Manga Guide: CoroCoro Ichiban! May 2025 Issue Updates, plus the return of Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters
March 30th, 2025

Dogasu @ 23:02 JST -- The May 2025 issue of the magazine CoroCoro Ichiban! came out last week and so here's a roundup of the two Pocket Monsters manga featured in this month's issue.


Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~!, the "Pokémon tries its hand at a Yu-Gi-Oh! type manga" series. In this month's chapter Letto's on a video call with his mom, Ouri, when she suddenly challenges him to a Pokémon Card Game duel! As the two try out the new "Enhanced Expansion Pack: Hot Wind Arena" set, can Letto and his Shirona's Gaburias ex defeat Ouri and her Hibiki's Houou ex?

Pokémon 4-Koma Gakuen, one of the current series of Pokémon related comic strips. In this month's collection the Pokémon students announce their goals for the upcoming semester.

As reported previously, Pocket Monsters Special has left the pages of CoroCoro Ichiban! and will be a web-only series moving forward. The first original, web-exclusive chapter is scheduled to come out Friday, April 4th. There's also no new Pokémon Frienda Oshiete! Friender-Man chapter this month, though this series is mostly a once every other month type of release so that was to be expected.

In other news:


Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters is now back from its hiatus with a brand new four page chapter. In this month's installment the trio's passing around of a heating pad catches the eyes of a nearby rugby team.


Manga Guide: Pocket Monsters The Animated Series Rising ⤴ 4-Koma Volteccers
March 20th, 2025

Dogasu @ 07:06 JST -- The issue of CoroCoro Comics that went on sale last week created a lot of buzz for being the first official news source to reveal the Pocket Monsters Mega Voltage story arc, but one thing a lot of people seem to have overlooked is that the issue also included a brand new comic! The comic's called Pocket Monsters The Animated Series Rising ⤴ 4-Koma Volteccers (アニメポケットモンスターライジング⤴４コマボルテッカーズ) and so I've updated the Manga Guide with information on this collection of comic strips.


As usual, I've updated the Manga Guide with general information about the series itself, a plot summary (well, as much of a plot summary as I can do for a series of comic strips), and information about its author.

All signs point to this simply being a one-shot, but if there are any future installments of this series of comic strips I'll be sure to let you know.


Rumor Guide: March 14th is a holiday known as "Satoshi Day"
March 14th, 2025

Dogasu @ 20:19 JST -- If you listen to Pokémon fans on the Internet then today, March 14th, is a holiday known as "Satoshi Day." But what is "Satoshi Day," anyway? And is it a real holiday? The newest entry to the site's Rumor Guide addresses those very questions in an entry I'm calling "March 14th is a holiday known as "Satoshi Day"."


The article takes a look at why the March 14th date was chosen to be "Satoshi Day" before looking into whether or not the holiday's ever been officially recognized by The Pokémon Company or any other official entity. It's a fairly short entry but should still hopefully provide enough new information to make it worth linking to during conversations about the holiday and its significance.


Episode Comparison: "The Wacky Watcher!"
March 8th, 2025

Dogasu @ 23:31 JST -- It's new Episode Comparison time, and so today I look at the changes 4Kids made in Orange Islands episode "The Wacky Watcher!"


This is the episode where the English dub turned the character-of-the-day into a Groucho Marx caricature, for some reason, and so there are about 50 bajillion rewrites for us to go through this time around. The comparison also touches upon 1930s comedy films, pointless Paint Edits, fourth wall breaks, and a whole lot more, so get ready because this one's a doozy!


Manga Guide: Pokémon Fan Issue 92 Update
March 5th, 2025

Dogasu @ 23:40 JST -- A new issue of Pokémon Fan came out last week and so here's the usual Manga Guide update:


Pokémon 4-Koma Daihyakka, that other collection of four panel gag comics. In this issue's chapter the Pokémon all enjoy creating snow sculptures of themselves.

There are two other comic series running in Pokémon Fan but I'm not really covering them at the moment.

The first one is Pokémon Chou Dajare Club (ポケモン超だじゃれクラブ), or "The Pokémon Super Pun Club," by TAK.BR / Santa Harukaze (TAK.BR/春風邪三太). It's yet another four-panel comic strip series, only this time its punchlines are all centered around untranslatable Japanese puns that make coverage of the series take way, way more time and effort than it's probably worth.

The other series is Pokémon Quiz Puzzle Land Pikachu no Takara Sagashi (ポケモンクイズパズルランド　ピカチュウの宝さがし), or "Pokémon Quiz Puzzle Land: Pikachu's Treasure Hunt," with the comic portion being done by Kemon Kawamoto (河本けもん) and the puzzles by Hiroshi Takase (嵩瀬 ひろし). In the current iteration of this series, Pikachu and the Paldea starters help whatever Pokémon needs help that issue, with the twist being that every page has a quiz or puzzle that readers are invited to solve. So the comic will be something like "Let's try looking under this rock...oh look! A Pokémon themed word search!" And then half that page will taken up by a word search, or a maze, or a rebus, etc. And this repeats over and over for like nine pages. Covering a series like this would require me to translate and/or post all the puzzles, something that, again, takes more time and effort than it's probably worth.

The next issue of Pokémon Fan (and therefore, the next chapter of Pokémon 4-Koma Daihyakka) is scheduled to come out April 25th, 2025.