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| Old Updates Archive | March
2013
"The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live" Full Report
March 31st, 2013
Dogasu @ 23:15 JST -- It's a week late, but late March is the season of farewell parties here in Japan. Sometimes saying goodbye to friends you may never see again takes precedence over updating a website, y'know? I hope you guys understand.
So without any further delay, here's my full report on The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live, the special event that was held here in Tokyo back on March 23rd.
You're not going to find a more detailed report of this event online, especially one in English. I'm pretty proud of that.
Animate is going to start selling T-shirts from the event starting April 25th, by the way, but right now they only have Japanese M and L sizes.
I plan to pick up the Kojirou CD after work tomorrow, so I'll update the site with a track listing of that tomorrow.
Ugh
March 28th, 2013
Dogasu @ 07:05 JST -- Sorry guys, but this week has been way, way, waaaaay more hectic than I anticipated. I'm also operating on a ridiculously small amount of sleep now, so yay.
I'll hopefully get the Secret Live report (the first draft of which is six pages long!) up by the end of the weekend?
Programming Note 2
March 24th, 2013
Dogasu @ 23:37 JST -- Yeah, I'm not going to have that report finished tonight.
Maybe tomorrow?
Programming Note
March 24th, 2013
Dogasu @ 00:27 JST -- So, The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live was today (well, technically yesterday).
It was seriously one of the most fun events I've ever been to. I knew it was going to be great because, duh, Japanese Rocket trio, but I wasn't prepared for it to be as awesome as it was. The voice actors put on an incredible show, there was lots of audience participation going on, some dude successfully proposed to his girlfriend in front of everybody, I GOT TO SPEAK TO THE ROCKET TRIO AND MUSASHI SAID MY NAME AND I MADE KOJIROU FALL OVER LAUGHING AND NYASU SAID I WAS VERY AMERICAN FOR EATING CEREAL FOR BREAKFAST...I'm still processing it all now.
I had a farewell party to go to tonight (you end up going to a lot of those when you're an expat) and have a Japanese class in the morning, so I won't actually be able to post my thoughts on the event until late Sunday. I went to a coffee shop after it was over and spent a good 30 minutes writing down everything I could remember, so luckily all I really have to do is just write it up. I should have it up before I go to bed tomorrow night.
In the meantime, both Mima Masafumi (who's the sound director for the animated series and the mastermind behind the radio show) and Inuyama Inuko (Nyasu) have posted a number of pictures of the event on their Twitter pages.
Pocket Monsters Special - May 2013
March 23rd, 2013
Dogasu @ 11:20 JST -- So I'm obviously super excited about The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live event coming up later today, but I also wanted to get this out there: the summary for the latest chapter of Pocket Monsters Special. Finally, a Pocket Monsters Special chapter summary that's not a month late!
This chapter, which was printed in the May 2013 issue of CoroCoro Ichiban!, features the semi-finals of the Isshu Pokemon League. I wasn't able to fit this into the chapter's summary due to my self-imposed 200 word limit, but this chapter also gives us a glimpse of Bel as Araragi-Hakase's assistant. I think it's kind of neat to see how Mr. Kusaka and Mr. Yamamoto are trying to bridge the gap between Black & White and Black 2 & White 2, don't you?
Also, Amazon's updated with the cover art for a bunch of new Pokémon Adventures titles.
They're also going to start releasing those mini Black & White volumes again, picking up where they left off at Volume 9.
The cover for Volume 9 is a colorized version of the title page for the chapter printed in the December 2011 issue of CoroCoro Ichiban! I'm assuming the chapter in the refrigerated container (which was actually referenced in the chapter that just came out in the May 2013 issue) will be included in this volume. It goes on sale April 2nd, 2013.
The cover for Volume 10 is a colorized version of the title page for the chapter printed in the February 2012 issue of CoroCoro Ichiban!. It goes on sale June 4th, 2013.
I'll be tweeting about The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live event later today, so be sure to Follow the Dogasu's Backpack Twitter if you're not already doing so!
The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire, Vol. 01 - Ohtani Ikue
March 21st, 2013
Dogasu @ 01:11 JST -- Holy shit I miss this show.
So, here's a detailed summary of the first episode of The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire!! I hope to do the same for the other 25 episodes.
