I'm a bit late here, but I wanted to point out this was probably not much to worry about. CoroCoro Ichiban usually comes on the 21st, and they first told us about there being no chapter on the 18th. By that point the magazine was already on stores, and I know this because
V-Jump also comes out on the 21st and we always get
Digimon page leaks on the 18th or sometimes 17th... Or used to, I can't remember any day 18 page leak this year. Are early buyers/page leakers staying home because of the pandemic?
But anyway, my point is, when they informed us, the magazine was already printed. I don't know how many days in advance they do this, but by the 18th it was already done.
And here's the thing no one has mentioned: The notice says they will continue "next issue". That, to me, sounds like they were already sure this was an one-month thing instead of the beginning of a long hiatus. Who knows, maybe Kusaka was already fine when they published the notice. Maybe when he got better, it was already too late to work on the chapter, and the notice was simply put to explain its absence.
Because of that "we'll continue next month" part, I was pretty sure it was nothing serious, and was probably right because Yamamoto already put a chapter preview 4 days ago.
So yeah, I don't think Kusaka's problem was anything serious. For all we know, it might just be a COVID vaccine reaction since those are strong. I felt an arm pain and got tired for two or three days, and last week a classmate missed a class because of that, even though it was by video call.
But if it happens again soon, like this year or maybe even 2022, it might be a reason to worry.
We'll probably only be told what it was if it becomes an ongoing problem. Back in 2014, chapter 14 of
Digimon World Re: Digitize: Encode got delayed for 2 weeks because Kōhei Fujino had a health problem and, as far as I know, it was never revealed what it was. I'm not sure if this is the best example (but it's the only one I'm familiar with) because right after that chapter, the manga went into hiatus again, continued in the
V-Jump+ app, and then entered indefinite hiatus in November 2015. Volume 3 got announced as the final volume, but never got released.
The abrupt "volume 3 ending" is weird because the pace at which Evolutions were introduced suggests they wanted it to be the next
V-Tamer 01 (which ran for almost 5 years) and have it run longer every other post-
V-Tamer 01 manga. I don't remember any explanation being given at the time, but
Fujino's Wikipedia page lists him as alive, makes no mention of health problems, and also doesn't list any other work after
Encode.
Here is a list of chapters and release dates. It's incomplete because I never found out the titles after "Gospel Structure", but it seems to have reached chapter 22.
Anyway, about the preview, it seems the Magnolia crew, or at least Shieldmilia, will actually visit Bob's Your Uncle. And pokesupe29 has suggested on Twitter that man might be Howses, the detective from that Hotel Ionia sidequest.
Funny thing is, some weeks ago, I was thinking about the many random NPC's that got major supporting roles, like the Trick Master, Futomaki (Footstep), and the 7 people from BW that helped fight Team Plasma, and noticed how there hasn't been anything like that in XY or SM. I then thought "Man, if it wasn't for the lack of magazines, I bet Howses would be a major ally. Too bad Kusaka can't do this kind of thing anymore". Seems like I was wrong and it's actually happening?
Now I wonder if the Dottler girl who is the player's fan and shows up in every Stadium will actually appear.
Knowing PokéSpe, Howses is probably going to be an old friend of Handsome (Looker) or someone else from the International Police, and they're probably going to make a reference to his sidequest as a case he recently solved. If he's actually being introduced, I guess Howses is the one who'll figure out Soudo's connection to the royal family and whatever plot Swod and Shildy enact. But right now, he's probably just going to investigate the tapestry on Bob's Your Uncle to help Sonia or maybe Shieldmilia will hire him to look for her Pokémon.
Also, someone on 5ch is wondering if we might get two chapters this month because of the delay. I find it unlikely, but what do you guys think?
Saw it on a old video around 2017, Kusaka doesn't write out a script per say, he draws out a rough storyboard/outline for Yamamoto.
Well, that's interesting, but the dialogue still needs to be written
somewhere, doesn't it? Is it also on the storyboard?
After what happened to Kentaro Miura, I really hope Kusaka is taking care of his health. That's much more important than the series.
Speaking of Miura, his death seems to have made some people on PokéSpe's 5ch thread overreact in early June. There's someone afraid PokéSpe will become an incomplete masterpiece someday, someone commenting on how Kusaka worked in PokéSpe so much of his life, and someone who wants the ending to be an original arc with a new evil team and many regions.
And when the delay was announced, people went on panic mode, saying it felt like a dying artist's omen.
Hell, first the newsless E3 and now this. I can't help thinking that something bad is happening to this franchise. I know, I know there's absolutely no connection between the two but things are really looking bad nevertheless.
The franchise is NOT dying because of E3 not having Pokémon. E3 has happened without Pokémon before and survived.
You are being alarmist beyond the call of duty.
"Something bad"
Be specific.
Not the greatest time to be a Pokemon fan. With no Pokemon core game news in the predictable future, no new Pokemon movie this year, many events cancelled due to covid, and now also the manga in hiatus, the only things currently to await are the new anime episodes, upcoming TCG sets and... a Chinese MOBA game that isn't even aimed at Pokemon's core fandom (and despite being a potential moneymaker, it still wasn't featured on E3, though this might be due to Tencent's request).
The question is “Why did they want to focus on other things?”
Because they did, and worst case scenario thinking doesn't help? Because they have other plans?
Because corporations are cancerous Lovecraftian nightmares upon this living world, and thus their whims are as fickle as they are unpredictable?
It's not worth spiraling into panic over.
Although Gamzee is being a bit harsh, I agree with him that you guys are overreacting. Even outside of the
Pokémon fandom people felt E3 was lackluster. It seems game companies just didn't expect to have an E3 this year and thus were not prepared to make announcements. Not having
Pokémon news there was probably just because of that.
And here is a good moment to bring up Joe Merrick's theory on the lack of news.
Under that theory, the news we usually get in June should come in August.
Some also believe
Unite is playing a role, and TPC doesn't want anything to interfere with that game's hype cycle.
Also, has it been confirmed there's no movie this year? Last year's movie was released in December. While that was due to a pandemic delay, it opens a precedent for other movies to also come in December. If I remember correctly, they are usually announced in February and released in July. With a December release, they can be announced in July, which is... almost over, but with movies having shorter promotion cycles recently, I guess they could announce in August instead.
I'm not sure if September would be too late for a reveal (October probably is), but I think people should wait until August ends before saying there's definitely no movie this year, unless that was already officially stated somewhere and I just missed it.
