School

People always say “your school years are the best days of your life.” And to those people, I say “shut up.” Until now. Whenever I drive past my old school (which isn’t very often as I don’t own a car) I feel a curious pang in my stomach. At first, I suspect it’s the digestive aftermath of the 1 kilo of grapes I have more often than not binged on in the last hour. But then, I realise. I actually miss St. Clare’s; with it’s tiny classrooms, sizeable nun population and ludicrous ‘no white socks’ policy. I miss walking home from school with my friends with our expedition-sized backpacks, carefully adjusting our skirts lest we run into some ‘totes hot babez’ on our journey. I miss ordering red rock deli chips from the canteen and piling them onto a buttered, white roll (a revolting trait for which my friends gave me endless grief.) I miss making up crude song parodies with my friends, and actually being nerdy enough to write them down on paper. But the thing is, all of this nostalgic stimulus is related to my friends- moments I never would have stopped to appreciate while they were occurring. Truth be told, I would rather endure a 15 hour marathon of Twilight than revisit my school years- I just like to reminisce and crack up laughing about them on public transport because I can.

There are some kids you just don’t mess with. That wasn’t us.

Disney movies

When I think about Disney classics like ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Jungle Book’ several phrases spring to mind. These include ‘epic’, ‘bombastic’ and ‘my favourite.’ While these cinematic masterpieces are indeed bombastic’ and ‘my favourite’, epic they are not. Why do I say that? Well, take ‘Hercules’ for instance- my all-time favourite Disney movie (and not just because I had a weird crush on Hades.) It’s funny, has a fabulous soundtrack, is an inspiring tale of heroism and beating the odds and is 93 minutes long. 93 MINUTES!!!! That’s equivalent to three horrifying episodes of Being Lara Bingle. As a youngster, I was definitely under the impression that Disney films were Lord of the Rings style 3 hour awesomefests, and was highly distressed to find out that this was NOT the case. So, my issue with the reality of Disney movies is quite frankly a matter of quantity, not quality.

Some other key areas of nostalgic error are:

-          Playgrounds! They always seem a lot more impressive when you’re 4 foot tall, although at 20 years of age I don’t really surpass that by much.

-          Teachers. For some reason, a five year hiatus can make incessantly grating academic staff seem like ‘absolute legends.’

-          Pokémon. Probably going to cop a lot of flak for this one, but Team Rocket just don’t seem quite as threatening in my old age.

“Meowth! That’s…. not right. That’s actually really rude.”

So there you have it, ladies and gents. A non-exhaustive list of instances where the warm and fuzzies can lead to a skewed perception. But my advice is to never stop reminicising, because it’s free entertainment and you aint hurting nobody. My only hope is that the life im living right now will prove to be a  great source of nostalgia when i’m old, grey and wearing a pair of super trendy Birkenstocks (with white socks.)

&

Iris and the Roughneck Dragonite!

Being on a rich island, it’s obvious that rich kid’s Pokemon get treated differently.  The first episode in my montage of Pokemon is where a rich kid, Chris, finds that his Cubchoo has run away from it’s “Pokemon House”, and considering that the door was locked, Dent puts his detective cap on…and much to Iris and Hikari’s amusement, starts tracking down the missing Pokemon. To be honest, episodes like this are neither amazing nor poor. They’re entertaining, especially with the addition of Hikari and Piplup into the frey. They’re the kind of solid, entertaining episodic story that you came to expect from Best Wishes, and it looks like the sequel is no exception. However, it does have a few highlights…such as Dent actually trying to interrogate a Tsunbear time and time again.

Dragons are known as some of the strongest Pokemon in the game, with only a few exceptions being able to rival them. As Episode 5 starts off by showing a battle between a Dragonite and a Hydregious, you can obviously expect something different to the fun filler style episodes that they’ve been showing. After the Dragonite knocks out the power lines nearby, Iris sets off to prove the innocence of this Dragonite. With the Dragonite sealing itself into the facilitiy, Iris, Hikari and Satoshi all head into the air-ducts to get the Dragonite out. As Meloetta appears and calms the rampaging Dragonite down, Iris stays behind with it as the others return to the police force assembled outside.

