ShadowBall, use your hooters … er … I mean, Hooters — use ShadowBall!
Hoothoot (in Japanese: ホーホー “Hoho”) is the “Owl Pokémon”. The little hooter is a dual-type Normal & Flying Pokémon. Hoothoot evolves into Noctowl (in Japanese: ヨルノズク “Yorunozuku”) at level 20, where it remains a Normal/Flying dual-type.
Thus far, there is not a mega-evolved form. Noctowl is a fun Pokémon, but it is not particularly strong. I hope that there will be a mega-evolution someday, where it might be a powerful dual Flying and Psychic type. I like to teach this mysterious bird psychic moves like “Hypnosis” in order to make your opponent sleep.
My favorite name for Noctowl is “Fly-By-Night”. I more often use the music note symbol instead of a dash, because it stands for the RUSH song and album “Fly By Night”. I also like to catch them with a Timer Ball, as the clock graphic seems to fit the name, and the Rush lyrics.
I thought that “Noctowl” sounded like a sleep-aide or cold medicine, so I named one “Nyquil”. I also named a Hoothoot “Hooterville” after the fictional rural town in the TV series “Green Acres” and “Petticoat Junction”. Even “The Beverly Hillbillies” once went to Hooterville. I named one “Drucker” after Sam Drucker, the grocer at the Hooterville general store.
An obvious owl-related name would be “Hooters” after the famous chicken-wing restaurant. I think I know the reason why that wings restaurant is called “Hooters”. When one eats chicken wings which are a little too spicy, your mouth burns, and you try to fan off your mouth and say “Hooo hot …. “hooo”.
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With all those diners saying “Hooo…” so much, they probably thought that it sounded like owls, and so they might as well just call the place “Hooters”!
Ahem. Other names I might suggest include: “Nox” as a short form of “Equinox” — which might be a cool name too. I think that “Twin Peeks” is good, especially for little Hoothoot. I loved the old TV miniseries “Twin Peaks” created by director David Lynch (the hauntingly beautiful theme song is linked here). Owls were part of the symbolism in this mystery. “Peaks” might mean two glorious mounds of inspiration. but spelled as “Peeks” it refers to the eyes of the owl.
Notice how the viewer is drawn in to that beautiful pair of owl-like peekers.
As seen above, “Who-Are-You” may be a fun name if you like classic rock or that CSI TV show.
Owl nicknames may be a topic to explore further! There will be an owl starter Pokémon (named Rowlet) in the new game — Pokémon Sun and Moon. It releases this November 18th.
What do you name your little hooters? Please comment!
Solrock ( in Japanese: ソルロック “Solrock”) is a dual-type Rock and Psychic Pokémon. It does not have a gender. Solrock also does not evolve from, or into any other Pokémon. There is not a mega-evolution as of yet, however there is speculation that there may be a mega-evolution in the new Pokémon Sun and Moon game recently announced.
Likewise, Lunatone (in Japanese: ルナトーン “Lunatone”) is also a Rock/Psychic dual type, is genderless, and has no known evolution.
My favorite Lunatone name is “Keith” or “Keith Moon” after the legendary drummer of The Who. Moon was arguably the greatest drummer in rock-and-roll history. He also had a very wild sense of humor, and was known for trashing hotel rooms. It is funny, when I was a teenager I thought that those antics were cool … but, thinking back … rock stars trashing hotel rooms is actually kind of sad. Pretty lame really. Looking back, he was a troubled man. I loved the late Mr. Moon. He was genuinely funny and original. His alcoholism tended to go to extremes unfortunately. I still admire his creativity though, and yes I digress.
You could name one “Moon Unit” after Frank Zappa’s daughter. She of the “Valley Girl” dialect. Gag-me-with-a-Moon?
I have also named them “Dark Side”or the cryptic all lower-case “dark-side-of” as a tribute to the famous Pink Floyd album “Dark Side of the Moon”. Perhaps “Floyd” is a possible nickname, as is other PF references such as “Ummagumma”. I will leave it to you to come up with Sailor Moon related names.
Maybe name it “Moonraker” after the James Bond film. How about “GoodNight” as in the famous children’s book “Goodnight Moon”. “Mack2Night” would be a reference to the old McDonald’s ad about the singing moon-head guy who imitated Bobby Darin.
I also like “June Spoon” after all the Tin-Pan-Alley era songwriters who composed so many of those Moon-in-June—I-Croon-We-Spoon rhyme schemes. (Why Ira Gershwin or Cole Porter never wrote songs about “Baboons” or “Walloons” I will never know.)
My favorite Solrock name is “Solaris” after the sci-fi novel by Polish author Stanislaw Lem.
