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To be the Very Best: A Conversation with Out of Context Pokemon
19 Plays30 minutes ago
In this episode, Satsunami is joined by Kazuhira, the creator behind the page Out of Context Pokemon. Despite the light hearted nature of the page, we dive into what it means to run one of the biggest Pokemon fan pages out there as well as the responsibilities that comes with it. What does being in the spotlight of the Pokemon community mean to Kazuhira? And what is his thoughts on the ongoing problem with scalpers in the TCG community? Without any further ado, get your Pokeballs ready and let's find out!
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. My name's Chatsunami and joining me today is another other than the one and only Pokémon Master that you may have seen on Twitter slash X. It is none other than the main account holder of out of context Pokémon. It is Kazuhiro. Kazuhiro, welcome to Chatsunami. Thank you for having me in
Time Zone Challenges
00:00:40
Speaker
your podcast. I am really honoured to be here today. Yeah, how are you doing today? perfectly okay. I mean, it's the afternoon for me and probably nighttime for you. So yeah, time zone differences, I guess. I know, this is one of the few times where I've had to wake up early for the podcast and I'm like, ah yeah, sure, it'll be fine. I mean, to be fair, I've had to get up at this time anyway, because that's the thing. Whenever I get someone from up abroad and I'm like, okay, what's the time difference? And it's, you know, that meme of the person trying to calculate. yeah yeah you're like oh my god Honestly, I am so glad to have you on today because as I was saying, there you're of course the account owner of the Out of Context Pokemon account, which I have to say has banner after banner of Pokemon memes.
Kazuhiro's Pokemon Journey
00:01:29
Speaker
is that right in saved
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's memes definitely. Out of curiosity, before we talk about your account and everything in your journey as a content creator, how long have you been a Pokemon fan for? Ah, that's a good question. Anime wise or game wise? Let's go for the games first.
00:01:47
Speaker
Honestly, I've never owned a Game Boy, neither the color version before. I guess you can say that in the game context of things, I first started playing RWBY in 2003, but it wasn't a copy of my own, it was my cousin who let me borrow his Game Boy Advance SP at the time. I distinctively remember picking Torchic. as my main starter, my very first starter in the games, and still remember my cousins making fun of, well, my other cousin who chose Trico for, I don't know, what reasons they had. ah But anime-wise, actually since
00:02:22
Speaker
since I was ah but a mother wee lad when I was a baby. you know and i I know the anime came out in the 90s, so I didn't have any clear memories of it when I was in that time, but I definitely grew up with the anime since I was a baby. So yeah, I guess you can say that the anime is the one that introduced me to the franchise as a whole.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, so you're looking back on that. I think I was in quite a similar boat. Unfortunately, I didn't start with a Ruby, I started with Pokemon Yellow which makes me feel super old. I say that all the time to be like, yeah, yeah, you know. I'm a young person and then thinking, good lord, the age I was when Pokemon Yellow came.
00:03:01
Speaker
ah Because I was the same, I watched the Of Course Adventures with Ash Ketchum, shedding a tear for the fact he's gone now.
Ash Ketchum's Departure
00:03:09
Speaker
Oh yeah, I still mourn his ah departure. For legal reasons, he's not dead, he's just off the anime. Yeah, people sometimes treat him as if he's dead or something.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yeah, because it's weird how long we had the run of Ash Ketchum all the way from the 90s up until, ooh, I wanna say a couple of years ago before they brought out the new Pokémon series. Around two years ago actually. Yeah, I wanna say it's Pokémon Horizon, well not Horizons, is it Pokémon Horizon? it's horizons horizon yeah I don't really keep up with the anime. It's only with your page or with other people posting screen caps going, Oh my God, I can't believe this happened in the anime. And I'm like, Oh, okay. what it gone That's what it feels like to be an adult. You're just like,
00:03:57
Speaker
OK, that's what's happening in the anime, because I have to say, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, that one of my very good friends and co-host, Martin McAllister, he told me, I think it was during lockdown or maybe after that, that him and his wife decided to take a bit of a nostalgia trip and rewatch the anime, like the early, early days of the anime. So it was like the Indigo League and things like that. And he was watching it and he was like, OK, this anime does not hold up as well as I remember. holding up. ah See for yourself when you're
Nostalgia and Anime Insights
00:04:31
Speaker
rewatching that. Do you feel that way as well? Sometimes, but you know I view it more as if I was a kid again. Every time I rewatch the old anime, especially the Indigo League and specifically Advanced Generations, yeah I still feel like you know it still holds up to this day. just that I guess the younger fans have much
00:04:51
Speaker
were rather less of a tolerance for older anime because I don't know like personally for me I feel like they've been treated to too much visuals and all that flashy sequences that doesn't sit well with my eyes because I don't know maybe I'm just getting too old I'm completely with you there. The amount of enemies that have spectacle over storytelling, don't get me wrong, Pokémon was one of those enemies that, and I think Dragon Ball did some other things at the time as well where they repeated a lot of the animation when they had a battle scene and it was like Bulbasaur or something using Taco and they would just repeat the frame over and over again. yeah his eyes yeah But as a kid, you know, as you said, when you're watching this, you don't really notice, or if you do notice, you don't really care, do you? It is just your favourite Pokémon fighting on the screen. Yeah, I mean, after working at a certain studio, everything that I've been watching, like cartoons, anime, in a much more different perspective, I guess five years working there I can now see the inconsistencies with the anime stuff like incorrect frames, incorrect corner positioning, left out sketches. I've been trained with, I guess you can say it, being enhanced with my already existing eagle eye for those little details and all that. So one of those things that you know you enjoy it and then when you get to see behind the scenes, you get a peek behind the curtain and then you go, oh, I will never see this the same way again.
00:06:22
Speaker
Hey yeah, that's actually my first job. I worked for, well, one of the biggest animation studios in my country, actually. You know, straight off from the bat after graduating, I was like, maybe I should rest. But then my brain says, no, you're getting a job now. And I mean now. So yeah, that's what I did. 10 days after resting, I just... sprang up and got a job, go job hunting and all that. It was five years, but I worked as a colorist. If I remember correctly, that was under the post-production team. So meaning by the time the product or rather the drawing has been sent to us, we it's up to us to color it. And that's how I've been trained to spot the inconsistencies in the animation industry. So you just watched an anime nowadays shaking your head thinking, you know, if I was working on that anime, that would have never happened. Yeah, especially the color tones and stuff. I guess there's this one time I saw an anime error in Pokemon where Ash had a different lighting color, even though they were in a dark place. Yeah, that's what ruins it for me. Do you find a difference between when you were working as a colorist versus nowadays between then
Evolution of Animation Techniques
00:07:32
Speaker
and now? Yeah, actually, from what I've noticed, the older anime days back then, because that was the time when digital art was still in its infancy, so back then they had to meticulously draw everything on paper, and I guess some digital art is involved in that process, but majority of it back then were still handmade. Nowadays,
00:07:53
Speaker
most of it now really is done digitally barely handmade actually so yeah there's definitely a huge difference between then and now and i'm very sure pokemon horizons and the recent ash nime series as people call it also use digital practices in terms of animation i mean that is interesting to see because it's something you mentioned earlier about kids not really gravitating towards older animes as opposed to you know what they're probably used to now because the amount of animes that I've seen recently where you're watching this stuff at the forefront and you think wow this looks like a really good anime, just don't look behind the characters and it's like they've all got the same walking cycle and it's really jarring, because it don't get me wrong, I know there's obviously time constraints and things like that, they obviously don't want to spend too much time on characters in the background, but it's like you can see they're clearly 3D, but they've just put like a 2D texture over them. They're walking like in the same way, really, really slowly and you're like, really?
