First off let's talk about Zygarde. Recently the Zygarde forms have been revealed and the hype has sort of died down, but here is one more rumor for you. As most of us Pokefans know by now these are the Zygarde forms:
This rumor is about the "100%" or the "complete" form of Zygarde, shown here:
This rumor deals with the red and blue we see on it's chest and one the "wing-like" parts floating above the arms. It is rumored that it may be possible that X amount of cells make the Core Zygarde, and more makes it the 10% version, and more makes to 50% the original Zygarde we are all familiar with. But the Complete version may expand upon this as to reach it you may have to fuse the 50% Zygarde with Xerneas and Yveltal, the three shown here:
As you can tell Xerneas has a Blue makeup to it while Yveltal had a Red makeup to it. Therefore this rumor states that because of the Red and Blue shown only in the Complete form of Zygarde that to reach this you may have to fuse these three legendarys.
This leads onto a subculture of Pokemon fans, something that has never been a part of Pokemon officially but Pokefans have gotten much joy out of: Pokemon fusion. This was first inspired by Alexonslager's website simply called Pokemon Fusion. What you do is you go to his website and you can "fuse" two Pokemon together. You can randomize the whole thing or one Pokemon at a time, or you can pick from a list. Check it out here: http://pokemon.alexonsager.net/
Pretty cool, right? Well what if in the Pokemon games we could fuse two Pokemon together?! Wouldn't that be awesome?! Like Cubone and Charizard:
So with this thought mixed with the possibility of fusing together Zygarde with Xerneas and Yveltal to get Zygarde's Complete form, maybe there is some hope that Pokemon Fusion will come to the games, it would certainly revamp the game and probably attract new and old players alike, but with all the new Mega evolution stuff, maybe they will hold off on something so groundbreaking.
Recently in the new Tekken-Pokemon smash up Pokken Tournament a never before seen version of Mewtwo has appeared!
A few days after the news surfaced Pokemon came out with an official trailer for Pokken on Wii U, and at the very end included a few seconds of the new Mewtwo called Shadow Mewtwo:
That is all that has been officially unveiled. However, A little more can be learned by watching the original game footage where this new Mewtwo form was first discovered:
With this video we can see more of what the new Mewtwo looks like. You can see his body has amber highlights with some amber-crystal-like parts extruding from him. More importantly we see right in the beginning after seeing him we see the mega evolution sign that you typically see when a Pokemon is mega evolved:
This confirms that this new version of Mewtwo is a Mega Evolution, keep in mind there are already two Mewtwo mega evolutions: Mewtwo X and Mewtwo Y:
Now onto the rumors: First off, There are already two mega Mewtwos and now there is a third, well one of the greatest rumors in Pokemon is the third installment of the Pokemon X & Y games called Pokemon Z. This leads fans to believe this could be a mega evolution of Mewtwo for that game, like a Mewtwo Z. Another speculation is because of the name they have given him: Shadow Mewtwo. This makes many people think back on the days of Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness in which there were "shadow Pokemon" so could Shadow Mewtwo be related to that? Possibly! Maybe Pokemon Z will revive the idea of shadow Pokemon?
Happy Halloween everyone! In this post I would like to mash up Pokemon and Halloween!
I have many online goodies to share with you! First off if you plan on carving a Pumpkin and you want to showcase your favorite Halloweenish Pokemon or Pikachu see these stencils on Pokemon's website:
Whatever direction Gengar gives you, be sure to go in the opposite direction.
Step 2:
Pumpkaboo Prank!
Unlike Gengar, when Pumpkaboo gives you an order, be sure to follow it!
Step 3:
Four Scary Stages!
Challenge yourself to harder and harder stages featuring Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar.
Step 4:
Ghost-type Goodies!
Do well in the final two stages to earn wallpapers for your computer!
And last but not least! If you wish for something not-Pokemon endorsed, maybe something scarier? Over on the Underbelly YouTube Channel, they just put up a pretty funny faux trailer which mixes the Pokemon craze with 80's slasher movies. The result is some bloody good fun. Sit back, relax, enjoy, and … Catch ‘Em All! Kill ‘Em All!
This week I am doing another source of inspiration post. One source for inspiration I have is seeing incorrect grammar. Seeing this makes me double check my grammar for mistakes all the time! My example starts off with a small explanation.