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The novel was made into three movies, the most recent of which, was the 2002 film starring — ugh — George Clooney. I hate that elitist hypocrite, and the movie was panned, and lost a lot of money, but I will defend it. I thought it was unique, and had great storytelling. (trailer here) … not like most of Clooney’s crappy star vehicles. I remember walking out of the theater STUNNED by the end. My fellow movie goers talked to those lined up for the next show, and said “Well, it is DIFFERENT alright.”
Yes, I digress once again …
My other favorite Solrock name is “Solstice” as in the first official day of summer, and the longest day of the year. I have also used “June 21st” in this vein. If you have both Solrock and Lunatone in your team, you could call them “Solstice” and “Equinox” respectively. Alternatively you could name them “SunnDay” and “MoonDay” or something cute like that.
PS: Thank you to all my readers who pushed me over 100,000 views on my blog as of this weekend! Thank you. Yes, I know that there were only 128 views of my posts that did not have a photo of Haruna Kojima, but still … thanks!
Audino (in Japanese: タブンネ “Tabunne”) is a Normal-type Pokémon.
Audino is the “hearing” Pokémon. Audino does not evolve from or into any other Pokémon, except that it can Mega-evolve into Mega Audino using the Audinite stone.
I thought that the Mega-evolved Audino looked like it was wearing a lab coat, so I named a female Audino “Dr.Goodhead” after the character Dr. Holly Goodheadin the James Bond movie “MoonRaker”.
Bond … Goodhead, Goodhead … Bond.
The “doctor” angle may be appropriate because Audino has been Nurse Joy’s assistant nurse.
Other names I have used: “Dino”, and “Dean-O” – after the nickname for Dean Martin and other Italian singers. “Tin Ear” – after the early “funnel shaped” hearing aids. Later that term was used for those who are hard of hearing. “Tiffany” – as in the famous jewelry store and the singer. (I would like a Tiffany ear better than a “tin” ear.) It may be obvious to use “Audrey” – because this name sounds like Audino. I use the names for females, however at one time “Audrey” was used as a man’s name.
If you have a male Audino, I suggest the name “Tommy” – after the character in the rock opera by The Who. “Tommy Can You Hear Me?”
The Bulbagarden website has this description for Audino: “Its auditory sense is astounding. It has a radar-like ability to understand its surrounding through slight sounds. It touches others with the feelers on its ears, using the sound of their heartbeats to tell how they are feeling.” This reminds me of the Who’s deaf-dumb-and-blind “Pinball Wizard” and messianic leader! (A fun scene from the movie Tommy is linked here.)
Another possibility is “Chi” or “Chobits”. Audino’s ears remind me of the female robot character “Chi” from one of my favorite all-time anime series “Chobits”. Chi’s ears are a lot like Audinos. I wonder if Gamefreak meant Audino to be an homage to Chi.
Remember how Hideki found out where her “ON” button was located?
Perhaps “Chi Audino” , or “Persocom” or some variation of the Chobits/Persocom theme may be fun, especially if you loved that series as much as I did!
I know that it is a little dated now, but when it came out it was way ahead of its time, and the series holds up very well today!
Here is some Pokémon cosplay for lady Audinos.
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It is always good to train up in the wild against an Audino. You get a lot of training points for defeating Audino.
If you want to train up your Fighting-type, it is super-effective against Audino’s Normal-type.
What do you call your hearing Pokémon?
Starlight: It has been fours years, since my son first taught me to play Pokémon with Pokémon Black and White.
Wynaut ( in Japanese: ソーナノ “Sohnano”) is a Psychic-type, “baby” form Pokémon. Wynaut evolves into Wobbuffet (in Japanese: ソーナンス “Sonans”) at level 15. Wynaut requires a special breeding process in order to make an egg. Your Male and female Wobbuffet have to be holding a Lax Incense. It also takes many, many steps to hatch a Wynaut egg.
I named a Wynaut “Nougat” after the wonderful nougat filling that is inside the best candy bars.
Why not have a buffet of everything nougat?
Sometimes when I catch and name multiple Pokémon, my mind starts to free-associate. After I named one Wynaut “Nougat” I named the next one “Nugent” after guitarist Ted Nugent. I thought “Restip” might be good, because that thing on the top of his head looks like the “reservoir tip” … if you are one that needs to stop to read the instructions first. I have also seen them named “Shutuup”.
You could name Wobbuffet “Warren” after Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who tries to buy elections. I would prefer to name it “Jimmy” after singer Jimmy Buffett.
I named a female Wobbuffet “Squeezebox” after the 1976 single by The Who. I’m not sure why. This was one of the cases when it just made sense to me.
Pokémon cosplay: “Squeeze me …”
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I named another Wynaut “Whip Itt” because of its long ears (arms) which look like they could whip around. (While I listen to the DEVO song.)