And you probably saw this on Twitter and Facebook already, but I got in to The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live event this coming Saturday! My plan is to do a detailed write-up and hopefully have it up before the end of the weekend.
"The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Myuutwo"
March 19th, 2013
Dogasu @ 00:22 JST -- So, there's a movie coming out in like four months!! My page for The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Myuutwo used to be horribly out of date, so I've gone through and updated virtually every part of the section as best I can.
In other animation news, Episode N is ending soon, so I've updated the timeline page for "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan". I've also updated the List of TV Episodes with the first episode titles we have for the "new chapter," Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! Season 2 Decorora Adventure!
(By the way, I'm going with "Decorora" as the romanization for デコロラ because that's what TV-Tokyo's website uses in the image names for the screenshots on this page.)
Finally, you probably saw on Twitter / Facebook how I was lucky enough to get a ticket to The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live event going on this Saturday. I will therefore spend the rest of this week trying to prepare by updating this site's section on the Rocket-Dan's radio show. I'll have a lot of free time at work this week and Wednesday's a national holiday, so I'll hopefully be able to make a significant amount of progress.
Pocket Monsters Special, "The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Myuutwo"
March 17th, 2013
Dogasu @ 01:26 JST -- Wow, I've got a lot of catching up to do! Because doing everything all in one update will be a bit much, I'll just focus on the manga this morning and focus on the animation news later tonight.
First up are the summaries for the two Pocket Monsters Special chapters that were printed in last month's magazines. Sorry for getting these up so late!
The next issue of CoroCoro Ichiban! will come out on March 21st, 2013 while the next issue of Pokemon Fan won't come out until sometime in April.
In other Special news, the official Pocket Monsters Special website has also revealed the cover for Volume 44!
This new volume of Pocket Monsters Special will go on sale March 28th, 2013. I plan to do another "magazine to graphic novel" comparison for this as well, so be on the lookout for that.
Next, in the U.S., Viz has released an e-reader app called sticky DOT, and one of the things they've included is the various Pokémon manga! Here's their press release:
As of this writing, the app has Pokémon Adventures Volumes 1-14 ($3.99 each), Pokémon Adventures Diamond and Pearl / Platinum Volumes 1-4 ($3.99 each), Pokémon Black & White Volumes 1-4 ($2.99 each), and Pokémon Diamond & Pearl Adventure! Volumes 1-8 ($3.99 each).
This is great for a number of reasons. One, Viz has finally been able to bring Pokémon manga into the digital world, which is great since traditional print media is pretty much a sinking ship at this point. Two, having an app to upload their Pokémon manga onto opens up a world of possibilities for the company. They could re-release older series like The Electric Tale of Pikachu and Magical Pokémon Journey, they could use it to debut some of the more niche manga series that they may have passed on before because of printing costs, they could release those series that are only a few chapters long that never got graphic novel releases in Japan, they could work something out to get manga chapters of Special released the same week as Japan the way they do with some of their Shonen Jump titles...if you're a fan of the Pokémon manga, you have a lot of reasons to be excited about this.
The final manga update for tonight involves CoroCoro Comics' announcement that they'll be printing the manga adaptation of The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Myuutwo starting in next month's issue.
The manga will be done by Inoue Momota, the lady who's been doing the manga adaptations for the past four years. The May 2013 issue of CoroCoro Comics is scheduled to go on sale April 15th, 2013.
My next update, which I plan to have up before the end of the weekend, will deal with the animation side of things.
Social Network reminder
March 3rd, 2013
Dogasu @ 16:37 JST -- Man, these spring allergies have been killing me lately. I had wanted to post this reminder that Dogasu's Backpack has a Facebook page and a Twitter account back on the first, and to tell you guys that you should Like or Follow them if you aren't doing so already, but my body had other ideas. And then Saturday I was away on a day trip all day and didn't have time to get in front of my computer.
So anyway, check them out! The Twitter account gets updated more, but that's only because there isn't an easy way to switch from my real life Facebook account to my Dogasu's Backpack Facebook account on my old smartphone (that I'm planning to get rid of soon anyway) the same way there is with my Twitter accounts. I put up lots of things on those two that don't make it to the actual site itself - news stories, sneak peeks of upcoming updates, opinions on the current week's TV episode, etc. - so there's more to them than just me posting every time there's a site update.
