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Pikachu The Movie Premium Box 1998 -2010 - Review
December 28th, 2012

Dogasu @ 16:06 JST -- A month ago, Shogakukan released Pikachu the Movie Premium Box 1998 - 2010, a fourteen disc Blu-ray set that collected the first thirteen movies and five of the Pikachu shorts into one set.  Today, I take a look at that set and review it.


Is this one worth picking up?  Or are the downsides to it enough to prevent me from recommending this to you?

"Holiday Hi-Jynx"
December 25th, 2012

Dogasu @ 23:55 JST -- Merry Christmas everybody!  Here's the comparison for the very first Christmas special this franchise ever gave us, "Holiday Hi-Jynx!"


I'll be doing a comparison for the edited version that recently aired on Pokemon Smash later this week.

Hope you all have a great holidays!

Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo Visual Guide
December 19th, 2012

Dogasu @ 23:50 JST -- The DVD / Blu-ray for Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo came out in Japan today, so to commemorate this I've reached into my backlog and pulled this out:


This is the Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo Visual Guide, a 67 page book that came out in August.  It's mostly just screenshots and plot synopses, but it does include six interviews (five voice actors and the director of the movie) that are worth a look.  I went through the book and translated all six interviews for you, so now you too can read the rare behind-the-scenes interviews that have previously only been available in Japan!

Japan cares about Rougela again, for some reason
December 16th, 2012

Dogasu @ 23:55 JST -- Hello.  How was your day?  Mine was good.  I met Masuda Junichi and James Turner, so that was exciting.


So the space where this event was held had full-sized versions of the posters for The Genosect with God-Like Speed (the one's I showed you on Thursday), and as luck would have it my seat was right next to them.  As I was looking at them up close, I noticed the cast list at the bottom listed Satoshi, Pikachu, Iris, Dent, Musashi, Kojirou, Nyasu, and the narrator.  So this tells me two things.  One, the Rocket trio will have speaking roles in next year's movie, something we couldn't really assume anymore after this year's film.  Two, N and his voice actor aren't listed, meaning he'll either be out of the show by the time the movie starts or he'll pull a Hikari and not show up even though he's a part of the main cast.

Looking back, you can kind of see the cast list on the large versions of the posters that have been made available online, but it's the kind of thing you wouldn't have noticed unless someone told you it was there.

There was also a part where Mr. Masuda answered questions submitted to him through Twitter.  Today's event was mostly about their more recent game Rhythm Hunter HarmoKnight, but there were some Pokemon questions thrown in there as well:

• He said that his favorite pokemon cry from the games was Koduck's and that he was surprised when it was used at the end of one of the commercials for Red and Green (probably this one).  Mr. Masuda is the one who actually created Koduck's cry back then.
• He was asked why G'Cis' right eye and right arm (which I only just realized can't be seen in any of the official artwork or game sprites) are so messed up. I couldn't catch everything he said, but I *think* he told us that they're the results of a pokemon attack.
• They had the idea of fusing Kyurem with Reshiram / Zekrom during the development of the original Black and White, but didn't really give the reason why they waited until B2W2 before doing so.
• He talked about "Pokemon" as a general concept and how he wanted to create a world where pokemon were just a little bit above human beings unlike the way animals are treated in our world.  He also said Pokemon Trainers don't see pokemon as their "pets" and that they see them as "friends" instead.

While I was at this signing, this happened:


It's a preview for next Sunday's (December 23rd) episode of Pokemon Smash!, which will include a rerun of the episode "Rougela's Christmas" ("Holiday Hi-Jynx" in the dub).  It seems like OLM took this fifteen year old episode, which was made back when Rougela was still black, and went to the trouble of recoloring all the Rougela from black to purple.  They also went and recolored the Rougela shown in the ending themes of the Pikachu shorts in the movie Blu-ray set that was released a few weeks ago. 

I'm not sure why Japan suddenly cares about Rougela again, but I'm guessing it has to do with Aloe's redesign and wanting to rid the show of any racist stereotyping once and for all. 

"The Extreme Speed Genosect"
December 13th, 2012

Dogasu @ 23:41 JST -- So, next summer's Pocket Monsters movie has been announced!


You've probably seen other translations of the movie's title elsewhere, but I don't really like any of the ones I've seen.  "ExtremeSpeed Genesect" doesn't work because while it is true that the pokemon move しんそく is called "ExtremeSpeed" in the English version of the games, translating this as "ExtremeSpeed Genosect" implies that the movie is referring to the pokemon move ExtremeSpeed and nothing else.  And right now, we have no reason to believe that this is the case.  The official website for the movie also treats 神速 as its own unique word instead as the name of the pokemon attack:


"The word shinsoku means "Speed that's thought to be supernatural.  Extremely quick. (Source:  The Nihon Kokugo Dai Jiten, published by Shogakukan)"

At the time of this writing, no reference to the pokemon technique can be found anywhere on the movie's official website.

"Godspeed Genesect" is equally troublesome because "godspeed" is a term used to wish someone success on a journey, not a way to describe how fast something is. 

Also, "Genesect," with three e's, is just flat-out wrong.  I don't care if that's the official romanization; it's not correct.

Because of all this, I've decided to translate this movie's title as "The Extreme Speed Genosect."  That way, it mimics the Japanese title somewhat; "Extreme Speed" instead of "ExtremeSpeed," just like how the Japanese title is using 神速 instead of しんそく.

Anyway, I've added all the information I could dig up on the movie to its page in the Movies & Specials Guide.

Rocket-Dan Star Wars parody OMGWTF
December 10th, 2012

Dogasu @ 07:40 JST -- Good morning!  It's been a week since I finished my Japanese test and I've been busy trying to catch up on everything I missed while my nose was stuck in a book for all those weeks.  Today's all about getting this site up to date as well.

For starters, the List of TV Episodes has been updated with one Japanese title and a bunch of English dub titles. 

Next, I've added the box art for both the just-released-in-Japan Mysterious Dungeon game and for the upcoming Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo DVD and Blu-ray release.  The latter is coming out on December 19th.


Finally, I've updated my "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan" to reflect the fact that the Plasma-Dan is finally going to show up in Best Wishes!  I also went ahead and deleted that "The fate of the Plasma-Dan" page since we kind of already know the answer to that now.


Oh yeah, for those of you wondering about the title of this update, check out the episode of the Rocket-Dan's radio show that's going to be posted later today.  Even if you don't speak a word of Japanese it's worth the download just to hear Nyasu as R2D2, beeps and bloops and all.