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah. Here's a trick that not most people know. Whenever you see a character or a character is walking or running, you'd think that they were animated separately. No, no, no. They're doing a very old trick in the book. They actually just move the frames behind them. Oh, of course, yeah. It's actually taken from an old Hollywood trick. Back then when they had horses and cowboys just galloping in the scene, nah, there's actually an operated machine with the screen moving behind them to give people the illusion or rather the impression that they're actually in a moving scene. So they've implemented a very, very old Hollywood technique just translated to animation. That is really interesting. In terms of animation in a general sense, I've heard that trick being done before, especially with, I don't know if you've seen A Muppet's Christmas Carol. That's a kid, but not much anymore. Yeah, there's a scene in that where, and this is something that I brought with my friend and co-host Andrew that apparently there's a scene where Kermit the Frog, he's walking through the streets and everything and you think, oh, the easiest thing would be just to walk towards the camera. But it turns out what they did was they had this huge drum underneath. So what they did was they spun the ground to make it look like Kermit was moving. So he was just walking on the same two spots. and they just kept rolling with it as if it was. It's amazing what animators and special in that field as well. It's amazing what they do to, as you were saying, that perfect word to create that illusion of, oh, look, they're doing X thing. They're doing one thing. Yeah, that's good. Even though I'm no longer in the animation industry, I still love watching cartoons and anime, especially Pokémon, just that, I don't know, Horizons doesn't click much with me. I guess it really just boils down to having to take time getting used to it really. No you're completely right though because in maybe this is just a 90s early 2000s thing where cartons and anime at the time they were kind of made more to sell a product with Pokemon their catchphrase used to be gonna catch them all up until... I wanna say generation four or five maybe? I think it was maybe up until five and then they got rid of that because there were so many Pokemon. And then you're just like, yeah, catch him if you want. Not catch him all if you can. It's really funny how Pokémon, you know, evolved throughout the generations. And now we have people younger than us. They are not younger than us. Who will grow up never knowing or not knowing who Ash Ketchum is and what his legacy is. do you know it was funny because my friend Martin McAllister and I, when we did our Pokemon Month for the podcast, what we ended up doing was an episode where we talked about, and I'm so curious to hear your thoughts on this, we did an episode on Pokemon rumors. So, you know, we talked about what we heard in the playground and things about Generation 1, Generation 2, and thing that we were really fascinated by when we were going over these was the fact that it the
Pokemon Myths and Game Generations
00:12:02
Speaker
was so universal, not just in the playground, not just in Scotland, not even just in the UK, but internationally. So you know, things like Mu hiding under the truck, Professor Oak being battle worthy as it were. Did you have any particular rumours at the time for the games that you remember? Oh yeah, but it's more of a creepy one rather than a fascinating one actually. Ever heard of the creepy pasta about a certain place called? What's the name again? It's from generation one actually. Is it Lavender Town? Yeah, there we go Lavender Town, yeah. Oh yeah, I'm aware.
00:12:40
Speaker
But that's one of the earliest rumors I've heard when I was a kid. Something about kids offing themselves when a certain frequency hits their ears. I was really scared when I first heard that. Even asked my dad, is this true? And he's like, no, what the hell are you talking about? ah Yeah. But I guess on the brighter side, well, this would be in my teenage years now, because there was a point in time where Podigimon actually, you know, did battle with my interests.
00:13:11
Speaker
ah So yeah, teenage years I've heard of, I don't know, something about a furry-type cat legendary, which I didn't believe at first, but then, I guess Sun and Moon games came out, that turned out to be real, and it was Zero Aura, which really surprised me. Yeah, because the amount of, at least during the Gen 1 days, and it's something that Martin did, prefaced it very well where he said, although these might sound ridiculous, Generation 1 was just a ridiculous generation in its own right. you know The amount of glitches that you had, there's ways to catch you in those games, legitimately. Well, I say legitimately. with clutches, but at the same time, there's a way to catch Mew and other Pokémon, level 1 Pokémon without an action replay. So the amount that they got away with in Generation 1, it's not hard to believe some of them. One of my favourites was the April Fool's prank. Someone pulled where they said you could catch Yoshi from the Mario games. in Pokemon. It was honestly, it was just such a c crazy generation, you know, that just had popped up. You were like, wow, this is an amazing, yet very, very strange game. they yeah Actually, now that I think about it, that you being found under the truck, I guess I can equate that similarly to the Shenglong rumors back in Street Fighter. and The only difference is Capcom actually capitalized on that hoax decades later and made him into a real character. Yeah. Whereas Pokemon, if you actually try it in, I guess let's go even because you just get some berries or something? I don't know. I think it's a lava cookie or something. I could be wrong in that. It's some treat that you can give your Pokemon, but I remember everyone reacting to that initially going, oh, that's a cool Easter egg too. Where's Mew? Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It's like, ha ha, very funny joke. Now, where's a new Game Freak? Come on. Game Freak, come on, pay up. I guess I can't relate much to Gen 1 in the games and 2, because really, Gen 3 was my starting point. So whenever people would say, ah, Charizard, that's a classic, it was like, huh? What are you talking about?
00:15:18
Speaker
It's interesting how different Gen 3 was compared to the other two, not obviously because of the graphical up update and the fact that you could really trade between the two, because yeah, had Generation 1 and 2 for the Game Boy or Game Boy Color, Game Boy Color, whatever! Game Boy you want to put before. yeah And then as soon as the Game Boy Advance slash XP came out here internationally, what ended up happening was you had Pokémon Sapphire, Ruby, Emeralds, which we've all come onto. And then you had Leaf Green, Fire Red, those kinds of ones that felt completely isolated in their own Poke bubble, as it were. The amount of hype at the time, was it the same over there that the hype that Generation 3 generated was just massive? It really is. And in where I live actually, Pokemon pop off really well. like I guess to this day, you can say that the entire Southeast Asian region, our country is still the biggest consumer of the Pokemon franchise. Not just as a niche, but as a community as a whole. I guess when you compare it, I guess we're number one, Singapore is number two, and Malaysia being third in place. So yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah, we're the number one. Ask anyone really.
00:16:33
Speaker
I mean obviously Pokémon is apparently one of if not the most popular franchise in the world for media. You've got the games, you've got the films, you've got the anime, you've got the plushies, you've got so, so much. I say that you know thinking Oh, I would never get swept into
Pokemon's Cultural Impact
00:16:52
Speaker
that. I'm currently looking at three statues. Well, I say statues, you know, plastic statues. I've got my desk just now of the three canto starters. Right above them, I've got two plushies of Totadiol and Porygon 2.
00:17:07
Speaker
It's amazing how much this franchise took off, because I have done that. This is something I kind of thought about when we were doing Pokemon Month. Our parents must have just been looking at this franchise going, what the heck is a Pikachu? What the heck is that? What is this and that? And thinking, oh, it's fine as long as I enjoy it. And then us, of course, being so enraptured and thinking, this is amazing, the best thing ever. But speaking of the Philippines, I've got a question for you and I hope you don't mind me asking this in relation to the Philippines and Pokemon because in Scotland we have had our fair share of duds, cons, and by that I mean cons or you know events that people have arranged. Why do I have a feeling I know which con you're gonna ask me? Yeah, I was going to ask about that, Colin, because I just want to preface this before we go into this, that I come from a place where someone tried to make a Willy Wonka experience, and I don't know if you heard this in the news. I heard this. Yep.