What is your favotite nickname for Wynaut or Wobbuffet?
Note: My Pokémon Nicknames series receives more hits than any of my other topics. If you make suggested names in the comments, perhaps more readers may link to your site!
See ya, I’m off to the chocolate candy buffet!
I can always justify eating sweets whenever I say “Oh, that would be good with morning coffee”. That way it does not make me a glutton for candy bar nougat .. so much … because I’m just having coffee.
FAN FICTION! “Hanako Oku and the English Sessions”
Ok, Miss Oku, once again don’t worry so much about the “Ps and Qs” think more about the “Ls and Rs”.
I was ecstatically happy to find out that my favorite Japanese singer-songwriter Hanako Oku is going to release a CD single with cover songs sung in ENGLISH. The mini-album is oddly titled “Rum Raisin”.
I am a huge –Oku-fan, but I do not always have English translations of her original songs sung in Japanese. I feel a little left out sometimes because I am not a Japanese-speaker. I love her songs, but find myself wishing that I could better understand the meaning. … and no one can communicate the intense emotions of unrequited love like Hanako Oku.
This must have been a tremendous amount of work for her. She employed language experts, dialect coaches and a couple of hipster English majors from a famous American university. I was able to link up some images from these sessions. A few slides are presented here.
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I think that she has made excellent choices for her first mini-album of English covers here. Each song is similar in many ways to her emotional ballads, yet this selection also allows her to explore some different – but just as intense – emotions. The songs are all from the genre that would be classified as “classic rock” and may be unknown to her younger fans.
I can’t wait until this is released. I listened to the preview, but these songs are not yet available on YourTube. (The “Record-Industry-Weasels” as per usual).
Until then, I will share with you the original versions by the original artists until such time as the Oku covers are sold. Just imagine The Little Great One breathing life into them. The songs are: 1) “A Dream Goes On Forever” originally written performed by Todd Rundgren, 2) “The Blue, Red and Grey” written and sung by Peter Townshend (The Who), and 3) “The Town Cryer” originally by Elvis Costello. I am also including links for the original lyrics.
“A Dream Goes on Forever”
Todd Rundgren’s song pulls on the heartstrings just the way an Oku-ballad does. A lost love. Hanging on to a dream that can never happen. Otherworldly and interdimensional hopes that it will. Oku-san shows the “cosmic” side of herself here. There are no cheap synthesizer tricks to space you out. The lady’s raw emotional disappointment and longing are enough to take you to the dream world.
… you’re so far away and so long ago …
(The reference to “old soldiers fade away” is odd, however. A Japanese singer making a Douglas MacArthur reference?) However, I fell like a heap on the floor as she sang “I guess I believe that I’ll see you someday” and “how much I loved you you’ll never know til you join me within my dream”. Lyrics are linked here.
“Blue, Red and Grey”
The next one is a little lighter, and a little bouncier, but just as poignant. The song is from a 1975 album by The Who, but it is all Pete Townsend. There is a ukulele sound on Oku’s version, but her happy-bouncy piano is the main instrument, and Oku also plays part of the interlude on her melodica. It sounds quite whimsical, especially at the end.
I am in Oku-heaven when she says “I dig every second” – instead of “like” or “love”. The 1960s expression is given new life by Oku. Oh, you are so very groovy Hanako. I wonder if she knows what “buzz” means in the song however. I have to think that in her mind, happy Zen-bees are buzzing about.
Funny moment when Oku breaks her own “banana rule”.
She perhaps takes a jab at the music industry with that line “I even shun the south of France”. Oku is not your typical rock-star celebrity. Other artists are much more “popular” and have greater sales right now, but the lady is a very down to Earth and lovable (see her website). She is not among the stuck-up celebrity elite. Lyrics are linked here.
“The Town Cryer”
All of that was great, but then there is the big finale. I was unprepared and shocked at how great it was.
“They say they’ll die for love — then they leave it out”
She must have spent countless hours rehearsing not only the English words, but the vocal inflection needed to convey the emotions of the song. I was not prepared to hear an angry Hanako Oku.
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Kudos to her English voice coach. Somehow — she nails it.
The song she has produced is like the world’s greatest waterfall. There is great, towering piano and orchestration. That little bit of anger that is in her voice … may be her attempts to convey Costello’s trademark snarl. It does live fans wondering what will be coming next. Anger – even heartfelt anger – has not been part of the usual Oku repertoire to this point. Is she stepping out of herself to show this emotion? What is she angry about, and why does she choose to express this subtle rage in English? Is English Oku’s “minstrel” language? The one that she uses when she needs to step out of her calm Japanese “Hanako Oku” demeanor … in order to say the things she would not otherwise say? Lyrics are linked here.
