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 More people should read the Pokemon Adventures manga. It's a great adaptation of the series that not a lot of people really talk much about, which is a shame because it's the best Pokemon-related material outside of the games by a large margin. Unlike some other more "animated" adaptations of Pokemon, this series features exciting original stories and interpretations of the game's events and characters, while still staying true to the world of the games, and even integrating some of the smallest details from the games in surprising ways. With each new generation comes a new chapter, and the manga does a great job highlighting everything new in each game. Basically, if you're a big fan of Pokemon, you absolutely should read this. If you don't play the games, then you probably won't be able to appreciate the manga much at all, and I don't even know why you looked at this thread. Written by Hidenori Kusaka, and drawn by Mato and then by Satoshi Yamamoto, the series follows the adventures of the "Pokedex Holders", skilled trainers who find themselves fated to be in possession of a Pokedex, a device that can catalog Pokemon caught among many other features. Unlike the games, the characters in the manga aren't really held down by the strict progression of collecting all the gym badges and other limitations within the games. Almost all of them already owned Pokemon before receiving their Pokedex and starter Pokemon, and they nickname them the most obvious names you can imagine (eg Pika, the Pikachu). Battles in the manga are intense and action packed, and trainers often come up with crazy strategies on the fly. The Pokedex holders all have their own unique personalities and motivations; most of them don't even bother challenging gyms. Instead, they usually find themselves facing off, either willingly or unwillingly, against whatever evil organization is plaguing their area. The story can and does get pretty crazy, especially during climactic battles which often last an entire volume's length or more. Pretty much every character from the games appear in the story, and the gym leaders often play an active role in fighting against the villains. Currently, there are arcs featuring every single main Pokemon game, including the remakes and sequels, and there is a character who corresponds with every game's protagonist. And yes, they're all named after the games too, so they're pretty much all just colors and rocks.  The Red and Blue (and Green) Chapter The first arc of the story. Red and Blue embark from Pallet Town on an adventure to fill the Pokedex at Professor Oak's request. Red is the very best, like no one ever was, or at least that's his dream. Blue's the arrogant grandson of Professor Oak, but he's very skilled. They catch and raise Pokemon, challenge gym leaders, and face off against and eventually defeat Team Rocket. About halfway through, Green enters the picture. Having stolen Squirtle and a Pokedex from Professor Oak, she seems like a troublemaker, but she hates Team Rocket just as much as Red does, and fights by his side (that is to say, she totally uses and dupes him) but despite her actions and mysterious past, she's on the right side. This arc features a rather unique concept of having Gym Leaders being villains. Several Gym Leaders are actually Team Rocket admins, and face off against the trio as they try to foil Team Rocket's heinous plots. The gym badges themselves also play a role, as they contain some kind of powerful energy when brought together, which is what Team Rocket seems to be after.  The Yellow Chapter Technically just a continuation of the first arc, the Yellow arc takes place two years after the events of the first. Red receives a letter of challenge from a member of the Elite Four. One month after departing for this battle, Red's Pikachu "Pika" returns to Professor Oak alone, battered and bruised. Yellow, a young trainer from the Viridian Forest appears right on the heels of Pika, and somehow heals Pika just by holding it. Yellow swears to Oak to find Red and return Pika to him. Unlike the first arc, which already strayed quite far from the games, this one's story is almost entirely original aside from the characters. The Elite Four have their own agenda separate from Team Rocket, and the characters actually team up with the former Team Rocket Gym Leaders to fight the E4. This one gets pretty nuts but it's also extremely good, sets the standard for climactic battles in this series, and sets up a lot of backstory for the events of the next arc...  