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Mewtwo Monday Week Six:  Mewtwo!  I Am Here
June 24th, 2013

Dogasu @ 23:28 JST -- Moving on from Mewtwo Strikes Back (though I could probably fill the remaining three weeks of this thing with more stuff from that movie if I wanted), today I take a look at Mewtwo!  I Am Here.


I've created a page for the 2000 TV special similar to the ones I make for all the movies.  It contains a full cast list, a breakdown of the home releases, credits information, and more!  It may not seem like a whole lot to you, but going through and romanizing all those Japanese names one by one was quite time consuming.

I also redid the page for Boku no Best Friend e since the old version of that page was pathetically out of date.


Next week I'll redo my comparison for the TV special.  Here's hoping it doesn't take me as long to do as the first movie comparison did!

Pocket Monsters Special:  Farewell, Black & White
June 22nd, 2013

Dogasu @ 11:44 JST -- A new month, a new chapter of Pocket Monsters Special:


This chapter is special, however, because it serves as the finale of the Black & White Chapter.  Will we be getting the start of the B2W2 Chapter in the issue of Pokemon Fan that comes out July 1st?

The official Pocket Monsters Special website has also revealed the cover for Volume 45, on sale June 28th.


It also reveals that the people behind Pocket Monsters Special have realized that, "hey, Black & White is about to be old news and we should really should start releasing those manga chapters that came out two years ago in graphic novel format," because they're speeding up the graphic novel releases.  Volume 46 comes out in July and Volume 47 comes out in August, though no specific dates were given for either of those.  Either way, three graphic novel releases in three months...it's a start.

In music news, I've updated the CD Guide with the cover art for Daisuke's Natsu-meku Sakamichi ("Summerly Slope") and have added links to the CD Japan listings for a number of the CDs that are scheduled to come out in the next few months.


Gonna be out of town for the weekend, but I'll be back on Monday with the next Mewtwo Monday update. 

Mewtwo Monday Week Five:  The First Trailer
June 17th, 2013

Dogasu @ 22:44 JST -- After the insane first movie comparison I did last week, I decided to take it easy this week and do a simple write-up on the very first trailer for the movie Mewtwo Strikes Back.  You know, the one with the adult looking Kasumi, Voyager, and the unidentified little girl.


There's a lot more I can do with Mewtwo Strikes Back.  I could go through the guidebooks and the interviews contained within, I could translate the various blog entries Shudou Takeshi made about the movie, I could look at the TV episodes that tied into the movie...but I think it's time I moved on.  While I'm OK right now, I feel like I'll start to get burned out on this movie if I spend any more time looking at it.  Besides, there are only three weeks before the premiere of The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Mewtwo and I haven't even touched the special released in the U.S. as Mewtwo Returns, so next week my plan is to make a page for that special the way I did for the first movie.  A revamped comparison between the Japanese version and the English version of that special will be coming out on Week Seven, and then Week Eight...well, you'll have to wait and see.

As always, I look forward to any and all feedback on this and any other update I make on the site. 

RIP, Ishimori Takkou and Utsumi Kenji
June 16th, 2013

Dogasu @ 15:44 JST -- So something that I think a lot of people missed with all the X & Y news this week is the fact that two of the voice actors for the animated series recently passed away.

Left:  Ishimori Takkou  Right:  Utsumi Kenji

Ishimori Takkou (石森達幸) passed away on June 5th, 2013 at the age of 81 of heart failure.  He's been doing voiceover work since 1965 and is currently famous for voicing Sengoku in One Piece, but we Pocket Monsters fans know him as the Ghos / Old Woman from "Ghost Pokemon and the Summer Festival", Santa Claus in "Rougela's Christmas" and the Pikachu's Winter Vacation shorts, and Bokuzen in "A Dungeon Capture!?  The Valley's Power Plant!"


Utsumi Kenji (内海賢二) passed away on June 13th, 2013 at the age of 75 of cancerous peritonitis.  He's been doing voiceover work since 1963 and is probably most famous for the roles of Norimaki Senbei in Dr. Slump and Shenlong / Reacoom / Commander Red in the various Dragon Ball series.  In Pocket Monsters, he voiced the king of the Mirage Kingdom in "Kasumi Enters!  Togepi and the Kingdom of Illusions!" and "To the Other Side of the Mirage!  Togepi's Paradise!" and played the King of the Country of the Earth in Victini and the Black Hero, Zekrom / Victini and the White Hero, Reshiram.


