"Machoke, Machoke Man!"
September 27th, 2020

Dogasu @ 00:05 JST -- The episode of Pocket Monsters (2019) that's scheduled to air later tonight, "Satoshi vs. Saitou! Beat the Octopus Hold!!," will feature the return of Shijima, the Fighting-Type Gym Leader from the Johto Region. The character hasn't appeared in person since his one and only appearance a whopping 19 years ago and so I thought now would be as good a time as any to analyze the Japanese version of that old episode from 2001. So without further ado, here's the episode comparison for "Machoke, Machoke Man!"


Script rewrites, music changes, digital paint, cut scenes; this episode has it all!

A lot of you seem to like the addition of screencaps and the original Japanese text from my last comparison so I'm continuing that with this essay as well. It's a lot more work on my end but I think it makes for a better, more complete article at the end of the day.


Pocket Monsters The Movie "Koko" Supporters' Podcast
September 22nd, 2020

Dogasu @ 00:32 JST -- A few weeks from now - October 9th, to be exact - the very first episode of a new official Pocket Monsters podcast will begin.


The podcast is called *deep breath* The Pocket Monsters The Movie "Koko" Supporters' Podcast - "The Movie Secrets We Want to Tell You" (劇場版ポケットモンスター ココ　－サポーターズPodcastーいま、君に伝えたい映画のヒミツ). Each week (presumably) a group of special guests will come together to provide behind-the-scenes secrets on the new movie. The first two episodes' guests will be the film's director, Mr. Tetsuo Yajima, and the actor providing the voice of the Pokémon researcher Karen, Ms. Shoko Nakagawa.

I've taken everything we know about the podcast so far and put it all on its own page here. I plan to cover the podcast, which will be all in Japanese, probably about the same way I covered Pokémon Radio Show! The Rocket-Dan's Secret Empire back in 2012.

In other movie news, the first batch of winners for the annual illustration contest has been announced and so I've added details on the winning entries to my page for the contest.


The winning entries will all be shown during Pocket Monsters The Movie "Koko," most likely during the film's end credits.

Finally, I've updated the movie's box office section by filling in information on the movies Koko will be going up against on opening day.


The competition's actually not so tough this time around! It'll be super interesting to see how well this year's movie performs in contrast to all the others since it's not going up against a bunch of summer blockbusters like all the others have. Do you think Pocket Monsters The Movie "Koko" can take the Number One spot in its opening weekend?

Pocket Monsters will be moving to Friday nights starting next month
September 13th, 2020

Dogasu @ 22:52 JST -- This is something that had been rumored for a few days now but an commercial that played after tonight's episode of Pocket Monsters (2019) confirmed that the show will be moving from its current Sunday evening time slot to a Friday evening time slot.


Starting Friday, October 9th, 2020 Pocket Monsters (2019) will be airing every Friday evening from 18:55 JST. The show will be taking over the time slot of a cooking show called Dekamori Hunter.

This marks the fourth time in the series' 23-year history that the show's changed time slots:

• The first 38 episodes of Pocket Monsters (1997) aired Tuesday nights at 6:30pm JST but lost its time slot after the whole Pokémon Shock incident.
  
• When the show came back from hiatus in April 1998 its old Tuesday time slot had already been swooped up by another show and so Pocket Monsters moved to airing on Thursday nights at 7:00pm JST instead. The rest of Pocket Monsters (1997), all of Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation, all of Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl, all of Pocket Monsters Best Wishes!, and most of Pocket Monsters XY aired in this time slot.
  
• From April 7th, 2016 - a full 18 years later - the show shifted to airing five minutes earlier, starting at 6:55pm JST instead of 7:00pm JST. The rest of Pocket Monsters XY, Pocket Monsters XY&Z, and everything up to the end of the Necrozoma arc in Pocket Monsters Sun & Moon aired in this time slot.
  