The Gold, Silver, and Crystal Chapter Gold is a hot-headed trainer from New Bark Town who tends to act before he thinks. After getting his family's Pokemon stolen (by Team Rocket), and encountering Silver breaking into and stealing from Professor Elm's lab, he jumps to conclusions and sets out to catch up to Silver and have him answer for his crimes. Of course, things aren't exactly as Gold anticipated, but that's not gonna stop him. Team Rocket returns in this arc, this time led by a mysterious masked man who seems to have a completely different agenda than the old Team Rocket. Gold and Silver find themselves on the same side against Team Rocket, and work together (albeit reluctantly) to try and foil their plans. In the meantime, with two of his three Pokedexes taken by troublemakers, Professor Oak enlists the help of Crystal, an expert at capturing Pokemon, to actually go out and complete the the third Pokedex for his research, including the Legendary Pokemon Suicune! The personalities of the characters in this arc really help carry it, and it has some creative interpretations of things from the games themselves. Also, it has one of the best climactic battles in any arc, and features pretty much every single character from the first three arcs coming together to play their parts.  The Ruby & Sapphire Chapter Having just moved to Hoenn, Ruby dreams of participating in and winning each Pokemon Contest in the region. However, his father, the most recently appointed Hoenn Gym Leader, Norman, disapproves of this goal and wants Ruby to become a great Pokemon Trainer. So, Ruby runs away from home in pursuit of his dream. Not even out of sight of Littleroot Town, he encounters Sapphire, who lives in a cave (secret base). Unlike Ruby, who is obsessed with his own ideas of beauty, Sapphire is at one with the wild, and scoffs at Ruby's stuck-up personality. Unlike Ruby, it's Sapphire's dream to conquer all 8 gyms in the Hoenn region. Sapphire challenges Ruby to see who can complete their respective goal first, but with a twist: a time limit of 80 days. Along the way, Ruby and Sapphire encounter and face off against Team Aqua and Team Magma, whose ambitions could tear apart the entire region. I think out of all the arcs, this one incorporates the themes of the game its based on the best into its story, and has the best side characters. Ruby and Sapphire's extreme and opposing personalities fits perfectly with the conflicts of the evil organizations, and it definitely has the best character development moments in the series. This would be my favorite part if it weren't for the Diamond and Pearl arc, but it's arguably the best arc when looked at by itself. If for whatever reason you want to start the series outside of the first part, this is a good part to read.  The FireRed & LeafGreen Chapter Professor Oak has been kidnapped! Not only that, but Green's parents are abducted too! And the culprit is... Deoxys? The trio is forced to explore the Sevii islands in search of everyone, and they do battle with the once again revived Team Rocket. This one's all about family. Like the Yellow arc, this one gets pretty nuts, but it's a solid addition to the original character's stories. I don't have a hard copy of this arc yet, but it's good, and leads right into... The Emerald Chapter At the Grand Opening ceremony of the Battle Frontier, a young and mysterious trainer named Emerald shows up and challenges the Frontier Brains, saying that he will conquer all seven facilities within seven days. Of course, there's more to this than meets the eye, as Emerald has a secret, and more important mission: to capture the Legendary Pokemon, Jirachi! I know I've said this a lot, but this one gets really, really nuts. I can't really say too much about this one, but it has the most unique protagonist yet.  The Diamond & Pearl Chapter Diamond (or Dia for short) and Pearl are two best friends who dream of making it big as a comedy duo. They compete in the Jubilife Comedy Grand Prix and completely bomb their act. As a consolation prize for their, uh, unique performance, they receive two travel tickets in an envelope. However, due to a mixup after a chance encounter with Professor Rowan and his research assistant, they end up getting their envelope mixed up with an important document meant for two professional bodyguards, detailing a mission to protect the only daughter of Rowan's assistant, Lady Platinum Berlitz while she embarks on her journey to the top of Mt Coronet, as is her family's tradition. Due to this misunderstanding, the young Lady assumes Dia and Pearl are her bodyguards, and the comedy duo assume that the Lady is their tour guide across the Sinnoh region. And thus begins this comedy of errors, as the trio goes on their merry way, none the wiser to the dangers of the mysterious organization lurking in the shadows, or their own mutual misunderstandings. This arc has my favorite premise, and Dia and Pearl's comedy routine (extremely bad and often poorly translated puns) that they do in every chapter goes a long way to making the part something special. Kusaka's a freakin' genius.  