Sunday, September 25, 2016

Why isn't Ash a married man now? (Another anime mini-rant)

I was watching Did You Know Anime, a spin-off of the popular Youtube series about gaming called Did You Know? and got some interesting info.

One of the creators of the Pokemon anime says that Ash rotates girls like a giggolo because, according to him...


Yep, one of the WRITERS said honestly that Ash's female leads are nothing buy eye candy. Yep, go ahead and cry sexist, folks, but that's what the Japanese think of women. This is because Japan's culture is far different from ours. They're only now getting a feminist movement when the usual lifespan of a Japanese girl was grow up, get educated in home economics, get married, have babies, and grow old and die while the husband works his butt of to support the family.

Another writer of the anime said in a novelization of the first season this interesting tidbit...


You thought 16 was pushing the legal limit for having a wife and babies? Well, in Japan, once you get into puberty, kiss your lifestyle of childhood bliss goodbye! You're now a man/woman and thus treated like one with all the consequences and benefits, INCLUDING MARRIAGE!

So yeah, that episode where Clemont, who is Ash's age, almost gets married isn't a joke - it represents what happens to 10-year olds, they are now able to get engaged and married! The modders of The Sims that created mods for school children to get married and  have WooHoo probably were Japanese.

Okay, I know I am being offensive to the Japanese people by saying all of that, but let's face it... when an anime writer states stuff like that, it's probably fact. After all, he has lived in Japan all his life and you have not, so stop griping.

I'm just saying that if Serena wanted to, she could pop the question to Ash right now and he could accept and marry her, even though they are pre-teens, because they are in a Japanese anime. Of course, because they are catering to us, the prudes who are old-fashioned and think kids are kids until the age of 18, they don't do that, but please... to all the Amourshippers, the writers said that Ash is not going to marry, he's going to string girls along until he and his story are finished, when the Hells Freeze Over, because the writers think that Ash is a lusty boy who needs to have a different girl on his arm every time he travels to a new region, and he's old enough to romance girls, according to them. So stop whining about Serena's removal from the anime. She was just another piece of eye candy, like Iris, Dawn, May and Misty. *sigh*

And for those who did not believe me, I've linked Did You Know Anime's Youtube page, you can just check it out yourself.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

This is why I never PvP in Pokemon (mini-rant)

Well, they announced that the first Intercontinental tournament is happening for Sun and Moon right after it's release, which means that PikaHex and PokeSav won't be ready for it...


To be fair, I know how these cheaters feel - when I played The Sims I couldn't stand watching my Sims get stinky, wet themselves or faint from exhaustion or starvation. It was too bothersome, so I used Max Motives cheats to keep them happy and doing what I wanted them to do until they got all of their aspirations completed. Thank goodness I was banned from the Immortal Dynasty due to being banned from Carl's Forum, because I would have sank a year of my life into The Sims 4 instead of REAL games and abused Max Motives cheats.

The same thing goes for these losers - yes, they are losers because they won't sink time into the games long enough to breed for perfect IVs, even though nowadays there are easy ways to get 31 IVs in what you want(Friend Safari and Destiny Knot) and the perfect natures(Everstone breeding), and thus they use hacking programs to hack their games so they can have their dream Pokemon... even though the games are getting more and more diligent about squelching hackers.

Something like this needs to happen to force the hackers to stop their hacking and do things legit or force them to leave the VGC. This sort of hacking business is a betrayal of the game. Now, before you say anything, I am not condemning the use of hacking as a means to test out your dream team before you start working on it for real by asking friends to test out your team with their teams. However, using a hacked Pokemon in a serious tournament battle is just asking for trouble.

Luckily for me, I did not fall into the easy-way-out trap and become a Hexer. In fact, I never even heard of PokeSav until I saw ToyDualer(who has a lovely Maplestory video series, btw) teach you how to use PokeSav. I am a guy who spends hours on Dragon Quest VII training his heroes in every monster class to maximum to get a full team of Platinum Kings. If you know about how to get a character to become a Platinum King class by raising other monster classes and how hard it was to get monster hearts in the original Dragon Warrior VII, well, you can see how stubborn I am. I am a PSN trophy hunter and poured my soul in Kingdom Hearts 2.5.

"Half of the fun of traveling is the journey."

A lot of people forgot how fun a journey is and just want to get there instantly, so they cheat. I pity these people; chances are the first VGC for Sun and Moon will have to be canceled because nobody will attend because everyone forgot how easy it is to get a perfect team to Level 100.