Also, today is hinamatsuri, the Japanese holiday that the Kanto episode "Fierce Fighting! Pokemon Hinamatsuri" (English: "Princess Versus Princess") is based on. I wish I had a comparison for that episode that I could link to, but I'm actually holding off on that to see if they release the episode on an upcoming "Best Collection" DVD before I start taking a million screencaps from it. The episode is famous for being the episode with some of the most (if not the most) paint edits in the history of the series, and I don't want to take a bunch of screencaps from a TV capture of the episode and then have a much higher quality DVD version come out soon after.
Pokemon Smash! didn't air the episode today even though it would have been the perfect opportunity for them to do so, but I guess Lizardon's return later this week is a higher priority for them. Plus, I doubt they want to have to go in there and edit Rougela purple like they did before.
I'll start working on the next BW comparison soon, so be on the lookout for that!
"The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live" Full Report
March 31st, 2013
Dogasu @ 23:15 JST -- It's a week late, but late March is the season of farewell parties here in Japan. Sometimes saying goodbye to friends you may never see again takes precedence over updating a website, y'know? I hope you guys understand.
So without any further delay, here's my full report on The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live, the special event that was held here in Tokyo back on March 23rd.
You're not going to find a more detailed report of this event online, especially one in English. I'm pretty proud of that.
Animate is going to start selling T-shirts from the event starting April 25th, by the way, but right now they only have Japanese M and L sizes.
I plan to pick up the Kojirou CD after work tomorrow, so I'll update the site with a track listing of that tomorrow.
Ugh
March 28th, 2013
Dogasu @ 07:05 JST -- Sorry guys, but this week has been way, way, waaaaay more hectic than I anticipated. I'm also operating on a ridiculously small amount of sleep now, so yay.
I'll hopefully get the Secret Live report (the first draft of which is six pages long!) up by the end of the weekend?
Programming Note 2
March 24th, 2013
Dogasu @ 23:37 JST -- Yeah, I'm not going to have that report finished tonight.
Maybe tomorrow?
Programming Note
March 24th, 2013
Dogasu @ 00:27 JST -- So, The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live was today (well, technically yesterday).
It was seriously one of the most fun events I've ever been to. I knew it was going to be great because, duh, Japanese Rocket trio, but I wasn't prepared for it to be as awesome as it was. The voice actors put on an incredible show, there was lots of audience participation going on, some dude successfully proposed to his girlfriend in front of everybody, I GOT TO SPEAK TO THE ROCKET TRIO AND MUSASHI SAID MY NAME AND I MADE KOJIROU FALL OVER LAUGHING AND NYASU SAID I WAS VERY AMERICAN FOR EATING CEREAL FOR BREAKFAST...I'm still processing it all now.
I had a farewell party to go to tonight (you end up going to a lot of those when you're an expat) and have a Japanese class in the morning, so I won't actually be able to post my thoughts on the event until late Sunday. I went to a coffee shop after it was over and spent a good 30 minutes writing down everything I could remember, so luckily all I really have to do is just write it up. I should have it up before I go to bed tomorrow night.
In the meantime, both Mima Masafumi (who's the sound director for the animated series and the mastermind behind the radio show) and Inuyama Inuko (Nyasu) have posted a number of pictures of the event on their Twitter pages.
Pocket Monsters Special - May 2013
March 23rd, 2013
Dogasu @ 11:20 JST -- So I'm obviously super excited about The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live event coming up later today, but I also wanted to get this out there: the summary for the latest chapter of Pocket Monsters Special. Finally, a Pocket Monsters Special chapter summary that's not a month late!
This chapter, which was printed in the May 2013 issue of CoroCoro Ichiban!, features the semi-finals of the Isshu Pokemon League. I wasn't able to fit this into the chapter's summary due to my self-imposed 200 word limit, but this chapter also gives us a glimpse of Bel as Araragi-Hakase's assistant. I think it's kind of neat to see how Mr. Kusaka and Mr. Yamamoto are trying to bridge the gap between Black & White and Black 2 & White 2, don't you?
Also, Amazon's updated with the cover art for a bunch of new Pokémon Adventures titles.
They're also going to start releasing those mini Black & White volumes again, picking up where they left off at Volume 9.
The cover for Volume 9 is a colorized version of the title page for the chapter printed in the December 2011 issue of CoroCoro Ichiban! I'm assuming the chapter in the refrigerated container (which was actually referenced in the chapter that just came out in the May 2013 issue) will be included in this volume. It goes on sale April 2nd, 2013.