The Platinum Chapter This one takes place a couple months after the events of the battle atop Mt. Coronet, and mostly features the Battle Frontier, Looker, and every other fourth gen legendary Pokemon entering the scene to close out the story arc of the Diamond and Pearl chapter. There are more arcs for each of the games after this, but I haven't read past the HGSS arc and this OP is getting too big for my tastes anyway. There's also the BW chapter and the B2W2 chapter that are both finished, but from what I can find, the BW2 arc has not yet been localized, even though the early parts of the XY chapter have been. Go figure. Currently, the XY chapter and the ORAS chapter are both in progress. Wow this is great and I'm not reading any of this OP, where can I get this?? Other than  (which are often of questionable quality) you can buy the box sets published by Viz for each arc up until the DP&P set on amazon and other retailers. The FRLG/E box set is gonna be releasing October 5th so look forward to that. The way Viz has been publishing this series has been really weird and kind of confusing, so if you're interested just take a look at the Bulbapedia entry on it. This thread is for anyone new to this manga, or anyone who's read it and wants to talk about it. I only ask that people use spoiler tags on anything that might be worth keeping a secret for new readers. I'm not sure this has enough interest to make a very busy thread, but I like it enough to make it anyway, and I'm hoping that other people out there read it too, because it's such a great love letter to the Pokemon series, and I want a place to gush about how much I like it. mabels big day fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Sep 25, 2015 |
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Sep 25, 2015 01:59
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second post reserved, just in case i want to post more stuff about the later arcs or character bios or something
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Sep 25, 2015 02:01
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I've read up through a bit into the FireRed/LeafGreen arc, but that was a few years ago. It wasn't a bad series, though; I might pick it up again sometime. I think the Red/Blue arc was one of the weaker ones due to its excessively fast pacing, but I like the ideas it introduced. One of the odder assumptions of the games is that everyone plays fair regardless of the stakes, but Pokemon Special/Adventures throws this out the window: not only do trainers fight with multiple Pokemon at a time, but they intervene in the fights personally, and almost every trainer has a different gimmick. Sometimes the gimmick is a supernatural ability, and not only with characters you'd expect to have them, like Sabrina. Despite all the crazy stuff, Special/Adventures is more faithful to the games than the anime is in some ways (or so I gather; I don't actually watch the anime). I think the only major character in the parts I read who didn't appear in the games was Yellow. They work in a lot of weird things from the games that you'd normally think of as game mechanics rather than how things "really" work, like badges giving power-ups. (I don't think there's any TMs or HMs in the manga, though.) The Pokedex even has an interface just like a Game Boy's. One interesting characterization point is how softened Silver is compared to his equivalents in the game and, from what I gather, the anime. It's easy to see why, since so much of the series is about trainers teaming up; they couldn't make him too much of a jerk.
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Sep 25, 2015 03:13
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I've only read a bit of the first arc, but god drat. If you're someone who complains about the Pokemon games being for babies and not having any consequences, you might be pleased to know that both Pokemon and people get their poo poo hosed up constantly in this manga.
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Sep 25, 2015 03:51
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I love this manga. I stopped playing the games and watching the anime since the 3rd Generation but I still try to keep up with this. Special mention to the weird way that it's released in Japan where diferent arcs are being written at the same time in diferent magazines, but if a new main game gets made one of the arcs just stops and a new one starts being plublished and the one dropped gets finished in volumes, and that's what happened to BW2 even when the most recent games are being adapted. PS: Ruby is the best protagonist
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Sep 25, 2015 03:56
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IceBorg posted:I love this manga. I stopped playing the games and watching the anime since the 3rd Generation but I still try to keep up with this. Oh, so is the BW2 arc not even finished yet? That's messed up. Also Dia is the best one. Ruby is a close second though.
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Sep 25, 2015 04:03
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I still can't believe they seriously named the BW2 protagonists Black Two and White Two. Come on. Anyways the manga's fun but the scans are awful and the official version is kind of lame so I basically stopped following seriously once HG/SS concluded. Might need to check out OR/AS though.