00:18:06
Speaker
I'm glad it's so international, I said with sadness. Yeah, where someone made a Willy Wonka experience and they used AI and it was like a pathetic warehouse. Fun fact, I think he got arrested. Not for that, but just in general. Yeah, fraud if I believe to be fraud. But I'm going to ask about the Pokemon con slash experience in the Philippines. How did you feel about that? Of course being a massive Pokemon fan yourself and then seeing this unfold. How did you feel about that?
Convention Critiques
00:18:38
Speaker
Oh you mean Pokeverse? That's the one. funny enough i was actually treated to a ticket one of the expensive ones actually yeah yeah i had some money put into it but half of it was paid by a friend of mine yeah i know how much you want to see your hero so yeah go there get lost
00:18:58
Speaker
So you know I went there and I don't know it just feels flat in terms of social gatherings and stuff but then when you dive deeper things gets a lot more scummy because first of all the organizer himself and you know like no beef with him but if I remember correctly he what runs a crypto company which actually I did a callout on this last May. I'm sure you've seen this one too. Yeah.
00:19:23
Speaker
He runs a crypto company and his mother runs a Fengshui shop, which actually is a sketchy business in itself. You know, since people here believe in that stuff, it's hard to dispel that what I call snake oil business. So yeah, one of the sponsors is his mom, a Fengshui shop. So when you have sponsors, you usually give them the highlight of the show. So imagine going to a Pokemon convention. expecting to see this big massive Pikachu mascot just there to greet you. No, no, they said, nope, you're being treated to a sanctuary shop. Suck it up. ah It's jarring, really. What's the focus? Is it the sponsors or the fans? Come on, make up your mind. I mean, on the one hand, you could think, oh, well, at least if the rest of it was well put together and everything, and you could probably sneak a functionally shopping be like, okay, here it is at the end of like a long line of Pokemon things. But ah yeah, it kind of seems weird that that was the most prominent thing. is And again, I'm no Pokemon professor or researcher here, but I don't think the Venn diagram for Pokemon fans and Feng Shui enthusiasts overlap.
00:20:29
Speaker
it does it doesn't i mean sure maybe some fans believe in feng shui but i'm telling you right now 95 of fans here especially the older and younger ones will definitely uh can i curse is that okay oh yeah absolutely oh they don't give a they don't give a damn you give them feng shui they'll say we want pokemon that's what we're here for am i right in thinking was this the pokemon con where they had real guests yes yes which is really sad because the guests in question i don't know if i should say their names can i actually yeah Yeah, sure. Is that Jason Page and Veronica Taylor? Yeah, it's yeah these two wonderful people really. If I remember correctly, Veronica Taylor herself wasn't paid in her talent fees. In fact, if my memory serves me right, she did this out of the kindness of her heart.
00:21:19
Speaker
I guess personally for me, I believe that one of the sponsors, which is the main airlines of this country, paid for her fare. So I'm pretty sure that's a possibility. But yeah, she didn't get her talent fees paid. She just really wanted to be there for the fans, really. That is such a shame. Yeah, it is a shame because on one hand, you have this very terribly organized convention who is beefing with another existing convention which is actually run by wonderful people in this community. And then you have, you know, real stars, real people who help children of all ages of all countries grow up just there being there for the fans. You know, it's like you feel conflicted whether to feel excited or just disgusted, you know? That is the thing about Pokémon. It's in a very unique position where, I mean, it depended on what fan you ask, but Pokémon is still strong within pop culture and things like that. People know what a Pikachu is. At the very least, if you don't know what Pokémon is, you know what Pikachu is. And the fact that you've got an older fanbase like... I'll say myself, I won't say you. I won't bring you into this.
00:22:24
Speaker
you know But you know, older fans who grew up with the games, who have that heavy nostalgia for it, and then you've got younger fans as well who are growing up with the new series, with the new games and things like that. And the fact is, you've got that overlap of something that, although obviously it's made to sell toys and whatnot, at the end of the day it's something that is so important for people. you know It holds a special place in people's hearts, as I said, their nostalgic brains as it were. And then to go to something like this where I have to admit when I was reading up the details it wasn't the worst
00:23:00
Speaker
that I've ever heard about in terms of really bad coins, but it didn't do itself any favors from what I heard. It didn't, like people labeled this disaster either Dashcon or and a genuine attempt of detroning the Willy Wonka experience. I mean, ah maybe.
00:23:21
Speaker
I feel as if right now that is our national disgrace in terms of exports. the what i won takes me yeah When I saw that in the news, I was like, yep, it's a flash in the pan that will never take off. And then the Americans got a hold of it and I thought, oh, God damn it, they're going to meme the hell out of it. Now you've got people actively wanting to go to the musical and things. ah But as as I was saying, I do feel so sorry for people who saved up, they wanted to go to this. It is such a slap in the face for fans though. It is, I mean the only positive experience I've had there really was meeting friends and of course yeah Miss Veronica Taylor which she was so super delightful person to talk with.
00:24:03
Speaker
You can really hear her you know love for the fans and see it in her expressions and everything really. she's just She's not trying to be a grift or anything. She's just genuinely appreciative of the fans who are there for her and Jason Page as well. Yeah, Jason Page surprisingly gets around in the fanbase with collaborations and things. The one that really threw me off completely was, I don't know if you've heard of Jonathan Young? No. He's a musician on YouTube, does some amazing covers on original music, and one day he released a video of the Pokémon theme that he covered in the Right, cool. That's amazing. And then it said in the title, feet Jason Page. And I was like, wait, the Jason Page, the same guy. Yeah. And, you know, I looked up and I watched the video and they just like a full on collaboration with the guy where they're both like up a hillside building the Bogomod team. It was one of the coolest nostalgic things ever. I was like, oh my God, this is so cool. But yeah, it's just so cool to see him involved in that. Yeah, it is. like The man is not perfect. Of course, he he has his own shortcomings. But I cannot deny, whenever I repeat the songs he used to produce back then, it
Meeting Pokemon Icons
00:25:15
Speaker
really takes me back to the 90s. And yes, he was also a delightful person to be with. In fact, I gave both him and Miss Veronica Taylor drawings of my own, and they were really like, you sure is for me?
00:25:26
Speaker
yeah You know, I got some of my things signed, like this Ash Ketchum photo frame that I bought from her. I actually went to Ikea just to get this frame, no joke. Yeah, I guess the memorable thing really in that con is them and friends. And no joke, she said this to me that she really believes that I am a kind hearted and generous person, which I have to admit, I was trying to hold back from either crying or just, you know, passing out from being told that from one of the people who voiced one of my heroes, really. But everything else was a disaster. In fact, if I remember correctly, one of my friends was actually the singers there. She won a contest to be with Jason Page. And, oh, I mean, I'm not gonna say the intricate detail details, but generally, she did not have a good time as much as she would have wanted to. And I helped her actually blow up the expose. she's the one who wrote the expose. I sat the same person. yeah Yes. Oh, that's how I found out about this. She was like, you gotta help me blow this up. And I was like, yeah, sure. Just tell me when it's done. I'll retweet it. And it was already getting traction while she was live tweeting it. But I believe by the time I retweeted it, I think that was the final nail in the coffin because the wider audience was made aware of it.
00:26:45
Speaker
I have to say, as he went through his life tweeting out and everything, I had the popcorn out, I was scrolling down thinking, how can this get any worse, surely? And then, of course, he saw tweet after tweet youre like, oh, oh my.
00:27:00
Speaker
She's a very good person. So for her to be this angry, you must have done something wrong, really. yeah Being someone who really does not like grifters and scammers. Of course, I did not hesitate to you know say yes to helping them being exposed into public. I guess a month or two after that, someone actually told me that the organizers hate my guts.