The cover for Volume 10 is a colorized version of the title page for the chapter printed in the February 2012 issue of CoroCoro Ichiban!. It goes on sale June 4th, 2013.
I'll be tweeting about The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live event later today, so be sure to Follow the Dogasu's Backpack Twitter if you're not already doing so!
The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire, Vol. 01 - Ohtani Ikue
March 21st, 2013
Dogasu @ 01:11 JST -- Holy shit I miss this show.
So, here's a detailed summary of the first episode of The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire!! I hope to do the same for the other 25 episodes.
And you probably saw this on Twitter and Facebook already, but I got in to The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live event this coming Saturday! My plan is to do a detailed write-up and hopefully have it up before the end of the weekend.
"The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Myuutwo"
March 19th, 2013
Dogasu @ 00:22 JST -- So, there's a movie coming out in like four months!! My page for The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Myuutwo used to be horribly out of date, so I've gone through and updated virtually every part of the section as best I can.
In other animation news, Episode N is ending soon, so I've updated the timeline page for "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan". I've also updated the List of TV Episodes with the first episode titles we have for the "new chapter," Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! Season 2 Decorora Adventure!
(By the way, I'm going with "Decorora" as the romanization for デコロラ because that's what TV-Tokyo's website uses in the image names for the screenshots on this page.)
Finally, you probably saw on Twitter / Facebook how I was lucky enough to get a ticket to The Rocket-Dan's Secret Live event going on this Saturday. I will therefore spend the rest of this week trying to prepare by updating this site's section on the Rocket-Dan's radio show. I'll have a lot of free time at work this week and Wednesday's a national holiday, so I'll hopefully be able to make a significant amount of progress.
Pocket Monsters Special, "The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Myuutwo"
March 17th, 2013
Dogasu @ 01:26 JST -- Wow, I've got a lot of catching up to do! Because doing everything all in one update will be a bit much, I'll just focus on the manga this morning and focus on the animation news later tonight.
First up are the summaries for the two Pocket Monsters Special chapters that were printed in last month's magazines. Sorry for getting these up so late!
 |
 |
| CoroCoro
Ichiban! April 2013 |
Pokemon
Fan Issue 28 |
The next issue of CoroCoro Ichiban! will come out on March 21st, 2013 while the next issue of Pokemon Fan won't come out until sometime in April.
In other Special news, the official Pocket Monsters Special website has also revealed the cover for Volume 44!
This new volume of Pocket Monsters Special will go on sale March 28th, 2013. I plan to do another "magazine to graphic novel" comparison for this as well, so be on the lookout for that.
Next, in the U.S., Viz has released an e-reader app called sticky DOT, and one of the things they've included is the various Pokémon manga! Here's their press release:
| San
Francisco, CA,
March 5, 2013 – Viz Media, LLC (Viz Media), the largest
publisher,
distributor and licensor of manga, graphic novels and anime in North
America, has announced the launch today of sticky DOT comics, its new
kids comics app for the Apple iPad® and iPad® mini. sticky DOT comics, a proprietary app developed by Viz Media, brings the best all-ages comics to the iPad with content featuring fan-favorite characters both familiar and new. Fans can securely browse, download and read a diverse collection of popular manga and graphic novels including full volumes of POKÉMON, MAMESHIBA, MR. MEN LITTLE MISS™, REDAKAI and VOLTRON FORCE®. sticky DOT comics is available for free download through the iTunes Store. Individual volumes are available for purchase and download in the U.S. and Canada within the application for a debut price of $2.99-$3.99 per volume. Readers are encouraged to check the app regularly, as new series and volumes, as well as free previews, will be added frequently. sticky DOT comics Launch Week Titles Will Include: PokÉmon Adventures PokÉmon Adventures: DIAMOND AND PEARL/PLATINUM PokÉmon Black and White PokÉmon: DIAMOND AND PEARL ADVENTURE! Mameshiba: On the Loose! Little Miss Sunshine: here comes the sun! Mr. Strong: Good Thing I Came Along! Redakai Voltron Force “Now with the sticky DOT comics iPad app, fans of any age can take their favorite family-friendly manga and graphic novels on the go,” says Beth Kawasaki, Senior Editorial Director, VIZ Kids. “There's something for everyone in this debut, including the adorable adventures of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, the action of REDAKAI, and the awesome fun of POKÉMON, available for the first time in digital form, and