I miss pikachu shorts The carbink can talk? Only some. CGI crystals… Okay so Diantha is like an rpg protagonist princess who had to use the crystal to seal Yveltal away or something Hey, that’s the ace trainer from mega evolution You can tell when the movie characters stopped being designed in house because they look like characters from different franchises Team rocket sneaking in the background and background characters looking at them like they’re weirdos They literally shoved Diancie into a bag and ran CGI diamonds I bet they vanish after a while huh I like how in the games most legendaries are secret but in the anime it’s like any random guy can know about a legendary like it’s whatever The girls are going shopping for clothes They gave Diancie clothes too Watching this when my last movie was lucario and the mystery of mew and now it’s like a fantasy RPG adventure in a hidden land versus the gang being in a mall Serena uses her powers of rhyhorn riding and being able to magically communicate with them to chase down the villains All the bad guys are using the Kalos final starters Load bearing diamond This has just felt like a really long episode as opposed to a big movie Yveltal is treated as a big evil in the movie but like it was just eepy and they were supposed to keep it asleep so it couldn’t keep killing I wonder if the ash dies tally will be added to The bad guys are trying to fight Yveltal with an airship that shoots missiles and that bird was not having that for a minute Yeah I think they’re dead, the ship just landed in the lake Diancie was told by xerneas “you have to believe in yourself” and since none of that worked aside from her mega evolving xerneas went “fine I’ll do it myself” Yveltal is still out there so uh, I’m pretty sure some poor place is going to get their life drained I’m sure that problem might solve itself eventually This entire movie could’ve gone a lot faster if Xerneas intervened sooner Pikachu is dying No, you can’t do that to me The villains quit their jobs and went to becoming normal members of society That was certainly a movie.

You're taking too long.

You're taking too long.

Less of any actual thing I read but just a collection from interviews I thought was neat.

Are there any characters from the Pokémon universe that appeal to you in particular, and why do you feel so strongly about them? H. K. : Well, with regards to the Pokémon themselves, I have taken a stance that I love them all equally, so they are all my favourite! Having said that, there are two characters that I became very intimate with after spending so much time with them in the Pokémon Adventures series: Deoxys and Mewtwo. I think that I managed to convey their feelings of loneliness and isolation pretty well. Deoxys in particular left a big impression on me, thanks in large part to the efforts of the illustrator, Satoshi Yamamoto, and his awesome drawings of that character. Looking at the human characters as well, I really cannot decide on one overall favourite there either. There is always a greater pull on my heart from the protagonists of a story that I am currently involved in writing, so at the moment it would probably have to be the stars of Pokémon Adventures Black & White. S. Y. : My favourite character is Diamond, a main character from Pokémon Adventures Diamond & Pearl/Platinum. I would say that this is because I am not at all fond of the sort of stories where you have superhuman characters with genius like abilities that use their overwhelming power and charisma to change the world. Instead I get great satisfaction from drawing all the way to the end of the kind of more subtle, subdued and non-dynamic shonen manga, where regular kids with no special powers or abilities create something that guides the world in a better direction. Do you strictly follow the game, or do you get to make up your own stories and add your own details? Kusaka: I think these days we have been following pretty close to the game. We have been doing this for 20 years, now. Within that span of time, it has changed a little in each period. In the beginning, for a couple of years, we really did whatever we wanted, but since then -- the Pokémon business itself has become worldwide, and now that it is worldwide, we have to really think about different components and different issues. So the amount of freedom we get now is different from the amount of freedom we got in the very beginning. But at the same time, to have these limitations in place but think about how can we make this the most exciting thing within those [constraints] is also a very interesting thing to think about. How complex is to work on a static franchise like Pokémon while introducing your own ideas? Kusaka: Working on Pokémon is difficult. Maybe the most difficult part is that we have to follow the story of another product, which is a video game. We can't afford to create a manga that people playing the video games don't like. On the other hand, if everything was exactly the same between the games and the adaptation, the manga would be boring. When you're playing a Pokémon game, you put yourself into the character, whereas an established character has to drive the story in a manga. We have to create good characters and surprise people as they're reading. That balance between what we have to change and what remains the same is probably the most difficult part. Is it hard? I mean, the first steps before starting work on the manga. Kusaka: During the creative process, there's always some parts that are harder than others. Right now we're playing Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon but we haven't started working on the manga adaptation. What I've already seen is that if I create a script exactly the same as the game, it's going to be quite a cold plot. This one is probably the most difficult game adaptation we've faced. You're both part of one of the biggest franchises in the entire world. How does it feel? Kusaka: It's wonderful. You can find tons of different opinions about the success of the Pokémon video games, but I think it's just because it's a really good and fun game. It's also a video game enjoyable for everyone: from boys to girls, childrens to adults. Every person can get some fun from it in a different way. It's great for the manga as well. People who started reading it as children are now adults, and we try to add some mature elements to the plot so that range of readers can also enjoy the story from a different perspective than the youngest readers. Yamamoto: For me, it's a marvelous feeling. I feel grateful. Being responsible for a manga adaptation like Pokémon might seem exhausting, but I have quite a great deal of freedom and I usually get permission to add some feelings I'm actually experiencing in my own life to the story, like anger or distress. I consider myself very lucky and peaceful, and I think it's because people have gotten used to the fact that the manga rides a line where you can see the video games reflected while still discovering some new “crazy” plot twists.

I’m kinda waffling on posting back to back.

