We've had individual topics for several of the games before, but I don't think we have a thread for the series as a whole, so I decided I would create one.

But anyway, I am embarking on something I have not done in a long, long time. For the first time in over a decade, I am playing through one of the mainline Pokémon games! Which is a bit ironic it took me so long considering I was huge into Pokémon as a kid. I'm an old enough geezer to remember when Pokémon first came out. And like so many other kids at the time, I was all over it. I played the original Red/Blue/Yellow over and over, I watched many episodes of the anime, and my brother and I owned a decent number of the trading cards between the two of us.

…and then that was pretty much it. As obsessed with Pokémon as I was, it turned out to be short-lived. Around mid-Generation 2 I was already starting to drift away from it, and by Generation 3 I had moved on completely. I do remember playing either Gold or Silver, but I didn't get very far into the game before abandoning it.

Several years later, sometime after high school, I gave Pokémon another shot, starting again with Gen 1 and intending to work my way up to the newer games, but again it petered out and I only made it partway through RBY. Several years after that, my brother pitched the idea that him and I each play a Pokémon game alongside each other, and I was definitely interested. This time around I was eyeing HeartGold/SoulSilver. But we only ever talked about it and never got around to it. And then that was truly it for me.

Until now, that is. I have a couple friends here (@OwlsCantRead & @ImpracticalDino) who I learned are Pokémon fans. After chatting about it with them enough times, one day it hit me suddenly that I wanted to play Pokémon again.

I debated with myself which version I wanted to go for this time. I didn't want to do the original RBY again. Since as much as I enjoyed them as a kid, I played them to death at the expense of all the future games. But I still wanted to do the Kanto adventure since I'm nostalgic for it, and it still seemed like a good "starting again" place. So I went for the remakes since it's a balance of both new and familiar, and some of the added features appealed to me.

I want to play SoulSilver and Emerald too. I might even start them before finishing with Kanto. But for now, I have launched into my newly-ordered copy of LeafGreen. Currently at Vermilion City, soon to confront Lt Surge.

A few weeks ago, I received the news that my grandmother has cancer, and probably only has about two or three months left to live. It was after I had Easter supper with my father when he informed me. I was saddened for sure, although not very surprised, as she is in her mid-80s now, and both of my grandparents on my mother's side had already passed away after reaching a similar age. (and my paternal grandfather died a long time ago, before I was even born)

But amidst my heavy heart, there was a silver lining to be thankful for. For my dad also informed me that he and my aunt (his sister) will be flying out to Newfoundland to see my grandmother one last time, and I was invited to join them. When I think of other loved ones I've lost over the years, where they were taken from me very suddenly and unexpectedly, it feels like a blessing that this time around I actually have a chance to say goodbye first.

Myself and my father and aunt will be leaving early this May. I live in Alberta, and Newfoundland is all the way over on the opposite side of the country. Because of covid restrictions, we have to self-isolate for 14 days before we can go see my grandmother, so in the meantime the three of us will be hanging out at the rental house finding ways to pass the time. But my aunt tells me that we'll also be renting a car and that we might do some day trips to other nearby places, which would be nice since it would mean we're not confined just to the house during that time. And the house itself looks like it'll be nice. I've always enjoyed going for long walks and so I'll probably be doing a fair bit of that too while I'm out there.

Lastly, I will more than likely be taking a lot of photos out in Newfoundland, which I will share with you all when I return.

I would like to thank @OwlsCantRead for his livestream over the weekend. A while back, he purchased a copy of The Mysterious Island, albeit at the time he didn't realize it was a dual language copy containing both the standard English version, and a Japanese version as well. It was something he just happened to discover much later on when he was scanning the DVD case digitally for Mumbling. The whole thing was a complete accident, albeit a happy accident, for it made for a pretty entertaining and unique stream!



I would also like to thank Owls for taking the time to manually do up English subtitles for the stream. I don't know Japanese myself and so I would have had no idea what they were saying otherwise... which admittedly I do think would've been entertaining and comical in its own way. Nonetheless, I appreciate his time and effort into setting it up so that the rest of us would be able to understand the characters.

I think the funniest moment for me was just after the Gang snuck off from the main herd in the desert, leading to Topps in his Japanese voice giving an epic yell of "CEEERRRAAA!"

The voices themselves were pretty good. Some of them still sounded fairly similar to their English counterparts, while others sounded quite different. Although I found that, by the halfway point of the film, I didn't really notice the Japanese voices all that much any more. I don't watch non-English movies with subs very often, but on the occasions when I do, I find that my mind eventually just registers the subtitles as though they were speaking actual English.

The songs did stand out to me more. It was quite interesting to hear the same instrumentation, but with totally different voices singing along.

Owls tells me that the Japanese dub is surprisingly faithful, which makes me curious if some of the other language dubs deviated further than that or not. Either way, this was quite an unexpected treat, and it piqued my interest in seeing more alternate language versions of the LBT series in the future.

(Decided I was no longer comfortable sharing this publicly, but you are welcome to PM me if you would still like to read it.)

Hello everyone. I got my next drawing finished yesterday evening. It's not for the prompt submission, so I decided to create a separate thread for this. Drawings of mine that are for the bimonthly prompts will continue to be shared on the first thread, while any other random LBT pieces I do will go here.

Despite my discouragement over my last drawing, honest critiques are still welcome.

"Broken Wings"

Happy New Year everyone! Here are all the reviews I've done this year, with appropriate links. Since they were spread out in various places across the forum, I wanted to compile them all into one organized list.

2019

Major reviews

I – The Original Movie
- Initial thoughts / Welcome Center post
- Initial thoughts / My LBT story
- Initial thoughts / Most heart-wrenching moments (II / III / IV)
- Script/Deleted scenes overview
- Re-review / More memorable moments

II – The Great Valley Adventure
- Review

III – The Time of the Great Giving
- Review

IV – Journey Through the Mists
- Review
- Re-review / Ali Showcase

V – The Mysterious Island
- Review
- Re-review

VI – The Secret of Saurus Rock
- Review
- Script/Deleted scenes overview

VII – The Stone of Cold Fire
- Review
- Re-review

VIII – The Big Freeze
- Review
- Re-review
- The snowball fight

IX – Journey to Big Water
- Review

X – The Great Longneck Migration
- Review

XI – Invasion of the Tinysauruses
- Review

XII – The Great Day of the Flyers
- Initial thoughts / Guido Showcase

The TV series
1. The Cave of Many Voices
- Review
20. The Big Longneck Test
- Review / Shorty Showcase
2. The Mysterious Tooth Crisis
- Review / Chomper Showcase
3. The Star Day Celebration
- Review / Ruby Showcase
4. The Canyon of Shiny Stones
- Review
5. The Great Log Running Game
- Review
6. The Brave Longneck Scheme
- Review / Ali Showcase
7. The Meadow of Jumping Waters
- Review

Miscellaneous
- Sequels Personal Ranking (II) (including mini-reviews of each film)

Other showcase reviews

X – The Great Longneck Migration
- Shorty

General
- Littlefoot
- Cera (II)
- Ducky (II)
- Petrie (II / III)
- Spike (II / III / IV / V)
- Chomper (II)

Here is my submission for the Hurt/Fear prompt (the one-word version). This is the first LBT drawing I've ever done, and in fact my first time ever uploading my artwork anywhere.

Needless to say, I'm pretty unhappy with how this turned out. But I was touched that you guys were still eager to see it, and I still wanted to participate in the prompt challenge.

"The Preceding Silence"