Condolences to the families of both these men.  May they rest in peace.

The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Mewtwo
June 15th, 2013

Dogasu @ 23:54 JST -- We've got a little under a month before the new movie comes out, so let's take a look at the third and final chapter (for now, at least) of the manga adaptation of The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Mewtwo.


This chapter is the shortest of the three that have been put out so far - 31 pages! - so the synopsis isn't very long.  If you remember the manga adapation of last year's movie (which, by the way - I've written a summary for content exclusive to the graphic novel), it cut off right as Keldeo transformed into its Resolution Form.  So about fifteen minutes or so before the end of the movie?  The manga adaptation of the first Best Wishes! movie also stopped about fifteen minutes before, so I'm guessing the same thing is happening here.


I've also updated the CD Guide with information about the newest CD releases.  We now have cover art and track listings for the two Egao CDs (also, holy crap the special Pokemon version of the CD single's only like six bucks!) as well as an updated track listing for Daisuke's Natsu-meku Sakamichi.  Finally, listings have been added to Amazon Japan for the BGM collection for the movie, but this time it seems like they're releasing two versions instead of the usual one:  one with just the CD and a special edition version that comes with both the CD and a DVD.  No word yet on what's included on the DVD, but if I had to guess I'd say it's probably the music videos to the movie's ending themes?

Finally, I know this doesn't really have anything to do with the new movie, but I've added a synopsis of the chapter of Pocket Monsters Special came out in the issue of Pokemon Fan that came out earlier this month.


There's a blurb in the final panel that says a new Chapter will be beginning in the next issue of Pokemon Fan (which goes on sale July 1st), so I'm guessing we're going to have to wait for the graphic novel release before we get a conclusion to the Black & White arc.  Laaaaame.

So, any news in the last few days?
June 15th, 2013

Dogasu @ 12:09 JST -- The amount of news we've gotten in the past few days has been insane, hasn't it?  Let's get the video game news out of the way first with a look at the new pokemon and what their names mean:

• Firerrow (ファイアロー) is a combination of the words faia (ファイア), or "fire," and aroo (アロー), or "arrow."
• Kofukimushi (コ フキムシ) seems to be a combination of kofukikogane (コフキコガネ), "Japanese cockchafer," and mushi (虫), or "bug."  And yes, I giggled at reading the word "cockchafer" too.  The kofuki part could also come from kofuki (粉吹き), which is a word that seems to mean "to spread pollen (or other powders)." 
  
• Kofurai (コ フーライ) maybe comes from the same kofukikogane and fuurai (風来), or "coming in on the wind."  The theory I've seen floating around is that the pokemon's white cocoon looks like a cloak not unlike those worn by travelers in the old days.
  
• Vivillon (ビ ビヨン) is a portmanteau of the words vivid and papillon, the French word for "butterfly."
  
• Flowbébé (フ ラベベ) is from furawaa (フラワー) and bébé, the French word for "baby."  This is a tough one for me; for other pokemon names that are portmanteaus, I would usually just take the first few letters of the first word and call it a day.  But here, those first few letters of the word flower - either flo or flow - are actual words that have completely different pronunciations.  I'm not thrilled with the English name for the pokemon either because the word "flower" doesn't have the letter "a" in it, making people think the pokemon's name comes from something else (nevermind the fact that the pokemon in question is like 3/4 flower).  Do I write out the name in a way that preserves the meaning, or do I write out the name in a way that preserves the pronunciation?  I'm going to end up going with the former because, hey, it's not Game Freak's fault the spelling of English language words is so inconsistent and arbitrary.
• Shishiko (シ シコ) is from shishi (獅子), or "lion," and ko (子), or "child."  The "ko" here also seems to be an indication that Shishiko is the base stage of a larger, yet unknown lion pokemon.
  