Last time I posted about Pokespe in the chronicles was in Log 2, I only posted about volume 1. In this edition, I have finished all 6 volumes and the bonus chapter because it turns out that unlike the BW2 arc if the entire thing is finished in a reasonable timespan then there’s no reason to wait for years on end, wow. I’ll never get over the release dates for all the games causing the BW2 arc to be delayed for years by the way. It took 1728 days for Black to be free which was 4 years of waiting in real life time. Doesn’t matter unless I do a BW reading. Time for the Kalos Crew. It’s more image heavy and unfortunately I sure can’t post that about the manga because there’s a bunch of people twirling red flags in kalos and no one seems to actually be paying attention enough to realize things are getting out of hand aside from the kids. Teaming up with PC punks and a bill cameo, how neat! I like how it’s an actual plot point about Y’s mom being the rhyhorn racer and how she became a sky trainer to separate herself from that (even though sky battles are such an exclusive battle style) Grace broke out of jail with the key pokemon which is very cool, too bad it didn’t work. I don’t know what Viz called Y. Probably like… Yvonne or Yvette or something. X was Xavier, I think? I reread up to Volume 3 (the release schedule for this is so weird.) In this volume, team flare shows up again and then it turns out the news is hiding the attack on Vaniville town. Sidenote since these were separate pages on notion: (Did I really just keep rereading it for pacing purposes? That’s silly of me.) Last volume I reread was 2, where I recall Trevor being terrified of lysandere and grace leading all of vaniville town into trying to escape the flare base only to end up captured again. Thing is no one tried to help her when she escaped before. Idk if this volume was the one where shauna tried to use the honedge or not but moving onto volume 3 and 4 now. That was the plan and then once I hit the later chapters I was like “I’m doing it all in one go!”

This is really one hell of a crew in comparison to what happened to the BW side characters. Like the friend group is pulling their weight. X is pajama boy to me and he’s very neat. He just got a gengar who’s an attention hog. It feels like everyone’s actually more proactive here, well, Diantha is compared to whatever she did in the game. I still don’t get how skating is the big thing for the guru’s granddaughter but whatever. Mega evolution is the bond between the trainer and Pokémon, that’s said many times. So now X is getting a team of just mega Pokémon lol. Malva and diantha are fighting. See, in the game, malva shows up in a random cutscene after the poke ball factory and is an elite 4 member you meet after beating flare but this is actually covering that plot point way more about the fact that she’s a flare member who covers up the news. Oh no, Korrinas key stone got stolen. I’m assuming that’s bad. It is immensely bad. She got hospitalized. Some people don’t know of the Emma postgame thing and that’s a shame. I feel like it’s a good plot part of XY. I’m trying not to just be like wow this is so cool over and over again but I feel like everyone doing something is a lot different than just the player doing stuff but that’s the power of changing mediums I guess. I need to not post every panel… but I want to. Pokespe can be hit or miss with some of the later arcs once I moved on past the DPP arc but when it goes it goes hard and XY is night and day compared to the actual story I went through. Is it over the top, yes. Is it needlessly dramatic, yep. Are these children being put into way too many dangerous scenarios? Yes. And it’s kind of incredible. (I use the word incredible way too much in this.) There’s actual visible consequences to what happens because of the weapon firing off with Pinsir and Scyther. Like in the games they don’t let the player see. In the manga, they let you see. It’s at this point I end up just making a play by play and honestly, if it weren’t for the Blaine appearance this could be a great stand alone but you need to get the RGBY arcs to understand why Blaine is tied to mewtwo. Also it’s kind of great how Green is like in his 20s and still shows up wearing his cape. king behavior. I’m impressed because of how fast paced it is and how it’s a consistent story rather than shoving everything plot wise into the last minute. It’s a contrast.

XY Chronicles (The Anime) They’re out here trying to make the first gym look cool and it’s literally nothing to me. I feel like pokemon works best where it’s not super dramatic all the time, like, i know im dating myself by saying that I liked the indigo league for being quirky. The XY anime is background noise to me than anything in seriously engaged with minus Eureka because she is a ball of sunshine. Serena is in this interesting state of limbo where I know nothing about her minus the shipping. The first reaction of Satoshi and this handkerchief is no reaction at all which is uh. Fascinating. I’m now at 20 episodes in so here’s my updates. Is every episode in XY high stakes or something why is Kalos full of crime. I’m a person who only had VHS tapes of the indigo league and the movie as a child and those fundamentally molded me into a person who likes the older seasons more and I’m struggling to find a good reason to watch through the Pokémon anime of all anime when I know there’s better ones out there. I watch the episodes and then I completely forget what I saw Out of the episodes I think I like 14 the most for being somewhat goofy and also emotional with the espurr, 13 as well for the kid who was afraid of Pokémon. I like 16, eureka episodes are good. The town that was like 3 houses in the game is an entire mountain in the anime of houses. Episode 20 introduces grant and his personality trait is that he just loves walls.

Mega Evolution 1 has begun getting advertised so I guess I should watch them concurrently instead of in one sitting? Corn plate moment, but I noticed that the title card shows which character’s getting a focus on the episode. Ash is focused on training instead of doing funny videos with the friends which is a trend for his character in XY being BORING. I want a rival for him that's just HATING him the entire time because then I could feel some kind of emotion. No it’s funnier when everyone in Kanto just wanted to beat him up and were jerks and mean but now we have coolness and shonen I guess. This show is just full of yes men for him. Somehow this episode about pokemon promo videos ended up being a big moment for Serena where she was like “I’ll protect my starter” when Fennekin could’ve just…. Like…. Walked around the puddle. Maybe I’m overthinking.

