What a great time to be alive.

Who would have thought that the idea of catching Pokémon in the real world would come to life one day, or - the possibility of actually continuing Sakura Kinomoto's adventures with her magical cards after the phenomenal closure of the manga series (and the anime) decades ago? Well, my childhood friends are back, now with more adventure and fun times to offer this time. :D

Pokémon Go

Most people my age would, more or less, have fond childhood memories of Pokémon. May it be about watching the anime or playing the Nintendo game, these cute creatures (duh who doesn't recognize Pikachu?) have a special place in our hearts. Just imagine when the trailer for the augmented reality version of this monster-collecting universe came out on April Fool's day of 2015! The whole world got really hyped about it.


It's about time the game franchise went beyond the confines of the Game Boy™! The game features showed in this trailer are just beyond a Pokémon Trainer's wildest dreams! The whole world (well the whole gaming world at the least) looked forward into the release of the game the year after, and the craze that followed is the biggest one I've seen in years.

US Beta Release. The game was officially released in some parts of the US first, and everyone was crazy about it. I live in the Philippines, and unfortunately for us, the game became officially available only after a few months if its US release. I was really keeping track of updates from Niantic (the game developer) on when they'd finally release it here. I was getting my updates via Reddit and it was so thrilling to learn that everyone was enjoying the game very much. From middle-aged adults to young kids, everyone was out in the streets with their phones searching for those virtual monsters.

Philippine Release (at last)! In the morning of August 6, everyone in the country was pleasantly surprised, as the Pokémon Go app became officially available for download! As expected, everyone was so hyped as well. It doesn't help that the place where I work is a gym in the game, and has several PokéStops nearby. Good thing I still was able to control myself and work productively (hehe hi Boss!). Along the lobbies of the building, groups of people were seen huddled together with their phones playing the game in the first few weeks since the release. It felt like paradise. It was a beautiful dream of any Pokémon fan. :D All the players shared that happy nostalgic feeling while playing the game.

Although the main goal of the game is to complete the Pokédex with all 250 specie, the extra benefits that players got from this game are:

• getting physical exercise - You have to walk most of the time when playing the game.
• exploring places around - I've read a lot from player accounts that they were able to discover new establishments that they've never noticed before.
• making new friends - Especially for the younger crowd, this game had been an instrument for them to mingle and interact with other players in the real world!

Unfortunately as of this writing (around 2 months after the release), the popularity of this game has significantly dropped due to the fact that the mobile app falls short of the players' expectations. In my case, I got stuck at Level 12 (lol). There were not much to do in the game aside from continuing to catch every Pokémon that appears your way, and battling players in gyms. It just became too monotonous for me. I didn't actually battle much in gyms because I was totally at loss on what strategy to pull off when battling certain types of Pokémon. When I first tried placing my Pokémon into battle, I just literally stared on my screen as I saw the HP of my Pokémon go down to 0 in a matter of seconds. It turns out the "proper way" of doing battles is to just continue tapping on the screen while you and your enemy Pokémon attack each other. What the hell happened with being able to select the moves/attacks of your Pokémon? How will I be able to strategize my moves? 

This augmented-reality game turned out to be way different from the one shown in the trailer, and it lacked a lot of elements that were present in the Game Boy game. Maybe if there were significant updates in the future, I might go back and try the game again.

Pokémon Go Google Play | App Store

Cardcaptor Sakura

You have no idea how much this anime has been part of my life when I was younger. I remember Cardcaptor Sakura aired at 4PM on weekdays on local TV, and I would look forward to watching it everyday. I would always daydream that I can have the same powers as Sakura and that the cards can be mine too.

credits: CLAMP

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc MangaFox


It felt surreal to see Pokémon and Cardcaptor Sakura having comebacks this year. I am sure all people of my generation (who are working adults now) are having major nostalgia on these, bringing lots and lots of happy childhood memories. :D