• From October 7th, 2018 the show moved to its current Sunday evening time slot. At the time the head of TV-Tokyo's animation division, Mr. Hirokazu Oshida (押田裕一), issued this statement:

"Starting from Autumn 2018 TV-Tokyo will create a new animation programming block aimed at families, particularly children, on Sunday evenings from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. As people's lives and viewing habits change we want to really shift gears toward the concept of "spending your days off relaxing with your family." Starting with those two programs and continuing on with shows like "Moya-Moya Summers 2," "Emergency SOS! The Great Plan to Drain All the Water from the Pond," and "Ikegami's Sunday Primetime World," we hope the whole family will come together to enjoy TV-Tokyo's programming. We're going to continue giving it our all to make sure everyone continues to love these shows for a long time. Please look forward to both these programs."

At the time, Japanese TV as a whole was moving toward getting rid of the whole "anime airing in primetime during the week" idea and was moving everything on Saturdays and Sundays instead. Pocket Monsters Sun & Moon and Boruto: Naruto Next Generations moved to Sundays in 2018 and Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan moved to Saturdays in 2019. In September 2020 there isn't a single anime that currently airs in primetime (7:00pm - 10:00pm)  on weeknights on Japanese terrestrial TV.


In the December 2019 issue of the magazine Animedia the producer of the current series, Mr. Tomoya Negishi (根岸智也), talked about how the show's Sunday evening time slot had shaped the way they decided to tackle Pocket Monsters (2019):

-- (Pocket Monsters 2019) is being made in such a way that it has stories that get wrapped up in a single episode. Can you tell us the reason for that? Negishi:  The biggest reason is the change in the way it's being broadcast. Its current time slot is Sundays at 6:00 pm, but since it's Sunday then viewers might be out with their parents or hanging out with their friends or whatever and so they may not necessarily be home to catch the show every week. Because of that, we thought it might be difficult for people to watch these long ongoing stories without missing an episode. We're not making the episodes completely stand-alone, however, but we are trying not to do too many two-parters, and in those cases that we do we have this rule to try to make them in such a way that you can enjoy each part on its own.

(In addition to airing on Sunday evenings the current series is posted on the Pokémon Japan official YouTube channel every week as well as on video streaming services like Hulu and Amazon Prime so it's not like watching the TV series "live" every week is fans' only options here...)

This upcoming move from Sundays to Fridays is giving some fans hope that Pocket Monsters (2019) aversion to having multi-part episodes may be changed, though of course it's still too early to know that for certain.


Pocket Monsters The Movie "Koko" Pre-Order Bonuses
September 9th, 2020

Dogasu @ 15:32 JST -- Today's update is all about the bonuses you can receive when you pre-order a movie ticket for Pocket Monsters The Movie "Koko".

First up: certain stores are offering exclusive bonuses for ordering the tickets from them instead of their competitors and so I've added information about each vendor-specific bonus to the Pocket Monsters The Movie "Koko" Distributions page.


Next up is an update regarding the dates by which you'll be able to redeem the serial codes for "Celebi of the Okoya Forest" and "Zarude of the Okoya Forest" that come with your pre-order tickets. Up until recently the official website's "you only have until this date to download your Mythical Pokémon" notice was just set to "TBD" but it now says we have up until March 31st, 2021 to get them.


The actual tickets themselves contradict this and have a download-by date of September 30th, 2020 printed on the back of them but I'm assuming that information's just out-of-date. I'd go with what's written on the movie website instead.


Episode Comparison "A Scare in the Air"
September 5th, 2020

Dogasu @ 22:54 JST -- It's been a while since I've done one of these, huh? Today I've put together a write-up for the second episode in the Orange Islands arc, "A Scare in the Air."


This comparison is a long one. I really tried to cut it down since I realize that, in the year 2020, very few people read long-form essays like this all the way through, but the sheer number of dialogue edits and supplementary information necessitated a longer than usual comparison. The rant I go into about the use of Japanese text in the show probably doesn't help much either!

I'm also trying out a few new things with this comparison; mainly, adding the original Japanese text for every single line of dialogue brought up and adding screencaps to go along with each and every dialogue edit. What do you think? Do you think they make the comparison easier to follow? And would you like to see me do this for future comparisons?