(Referring to Greninja and BLAST BURN) Knowing that they made the show's theme so dramatic and used it as an opening theme and insert theme and in the battle only for that shit to happen was insane I can’t imagine what it was like watching it happen live. That lame ass frog. This is an anti binge watching show that I feel would probably be better if I just used a filler guide to get to the “good stuff” but that defeats the entire purpose if I just do it like that. So when should I watch the movie and mega evolution special anyways IDK... This show was not made to be watched for amusement, this is a show you put on for a child to go like “wow, pikachu!” And then you go do something else while the colors spin all around. I might go back to watching the indigo league just to see if there’s that much of a difference.

I’ve heard of slow burn but this is stupid absurd. There’s something about this one that I’d probably have enjoyed more if I watched it as it aired but I didn’t do now I’m watching it and considering using a filler guide because it’s way too formulaic and quite frankly knowing that the conclusion to all of this “hype“ buildup is “BLAST BURN” kind of makes sitting through these early episodes feel lesser. I don’t care in particular for any of the characters so far and power scaling and shipping are my least favorite activities on the planet. It’s probably my nostalgia saying that I’d enjoy marathoning the older seasons more and I don’t even mean Indigo League, I mean Diamond and Pearl since those were the last ones I really watched before dropping it during Unova. Also the fact that I’ve got so many other shows to watch and this one is like…actively making me want to watch other shows instead of watching it. Maybe it’s like a slow burn like how I’ve been watching through Naruto… I feel like trying to make things so serious for every episode does nothing to me. Why a competent team rocket always showing up? It's not like anyone's ever going to actually get hurt.

I still cannot wrap my head around being invested in watching something as formulaic as the Pokémon anime as it aired based on my memories because in the end isn’t it always the same thing of ash and some of his friends going on an adventure, team rocket shows up, rinse and repeat? For years, decades even? Like wouldn’t the arguments just circle around “I like ash because he did some stuff and won some badges, too bad he lost the league though” that was literally every generation until alola but people say that one doesn’t count since it just opened and then journeys happened and when he won the show writers immediately gave him the boot. There's a very easy reason why I'm bouncing off so easily, and it's because the target audience probably did miss episodes but could easily catch Up because this show is so a commercial for children to the point that every episode can be in a bubble. This also extends to the main cast too because it’s like, Ash is adventurous, Brock will get an equivalent of some guy who handles the living situation, there is also a girl. None of the girls ever do anything aside from contests or some kind of contest equivalent like, we’ve never had a battling girl aside from Iris and even then people hated her because she was like “ash you’re a kid!

Masamitsu Hidaka, one of the anime directors, said that he was switching up the girls and taking the game girl designs because "boys need a new piece of eye candy to look at every once in a while." I don’t like that statement.

I am NOT rewatching all of the show, best you’d get from me is indigo to Johto, Sinnoh, and maybe Alola. Movies are fine though. The DP loss is still so hilarious though imagine almost winning and the writers go like “he’s getting too competent, bring out the GameShark”. Like even the narrator’s usually able to recap what was missed an episode before with “someone is doing something, Pokemon.” This is probably because I ended up getting into the digimon anime after DPP instead of watching BW after I watched a few episodes and went “nah,” and there with other shows I was like “wow! cool!” They switch up the protags and mascots and there’s like, actual narratives beyond just “gym badge!” (I could be misremembering a ton of the anime though but like, I never got the vibes there were many stakes outside of the movies or a handful of episodes that remembered there were teams outside of rocket.)

It's not that I don't like Ash, but he's a character I cannot muster any kind of feelings for in either direction. I liked him when I watched him, but the last time I paid attention to Ash’s adventures I was a child. He was there as a constant until he wasn't. He’s like a guy you’d see in school who was in the sports team like “hey bro” and he was always super enthusiastic but he’d never actually get a good shot in during actually important games. They couldn't outright replace Ash because of Pikachu but you know how many Pikachu clones there are? They could’ve baton passed Ash a long time ago and just had him making mini cameos. Which is kind of what happened to certain game protags anyways. There are mini cameos of protagonists within movies like you can spot Ethan, Brendan, and Lucas battling during some opening sequences plus another design of Gold was in an OVA but they called him… Jimmy. Why though. And like, I’m not a person who automatically goes “games better, origins better, Special/Adventures better, red da best, ash is trash” because I don’t have the time or energy to muster an opinion over something like that. I’m the type who is more on the “I think Ash and Red would be friends” train.

I think an anime like this could work with more episodes that are focused on characters other than the main character who’s personality has slowly whittled away and focus more on making people be actual people who can solve their problems and develop without the need for the MC. Plus that means they can show off more Pokémon rather than the main cast’s Pokémon and whatever the character of the day has. Pokémon and a lot of anime in general could do with more anthology type of stories. How much can an episode be carried without Ash? That’s kind of what they do for the movies during the alola era, I’ve heard. This is more of a protagonist centric thing though, like how every episode of a cartoon usually has to have the title character solve the problem because… you know, they're the main character. Kinda like the same problem I’ve been having with Steven Universe. I'm just trying to watch XY because I was told that "this is the good one!" but so far its an endless journey where every episode is created to watch ash on his journey doing the exact same thing over and over of like training... and adventures... and stuff... because blud is trapped in a time loop. There is no other explanation. I found the watch order for XY by the way. rather than try and go for all of it, I'm segmenting it based on the watch order, so now here's what I did this session.

