h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Pokemon Update:

Have you heard about the voice actor debacle? Long story short, as of the end of the season control of the show is being transferred from 4Kids to Pokemon America. They have an insane idea that they can save some quick bucks by replacing the ENTIRE cast with "sound-alike" actors. The testing ground is the movie Mastermind the Mirage Pokemon. Sound-alike? Not remotely! They sound awful. Absolutely awful. Pokemon has been around for ten years, we've had it in America for eight, and the voice cast hasn't changed since the middle of the first season, except for Jenny and Joy.

As for the plot, absolutely awful. Mirage Pokemon are just holograms that can theoretically be more effective than real ones. The twist is that since they're computer controlled they can use any attack and the traditional set of type advantages and disadvantages. A villian hijacks the system and creates a fake Mewtwo. Somehow the system creates a fake Mew to face him. It all turns out okay, but the concept as a whole is just junk. If you can't count on type advantages to work, and you can never know what attack is coming next, how can the battles be considered fair at all?

Yup, I heard about it, and also heard some new clips of the new voices, and they are HORRIBLE.

I think for me, if these episodes make it over here, I sadly won't have the want to watch them. I'll stick to my Indigo League tapes from now on.

Trust me, they are horrible. Every single one. Like I read somewhere, the only good voices were for the new characters that weren't replaced.

At least the season isn't over with here, so we have the old voices.

Wait, they kept some? I thought they were replacing everyone? Except the Pokémon (excluding Meowth). I just tihnk it's an absolute shame for them to do it after so many years; I mean some of the voices in the original changed slightly, but it was so early on you hardly noticed.

But EWW.

I'm kinda glad I don't keep up woth the newer episodes now.

Yeah, they replaced everyone, but not all of the characters in Mastermind the Mirage Pokemon are recurring characters. We had the obligatory movie-only heroes and villians, and their voices were okay, par for the course actually. We have no point of reference for them, so we can't be biased against them. But the replacement voices for Team Ash, Team Rocket, Team Pallet (Prof. Oak, Delia, Tracey, etc.) were just awful. Awful squared.

Pokemon Update:

Our heroes are on the way to the second of the Frontier Brains, and they bump into a guy with a Loudred. Tommorrow is his daughter's birthday, and he's promised her a Jigglypuff. Loudred has an attack that renders Sing attacks useless. This isn't OUR Jigglypuff, by the way. This one can produce CG musical notes for its Sing attack, and doesn't carry a marker around to scribble on our heroes' faces. I miss the good old days of that running gag, don't you? Long story short, Jigglypuff foils the efforts of our heroes and TR to capture it, but ends up following the guy home anyway because it had grown used to their "games." He had spent months trying to catch it everyday, much like Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.

Yeah, I managed to hear all of the replacing voices via YouTube, and Professor Oak's made me just.. Shudder. Did they have Tracey there? I can't recall hearing his voice, we're not that far on yet over here.

Also, the fact that they've gotten rid of OUR Jigglypuff, and the running joke with that, well.. I dunno, Pokémon seems to be missing something now. I've even gone back to restarting my old Gameboy Pokémon games for the sheer fact that well.. They're just better :/

Yeah, it's a shame that so many old gags kinda fell by the wayside when Master Quest (i.e. the last of the "original series") turned into Advanced (i.e. a "brand-new" series). Then again, did the Jigglypuff gag really happen all that often in Jouto?

Yeah, I'd like to try out FireRed or LeafGreen, but I gotta get a copy of Emerald first. I sorta want to finish those before Pearl and Diamond come out.

Pokemon Update:

Drew is back, but May is treating him like her counterpart of Gary again. They're both after a wild Arcanine, but they give it up when they find that it's just been causing trouble to get food for it's Growlithe puppies.

I think by the time Johto had come along, they just really didn't show the show very much on terrestrial TV. Now I have satellite, they show Advanced, which I rarely watch.. But they still show Johto every day (and a mixture of Orange Islands/Indigo League at the weekends).

Mind you, I've become more interested in trying to find the old episodes in Japanese.. No luck though. I'm trying to get ahold of all the versions of the games, i just need Ruby, Fire Red and Emerald. :D

*pokepoke*

Just wondering if you're still around! I miss your summaries and companies!

