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Massive Manga Guide Catch-Up: CoroCoro Ichiban!, Pokémon Fan, CoroCiao, CoroCoro Online
December 29th, 2025

Dogasu @ 10:58 JST -- I've fallen a bit behind with all the Pocket Monsters related manga released in the past month and a half and so today's update is all about getting up-to-date again. I've got eleven brand new summaries up in the Manga Guide so let's jump right in:


Pocket Monsters Special Scarlet & Violet Chapters 26 & 27:  In Chapter 26 Nemo tells the Four Heavenly Kings all about Scarlet, a fake Botan runs around Grape Academy, and Violet and Peper start their hunt for the final Spice. In Chapter 27, Scarlet gets some concrete details about the four shrines and the Calamitous Pokémon sealed inside. Meanwhile, the real Botan is kidnapped by the Star-Dan!?

In other Pocket Monsters Special news, a little text blurb on the top of the title page for Chapter 27 reveals that the fourth Scarlet & Violet graphic novel is scheduled to come out January 28th, 2026. Volume 65 of the regular graphic novel release is still TBD, though some online retailers are putting a "late March" date as a placeholder.


Kousaku Anakubo's Pocket Monsters is back from hiatus! In Chapter 53 Pippi and Pikachu get into a fight while in Chapter 54 Pippi faces off against a Mega Fushigibana. In addition to the usual story synopses I've also added translations of comments Mr. Anakubo made about his time off.


Pokémon Card Game Yarouze~! Mega Chapter, the "Pokémon tries its hand at a Yu-Gi-Oh! type manga" series. I've added two chapter summaries here. In the first one, Retto and Letto get a taste of what it's like to face up against Mega Evolution ex Pokémon with the help of the "Inferno X" expansion pack. In the second chapter, the two face off against the Quiz Master in a series of brain teasers all about the new Start Deck 100 Battle Collection series.

On another note, the series' title underwent a bit of a change lately, going from "Scarlet & Violet Edition" to "Mega Edition," and so I'm taking this opportunity to change the way I cover this series moving forward. From now on I'll be switching over to doing more traditional chapter summaries in lieu of the more hyper detailed play-by-plays I had been doing for this series up until this point. This should greatly reduce the amount of work needed to cover each chapter, freeing me up to work on other sections of the site.


Pokémon 4-Koma Gakuen, the series of Pokémon related comic strips that runs in CoroCoro Ichiban! In the first collection of comic strips the Pokémon do a bunch of arts and crafts, and in the second collection they work together to do the end-of-year school cleaning.


Pokémon Frienda Oshiete! Friender-Man, the comic based on the current Pokémon arcade game Pokémon Frienda. In the newest chapter a new character named Makoto Hazama has trouble deciding which Pokémon Frienda picks he should place in his new carrying case and so Friender-Man and Renda decide to help him out. Can Makoto defeat a powerful Hoopa Unbound and add it to his collection?

Pokémon 4-Koma Daihyakka, that other collection of four panel gag comics, though this one runs in the magazine Pokémon Fan. In this newest collection the Pokémon go to a shopping mall run by other Pokémon.


And finally, a brand new comic came out earlier this month called Hikakin wa Kyou mo PokéCa wo Yaru  (ヒカキンは今日もポケカをやる), or "Hikakin's Gonna Play the Pokémon TCG Today As Well." In what appears to be a one-shot comic, famous Japanese YouTube Hikakin plays the Pokémon Trading Card Game with "Masuespar," the editor-in-chief at CoroCoro Comics. It's basically a comic to promote the new Start Deck 100 Battle Collection CoroCiao Ver. and its new card, "Influencer's Introduction." I've got the usual series overview, author bio, character descriptions, and chapter summary.


And that's it for 2025! In the next few days I'll be making a post about my plans for the site as we get ready to dive into the Johto portion of the animated series.


Episode Comparison: "The Rivaly Revival"
December 12th, 2025

Dogasu @ 09:38 JST -- It's time for a new Episode Comparison! Let's see what all was changed in the last episode of the Orange Islands part of the original Pocket Monsters (1997) TV series, "The Rivaly Revival."


It's been a little over five years since I started really diving into the Orange Islands portion of the TV series again. I posted an updated comparison for "A Scare in the Air" back in September 2020 and have been going through the Orange Islands part of the show one episode at a time ever since. At the rate of about one new comparison a month I should have finished all this by the end of Summer 2023 or so, but obviously things ended up taking a bit longer than expected. Still, we're finally here, and I'm so happy I can now say I have comparisons up for each and every episode of the Generation One portion of the animated series.

The next episode is the start of Johto, obviously, but there are also a few things I'm going to want to get out of the way first before I really dive into the Gold & Silver era of the show and so I'm not going to start right away. I'll provide more details on my plans in a later update.

Until then, enjoy the newest comparison!