Mega Evolution Act I XY27-35 XY Movie 1

I got told that there’s overview specials but I’m not doing that.

Mega Evolution Act 1: What if pokemon had big fucking mega evolution kaiju fights Hell yeah This owns Why did they make this random ace trainer NPC a plot important character I like her absol having a little glam necklace She just has a glam earring Mega evolutions are like magical transformations This is so cool They have little speeches for their mega evolution powers too?!

I'm over here now like having a wide smile because this looks so cool despite being the exact same stuff They really did cook with Mega Evolutions to be honest, I'm now here like "Charizard is so cool" Pokemon origins is cool Oh man, that kid looks like a chespin Gijinka I'm remembering like bits of the plot based on when I was on tumblr, I think this Alan guy gets the kid's pokemon in a coma or maybe the kid, i don't remember. it's been years. I'm hearing blast burn and dragon claw and it's giving me secondhand flashbacks is it gonna be like this the whole time lol Henshin! Oh, this is a journey of Alain learning to be nice and kind instead of only wanting to be the strong-- DID HE JUST EAT A POKEMON PELLET What is wrong with this guy Why is she NAMED after the pokemon They're really out here with murals of lucario and shit for mega evolution

Is Sycamore like Alan's dad or something Awww, that psyduck just rubbed his leg against him and that guy had zero reaction Come on, I hope he has a moe moment where it turns out he's got a cute habit HE DOES he's petting the garchomp under the neck! He's petting the Charmander! Hey it's me lysanderoth, don't mind the sinister ass music, just do ya thang

So is every single mega stone user just dressed up as an eccentric or just as an NPC That's because his scarf is meant to resemble the mega charizard's flames This guy looks like he's from a different franchise Out here with the Mega Umbrella and shit

They have sakuga scenes for fighting a Flabebe I like how now she's just following him and there's nothing he can actually do about it Alan has acquired a friend. He doesn't have a choice. Is her only character trait being a klutz? "I want to try your unofficial menu" then he flashes his mega ring like this is some kind of secret mega evolution fight club . First rule, don't talk about it. Regardless of type, the bond will overcome reason. They foreshadowed blast burn.
Mega Evolution was the anthology type of story I was thinking about this entire time. Like mini OVA series featuring one character cast for a few episodes rather than a season

The thing about Pokémon journeys is that while most seasons tend to have ash in a particular region doing his own thing and the games stuff gets like glued in like how in advanced he went to kanto for FRLG and in Sinnoh Lyra showed up and for Kalos we had that one guy with the mega Sceptile but for Galar Pokémon journeys said “nah, ash is going globetrotting because our focus is actually Pokémon go” and like the region that focused the least on the pokedex anime wise is now playing second fiddle to completing the pokedex and like I’m fighting just to get the energy to watch XY.

I know this wouldn’t happen with earlier seasons. Or maybe horizons I didn’t get very far with watching Liko’s Journey but like so far having an active driving plot of “what’s going on with the pendant and the turtle” is effective enough even though I probably would’ve also enjoyed liko school slice of life goofs.

Maybe this is another classic case of “you would’ve gotten it more if you watched it as it aired rather than already knowing the ending”

XY36-49 Mega Evolution Act II XY50-54 XY55-64 Mega Evolution Act III XY65-78 XY79-81 XY Movie 2 XY82-93 Mega Evolution Act IV XY+Z1-9 XY+Z Complete Overview Special XY+Z10-33 Movie 19 Premiere Commemoration Special XY Movie 3 XY+Z34-47 XY+Z Special - The Legend of XYZ! XY+Z Special - The Ultimate Duo! Citron and Dent!! I’m going to be honest and say I am NOT doing the overview specials if they aren’t 100% needed like I’m not doing it man This list is outdated since it doesn’t cover all of XY Z I’m using subs

I had some free time and I already did this for XY and most of spe these days is self contained so here I go! Can you believe their names really were just Soudo and Schilly in Japan and even Viz went “we’re not doing that” 43 chapters eh? They’re a lot shorter now though. If you do division, and note that volume 1 years ago was 14 chapters, then this would basically amount to like 3 volumes (Viz tends to release these as mini volumes though.)

Schilly is loud, you see. And Soudo likes crafting and weapons. There’s some guy named Marvin here idk These two are the professor’s assistant, which is why they get the pokedexes. Not Marvin though, he’s just here. Schilly is super smart actually she has a whole secret analysis room of data in her pick up truck

I don’t like the rotom appliances. It disturbs me on a level of knowing that these beings are basically given free rein over electronics in the pokemon world. But they’re not like netnavis, they speak an entirely different language with a lot of Zs in there. Plus how in DP there was only one rotom and now it’s just super common… whatever. Makes no sense for galar to be so selective with gym trainers and endorsements and things, it’s basically a case of you needing to either get lucky and impress someone high up the ladder or definite relationship nepotism status Nicknames in stories are usually just whatever comes to mind, eh? I just make up stuff because it’s nice to imagine pokemon with like personalities instead of just being one note pieces of pixels and models. Pokespe SWSH is… a roadtrip?

