The translation / scan page for DP5: Temple of Anger, Cry from the Mysterious is now up! The next page I'll put up is cards from DP4 that did not make it to America yet, but that will probably be in Majestic Dawn.

I have HTMLized the Entry Pack 2008 DX translations and placed them on a single page, which also includes the Pokemon's card images. Since it is likely that all of these cards will be included in our Majestic Dawn set, you should probably become familiar with them as soon as possible.

Later today, I will try to post translation pages for DP5 and missing cards from DP4 that will most likely be placed into Majestic Dawn.

Bangiras has translated the preview summary for DP75: Enter Contest Master Wallace!, which will air on April 17th in Japan. This episode features Wallace's first animé appearance, since the animé followed Pokemon Emerald's storyline rather than Ruby and Sapphire's when it came time to battling the 8th Gym Leader. (In Ruby and Sapphire, Wallace was the 8th Gym Leader, but was promoted to Elite Four Champion in Emerald, with Juan taking his place as the 8th Gym Leader).

When Ash and friends take a break at a Pokemon Center, they see information about the Valor Lakefront Pokemon Contest: Wallace Cup on a monitor in the lobby. Wallace, who has been working fixedly to establish himself as a Contest Master, is rumored to be holding Pokemon Contests in the Sinnoh Region. Dawn, having lost her self confidence, decides to enter the Wallace Cup as a comeback battle.

Following this episode is DP76: Seven Stars Restaurant! A Full Course in Tag Battles!, which will feature the return of May (most likely only for a few episodes, not permanently). We posted the summary for that episode a week or two ago, but it was lost with the data that was deleted.

According to Pokemon.com, the 11th season of Pokemon in America is titled "Pokemon Diamond and Pearl: Battle Dimension." It will begin this Saturday on Cartoon Network with the premiere of Tears for Fears at 9:30 AM.

The days of massive faking operations seem to be over, as Pokemon USA and Nintendo officials begin to take action to stop the creation and distribution of fake cards around the world.

POKEMON AND NINTENDO TEAM UP TO COMBAT TRADING CARD PIRACY

More than 47 million counterfeit products seized worldwide in past 16 months

BELLEVUE, Wash. - April 7, 2008 - Pokémon USA, Inc., a worldwide leader in trading card games, today announced the results of recent anti-piracy actions taken in cooperation with Nintendo of America Inc. to combat the production and distribution of counterfeit Pokémon Trading Card Game products.

On March 26, law enforcement officials in New York raided seven stores known to be selling fraudulent Pokémon Trading Card Game merchandise. Thousands of products were seized and several arrests were made. In early April, one action at a production facility in China secured nearly 1.2 million counterfeit cards and investigations continue.

During the past 16 months, more than 47 million counterfeit products have been seized at production facilities in Thailand, Singapore, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Australia, and China. One seizure in China in 2007 netted more than 26 million illegally produced cards. Nintendo and Pokémon will continue to target the retailers and manufacturers trafficking in counterfeit Pokémon product.

"Pokémon wants to send a message to importers and producers that we will not stand for the distribution of fraudulent Pokémon product," says Pokémon spokesperson, J.C. Smith. "Pokémon is committed to ensuring our fans receive the quality product they've come to expect."

The official Pokemon Norwegian site has posted an image of Infernape from Majestic Dawn. Click the thumbnail to the right for a larger image. More card pictures should be released in the upcoming days.

Majestic Dawn will feature cards from the Japanese Entry Pack 08 package, which is where this Infernape originates from.

Like usual, we will have early scans of the newest set before it is released, so be sure to check back here during the week before the first prereleases for a major look at Majestic Dawn!

UPDATE on April 8th: We have received confirmation that the Darkrai jumbo card will itself be holo (at a size of 8 x 5 3/4 inches), and that the entire package will retail for around $18.00 (possibly even lower).

The server has been acting like a yo-yo all day (preventing me from posting at all), but it should be back to normal by tomorrow. It is undergoing software upgrades.

A new "Darkrai Premium Box" is set for release on May 12th in stores and will cost around $19.00. Inside the box is a random Diamond and Pearl series theme deck, two booster packs, a holo Darkrai promo card, and a Darkrai jumbo card. Click the thumbnail to the right for a larger image of the package (ain't dat effect cool?!).

The Darkrai jumbo is the exact same card as the regular promo, but is not deck-playable, obviously. The last English jumbo card released was "Shadow Lugia," which was only given out at Nintendo World's Pokemon XD event for a couple of hours. Thus, this will be the first jumbo card available to the general public in a long time (others released were the 12 jumbo cards in E-Card booster boxes, Base Set Pikachu, and "Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos," all of which were available in the Wizards of the Coast days).

Darkrai LV.50 - HP 80
Basic Pokemon

Enigma Berry: If Darkrai is damaged by a Fighting Pokemon, remove 4 damage counters from Darkrai.

[W] Spacial Rend: 10 damage. Search your deck for a Stadium card, show it to your opponent, and put it into your hand. Shuffle your deck afterward. If there is any Stadium card in play, discard it.

