumoto Rika, this CD will also contain Seven-Colored Arch (the third BW ending theme) and Toward Your Heart La La La (the final DP ending theme).  The first song has only ever been made available on the Japanese iTunes while the second hasn't been released in any official capacity at all, so this CD is actually kind of a big deal.  It comes out on July 18th.


Next, singer Okui Aki is releasing a "Best Of" album on July 25th that will contain a new version of Fanfare of the Heart.  So that's kind of neat.


July 25th will see the release of the four disc soundtrack to the DS games Pocket Monsters Black 2 & White 2.  We know that one of those four discs will feature a bunch of the music that was never released over the years from Emerald, Platinum, and Black & White, but what about the other three?  Will Black 2 and White 2 have enough new music in them to fill three whole discs?  Or will a lot of the tracks on this release be repeats of the ones present on the original Black & White soundtrack?  The set will also come with a big color booklet with tons of behind the scenes information.

Finally, a soundtrack for Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo has been announced for August 3rd.  No cover art's been revealed yet.

The CD Guide's been updated with all this new information.

I've also made a few updates to the Timeline page of my "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan!" write-up.  The March 10th, April 10th and 17th, and September 21st entries have all had updates made to them.  Special thanks goes out to Adamant for providing this information.


I've also uploaded the unaired preview for "The Hiun Gym Battle, the Pure Hearted Bug Pokemon Battle!" to my Dailymotion page, so be sure to check that out as well!

Finally, the List of TV Episodes has been updated with a new Japanese title.