Marnie fan powers is taken to the extreme here. They dragged the Yell members into a raid?! Schilly’s pokemon went missing for a year now… aw man. I hope she gets em back. They call the darkest day the black night here in the translation since it’s a fan scan Oh, so Hop Marnie and Bede are kind of a separate group from Gloria and Victor like in Masters in spe. Doesn’t really make sense though, I don’t think Marnie and Bede ever interacted within the game proper… Hop and Schilly the same personality Who endorsed him in this world if it wasn’t Leon though You need to do research on gym trainers and their aces and stuff

There’s more of a peanut gallery here since I guess it’s a giant stadium of sports Pokemon with sports commentary… And there’s an announcer and stuff too. So since it’s Britain, it’d be football (soccer)

Volume 2

Nessa doing an ad and stuff Are gym leaders in Galar like not allowed to have side things because schedules Soudo doesn’t give AF he’s chill like that He’s soloing the gym The resturaunt scene is almost the same Schilly is sad because she’s only got one Pokemon to solo with This is like the first time it’s been a full team from the get go huh Bede is mad now because Rose doesn’t give a shit Schilly named her Pokemon after units and stuff Using the TV to go “have you seen these guys?!” Soudo really wants to hold the weapons because he’s a smith Is his title like the smither? They gotta get that fish out before it gets eaten It ate a pika too?! Smug pika

Raihan has fanservice shots for magazines???? Sword’s team theme is pokemon that hold things, I think, judging by his new member They’ve managed to figure out majority of the plot in the one cutscene spot Raihan is like “this has happened before in other regions with strong pokemon and people using them for nefarious exploits”—continuity we love to see it Don’t just be direct in asking though?! I love how professor magnolias trait is that she drives crazy

Vol 3

He’s hearing his dead dad?! Gear as in… pokegear. No. Schillys voice is so powerful I think it registers as a pokemon move They’re going way more in depth to the Bede thing where it’s like “was being given special treatment what caused him to act out? What future does rose want anyways that requires all the wishing stars?” Rose is clearly doing things for “love” of Galar but idk.

Is Allister just hanging out with them now as a mainstay Why can Schilly read Allister’s mind Ahh, she’s reading his body language Her pokemon pretended to not hear her so he could show off. Cute.

That alcremie is strong, because it feels strong. They’re really making neat side comments about how winning people also get libel and slander and stuff for the sake of the quiz

The power plant exploded and now Leon is here and Sonia and Raihan and they’re all gonna investigate together! Nope, just Raihan Spe paints a different relationship for Leon and Sonia where it seems Sonia wants nothing to do with him at all and they haven’t talked in years. Bede is also here. Bede wasn’t told the purpose of the mission at all, right?! Why did Rose do a teehee moment Bleh. An old man with moe? Jirachi mention for the 1000 year energy crisis ORAS mention of meteor in 10 days What happened to natural electricity for SWSH, do they not have generators It’s all particles?! Just explain it better dummy The wishing stars weren’t an experiment, it was an offering Did Schilly use her dynamax simulator machine for a prank? No. They’re in disguise checking out the tunnel What’s a rubbernecker Ohh, an idiot. That’s my buddy Eric

Volume 4

Pokémon can be fans of other Pokémon Like groupies.

The world of Pokémon only entertainment… Girl almost died from tap dancing Sword is a perfectionist for weapon making (Pokémon edition) You never really think about how many Pokémon just hold stuff until there’s a guy dedicated to fixing that kind of stuff Like is Timburr born with the wood pillar in hand or does it just find one that’s exactly square every time They handle version exclusive gym leaders by having them share the gym

So hop wasn’t endorsed in this world because he was insecure that if he lost it would make his brother look bad There’s a lot of pressure for these two kids, like Marnie is trying to save her town Leon and this friend said they were gonna be the strongest in the world together but the friend gave up and Leon started hiding his negative feelings That friends name? Sonia.

This is so weird that spe Hop hasn’t even said he’s related to Leon Entirely different guy here Bede on screen training arc!! His Pokémon think he’s a nice person. I really like how Spe actually has like characters interact in general, the Galar gym leaders all talking reminds me of like Gen 1 and 3 when the gym leaders would meet up and chat and stuff

It’s those two ugly men with their stupid ass hair from the postgame Why does Piers give Raihan a nickname like Rai rai Okay. The town is modest, not too flashy, and people who don’t like Galar’s way can go there but they get no money from tourists Rose does altruistic things like making childcare centers for trainers with kids, and also he protects people who have been slandered so he does good things instead of in game it being like “Rose is good trust us” XY mention with a guy trying to help only to try eradicating them instead The continuity in this one is making me go “wow, they know stuff!”

Piers also has a nickname for Sonia and she’s called Sunny What the heck, that’s too cute. Let’s go Punk Rock. Never would’ve expected this NPC designed kid would have an MP3 of this stuff. Even the kid is mentioning “well in this world evil people have been gym leaders or the elite four its only natural” like it’s normalized in Spe that it’s a world of inherent evil Galar doesn’t care about local legends whatsoever unlike other reigons, Hoenn mention Commoners and nobles and whatever Is SWSH Spe going to be about abolishing the monarchy God they look ridiculous even now Get off my screen

Sordwart and Shieldbert Get outta here They’re trying to set up themselves as false heroes and took away Schilly’s memory and Pokémon for that Booo Boo I say

Why did that ugly ass hair guy just say Celebrity though. Like a phrase. They used a Doublade to try killing her. Terrible! Okay so there’s lore to the fact that in Galar gym challengers are protected by privacy because of false rumors and accusations Sonia was the one accused of nepotism Let’s go! Finally! I’ve been wanting a plot point like that the whole time!

