Hi all, I’m finally back with a new post since I’m on vacation until after New Year’s and I wanted to say a few words on some of the recent anime I’ve watched…
Holiday update – Re:Zero, Izetta, and other anime I watched this year
December 30, 2016 by 6 Comments
18 years of fandom – my Pokemon scrapbook
November 14, 2016 by 4 Comments
2016 is the 20th anniversary of my most influential franchises, one that has continually brought me joy for over half of my life and still shows no sign of letting up. The Pokemon Company has been celebrating “#Pokemon20” since the beginning of the year with various game promotions, special events, and exclusive store merchandise as fans celebrate the nostalgic days of Pokemon while also getting hyped for the next generation of games with Sun/Moon. Being the Pokemon fan that I am, and with Sun/Moon just a few days away, I couldn’t resist doing something special to celebrate my fandom on a personal level. So I put together a scrapbook of all the Pokemon paper goods I’ve collected over the years – pamphlets, stickers, flyers, postcards, bookmarks, CD booklets, VHS covers, TCG badge booklets, and anything else that could fit in a scrapbook…
Yo-kai Watch review: is it the next Pokemon?
November 29, 2015 by 7 Comments
I’m off for four days this Thanksgiving weekend and didn’t have much planned, so why not finally have a new blog post after so long? XD As I explained in my anniversary post from last month, I haven’t been watching much new anime, but I’ll still be writing about something related today – the recent US release of the Japanese hit game series, Youkai Watch (localized as “Yo-kai Watch”). The game has been a big hit in Japan since its release in 2013 (followed by an anime series and sequel game) and was just released in the US earlier this month. I heard that it has a similar premise as Pokemon and is being hailed as the “next Pokemon” with how popular it became in Japan. Being the Pokemon fan that I am, I was really curious and decided to give the game a try once it was released in English. As of now, I’ve played about 30 hours of it (finished the main storyline and some side quests). So do I feel the series deserves the popularity it’s been getting, and will it really be the next Pokemon?…
Why the Pokemon anime hasn’t “evolved”
April 26, 2015 by 34 Comments
It never ceases to amaze me how practically everyone I’ve encountered from my generation who’s into anime, video games, or other branches of so-called “nerd” culture have, or at least did at one point, an affinity for Pokemon. It usually wasn’t just the Game Boy games that were a part of their childhood, but the Pokemon anime as well. A lot of them have played all the main series Pokemon games that have come out over the years, perhaps missing one or two due to temporary waning interest, but the Pokemon games have a way of bringing people back with new updates and features they add to each generation of games. But unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Pokemon anime series. Unlike the games that get more innovative while maintaining the same beloved premise, the Pokemon anime has stagnated over the years with the same unchanging characters, the same episodic style, and the same formulaic stories. While it has gotten a bit better recently, it still pales in comparison to other long-running kids anime in terms of storytelling quality. So why has the Pokemon anime remained so resistant to change, which has infuriated adult Pokemon players who want a decent show to go along with the games they love? Today I want to examine the reasons behind this…
A beginner’s guide to competitive Pokemon battling
February 4, 2015 by 13 Comments
Like many Pokemon players, I started playing the games as a kid in the late 90s, before the competitive metagame existed. I first started taking note of things like EV training and IVs in the Diamond and Pearl era, but when I looked up information about the competitive side of Pokemon, I got scared away by all the mathematical equations and fan-made jargon I’d find on sites like Bulbapedia, Smogon, and Serebii. It wasn’t until Black 2 and White 2 came out in 2012 that I really wanted to give competitive Pokemon battling a try…and it turned out to be easier than I thought! As of now I’ve put in almost 600 hours of gameplay on my copy of Pokemon X, and 150 hours on my Omega Ruby, breeding competitive pokemon and trying them out on the Battle Spot and local tournaments. It does take a lot of time and experience to get good at it, but you don’t have to do any complicated math or spend hours and hours of tedious grinding in order to put together a decently competitive pokemon team, especially in the current 6th generation of Pokemon games that have made breeding and training the right pokemon much easier. So I wanted to put together this very beginner-friendly guide for any Pokemon players that are interested in trying their hand at the competitive side of the games…
Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire review
December 18, 2014 by 9 Comments
It’s been a blog tradition of mine to review all of the main series Pokemon games, starting with Diamond and Pearl in 2006. And now I’ve played enough of my copy of Omega Ruby to review these new games as well =)…
A dose of Pokemon humor
February 28, 2014 by 14 Comments
Don’t worry, this is the only special feeling meme on the post!
Lately I’ve made it a habit of saving funny anime and other related memes and pictures I come across on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc., onto my hard drive for later use. It’s fun to not only chuckle at them myself a second time, but to show them to friends later on and brighten up their day XD I’ve amassed quite a collection of hilarious Pokemon pictures among them and felt it was time to share some on the blog…
Pokemon X and Y review
November 1, 2013 by 13 Comments
Now that I’ve completed the main storyline on my copy of Pokemon X, as well as explored a number of the post-game quests and new features, it’s time for me to continue my now 7-year tradition of reviewing the main series Pokemon games here on the blog…
Pokemon X and Y thoughts and speculations
August 14, 2013 by 11 Comments
Last night after work I reserved my copy of Pokemon X at my local GameStop (got a free poster with it too, which you can see after the jump). It made me realize that Pokemon X and Y are just about 2 months away from their October 12th release date. That may sound like a long time, but much has already been revealed about these games that has the fandom both hyped and apprehensive. Three years ago when Pokemon Black and White were coming out, I wrote a couple of pre-release speculation posts about them. So I figured now is a good time to do the same for what’s been revealed about Pokemon X and Y thus far…
Top 10 Pokemon conspiracy theories
April 12, 2013 by 30 Comments
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Pokemon post XD With the newest generation of Pokemon games scheduled to come out later this year, and news of new pokemon and other features slowly trickling in, I’ve surprisingly been feeling nostalgic about the old Pokemon days of Red/Blue and Gold/Silver. As much as I continue to love every new game that comes out, I must admit that there was a unique charm to the years of the old generations when the Internet, as well as the Pokemon franchise itself, were much younger…as were we. And while I was idly browsing the web a few days ago, I found that quite a number of conspiracy theories came out of that younger generation that will surprisingly leave you pondering…