Continuing my readthrough of Pokemon Story (
>>55441441).
Truth is, there isn't much that goes beyond the stuff you can find on Bulbapedia. Tons of pages on GameFreak and a long interview with Tajiri at the end, which are interesting, but which have been covered elsewhere. The subchapter on the producers meeting the 4Kids group doesn't tell you anything that you didn't know by being on an anime forum in the mid-2000s. I guess you shouldn't expect them to shit talk their American counterparts in a book from 2000. Two kind of interesting things:
>Pic related is a typical page. The main text is written by Kenji Hatakeyama, who is unrelated to Pokemon as far as the introduction says. He's an independent fan/journalist, I guess. The marginal text is written by Kubo. Most of it is elaboration on who the people involved are (this page has a spotlight on Yuyama, for example), but occasionally he'll express his opinions on business stuff like what makes a hit, how to negotiate with foreigners, etc. Its insightful to see how he things, but unless you're a business major, probably not super interesting.>The "eternal summer vacation" line that Yuyama says in interviews seems to have come from Satoshi Tajiri. Choji Yoshikawa explains that when he met Tajiri, Yoshikawa expressed his disappointment that Pokemon didn't have "inns" like a typical RPG. There didn't seem to be a place to "stop for the night," or "stay." Tajiri responded that the feeling he wanted was for Pokemon to resemble a summer day during childhood. Yoshikawa says a lightbulb went off in his head and he understood, because as a kid, dusk was when you had to come in from outside and stop playing, so night was a dreadful time. That vibe seems to have stuck with the anime long after the Pokemon games got a day/night cycle in Gen 2 and then Gen 4. Is there anything to the HZ movie rumor? Ashieboys started fuming the last time it was brought up, and that seems to be what's happening in here. 