00:27:23
Speaker
I believe it was because of the call out post I did last May. That's the reason why they hate my guts, because they were like, God, how is he Pokemon? He they did a call out post on us. That is something that I think is absolutely fantastic that you do with the Twitter page, because as I was saying before, you know, I said that you post a lot of memes on there, a lot of Pokemon content, that kind of thing. When I was looking through, I remember thinking, all right, this is just another novelty page. and yeah, that you know, give a like, give it a follow. But one thing I didn't expect, and I think this is absolutely fantastic for someone of your channel size to do, is you're not afraid to call out people who are very deceptive or just very not constructive, let's just say, in the nicest way possible.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yes. Yes, exactly. You know, whether that is the con goers, which you've made the hit list, or whether it's scalpers, because that's the recent one, and I had to jump on the bandwagon as well, because I don't know if it's as bad in the Philippines. It's bad too. Is it as bad or it is horrible here. I don't know when this began, but there was, I think it might have been Logan Paul, you know, the, screw him, he started this bullsh- He should be arrested just for that. You want to put out that in a t-shirt? Out of context, Pokémon, he should be arrested. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but I actually did a post on that and I explicitly called out his name saying that Logan Paul should be arrested. He's the one who started all of this. Yeah. I hear i mean, there's a lot of reasons to dislike the guy. No, I've disliked him long before that. but that's what I'm saying. There's hundreds of reasons to say he is a very contentious man, let's just say. Again, in the nicest of possible ways. Not a big fan of him at all, but that's one of the few times I will call out particular people that I was really baffled at when I think it was his boxing or wrestling. And that's the one that's his brother that boxes apologies.
00:29:32
Speaker
I have to cut this in. Triple H, what the hell are you doing? Cut him off already. Because he came out with his wrestling career and then he had like a limited edition. No, was it not Charizard? It was a Charizard. All right, the necklace thing. Where he came out and he was kissing at and everything and saying, oh, it's a great investment. Now, don't get me wrong.
00:29:51
Speaker
I remember before this that the Charizard card was very highly coveted. Everybody wanted one, but they were really expensive. But unfortunately, you know, it was that kind of bubble where people were only going for Charizard, they weren't going for any other cards. But unfortunately, we had these people saying that Pokémon was an investment, and especially Pokémon cards were an investment. And that frustrates me to the point that the whole landscape of the Pokemon trading card game. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not a big collector myself. I buy the occasional pack out of nostalgia or something like that, but I'm not really into the game unless you talk about the mobile app, but that's the whole other thing.
Pokemon Community Concerns
00:30:35
Speaker
But at the same time though, it makes me so, so sad knowing that there are kids out there that will never experience the Pokemon trading card game the same, all because of these scalpers, these grifters, and I know you've got very strong opinions on this list, Surely. Yeah, they're criminals. Plain and simple. It still baffles me why the police haven't arrested them for logging out carts and carts of carts. That is the sad thing that when you go into shops and they have the big signs that say one pair customer, two pair customer, that kind of thing. But it seems as if the ones I always see are the American ones and you get really weird accounts that don't really add to the conversation. Bots or scalpers. I mean, with Eurokin, as I was saying, you at least add some commentary and you know yeah call out these people rightfully so. But the amount of people who have seen that, they say, oh, what would you do if you went into the shop and saw this? And you're like, What do you mean? you know It's a bunch of adults, 30, 40 something, taking literally trolley fools of these cards to the checkout just so they can sell them for double the price. It is insanity. Honestly, that was not my bingo card growing up. You know that way when you play Pokémon and you're like, wow, I can't wait to see what Pokemon's like in 10 or 20 years. I bet we're going to have the big MMORPG, different cards, different Pokemon. What are we going to have? And now we've got a state of affairs where Nintendo themselves won't even release the old games officially. I mean, they did. And then they said, oh yeah, we're shutting down the Nintendo 3DS eShop. so we're not going to sell them legitimately anymore but oh don't you go and look for them illegally. So you're like well okay fine maybe I'll buy a copy to relive the glory days and don't get me wrong some copies can be quite cheap but I will be damned if I'm going to pay 80 pounds for a game that I grew up with and I don't mean oh it's so special I mean it's like games you don't even know if they're legit or not because I know it's like a lot easier to clone those types of games. You can't go into a second-hand shop. I mean, maybe. I don't know the ins and outs of this, but I don't know if you could go into a shop and buy a 360 game or a PlayStation 3 game or something like that. and you know It's a fake, but for Pokémon games especially, I know at least when we were growing up, there was a lot of people who cloned the games and then they sold the fake carts and eBay and things like that, which I don't agree with that. But at the same time, they're not really giving anybody any options there. are They put out a product for them at a time and then they shrug and go, oh, OK, what are you going to do? Oh, God, yeah, the worst experience I've had was the Van Gogh collaboration. Oh, that was horrific. I wasn't in Amsterdam myself, but I was fighting scalpers left and right in the digital space.
00:33:28
Speaker
Like, yeah, I tried the Pokemon Center, you know what? Fine, I give up. You have it, but what I did not want to give up on was the paintings. Yeah. So, you know, imagine having to stay up with just five hours of sleep, just so you can get either one or two paintings, because some can't be bothered to buy a limit just for themselves. Successfully, I did get two paintings. It's an Eevee and a Smurgle, but points aside, yeah. They really do keep shooting themselves in the foot by saying, oh, this is a limited item, we're not restocking this. So you know, scalpers will have more incentives to, you know, become more of a criminal than they are already. This kind of sounds like a weird question to ask, but do you think that Nintendo were stuck in quite a... And when I say Nintendo, I mean, the overall, the Pokemon company, Game of Fame, you know, all of them, one big collective blob like a ditto. But do you think that they're stuck in quite a traditional mindset, that they think that they can do these kind of limited releases like they used to
Nintendo's Future and Pokemon's Quality
00:34:24
Speaker
do back in the 90s and whatnot and think, oh, this will still work in this day and age with the internet and whatnot going on. Yeah, you see, here's the thing. Even philosophers back then believe that if one does not change, then you are doomed for life. So I truly believe that Nintendo must change, especially with how fast the flow of time is and how trends change, because if they don't, they will eventually fail. They believe they're too big to fail, but we've heard the same about banks and look what happened in 2008. So yeah, I believe the same will happen to Nintendo if they don't get their act together. and this is actually something that I was talking about with my friends the other day when we were looking at the well the contemporary gaming landscape and that this sounds like a very weird tangent apologies but it's we are Xbox especially what they were saying recently was that they were going to relinquish the license for some of their exclusive games. So things like Halo especially, that is massive that they're going to say, oh yeah, we'll let so they have the rights to distribute it so you can play Halo on your PlayStation 5. And I don't think there's been as big a crossover like that since, I would probably say since Sonic came to Nintendo. It's a massive thing and it seems as if nowadays that a lot of these companies, even Sony, I think they might be going next, that they're moving away from the console market and they're going more for cloud gaming and oh you can play the Xbox anywhere, that kind of thing, that they want the gaming experience but they don't want to put the money into the hardware and things. Whereas Nintendo, obviously Microsoft and Sony, they are big companies in their own right. So, although that's a big chunk of their revenue, at least if they drop that, then they could invest it in other places they would be able to stand on their own. With Nintendo, though, looking back onto that, I don't know how well they would manage, see, without the console market, because obviously that is their primary source of bread and butter. yeah I don't know how they would cope in comparison. I have no idea as well, but I'm saying it now. If they enter the PC market, I believe that they will reach into even greater heights. That's the thing. I don't think they have the vision for it. And again, this is someone who lives in Scotland just recording this in his house. looking now yeah versus a multi-billion trillion whatever they're at now company. I'm not going to say I know the first