I am a proud owner of an Android smartphone, the LG G3 to be exact. As many people know Android is owned by Google. Their app store is called the Play Store. One thing I find oddly, somewhat enjoyable is completing surveys. With both of these I found an awesome app, called Google Opinion Rewards. I strongly suggest this app to anyone that owns an Android device. It is simple, every few weeks to every month this app will notify you that there is a survey. You click on the notification and it takes you to the app and you fill out a short survey, usually only a few questions. So what is so great about that? In return for completing surveys you get Play Store credits! I save up my credits and buy other apps with the money. Pretty awesome, right? By now you are probably wondering how this has to do with inspiration or grammar. Well today I got a notification for a survey! Awesome, right?! Well I was presented with this question:
First off, I will admit that I just turned twenty one in August and have not yet been to a casino. But the point here is that even a big company like Google can misuse grammar. As seen in the answer choice: "I have never went to a casino."
To back up this, Microsoft Word says:
With this in mind, it gives me inspiration to always double check my grammar!
Between all the hype of the new Zygrade forms, the real life Pokemon Gym, and future Pokemon distribution events, there is another piece of news that is getting less attention than it should. The Ash-Greninja.
Revealed in the same CoroCoro Magazine alongside the Zygrade Forms, The Ash-Greninja appears to be a Greninja that resembles Ash. It has been commented on through the Pokemon site:
"Ash's Greninja takes on a mysterious new appearance in the latest season! Ash-Greninja is the form that Greninja takes when the bond between it and Ash is raised to the limit. The strength of their bond changes Greninja's appearance, and it takes on the characteristic look of Ash's attire. This phenomenon is also said to have happened just once several hundred years ago in the Kalos region, but it remains shrouded in mystery."
So what does this mean? Well first off this is something that appears in the Anime. It seems to happen when a Pokemon and their trainer's bond increases. As for the "It happened just once several hundred years ago" part many fans can come to one simple deduction:
Yupp, you guessed it this is the cutscene from Pokemon X and Y with the giant names AZ and his oddly colored Floette. This Floette is different colors than most other Floettes and had a very strong connection with it's trainer.
This leaves another question? Is this something we will also see in a video game?
In the remakes of Ruby and Sapphire they has a cosplay Pikachu in which you could dress up your Pikachu. In X and Y they had the story of AZ and his Floette. So I assume this is something we may be able to do in a future main series Pokemon game, maybe the rumored Pokemon Z. I feel it may be limited to your starter Pokemon or something along those lines. Another complication is in X and Y you were able to change your player's outfit, we would have to see if this would still be an option and if so how will it affect the appearance of your Pokemon.
A company named Sanoyas Interaction is opening a real life Pokemon gym in, you guessed it, Japan. Osaka, Japan to be specific. They call it "Pokemon EXPO Gym" so no this is not like a Pokemon gym like in the games and Anime where Ask takes his Pokemon to defeat the gym leader and earn a gym badge. But it is first hands-on edutainment facility for Pokemon in Japan.
The purpose of the gym is to provide fans with advance on Pokemon, tips on using abilities, and overall a way for kids to also enjoy and learn to communicate with each other as part of the program.There are various training programs and features such as “Charizard’s Battle Colosseum” and “Gardevoir’s Control Score,” that will train you in various subjects, and will even reward you with special Pokemon for your X, Y, Alpha Sapphire, and Omega Ruby games. This will bring in new players and entertain current ones.
Fans will get to preorder their “Pokemon EXPO Gym Member’s Card & Pass Case” (shown below) starting October 31st, and it’ll only be available to purchase at the Pokemon Center shop in Osaka.
A “Pokemon EXPO Gym Gear” app is also launching for smartphones early next month. The app will show your stats and ranking at the Gym, and will also have some other features.
The Pokemon EXPO Gym will open on November 19, 2015 in Osaka, Japan.
Throughout the Semester we have to do five "Sources of Inspiration" blog posts, so this week I will be breaking from my usual topic of Pokemon and heading to the 1920's. This Sources of Inspiration post will be on Typography.
For this I head straight back to my favorite book and one of my favorite movies: The Great Gatsby. There are many sources of inspiration throughout the book and the movies for me. Anything from romance, never giving up, love, cinematography, not to mention the amazing soundtrack in Baz Luhrmann's Film. This post will focus on typography, and not in the book, in the 2013 film (opposed to the one from the 1970's).
