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"The Castle Beneath the Sea! Kuzumo and Dramidoro!!" has a new airdate
September 25th, 2014

Dogasu @ 23:22 JST -- TV-Tokyo posted this earlier tonight:


Here's a translation:

The episode "The Castle Beneath the Sea!  Kuzumo and Dramidoro!!," which was postponed, will now air on November 20th. 放送延期となっていました 「海底の城！クズモーとドラミドロ！！」を11月20日に放送致します。

So!  It looks like the episode will finally air after the dancing Yancham episode. 

It'll be interesting to see if the episode is edited to fit in the way "The Fishing Sommelier Dent Enters!!" was back in Best Wishes!.  It'll also be interesting to see if the alleged screenshots posted by that random Korean Twitter user show up in the actual episode.

I've updated the A timeline of the events leading up to / following the skipped Kuzumo episode page.

"Pokemon Radio Show! The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire" Season 2?!
September 24th, 2014

Dogasu @ 16:41 JST -- Back on September 6th Mima Masafumi, the sound director for everything that has to do with the Pocket Monsters animated series, tweeted the following:

"And now to all the Rocket-Dan members throughout the world! Here's the proposal we just did for "The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire - The Revival Plan!" The time has come once again all the members to gather together their power!  And even though we're just in the planning stages at the moment we'll definitely be able to come back if we have everyone's wisdom and courage on our side." そして、全世界のロケット団団員の皆さん！ついに出来上がった『ロケット団ひみつ帝國・復活の図』の企画書だ！再び、団員達の力を結集する時が来た！ま だ、企画書段階だが団員達の知恵と勇気さえあれば、必ずや復活するだろう！

"Pokemon Radio Show! The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire" was a 30-minute radio show that aired every Sunday evening from July 1st to December 23rd 2012.  The show was hosted by voice actors Hayashibara Megumi (Musashi), Miki Shinichirou (Kojirou), and Inuyama Inuko (Nyasu) and featured guest interviews with other voice actors, hilarious little radio dramas, product placements, an artwork corner, and whatever other random stuff they decided to air.  The show was performed entirely in-character and was fantastic.

CDs featuring a lot of the material that was on the radio show went on sale in the first half of 2013.

A second tweet added some more details:

"Later we'll be meeting with the Rocket-Dan trio (Nyasu, Musashi, and Kojirou) to discuss the proposal and make any changes needed to make it even better!  We'll then present the proposal to the powers that be, create a pilot episode, and then hope that it gets greenlit... With the wisdom of the Rocket-Dan members, I want to be able to report this freely! "Aim to get 7 billion members!"!!" 今後は、企画書をロケット団3人（ニャース、ムサシ、コジロウ）で協議し、さらに企画書をパワーUP！そして、殿に献上、さらにパイロット版制作の上、審 判が下される…。団員達の知恵があれば、遠慮なく言って欲しい！『目指せ！団員70億人！』！！

Later, Mr. Mima was asked about the possibility of another event like the Secret Live they had back in 2013.  He responds by saying that he was only the supervisor for the previous event and reminds us that the Rocket-Dan are poor and so there's a limit to what they can do.  He also talked about the possiblity of having maybe two or three events instead of just the one to give people more chances to attend but wasn't able to promise anything.

The previous radio show took a year and a half to organize but hopefully we won't have to wait that long this time around.

There was a CD that came out in 2003 that lists "Dogas" as one of the artists THAT IS AMAZING
September 23rd, 2014

Dogasu @ 23:24 JST -- Tonight I turn my attention to music and the various music CDs that will be coming up in the near future.


The two big ones coming out are the Pocket Monsters Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire soundtrack and the The Big Fray - Smash Brothers for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U Specially Selected Sound Test.  The Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire soundtrack will be a whopping six disc beast that contains both the music from the 3DS remake and the entirety of the original Ruby & Sapphire GBA soundtrack that was released in Japan back in 2003.  (Oh, by the way, I just created a whole page for all the CDs released in the year 2003 so check that out if you have a chance)  It'll also come with a 28-page booklet, as these things tend to do, that includes an interview with the sound team, various production sketches, and liner notes from the people responsible for producing the game's music.  It comes out in Japan on December 3rd for 3000 yen.  I imagine an international iTunes release will be coming shortly after but nothing's been confirmed at this time.

The Smash Brothers CD set doesn't have a release date at the moment but I imagine it'll come out after the Wii U version of the game is released since you have to have registered both the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U versions of the game to your Club Nintendo account in order to get it.  A full track list hasn't been made available yet but I'm sure it'll include a Pokemon song or two.  Those songs, according to the in-game Sound Test, are:

• N's Castle Medley (Ｎの城メドレー)
• Zekrom and Reshiram Battle! (戦闘！ゼクロム・レシラム)
• Trainer Battle! (Pocket Monsters X & Y) (戦闘！トレーナー(ポケットモンスターX・Y))
• Miare City (ミアレシティ)

The Japanese version of the Smash Brothers site mentions that this CD set doesn't include all the music from the game, so some of those songs I just listed might not make the final cut. 


