Pokémon Day – Pokémon ‘Bridged January 1, 2013

We’re coming to the end of Pokémon Day on the site and I wanted to conclude it with the thing that restarted my interest in Pokémon after over ten years.  As I said before in my earlier articles I had an interest in Pokémon back when the original generation was released back in the late 90s for the Game Boy, but that was simply relegated to watching the anime and watching my friends play the game during lunch back in High School.

Then, at Quinni-Con 2012 back in April, I met two of the creators of the series Pokémon ‘Bridged, and my interest in the pocket monsters fired right back up.  Pokémon ‘Bridged is a YouTube series where the original Pokémon animated series is cut down and redubbed with entirely new dialog…a lot of which is highly inappropriate for young children to listen to.  It’s just hilarious in how completely out there it is.

I think what made the series stick with me coming out of that panel was when I met 1KidsEntertainment and Nowacking for the first time, two of the principal cast members for the series.  I could tell that the series was being made by true fans of the subject material.  Legally, they could not make any profit on the episodes they produced, so it must have been a great labor of love for them.  They also reference the original games several times.  It is clear that while they are using the original TV show as a framework for the animation, they reference being inside a video game several times, to hilariously anachronistic effect.

In this series, Ash is a total idiot, Brock is a total creep, Misty is out of her mind, and Pikachu is…well…you’ll have to see for yourselves.

Episodes of Pokémon ‘Bridged can be found on the YouTube Channel for 1KidsEntertainment, but here are some of my absolute favorite episodes.

The series creators recommend this episode for new viewers.  It is a re-release of the first episode they ever did.  Instead of just redoing the episode with improved technology, they wrote entirely new jokes that referenced episodes they hadn’t even released yet.  It’s a great first episode to watch as it tells the quick story of how Ash got started on his quest to be a Grand Pokémon Master.

In Episode 2 we meet Officer Jenny for the first time.  Yeah, not how I pictured her.

This is Episode 4.  They’re still in the Veridian forest.

Next up is Episode 6.  If you’ve ever been interested in knowing just how to meet someone special…DO NOT use this episode as a dating guide!

In Episode 7, Ash visits Cerulian City to battle Misty’s sisters…but Misty only had one sister.  There were problems with the machine.

In Episode 8, the gang finds a Charmander.  Misty loves it making her a disgrace to water trainers everywhere.  Ash thought if he put it in the rain it would get stronger.

In Episode 11 the gang meets Gym Leader Lt. Surge.  What a nice guy.

In Episode 14 we hear Professor Oak talk about his obsession with husks of corn.

For episode 15, they decided to take the animation for a later season of the show and use that as the framework for an episode.  There are some great call backs to earlier parts of the series, and a great moment with Team Rocket.  Just how many times do you think they have to do that introduction of theirs a day?

And finally here is Episode 16, the most recent episode.  Ash battles Sabrina, who can probably hear everything he thinks, and they visit super happy fun town which doesn’t look like anything I just described.

Well guys, that brings us to the end of Pokémon Day here on the site.  I want to thank you all for visiting the site and wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Pokémon Day – Johnny Vs Reviews January 1, 2013

During my research for “Do We All Live in a Pokémon World” I came across YouTube Reviewer SomeCallmeJohnny and his Johnny Vs game reviews.  This guy will usually set aside an entire month and devote it to an entire classic gaming series, like Metroid or Sonic the Hedgehog and review each of the games in the series.  The guy is extremely talented with good writing, high video and audio quality, and good paced editing.  His reviews can get as long as 40 minutes in length but I swear he’ll keep your attention so well the entire time you won’t even notice it.

He had previously said he would never devote a month to a Role Playing Game series, as he argued it would take far too long to complete a single RPG.  Multiplying that for each sequel would be too complex a process.  Well, as they say there are exceptions to every rule and that exception is Pokémon!

Johnny was a huge fan of the original Pokémon games growing up, and the spin offs that were released in the late 90s, so he devoted an entire month to these original Pokémon games from back when Pokémon fever started to take hold.

So where did Pokémon fever start?  Lets begin with his review of the Pokémon Generation 1 games.

However, when Pokémon fever started to go crazy in the states, some new Pokémon games ended up getting released here in the states on the Nintendo 64 to cash in on its popularity and hold gamers over for when Generation 2 came out.  One of those games was Pokémon Stadium.  For the first time in the States we would see what these little creatures we had previously only saw on a Game Boy would look like when battling in full 3D on the N64.  How was that game?  Lets find out.

However, as I’m sure as you all know, there was a lot more to Pokémon than just the video games, tv show, movies and comic books.  There were trading cards.  Pokémon Trading Cards saw an extremely successful run in the early 2000s, so much so that extremely rare cards would fetch unbearably high prices in the reseller market.  Personally I never had more than an original starter box (which I haven’t been able to find recently) of the cards and never played them, but then again even Johnny admitted the same.  They were great collectibles, and he takes a look at them from that perspective in his video review of the cards.

