Gamestop has announced they will be selling a Limited Edition Pokemon DP DS Lite featuring Dailga and Palkia on the case lid. The extras include: A matching DP DS carrying case, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Darkness DVD, a special Grovyle poster, and an exclusive Gamestop Pokemon t-shirt. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are sold separately, but this is an amazing deal none the less.

Included as one of the extras is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Darkness which recently aired in the UK. The episode will be making it North American debut with this bundle.

Press Release:
Anyone who loves Pokemon knows a rare treasure when they see one. A treasure that is sure to be sought after is Nintendo’s new Nintendo DS Limited Edition Pokemon Pack, which includes a Pokemon-themed Nintendo DS game system and exclusive Pokemon premiums.

Available on Aug. 17, the Nintendo DS Limited Edition Pokemon Pack features a custom Onyx Nintendo DS emblazoned with images of Dialga and Palkia, two of the most legendary characters from the Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl games. The set also includes a never-before-released animated special - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Darkness (based on the story of the two newest Pokemon DS titles) - plus a cool Dialga and Palkia carrying case, and collectible mini-poster.

The Nintendo DS Limited Edition Pokemon Pack will be available at a suggested retail price of $129.99. For more information about Pokemon, visit www.Pokemon-Games.com.

More pictures are available on the Imageboard: http://imageboard.pocketmonsters.net/
Source: http://www.dsfanboy.com/

Ponyo found itself struggling to get to first place in it opening day as the 11th Pocket Monsters film Diamond & Pearl: Giratina and the Sky's Bouquet: Shaymin opened on the same day in Japan. Shaymin took in a respectable $7.3 million and was second in the Saturday box office sales behind Ponyo which raked in $8.2 million.

Ponyo was also released on July 19 on 481 screens and was expected to dominate while Pocket Monsters opened on 359 screens.

Sources: http://www.cinematical.com/
http://eiga.com/ranking/

Toho, the company that distributes the Theatrical Version of Pocket Monster has applied to Guinness Book of World Records for "The movie series with the most number of advance ticket sales in the world".

The last two Pocket Monsters movies have had at least 2 million pre-order ticket sales, mainly due to the fact that viewers get the ability to download a special Pokemon as part of the pre-order ticket sale.

Source: http://www.chunichi.co.jp

Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl Special Selection - The Beginning of a New Adventure DVD's have been announced and will be available for purchase on September 25. The price including tax will be 3654yen and the catalog number is ZMBS-991. The DVD's will have a total running time of approximately 144 minutes.

The two DVD's in the set will contain the following episodes: Disk 1: Satoshi's Gym Battle History - DP18 Return to Kurogane Gym! Decisive Match with Rampard!!, DP37 Hakutai Gym! VS Natane!, and DP68 Tobari Gym! Lucario VS Buizel!!.



Disk 2 will contain the Hikari Contest Episodes: DP12 Contest Battle! Rival Confrontation!!, DP27 Deciding Match! Pochama VS Pottaishi!! and DP49 Pokemon Contest! Yosuga Convention!!.



Source: http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/poke/sp_selection/

Now that many pre-showings of Movie 11 have concluded in Japan, many people have already watched the latest Movie, Giratina and the Sky Bouquet: Shaymin. At the end of each movie they air a preview for the next years movie. According a Japanese blog user who attended one of the pre-showing, Movie 12 will be called 'Theaterical Version Pocket Monster Diamond Pearl Platinum'. This title also brings up another interesting bit of information. The titles of the movies generally reflect the title of the current anime series, which means its possible that the current 'Diamond & Pearl' series in Japan will be replaced with 'Diamond Pearl Platinum'. It is also assumed that Arceus will also be in the movie title but that won't be confirmed until around March 2009.

We will be able to confirm this information later this week, but there is no reason to discredit this information as many people in Japan have already seen the movie and would have reported the information as inaccurate.

Source: http://ameblo.jp/mineie-hikozaru/entry-10113487206.html

The movie premiere for Movie 11: Pocket Monsters Diamond and Pearl - Giratina and the Sky Bouquet: Shaymin took place in the Nakano Sun Plaza Hall in Tokyo on Sunday, July 6th. Despite the hot temperature which surpassed 30 degrees celsius, many people showed up for the movie premiere.