[M][M][M] Roar of Time: 80 damage. Search your discard pile for 3 Pokemon, show them to your opponent, and shuffle them into your deck. (If you do not have 3 Pokemon in your discard pile, this attack does nothing.)

Weakness: Fighting +20
Resistance: Psychic -20
Retreat Cost: 2

Darkrai was originally given out during Dialga vs. Palkia vs. Darkrai's theatrical run in Japan (as a holo card), and is part of the 10th movie promo set collection. Pokemon fans were supposed to buy the collection first, then complete it by getting the card at the movie.

Like I would ever let this site die. If you read the very first news story ever posted here, which was written on July 15th, 2003 (the summer between 8th grade and freshman year of high school):

Just so you all know, I will never abandon this site like many Pokémon webmasters have done in the past, and have major plans for it in the future.

And it's as simple as that. I am too obsessed with Pokemon to give up on it now or ever. I started this site when I was 14 (and now I am 19), and it will continue through college and whatever future frontiers there are. It dies when Pokemon dies.

So what was that April 1st post really all about? For one, I was really going through "moving Hell" in trying to move to my new host. I was on the phone, in chat rooms, on AIM, and writing e-mails for over six hours each day to both hosts so that I could get everything moved and running, and both were giving me major trouble in some shape or form. Even though the situation was terrible enough, I did embellish it a little (in regards to myself, not any of the facts I actually posted).

What was "embellished" was the fact that I was depicting myself as depressed and not wanting to continue. I would not care if the whole site is deleted - I would still work it back up to normal. In fact, about a year into this website's original creation, it was completely deleted by our free host. I still continued with it, obviously. I also lied in the story about my grades falling to add legitimacy to what I said about me considering to quit. I actually received straight A's this past quarter, and even the quarter before, with the exception of one B+. While Pokemon may affect my school work sometimes and how late I go to bed, it doesn't affect me overall, and I keep a good balance going between everything (including family and the few close friends I have). Again, I would never give up this site or abandon it. I said it five years ago, and I will continue to say it in the future.

In terms of the backup failure, I did backup the entire site before moving to the new host, but my laptop crashed (like always :/) and needed to be wiped clean. Once I got it back, I backed up all of my files again, but for whatever reason (perhaps because of exhaustion with this whole move), I did not realize the backup was incomplete and did not even include the databases that hold all of the forum and "new website" information. In thinking I had a complete backup and that the new host would move my files over from the old host safely (being two insurances that the data was safe), I could not have anticipated that BOTH would fail. They obviously did.

In the end (details aside), I lost all of the pages I made under the new layout (by the way, you're on it). As I had been saying for over a year, I was making a new layout and new content. That is why many of the old pages were not being updated (like the theme deck section, card scans, and menus), since new versions of all of them would be up eventually.

Unfortunately, because I lost all of the pages I created, I have to re-write everything from scratch, and basically, there is no content on the site currently. I will have to gradually add pages as time goes, and hopefully people who I know will help me so the process goes much faster. Early next week, I will re-post all of the card scans again, and hopefully a few pages.

As for the forum database, my old host did send it to me after a few phone calls, begging, and yelling, but swore they had nothing else saved (which would be the "new website" content). So, the forums were saved. For the new layout, I had shown it to so many people for their opinions during this entire ordeal that it was saved in their cache, so I was able to salvage that as well. It's just too bad I could not get any of the pages back that I originally wrote, but I suppose that once I start rewriting them and adding them to the site, people will be introduced to the content we have and can offer feedback. At least it will give people something to look forward to when visiting here, since in the past, all we offered was news and did not really ever add content (most of the content was stored in the news stories). Now, that will change - we will have pages for everything!

The new layout was not ready to go up yet, and neither was the new system I am using, but I suppose the circumstances have pushed me to put them up early. I will still be working on the layout over the next few days, so please bear with me (especially if you are using Internet Explorer 6). Right now, no links work except for the main page and forums.

Because I thought people would not believe the part about me wanting to quit (since I thought I came across to everyone as an obsessed and dedicated webmaster), I was not really expecting any "sympathy" e-mails from anyone, but was I surprised or what?! I mean, I was probably going to get a couple, which is why I lied about my grades (to see if people would be unselfish and understanding in me wanting to quit for my own life), but I received over 150 e-mails, and truly appreciated every single one of them. Almost no one was selfish about my "apparent decision" in quitting - everyone understood that because of all of this trouble, I should take a break and that I am indeed a human who should put his life before Pokemon. I truly, truly appreciated people placing my own well-being over their pleasure in visiting this site, which is what I was trying to gauge in saying my grades were falling (and I sure am glad I did this - I also hope no one was offended by my lying). I know now that I am spending all of this time on this website for people who are actually compassionate, and if I ever actually am going through hard times with my life and this site (which actually has happened before), I will always think of those e-mails. Many of them really touched my heart (how cheesy, haha, but it's true), and many make me want to do this even more!

Thank you everyone! Although this place is a mess right now, please give me some more time!

This is not a story, but a note (written in 2009). Stories between March 20th and April 1st have been lost. This happened when the website was deleted. Hopefully one day they will be recovered. The change in layout with the stories after this point reflects the original way they were presented for nostalgic purposes.