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Rumor Guide: Gary Oak can drive
May 27th, 2025

Dogasu @ 22:52 JST -- A lot of fans of the Pocket Monsters animated series swear Satoshi's rival, Shigeru, used to not only ride around the Kanto Region in a red convertible but that he was the one actually driving the thing as well! But is there any truth to this? Let's find out, once and for all, in the newest entry to the Rumor Guide I'm calling "Gary Oak can drive."


I take a look at all the episodes in which Shigeru's appeared with his red car, one by one, to find out if there's any truth to this rumor. I also take a look at Takeshi Shudo's novelization and its claims that ten-year-olds are considered to be legal adults to see what bearing, if any, that has on these driving rumors. It's a fairly straightforward entry but it's one I'm hoping can be used as a useful reference the next time you see someone talking about children in Pokémon driving cars.


Manga Guide: CoroCoro Ichiban! July/August 2025 Issue
May 24th, 2025

Dogasu @ 15:37 JST -- Another month, another batch of new manga chapters to add to the Manga Guide!


Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~!, the "Pokémon tries its hand at a Yu-Gi-Oh! type manga" series. In this month's chapter Retto and Letto play a series of matches using the "Glory of the Rocket-Dan" expansion pack. Can the young boys master the unique cards to become victorious?

Pokémon Frienda Oshiete! Friender-Man, the comic based on the current Pokémon arcade game Pokémon Frienda. In this month's chapter Renda learns about Pokémon type match-ups before facing off against a powerful Xerneas.


Pokémon 4-Koma Gakuen, the series of Pokémon related comic strips that runs in CoroCoro Ichiban! In this month's collection the Pokémon students go on a field trip.


In other news, the magazine CoroCoro Ichiban! appears to maybe be going from a monthly publication to a bi-monthly one...? I haven't seen any official announcements stating this yet, but the ads in the back of this month's issue reveal there isn't going to be a new issue next month and that the next one is scheduled to be released on July 18th instead. That July 18th issue is being labeled as the September/October 2025 issue, which implies that maybe the magazine will also skip August and won't be coming out until September...? So who knows! CoroCoro Ichiban! actually started out as a bi-monthly magazine back in 2005 before switching over to a monthly release schedule in 2011, so there is a precedent for this sort of thing. We'll just have to wait and see.

Either way, we'll still have at least new chapters of Pocket Monsters Special and Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters to look forward to next month, so June won't be completely free of Pocket Monsters manga!


Episode Comparison: "Hello, Pummelo!"
May 17th, 2025

Dogasu @ 09:59 JST -- There's only a few episodes left in the Orange Islands for me to do Episode Comparisons for and so let's get started on that final spurt! Today I have a brand new Comparison, this time for the first episode of the two part final battle of the region, "Hello, Pummelo!"


The localized version of this episode features a lot of weird lore changes, mistranslated video game terms, random paint edits, and more, so be sure to check it out!



Manga Guide: Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters & Pocket Monsters Special
May 6th, 2025

Dogasu @ 23:45 JST -- I'm still not quite used to the online only manga release schedules yet so apologies for the lateness of these, but here are the newest batch of Manga Guide updates:


Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters, the longest running Pocket Monsters manga in Japan, had its newest chapter released at the end of last month. Pippi and Namakero face off in a battle of laziness; who will win!?

Pocket Monsters Special, aka "Pokémon Adventures" in the West. In this month's chapter Scarlet and Nemo are captured by the Star-Dan while Violet faces off against the Gym Leader Aoki.