Lugia Lundis, Week Nine
August 24th, 2015

Dogasu @ 23:48 JST -- This is it!  It's the final week (for now) of Lugia Lundis! 

Today I've got four episode comparisons for you covering the Lugia arc from the later half of Jouto!  Without further ado:

"Hi Ho Silver...Away!"	"The Mystery is History!"
"A Parent Trapped!"	"A Promise is a Promise!"

These comparisons were a lot of work but the episodes themselves were all so good that I didn't really mind the constant transcribing and screen captures and research that was required.  I hope you enjoy!

Like I said in the last update, I'm going to be taking a break from themed Mondays for a little bit.  Only a small break though!  I want to catch up on a lot of the more recent things I've fallen behind on and in order to do that I'll need to use the time I've been allotting to these Monday updates to catch up.  I don't have a date planned for the start of Entei whatever-I-settle-on-for-the-name but I do want to start it before the end of 2015.

"Lugia Lundis" is an event currently running on this site in which I post something about the second Pocket Monsters movie, Revelation Lugia, every Monday night.  It's currently scheduled to continue until August 24th.


Good News, Everyone! Part Two
August 21st, 2015

Dogasu @ 23:05 JST -- The 2015 Pokémon World Championships started earlier today in Boston and they got things started off by announcing that Pokkén Tournament, the arcade fighter that came out in Japan last month, will be getting a Wii U port coming worldwide in Spring 2016!


Nintendo put up a bare bones page for the game that's probably worth keeping an eye on in the future.

The other big news is that the Wii U version will feature a new fighter: Masked Pikachu.  It appears to be its own character and not just, say, an alternate skin on the existing Pikachu fighter, which if you ask me is a complete waste of a character slot but whatever.  No word yet if / when the Masked Pikachu will make it to the arcade version.


I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that I have what I believe to be the most in-depth coverage of this game on any English-language fansite in existence.  Definitely check it out if you haven't already.


Pokkén Tournament is an arcade fighting game currently only available in Japan.  A Wii U port is currently in development and will be released worldwide in Spring 2016.


Good News, Everyone!
August 20th, 2015

Dogasu @ 07:14 JST -- The box office reports for the obon weekend are in and Pokémon the movie XY "The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa" and "Pikachu and the Pokemon Band" has managed to make its way back onto the Top Ten!


We still don't have any updated box office figures and tenth place is still pretty effing terrible but at this point I'll take whatever we can get.  The Kamen Rider movie that debuted at Number 6 last week falling off the charts is what helped Pokemon regain a spot on the Top Ten.  I feel for ya, Kamen Rider fans.

Here's what the rest of the Top Ten looked like:

Rank	Weeks in Theaters	Movie Title
1	2	Jurassic World
2	2	Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
3	3	Minions
4	6	The Boy and the Beast
5	2	Boruto Naruto the Movie
6	3	Attack on Titan
7	5	Hero
8	2	The Longest Day in Japan
9	5	Inside Out
10	5	Pokémon the movie XY "The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa"

It was also revealed, via Cinema Today, that the movie came in at eleventh place the weekend before.

Pokémon the movie XY "The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa" and "Pikachu and the Pokemon Band" came out in  Japanese theaters on July 18th, 2015.  It is the second Pocket Monsters XY movie and the 18th film in the franchise overall.


Lugia Lundis, Week Eight: Behind the Scenes
August 17th, 2015

Dogasu @ 23:30 JST -- Hey!  It's time for the penultimate Lugia Lundis!  Tonight I've got a collection of nearly 50 character model sheets from various guide books and I think they do a great job of showing just how much planning goes into making one of these movies. 


Unfortunately some of the sheets don't look so hot because the kid who owned one of the books before me decided to go through and color certain images with a thick marker.  Which, I mean whatever, kids will be kids, but still:


I did my best to Photoshop those out but my image editing skills aren't the greatest/

For the final Lugia Lundis I'll be presenting episode comparisons for the four late Jouto episodes to feature Lugia!  In case you're wondering the comparisons will be "Hi Ho Silver...Away!," "The Mystery is History," "A Parent Trapped!," and "A Promise is a Promise."  After that I'll be taking a break from the whole "Movie Mondays" thing because my backlog with regards to things that aren't movies that are old enough to join the U.S. military is getting a bit out of hand.  I don't have a timeframe for when I'll start Entei-whatever-I-decide-to-call-it but I do know I am at least planning to start before the end of the year.

"Lugia Lundis" is an event currently running on this site in which I post something about the second Pocket Monsters movie, Revelation Lugia, every Monday night.  It's currently scheduled to continue until August 24th.


More like "The Archdjinn of the Box Office Bombs," amirite?
August 12th, 2015

Dogasu @ 23:33 JST -- Things aren't looking so hot at the moment.


So Pokémon the movie XY "The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa" and "Pikachu and the Pokemon Band" has been in theaters here in Japan for four weeks now, right?  Well every week I've been checking in to see how well it's been performing in the box office and when I went to take a look at how it did this week I was disappointed to see this:

Rank	Weeks in Theaters	Movie Title
1	First	Jurassic World
2	First	Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
3	First	Boruto Naruto the Movie
4	2	Minions
5	2	Attack on Titan
6	First	Kamen Rider Drive the Movie: Surprise Future
7	5	The Boy and the Beast
8	4	Hero
9	4	Inside Out
10	First	The Longest Day in Japan

Pokemon's been bumped out of the Top Ten.