People were greeted by a big Pikachu balloon at the entrance staircase, while people that brought their Pocket Monsters Diamond or Pearl carts with their Nintendo DS could receive Shaymin anywhere in the movie hall.



Director Kunihiko Yuyama, Crystal Kay, Rica Matsumoto, Red Yoshida, Golgo Matsumoto, Akina Minami and Koichi Yamadera were all in attendance for the premiere.

Crystal Kay also sang the theme song "ONE", live on the movie hall stage. She was quoted saying, "It was straining to sing in front of all the children. This tune is a friendship song. I sing it while thinking of an important, irreplaceable person."

Higher resolution pictures from the movie premiere are available on the Imageboard.

Pocket Monsters Diamond and Pearl - Giratina and the Sky Bouquet: Shaymin opens in theaters across Japan on July 19th.

Both Viz's official website and Amazon.com both list the DVD box set will be released on July 29th. It was spotted by a couple of people today at Walmart and AnimeonDVD also changed their release date for this box set to June 24th.

Be sure to check out your local store to see if they have them in stock as all the online stores I checked still have it setup in their system as pre-order only.

Could the recent Shogakukan-Shueisha Prods. deal have been one of the reasons that the release date was drastically changed for this dvd set? It seems as though some changes might already be happening at Viz and Shogakukan. It's pretty obvious that these DVD don't take long to master, so they were probably ready anyways. With the announcement of the DP DVD's coming out later in the year, Viz probably wanted to get these DVD out as soon as possible so it didn't interfere with the sale of the DP DVD's.

It will be interesting to see if the second box set which was also announced recently will also get a release date change. Hopefully in the future they will give more notice of release date changes.

The track listings and cover art for Crystal Kay's upcoming CD's have been announced. ONE is the title theme for the upcoming Pocket Monsters Movie - Giratina and the Sky's Bouquet: Shaymin which will be in Japanese theaters in July.



For those of you that don't know anything about Crystal Kay, the information below is taken from the Wikipedia entry for her.

Crystal Kay Information Crystal Kay Williams is a R&B singer. She mainly uses her first two names Crystal Kay as her stage name, although she is known by many fans as "Kuri." Crystal Kay was born to an African American father (a bassist from New Jersey) and a third-generation Zainichi (person of Korean descent born in Japan) mother who was a professional singer. Growing up with musicians as parents influenced Crystal to launch a musical career of her own, which she accomplished with her debut at age 13. Prior to this, she provided voiceover work for a television commercial at the age of six.

Two seperate CD's will be released on July 16th. Both CD's contain the title theme to the movie but the rest of the tracks are different. Like the previously released Kaze no Message CD's, if you want all the tracks, you will have to buy both CD's. Below is a listing of the tracks for both CD's.

Crystal Kay ONE (Regular Version)
1. ONE
2. Suki
3. ONE CORNELIUS REMIX
4. ONE DEXPISTOLS REMIX
5. ONE Instrumental

Crystal Kay ONE Pokemon Edition (Limited Edition)
1. ONE
2. ONE with Pikachu and Shaymin
3. ONE Karaoke


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Kay

Nomose Gym! Vs. Maximum Mask!! is the 83rd episode of Diamond & Pearl. It aired in Japan on June 19, 2008 .



DP83 Episode Screenshots: Click Here

You can view larger screenshots from this episode by visiting the Imageboard. There you can post your own screenshots and discuss the latest episode.

Toho celebrates sweetest ever September

TOKYO -- Toho, Japan's number one distribution and exhibition company, has had its best-ever Box office September in its 75-year history, the company announced on Monday. Also boosting the Toho bottom line in September are "Monkey Magic," a Fuji TV kiddie fantasy that has earned Y4.3 billion ($36.7 million), the latest "Pokemon" toon, which has passed the Y5 billion ($42.7 million) milestone, and the TBS weeper "Closed Note," which is expected to finish with more than Y1.5 billion ($12.8 million) despite being dissed by star in Erika Sawajiri in a widely reported -- and vilified -- opening day stage appearance.

Despite these and other hits, Toho's total for the first nine months of the year, Y42 billion, ($361 million), is down 18.4 percent compared with the same period in 2006 -- when Japanese pics grabbed more than a 50 percent market share for the first time in 21 years.

Source: http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/