Now it’s something big.

Big enough that it made me log in to this long-unused account.

For the first time in 27 years of Pokemon history, Daisy Oak (aka Blue/Gary’s older sister), a character who has been with us since the beginning, got a TCG artwork. Illustrated by Tomomi Kaneko, it’s part of the most recent “Pokemon Card 151″ expansion - a TCG set that celebrates the first generation of Pokemon, with each one of the original 151 getting its own card (including the long-unseen Kadabra). What a perfect opportunity to give Daisy her long deserved artwork! It remains to be seen whether a Full-Art Secret Rare version of this card exists as well. It is the first official artwork of Daisy since 1996, when she was featured on a New Year postcard illustrated by Ken Sugimori (one of the most elusive artworks in existence and one of the first Pokemon arts in general). It is also the first ever artwork of her current game design, which originates from FR/LG. Before now, we only had the overworld (FRLG and HGSS) sprites and the Fame Checker sprite from FRLG. She didn’t appear in LGPE (so there’s no 3D model for her - maybe Masters could change that?) and was omitted from Origins (now I can forgive that...) and the designs found in her various manga appearances differ greatly. So, this definitely does her justice but I am waiting for more!

I’ll also use this occasion to answer the two anonymous questions that were sent to me while I was absent from Tumblr.

1. “Hi, what do you consider to be the official art for the gym leaders leaders in Gen 1. Is there actual Sugimori Game art or do we only have the TCG Sugimori art.” Well, aside from the portrait arts that we all know from the guides, there are also the arts from the “Pokemon Hikerukana” (Can You Play All Pokemon) CD booklet, which were also drawn by Ken Sugimori. Those of course count as game art, although they do have their quirks (like Brock wearing a shirt with a “Nibi Gym” logo). Bulbapedia calls them Yellow-based arts. Of course, there are also the TCG Sugimori arts from the Gym Heroes/Challenge sets, which I consider to be just as accurate as the Hikerukana arts. In early 2000s, when I was still a kid, I had no idea what “Hikerukana” is (since it was never released outside Japan), so I saw the TCG arts as the “canonical” arts back in the day. This is why these have a special place in my heart. They shaped my image of Kanto Gym Leaders the most. This was back in the time when human characters other than Ash rarely got any spotlight in Pokemon, so a Gym Leader-centered TCG set was sure something.

2. As for the person, who anonymously asked me about “Jo’s Big Adventure” manga. Well, I may have what you’re asking for (it’s in Japanese though, no translation), so if you’re still here, please message me some contact info (or contact me directly, if you have Tumblr), so I can give you that.

So, welcome back after my inexcusably long absence. Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday and Gay Yuletide to all Pokemon fans!

Do I have any Christmas treats for you? Not really, I’m afraid. But the last episode of “Pokemon Evolutions” was sure a great Christmas present from TPCi, especially for such Pokemon Trainer maniacs like me. So, I’m posting a scene from it. The five Nugget Bridge Trainers - from left to right: Lass Ali, Bug Catcher Cale, Camper Kevin, Lass Reli and Youngster Timmy. They’re identifiable through the Pokemon that they have - these are evolved forms of the Pokemon they use in LGPE. Makes sense, considering that Green meets them during the “post-game” part of the story (after Elaine caught Mewtwo), so they’ve sure gotten stronger by that point. Also, their boss (the disguised Rocket Grunt) can be seen in this episode as well! I also love how Ali has a wholly unique design for her (to distinguish her from Reli), but keeping the defining feature of a Lass - the miniskirt. So, how do you feel about “Pokemon Evolutions”? It was pretty nice, I especially liked the last episodes. Not just because I’m biased towards Johto and Kanto, but also because I think these two episodes featured the most interesting characters. I'm a big fan of how the Kimono Girls were presented and the Mewtwo episode... just caught the spirit of Kanto right. It took me back to the childhood, when everyone was excited about the ultimate Pokemon of the time, Mewtwo, and wanted to get it first on their Game Boy! Also, I loved the decision to make Green the main hero, seeing Trace and Elaine felt refreshing too.

I got lengthy as usual... but after such absence, I owe you something, people. I’ll try to make up with some new posts. And my wish for 2022 is that we get more alternate Pokemon animes. 2021 was sure abundant in them - Poketoons, Twilight Wings, Evolutions - they were all great and offered a new view on the Pokemon world. I still haven’t got enough of that and want to see more and more!