Being from the 1920's a Deco typography obviously makes sense. I have seen some books that have the tile written as:
I really like this font, I seems to stand tall and pushes parts of the letters to the top or bottom of the letter like the line that normally goes across an A is pushed towards the top of the A, same with the middle line in the E. The letters are also rounded, like the point on the A. Now onto the movie:
The main font here is the deco font that makes the word "Gatsby" Here the letters are "fat" and are decorated with many extra lines. For the alphabet from the movie as well as some of the JG (Jay Gatsby) logos found around Gatsby's mansion , take a look below:
One thing I find interesting is that each character is "fat" giving it a more three dimensional look, but you'd think giving each character a three dimensional look that they all would face the same way, but they don't. As you can see the A looks like it is facing left opposed to the Y which appears to face right. Also, don't forget to check out the "JG" logos.
Within the 2013 movie the narrating character, Nick Carraway, played by Tobey Maguire, is seen with what appears to be a therapist and the therapist offers for him to write down his experiences dealing with his recent past and Gatsby, as shown by the clip:
Here he starts off writing in his journal the story about Gatsby, as you can see he is handwriting it.
This next clip is when he is at a private party with Tom and his mistress:
He writes once again in his journal this time about becoming drunk. Notice he wrote once and has it crossed out as he writes twice. Also, note that the last word has a pattern. Keep in mind the prohibition is in play in the 1920s.
Here is the famous "I was within and without" line:
This next clip is interesting as we see Nick upgrade from handwriting to typing on a typewriter:
The next clip is near the end, notice the cool effect of all the letters making it look like it is raining:
Finally, the last, and one of the most notable, lines is shown here:
I really like how this film includes these notable lines in the movie, not just an actor saying them but Nick actually writing them and you can see what's being written. I also like the typography change as he goes from handwriting to typewriter. It shows him becoming invested in writing his story. I also like how not only did they show the words in the film they also really incorporated it in the film. For example the pattern on the word "afternoon" and how the word lifted off sending the camera through the second "o" or when the letters gave the effect of rain and set an eerie mood about New York only he experienced. Also, the Deco typography used throughout the entire film is really cool.
I hope you enjoyed this and find inspiration from it as well.
Remember the guy that was sued by the Pokemon company over copyright infringement? He was planning to throw his annual Pokemon PAX Kickoff party, this year would've been his fifth party. But to his surprise he was sued by The Pokemon Company. Well the case has been settled!
If you want to read the legal papers: Click on me! The Pokemon company specifically had an issue with Ramar Larkin using Pikachu, the company's mascot (shown below) and Snivy, the grass starter Pokemon from the Black & White Series.
Shown here is the poster Larkin made to promote his party:
He also used Pikachu to promote his party on Facebook as well. In The Pokemon Company's words: Defendants’ exploitation of the Pikachu and Snivy characters in promotion of the “5th Annual Unofficial Pokemon PAX Kickoff Party” is a direct infringement of The Pokemon Company’s exclusive rights in the Pokémon Works.
The Pokemon company has threatened Larkin with around $5,200 in damages, as a result Larkin shut down the party hoping The Pokemon Company would back down. This is an option they had, that they did not take. Instead they lowered it to $4,000 and gave him 45 days to pay for the damages.
I’m a video gamer, huge Pokemon fan and over all a huge geek. PAX is my absolute favorite time of year. I love the parties, the fandom, cosplay and overall geek spirit that descends on Seattle. This year I tried to throw a Unofficial Pokemon party because why not… it would be fun, I’m a huge fan, I know all my friends are fans and I mostly wanted to geek out and add to the fun parties you can find all over the city.
The day before the PAX party, Pokemon sued me. With out even a cease and desist.Totally didn’t expect that. I cancelled the party, refunded everyone the 2 dollars I charged to help cover all the prizes I bought for the cosplay contest and smash bros tournament. Pokemon wants $4000 that I just don’t have. I told them I would pay it over a year and they denied that. They want it now with in the next 45 days.
I work in a cafe and I literally don’t have $4000. I wish they would have just sent a cease and desist because I had no problem dropping the party but I just don’t have $4000 to pay in the next 45 days.
