New Details About the Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution Home Release
October 17th, 2019

Dogasu @ 07:57 JST -- Yesterday evening the official website for Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution announced the on-disc extras for the December 18th Blu-ray and DVD release of Movie 22 in Japan.


Details are listed in the page I've created for the home video releases but the general gist is:

• Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution is the only film included in this release; they aren't going to be nice enough to throw the original Pocket Monsters The Movie "Mewtwo Strikes Back!" on here or anything.
• The Custom Limited Edition Blu-ray has an extra video feature that the other releases don't have called the (deep breath) "Pokedachi Tour" Overview ~ How Pokemon connected people with its theme song "Kaze to Issho Ni"~. This "Pokedachi Tour" (ポケだちツアー) thing is the name of a nationwide tour Sachiko Kobayashi and Shoko Nakagawa did together this summer where the two of them went around singing Kaze to Issho ni.
• The Custom Limited Edition Blu-ray also comes with a number of physical extras: a set of thirteen postcards and miniature replicas of the Movie 01 and Movie 22 movie pamphlets sold in theaters at the time.
  
• The Regular Edition Blu-ray and the Regular Edition DVD don't include the "Pokedachi" feature or any of the physical extras included in the Custom Limited Edition Blu-ray.
• All three releases include textless opening and ending animation; galleries of model sheets, concept artwork, and promo art; and a collection of trailers for Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution. The short teaser for Movie 23 that played at the end of this year's film - the one with Pikachu pulling on a vine - will also be included.
  

The three releases - Custom Limited Edition Bl-ray, Regular Blu-ray, and Regular DVD - will all be released in Japan on December 18th, 2019.




CoroCoro Comics Manga News
October 15th, 2019

Dogasu @ 18:07 JST -- The November 2019 issue of CoroCoro Comics came out today and includes some news about its Pocket Monsters related manga.

First, CoroCoro Comics will be running a Pocket Monsters (2019) manga based on the new animated series set to debut next month. The manga will be provided by Machito Gomi (五味まちと), the same person who did the Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution and Mewtwo Lives manga adaptations earlier this year, and it will be a monthly series. At this point we don't know if the manga is going to be straight-up retellings of TV episodes, digest versions of that month's stories, or brand new content.


According to this ad, the new manga will debut in the December 2019 issue of CoroCoro Comics, on sale November 15th.

The second piece of manga news has to do with Kosaku Anakubo's long-running Pocket Monsters manga. A few days before this month's issue came out the official CoroCoro website made a big deal about the chapter debuting in today's issue being the very last one.


A lot of Japanese fans doubted this news. The series, which has been running for about 23 years at this point, just seems like the kind of thing that will never end, you know? This must be a prank, commenters said.. And, well, now that the chapter's out we can confirm that yes, yes it was.

Here's a summary of the chapter:

