June 2010

Dogasu's Backpack | Old Updates Archive | June 2010

"The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark Navigate DVD"
June 25th, 2010

Dogasu @ 09:27 JST -- This Tuesday, a special DVD was made available to rent at Tsutaya stores across Japan. The DVD, entitled The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark Navigate DVD, has a lot of interesting information in it, so I did a write-up about the DVD in the Features section.

The DVD also alerted me to the fact that release of the single for Sukima Switch's Ice Cream Syndrome has been moved back a bit. The CDs, which were originally scheduled to come out on June 30th, now have a release date of July 7th. I've updated the CD Guide accordingly.

The DVD also gave me a new screenshot to use for the Recycled Characters page.

In other news, the Japanese Amazon site has been updated with information about an upcoming DVD that will contain nine Ginga-Dan centered episodes. The DVD, called the (deep breath) Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl "The Decisive Battle! The Ginga-Dan!! The Shin'ou Time-Space Legend Complete Edition" will come out this August for the super cheap (especially by Japanese standards) price of 2,500 yen. The DVD will also contain textless versions of all the openings and ending themes to the Diamond & Pearl series. The nine episodes and eight music videos all appear to be crammed onto one double-layered disc, so it'll be interesting to see how the video quality fares.

I've updated the DVD Guide with more detailed information about this release. The So which episodes are available on DVD in Japan, anyway? page has also been updated.

Amazon also has a release date of July 16th, 2010 for the graphic novel collection of Inoue Momota's manga adaptation of The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark.

I'll try my best to get another update out to you guys before the end of the weekend, but I can't make any promises.

"Pikachu's Goodbye," Manga images, Video Game info
June, 2010

Dogasu @ 19:15 JST -- I've got a fairly biggish update for you tonight!

First up is my next Kanto comparison, "Pikachu's Goodbye."

Sometimes when I write comparisons, I have this bad writer's block that really keeps me from finishing one of these things in a timely manner. But not this time! This comparison was actually fairly painless, giving me hope that maybe, after ten years of doing these things, I'm finally getting the hang of things.

I also went and scanned a few panels from the third chapter of the Zorro'ark manga adaptation and added them to the summary I posted for the last update. I love the WTF!? look on Guraena's face in that one panel.

Nintendo's E3 show has come and gone, and with it came confirmation that PokéPark Wii Pikachu's Big Adventure (retitled PokéPark Wii Pikachu's Adventure) and Pokemon Ranger and the Tracks of Light (retitled Pokémon Ranger Guardian Signs) will be out in the U.S. later this year. I haven't played the PokéPark game (I plan to, though), but I played the third Ranger game to death and absolutely loved it. I'm not really crazy about the changing names for the sake of changing names thing going on with the Ranger game (Pokémon Pinchers? Really!?), but I won't be getting the English version anyway so it's no sweat off my back. Anyway, I've updated the Video Games pages with the English information.

"The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark" Synopsis - Part Three
June 16th, 2010

Dogasu @ 07:32 JST -- The newest issue of CoroCoro Comics is out in Japan, and with it comes the third part of Inoue Momota's adaptation of this summer's Zorro'ark movie. I've written a summary of the chapter that can be read here.

Sorry about the lack of images there. I wanted to get this summary out as quickly as possible and knew that scanning select images would have delayed this update, so I decided to just go ahead and put out a huge block of text instead. I'll post some pictures of this (and the other two chapters) later.

Sukima Switch's "Ice Cream Syndrome," the ending theme to said movie, seems to have been leaked already, so I'll see what I can do about getting some lyrics for that posted.

Music Updates
June 13th, 2010

Dogasu @ 19:55 JST -- Now that I finished that huge essay that was hanging over my head for a while, I'm free to work on some other updates.

The big news of the weekend are the seven new pokemon who are apparently going to be revealed in the issue of CoroCoro Comics that will be going on sale this Tuesday. So, I've added their names to the List of Pokemon. A few notes on their names:

Gearu seems to have the same thing going on that Pearlulu (Clamperl) does; normal word ending with an r or l (pearl, gear) followed by a random u.
The shima in Shimama means "stripe." Which makes sense, considering it's a zebra and all.
I'm not a huge fan of leaving the double i intact in Chiramii's name, but until I can find out more about the pokemon, that's the romanization I'll go with. The pokemon's zukan entry in the scans brings up its tail alot, but that doesn't really help me any.
Hihidaruma's name seems to be a combination of hihi ("baboon") and daruma sutoobu ("potbelly stove").
The "pato" in Mamepato's name means "pigeon."
Meguroc seems to be a combination of me ("eye") and kuroku ("croc").

I've also added the cover art for that first Pokémon Elements box set (*yawn*) as well as the CD covers for the special edition of Ice Cream Syndrome and the soundtrack for The Illusionary Conqueror, Zorro'ark.

Finally, I've added the lyrics to Oyasumi Boku no Pikachuu to the Lyrics Guide. That's the insert song used during the farewell montage in Episode 039, "Pikachu's Woods" and is apparently only featured on the first Pocket Monsters CD ever released, TV Animation "Pocket Monsters" Theme Songs. While I was at it, I also decided to go ahead and add the lyrics to the full version of Mezase Pokemon Master and redo the lyrics for Hykau Go-juu Ichi.

As I mentioned earlier, the new issue of CoroCoro Comics will be out this week, so I'll be sure to pick up a copy and get a summary of the third part of the Zorro'ark movie adaptation posted.

"Electric Soldier Porygon"
June 11th, 2010

Dogasu @ 07:25 JST -- I hope this was worth the wait! Here's the essay for "Electric Soldier Porygon."

I really enjoyed writing this and learned a lot in the process. One of the reasons it took me so long to write was that I kept having issues figuring out what to focus on. In the end, I decided that the only way I'd ever get it done was to narrow the focus on the effects the episode had on the rest of the show and to ignore most of the medical stuff that every other Porygon article on the Internet loves to include. I'd really like to hear your feedback on this one, so please send me an e-mail or leave a comment in either the thread up on Bulbagarden or on this site's Facebook page.

Also, it looks like Pocket Monsters Platinum is the most pirated game on the Nintendo DS, according to Siliconera. So...congrats?

Another one of those "getting everything up-to-date" updates
June 4th, 2010

Dogasu @ 07:25 JST -- The essay for "Electric Soldier Porygon" is taking a looooooong time to finish, so I thought I'd take a break from that for a minute to do a quick update.

Today's update I have for you today is the lyrics to the full-sized version of Saikoh! Everyday. The full version was released on CD back in February, but for one reason or another I hadn't gotten around to posting the full version until now.

I've also tweaked the front page of the Manga Guide to make things more consistent across the board. Now, instead of having a mix of romanizations of Japanese titles and translations, I have a translation of the title followed by the title of the series, written out in Japanese.

The List of Anime Episodes has been updated as well.

Finally, I've fixed a few errors regarding video game names that Rex Kamex pointed out to me over in that thread on Bulbagarden.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish the essay for the Porygon episode before the Season 13 premiere, but I'll try my hardest.