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Sep 25, 2015 05:37
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I would read a manga that is the life and times of Gary Oak.
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Sep 25, 2015 06:33
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I actually own all of these. They are amazingly addicting and all a certain level of charming. The only I did not really like was the Emerald storyline, even if the climax was pretty good. Emerald just rubbed me the wrong way, which I thought Yellow was going to at first, but that actually charmed me after a while. A better character as a side-character that one though. I think I have yet to read Black & White though.
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Sep 25, 2015 10:09
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This manga series is good and the Diamond and Pearl arc is probably one of my favourite stories i've read from a manga in general. But that might just be because I love bad puns.
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Sep 25, 2015 12:22
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BlitzBlast posted:I still can't believe they seriously named the BW2 protagonists Black Two and White Two. The official version isn't that bad, but there are a few bad choices for what they went with localizing it. I can understand the need to change the Green vs Sabrina Pokeball boob gag which is less funny and looks weird but still readable, but the scenes where Norman punches Ruby and Crystal's mom slap her lose a lot of impact and are edited extremely awkwardly. There's a few other minor translation choices I disagree with but it is by far the most readable version. Also yeah, to the guy who doesn't like Emerald, I totally agree with you. Emerald is my least favorite protagonist. He's still cool though, and there is no downright bad character in this series.
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Sep 25, 2015 13:27
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BlitzBlast posted:I still can't believe they seriously named the BW2 protagonists Black Two and White Two. Well if it's good enough for Mew Two then it's good enough for them.
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Sep 25, 2015 18:52
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i cant believe that arbok loving died
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Sep 25, 2015 23:30
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Stairmaster posted:i cant believe that arbok loving died it didn't. sorry. It's actually cooler that it didn't, because it ends up fighting Agatha's Arbok who has its own powers.
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Sep 25, 2015 23:42
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mabels big day posted:Also yeah, to the guy who doesn't like Emerald, I totally agree with you. Emerald is my least favorite protagonist. He's still cool though, and there is no downright bad character in this series. Emerald's better once he no longer has to carry the story by himself. It also helps that he gets a lot of scenes with Gold later on, and Gold's the best, which rubs off on him.
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Sep 25, 2015 23:46
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SyntheticPolygon posted:Emerald's better once he no longer has to carry the story by himself. It also helps that he gets a lot of scenes with Gold later on, and Gold's the best, which rubs off on him. Yeah Gold singlehandedly saves that entire arc
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Sep 26, 2015 00:34
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I am glad we can all agree that Gold is the best.
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Sep 26, 2015 00:48
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Gold is basically pokemon Joseph Joestar, so it is without a doubt that he is the greatest protagonist. (Some of the others do come pretty close though)
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Sep 26, 2015 00:52
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Green is the best and I refuse to hear otherwise
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Sep 26, 2015 01:01
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Actually, Diamond is the best. Ruby and Gold are close seconds.
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Sep 26, 2015 01:21
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Gold is the best main character. With Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum equally tied for second best since they pretty much share the spotlight. Ruby would also be up there, but i'm bitter that in the conclusion of the R/S arc he gets to do all sorts of cool things while Sapphire doesn't get to do anything of importance. 
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Sep 26, 2015 01:26
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mabels big day posted:Actually, Diamond is the best. Ruby and Gold are close seconds. I'll let this slide
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Sep 26, 2015 01:41
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which one is green and which one is blue.
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Sep 26, 2015 02:09
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sharrrk posted:which one is green and which one is blue. girl, gary
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Sep 26, 2015 02:10
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unless you go by the original nihongo
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Sep 26, 2015 02:10
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sharrrk posted:which one is green and which one is blue. The canonical ones
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Sep 26, 2015 02:13
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Green is the really cool one, and Blue is the not as cool one but who is still more interesting than Red.
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Sep 26, 2015 02:13
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I liked Yellow the best, cause yellow version was my first game, and the Yellow arc was my first time being exposed to the manga. I also liked how she kept her Pokemon unevolved just cause she wanted to.
