Sports Anime??

This week I started watching Kuroko no Basuke(Korosuke's Basketball or KnB.)  For a sports anime, it's actually fairly realistic.  Yes, there are some thing's that may seem as though they can't occur in reality, and for their ages, they are highly unlikely; however, the truth is that for the amount of the series I've seen so far, it's very likely.  No, there aren't going to be auras that are visible around the players or to discern the path of the basketball and which player caused the change, but yes there are people out there who, if they practice enough, can shoot from anywhere on the court.  They could pull off agility-based moves if they play the sport in their every spare moment and as for the passing that Kuroko manages...I wish I'd seen this show when I was much younger, but I don't think it was even in manga form yet when I was a kid.  If I had seen it, however, I can tell you I'd have tried to be more like Kuroko rather than trying make myself seen. 

Of course there are a few things that are unrealistic at least for games in America, but we who watch animes are already aware that there are many differences between our school sports competitions and theirs.  Hell, there are innumerable differences between Japan's culture and America's, but that doesn't stop us from trying to emulate things we see that are rather awesome.  Perhaps, in the very far future, some of the things we see portrayed will be put to successful use by children?

Pokemon GO Disappointment

I've been playing Pokemon GO since about one week after its release.  There have been things that seemed disappointing or were, in fact, disappointing (the lack of being able to get gold in a particular badge - Ace Trainor - being removed but the badge is still in the list...), but overall, most of my complaints are taken with a grain of salt.  The game is available but incomplete.  It was still incomplete when it was released.  Because of all this, I've been a fairly relaxed player and avoided airing my complaints for the most part.  I think a few may have snuck through in some previous posts.

Why am I disappointed with this game now and blogging about it?  I'm one of those who remembers when the show and original games came to the States.  I kept trying to play an uninterrupted game and remember playing the TCG (Trading Card Game) with my younger brother.  Now being in a family that was borderline poverty, we didn't get the newest systems when they came out or the most up-to-date popular games/movies/toys/etc.  We did, however, have friends who sometimes did and loaned them to us.  Here's the thing.  Pokemon has now seven "generations" (gen) or sets of pokemon and corresponding games.  I won't list them in their individual sets, but Red, Yellow, and Blue were the first gen and are the original 151 (Mew and Mewtwo are included in this.) As more games came out, more pokemon were discovered.  I was hoping Pokemon GO would be similar, but with seventh gen, the games introduced not just new pokemon, but also alternate, such as an elongated exeggutor and an ice vulpix, they have apparently decided to release a few of these in Pokemon GO. 

This wouldn't be so bad, I mean we're constantly wanting access to being able to catch more and more pokemon, but only three gens are available in the game.  Players were waiting impatiently for legendaries to be added, but they understood that legendaries have to be handled differently from regular or even regional pokemon.  They were introduced but with a few still not available or with further rarity than the other legendaries.  Mew can only be caught by performing the special request quest line (I don't feel like looking the name of it up right now) while Mewtwo is by invite to an EX raid only.  Another reason why I'm upset by this decision?  In game trading and player against player battling are unavailable.  What this means is that unless you travel all over the world or were lucky enough to get a 10k (10 kilometer) egg in the early days that hatched a regional pokemon, the collection part of the game (which just so happens to be the bulk of it) is almost pointless to keep on with.

Like I said, for the most part I take my criticisms with a grain of salt, but this just really annoyed both myself and my husband.  They added from the most recent gen while there are three other gens that we have yet to see in the game.  It's upsetting because we happen to want to play through the gens as we did the original games, not skip from one gen to a different one.  We got over the staggered release of third gen mostly because they did release the full gen before moving on.  They also sort of themed the start of gen 3's release.  The first Hoenn pokemon were released in October during Halloween season.  They focused on ghost and dark pokemon with only the ghost pokemon of third gen being released.  A few weeks to months later and after adding the weather feature, gen 3 was fully in the game.  This Alolan addition from gen 7 is disappointing.  It should have waited to be added until they reached seventh gen despite them not being new pokemon, but rather alternates. 



Have some thoughts?  Leave a comment!  Weigh in on whether you think it was too early for the alternates to be released in Pokemon GO.