Thursday, August 14, 2025

More on the New PokéPark

As part of my "Pokémon Is Everywhere" series as a "gimme five", I also thought I'd bring up something that was earlier addressed in the most recent Pokémon Presents. Indeed, that would be the new PokéPark thing (PokéPark Kanto), which as I've said is not a game but an actual, real amusement park. Information on it is still a bit scanty, particularly from the video preview, but its extrapolation and discussion should be able to pad it out to an amount that would be as attractive as the real park itself.

Now, as stated, it won't be its own amusement park, but it will be a part of another: it will reside on 26,000 square meters of the Yomiuriland amusement park in Japan - so it will be home "at home". This parcel of land will be split into two areas, a town area (Sedge Town) and a forest area (Pokémon Forest), obviously having the potential for different Pokémon in each and reflecting life as it would be in the Pokémon world, for the people to enjoy and "have fun together" as stated by Junichi Masuda himself.

He further states that the Pokémon that will be present in the park will be insightful for people and broaden their horizons about the ways that the species live and interact - certainly among themselves and given the presence of people. Although it's called "PokéPark Kanto", the species from this region are not to be the only ones present; from the video, a couple of species from Johto as well as Garchomp from Sinnoh are present, so the inclusive potential of the park will be high for Pokémon fans of all ages. 

Finally, though the park will only open in the early park of next year, potential visitors will (or should) be able to reserve their tickets soon, as that will occur closer to the tail end of this year. Given that it's in Japan, they - at least those from international areas - will have to go through the usual hoops of arranging travel, accommodations, and so on in order to make the visit. There's still plenty of time before that happens, and plenty more if travel is for later, but it is still wise to make preparations for it even now.

If PokéPark Kanto is the realized vision of some people's dreams - and it seems to be, given some people's reactions as well as the CCO himself (Masuda) - then it will definitely be a worthwhile place to visit for those who happen to be or plan to go to Japan. More than that, even with it being hosted at its "home" in Japan, its appeal is still expected to be widespread just as Pokémon is already such right now, and that means it aligns with the "everywhere" concept of Pokémon that I presently pose.

Six years ago: Who's That...
Seven years ago: Worldly Reverence
Eight years ago: All in Good (Life)Time
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Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Isyana and the World of Pokémon

Being that Pokémon can be considered to be "everywhere", as the theme I've taken for five posts this week, it certainly has affected or influenced many people. Some of those people definitely can be those from all different corners of the world, including mine. One of those is someone who had risen to fame within the past decade or so and has become a well-known "pop diva" in the country. And as expected, that goes for Pokémon affairs as well.

Isyana Sarasvati is a female Indonesian pop singer whose prime musical activities started in 2014, with her first album released a year later. A few more albums and EPs followed in the years after, which showed off her talent and versatility. She also had a "big break" several years ago by singing the cover of a famous song to an originally animated feature in its live action form. This last bit is an affirmation of the above and is effectively the lead-in to Pokémon matters.

With regard to Pokémon, she appeared last year in a performance at one of the venues of PIJ in the "big city", which I (through Ash) had happened to see. Her outfit for the festivities was a black and yellow one, which was clearly inspired by Pikachu. Later on, for the local dub of the Horizons series of the anime, she contributed a song titled "Makna Dunia" ("The Meaning of the World"), which became the opening theme of that dub. Both of these are certainly significant endeavors.

As her musical style is diverse (recognized as a multi-genre artist) and her fashion sense is a little on the eclectic side, she might draw a bit of comparison to a certain world-famous artist with similar sensibilities, but that's not much for me to discuss. What is clear, though, is that those two qualities can and do make a perfect match with Pokémon, and that has become evident with what has happened. She has certainly left her mark with Pokémon, and more could be made.

Pokémon is already "everywhere" with consideration of many respects, for which place and people are two of those. That has applied well to Indonesia in the past few years, pervading the country in many ways - including for and with the musical artist above. Having a renowned artist like her contributing to Pokémon is a welcomed and fresh take, and that is just another part of the bigger world of Pokémon with an even bigger reach in this world.

Six years ago: The Changing of Boxes
Seven years ago: Toy Block Pokémon?
Eight years ago: Cosplay Briefings
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Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Shonen Jump Meets Pokémon

Next on the "Pokémon Is Everywhere" journey is a stop at a bastion of Japanese pop culture. The weekly Shonen Jump magazine features many of the series of Japanese manga (comics) that fans in said country and all over the world recognize and read in some way, shape, and form, which includes through the magazine itself. With that, Pokémon has encroached upon this space through a special collaboration with the magazine and its associated manga series.

The illustrators of the featured manga series in the magazine have recently come up with illustrations of their characters along with a Pokémon species that they might have. Some of them are even in their Mega Evolution forms, which makes sense because the collaboration is intended to promote the newest Pokémon TCG expansion that features such forms. Still, all of the featured Pokémon and series are significant for the authors and their readers.