There was another Nintendo 64 spin-off game that got released, called Pokémon Snap.  It looked at Pokémon in a different way than we had before.  We weren’t battling them in this game, we were taking a look at them in their own natural habitat and photographing them as if they were being used in a nature documentary you would see on television.  How did it hold up?  Take a look.

Well, that was the last spin-off game we got at that time and now it was time for the first official sequel to the original Pokémon games which continued the story that started it all.  We now had two new games, an all new trainer with an entirely new story, and one hundred new Pokémon to catch!  Here’s his review of Pokémon Generation 2.

Hope you guys are enjoying Pokémon Day on the site!  More content will be coming all through New Year’s Day!  Stick around.

Pokémon Day – Linkara Review January 1, 2013

Pokémon been absorbed so much into the media that it took over movies, television and video games at the same time.  But that wasn’t all you could find Pokémon in, there were Pokémon comic books too!  And who better to review a comic book than Lewis “Linkara” Lovhaug, the host of Atop the Fourth Wall.  In this episode from 2011 he reviewed the first issue of the Pokémon manga, The Electric Tales of Pikachu.  Based mostly on the animated series, this issue retold the story of how Ash got started on his quest to become the very best like no one ever was and how he met his Pikachu.

This review was the culmination of a plot Linkara was doing in his reviews.  Over the course of several weeks of reviews, people all over the world were slowly disappearing, ranging from his fellow critics to his own personal friends.  By the time the review was made he was supposedly the last person left on the planet.  There’s some cool special effects culminating in an epic battle with one of Pokémon’s most infamous embarrassments.

So if you want to see just what a Pokémon comic looks like, give this review a look.

More Pokémon content is coming!  Hope you’re all enjoying Pokémon Day on the site and Happy New Year to all of you!

Pokémon Day – How Pokémon Went Viral January 1, 2013

Hope you guys are enjoying Pokémon Day so far on the site.  Up next we have a really well made viral video from DNSQ where he takes his own look at the subject matter.  How Pokémon Went Viral talks about the history of the game series and provides thoughts and opinions on just how this franchise took off.  It’s a really well written and edited short with great music.  Give it a look.

Stay tuned to gamexcess.net for more Pokémon Day content!  Happy New Year!

Pokémon Day – Suede Reviews January 1, 2013

William Dufrence, formerly known to the internet as That Dude in the Suede is now simply known to the internet as Suede, and he is one of the anime reviewers for thatguywiththeglasses.com. Since April 2012, he has used his web series, Animenia, to review the feature-length Pokémon movies, and they have been absolutely fantastic.

However, he is not doing these movie reviews alone. Suede has reviewed the first two Pokémon films with Justin “JewWario” Carmical and Lewis “Linkara” Lovhaug. J-Dub is host of You Can Play This a classic import game series (with a Nintendo focus) and Linkara is host of Atop The Fourth Wall, where he reviews comic books every week. All three reviewers are die-hard Pokémon fans with a deep love for the series and knowledge of its expanded universe in both America and Japan.

If you want to watch their review of Pokémon: The First Movie, you can see Part 1 of the review here and Part 2 of the review here. Suede also provided a full commentary of that review where he talked mostly about the differences between the Japanese and American versions of the movie, as well as some extra things he didn’t get the chance to say in the original review and you can watch that here. That not enough for you? You can watch their review of Pokémon: The Movie 2000 in its entirety here.

While this was the last movie they’ve reviewed together to date, Suede has done some supplemental Pokémon reviews in the meantime on his own as he works on the third Pokémon movie review. The first up is a review of the Pikachu animated shorts which preceded the feature-length movies in theatres, and were included with the DVD releases of the movies. You can watch that review at this link. The most recent Pokémon video he did was released just in time for Christmas and is a review of the banned Pokémon Christmas episode, Holiday Hi-Jinx, which you can watch right here.

Suede has pledged to review all fifteen of the feature-length Pokémon animated movies, and that means that more will be coming. These guys really have a great time doing these reviews, the editing and animation are great, and their knowledge about the subject is quite extensive. Give it a watch.

More Pokémon related content will be coming all day today! Happy New Year!

Pokémon Day – Pokémon As A Mythic Narrative (Connecticon 2012 Panel) January 1, 2013

Princess Angel and I were fortunate enough to catch this amazing panel at Connecticon 2012 this summer, and luckily someone has put it online for everyone to get the chance to watch.  Charles Dunbar at studyofanime.com hosted a panel where he talked about Pokémon as a Mythic Narrative.  Specifically, he talked about the origins of Pokémon’s story and the inspiration behind many of the Pokémon themselves.

It’s an amazing panel filled with a lot of humor.  Trust me, you’ll be glued to watching every single minute of it and whether you’re a Jr. Trainer or a Grand Pokémon Master you may just learn something new along the way.  Enjoy.