Maybe they'll put out a new tier - the Traditional Tier, similar to the Traditional Tier of Yu-Gi-Oh which has no ban list. Then the hackers can be happy. :p

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Whole bunch of Sun/Moon revealed!

(Not obvious but I photoshopped Eevee's head on Orgodemir, the Demon King from DQVII - I love the remake of DQVII)
HOLY S%*@, GAME FREAK! WHAT SORT OF SAKE WERE YOU DRINKING WHEN YOU CREATED THIS, AND CAN I HAVE IT?

Seriously, this is what a lot of people were freaking out over when they saw this new Z-Move for Eevee. Yes, two new signature Z-Moves have been revealed for untouched Pikachu and untouched Eevee, which means you can never evolve them. Pikachu got a pinball move which I think will be Ash's secret weapon if they ever have him do the Island Challenge - I can probably forgive the writers for making Ash look like something from a B-rate Saturday cartoon after Kalos if he spams this - and Eevee...

Well, meet Extreme Evoboost which totally rips off of Power Rangers; Eevee's eight evolved forms appear and empower Eevee... and he gets a boost doubling all his stats. Yep, it's like the side-effect of Ancient Power and Silver Wind, boosting all your stats, DOUBLED. This means that it'll be the OP in Little Cup but they'll probably ban Z-Moves in Little Cup considering they are so OP.

Of course, we now know how Z-Moves work. It's not enough to simply have the gem in your bracelet and have your partner wearing a gem... you have to select the Z-Move option and then the move you are going to transform into the Z-Move for that turn. (Yes, like Mega Evolutions, you can only use the Z-Move once in battle, and only once. It's a secret weapon.) So a move has to be sacrificed to become a Z-Move. Even so, Extreme Evoboost is going to be totally broken in Little Cup...

Also, if you know about Rockruff, the little dog Pokemon, we found out that it evolves into the wolf Pokemon Lycanroc... but what Lycanroc becomes depends on your version. If you get Pokemon Sun, Lycanroc will be a desert wolf which gains a signature move that is the Rock-type Quick Attack, AccelRock. (Yes, that is how it is written.) But if you get Moon, Lycanroc becomes a bloodthirsty werewolf which gets Counter instead. Now I have more fuel to the fire for AuraGuardian's joke vid about Pokemon who can kill Superman... Lycanroc Midnight Form with Focus Sash... ^_^

We get info on two new Pokemon - Pokemon Sun gets Passimian, a Fighting-type monkey which plays footballs with giant berries and has the ability Receiver, which is only useful in double/triple battles. If the Pokemon next to it dies, the ability transforms into the fallen's ability, meaning that the opponent has to deal with another dose of that ability, which triggers right away if it was something like Intimidate. Pokemon Moon(the version I will start with) gets Oranguru, a white gorilla which looks like a wise sage(it's even called the Sage Pokemon) which is Normal/Psychic and has a chance of having Telepathy, meaning it can avoid getting hit with the partner's Surf/Earthquake/etc... and it should because of its signature move, Instruct. It's probably going to be a go-last move like Counter which allows Oranguru to teach the partner how to focus and causes the partner to use the move it had just used AGAIN! That means: Those Pokemon which survived by hanging on with one HP? Nope, it's dead now. :D

Anyways, we also get some minor stuff about the Pokemon-Amie thing, called Pokemon Refresh. It seems that now you have to groom your Pokemon. You can ignore that, but if you want that shiny Crobat, you have to keep grooming it! Also, it seems that it mitigates the use of status removal items like Antidote as you can use a medical swab to clean it of the poison and paralysis conditions.

Finally, I relate the fact that yes, Virginia, you can customize your trainer to look like you, or your dreamboat fantasy girlfriend, or whatever, thanks to the huge amount of style options. I don't see as many for my self-insert avatar(the boy) but I'm sure we'll see something soon. Also, it seems that you buy clothes(or dye clothes) with Festival Coins, so I think that this game will take place during a festival and you can earn coins by mini-games or some other method. Maybe that Pyukumuku task gives you festival coins? Anyways, there's a lot of new stuff.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention the new Ultra Beasts that appeared, UB02 Beauty which looks like a woman with the hair looking like a waterskipper, and UB02 Adaption, which looks like a muscular red mosquito man, both attacking Tapu Koko. (I also mislabeled the Ultra Beasts as Pokemon but we don't know it they are Pokemon or actually aliens which are separate and thus uncatchable but you might fight them.) It looks like this "great catastrophe" I mentioned last post might be the Ultra Beasts invading the world and the Guardian Pokemon trying to drive them away. Stay tuned for October, when the Pokemon CO releases even more new info as the release date draws near! ;)

In the meantime...