thing about business and whatnot. What they're doing is they're earning money, they're clearly doing something right. I can't obviously fault them for that, but I feel as if agreeing with you here totally. There is a dangerous trend here with Nintendo. that they want to cash in on the nostalgia, they want to release a great game and then be like, oh, you like that, here's more, here's more. You know, every so often they'll have an innovative product like the Switch, for example, versus the Wii U, which didn't sell very well. But I feel as if the worst plays, and again, I think this is more a game freak issue and the Pokemon company as a whole rather than Nintendo, but the state of the games is something that is quite interesting. I'm curious to hear your opinions on this especially, but I mean, you saw it with Generation 1-3 that they were probably the strongest period of the franchise. Generation 4 was beloved, but you could tell by Generation 4-5 it was getting a little bit tired, although it was still going strong it was getting tired, and now we've got to the scarlet and violet stage and nowadays where when they released the game it was riddled with bugs, it was riddled with just an incomplete game, same with the brilliant diamond and shining peril, they weren't really received well. Do you think there's an issue there, same with the quality of the games coming down? Do you think it's going downhill or do you think it's kind of on par? I do believe that having this yearly releases does affect the quality because I guess on a business perspective they believe they must keep the ball rolling because the merch especially the anime relies on the games but I guess on a fan perspective and especially general perspective outside of business you gotta give these wonderful people working for you more than a year to work on your games because otherwise you'll be on a dangerous trend where you're just releasing games for the sake of not just for business but for the fans as well you know You know, and it's important to maintain good relations with your fans, because if they keep coming back and they say that your games are really good, please keep it up, then I'd say that's a good sign. But if you got fans rallying against you saying that, why is it like this? We didn't expect much, but what the hell? A trend that you must avoid when that's starting to happen. And I guess they took it to heart this time with the ZA game that they're developing right now. Yeah, I have to say I did not expect ZA to be a thing. I was honestly so hyped for either a remake of Gen 5 or a callback to Generation 2 and then, yeah, when they brought that out, I was like, oh, oh yay, back to X and Y. Yay, my favourite.
00:39:26
Speaker
It's funny, because we actually made a video about the Pokémon Day memes. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but if you've seen it, you'll remember there's two clowns fighting each other with the Master Quest team, and then the text was like, Pokémon, I guess Gen 2 and 5 fans fighting over which game is coming out on Pokémon Day, and then you have these spin-off games just casually chatting about their day and how, I don't know, checking up on whether they expect to get a game or not.
00:39:51
Speaker
Honestly, it just looked totally blank inside of me. That is the thing going back to the progress of the games. I have to say, it's a game series these that, see when you were younger, you could excuse the faults because you were having fun. Obviously that doesn't just apply to Pokémon, it applies to a lot of games. I'm a Sonic the Hedgehog fan, so... having a place of authority there for bad games, but it's like, it's OK, you know, I still enjoyed it. And I think genuinely my personal peak was Generation 5. We went from a game series that they were putting in there at all and everything to the director in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire openly saying that a lot of kids nowadays, they want to play games on their phone and things. That's why they didn't have the battle frontier.
00:40:35
Speaker
and which was so disappointing that people thought, oh, maybe they'll do it as DLC or something, which I think at the time DLC wasn't really a thing for Pokemon, whereas after Sword and Shield now it is a massive thing, which is so, so strange.
00:40:52
Speaker
It really is. It's weird to say Pokemon go down that same way. Something you brought up there, I just want to touch on, that a lot of fans, at least for any other franchise, this is so fascinating because any other franchise, if you said to fans, vote with your wallet, do not buy this game, obviously you're going to get the same people buying it. But if these companies get enough back Like, for example, one of the ones that always comes to mind is the Star Wars Battlefront game, or Battlefront II, the relatively newish one where they were going to have microtransactions and loot boxes, and the fans caused such an outrage to that that they had to, I think it was because of a Reddit EMA or something, that they had to just backtrack and say, okay, we're going to take these out of the game because of that. But Pokémon seems to be in this
00:41:42
Speaker
very, very unique place where even if you get all the older fans saying, no, I'm not buying this game, I don't like this game, you've got a whole generation of kids who are just sucked into this cycle after asking their parents, and the parents don't care. you know, the parents just want to make their kids happy for those reasons. And I'm not saying that as a slight against parents buying their kids these games, because if they want to buy them, that's their choice. But it is weird to think that even if the adults stop buying it, it'll be the children who, well, not them personally funding it, but you know, their parents for Christmas saying, oh, little Jimmy likes Pokemon, likes getting Pokemon for Christmas. It's always going to be that cycle, isn't it? and Yeah, it's a vicious cycle which will unfortunately keep on happening for generations
Pokemon's Longevity and Competitiveness
00:42:30
Speaker
to come. And I don't mean this in a very nihilistic and very depressing way, but I genuinely don't see an end to Pokémon any time soon. Being a Pokémon account yourself, I know you live and breathe this topic, but do you think it's still gonna go strong in the future? No doubt about it. The fact that Disney used to be the number one grossing franchise and Pokemon just, you know, in a few months or years just kicked them off that platform and still retains that number to this day. I mean, I guess they say you can be someone in like the year 2019 and Pokemon will still be as relevant as it was today. is very, very bizarre. It's something that, I mean, as I was saying, as a kid in the 90s and early 2000s playing Pokémon, I genuinely, I was really hopeful for the future being like, oh, I can't wait to see the different kind of Pokémon and this and that. And don't get me wrong, I don't want to come off as a gen one-er, you know, the old Pokémon and generation one was the best. No, it me. I love Pokemon Blue Red and Yellow and Green to an extent, but that's a whole other thing. Generation 2 was probably where I really, really got into it. But honestly, I kept thinking, oh, where are they going to go with this? What are they going to do? And, you know, it was so cool seeing it build up and up and up. But obviously, when you are older, you do see games in a different way. It's going back to what you were saying about anime doing work on that, that because you've seen behind the scenes that you know how it all works. And I think especially with you know nowadays we've got the competitive scene and whatnot I mean do you think that contributes to a wee bit people wanting to keep up with the competitive side of Pokemon? I have no idea but I do know there are lots of wonderful people in the VGC scene. Shout out to Cartholacove by the way you guys rock!
00:44:17
Speaker
But yeah, I do believe that Pokemon will still be relevant in the future. In fact, I think this is just a wild speculation. I believe they're still going to retain that number one position in terms of the highest grossing franchise in history. So yeah, suck it up, Disney. You're not going to get that spot back anytime soon. Well, unless they, quote unquote, decide to buy them out. ah They have as much chance of that as Microsoft did when they attempted to buy them.
00:44:44
Speaker
Yeah. ah The fact that Microsoft tried to buy Nintendo will never not make me laugh. Same, same. It's like having a money printer and saying, oh sure I'll give you my money printer, no problem. Microsoft is like, yeah come on have a word with yourself. But that is an interesting point though, because as I was saying, how although the games and the official media are quite mixedly received, you know, you still got kids who are enjoying it, which honestly I'm delighted that there are people out there who still enjoy the series the same, because I don't want anyone to listen to this and think, oh we're just ragging on it saying, oh it's terrible and things. interesting things is how the Pokemon community has actually taken this franchise and they've developed their own identity around it, you know, like Charlie Drones and things like that. In and particular, of course, Nuzlockes, which, and this brings me on to my next point very nicely that I got the extreme honor of being able to see you go through your very first Not the very first Twitch stream, but also a Nuzlocke run of Pokemon Emerald. And that is amazing how the fans have basically taken these particular challenge runs and things like that and have breathed a whole new life into Pokemon. It really is interesting, yeah especially VGC runs and you know how they produce memes that the average fan wouldn't understand but still get a laugh out of it.