She does flip the “boys” to “girls” to be the protagonist of the song. The accusatory tone in her voice against the man actually works BETTER when sung by a woman. I think that this flip of the male/female roles improves on Costello’s original. Who knew – until Oku! Her voice starts gentle and affraid, yet hits the crescendo in bitterness.
Oku, “in the zone” getting herself psyched for the aggressive ballad.
That part about “teddy bear tender” may be lost on her Japanese fans without the Elvis Presley reference. You can really feel that she is letting loose on a man she is disappointed with. Go get him Hanachan, the weak bastard deserves it. Listeners may not know that the phrase “tragically hip” was coined by Elvis Costello in this song. It is interesting to hear it in Oku’s Japanese accent, with the additional sarcastic inflection. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
The song is heavy on strings at the end, which is also unusual for a Hanako Oku song. The use of “movie soundtrack” type strings at the end are like a trail … leading us to perhaps a new musical direction for The Little Great One?
Like the ice cream flavor, this “Rum Raisin” is a surprising, unique taste of intensity.
Enjoy this song of teen alienation: “Cut My Hair” written by Peter Townshend and performed by The Who. The song appears on their 1973 album Quadrophenia.
This song is full of teen anxiety, emotional pain and anguish. The Quadrophenia story is set in the early 1960s — when The Who were soaring in popularity with the “Mod” generation of British youth. The four members of the Who represent the four conflicting personalities of the young schizophrenic protagonist “Jimmy”. “Schizophrenic?… I’m Bloody Quadrophrenic!”
Surprisingly, almost no one in “my generation” can recall that there was a heated cultural “war” at the time between the “Mods” who embraced the new 1960s pop music and fashion, and the “Rockers” who still clung to the rock-and-roll biker culture of the 1950s.
Funny how such a heated conflict not only does not matter anymore, it did not make any long-term difference. The era has long been forgotten, even by music historians. (Although, arguably — most music historians do have a lot of dead brain cells. “Crispy Critters” that lot is.)
Funny how many things that were once of life-and-death significance, are no longer important today.
The song “Cut My Hair” sets the tone for the record. Sixteen-year olds can certainly relate to the strong emotions and conflicting feelings described within. I have included a slide show below, derived from the photo booklet which accompanies Quadrophenia.
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There are 1960s pop-culture references. Scooters were important for Mods to have. The lyric “Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents five inches long” refers to a Mod fashion trend that was gone in a blink of the eye. “Leapers” refer to amphetamine pills, the drugs used by the young mods to get high. (BUT PLEASE KIDS, DO NOT TAKE DRUGS!)
Here is the thing kids: The emotional pain in these lyrics resonate with 16-year olds, but they may also may be transferred and understood by angst ridden 29-year olds, and believe-it-or-not still have meaning to reflective 55-year olds. And … and …
PUT DOWN THAT CELL PHONE!!! … Jesus, nobody listens.
LYRICS:
Why should I care If I have to cut my hair? I got to move with the fashion or be outcast I know I should fight But my old man, he’s really alright And I’m still living at home, even though it won’t last
Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents five inches long I’m out on the street again, and I’m leaping along Dressed right For a beach fight But I just can’t explain Why that uncertain feeling is still here in my brain
The kids at school have parents that seem so cool And though I don’t want to hurt em’, mine want me their way
I clean my room and my shoes But my mama found a box of blues And there doesn’t seem much hope they’ll let me stay
Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents five inches long I’m out on the street again, and I’m leaping along Dressed right For a beach fight But I just can’t explain Why that uncertain feeling is still here in my brain
Why do I have to be different to them Just to earn the respect of a dance hall friend? We have the same old row again and again
Why do I have to move with a crowd Of kids that hardly notice I’m around? I work myself to death, just to fit in
I’m comin’ down Got home on the very first train from town My dad just left for work, he wasn’t talking It’s all a game And inside, I’m just the same My fried egg makes me sick first thing in the morning
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Starlight: I was inside the core of the star when the hydrogen first fused.
For more info about this era, view this short documentary about fashion, Mods vs Rockers.
Likes: Pop Culture, Humor, Japanese Culture, Iwasa Misaki, Hanako Oku, AKB48 History, Kurosawa films, Kimonos, Anime, Lolita fashion, Buddhist philosophy, and finding the perfect nicknames for my Pokemon.
A fansite; for old and new fans of AKB48 and all their domestic and international sister groups: (SKE48, NMB48, HKT48, NGT48, STU48, JKT48, BNK48, MNL48, AKB48 Team SH, SGO48, AKB48 Team TP, and CGM48)
Denny Sinnoh 
Written
on May 24, 2015