I'll be playing my digital copy of Dragon Quest VII for the 3DS. I'm at the third-final land to be freed, but I need to get Multiheal for that dang Cumulus Hex. X(

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Ash is Immortal (Anime Rant)

Get over yourself, girlfriend. The day Ash gets laid is the day when Pokemon come to the real world. :p

This blog is supposed to be about the Pokemon games, but I feel like I have to rant about the anime once in a while, especially now that I've been catching up on it. Recently CoroCoro(the #1 news sources for Pokemon) shows art images of Rockruff's two form evolutions(which are version-exclusive forms, which is a first) as well as the Ultra Beasts, which may not be Pokemon at all...

And this anime poster. Serebii.net says that Ash will go to Alola but since there are no gyms or Pokemon League, his goal will be different here. In the Sun/Moon Anime, Ash will be going back to school to catch up on the education he missed during the five years of his travels and he has to graduate from elementary school... or something like that. Maybe the story is that his mom, Delilah, calls him back home and says "We're moving to Melemele Island, and you need to catch up on your education", or he might be attending a Pokemon School like Pokemon Tech in that old Kanto episode and when he graduates, he takes the Island Challenge.

But this isn't about that, it's about my theory on Ash which points out a couple of things: One, I was spoiled to Ash's Kalos League tournament participation(he loses in the finals to Alain, the new main character of the Mega Evolution specials) and two, the poster hasn't got Serena in it.

Now, first off, Serena may be attending the school with Ash and this poster, being the first Anime poster we see, may not be giving up the entire story of who Ash is with this time, but then again, if Ash is in school, this season is a "high school anime" and there may not be any travel, the entire Sun and Moon story may be set in Melemele Island.

However, the fact that we don't see Serena in the poster has caused the Amourshippers(the people who think Ash and Serena should become lovers at least) to go apes*** and call foul. Worse, many fans of the anime have turned their backs on it.

So let me rant. The anime's story is owned (at least partly) by the creators of Pokemon, the Pokemon COMPANY. A company is "a number of persons united or incorporated for joint action, especially for business", as defined by Dictionary.com. Note the "business" at the end...

The Pokemon Company is BIG BUSINESS, and as such, has to make a PROFIT. If Pokemon was non-profit, it'd be more of a local thing and would stay in Japan, it wouldn't be as popular or the Juggernaut it is today because non-profit rarely expands far outside of its hometown due to the fact that the creators have to beg for donations to keep afloat, and chances are that Pokemon would have become charity games which live off of Social Security checks month by month instead of the massive megalith series that makes Mario and Luigi s*** their pants every year.

IOW, in order to be rich and famous, one has to make money.

If I have learned anything about politics, it is that it cannot avoid being corrupt. Even the Constitution had to be amended many many times. Every time a person campaigns for President, they make lots of promises... but once they are sworn in, 90% of the promises are deleted or compromised to suck up to the corrupt officials who brought them into power. I sincerely doubt that whoever wins this year's election will be a good choice to rule the USA, all we can hope for is that they don't rock the boat.

Politics is the basis for Big Business due to the laws of economy. The law of Supply and Demand - when people Demand something, you'd better Supply it, even if it's crap.

The problem with the Pokemon anime is that Ash is the Player. Yes, Ash was "born" as an anime character based on the main character of the classic games, which had no voice, no face, and no personality other than a single mom, a mean rival, and his Pokemon. So Ash started life as a ten-year old cute boy who travels with the Pokemon Mascot, Pikachu, which was voted the most popular Pokemon amongst Japanese kids.

The problem is, Ash is actually a CPU from Gamindustri and Neptune's sister. Okay, I'm kidding, but he's an Ageless Icon representing the main character of every Pokemon game. As such, he can never age. He has never celebrated his birthday, so he's always 10 years old.

Because of this, he can never enter puberty, which is usually the time Ash's jewels would grow and he'd start acting like Brock did in the anime, lusting over girls. But that will never happen because... he's Ageless as the writers want him to be Ageless as the instant his gonads develop and start spewing their hormones, Ash will turn into a young man like Alain and then all of the people they are targeting, the pre-teens who connect with Ash, will boycott the games out of rage and their moms will pull the plug on the show because "Ash is flirting with girls! This should be PG-13!"

Yeah, Pokemon has a very bad stigma of being a Kiddie Game because the original games were low-quality and had very little violence(except for Pokemon hitting each other) and no sex.