“If I kept winning maybe people would stop thinking I rigged the matches”, “but how long will all of this last until I reach the champion cup?” It’s kind of bizzare seeing all these continuity reference points like how the Kabu Hoenn thing was a throwaway line in the game from an NPC but here he’s actually talking about Hoenn and the legends and that’s what inspired Sonia to start being a researcher

She wasn’t enjoying herself but she did have fans Team yell?! The gang is teaming up! Everyone reacting to Bede with happiness for him being the gym leader but he says he hates it Ohhh…. Tsundere. It was a hologram

Volume 5



Basically these two rigged up this disaster to try and become heroes in their own right but like they did not have a backup plan whatsoever let’s see what happens He was a hologram type beat Oh no the plan failed Rose is locking in?!

Meanwhile: schilly’s Pokémon have gotten lost in a sewer Rose is genuine but he just doesn’t have like… good judgement. Or hindsight. The end justifies the means. Rose did remember Bede! He did the bleh thing again. What a stupid royal family, erasing history and making it impossible for people to properly know what happened

The sword and shield are poisoned and there is likely an effect There is in fact an effect It’s like all the plot points that were leftover from Sumo came here because that feels like a nihelego poison thing I feel like there’s gotta be an inverse effect for pokespe past gen 2 where it’s like if a game’s plot is actually executed well then the spe one feels lesser in comparison but when a game’s plot has nothing to work with then spe has to go with making it’s own spin and like XY and SWSH are actually way better than what I expected

Moon reference because shes friends with Kiara DLC episode is a go! Avery teleport!

Vol 6

Bede really does think of rose as his dad lol Schilly is so nice… she really is considerate of Soudo even though he got extreme tunnel vision The starters in this group really do coordinate themselves with the sticks… like a band. Him and this Kubfu… they’re alike because they’re both kinda awkward. Oh the narrator’s taking over, the effect of “we gotta finish up, go go go” is coming back in

Vol 7

Okay so its starting to feel a bit cramped, there’s a lot of moving pieces and characters again Damn that thing’s head is huge Carrot sidequest That's a weird looking horse

The two of them are similar because Schilly is loud and Soudo doesn’t get people but together they are friends And then Soudo got compared to Rose by Peonia and got super embarrassed The interpretation of “Rose doesn’t help the weak and needy out of kindness, he does because he sees them as lesser people” They really did just do a whole ass DLC sidequest to go beat up eternatus Smug Pikachu came back!

Is Eternatus even evil? It seems like it’s just doing it’s thing and it’s an alien so what’s natural for it might just hurt others They still gotta handle the problem though, can’t really let it roam free when there’s just big pokemon causing actual damage (it seems in Spe that dynamax pokemon are actually physically huge) Now there’s other nobles trying to stir up trouble too… sheesh. Royalty is causing nothing but trouble.

Sou is really out here in the frontlines getting hit because his dream is to see the weapons being used He has no sense of danger whatsoever This is the group of sillies.

Coexist… them and this alien thang Oleana really does just have full control over the monopoly state of galar I like how Leon was like “the professionals couldn’t stop it but these brave children found ways to protect the reigon and had no selfish goals” and then the kids immediately ruined it by going saying their selfish goals

The real heroes are the pokemon. No publicity. Oh wow the energy crisis wasn’t even 1000 years it was 10 years Damn

20 to 30 years pokemon Britain will be destroyed and that’s why Rose did what he did Only rose took full responsibility and made it so Bede looked like the victim It’s Bede’s self perception that led to him being the way that he was Rose wanted to make a galar free of people who were assholes That is just Lysandere again

The two main characters didn’t even go to the championship To them, the gym challenge was a sidequest Lmao

Verdict: I’m starting to suspect that Galar itself is inherently boring because of the gym challenge because even in Pokespe the most interesting aspect for me was seeing all the cross canon references and seeing the gym leaders interact in order to deal with the problem but it really was a 1 to 1 of the game plot execution wise but with DLC added in and two player main characters with a sidestory that wasn’t even aiming for the gym challenge, Schilly was using the publicity to find her missing Pokémon. There’s nothing really new here to work with though, and it feels like this one is extremely standalone minus the Moon mention because a lot of this stuff is normalized like the elite four mention and the fact that Marvin knew about the pokedex. Speaking of Marvin why was some random NPC design given that much importance to the point of getting the third starter. It’s kinda weird.

Some context: I had already read the previous arcs from RGB Y and GSC in a twitter thread where I was like "wow, Mato's art is nice" and "it's crazy how much kusaka was able to do while gluing together so many plot elements based on stuff he had before..." and you know, I feel like it's pretty good, but simultaneously, I think maybe a big part of why I read the later arcs less is because they need more buildup like, you can't just drop into the frlg arc without reading every other arc or you end up a bit lost as to why some parts of the story feel different compared to earlier stuff.