Red, Pikachu, and Lillie have set up a huge banquet table outside and tell Pippi that all the food on it is all for him! Red allows Pippi to gorge himself on the feast for a few minutes before telling him why they're doing all this for him; it's because this is going to be the last chapter of their manga! Pippi sulks for a bit before recomposing himself and going back to his meal; after all, if he doesn't eat this pasta soon it'll get all soggy! Red wonders where his priorities are. Just then, our heroes hear Dr. Ookido sobbing from the inside of a porta-potty just off to the side! Red berates the professor for trying to talk to him while in the middle of a number two but Dr. Ookido ignores this and directs everyone's attention to a nearby field instead. There, a bunch of the pokemon with whom Pippi's had adventures over the years come charging in! Pippi wonders how everyone knew to gather there and Dr. Ookido replies that it's because he messaged everyone when he was on the toilet. One of the pokemon who's come to see Pippi off is his rival Kamex. The Water-Type wants nothing more than to beat Pippi to a pulp right now but he recognizes that this is a special day and decides to hold off on that for the time being. Fushigibana shows up and more or less says the same thing. The next visitors are Pippi's old traveling companions Balkie, Togepy, and Roubushin, but Pippi doesn't seem to remember any of their names! The pokemon angrily start to beat up on Pippi. During all this, Red sits back and reflects on how nice it is to see everyone again. Suddenly, he looks up and sees Green and his Lizardon up in a tree! Green hops down and tells Red that it's tough for eternal rivals like them to say goodbye but he guesses that this must have been what fate had in store for them. Meanwhile, Pippi abruptly tells Lizardon that he's gotten fat, prompting the Fire-Type to start beating up on him. Lillie jumps in between the two and stops them, reminding them that today's a special day and that they shouldn't waste it fighting such petty battles. Dr. Ookido agrees and makes the two of them shake hands. Eventually, the time for Pippi to go off into the sunset has come. With bouquet in hand, Pippi thanks everyone and vows to never forget them as long as he lives. All the pokemon and humans wave goodbye. "Goodbye!" "Good luck!" Red also chimes in: "...And good luck in CoroCoro Special and Aniki!!" Pippi is shocked to hear this; this whole "last chapter" thing only applies to the regular CoroCoro Comics!? And not to those other magazines?? Why didn't he say anything sooner!? The chapter ends with an angry mob chasing after Red and Pippi for misleading them.

CoroCoro Special is a monthly magazine that comes out in the last week of the month while CoroCoro Aniki comes out once a quarter. By not doing the regular CoroCoro chapters anymore the 62-year old Mr. Anakubo is essentially cutting his workload in half.

I suppose it's also possible CoroCoro Comics didn't want to run two comics with the same name in the same magazine, though it's a problem that could be easily remedied if they just renamed one of the two.

In any case, no one really seems to care about the Kosaku Anakubo Pocket Monsters manga whenever I write anything about it so I'll focus my energies on covering the Pocket Monsters (2019) manga from next month onward.


Japan Home Release for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu
October 9th, 2019

Dogasu @ 22:01 JST -- The Hollywood live action Pokémon movie Pokémon: Detective Pikachu hits Blu-ray and DVD in Japan later this month!

On October 30th the "Pokémon: Detective Pikachu" Gorgeous Edition Blu-ray & DVD Set and the "Pokémon: Detective Pikachu" Regular Edition Blu-ray & DVD Set will both be released in Japan. These two have a lot of extra features / physical extras not found in the American releases (and vice versa) so be sure to check out this page to see what exactly Japanese fans are getting.

My plan going forward is to provide a breakdown of the extra features first (hopefully within that first week of November or so) and then start work on comparing the Japanese dub with the English original. It'll be the exact opposite of what I usually do! Information about the Japanese dub of the film is almost impossible to come by (especially on English fansites) so I'm super excited to dive in!


Animator Masa'aki Iwane reveals information about "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan"
October 3rd, 2019

Dogasu @ 21:02 JST -- You remember that skipped "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan" two-parter from nearly ten years ago, right? It was scheduled to air on TV-Tokyo back in March 2011 but then the Great East Japan Earthquake hits northeastern Japan and the episodes ended up getting pulled. Well there hasn't been too much news about it since the series ended back in 2013 so I looked around a found a few things worth sharing.

1)  You remember when TV-Tokyo announced back in 2011 that they were going to eventually air that skipped two-parter at some point, right? Well, it's super obvious that they've since changed their minds and aren't actually going to ever air the thing but that announcement remained online for years, giving fans that slight sliver of hope that maybe, somehow, the episodes will ever see the light of day. Well, not anymore! Sometime between August and December 2018 the page with the announcement on it was taken down, adding to the huge pile of reasons why we shouldn't ever expect to see them again.


2)  A few months ago the two-parter was randomly brought up with superstar animator Masa'aki Iwane over on Twitter during which a (small) tidbit about the episodes is newly revealed.


Both of these new items, with supporting translations and other supporting information, have been added to The "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan" Timeline page.

While I was at it, I also went around the revamped basically every page in the site's "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan" section so why not give them a read through?