However, that’s when things got a little strange. I never knew that Iris had some sort of ability to communicate with dragons, but seeing as she hails from the Dragon Village and all, I wouldn’t doubt that she’s got some special ability. After finding out that the Dragonite only rampaged because of an accident, and that it tried to protect the local Pokemon. Obviously, this leads to Iris standing in front of the police force and the Pokemon that they’ve assembled to defend the Dragonite, and in doing so, she bonds with it, and this results in the capture of it. Now that she’s got Dragonite, Excadrill and Kibago under her belt, there’s no doubt she’s the strongest in their little team. All in all, it was another great episode.

During these two episodes, we get to see Team Rocket’s scheme slowly advancing, as they discover undercover ruins which we have to assume are linked to Meloetta, and as it appears that they’ve layed out almost all of their plan, it won’t be long before we see what’s happening. Since i’ve got internet problems at the moment, the next few episodes, along with Phi Brain and SAO will be up whenever I can.

So, last night I was watching the first few DP eps, and I almost, *almost* wet my pants when I heard that she was coming back…Who is “she” , might you ask? She’s James’ whip-wielding, Vileplume-worshipping, demon of an ex-fiancee. His parents arranged the marriage when he was veeery little, which is why he ran away from home. She’s what you get when you cross Primal Diagla with an ill-tempered Darkrai. Sounds scary? Trust me, she’s worse than that. If you want to know what all the fuss is about, watch her debut ep here:

http://watchpokemonepisodes.com/pokemon-episode-46

Yes, the famous Holy Matrimony…

So watch, comment, review!

~CW

What is your opinion of Gen 5?

What do you think of Cilan?

How many of the Pokemon theme songs do you know ALL the lyrics to (as in, if I played it right now can you sing the whole thing)? And if you don’t know the extended versions from the albums, that’s okay.

Answer any (or all) of these! Comment below!

Alright, item no. 2: Episode of the day:

The Ol’ Berate and Switch

Summary here:
http://www.serebii.net/anime/epiguide/kanto/452.shtml

And a link to watch it:
http://pokemonepisode.org/episode-452-the-ole-berate-and-switch/
 Enjoy!

Comment below with your thoughts on the episode. Like it? Love it? And where did that fire extinguisher come from?

Gracias,

~CW

I’d love to hear what you all thought of my *favorite* season (no, it’s not just because of Holy Matrimony, there was Pokemon Shipwreck, too)!

And now, *drumroll for climatic effect* here’s the question of the day:

Who is your favorite member of Team Rocket? This is not just the TRio I’m talking about, this includes Giovanni, Butch, Cassidy, Domino, etc.

That’s all for now! ~CW

-Gabe

What’s so great about this anime is that it’s based off of a video game. It makes meta jokes, like having all of the police named Officer Jenny and nurses called Nurse Joy. Ash’s Pokedex even looks like a GameBoy. Team Rocket now has faces and personalities, but even their little motto and sign-off gets teased by Ash and his gang of friends later in the series.

The universe of Pokemon is so well-established that it feels like it could actually exist. These characters have their own little quirks from the moment they appear onscreen, like with Misty seen fishing before we find out she’s a Water Pokemon trainer or the Team Rocket WANTED sign at the police station before we see the Meowth hot air balloon.

While “Emergency” wasn’t a Pokemon adventure (those episodes will come soon), it continues to lay foundation to the Pokemon-universe  by allowing character development and introducing the viewer to the responsibilities of a trainer. Nurse Joy reprimands Ash for allowing Pikachu to battle to the point of a critical condition. Team Rocket, instead of capturing their own rare Pokemon, choose to steal through force and intimidation. A good trainer is supposed to have a significant bond with their Pokemon in order to build friendship and loyalty. Ash and Pikachu finally begin to do this, which now makes them a great team. Even Team Rocket is impressed by the responsiveness of Pikachu to Ash, convincing them to try to steal Pikachu for themselves.

The episode ends with another cliffhanger with Ash attempting to capture Caterpie, a Bug Pokemon. It’s been years since watching this show, so I’m a bit confused about why Ash goes right ahead with his Pokeball instead of weakening the Pokemon (since that’s what you do in the game). I guess I have to watch the third episode to find out.

-Steve

So, I was wandering around Smosh when I discovered this gem. If you go there you can find more like this one. Bitches!