we'll be adding more exciting series and content to sticky DOT comics soon!” For more information on sticky DOT comics, please visit the dedicated sticky DOT comics page on iTunes. For more information on VIZ Kids graphic novels and manga, please visit VIZKids.com. About Viz Media, LLC Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Viz Media distributes, markets and licenses the best anime and manga titles direct from Japan. Owned by three of Japan's largest manga and animation companies, Shueisha, Inc., Shogakukan, Inc., and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, Co., Ltd., Viz Media has the most extensive library of anime and manga for English speaking audiences in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and South Africa. With its popular digital manga anthology WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP and blockbuster properties like NARUTO, BLEACH and INUYASHA, Viz Media offers cutting-edge action, romance and family friendly properties for anime, manga, science fiction and fantasy fans of all ages. Viz Media properties are available as graphic novels, DVDs, animated television series, feature films, downloadable and streaming video and a variety of consumer products. Learn more about Viz Media, anime and manga at www.VIZ.com. |
As of this writing, the app has Pokémon Adventures Volumes 1-14 ($3.99 each), Pokémon Adventures Diamond and Pearl / Platinum Volumes 1-4 ($3.99 each), Pokémon Black & White Volumes 1-4 ($2.99 each), and Pokémon Diamond & Pearl Adventure! Volumes 1-8 ($3.99 each).
This is great for a number of reasons. One, Viz has finally been able to bring Pokémon manga into the digital world, which is great since traditional print media is pretty much a sinking ship at this point. Two, having an app to upload their Pokémon manga onto opens up a world of possibilities for the company. They could re-release older series like The Electric Tale of Pikachu and Magical Pokémon Journey, they could use it to debut some of the more niche manga series that they may have passed on before because of printing costs, they could release those series that are only a few chapters long that never got graphic novel releases in Japan, they could work something out to get manga chapters of Special released the same week as Japan the way they do with some of their Shonen Jump titles...if you're a fan of the Pokémon manga, you have a lot of reasons to be excited about this.
The final manga update for tonight involves CoroCoro Comics' announcement that they'll be printing the manga adaptation of The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Myuutwo starting in next month's issue.
The manga will be done by Inoue Momota, the lady who's been doing the manga adaptations for the past four years. The May 2013 issue of CoroCoro Comics is scheduled to go on sale April 15th, 2013.
My next update, which I plan to have up before the end of the weekend, will deal with the animation side of things.
Social Network reminder
March 3rd, 2013
Dogasu @ 16:37 JST -- Man, these spring allergies have been killing me lately. I had wanted to post this reminder that Dogasu's Backpack has a Facebook page and a Twitter account back on the first, and to tell you guys that you should Like or Follow them if you aren't doing so already, but my body had other ideas. And then Saturday I was away on a day trip all day and didn't have time to get in front of my computer.
So anyway, check them out! The Twitter account gets updated more, but that's only because there isn't an easy way to switch from my real life Facebook account to my Dogasu's Backpack Facebook account on my old smartphone (that I'm planning to get rid of soon anyway) the same way there is with my Twitter accounts. I put up lots of things on those two that don't make it to the actual site itself - news stories, sneak peeks of upcoming updates, opinions on the current week's TV episode, etc. - so there's more to them than just me posting every time there's a site update.
Also, today is hinamatsuri, the Japanese holiday that the Kanto episode "Fierce Fighting! Pokemon Hinamatsuri" (English: "Princess Versus Princess") is based on. I wish I had a comparison for that episode that I could link to, but I'm actually holding off on that to see if they release the episode on an upcoming "Best Collection" DVD before I start taking a million screencaps from it. The episode is famous for being the episode with some of the most (if not the most) paint edits in the history of the series, and I don't want to take a bunch of screencaps from a TV capture of the episode and then have a much higher quality DVD version come out soon after.
Pokemon Smash! didn't air the episode today even though it would have been the perfect opportunity for them to do so, but I guess Lizardon's return later this week is a higher priority for them. Plus, I doubt they want to have to go in there and edit Rougela purple like they did before.
I'll start working on the next BW comparison soon, so be on the lookout for that!
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