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Happy Anniversary!
January 31st, 2013

Dogasu @ 22:54 JST -- Dogasu's Backpack is now thirteen years old!  As always, I've written up an essay to commemorate another year of being online.  I've also Photoshopped Dogas onto Pokemon #013, just because!

Here's to a great 2013!

The last two months' worth of Pocket Monsters Special
January 30th, 2013

Dogasu @ 15:22 JST -- I've added summaries for the chapters of Pocket Monsters Special that came out in December and January to the Manga Guide.


The battle between the Sanyou Gym Leaders and the Dark Trinity concludes in Pokemon Fan while the Pokemon League's starting up in CoroCoro Ichiban!.  Will the Isshu League in this manga be better than the Isshu League in the TV series?  (Spoiler alert!  It totally will).

I'm working on something special for Volume 43 since it's the first volume to collect the Black & White chapter of Pocket Monsters Special.  I'm not quite ready to post it yet, but I should hopefully have something for you all soon.

The List of TV Episodes has also been updated.

The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan, Take 923
January 22nd, 2013

Dogasu @ 22:59 JST -- The timeline page for that skipped BW two-parter "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan" has been updated with the last few weeks' worth of developments.


It's all pretty amazing, really.  If you had asked me six months ago whether or not I thought the two-parter had any chance of ever actually seeing the light of day, I would have laughed at you and told you that you were crazy.  But now?  I actually think there's a good chance we'll see these episodes before the end of the year.

Also, while I was at it, I went and deleted the entries in the above about the Rocket-Dan leaving and then coming back.  I mean, yes, I did like having documentation of the numerous lies we were told during that whole "don't miss the Rocket-Dan's final battle!" BS, but none of that ended up having anything to do with this skipped two-parter and so I thought it would be better to just cull it. 

Sometimes there are Pokemon products that you can buy!
January 14th, 2013

Dogasu @ 23:55 JST -- So, Pocket Monsters X and Pocket Monsters Y.  Is there anything I could say in this space that hasn't already been said on just about every other fansite in the last week?  No? OK then. 

I've updated the List of Pokemon with the five new pokemon that were revealed last week.

Today's update is going to be focused on new discs that we'll all be able to buy in the coming months.  First up is the second and third Pokémon Black & White DVD sets.  The second set goes on sale January 22nd (so a week from today) and the third set goes on sale March 19th, and both will contain twelve episodes apiece.


There are exactly twelve episodes left in the season, so I'm sure we'll be seeing a listing for Volume 4 before too long.  Maybe as soon as April, so Viz can hurry up and get through the rest of their Generation V stuff?  I'm also guessing they'll have a Rocket-centric cover since they're the only main characters left (and I use that label very loosely with the BW Rocket trio) and also because they happen to be featured in a lot of the episodes that'll be on that set.

In CD news, I've added what little information I was able to find on the Pokemon Radio Show!  The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire CD releases to the CD Guide.  I wish there was more out there, but right now all we basically know is that they're coming out and will be two discs apiece.  I'll be sure to update that space whenever new information comes out.

Finally, the List of TV Episodes has also received an update because it needed it.

I'm working on a major project for the site that's eating up a lot of the time I give myself to work on this, but I'll still try to update this site semi-regularly while I work on that.  Let's see how that goes!

"Rougela's Christmas" - The 2012 Edit
January 5th, 2013

Dogasu @ 14:57 JST -- So, the version of "Rougela's Christmas" that aired during Pokemon Smash! late last month was a newly edited version in which Rougela was recolored.  Her face and hands were recolored purple while her forearms were recolored white.


Like I did with the Aloe episodes of Best Wishes!, I've gone and taken before and after screenshots of each and every scene that was edited.  The 184 screenshots (92 before, 92 after) can be found at these links:


I've also made a small update to the comparison for "Rougela's Christmas."

So why did I feel it was necessary to take screencaps of each and every edit?  Well, one, because I'm insane, but also because I really wanted to show you guys just how much work this whole thing was.  I'll just copy and paste the explanation I wrote in my comparison for "The Battle According to Lenora!" since what I said back then applies to this edit as well:

One of the reasons I take screencaps of each and every shot that's been altered is because I want everyone to realize just how much work went into this edit.  A fleeting statement like "Aloe's apron got erased" doesn't really convey the time and money that went into making this change happen and kind of degrades the whole thing into some forgettable piece of trivia.  And, well, I think this deserves more than that.  Even if you disagree with the reasoning behind the edit, you have to at least admire the fact that the animators actually did the work necessary to make it happen.

I don't know if the animators will go back to the other Rougela episodes and edit them (how often does TV-Tokyo air "The Ice Cave," for example?  Never?), but I'll certainly do the same thing for them as I did for this episode if that ever happens.

Dogasu's 2012 Predictions
January 1st, 2013

Dogasu @ 13:47 JST -- For the past few years I've been making predictions for the following year during my yearly anniversary write-up and then checking back on them at the end of said year to see how well I did.  Since it's now the first here in Japan, I thought I'd take a look back at the predictions I made for 2012:

Pocket Monsters Grey gets announced and released sometime in the fall.

I don't think any of us saw Black 2 and White 2 coming.  In fact, I remember reading an interview - maybe with Masuda Jun'ichi, maybe? - where they talk about how they did the sequel games exactly because they knew we were all expecting a Pocket Monsters Grey to come out.  Well played, guys.  Well played.

A new Pokemon Ranger game will come out for the 3DS.  It'll be awesome, but the fandom will ignore it because it has bad taste.

Not yet, unfortunately.  We did get a new Mystery Dungeon game in 2012, though, so I don't think it's unlikely we'll get a new Pokemon Ranger game in 2013 to help bridge the gap between Generations V and VI.