Pokémon Special anime? 10 or 15 years ago, I would say that it's totally a pipe dream that's never gonna happen. But you know what? Times have changed. Alternate Pokemon animes exist. Origins, Generations, Twilight Wings, PokeToons, a bunch of animated game trailers. And we are getting more and more of these. Also, TPC isn't as blind for Pokemon mangas as it used to be. There are occasional manga ads on the official website, the 25th anniversary video showed manga as well. It is still the most overlooked Pokemon medium, but not so long ago it had virtually zero recognition from Pokemon's "governing bodies". Those alternate animes are generally well-received by the Pokemon fandom. And the animators of Twilight Wings and the recent Poketoon episode, Studio Colorido, have proven us that they are indeed Pokemon fans. Their animated shorts portray the Pokemon world in an accurate way, the animation is great and the stories are believable and clearly made with passion. If someone was to do the task of animating a PokeSpe anime special, I can absolutely see Studio Colorido doing it right, especially if the manga's authors, Hidenori Kusaka and Satoshi Yamamoto are involved in its creation process. The first volume of Pocket Monsters Special was first released in Japan on August 8, 1997. The next year will mark the 25th anniversary of this event. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to release a commemorative animation (either an OVA or a miniseries) by Studio Colorido. I think this is possible. And as the fandom, we can show that we want this to happen. Reblog if you also believe so.

It’s Been 8860 Days of No Pokespe Anime

Too good not to reblog again.

Another lost gem retrieved by HiResPokemon team. Something I had no idea that it existed until now. One of the very few representations of Gen I Elite Four and another example of Lance’s “shiny” coloration (I must really make a feature on him). Well, one can say this is just “glorified fanart” (not coming from Sugimori or GF) interpreting in-game sprites, but it comes from an officially-licensed book nonetheless, so it counts in my terms.

1997 rendition of the Generation 1 Elite 4 by Akiko Narita 成田章子, in the book, ポケットモンスター 用語辞典 "Pokémon Vocabulary".

This is just too good not to reblog it.

Friends! What you see might be the EARLIEST Pokémon illustration officially released ever.

It's a Game Freak 1993 New Year postcard by Ken Sugimori found and scanned by the awesome collector http://instagram.com/hapycakeoven A truly exciting discovery. This *does not* pre-dates Capsule Monsters, this card might represent the first time Game Freak showed Pokémon to the public. It surely is the earliest published picture to date. As you might know, these cards are usually in colour, so let the hunt for the original begin!

More details in HapyCakeOven's original post (I got his permission to clean it up and retweet it) HERE!

For this occasion, I uploaded everything that I have from Battrio, divided into three galleries. However, many of those pictures are in rather bad quality, so I am always looking for some better resolution. Magazine and Book scans and official pictures - A good portion of them have been shared to me by @animesque​ - BIG thanks for that. Others have been grabbed from various internet sources - the one I remember being Filb.de's CoroCoro scan gallery before they took it down silently years ago (I wish I had grabbed more stuff from there...). Some also come from the official Battrio website.

Cut-out character artworks from various printed sources - Yeah... I regret the decision of just cutting out the arts and not keeping the full original scan. But this must do for now, I guess.

Pictures from the game itself - in abysmal quality, as they come mostly from various YouTube streams of the game. Not very "useful" but they do give some overview of the characters. I must say, that I am a big fan of Battrio character designs. Not only the Trainer Classes, but the OCs too - they are pretty cool, I think. I also prefer Battrio's artstyle to the artstyles of its successor games, which gradually become more and more "cutesy". I think the Battrio artstyle was the most "Pokemon-like", somewhat reminiscent of core series games. Battrio was the only Pokemon arcade game to feature core game-like Trainer Classes. The successors relied solely on OCs. However, I am interested in all arcade stuff (older and newer alike), since my ultimate goal is to create a complete archive of characters from all licensed Pokemon materials. As to where to find the arts from Battrio and other arcades, I think the best bet would be to search for the printed Japanese guidebooks for these games. There are apparently quite a few of them, but since this is an unexplored area for me, I cannot really say what are the differences between them, which ones are crucial when it comes to collecting the full picture of Battrio artworks and which ones are less interesting (these books are focused on the purpose of collecting pucks above all, but apparently they do have some game guide section as well). I don't even know how many of them are there! Battrio itself had a bunch of revisions (Battrio, Battrio V, Battrio 0, Battrio S etc.) which feature different artworks. So, one character can have several Battrio artworks, since the artstyle of Battrio evolved. This is something very poorly documented and also something that I would definitely would love to have covered in my future character gallery. Hope we do get to explore this area of Pokemon world someday.

Hey! I know this is a bit of a shot in the dark, but do you happen to have any Battrio artwork? Specifically, I'm looking for Trainer class artwork. Some of that came through CoroCoro scans, but there's no easy way to access old CoroCoro scans nowadays...

Not yet unfortunately @pokechars might have some pics archived tho. Do you know which CoroCoro we are talking about? I’ve got almost all of them from 95 to 2001 I could look for Battrio stuff  if you narrow down my research XD

Pokemon 25th Anniversary Blog Post

 Time for something that I rarely do here... an actual blog post!