The problem is, because Ash is never going to become 11, he'll never have interest in girls. (He did have a blushing fit in that Pokemon Tech episode but that was just for laughs, he's never blushed over girls since.) As such, any girl he travels with is forever friendzoned.

Also, because Ash would become a Pokemon Master if he won a Pokemon League tournament, the writers decided never to let him win. I know it sucks, but people need to understand that the instant that Ash's dream is realized or he falls in love, then he'll be a more mature character and newcomers will not connect with him, so they'll stop watching the show and that equals net loss.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Anime Articles: Study of the Show (Part 1 - Pokemon Showcases)

Welcome to a feature I'll do on this Pokemon blog that focuses on the anime. Ever since I caught up with the anime and got into Pokemon XY, I have been enjoying the character developments. In this feature, we'll look at parts of the anime and examine them in comparison to the games themselves and previous seasons. For our premiere article, let's get into something that is supposedly an anime invention and doesn't appear in the games, sort of like the Orange Island gyms(which may change with Sun and Moon's Island Challenge)... Pokemon Showcases and Pokemon Performers.

Actually, this anime convention was inspired by the Pokemon Public Relation Videos in the games - in the games, your hero can visit the Pokemon PR Studio in Lumiose City and create a Pokemon video where your character and one of his Pokemon can act in a sort of viral video which you can share with other players of Pokemon X or Y. This led to the Pokevision concept in the anime, and that led to the whole Showcase thing.

I cut this from a video. Do not sue me.
Shauna explains to Serena about how Showcases work, and it seems suspiciously familiar...

WRONG

Oh yeah, the Pokemon Contests from the third generation! But in the anime, Pokemon contests worked differently - you had to use your own Pokemon for both rounds. Still, the idea fits - in round one, you do a theme skit showing yourself off, and in the second round your Pokemon does a performance of its own. Serena learns that Showcases DO NOT HAVE BATTLING IN THEM!


CORRECT
Just like the contests in the games, there is no battling allowed... which is 180 from how the anime handles Pokemon contests. Yeah, the writers decided to make the Coordinators battle each other, which is really stupid as Pokemon contests are supposed to show style and grace, not battle skill. I don't give a Fennekin's flying feces if they say that the battles are conducted with grace, the anime Pokemon contests are still mainly battle tournaments with a showcase round to winnow the contestants to four semi-finalists who beat each other up... WITH STYLE! X(

I totally understand that, at the time when May and Dawn were running about doing contest training, the writers had no "funky freshly" clue how to portray Pokemon Contests, and it could have gotten much worse, but let's face it, if they wanted to portray Pokemon contests in the anime, they should have take a cue card from the Pokemon Showcases Serena participates in. I mean, Pokepuffs are a anime knock-off of Poke-block and Pokepuffs are essential to Pokemon-Amie, which is bound to make a return in Sun and Moon. So please, don't tell me to go suck an egg. It's my opinion and if you want, you can comment down below about it.

After all, Pokevision is just the Pokemon world's version of Youtube... which means lots of disgusting filthy viral videos about Pokemon that would make a grown man cry. :p

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Pokemon Sun and Moon are literally like night and day!

(NOTE: I want to clarify that I misconstrued the effect of Happy Hour. I learned from other Pokemon fans that Happy Hour has an effect - if you use it in a trainer battle, you get double the money, as if the Pokemon has an Amulet Coin/Luck Incense equipped. This stacks with said equip items so it's great for getting rich off of trainer battles. Also, I found out the effect of Hold Back - it's just another name for False Swipe, it has the same effect; it doesn't kill a Pokemon outright, it only drops to them 1 HP. The difference is that Hold Back is a learned move which only certain Pokemon can learn.)

The site idioMeanings defines idioms that have existed since humans began communication, and one of the most common idioms is "Like night and day." It means that the two things before the idiom are total opposites to each other.

The term comes from the fact that everything looks completely different in the darkness of night than it does in the bright light of full daytime. But now Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon are about to take this idiom and turn it on its ear!

I sort of expected something like this considering that the games are named after the celestial bodies of the day and the night, but this still surprised me: Pokemon Moon's timeline is on a different time cycle than Pokemon Sun! That's right, if you set your time in Pokemon Moon game cart to 6 AM, it'll be 6 PM in the game, meaning that while you're playing in the real sunlight, your avatar will be taking a moonlit stroll on the beach or down a city street! Not only that, but the Pokemon that trainers have may be different. For example, we got a trailer about the Island Challenge, where you fight a totem Pokemon. In the Sun version, that fight will be with a Totem Gumshoos. In Moon version, it'll be against a Totem of the Alola Raticate, which was become a more hideous chipmunk-cheeked ugly rat which retains the Dark/Normal typing. Of course, by that time you should have a Fighting-type move which can easily one-shot it. (Quad weakness to fighting sucks.)

