Happy Anniversary! (Year Eleven)

Dogasu's Backpack | Rants | Happy Anniversary! (Year Eleven)

By Dogasu
Posted 01-31-2011

Eleven years! It’s not as nice a number as ten, but it’s still an important milestone in any website’s life since it's the start of the page's second decade in existence. It still manages to be exciting even all these years later.

This past year was another big one for the site. It was the year when I started doing comparisons of the most recent episodes again after taking a break for DP Battle Dimension and most of DP Galactic Battles. It was the year I revamped the site’s Manga section and started covering new chapters as they were released in Japan, posting what is often the only information about these series in English. It was the year I revamped a lot of the pages in the Lyrics Section. It was the year I started the site’s Twitter page. It was the year I turned this website into a Digimon site for April Fool’s Day.

A lot happened in 2010, and I’m more or less proud of all the stuff I put out. I’m kind of bummed at the fact that I didn’t do more Kanto comparisons than I did last year, but I think the 47 Diamond & Pearl comparisons I did in the meantime more than make up for it.

When it comes to things that aren’t this website, Pocket Monsters had another huge year. It’s hard to believe that we didn’t even know the titles of the first set of Generation V games this time last year yet now have the Japanese versions in our hands with the international versions just around the corner. It’s also hard to believe that the incredibly polarizing Best Wishes! is out, with its different protagonists and lack of Contests and more childish Satoshi and super serious Rocket-Dan and all that.

So what’s coming down the line in 2011? Well, I want to continue putting out new comparisons and new manga summaries, of course, but I don’t want to stop there. The List of Techniques, something I’ve been talking about updating for a few months now, will finally get the revamp it desperately needs. And remember how I was supposed to finish the CD Guide last year? Well, I think this might be the year I actually get that done.

I really want to revamp the site’s layout, but I honestly don’t think that will be something I’ll be able to do this year given the various real world things I'll have going on in 2011. Maybe next year?

I always end these things with a list of predictions for the following year, so here goes:

The Best Wishes! TV series is going to have to slow down at some point. Otherwise, Satoshi will be facing the eighth Gym Leader before the end of the year. Since Kanto slowed down after the sixth gym, I think Isshu will do the same.
I think there will be a total of fifteen Best Wishes! episodes released in 2011 in which the Rocket-Dan do not appear at all. We’ve already had two Rocket-less episodes so far, so I don’t think that number is so far-fetched at all.
Now that a handful of Best Wishes! episodes are out, I think Japan might finally try releasing the series on DVD again. Now's as good a time as ever, right?
I also think this will be the year we’ll see our first Pocket Monsters-related Blu-Ray. It's about damn time, right?
Since Viz seems to be releasing Pokémon DVDs again, I think we’ll actually see a home release of Zoroark - Master of Illusions before the end of the year. I also think they’ll finish up DP Galactic Battles and start releasing DP Sinnoh League Victors on DVD before the end of the year.
As far as video games go, we already know we’ll be getting Battle and Get! Pokemon Typing DS in the spring. It was also recently announced that a 3DS and a Wii game are in the works. I think the 3DS game will be a spin-off (Pokemon Snap 2, please?) and the Wii game will be a game similar to Coliseum and XD. I don’t think we’ll see any main series Pocket Monsters games released for the 3DS’ e-store anytime this year (or ever, really), but I do think we’ll possibly see the puzzle games released for the service.
Viz will continue releasing Adventures, and will maybe release the manga adaptation of the Zorro’ark movie, but I think that’ll be it. I don’t see the company releasing any other series in 2011. I can see Viz putting the series online for their iPad app, though.
On the music side of things, we’ll get TV Animation Pocket Monsters Original Soundtrack Best 1997-2010 Vol. 2, a soundtrack for Victini and the Dark Hero, Zekrom, and at least three releases for the ending theme (regular, special edition, and regular version + DVD). I also think it’s likely we’ll have a new opening and ending theme premiere before the end of the year, so we’ll be getting CD singles for those as well.

I hope you guys enjoyed 2010 as much as I did. See you all in 2012!