So, have you been enjoying your Pokemon Day? How did you like the news?

As for the Pokemon Legends: Arceus game, I am absolutely excited. This is something that will surely bring some freshness to the franchise, which admittedly has been drowning in its own clichés for years. What exactly will it bring? Who knows. It is way too early to deem it good or bad - unlike the other revealed title, we just don't know what to expect. So, surely I will be looking forward to the updates, though I guess this may not be any time soon. So far, the game's overworld looks like one big Wild Area. This looks like much fun to explore, but also like something that may get boring after a while. I hope that the developers find a way to make the game exciting at the long go and prepare some interesting plot. I am especially interested in its backstory aspect - I hope that despite the wilderness, we do get to see some familiar places in their ancient form. For example, I would love to see what Solaceon Ruins were before they became, well... ruins. But what excites me the most is the possibility of future "Legends" games. I mean, "Pokemon Legends" sure sounds like some ongoing side-series, right? And Johto-based Legends game is something that I would DEFINITELY want to see in the future. Johto is literally made for it - it has ancient ruins, Pokemon version of Kyoto, geishas, Legendary towers, ninjas in Mahogany etc. It would be a sin not to do that! Also, if the Sinjoh Ruins is somehow integrated into Legends: Arceus's plot, then we might even get a hint of such a game in the future. This is definitely something that I see great potential in. But what will we really get? Only time will tell. By the way, what names do you call the protagonists of this game? I jokingly call them "Koukiemon" and "Hikarihime" but maybe someone already invented better names. I hope that they do get some official names.

As for the other big reveal, the long-awaited Diamond & Pearl remakes - Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, my feelings are rather mixed. Don't get me wrong, I am sure that they will be great games, just like the originals were. But comparing them to previous remakes, I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed. I'm not gonna lie, the remakes were mostly about graphical progress to me. Getting a familiar but more polished and more realistic version of the old game's world, translating it into the visuals of modern games. This remake lacks this aspect. I am not saying this is a bad approach per se, the problem is that they decided to take this approach at this point, after the general standard of what a Pokemon game remake should be like has been long but established. If the remakes were always like this, it would be okay and nobody would complain. But looking back to the previous remakes and how they represented their respective regions, seeing that Sinnoh got this kind of approach feels somewhat... unfair. Also, the game's general aesthetic and how different it is from other modern core series Pokemon games makes it feel somehow detached from its generation. All previous remakes were full-fledged core Pokemon entries that could (and often did) influence the series and bring something new to it, while BDSP seems more like a one-time affair which is going to have no bearing on the series's future. It also lacks this unpredictability aspect that PLA has. What we've seen so far seems to say much about the game as a whole - we pretty much know how to expect with little room for surprise, unless the devs throw some curveball at us. The game's visuals philosophy also limits its usefulness for my character collection. The character models are pretty much direct representations of their overworld sprites from DP (except even more caricatural), so they are not really representative of the character in question - not something I would use for my collection (it would be like using GameBoy or DS overworld sprites...). Of course, important characters will get artworks (not a big fan of the game's artwork style, but this is purely subjective) but since the designs are preserved almost 1:1, these will not be as exciting as in previous remakes, where we were wondering about character redesigns. Some were good, some were strange or controversial, but they were just one more puzzling aspect of each remake, which BDSP lacks. One good use I see for these remakes, though, are the models for Trainers in battle (which are kept in similar aesthetic as LGPE, which is detailed just enough for me). I hope that all Trainer Classes make it and nobody gets cut (the question is legit, since ORAS removed Female Triathletes and Psychics). I still hope that, despite the rather underwhelming first impression, the new remakes do hide something nice for us and that they will bring some goodies to my character collections, which I will be happy to post here. After all, LGPE which felt similarly underwhelming (and still ranks rather low in my subjective Pokemon games ranking), did have some nice things after all.

Happy 25th Anniversary, Pokemon fans! Maybe the future isn't bad! Let's hope that the new surprising game breaks the routine.

So, exactly three years ago, on Valentine’s Day 2018, this blog was born. Time sure passes fast, doesn’t it? Keeping the Valentine theme, here is Julia, the ribbon girl from Sinnoh games, waiting patiently for her loved one in her house in Sunyshore. Who knows... maybe we will see her again soon?

Picture comes from the Diamond/Pearl Quiz Book, scanned by Pokescans. I could’ve sworn that I posted her here before, but looks like she is not in the archive. Perhaps this was one of the posts that got removed during Tumblr’s rules change?

Dexter, the Sinnoh Contest Judge and MC, as shown in the “Pokemon Diamond & Pearl Adventure” manga by Shigekatsu Ihara.

Will we see him, as well as other Sinnoh characters again soon? How will Pokemon Contests be handled in a potential Diamond/Pearl remake? I hope that we get some actual news on new mainline games soon enough, the wait is sure killing me.