Sorry, I guess I hadn't realized how long it's been. No update this week, apparently my antennae got yanked out so the VCR taped five hours of static. It's really a shame how few episodes we've got left. What with the UPN/WB merger and the voice actor controversy, Pokemon isn't on the fall scedule. The CW wants to be exclusively American cartoons again now that Yu-gi-oh is done. I'd have thought that they'd want to keep Viewtiful Joe at least, and why aren't they going to show Yu-gi-oh GX?

Hey, that's okay! I was just worrying because I hadn't seen you at all!

It's sad about Pokemon not being on the schedule, not even re-runs? I'd half think it for the best, especially with the new voice actors, but still.. It's been going so long! As for Yu-Gi-Oh, I didn't see past the first season, and Viewtiful Joe never made it here :/

Not even reruns. I think it's a bold and suicidal move to make Kid's WB on the CW a no-anime zone. We haven't had a good American cartoon since Kim Possible.

Pokemon's still in reruns. Only a few months before the big turnover. Maybe 4Kids TV will buy out the show. I read on a few sites that the new cast is already making episodes and even if we somehow convinced them to return to the old actors (probably through Save Our Voice Actors) the old cast would only be able to do the final season. There are only two seasons left, you know.

Do you mean that even in Japan, the series is going to come to a stop? That'd be sad, even if I don't pay as much attention to it any more.

Incidentally, the Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon games are out in America next month. I'll be in the country, and will be getting both the GBA and DS versions :D

That's what I've heard. Don't take that as gospel, though...

So they are doing the dual versions, huh? I heard about that, that if you have Pearl AND Diamond in your DS simultaneously, that something cool will happen.

I thought that Pearl and Diamond were both DS versions though, not one DS and one GBA. But Mystery Dungeon Red and GBA and Blue is DS.

And I can't believe that after all this time, they'd consider finishing off Pokemon! I'm still obsessively watching the Indigo and Johto leagues, and the Orange league too. Bless repeats.

You know, I never really got into Orange Islands. I liked the challenge/task Gym Leaders as a spin and all that, but it just can't compare to Kanto or Jouto. It's still funny how for years and years they always said Indigo to refer to Ash's home region, but come Battle Frontier and "hey, we're back in Kanto!"

Never heard of Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue. I like the idea of dual versions in the same system, but immediately saw the snag. Don't DS cards have greater graphical capabilities? Would they really put GBA-level graphics on a DS card so they're still the same? If anything, maybe they could rig the cards so that you could put one of them into a sort of GBA cartridge case to go into the slot. You know, the second DS card just tells the first one to unlock the stuff since both games are both present. Then you could have 64-bit graphics on both.

I was the same about Orange Islands. It's still in the first three Seasons, which are the only ones I properly watched, but the loss of Brock and the made-up plot kind of drew away from them.

I think you should look them up. I think that the graphics for the DS version are a bit better, and there are obviously touch-screen capabilities, but other than that, I'm not exactly sure. I think if I am able to get to a store before I go home, I will pick myself up a copy of each regardless.

Also, sorry if any of my replies are delayed. I'm actually on holiday in Florida right now for the next three weeks, but I will try my hardest to check in here.

Even though it's still a couple weeks before the big season premiere of Kids WB on the CW, Pokemon is already gone, as are all of the other animes. That means that unless I actually break down and start buying videos or DVDs, our conversation is essentially dead. Almost five and a half years, and here we are.

Maybe we can watch Digimon Savers when it comes out.

But from what I've seen on television here, they're starting to show a new TV season of Pokémon, as well as the movie based on the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games.. I guess television is different in every state?

And it would be a shame to let conversation die.. Especially since I don't get Digimon Savers at home. They stopped showing Digimon, and they show Pokémon Advanced Battle on TV, as well as re-runs of the older episodes.. Do you get ANY of them at all on any channels?

Don't want conversation to die ;__;

First of all, which Pokemon season are you watching, and I think you've already said that you don't get Kids WB, so your network must be different.

We don't get Digimon Savers yet either. I think it's still relatively brand-new in Japan.