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

Oh, definitely! I think that it's nice to have something unconventional like that once in a while! After all, as you said, you'd have to understand a LOT about Pokémon to know what they can do with different things!

I don't think I've asked if you've heard the new, new voice cast. I haven't yet.

I heard the new cast from the new Mew movie, and I've heard the other cast in the series, so I don't know if you meant either of those.

Either way they're pretty terrible. I miss the old voices!

Yeah, me too.

Anyway, Merry Christmas!

Merry belated Christmas to you, too! I was in Barcelona over Christmas and just got back.

I did take several hours to start a game on my copy of Pokemon Pearl though. Good stuff!

By "new, new cast" I mean the "regular" new voices, not the ones that were on the Master of Mirage Pokemon special.

Ohh.. Yeah, I did hear those as well. Some are an improvement on the Master of Mirage Pokemon special, but they're still not a patch on the originals.

Well, of course not.

Mind you.. None of the episodes are a patch on the Indigo League ones. I just think that those had a lot more ties to the games, despite their numerous errors.

Just the other day I watched the first five (six if you include Mewtwo Returns) movies in a row, and a few things occurred to me watching them one after the other:

The fourth and fifth movies had the SAME (or so close to it that it makes no difference) introductory "World of Pokemon" sequence. Are there really people watching the movies that have never seen the show or played one of the games, that actually need a primer?

In Pokemon Heroes Misty and Brock must send their Pokemon instead of Ash's (for some inexplicable reason Ash left his Pokeball belt behind). This indicates that they couldn't have used Ash's Pokeballs. I suppose it makes sense that Pokeballs have some sort of personalized system to make sure that only the Trainer assigned to it can activate a Pokeball. One thing that comes to mind is a sensor on the ball that can detect a Trainer's unique body heat signature and the motion of the fingers to "expand" and then open a Pokeball. Perhaps this unique body signature allowed the Diglett to return Pokeballs to their Trainer's in that one episode (that one always amazed me). Furthermore, I expect that Pokeballs with Starter Pokemon start out "region free," so to speak, waiting for Professor Oak (or Professor Birch, etc.) to imprint the ball with the trainer's ID. Thus May was able to use any of the Pokeballs in the first episode of Advance, and Trainers must use trading machines to trade Pokemon between the balls, Ash must always use Pokemon in HIS specific balls, simply trading Pokeballs isn't enough. Furthermore I predict that Pokeballs must have special sensors to make sure that they impact with a Pokemon with the button towards it (hit the button, the ball opens, the red teleporter beam pops out, right?). Probably the main button also includes a fingerprint reader.

Sheesh, do I think about this stuff too much. But hey, I'm an engineer. Not much of an excuse, but there it is. Please don't let the fact that I'm a bore scare you off.

That's an interesting theory you've got there, that Pokéballs could possibly have some sort of a lock on them. Mind you, I'm sure that Ash, Misty and Brock have used each other's Pokémon every now and again, and I know that Jessie and James have as well.

The region-free theory could work with that episode with the Pokémon Academy where they had to battle with three Pokémon at random..

But that's some pretty cool stuff that you've come up with, and entirely feasible!

Well, that's what I do: overanalyze stuff to death. Of course, go back and watch the first primitive Apricorn Pokeballs, one of which we saw in Pokemon 4Ever. Sammy had to twist off a knob to open the top of the Pokeball to let Charmeleon out. I doubt that you could "region-lock" that thing, no doubt it was all the technology could do to keep the Pokemon alive in energy form.

I think it's great to be able to do that though - it takes a lot (and usually someone like-minded watching something with me) to make me analyse something.

I never did get to see Pokémon 4Ever, but that really is pretty cool!

Pokemon 4Ever is cool, but (spoiler alert and all that) I still wonder about Professor Oak seeing all of those Johto Pokemon before he wrote the Kanto Pokedex. Celebi, Togepi, Houndoom, and so on. Sorta throws the "there are only 150 Pokemon!" theory out the window, huh?

Maybe it was because he only wrote the Kanto Pokédex and could only programme in the Pokémon from Kanto and not Johto, since another professor would be covering those?

But yeah, it sounds like a little bit of a slip up there! Especially since there's almost 500 of the things now!

Yeah, but second generation games have Pokemon from both, third generation have Pokemon from all three, and so on.

Then again, we see Ho-oh, in the first episode, and that's a second generation Pokemon. Ugh.

True enough.

But I think that all of the Pokémon, or at least a large number, had already been planned at the start. At least that's what I've heard.

That, or given the series was made in 1997 or so, around about or just a while after the first games, they were already starting to develop the second generation of games. Given the originals took over six years to make.

Are you still watching anime? Recently I've become a huge Ranma 1/2 fan, and so if you've seen/read it too we could talk about that.

I've never seen Ranma 1/2. I am, however, watching with obsession the dubbed version of Negima - it's quite possibly my favourite.

I managed to catch the last few minutes of a Pokémon Diamond and Pearl episode today, too. It seemed average.

How is Diamond and Pearl overall, or was that your first episode?