Reread Notes: My marathonal reread of adventures slightly altered due to mangadex exploding and taking out a few arcs So instead I’m just adding additional notes based on whatever arc I’m reading through These 11 year olds were always in danger day 1 I kind of miss the early installment weirdness that all pokemon manga had where nothing was established and the sky was the limit, adventures and electric tale were the only ones that were ever bothered to be localized to most other languages though Adventures didn’t deserve the “weird” label when the poop clefairy manga is right there with its crude humor I kind of miss how interconnected regions were because up until Sinnoh (in terms of chronological order, not reading order) for the most part there would be reoccurring characters and NPCs (like the picnicker guy and the super nerd) but once the large year gap between stories is established with Sinnoh the cameo amount drops like a rock Also since there’s such a large year gap and there’s no arcs in between (ORAS, XY (maybe???)) it kind of gets confusing as to what the later timeline in adventures even is because SUMO and SwSH and SV have to be a lot later as well since Moon is implied to be Platinum’s sister but she didn’t exist during DPP (she could’ve been offscreen) I kind of wish Viz continued to add little subtitle additions because the discovery of Yellow Caballero the cowboy is the greatest thing I’ve seen and I wish to know what subtitle they’d eventually use for every other protagonist.   The manga subsection of pokemon makes me sad now because there’s literally nothing new coming out anymore aside from one shots and special is the only thing still consistently going and even that has some weird internal stuff going on because ORAS still isn’t out and the BW2 delay killed any momentum of popularity to the point it’s a desert.     Everytime I see old pokemon adventures artwork I always start missing MATO’s artstyle in general… she drew the characters in such a cute way. Kind of miss early yellow when they went region hopping and met up with the old gym leaders because HGSS had the chance to do that with their remake revisit but they just opted to go for the event that isn’t even playable anymore without WiFi… if there’s ever an HGSS rerelease I hope they just keep WiFi events in game.   My favorite thing about adventures Red is that he is nice and silly but he also locks in.

RGB Me when I’m in a competition to convince people to read pokemon adventures and I have to battle The evil and sinister arbok People need new material to showcase, show that time X tried to murder Y by crushing her with his Pinsir or the time the masked man tried to murder children or just that guy in general the amount of stuff I see showcased during the volume 3 tournament arc that was just Spaceworld stuff is so cool Look inside the entire manga explained video It’s only the red arc

Yellow Bill got drafted to the secret war against the elite four in the yellow arc because they didn’t have enough manpower so Blue dragged him there against his will This entire thing is just a very loose adaption of hey you pikachu Very much enjoyed when random mechanics from spinoffs popped up from different games I like how this is like the most jojo-esque battles I’ve seen because yellow doesn’t like battling so the writer has to use dex entries to create absolutely weird things and the most fun I have with adventures is when Kusaka remembers “oh yeah, these are pocket monsters” and goes all out. In pokemon adventures or special, substitute is used with a bit of life force (or health points) in order to create a seeming projection of a pokemon, in this case red’s pikachu. In the yellow arc, the titular character utilizes the move once there’s a realization that it can be effectively used out of battle to repel the elements and doesn’t exactly have to be the shape of pikachu, therefore turning the substitute into a surfboard in order to attack Lance and also surf the ocean to reference the surfing pikachu. Like how do you come up with this in a reasonable way that doesn't just sound nuts. The unspoken hero of pokemon adventures is blue because even though she was raised to be evil she became good but through a slow development process of stealing for herself and her brother and eventually basically saving the region and the world like multiple times over because she’d always have plans and contingency plans and people to use like she just found Yellow by sheer coincidence and immediately went “alright time to exploit this kids powers for the greater good”.

RS Yamamoto’s art style shift really begins here. I miss Mato sensei for her earlier work but the amount of crunch she had to do wasn’t good for her health… E You can see a connecting line when they started watching Gen 3 movies to take the stuff from them which they don’t do for later arcs emerald he just throws dirt at them and it works it just works dude the ranger guy emerald exists and he is just some guy it really is just the best hits of the movies though huh... it's all from the other movies of gen 3 during the time frame https://pkspedia.com/ the problem is that most other interesting manga related stuff is still in japanese Phantom kyogre is the groudon from the Jirachi movie Mewtwo armor and the big ship are from Mewtwo returns Human latias is from the latinas movie

The funniest out of context things I can think of in between the arcs is the concept of Red and Deoxys being brothers and /or Red is a father and Deoxys is the son and the time there was a villain wearing super armor and then Gold spent legitimate money to make an exact fake of the costume and wear it at the same time as the villain.

I had no clue where to put this damn thing due to how many weird things were in it. Like, where do I put fancontent? Idk.

Sometime in March I was concerned bout my shoulders and neck from playing so many games in the gamer position so I went into playing no pokemon games and instead I immediately got into reading Pokemon content including a bunch of manga outside of Special. This will probably be moved to the journal.

Covered on cohost as like my last big site project. This will be like the new format going forwards for media log notes.
DPP, HGSS, BW Pros
+ Interesting character dynamics for all three groups and emphasis on friendships both good and bad + What plasma does is more in depth in terms of like the psychological effect for Unova + Art manages to be humorous in terms of what came before, probably the most I’ve laughed at reaction images

DPP ends with the gang going to raise the manaphy egg together (good ending) PLA would presumably have them separated in time sent back to the past (bad ending)
Cons
- Manzai is kind of difficult to translate because it’s so pun reliant and Pokémon names are translated differently for every language and its also difficult to find funny in any way - Major villain returns and is not killed instantly on the spot - Sird got away with everything and exits the plot on a cliffhanger
Neutral
= Story for BW is not 100% game accurate = Difficulty telling who main character is for DPP since the trio is emphasized as a trio = Not enough time truly spent between Gold and Togebo in terms of relationship before Gold’s realization BW2, ORAS, SM

Pros + Black got out of the Light stone + Ruby and Sapphire’s relationship got more depth
Cons
- Arcs are so short in length that there’s not enough time to properly develop characters in a way that feels natural instead of for the sake of plot - Subsequently a lot of things feel rushed to the point that even if the character did something frustrating it gets forgiven within a few panels - Some character’s talents within a few arcs need you to really suspend your disbelief even by this manga’s standards - Additional game makes the later half of the SM arc kind of a mess to read through since USUM stuff is abruptly added in
Neutral = Remake character development is kind of all over the place compared to earlier ones = Not enough time in story to properly go into how characters would react completely to certain things outside of a few panels compared to like having multiple chapters that would go in depth to characters = Other pokedex holders appear but Yellow hasn’t been seen within any of the arcs since the appearance in Emerald and the writing doesn’t give a good reason as to why or why not
I also read the online club ranger mangas but they’re so short that they don’t even have enough to have me evaluate them in this way.