• Onvern (オ ンバーン) probably comes from onpa (音波), which means "sound wave," though there are a number of other sound-related words that begin with that on symbol that it could come from instead; and "wyvern," which is written out in Japanese as ワイバーン.
  
• Udeppou (ウ デッポ) comes from ude (腕), "arm," and mizu deppou (水鉄砲), or "water gun," though I suppose it could also come from deppou, which just means "gun." 
  
• Finally, Kuzumo (ク ズモー) seems to be a jumbled up version of mokuzu (藻屑), or "seaweed" or "algae."
  

I've updated the List of Pokemon with all the new pokemon's names.

(As a side note, I'm kind of glad I waited to do all of these at once instead of dealing with this news as it all came out.  Here are the Nintendo Direct pokemon!  Now the E3 pokemon!  Now the CoroCoro Comics pokemon!  Now the English names for those CoroCoro Comics pokemon!  I'm really glad I could do this all at once instead of having to constantly update this every twelve hours or so)


I've also updated the Video Games section with the release dates for Pocket Monsters X and Pocket Monsters Y.  I would also like to point out that I predicted the October 12th release date for Japan back in January when I did my anniversary write-up for the site, so yay me.

Finally, I've added information about the new Super Smash Bros games coming out next year, Super Smash Brothers for Wii U and Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo 3DS.  I think I'm actually more excited for these games than I am for Pocket Monsters X and Pocket Monsters Y, to tell the truth.  What pokemon do you think will show up in this new game?

I'll have a summary of the third chapter of the manga adaptation of The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Mewtwo later today.

Mewtwo Monday Week Four:  "Mewtwo Strikes Back" Comparison
June 10th, 2013

Dogasu @ 23:20 JST -- I didn't know if I was going to get this finished on time, to be honest.  I really underestimated just how awful the English dub was.

Find out how much of what you think you know about Mewtwo Strikes Back has been a lie in this week's update, a comparison between the English version and the Japanese version of Mewtwo Strikes Back.  It is sixteen pages long.


I'm going to take it easy for Week Five.  This comparison and the Kanzenban update and, to a lesser extent, the Birth of Mewtwo update have all been extremely time consuming and labor intensive, and I, quite frankly, need a break.  This will also be the week when the July issue of CoroCoro Comics comes out, which also means this will be the week the third chapter of the manga adaptation of The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Mewtwo comes out.  Gotta make time for that, yknow!

So for next week's update I'll be taking a look at the various trailers for the first Pocket Monsters movie and look at what footage showed up in those that were never actually used in the final film.  Of particular interest is my look at that weird trailer with the adult Kasumi, Voyager, and that kid that nobody seems to know anything about.  (Edit:  I changed my mind, I'm going to save the footage from the regular trailers for another update)  What is that and can we make any sense of that?

Mewtwo Monday Week Three:  The Kanzenban
June 3rd, 2013

Dogasu @ 20:34 JST -- Mewtwo Strikes Back - The Kanzenban.  You've probably seen that title thrown around before, but what exactly is this "Kanzenban" thing?  Today, let's find out.


My page dedicated to the "complete version" of Mewtwo Strikes Back includes the history of this version of the movie, an in-depth look at all the edits made to the movie, and a look at which releases have this Kanzenban and which ones have the original theatrical version.  There's stuff here you're not going to find anywhere else!

I also hope you'll enjoy the image galleries of all the edits made to the movie.  There were 230 screencaps taken altogether - 115 "before" and 115 "after" shots - and each one had to be capped and then cropped one by one.  So if nothing else, please take a look!


Next week I'll be redoing my comparison between the Japanese version and the English version of the first movie.  I don't actually own the movie on Region 1 DVD (and holy shit, have you seen the prices that thing goes for on Amazon / e-bay these days?), so my comparison is going to have to be based on the English version that's on the Japanese DVDs.  It's the exact same as what's on the American DVD, only it's in the proper aspect ratio and has the Japanese titles / credits instead of the English ones, so I can still pick apart the movie's script / music / voice actors. 

Oh yeah; it's also the beginning of the month, so I wanted to point out that I have a Facebook and Twitter page for this site.  Follow one or both of them if you're not already!