I've also added information about a sneakily released Matsumoto Rika CD called O Thanks that came out last month featuring her doing a cover of the Manaphy movie ending theme.  I loved the Sowelu original and I haven't heard the Matsumoto Rika version yet but I'm sure I'll love it just as much because Matsumoto Rika is amazing.

Numbers Game
September 21st, 2014

Dogasu @ 10:15 JST -- So I went back and looked up how The Cocoon of Destruction and Diancie did its fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth weeks in theaters and updated the box office performance section of my page dedicated to the movie.  Long story short: it stayed at eighth place for three weeks and then ended placing at tenth place in its final week.  Last week it didn't make the top ten at all.


Box office figures - as in how much money the movie's been making each week - hadn't been made available for weeks now and the number we got at the beginning of August is the most recent one I was able to find.  A search online came up with a random commenter stating a 2.5 billion yen earnings as of August 28th but I have no idea where this person is getting his or her information.  If that is true, though, it means that this year's movie made even less than last year's movie (it earned around 2.8 billion) despite the fact that every other "first film in a new series" has done better than the one that came before it.  Some Internet commenters are blaming the decline in ticket sales to the popularity of mega-hit Yokai Watch; it is the hot new thing right now and a lot of kids probably see Pocket Monsters as old and tired in comparison.  I work at a Japanese preschool here in Tokyo and from what I've gathered from the kids I work with that might very well be the case.

In happier news, The Big Fray Smash Brothers for Nintendo 3DS managed to sell a million copies in its first weekend, so that's awesome.  Also Dogas returns to the game as an enemy character in the Smash Run mode after not appearing in the series since the original Super Smash Bros for the Nintendo 64 so I'm pretty happy about that.

About "The Castle Beneath the Sea!  Kuzumo and Dramidoro!!" airing in Korea
September 17th, 2014

Dogasu @ 17:23 JST -- During my extended and unannounced hiatus news popped up about the episode "The Castle Beneath the Sea!  Kuzumo and Dramidoro!!" airing in Korea.


The story goes that the episode, which was scheduled to air in Japan back in April but didn't because of the tragic sinking of the MV Sewol ferry the week before, just all of a sudden popped up on Korean TV the night of August 8th.  The episode supposedly aired at 6:30pm on an IPTV channel that doesn't usually air Pocket Monsters.

Here's the problem I have with all of this, though; it's been over a month since the episode allegedly aired.  Why don't we have any detailed summaries, high quality screenshots, or video clips from the episode?  Why isn't 해저의 성을 지켜라! 수레기와 드래캄, the reported Korean title of the episode, up on any torrent site?    Why should we trust this random Twitter user that none of us know?  Why do we still only know as much about the episode now as we did back on August 7th?

This all seems very suspicious to me.  Right now the only "proof" we have that this episode aired are a couple of photos taken by somebody on Twitter.  And I'm sorry, but "I read it on the Internet" isn't enough for me.

I've updated the timeline page I have for the skipped episode with everything I was able to dig up about this alleged airing.

Pocket Monsters XY Special "The Greatest Mega Evolution ~ Act II ~"
September 16th, 2014

Dogasu @ 22:36 JST -- TV-Tokyo's page for the Pocket Monsters XY Special The Greatest Mega Evolution ~ Act II ~ was updated yesterday and so I thought now was as good a time as any to finally get a page up for it on this site.


I've taken every piece of information there is on the official site and translated it.  I've also gotten a new character bio up for Daigo, the Champion of the Houen Region.  I wasn't a fan of the first special (bland characters engaging in a bunch of random battles just doesn't do it for me) but hopefully this one will actually have a plot and will be more interesting.  Fingers crossed!

"The Battle of the Badge!"
September 15th, 2014

Dogasu @ 21:16 JST -- Oh hey, I have a website, apparently!

Sorry for the unannounced absence.  Rushing around the U.S. and then trying to get settled back in Japan has kept me a lot busier than I expected.  I have a ton to catch up on (OMG "The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire" Season 2!!!!!) but I wanted to start things off by giving you guys a brand new episode comparison.  Here's what was changed for the episode released in the U.S. as "The Battle of the Badge!"


This episode is one that's been requested many times over the years and contains quite a few notable differences that people are still confused about to this day.  There's also some interesting things in there about how this episode not airing when it was supposed to led to a brand new opening to Mewtwo Strikes Back that wasn't going to be there originally.  It's definitely worth a read!

I've unfortunately had to deactivate the site's Facebook page for the time being but I hope to be able to have it back up in a couple of days.  In the meantime you can still leave feedback on Twitter, that thread up on Bulbagarden, or via e-mail.