With Sun and Moon coming out in 2.5 months, it's expected that they'd start giving more information, but now we have more interesting stuff to learn. For example, we find out what that strange floating lab in the center of the island archipelago is - it's home to the Aether Foundation, a group dedicated to protecting Pokemon, especially those from other regions. They may be the key to transferring Pokemon from Pokemon X and Y to these versions. I bet that, if Game Freak isn't rebooting Pokemon, they are going to start introducing regional types of Pokemon that adapt to different climates like arctic tundrae, sandy desert lands, and more so that the old Pokemon we grew up with don't become stale and dull.

Also, the Aether Foundation are enemies to Team Skull (though considering the stories past, I bet they'll become friends at the end of the game to prevent a world-wide catastrophe 6_^). There are also two tourists who will help you in finding Zygarde by giving your character a cube which allows you to contain Zygarde Cells and Zygarde Cores. For those of you who haven't kept up with the anime or watched the recent movies, the Zygarde we saw in X and Y is only 50% of the real Zygarde, and it is very unstable. There are other Zygarde forms - a 10% which looks like a Great Dane wearing a scarf and a Perfect Zygarde(100%) which is a humanoid kaiju monster! We may never have gotten a third wheel to X and Y but these games are going to make Zygarde have a role in it, and the whole quest to collect Zygarde parts reminds me of the Zoni collection in Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time.

A couple of new Pokemon were revealed. One of them is called Type: Null and for a second I thought it was a new type of Pokemon, but it's the name of a Normal type Pokemon which looks like a Trojan Horse. There is also a cute little dragon with the very anime-like name of Jangmo-o, which has the abilities Bulletproof(protecting it from damage from multi-hit attacks) and Soundproof(negating any moves that have a sonic-quality to them like Supersonic and Sonic Boom). They also showed off a jellyfish Pokemon called "Ultra Beast: 01" without showing any type of abilities. This is a mysterious Pokemon which I am curious how it will play into the game.

Finally, for those of you who fondly remember Pokemon Snap, this game has a treat for you! You can take photos of Pokemon standing around in the games with your Poke-Finder(a part of you Pokedex) and send them to other players to be rated. I'm sure there are a lot of shutterbugs eager to start snapping away.

All in all, the new reveals have shown that Sun and Moon are not your ordinary Pokemon games and shake up the formula. I don't know what's coming after Sun and Moon - maybe a reboot of Pokemon Red and Blue in 3D? - but the future of Pokemon is looking bright... and twilit too! ;)

Thursday, September 1, 2016

The Revolution has come...

After being out of the loop for a long time, I decided to bring forth this blog because...


Pokemon is getting a reboot.

Yep, this blog will report on things happening with the upcoming Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon. (I apologize for the e in Pokemon, my current computer doesn't have a means of making an accented-e. <_>)

As you can see, this screenshot is from a trailer showing off a Z-Move, a new type of move. A couple of years ago, Pokemon came out with Mega Evolution, creating new temporary evolved forms of famous Pokemon that made them stronger. This new generation will (probably) replace that with the new Z-Move system, where Pokemon have over-powered moves that do a lot of damage! Like Mega Stones, Z-Stones in a Z-Bracer are used to do a coordinated attack!

And we found out recently that it's not just 18 Z-Stones. Now the Pokemon company is distributing a free Munchlax with the moves Happy Hour(which does the same thing as Splash - zippo) and Hold Back, which I don't know much about. When you evolve the Munchlax, you can equip it with a special Z-Stone called Snorlium-Z, which gives its own signature Z-Move, Pulverizing Pancake!

Also, old Pokemon are gaining new forms - the games take place in the Alola region, which is a tropical archipelago similar to Hawaii. As such, many old Pokemon that emigrate there have change their appearance and even type - Sandshrew and Vulpix and their evolved forms are now Ice-type Pokemon and Meowth and Rattata are now Dark-types.

Don't worry, there are some new Pokemon. The starters are a grass owl called Rowlet, a fire kitten called Litten and a clown-nosed seal called Poplio. I've already reserved my copies and I hope you go visit Serebii.net and check out their news. So long for now!

(The information I got from Serebii.net and the recent Nintendo Direct for 3DS.)