00:46:15
Speaker
And of course, going off of that, as I was saying there, not only do you have the Twitter profile, you of course have started streaming. I've good asked for all the listeners, they are very curious about how you got on. How did it feel? Well, it was, I guess, a unique experience really, because I mean, I wasn't expecting 1000 followers, because yeah, I mean, let's face it, unless you're, I don't know, Michael Jackson or John Cena going on Twitter, Twitch and just calling out fans and say, hey, good to see you brother or whatever. I didn't expect that much. In fact, I'm just happy that I got 40 followers on Twitch. And I guess I was nervous, really, really nervous. The only thing that I really invested on was that pngtuber model. I bought it on Fiverr cause I couldn't find anyone in my friends list who are open at the moment.
00:47:02
Speaker
I guess I hold the world's shortest Nuzlocke run, because if I remember correctly, I left off at 1 hour 46 minutes 52 seconds. So and I've been hearing a lot of people saying you should have chosen Mudkip, which I guess good point, but I forgot that Roxanne is a rock type leader. But funny thing is, my Torchic somehow said, if I'm gonna die, I might as well take you with me and just undish six critical hits in a row before it died. That part of the game is almost a Nuzlocke cover I wanna say. I remember when my friend and I, Andrew, we did stuck in a kind of co-op Nuzlocke run. and that was absolutely terrifying because we managed to get through Roxanne because we had mud cup which had evolved into marsh top and I thought alright that's okay we're fine but then when we got outside we found me and we're like oh sure let's talk to me and she initiated a battle.
00:47:58
Speaker
i Genuinely see the first part, that was fine, but we only had, I think we had a Whirlpool, a Puchenna, and I stopped, which was grossly over-leveled. Yeah, did not go well. Our Puchenna got absolutely wrecked, but fortunately, because we sand-attacked quite a lot, we managed to use a bite on them, and we won by the skin of our teeth. But that moment, I feel as if, catches a lot of people who are nuzlocking.
00:48:26
Speaker
yeah good on damn nodo yeah I guess really my defining moment in my Nuzlocke is really just Torchic going all out. I get frog pipes too. I mean that's still a memorable moment to be fair, you can only come back stronger from that. Oh yeah, definitely know what to do next which is evolve it into Pombusken and you know just kick the hell out of it.
00:48:47
Speaker
But honestly, it was such a delight watching that stream. I genuinely thought you did a fantastic job and I do agree. I think the PNG that you used, absolutely fantastic. You know, it's ironic because I actually do have a friend who I met over the 2020 lockdowns. He goes by a Rose Carlo on Twitter and i think instagram as well other places and he does all of my I don't know if you see that like see all the chibi art for my channel honestly he's absolutely fantastic guy I would recommend him in the heartbeat but it's always funny because as you know the mascot's a red panda so I think at this stage he's kind of expecting now for me to be like okay what if red panda but pokemon trainer and he's like you know what fine
00:49:32
Speaker
ah so right. Honestly, it was an absolutely fantastic stream to watch. And I have to say, I remember you were saying, oh yeah, you know, I was doing all right and everything. Honestly, I thought you were doing absolutely fantastic because it is, it's such a hard thing, see, to get over that first stream because ironically enough I played Pokémon for my very first stream in 2020. It was a very poorly translated version of Pokémon Green, which as you know, Pokémon Green was only least as a Japanese exclusive. Yeah, and exactly. And then somebody had translated that. I don't know where I got this game from, but I was like, okay, I'm gonna try it. I'm sure it can be that bad. It is one of the weirdest, most surreal experiences. They don't call them Pokemon, they call them pets or anything. really, really weird. There's people asking for France flavor cakes. That's literally word for word what they say. yeah you know There's a lot of really weird translations. I don't know who translated it, but yeah, that was my first experience doing a Nuzlocke run for that. Yeah, Pokemon is just one of those things. It's one of those things that you think, okay, I've grown up, I've become an adult, time to do adult things, and then it's always kind of lurking in the back of your mind, isn't it?
00:50:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's fun really how life changes that way. So you're out of curiosity though, did you ever have a moment where you not fell out of love with Pokemon but you kind of distanced yourself and then you came back to it later on? Yeah, yeah I did. There was a time when Digimon was actually overlapping with my interests so around Gen 4, well at the end of Gen 4 I guess I kind of move on because I never did own a DS. That was my sister actually, it was a pink DS Lite and I had a PSP back then so Yeah, I kind of fell out with Pokémon after Gen 4 and Digimon was like, hey buddy, I love both actually. In fact, I'd still say that those two are, I guess, one of my most defining anime series in my childhood. Because on one hand, you've got, you know, you're you're singing ah in the morning, Jason Page's memorable got a
00:51:37
Speaker
oh you song And then on the other end, on Saturday mornings, you'll be listening to Ima Edda's I Wish ending theme for the first Digimon Adventure series, which by the way, is still my favorite ending theme to this
Soundtrack Localization and Controversies
00:51:50
Speaker
day. Like really, it really holds a special place in my heart.
00:51:53
Speaker
I take it you didn't get the same soundtrack to Digimon, did you? Would you have got the Japanese? I got the Japanese, yes. We in the UK for Digimon did not get that pleasure. I know Saban had the rights to the English release, which I mean, yeah, did fairly better than 4Kids, but 4Kids is more memorable because of how unhinged their dubs were. Oh yeah. But Saban was ah definitely an entirely different thing. going on to 4Kids. I can't believe we haven't mentioned that yet, but especially with Pokémon that they had to localize it. For anyone who doesn't know that 4Kids was the dubbing company that got the rights during the 90s, early 2000s, never mid-2000s, and they had to localize everything in the dub. So with things like Onigiri, which are the... yeah shey donughut
00:52:42
Speaker
Yeah, the jelly donuts, exactly. They were like, these rice balls for anyone who doesn't know, but yeah, obviously if we don't have one in here, here in the UK, or we're probably doing now, but they're not as common, especially in the 90s. As a kid, I would not have known what they were. So of course, there was an infamous scene where Brock holds up but this rice ball and goes, everybody loves a jelly-filled donut. You have no idea how desperate I was to try them to be like, wow, they're really cool jey Yeah. Because the best one I saw, I think it was it was one of the Hoenn episodes where Ash is in the forest or something and a huge rice ball hits him. So he grabs it and the guy runs after him. But of course, I think at that point they were able to draw over that. it They changed it to a sandwich. It's a baguette, yeah. Yeah, it's like the longest sandwich you've ever seen in your life. And I'm like, why did they change it to that? Because it would have all fallen out. I get why for localisation reasons, but it's honestly crazy. And going back to Digimon, of course, 4Kids were responsible for that because we actually, funny enough, we've never done a review as such for the Digimon film here where they basically, for anyone who doesn't know, they took three Japanese Digimon films, put them together, and they made an overarching narrative for it. That was special, but… because one of the things going back to the music of it, and I was talking to my partner who, she grew up with that version, of course the Japanese version, and she was like, oh, I love Butterfly and all of that. The songs, they're just so nostalgic, iconic. And I was like, yeah, that's all fine and good, but we got Digimon, Digital Monsters, Digimon are the champions, rinse and repeat. And I remember showing that song to her and she was just like, what the hell is that?
