Let's Read: Pokemon Adventures

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Platina:

Blue:

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PixelPerfect

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Favorite manga character is too hard for me D:

I'll just do what I did in the anime thread and choose my most recent favorite. I'l go with Ken Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul. Total badass and a heart of gold.

Damn, double post.

Tokyo Ghoul, now that's one I've been recommended many times and sounds like it was rather popular during my time in Japan. I reallt need to read it some time, along with Noragami...

D: So my thread is the lil sister?

Darn... I don't want to be seen as the lil one.. TT_TT

It's okay, some people prefer the innocent younger sister over the experienced older one. Nothing wrong with either!

I already did my favorite characters in the anime thread, but of that list I'll pick Sir Crocodile again here...since I exclusively read the One Piece manga over the anime.

His inital appearance was that of an incredible cunning villain, and also the first villain to completely dominate Luffy in battle, which was a nice change from the usual pace of constant victories in the early arcs. It wasn't until the Whitebeard War that I actively began to take interest in his character though. His grudge against Whitebeard was one thing...but more than that, learning just how much he hates the World Government absolutely made me want to learn more about him. At a certain point, it wasn't even him being an opportunist, he was actively protecting someone who foiled his plans in Alabasta simply to spite someone he hated more.

I honestly want to know just what happened for him to give a line like this. Clearly the man despises the government...and it seems to me like Oda is leaving bread crumbs for future developments. I definitely want to learn more about what motivates one of Luffy's oldest villains.

Lol, that is true. Everyone loves the younger sister over the washed up older one She's still got her cute charm and innocence.

So I've started Yotsubato! over again.  It's been so long that everything is fresh.  It was one of the first digital manga I read, I found it hosted by a 4Chan site before there were millions of manga hosters scattered over the internet.

Yotsuba still makes me happy.

I've finished the first volume of Pokemon Adventures now so I'll post my thoughts here. I first read Pokemon Adventures 5 or 6 years ago back in high school and at the time I thought it was amazing. A darker and deeper take on the story from the first generations games and its own stylized art style that adds some character. Coming back to it now, I think the art style still has its unique charm and it's quite visually pleasing, personally I think it looks better than the anime, so no complains here.

So far the first volume follows the adventure from Pallet Town up to the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town, at this point of the game the player would have already collected three gym badges, so the first volume covers a significant part of the game. The manga mostly follows key set pieces from the games such as the towns, Mt. Moon, Meeting Bill and so on. At times the chapters can feel a bit disjointed since it jumps to place to place at times without a clear transition between scenes but if you have played the games you should be able to know what's going on.

The main driver for Red, our main protagonist, in this manga is to catch them all which is slightly different than the games which you also gotta catch them all but also collect gym badges and defeat the Elite Four to become the champion. I would have liked if they have taken more liberties with this difference because Red is still going from town to town as if he were collecting gym badges but he's not, instead it would have been nice to have more chapters in caves or forests looking for Pokemon.

Now the main problem I have so far are the characters. So far we've been introduced to a number of characters who just aren't very interesting. Red is your typical cocky mild-mannered protagonist, the rival is a bit of a stick in the mud and hostile to Red for no real reason and the Gym leaders are just kind of there. There is a lot of potential here such as why is Lt. Surge suddenly a thug, what's the story behind Misty, how did Bill become a Pokemon scientist.  But the manga doesn't explore any of that potential thus far and along with that, character development is relatively minimal. The trainers already all start off fighting like pros, Red, a rookie, manages to take out a whole bunch of Team Rocket grunts all on his own, while Misty, a gym leader, couldn't stand a chance. Later on when Misty tries to teach Red a lesson, to stop being so arrogant, the whole scene just breaks down and Red doesn't learn anything from that experience, the whole thing is just sort of forgotten about in the next chapter. I think some better writing here could have gone a long way.

It might be a bit hard to recommend at this point if you're not a Pokemon fan but if you are and can gloss over some of its issues, it is a fun read that puts a new twist on the story.  My future posts won't nearly be as detailed or long as this one unless there are new issues that come up, or are fixed at least I hope not.

I'm late on this, but I have been reading some of the Pokemon Adventures manga, and I gotta say it's pretty good. Much better than I thought. Despite having a bit of an ego, Ash (Red) is actually a decent trainer. He may even be better. He's a good trainer with some good pokemon, is actually quite a clever battler, and actually catches Pokemon! This is something that bothered me so much in the anime. He's certainly not the dumb anime version. He also still has that kindness to him from the anime version as well. So yeah... this is just a better Red Ash.

Also, Misty is pretty cool in this as well. She's still spunky, a better battler, and is rich?! Also, no annoying sisters. This was an odd change, but I like it, and I like this Misty, although she can be a bit on the girly side at times. Also, there seems to be some weird twists, with some gym leaders seeming like bad guys in the manga. I never expected to see that, namely Koga who I wonder why he is doing what it is he is doing.

But yeah, great so far. Also, how the hell does Poliwhirl evolve without a waterstone?!