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Sep 27, 2015 01:11
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pokemon adventures owns, but i'm way behind, last time i read it the diamond/pearl arc was still being translated might just reread the whole thing for the heck of it, also gold is definitely the best
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Sep 27, 2015 07:03
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Thundersword238 posted:I liked Yellow the best, cause yellow version was my first game, and the Yellow arc was my first time being exposed to the manga. I also liked how she kept her Pokemon unevolved just cause she wanted to. Yellow is really cool and the yellow arc is what made me keep reading the series, because I was almost going to drop it after the first arc.
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Sep 27, 2015 07:09
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I reread the Platinum arc today, and it's a real shame that it's so rushed. There's a lot of extremely good moments in there that alone could be the focus of entire chapters, but instead they're all smashed together at the end in the final battle. It would have been a lot better if they didn't spend half the arc at the Battle Frontier, and introducing like 10 new characters who all have to end up doing something. You can tell that Kusaka had some really great ideas, and individually, all of the branches of the story in the hectic final battle are solid ideas, but it's really obvious there was pressure to just get the arc over with so they could move on. Black and White was already out and they still needed to do HGSS. I wish they could just take the time to fully develop the stories they come up with instead of trying to keep up the pace with the releases of the games. I wouldn't mind being in a world where the Platinum and HGSS arcs had better pacing at the cost of being a generation behind the games.
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Sep 27, 2015 17:25
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I remember being disappointed they didn't do more with the fact that Platinum actually started while D/P was nearing its end. I totally thought the "two people" Platinum was being so vague about rescuing were Diamond and Pearl, and that they were hinting at you that D/P wasn't going to end happily, but nope Diamond and Pearl just didn't bother to accompany Platina to the Battle Frontier for ~reasons~. HG/SS turned out alright though, I thought. It was B/W that I just thought didn't know it what it wanted to do with itself, enough that it actually bored me out of reading. And while what I've heard of BW2 makes it sound hilarious, I can not get over the dorky main characters of that game turning into a ladykilling spy and an underground zealot. I mean I know Adventures is fine with going edgy but really?
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Sep 27, 2015 17:32
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mabels big day posted:I reread the Platinum arc today, and it's a real shame that it's so rushed. There's a lot of extremely good moments in there that alone could be the focus of entire chapters, but instead they're all smashed together at the end in the final battle. It would have been a lot better if they didn't spend half the arc at the Battle Frontier, and introducing like 10 new characters who all have to end up doing something. It had a really good conclusion though.  Kusaka just ended up throwing so many things in because Platinum added so much to gen iv and he wanted to include all of it, even though it was basically supposed to be just an extended conclusion to the diamond and pearl arc. I liked the parts where Platinum got to be cool and smart in the battle frontier itself though, since it showed she'd improved enough from the beginning to be able to stand on her own and stuff.
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Sep 27, 2015 21:59
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I just watched arbok get sliced in half-- I'm fuckin in
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Sep 28, 2015 06:03
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I still need to read the Black/White Arc. I read up through HeartGold/SoulSilver, but I haven't seen much after that. I have to say, my favorite arcs would probably be RGB, even if there was some weirdness like Pikachu zapping Brock's Onix, and RS.
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Sep 28, 2015 06:44
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I absolutely love Pokemon Bizzare Adventures
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Sep 28, 2015 08:47
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The FireRed & LeafGreen/Emerald Chapters box set comes out tomorrow, and you can preorder on Amazon right now. It has 7 volumes, 3 FRLG, and 4 Emerald. I'm excited to get it because the original scans I read of those chapters were god-awful and poorly translated.
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Oct 5, 2015 14:47
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So, what's the general consensus on Sird? Good or bad character? I'm kinda ambivalent on her personally.
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Oct 5, 2015 16:00
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Same. It's kinda nice to have an overarching storyline though and I prefer her to the other Rockets.
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Oct 5, 2015 16:09
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I only got to read Red/Blue and Yellow. Everything else was in various states of unfinished a few years ago. Now that Viz seems to be doing all of them, I might actually read the rest of them.
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Oct 5, 2015 17:14
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