00:54:33
Speaker
I could just imagine her horrified expression. Because, I mean, especially when my friend and I, as I said, we didn't do a review of the film, but we did a commentary track of it, which was amazing to go through it and watch it and everything. But the music is one of the weirdest parts of it because they don't even attempt to, you know, like, nowadays I think they do. They lean more into the Japanese dub and things like that. But back then, though, you were going to get Smash Mouth at the end. the show war, you're gonna get just very iconic music, but very interesting music that you would remember. Yeah, it's a weird, weird localisation decision, but at the same time memorable in its own right. I feel as if the only exception to that though is the Pokémon theme. Yeah, it really is. Took him along, obviously the old Japanese theme is iconic and everything, but I don't know, compared to if you ask people about that, maybe they'd say, oh yeah,
00:55:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's Pokémon. Obviously, everyone in Japan would say, oh yeah, that's Pokémon. But if you were to test that versus, I want to be the very best, that's all you have to say to people. To say, I want to be the very best, and yeah you get a chorus of people yelling back at you like no one ever was.
00:55:45
Speaker
Yeah, which is funny because it's the opposite with Digimon. If you start singing the initial lyrics of the intro, people will sing along, especially those who can recognize it. Even just one millisecond of the guitar string. Oh yeah, they already know what's gonna happen and they're gonna sing out loud. So you know, it's funny the opposite happening to Digimon, whereas the English version is the least memorable. Yeah, because I'm actually surprised that, and obviously this is a testament to how big Pokémon is, but I'm always surprised that Digimon never really took off in the same way. Like, I'm surprised it's still going in this day and age, and they're still at the games. Well, some games, like… Survive. Yeah, Survive, Cyberslythia, those kind of ones. But they've never really hit the same heights as Pokémon.
00:56:31
Speaker
ah in the anime they did when you put them in a drink together I guess in the anime category oh yeah definitely Pokemon would lose by you know no diff yeah oh true true if you compare the animes the Digimon anime I always found that it was constructed a lot better like it felt as if it was trying to tell a story whereas in the Pokemon one I'll always love it but it was definitely trying to sell you different Pokemon and then show them off for the games and things it's like oh Oh, what's that Pokémon? Oh, it's Poragon. Well, actually, sorry, that was a worst example I could have given them. As soon as I said that, I'm like, yeah, sure, Satsu, just choose the Pokémon that gave hundreds of kids seizures. That's Pikachu. You do not dare say Poragon is the criminal.
00:57:18
Speaker
Did you see the official Pokemon account came out and absolved them years later? Yeah, I did. That's why we always have that traditional X anniversary of Porygon did nothing wrong. Porygon didn't do anything wrong. And I can't explain to anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about there. Yeah, there was a very infamous episode in the 90s of the anime where it only got shown in Japan. The reason for that is because there's an episode where it's very ditchy-mon-esque, actually. Funny enough, where they go into... I think they go into... Cyber space. Yeah, it's like the Pokémon PC or something and they have to fight Team Rocket and they're fighting on top of Porygons, which is so damn cool. But then there's a scene where they get missiles throwing at them and Pikachu blasting them out the air. But what ends up happening is, and I think you'll be able to explain it better, but there's a scene where blue and red lights slash beside one another. I think it was because of the frequency or something that it triggered a lot of seizures for kids. So much so that even the Simpsons made fun of it, which I think was a bit distasteful to be quite honest. Yeah, all these poor kids who got struck by this and then they never really brought it back again because I heard
00:58:31
Speaker
Apparently there was something in the intro that I didn't call as fits or anything or seizures, but I heard in the intro for the old Pokémon, they had really fast flashing and especially with Dragon Ball as well. They had really tense flashing scenes and whatnot. I think that's probably what built my taller in some scene, the flashing. All that, but it was really bad though, wasn't it? It was when I saw that fact, I finally realized why the flashing lights were so slow in the dub because they actually were trying to mitigate what happened in the actual original version. It's quite interesting as well because I don't think there's been any other Pokémon that has been affected as Porygon has, as a fellow Porygon fan yourself. you'll understand the vein but the fact is for any other Pokémon like there's been a load of episodes that have been cancelled here in the UK and the US because of controversial content like there's one where James decides to dress up as a woman which is an I mean, that was finding itself, but what wasn't fine was he had inflatable breasts, which it was a choice, let's just say. It was a choice of an episode. So of course, because of that inappropriateness, they cancelled that episode. There was the one where Ash caught his Tauros. I always remember this when people asked, oh, where did he get the traditional Tauros? He said he got them at the safari zone. And then people ask, well, what happens in that episode? And it's that Mandela effect where you're like,
01:00:01
Speaker
I actually don't know because they didn't hear that, but they always say, oh, you got it out of the Safari Zone. And that was because they had guns featured, so they couldn't show that. But it's really funny because the fact that you know they had guns and that was all about Dratine, the dragon Pokémon, but Dratine never got cancelled for guns. Neither did the other ones. Because of the Pikachu, as we said, we're going to put it on there. I'm looking at my Red Panda lawyer just now in the corner. He's giving me the thumbs up that, of course, Pikachu caused the explosion, which caused the red and blue interchanging flashing lights and everything. But what was crazy was that Porygon took the flack for that, and he didn't appear in any episodes until I think he appeared as a cameo in one of the movies maybe in the background. But his reputation, even with that being absolved by Pokémon officially, he has not recovered. He's the only Pokémon I would say off the top of my head that probably was suffered from that. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I guess so. Nothing else comes off from the top of my head. I mean, the only one I can think that's close was it Wishkash, the catfish Pokémon, where there was an episode about earthquakes or something, and unfortunately when that episode was due to air there was a terrible earthquake that happened in Japan, so they obviously have cancelled it and pushed it forward. Same with one of the, I think,
01:01:24
Speaker
it was ooh I want to say Generation 5 where they introduced Team Plasma where they go in and they blow up a couple of buildings because oh look they're evil. They cancelled those episodes as well because of natural disasters and things and that's obviously unfortunate. But I've never seen any Pokémon since have such a bad reputation as Prodigon because I think even surface level Pokémon fans they'll see Prodigon and have this innate fear of oh my god is the one that caused the Such a shame isn't it? It is a shame especially since we can never see Porg on 2 ever again in an anime. I mean we get to see him in the games at least. Yeah but you know seeing that lovable duck in an anime would be fun. And it's the closest overlap that we can get to Digimon and Pokemon isn't it? Yeah, it is. I don't want to say, you know, join their cause, but if you want to visit our website, www.porugundandnothingwrong.org, get for legal reasons, that's a made-up website. say I say that every time because I'm always worried to make that joke and then someone's going to be like, oh, what is this, www? I was like, no, do not go to that website.
01:02:35
Speaker
I can't read it. Seeing that though, before we wrap up, I've got to ask, because obviously you're doing absolutely fantastic work, as I said, on Twitter.
Future of Out of Context Pokemon
01:02:44
Speaker
You know, you've got your memes aplenty, but you've also got your commentary on on very hot topic issues on the community and you do an absolutely fantastic job with that. As I said before, you've also got the Twitch channel. So what is next for Out of Context Pokémon? Do you have anything planned for 2025 or yeah? What's going on? We have some plans sorted out and still working on the background, but I guess what I can say without revealing too much is that we have very special partner who would like to work with us, which I will be announcing once the details are finally you know discussed behind the scenes.