I don't think we'll ever see any of the main series games pop up on the Nintendo eShop, but I do think there's a chance we'll see Pokemon Pinball and / or Pokémon Puzzle Challenge appear on the service this year.

We haven't gotten either one of those yet, unfortunately.  Nintendo's been releasing a ton of Famicom games on the 3DS' e-shop in Japan lately, so it seems like the company's more interested in selling us games we've already got on our Wii Virtual Console instead of porting over games that haven't been re-released yet.  It's all very frustrating.

The WiiU is supposed to come out by the end of the year, and I'm betting Nintendo will have something related to Pocket Monsters ready to go from day one.

Wow, I'm pretty much batting zero at this point, aren't I?  There hasn't been a single Pocket Monsters game announced for the WiiU as of this writing.

In the TV series, Satoshi will get his sixth badge, then there will be a long break, and then he'll get badge number seven.  I don't think he'll get his eighth badge until early 2013.

This was obviously back when I thought a Pocket Monsters Grey was still happening.  The TV series wouldn't have had to rush through the last few badges to start any of this "Season 2" business if the "third version" didn't end up being sequel games, would it?

Pokemon evolutions:  In addition to the ones that are being spoiled in the current ending theme, I think Satoshi's Gantle will evolve one more time.  I also think his Gamagaru will evolve into a Gamageroge because, hey, why not?

Nope and nope.  I will say, though, that I think Satoshi's team in the Higaki Conference would have looked a lot better if my predictions had come true.

I don't think the Rocket-Dan are going to get any more pokemon this year.  The writers don't really treat them like Pokemon Trainers anymore, and any new captures at this point would just be pointless since they'd never appear anyway.

I finally got one right!  At this point we don't even know if they're even going to be bringing their Koromori and Deathmas back with them when they return to the show after their hilariously short absence later this month.

I think 2012 will be the year The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan two-parter airs.  Otherwise, they might as well not even bother airing them at all.  They'll probably be heavily edited to retcon them into the second half of the series, but at least they'll air.

No, but maybe they'll air during Episode N? in 2013?

I think the big plotline of the summer will be another gathering of the rival characters, sort of like last year's Don Battle arc but hopefully not as sucky.  The title of the 15th season of the English dub is Black & White Rival Destinies, after all.  I'm sure that's not a coincidence.

The big plot of the summer was the Pokemon World Tournament Junior Cup.  It was...pretty much a chore to sit through, really.

I don't think there will be a Pokemon Smash episode on March 11th because TV-Tokyo will be busy commemorating the one year anniversary of last year's disaster.

The show did air after all.  The network did air a ton of 3/11 specials on that day, but they didn't pre-empt any of the kids' shows that morning in order to do so.  The Smash! episode that aired included a rerun of "Good Bye...And, Setting Off!," by the way.

This year will be the TV series' 15th anniversary, so I think there will be a TV special or something to celebrate.  Maybe a web-only thing?  Maybe something that premieres in the US before Japan, like The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon?

Does the Blu-ray set count?  I think the Blu-ray set counts.

I don't think the TV series is going to get a new opening theme.  I think we'll be watching Best Wishes! all the way up to the Isshu League.

Remember, I had no reason to believe that a "Season 2" was going to happen.

I think we'll see a total of seven CDs released this year.  We're obviously going to get one for Nana-Iro Arch, a soundtrack for Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman, and three releases for the movie's ending theme (regular, regular edition + DVD, and limited edition with some Pokemon artwork).  That's five.  I also think we'll get a single release for whatever new ending theme the TV series gets later in the year.  The seventh CD release will probably be something random.  Last year the wild card was that compilation of Matsumoto Rika songs, so I'm thinking the odd release this year will be another collection of the opening and ending themes.  It'd be cheap to produce and would give them a way to release a full version of Kimi no Mune ni La La La, the final ending theme to Diamond & Pearl.

Wow, there's a lot to digest there.

Nana-Iro Arch didn't end up getting its own CD release; instead, it got included in the CD single for Yajirushi ni Natte.  The full version of Kimi no Mune ni La La La was also released on that same CD, taking care of my final prediction in that paragraph there.

We got the soundtrack for Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo, as expected.

We didn't get a DVD version of Memories, for whatever reason.  Rola's a model so you'd think they'd have made a music video out of her first single, but it doesn't look like they did.  I don't get it either.

We got two CD singles for the new (current) ending theme, Mite Mite Kotchi-tchi, earlier in the year.  So we got two CDs for Memories instead of three but then got two CDs for Mite Mite Kotchi-tchi instead of one, so it all balances out.

And did I say "another collection of the opening and ending themes?"  Pokemon TV Animation - The Best of the Best Theme Songs from 1997 - 2012 fits that description nicely.

The only things I didn't account for was the soundtrack to Black 2 and White 2 and the Okui Aki "Best Of" CD.  Everything else happened as predicted, more or less.

I think we'll see an English dub of the Kyurem movie by December.

The movie debuted on Cartoon Network U.S. on December 8th, 2012.

On the manga side of things, I think Viz will pick up the rights to Pocket Monsters RéBURST.  They'll probably make it to the end of the Diamond & Pearl part of Pokémon Adventures as well.

No English language RéBURST, unfortunately.  It seems like just the sort of series that Viz would want to pick up, but I guess they're happy with just doing Adventures for the time being.  I also didn't see the series ending in Japan in 2012 either, so that was a bit of a bummer.

Volume 6 of Pokémon Adventures came out on October 2nd, 2012.  Volume 7's due out on February 5th, 2013.


So all in all...my predictions ended up being way off, but I'd like to at least think that Black2 and White2 can take part of the blame for that. 

I'll make predictions for 2013 when I do my site's 13th anniversary write-up at the end of the month.