The receptionist in the gate to Amity Square, as shown in the Diamond/Pearl Quiz Book (scanned by Pokescans of course - we miss you, Pacific!). Amity Square is one of those nice places in Sinnoh that I'm definitely looking forward to see in a potential remake. A somewhat "useless", yet comfy and relaxing location with an unique atmosphere that no other place in the Pokemon world has.

Trainer Class Tuesday is back! This week we have... the unexpected appearance of a Firebrather in “Twilight Wings”. I guess this makes Firebreather a Galarian Trainer Class, right? Also, cute Charmander.

The only new card in the non-Secret Rare part of the upcoming “Shiny Star V” TCG set, revealed a few days ago in Japan... but I think it’s glorious enough to make up for the lack of other new cards!

The set consists mostly of reprints but of course, there will be a plenty of Secret Rares, which will get revealed soon. Hopefully some nice new Trainers as well.

I'm not a fan of those month-long Halloween Specials, so just today will have to do.

Here are the ghosts who appear in Sinnoh's Old Chateau in the games (the girl and the butler), as they were shown in the "Pokemon Generations" episode. I just can never get enough of Pokemon game-based anime. Can't wait for the upcoming Twilight Wings special, even though Galar is far from being my favorite region.

I don’t normally cover spin-off content here... but hell, I’ll make an exception here. The nameless protagonist of unreleased “Pokemon Picross” GBC game from 1999, alongside a Cubone.

There’s one more known artwork of him (and some Pokemon artworks for the game as well) but this is the only one I could get in decent quality. Maybe someday guys from HiresPokemon lay their hands on those rare materials and enhance them... This is my dream. So, are you enjoying the “new” Pokemon GBC game? (Source: Moa151 Twitter)

In this (almost) weekly Trainer Class Tuesday... A Gambler, in his Sinnoh incarnation, as seen in the Pokemon Special manga (Platinum Saga). A Trainer Class with an incredibly problematic name... Due to the anti-gambling measures in the West (which eventually led to the total removal of Game Corner from Pokemon games), this Trainer class was first renamed to “Gamer” in FR/LG and then “P.I.” in DPPt. The latter name implies that they are detectives, rather than gamblers. It works... r-right? The coin? Just ignore it. Strategy involving the usage of random-effect moves? Typical detective stuff. Dialogue centered around gambling? Oh, don’t be so picky. The next (and last) time this Class was featured was LGPE (due to it being a remake of original Gen I) and this time NoA chose the “Gamer” route again. If we get our Sinnoh remakes sometime in the future (I see it as quite inevitable, the question is “when”), what do you think NoA will choose as the name for this class? I personally prefer the “Gamer” option - at least it relates to what they really are, unlike “P.I.” which is just blatant censorship. I’d sacrifice the consistency with the original in this case - it was a bad decision they made years ago, no reason to repeat it. Also, what might pass unnoticed in sprite graphics may be much harder to cover-up in more advanced 3D models.

Here’s something nice that happened in yesterday’s new “Pokemon Journeys” episode. In one of the first scenes of the episode, we see two people exchanging their Pokemon in the Vermillion City Pokemon Center. A Gentleman trades his Farfetch’d (nicknamed Oshou) for a little girl’s Spearow (nicknamed Onichan). Avid Pokemon players have likely recognized the scene as a reference to the memorable Spearow-for-Farfetch’d in-game trade that happens in Vermillion City in the original Gen I games. But there’s apparently more to this...

Oshou is the Japanese name of Dux, the original in-game trade Pokemon from Pokemon Red and Blue that a little girl (named Elyssa in FRLG) trades for the player’s Spearow. Dux reappears in LGPE in the very same house in Vermillion, but this time it’s not traded. His owner, this time a Gentleman, expresses his will to catch a Spearow. You may ask why they changed Dux’s owner from a little girl to a Gentleman. Possible answer is that it’s a reference to the Pokemon Trader TCG card from Gen I times.

Onichan, in turn, is the Japanese name of Speary, the Spearow owned by a little girl and her father in a house in Viridian City. The house serves mainly as a demonstration of the Pokemon nicknaming mechanism and appears in all core games that feature Kanto. In Johto-based games, Speary is joined by a Rattata nicknamed Rattey.

So yeah, we have a reference to two in-game Pokemon and the NPCs who own them (ironically, none of these two are the original in-game trader from Gen I). If you ever wished for these NPCs to appear in the anime, your wish has just been granted.

Now let's hope that the English dub doesn't screw this up and catches the Pokemon nicknames as Dux and Speary. Otherwise, this entire scene loses its sense. Also, I hope that the anime keeps adding such cute and easy-to-miss game references. They’re incredibly nice to spot.