One of these series is in fact the "flagship" series of the magazine and one that many people know: One Piece. It's also one that I enjoy and have brought up on this blog a few times alongside Pokémon. For the purpose of this collaboration, its main character Luffy is paired up with Pikachu, the de facto series mascot for Pokémon. The "flagship" theory for matching them up thereby makes sense, not to mention due to other commonalities.


All the Pokémon appear just as expressive as the characters they are paired up with, including the aforementioned Luffy-Pikachu combo. Yet it does seem slightly odd that the collaboration came up just as another TCG realm is having problems with its art. Disregarding this situation, all the Pokémon are still emblematic of the series and characters they're joined up with, as well as the fancy of the illustrators that make them what they are.

Collaborations of this scale don't happen often for Pokémon, but when they do, they can be wide-ranging as in this case with Shonen Jump, reaching out to many of its contributing illustrators to contribute their own Pokémon fancy in the style of their manga creations. In doing so, Pokémon ventures to a place where it doesn't normally go, and its "everywhere" status is furthered for the enjoyment of fans and beyond.

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Monday, August 11, 2025

(More on) Pokémon and Quiz Shows

For this month's "gimme five", which I've decided will be within the span of this week, I'm taking a topic instead of a subject. The topic is called "Pokémon Is Everywhere" and as expected, it deals with the spread of Pokémon to certain things, places, and even people - all of which will become evident over this week. The first of these is quiz shows; in the first year of this blog, I had mentioned one such show, but the discussed link to Pokémon was somewhat indirect. This time, I have a few more of these shows and their links to Pokémon, and they're more direct and involved.

Many quiz shows involve answers to questions... or in the case of Jeopardy!, the reverse is true. In fact, this is the show I referenced in a post about those very elements a few months back but not explicitly. As for how Pokémon is (or was) involved, one episode in the past had a distinct Pokémon category with other categories referencing species names; the former had clues that certainly dealt with franchise elements. An aside to this would be the show's current host, Ken Jennings, whose facial expressions may have a faint resemblance to Ditto as I see it, and was in fact the reference and inspiration for that post. While Pokémon might only sparsely appear on the show - although its Pop Culture version may provide still another outlet - at least the mark and reference to Pokémon has been made.

Back to answers to questions, they're the heart of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the quiz show from UK to the world. Here too Pokémon and in particular the de facto series mascot Pikachu has been involved in a number of situations, either as questions or answers. Yet for some reason, most of the outcomes just don't seem to favor either the contestants or Pokémon itself through the question-answer relationship, which seems to be somewhat more than slightly unfortunate. Still, the presence of Pokémon here and above may be a testament that it is known outside of its direct circles and its elements make sense vis-a-vis general knowledge, which these two quiz shows offer in spades.

Perhaps in consideration of all this, Pokémon decided to concoct a quiz show of its own, as a web series called the "Gotta Catch 'Em All Game Show". It was streamed on Twitch a little while ago and became available on YouTube afterwards. Its particulars will have to be put up for discussion separately as they would exceed the limits of this post, but its mention at the least serves as an adjunct to the already-established quiz shows above, bringing a very specific Pokémon flavor and unique offering to the table.

Quiz (as a subset of game) shows will always be around to test the knowledge of contestants who compete in them, in return giving the people a good bit of entertainment. Pokémon is more closely associated with entertainment than knowledge, but a few of its aspects might just tie into (other) knowledge, and so its appearances on the quiz shows above seems validated, enough for fans and people in general.

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Sunday, August 10, 2025

Seeking for (My) Pokémon Unite Friends

If there is anything that is clearly understood about Pokémon Unite today, it is that it's a game for friends to play with friends - certainly being that it's very much a MOBA with maps that require three to five players. Of course, it is also clearly understood that the landscape of the game is very different today than it was when it started, including those who play the game, which also implicates the friends that are made by and for the game. I thought it would be fascinating to discuss and reflect on this, particularly by my own experience.

Those who play the game like me will probably have gotten their friends from being randomly matched up with others in the various of matches of the game. It is a quick and easy way of linking up with others as friends, especially for play within the short term, but it might not necessarily guarantee that they'll still be able to play in the long term. In my case, I've rarely encountered those who have become friends with me early on, so this seems to affirm such a state of affairs. Seeking for these friends now might be a case of futility, even if in the past they provided some utility; it's anyone's guess if that utility might become suddenly useful now.

Meanwhile, the rest of the friend lists might be composed of those who players have obtained through certain groups and especially added through the use of codes. Finding the groups and then the codes may not be the easiest thing, but inputting them to make friends is still the easy part. Yet even then, it may sometimes be hard to determine if the players that were sought in the past can still play in the present, much like the above. In fact, the same thing has been true for me as well, and the difficulty of seeking them to play now seems to have become as great as the difficulty of seeking them in the first place.

As for physical friends for playing the game, they might be the ones who are the hardest to seek and then play with, since they come and go, and the methods of contact may not have been ascertained. But as with other MOBA games, players will certainly meet them during tournaments and have the chance to make friends with them... which sadly hasn't happened for me, having never been to a physical tournament, but I do think it can and will happen someday, which would be good for continuing my game efforts.