As far as I know this is a first for this franchise.  Pokemon movies tend to stay in the Top Ten at least until the end of August with there sometimes even being a slight end-of-summer-vacation bump taking place the last weekend of the month.  But to see a Pokemon movie only spend three weeks in the Top Ten before getting knocked off?  In the first half of August?  Holy shit.

Like, seriously.  Holy. Shit.

Just to put this all in perspective, last year The Cocoon of Destruction and Diancie spent its fourth week in the Number 6 position.  So did 2013's The Extreme Speed Genosect and the Awakening of Mewtwo.  Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman Keldeo, on the other hand, spent its fourth week in the Number 4 spot.  And so on and so on.

But we can't just judge the movie on how well it's doing in the movie rankings, right?  How's the movie doing money-wise?  Well that's the thing; none of the movie sites in Japan have been reporting any of the box office figures for this movie since its opening weekend.  The 384,115,100 yen figure I have over on the movie's page here on the site isn't just a case of me being too lazy to update, it's just that this is the only information we have at the moment.  They're still reporting the numbers for the other movies (Hero, which came out the same weekend as The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa, just passed the 3 billion yen mark for example) so they're purposefully not reporting this particular movie's performance.  All this tells me that the numbers must be pretty unremarkable. 

I've said this several times in numerous places the last half a year or so but this Hoopa movie really reeked of desperation.  All the fanservice they tried to cram into this single film has made it obvious that Pokemon's not the moneymaker it used to be.  "Please come see our movie?  Please?  We've got legendaries!  We've got evil Satoshi!  We've got Arceus!  Come on!  Pretty pleeeeeeeeease????"  They tried to shake things up to try to bring more people back to the theaters but it did not pay off for them at all.

It's certainly going to be interesting to see what they do with next year's movie.

As far as the Hoopa movie goes I'm going to continue checking in on it week after week but I might not have anything more to report from here on out.  Sigh.

Pokémon the movie XY "The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa" and "Pikachu and the Pokemon Band" came out in  Japanese theaters on July 18th, 2015.  It is the second Pocket Monsters XY movie and the 18th film in the franchise overall.


Lugia Lundis, Week Seven "Pikachu's Exploration Club" Opening & Ending Themes
August 10th, 2015

Dogasu @ 23:03 JST -- Super hectic week + early start tomorrow morning means that this week's update's kind of small.  A deadline's a deadline, though, so tonight I've got the lyrics (and little else, sadly) to the opening and ending themes to Pikachu's Exploration Club:

Tankentai o Tsukurou!	Sora Tobu Pokemon Kids

Next week I'll be posting behind-the-scenes images from various guide books from the movie.  Character design sheets, background art, old promo artwork - things like that.  I'm also very interested in finding out the origins behind this image (apparently it was from some French magazine talking about the seizure incident?).

"Lugia Lundis" is an event currently running on this site in which I post something about the second Pocket Monsters movie, Revelation Lugia, every Monday night.  It's currently scheduled to continue until August 24th.



Pokkén Tournament: Burshamo + Support Pokemon
August 10th, 2015

Dogasu @ 07:39 JST -- Burshamo was added to the Japanese arcade fighting game Pokkén Tournament this past week and so I've added information about the character over on the game's Pokemon Page.


I've also added a section to that page all about the game's Support Pokemon system.  What are Support Pokemon, which ones are available, and how do they work? 


Finally, I went ahead and made a main Pokkén Tournament section for the site to house all the updates I've been making (and will continue to make) about the game.

Pokkén Tournament is an arcade fighting game currently only available in Japan.  A Western release has been unofficially announced but details are scarce at the moment.



"The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa" & "Pikachu and the Pokemon Band" 3rd Week Box Office Figures
August 6th, 2015

Dogasu @ 07:05 JST -- This summer's Pokemon movie's third week performance at the box office has been announced.


The movie continued its downward slide to sixth place in its third week in theaters.  This time the release of the live-action Attack on Titan movie (which I keep hearing is terrible) and the Japanese dub of Minions helped push the newest Pokemon movie down the charts.  No box office figures were reported for the second week in a row which is kind of worrying.

Next week sees the release of Jurassic World, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, and Boruto Naruto the Movie.  How will Pokemon stack up?

Pokémon the movie XY "The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa" and "Pikachu and the Pokemon Band" came out in  Japanese theaters on July 18th, 2015.  It is the second Pocket Monsters XY movie and the 18th film in the franchise overall.


Lugia Lundis, Week Six "Pikachu's Exploration Club"
August 3rd, 2015

Dogasu @ 23:43 JST -- In honor of the English dub of "Pikachu's Rescue Adventure," I'm going to let the dub's narrator tell you about tonight's update:




















































































































































































Thanks Mr. Narrator! 

Next week:  I translate the lyrics for all the songs on the Sora Tobu Pokemon Kids CD that was released back in 1999.  It's not the greatest update, I know, but I need the extra time to work on the big update I'm planning to end this event with.

"Lugia Lundis" is an event currently running on this site in which I post something about the second Pocket Monsters movie, Revelation Lugia, every Monday night.  It's currently scheduled to continue until August 24th.