So I’m reaching out to the PAX video game community. Anything you can donate would be greatly appreciated. I just want it to be over with and not have it escalate further because I couldn’t pay 4k in 45 days. Trust me I will never throw another fandom party again. Thank you guys so much in advance.
As of today it took only 117 people to raise $4,148 in 6 days for Larkin to pay The Pokemon Company, this is one mistake Larkin will never make again!
As most everyone in the Pokemon Universe knows the new Pokemon Go app that is set to release in early 2016.
This here is the logo, so what IS Pokemon Go? Pokemon Go is an Augmented Reality (AR) game coming to Android and iPhone. Augmented reality is by definition: a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. Think of that dinky game that comes on your 3DS where you take a picture of your face and it puts it on those creepy flying heads with propellers and you have to essentially shoot yourself, Face Raiders. Or the AR cards you got with your 3DS which made the character pop out of the card and it was fun for a whole five minutes till you popped Pokemon back in, or almost any robotic scifi movie in which you get a glimpse through the robot/cyborgs eyes. Yeah, so you have the camera viewing what is around you and you see a computerized overlay or interface. So shall we expect to see the Pokemon world around us through the screen of our cell phones? Apparently we will, of course we have yet to see any actual footage of said AR.
The next question? What footage DO we have? Take a look:
There you have it! Pokemon Go! Looks Awesome right?? I agree! Looks freaking amazing! Looks like what many people have dreamed of!
The good?
It is POKEMON!, it is Nintendo, it is Pokemon and Nintendo ON a cellphone! We have all heard that Nintendo has partnered with cell phone app developer DeNa, awesome, proof that Nintendo isn't trying to shove their beloved products into our faces anymore and claiming we can only experience their beloved (thousands) of characters on their systems. It is a step they may or may not have been forced to make to survive. I understand why they preferred their content to only be on their consoles, they can monitor the games on their systems, it gives their brand a sort of exquisiteness, they could claim their products to be kid friendly. Now they head to mobile, but as far as I'm aware DeNa is not associated with Pokemon Go, a company called Niantic is. Niantic has another AR game that has become pretty popular among the players. More goodness, Niantic, Nintendo, and The Pokemon Company has been working on Pokemon Go for TWO years!?!?! Wow two years! It HAS to be good, right? We can hope so! The trailer looks amazing! I was stunned at the initial news of Pokemon Go, as I'm sure many were. This app will not only bring Pokemon and Nintendo to our phone, it will bring people together, to play, trade, and battle IRL! People all over look forward to the release of this app, set for early 2016 (2016 is also Pokemon's 20th Anniversary!)
The bad?
Bad? What bad? Is there any bad? Unfortunately, there is... at least in my opinion. What can be so bad about this awsomeness you ask? Many things. First, remember that super awesome trailer? Yes it was super awesome BUT did anyone else notice 99.98475637% was CGI??? The harsh reality? you will not be able to see a Charizard laying on a hillside, at least with your eyes, you will have to look through your phone screen to see it. Okay, so not such a big deal right? We can't expect any VR or AR through our eyes rather than a phone screen yet. So the biggest screen many of us will see our Pokemon will be between 4-5.5 inches. Is this bad? Well we have no announcement of tablet support, yet. So we cant expect anything bigger. More bad news? THIS APP IS GOING TO KILL YOUR PHONE! Why? Well the game will be through your entire phone, at least a part of it will be AR, soo that means it needs to use your camera to get the "R" part of AR, it will probably need your location, and if you have the Pokemon Go Plus your Bluetooth will also have to be on to connect to that, and I don't know about you but when I look like a dork running around my college campus catching a Pokemon with my phone, I will do it on a nice-ish day, which usually includes the sun, and since I'm outside I will have to turn up my screen brightness just to see anything. SO Bluetooth, bright screen, camera use, and GPS use? I don't know about anyone else but I keep these things in minimal use to save my battery. More or less to say, this app will most likely be your battery's worst nightmare! But is it worth it? Many people will think so, I'll betray my battery too. Talking about the Go Plus brings me to the next point: Money. Three companies have been working for two years on a game everyone wants featuring Nintendo's second (behind Mario) largest franchise. They. will. be. rich. But where does that money come from? us. yeah yeah I know that's how companies and economics work, that is not the point, the