01:03:24
Speaker
I think everyone will be surprised as to who it is once we announced it. My wider plans really is just partner up with more people to work within the community, maybe some outside the community, but I just want to turn this into a professional thing because back then I just, when we inherited the account in 2023, we just did this for the sake of keeping the page alive and Just you know like you like destroy it if it comes down to crypto bros wanting to buy it. But you know since December, we've been getting a lot of opportunities knocking on our door. So I want to make this into a professional gig. And I hope that it will last for years to come. I want to take advantage of the roadmap that we've been given so far. And the end goal really is that I just want it to be a place where people can just visit. or maybe look for something they'd laugh at and, you know, have healthy discussions without being prejudiced by the main owners or, you know, anyone who they're friends with. Really, it's just, I work really hard to rebrand the page into something that anyone can feel comfortable visiting as a fan or as an audience or as as an outsider. Really, that's my biggest and proudest achievement so far in this page's history. between you and your colleague, friend, co-owner as well. Yeah, he's Sammy. His name is Sammy. No, I think you both do an absolutely fantastic job of that because the amount of pages that I genuinely have seen and I am online quite a lot because of the podcast and trying to promote it and whatnot, you see a lot of meme pages and you see a lot of them that you think, alright, okay, that's kind of funny, that's funny. I don't get me wrong, I appreciate them because they do cheer me up. With yours especially, I know exactly what you mean, it could have been so easy for you just to do the same gimmick day in and day out and things and say, all right, okay, here's a Pokémon meme. Oh, Professor Oak doesn't know his grandson's name. Haha, that kind of thing. You're not like the very milk toast Pokémon jokes. But at the same time, you've gone from that and you do absolutely fantastic work, the both of you. Honestly, you do fantastic work with the branding of it, inviting other people into your community as it were. As of this episode, is it right in saying that you're nearly at a million followers over there? Mmm, funny thing is we actually had a million followers. ah
01:05:50
Speaker
Until November happened, which masked the activations and migrations to Blue Sky happened. Which I really don't mind really, because at the end of the day, I'm not trying to boast or anything, but I still believe we're the undisputed champion when it comes to being the number one Pokemon fan slash gimmick account on Twitter. And yeah, I also forgot we actually have a third guy in our party. His name is Optimistic Charizard. I'm sure you've seen this page before. He runs a little fun page called Mijia with Pokemon Music. Oh yeah, fantastic page. Which is funny because I was the one who helped grow that page. Yeah, when I first joined, it was in March, 2023. He had, I guess, 2000 or less followers. But when we work together, we managed to put a page amongst the top Pokemon fan pages or meme accounts on Twitter. Cause now it's about to reach 32,000 followers. So yeah, there's two of us. It's just that me and Sammy does most of the work. And I guess Optimistic Charizard is more of the guy who we will actually ask to take over the account if, in any case, both of us are actually not available. yeah I guess you can say that unofficially, behind the scenes, me, OOC Pokemon, and Mijie with Pokemon Music are partners, by brothers in arms and stuff like that, officially, at least behind the scenes. That is honestly great to hear though because it's good that you're not infighting with a lot of other meme pages. The only meme pages I had thought would really were good reddit and I guess recently dream fans because you know you're that recent post that idiot did.
01:07:28
Speaker
Yeah, but in fighting, nah, in fact, I do my best to, you know, not promote hate within big pages and especially the community. Unless, of course, it's calling out scalpers and bad actors within the community, which, you know, I am going all out, if you ask me.
01:07:43
Speaker
especially something you brought up before about people offering to buy the page and that because of its high reaching influence. Thank you for not doing that purely because there was a Pokémon page I used to follow years ago and again it was very similar. It was more of a gimmick account created for maybe Bulbasaur or something. new It was like a jokey page and I thought I'd right, this is a cute page, it's fun. And then I remember one time a lot of really random posts coming up in my feed and I'm like, I do not recognise why do I follow with this person? And then the reason was because it was this former Pokémon account that I think they had either sold their account or they got hacked or something. I think they sold it, to be honest. Again, it wasn't a massive Pokémon page, but it was relatively, you know, had a decent following and people were like, oh, haha, we love it for this particular Pokémon and then all of a sudden it was just random weird tweets and things. I don't get why people think they can do that. I know why because of the reach and everything that they have, but surely they must think that people are going to click on that this is no longer the same page. I mean, it's a bit like, you know, the old YouTubers you used to watch and things and they end up getting bought out by completely random companies that try to use their name to promote something completely different. I mean it's a bit like where it used to be with Smosh and I think a Fred guy of all people. Weird, heard weird times. But no thank you for not doing that. Well actually you can think Sami for that because he's the one who advised both of us to never do it because he said that he would rather destroy and nuke the page rather than sell it to some loser who's gonna most likely use it as a platform for stake. I wasn't considering selling it but yeah we stood our ground and we just outright ignored every calls to or rather requests and buy out requests especially good reddit they were offering in the $20,000 range
01:09:38
Speaker
I also recognize that if that happens, then 900,000 people will be exposed to harmful stuff like gambling, crypto, or war is only fans. So really, we really couldn't bring ourselves to let that happen in our good conscience. Yeah. Well, if one day I log in and I see the page has changed from out of context Pokémon to pixelated Porygon pics.
01:10:02
Speaker
I'll know what happened. yeah I think that's probably the perfect place to wrap up. So, Hazahira, thank you so, so much for coming on today and yeah, talking all things Pokemon and all things about your channel. yeah No problem. And I hope we get to do another podcast, like especially on Pokemon Day or something like that. Oh, absolutely. If you ever a want to come back on again, you are more than welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So before we wrap up, where can these, and again for all five people out there who probably don't know about your account, where can these ah lovely people find your content online? Type in at OOC Pokemon on Twitter and you'll find us there on Twitter. We also have a page on Blue Sky. Recently, I launched an Instagram account, but that was the time when I was unaware of the sweeping changes that Robotic Neanderthal did to Instagram, so I had to temporarily postpone it until further notice. I guess we have Link 3 as well, which is linked in our bio page. You can see it under... Oh, next to the location, San Jametown.
01:11:05
Speaker
But yeah, we don't really have to follow us, but if you do, well, that means the world to us. And I guess one last thing, aside from, you know, saying that, hey, we have a Discord channel, which I do, you can check it out on my link tree. It's only focused on Twitch, but also on the Twitter page.
01:11:22
Speaker
But I guess I just want to say that, be a good person and, you know, if you ever see a kid asking you about Pokémon, what is it about and, you know, stuff like that, I guess, you know, don't be like those people who are saying, you know, you know, get out here, kid. I'm not interested. I guess the best thing you can do really is to, you know, engage with them and encourage them to try it out because you never know that such conversation would actually lead them to a much more brighter future because I know Pokémon certainly did that for me. And that's pretty much it. Now that's a lovely message to end on. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you as well for having me here. If you want to listen to more Pokemon content from ourselves, as well as general episodes and the like, then you can indeed check out the podcast at our website, chatsanami.com, as well as all good podcast apps. I also want to give a huge shout out to our amazing Pantalorean patrons, Robotic BattleToaster, Sonya, Ghosty, Encryptic1991. Thank you all so, so much for supporting the show. It means the world to us. And if you would like exclusive access to bonus episodes, commentary tracks, out of context, Pentagon pics, and for legal reasons that last was a joke. Then you can check us out our Patreon page patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami. I also want to point out that this podcast is a proud member of the Podpack Collective. If you want to check out the amazing podcasts that are attached to that, then you can check us out on Twitter slash X at Podpack Collect. But until then, thank you so, so much for listening to this episode. Stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.