Friends in the game can clearly be sought and gotten through various ways - some easy and some hard - though the act of playing with them afterwards may not be the easiest thing, even in my case. They're obviously still needed by the nature of the game and what it demands, so the challenge of seeking them for play is also an ongoing one, just like the changes in the game are ongoing for me and other friends.

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Saturday, August 9, 2025

Tournament: Local Gym Battle, 8/1/2025

I had almost forgot that a certain happening occurred a couple of weeks ago, and a few things hindered me from being able to cover it earlier as intended. It was only after looking back at an important aspect of it that I was promptly reminded that I hadn't covered it. So it is that a couple of weeks after the fact, I'm finally able to cover it as intended in order to take up space on this blog... but also to broaden my horizons of Pokémon itself.

That happening would be a Gym tournament that is (was) set up by my local group of players, the same one that hosted another nearly a year ago. This time, it was a more casual ("friendly") tournament, so I didn't have to use my TCG account, but the paid entry requirement and what I get in return out of that was still the same - though obviously the cards are different, due to the progressively changing nature of the TCG.

For that, I was also set up with a different deck based on Ethan's Pokémon (who in Japanese is named Hibiki), specifically the Cyndaquil species family, along with other tricks provided by the Gimmighoul family and Fezandipiti, to name a couple. I had seen parts of it by having logged in to TCGL recently, so I was already slightly familiar with it; it took this meetup and the tournament for me to get familiar with the rest of the deck, especially the play mechanisms that the deck very much relied upon - not to mention the local cards.

With that, the tournament proceeded with four Swiss rounds... and I lost twice and won twice. However, of the two wins, one was a bye (by the odd number of competitors), and in the other, the opponent forfeited; as for the losing rounds, they were sound losses due to me not being able to take advantage of some of the parts of the deck due to oversight of my own or technicality not of my own. In fact, in the second of the losing rounds, the Fezandipiti card ended up in the worst place possible, which would of course be the Prize Card pile.

A friend, who graciously set me up with the deck, says that it's one of the simpler decks to deal with at present, and I'm inclined to agree. Even so, with the way of the deck being what it is, I'd still need to deal with its finer points a bit more, and that's a task that the TCGL platform should be up to the task for, especially with regard to collecting the necessary cards. After that, it's the way I play that will make or break a deck - although it always seems more of the latter.

Being that I had two wins (by technicality) and two losses, I was close to the middle of the standings in sixth place, in the middle among those with the same results. That still had no bearing on the booster pack and special card, which were given to me regardless. In fact, these items were indeed the things that prompted (and reminded) me to finally make this post, even a couple of weeks after the fact.

Even with subpar results, I still managed to make it to a meetup of my local TCG player group and play with them after some time. Incidentally, this one had more than a few people who I know very well, who would be some good friends of mine. That may very well be the important thing aside from having a chance to deal with the cards.

Overdue as this post is, it's still a significant Pokémon happening and experience for me, as an infrequent player and collector of the TCG. The understanding I possess at least helps me to scrape through in situations like these while having a good time with friends, which evidently has happened with this Gym battle edition.
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Friday, August 8, 2025

Album: Pocket Monsters Sound Anime Collection

I've actually never done a discussion about a full Pokémon album, let alone one that is of Japanese origin; I have always preferred to discuss individual songs or music pieces instead for all their significance. In this case, though, the whole is more than just the sum of its parts, and thus I've decided to discuss the entire album as a single post. So, the album is called "Sound Anime Collection" because it's effectively the soundtrack to the Kanto saga of the Pokémon anime, certainly with the unabbreviated name of the franchise. Yet it has a few finer points, which are to be elucidated by way of this discussion.

For starters, the album is "bookended" by two Japanese theme songs from the anime, as the ever-popular "Mezase Pokémon Master" in its full version and another titled "Pocket Ni Fantasy" in a cut version. The former is also the album's only music track that is significantly over two minutes long, as the rest of the album is made up of practically the entire musical suite for this saga - 40 tracks in all, many of which should be familiar to viewers on both sides of the pond for their extensive use in the episodes.

Notably, each of the 40 tracks contain audio commentary - specifically, spoken - in Japanese following a "ping", which might not be of interest for those not fluent in the language. Some fans might be interested in having versions of these tracks without the audio commentary for pure listening purposes, and that's something good to go for. These tracks are also subdivided into 16 "chapters" of tracks with certain themes of journeys and adventures, including ones associated with Team Rocket, covering all the bases.

Speaking as a matter of fact, this album also can be regarded to be a complete collection of the music for any segment of the Pokémon anime. Actual background music pieces from different segments or sagas of the anime seem either hard to find or incomplete, or perhaps even both. As such, the existence of this album with all its music tracks is somewhat a rare wonder for even Pokémon itself, with specific regard for the anime. The commentary is a plus for those who might want to dig deep into the music.

As far as the album is concerned, it's a treasure trove for those interested in the Pokémon anime and specifically the music used in it - at least for the earliest of ventures in this regard. The whole of this album may be considered to focus on the background music tracks, which is very true, but it's the other niceties on the album as well as its comprehensiveness that make it more than what it is, making it fit for a discussion.

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