point is Pokemon Go will be free, Awesome right!?!?! yeah, it's awesome alright, it also installs a deep dark fear that we will be converting our money into the beloved Pokedollars as a possible in-game currency. This is speculation, but the app is free, if you worked your butt off for two years coding and programming this super awesome app you wouldn't give it away for free either, so there has to be a way for them to make money built into it, as most games are headed towards free-to-play, with in-game purchases. What could we have to purchase? Hopefully they are fair about it... I don't want to have to spend money to open up pokeball slots on my pokebelt, just so I can have the 20 year tradition of carrying six Pokemon. I would however, if there has to be in game purchases, not mind stocking up on potions, or maybe repels? Don't want any annoying zubats attacking me while I'm on my way to class! They will also make money off of Pokemon Go Plus, which is the Pokeball-colored Google Map-shaped pin that will vibrate and flash colors when you are near a Pokemon or for other events, wearable as a clip on or a wristband. Another bad point is what we know the game will look like, all we have is:
Like stated before, 99.98475637% of the trailer is CGI, these are the only actual screenshots we have. Now based on the amount of good vs bad I have stated, it is obvious I maybe a little pessimistic about all this, in reality I just don't want them to mess this up, I have high hopes for this and look forward to it myself, as I hope you are too! Happy Catching!
Recently The Pokemon company has been having trouble with other people using their brand. They have recently sued two people over the use of Pokemon.
The first instance was back in August, The Pokemon Company International, Inc. filed suit against two guys from Seattle. They claimed they broke copyright laws when they organized a Pokemon themed party to mark the kickoff of the PAX Prime gaming convention, the tickets for the sold-out event costed $2.
Here is a poster they made to advertise the event:
They have ran this party annually since 2011, making this year's their fifth annual party. It was said to feature Pokemon themed shots and drinks, Smash Bros. Tournament with a cash prize, Dancing, Giveaways, cosplay contest, and more. The poster for the event contains Pikachu and Snivy two of Pokemon's copyrighted characters, and Pikachu was used to promote it on Facebook. The manager of the restaurant where it was to be held cancelled the party and stressed the fact that it was not the restaurant that organized the event. Pokemon's lawyers say they aim to "put an end to and obtain redress" for the "blatant and willful infringement." The company is seeking damages, attorneys' fees and an order to stop future parties. Ramar Larkin Jones and Zach Shore are both listed as defendants along with their company Ruckus Productions.
More recently a Cleveland-based T-Shirt company, named RageOn is facing legal trouble after the Pokemon Company stated that some of the shirts they were selling depicted their Pokemon which infringed on their copyrights. Some of the designs were a "PikaJew" shirt depicting Pikachu as a Hasidic Jew surrounded by money, a Jigglypuff smoking marijuana, Jigglypuff with a black marker, a 'raver Pikachu', and Snorlax surrounded in marijuana leaves. The company RageOn does make other shirts depicting characters from other video games and famous franchises. They filed court documents arguing that the shirts are parodies and "clearly socially and politically-relevant commentary" and asked for the case to be dismissed, stating they are not guilty and did nothing wrong.
Neither case has been finished yet, but The Pokemon Company sure has been set on suing for copyright infringement. In my opinion I understand why The Pokemon Company has decided to sue in both of these situations. I believe the Pokemon themed party was not harmful as it was a celebration for an event, although using Pikachu and Snivy to promote the party crosses the line as copyright infringement. As with RageOn I think that their shirts are funny but they could damage the brand's name and reputation as a kid-friendly game. Making parodies is one thing but relating it to antisemitic or illegal drugs crosses the line.
I run a magazine on an app called Flipboard. Those not familiar with it it is a news reading app, you can create and follow a magazine and each magazine has a central topic. I got this app to read articles that interest me, one topic I was interested in following was Pokemon, turns out there was no Pokemon news magazine, so I decided to make my own! My magazine has been running since May of 2013, and currently has 492 followers, 3,711 Viewers, 1,645 articles, and 145.7k page flips, so far!
I intend to use this blog to post new things that happen in the Pokemon universe! I will include my opinions and thoughts. I do intend to try and "Flip" these like articles into my Flipboard magazine. Check it out at: http://flip.it/EVYbu
