Happy Anniversary! (Year Twelve)

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

By Dogasu
Posted 01-31-2012

This site is a dozen years old. That's freaking insane.

This past year hasn't been the most active in the site's history, and for that I apologize. I moved to Tokyo in March, went like two months without a steady Internet connection, and took on a job that requires me to work a good three to four hours a day more than I did before the move to Tokyo. I still love this franchise very much and still have all these grand plans for this website, but for one reason or another that didn't really come through as much this year. Maybe I need to work on my time management better? Not spend as much time writing lengthy, essay-length posts on message boards? Focus on finishing one project at a time instead of working on five things at once?

I don't want to be too negative, though, since I did manage to accomplish a few things here and there. I completed 23 episode comparisons, including three Aloe episodes that required me to take 200 screencaps and an episode that had a number of edits made to it because of the 3/11 disaster. My website provided some of the first information on Pocket Monsters RéBURST. I held the site's first contest and (eventually) posted the three comparisons I had promised watchermark. Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version came out in the U.S., so I updated various sections of the site accordingly.

My big goal for 2012 is to update the site's layout. Seriously. I want to make this site look attractive, I want the side navigation to work better, I want to get rid of the site's "fat" (almost everything under "Miscellaneous" over there), I want to expand other sections...I want this site to be better. I'm going to wait until I'm more up to date with my episode comparisons and whatnot before starting the time-consuming task of switching everything over, but I hope that by this time next year, you guys will be reading this on a better, less ugly version of this website.

Before I wrap this up, I wanted to give out my predictions for 2012. There are a few safe ones in there, but there are also some that are a little more risky:

Pocket Monsters Grey gets announced and released sometime in the fall.
A new Pokémon Ranger game will come out for the 3DS. It'll be awesome, but the fandom will ignore it because it has bad taste.
I don't think we'll ever see any of the main series games pop up on the Nintendo eShop, but I do think there's a chance we'll see Pokemon Pinball and / or Pokémon Puzzle Challenge appear on the service this year.
The WiiU is supposed to come out by the end of the year, and I'm betting Nintendo will have something related to Pocket Monsters ready to go from day one.
In the TV series, Satoshi will get his sixth badge, then there will be a long break, and then he'll get badge number seven. I don't think he'll get his eighth badge until early 2013.
Pokemon evolutions: In addition to the ones that are being spoiled in the current ending theme, I think Satoshi's Gantle will evolve one more time. I also think his Gamagaru will evolve into a Gamageroge because, hey, why not?
I don't think the Rocket-Dan are going to get any more pokemon this year. The writers don't really treat them like Pokemon Trainers anymore, and any new captures at this point would just be pointless since they'd never appear anyway.
I think 2012 will be the year The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan two-parter airs. Otherwise, they might as well not even bother airing them at all. They'll probably be heavily edited to retcon them into the second half of the series, but at least they'll air.
I think the big plotline of the summer will be another gathering of the rival characters, sort of like last year's Don Battle arc but hopefully not as sucky. The title of the 15th season of the English dub is Black & White Rival Destinies, after all. I'm sure that's not a coincidence.
I don't think there will be a Pokemon Smash episode on March 11th because TV-Tokyo will be busy commemorating the one year anniversary of last year's disaster.
This year will be the TV series' 15th anniversary, so I think there will be a TV special or something to celebrate. Maybe a web-only thing? Maybe something that premieres in the US before Japan, like The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon?
I don't think the TV series is going to get a new opening theme. I think we'll be watching Best Wishes! all the way up to the Isshu League.
I think we'll see a total of seven CDs released this year. We're obviously going to get one for Nana-Iro Arch, a soundtrack for Kyurem vs. The Sacred Swordsman, and three releases for the movie's ending theme (regular, regular edition + DVD, and limited edition with some Pokemon artwork). That's five. I also think we'll get a single release for whatever new ending theme the TV series gets later in the year. The seventh CD release will probably be something random. Last year the wild card was that compilation of Matsumoto Rika songs, so I'm thinking the odd release this year will be another collection of the opening and ending themes. It'd be cheap to produce and would give them a way to release a full version of Kimi no Mune ni La La La, the final ending theme to Diamond & Pearl.
I think we'll see an English dub of the Kyurem movie by December.
On the manga side of things, I think Viz will pick up the rights to Pocket Monsters RéBURST. They'll probably make it to the end of the Diamond & Pearl part of Pokémon Adventures as well.

I can't wait to see what 2012 has in store, both for the franchise and this website. Thanks for continuing to visit and I hope to continue to educate / entertain you guys for years to come.