The artstyle’s notable quality dip and the storyline’s getting rushed to be done in one arc where some parts are worse than the actual in game storylines Pokemon adventures works best when there’s not a lot of story stuff to work with in a Pokemon game, but the more story there is in a game the worse the arc becomes Pokemon Sun and moon horizon had a guy who showed up and was like “I’m going to plunge the world into darkness with lunala” and he had an evil rich dad so I was like “this is like the third aether sibling to me”, I kind of miss random OCs showing up but Violet and Scarlet are custom characters and just so werid

Pokemon TV is officially sunsetting in March, so I went out of my way to check out what exactly remained on the app after all the logistics of watching the app slowly lose all momentum. There’s only one season of the original series, the sun and moon saga up to journeys, and all of the pokemon short series and specials that were released over the years. Why is it dying anyways? The reason Pokemon TV is dying is because the distribution rights for pokemon is a nightmare, like a good chunk is on Hulu, Netflix owns the OG and sun/moon plus horizons and amazon probably has a bunch of it too. Also apparently having a nonprofit thing and hosting it has cost a bit of money and add the previous problem and its like… why keep it? Plus it’s redundant because all of the shows that I watched on Pokemon TV that weren’t the ash anime are uploaded to YouTube and they’re all shorts minus origins and Hisui so there’s not really a reason to have an app dedicated to it if someone can just watch it on YouTube I recall years ago when Pokémon.com had a little avatar maker and a bunch of flash games and I used it for dream world but all that stuff is gone now alongside all the features TV used to have, like more seasons and movies.

So here’s the things I actually watched with Pokémon TV!

Generations: I think the disparate rate of male to female player character ratio was kinda unbalanced in this one, also, Cheryl’s Chansey is that of nightmares. Next.

Origins: it was a good OVA series though I could’ve done with less charizard screen time. also its pretty funny how the final episode was like “look, mega evolution, that’s pretty cool!” and the gimmick is dead. I like the Red in this series, he’s simply a guy. Makes me feel bad for Blue/Green in this iteration since he kind of took Ls the entire time.

Twilight wings: Is the pokemon world unionized? Are the flying bird taxis on the union? I dont have any opinion about galar since I haven’t played it and only know things secondhand so it’s quite difficult to gauge this without being like… hmmm. Im normally okay with overemphasis on a pokemon, but something about Leon’s charizard acts as my personal kryptonite. Likely because it’s his ace and not even a galarian pokemon . It’s beautifully animated but that really doesn’t change the fact that I have no real attachment to any of the region so I’m just here going it looks pretty nice and having no emotions about the trainer cameos. This entire region based on just the show feels like it’s got a complex about Leon for being the unbeatable champion. The wooloo episode with Hop makes me feel bad in hindsight because he ditches his wooloo in a box in the game. It’s a really screenshottable aesthetic show, I suppose. Where are these hospitalized children’s parents.

Bidoof’s big stand: the world hates him. They want him gone. He got attacked by birds, the staraptor did the dizzy explosion reaction. Bidoof only was caught to be an HM friend and he won by stalling. It was incredible.

Pokemon evolutions: Good arceus never stray from the sugimori art style ever again lest we see the depths of what real humans would look like in pokemon amen. I don’t have anything else to say because it was just like generations in the fact that they condense one part of the game into the short and nothing else. Least they remembered that women exist.

Hisuian Snow + Poketoon: hisuian snow is kinda beautiful but it kinda makes me wonder why they have all this promotional material like twilight wings and have it star a character that doesn’t even cameo in the game hisuian snow has quite different vibes from the rest of the pokemon shows i’ve watched because hisui as a whole “we’re in the timeperiod where we have no clue what’s up with these pokemon things and we’re trying to survive” so its less of a story about monster taming and more about monster surviving but then there’s pockets of hope and friendship like from this show then it’s immediately contrasted by poketoon which has complete and utter style no matter what episode its on because whoever decided “let’s have a series where we have different animation styles for all the pokemon was a genius” but the pancham episode has a narrator that completely sucks the life out of the episode

Pokemon path to the peak: Well it’s about trading cards. I have no clue what’s with some of these production art styles being so non pokemon, same thing happened with the big stand. My thoughts were “It’s certainly out of my age range” and “Its not yugioh thats for sure” Does anyone remember that GBC card game? I’d love to see something like that. I like how the dad’s advice was “idk use your imagination” The whole time I’m watching it I’m like “it’s not that serious, it’s just card games, the adult division would’ve destroyed this child”. It was a fun watch though but that kept nagging me the whole time.

And that was really it. I’m not interested enough to get through the ash episodes that are still available when I can barely get through XY and those are on Netflix anyways. It’s kind of sad to see it go but it was pretty much dying for years anyways, I completely forgot I still had it downloaded.