Pokemon Adventures Manga (What It Is and How to Obtain It)

[ascendedbidoof]

Hey everyone! I was talking to another member about the Pokemon Adventures manga and they recommended that I share it with everyone since there’s probably a number of you who’d be interested. I wanted to take some time to just give a little information about what it is, where you can buy it and a little bit about the story and some tidbits I enjoyed.

What It Is
Pokemon Adventures is a manga series that loosely follows the story of the video games and involves lots of different characters (familiar and unfamiliar) and you guessed it, Pokemon . I believe it started in the late 90s and is still continuing today with Sword and Shield. I have the first 14 volumes condensed into two 7 volumes sets that each contain the story for Red/Blue/Yellow and Gold/Silver/Crystal.

Each generation has a 7 (or more) volume box set that coincides with their specific games. The remakes like FireRed/LeafGreen, HeartGold/SoulSilver as well as the special releases like Emerald, Platinum and Black2/White2 also have manga counterparts that are shorter than the main series counterparts. For example, here’s the box set for Firered/Leafgreen and Emerald.

The way that the volumes are numbered is a little confusing. Usually manga starts off at volume 1 and continue up to whatever number the series ends. With Pokemon Adventures it starts with volumes 1-29 which covers Gens 1-3 but every series onwards will start back over at volume 1 when we get into a different game title. For example, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum are numbered 1-11 but HeartGold/Soulsilver are numbered 1-3 instead of 12-14 even though they’re technically still in the same generation.

Where You Can Buy It
I know you can find the box sets for Red/Blue/Yellow, Gold/Silver/Crystal, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and Diamond/Pearl/Platinum online for around $40-$55 each. I think the other box sets are out of print so they’re harder to find at a low price. I think you can get the individual volumes on eBay for around $10.

There are also these 3-in-1 Collector’s Editions that have come out recently and are planned to release up to the end of gen 3 (total of 10 volumes covering Gens 1-3) and are about $15 a piece. These are going to be the best bang for your buck in my opinion. I found this picture from a reddit post, I don’t own this. Often when a series is reprinted for a 3 in 1 volume format the paper quality will be comparable to the toilet paper you find in a public bathroom. I flipped through one of these at a Barnes and Noble the other day and the quality seems to be closer to Charmin Ultra, so pretty good. These are also a little bit taller than your standard manga volumes as you can see in the second panel.

Honestly I would have preferred getting these to the box sets I currently have because it’s actually quite difficult to get the volumes in and out of the box without possibly damaging anything. I don’t think you could go wrong with either release though.

Alternatively, if you like to read digitally, I believe it’s available through the VIZ app but it’ll be substantially more expensive. I’m sure you can also find it online for free, probably.

Little Bit About the Story and Tidbits I Enjoyed
I really don’t think the story is worth talking about in great detail, I think an important thing to keep in mind is that it doesn’t follow the same exact story as the games or the anime. The first three volumes start off with a very similar story to the games but it ends up being very different and continues to be different through the Gold/Silver/Crystal portion of the story where I’m currently at.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this story is definitely written for kids. I think if I owned these as a child they would have been my most prized possession and I know I would have read through it countless times. However, as an adult I think re-reading it once in a great while will suffice as I know I won’t enjoy it more on subsequent reads. However, I do think it is worth reading for the artwork just by itself. If you’re someone that grew up during this era of Pokemon you’ll find something you enjoy from it and I really had a great time reading through it.

Below I’ll showcase some random things I found amusing throughout my readthrough. There’s going to be a lot of pictures so I’m going to reply to this with a list of imgur links and titles to what they are. I tried putting them in this post but it got cut off for some reason.

[ascendedbidoof]

Something to note in case you’re not familiar: You have to read these panels going from right to left instead of left to right due to a vast majority of manga keeping the orientation of the source materiel Pichu hatching from an egg

Red’s First Pokemon isn’t One of the Starters

Charmander Back Spike

Red/Blue/Green Standoff Promotional Art from Games

Red/Blue/Green Standoff Adventures

Transparent Pokeballs

Violence

Mewtwo using a spoon

Snorlax use harden!

Using something to launch a Pokeball (Fishing Pole)

Using something to launch a Pokeball (Poker Cue)

Dynamic Fight Scenes

Hitmonlee Spring Legs

Gym Leaders in Team Rocket

Battling on an Onix

An Eevee that can swap throught it’s Eeveelutions

Pokedex showing the same sprites used in the games

Crystal kicking Pokeballs To Catch Pokemon Instead of Throwing Them

Final Teams for Each Main Trainer Having the Same Sprite from the Game Their Name Comes FromNote for this one: Blue’s original name is actually Green and Green’s original name is actually Blue due to how the games were released in Japan

Gold’s Final Team Matching the Sprites from Pokemon Gold

[nyabby]

Thanks for sharing! It’s fantastic to see how far the English release has come here since the outcry for a faithful English adaptation in the late 2000’s. This really helps being up to date with what is available.

[ascendedbidoof]

@nyabby, I saw that the there were two editions released, one in the early 2000s and the second edition released in the late 2000s. Was there a difference between the translations?

[nyabby]

[mention]ascendedbidoof [/mention] I’m actually not sure if/how different the two translations are. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there is a difference. I actually own the early print volumes, so all I’d have to do is pick up their updated reprint equivalents.

[ascendedbidoof]

@nyabby, I mistook what you meant when you said “outcry for a faithful English adaptation in the late 2000’s”. Made me think the first edition in 2000 was different than what was released in 2009. I doubt there’s a difference, it was probably just a re-release kind of like what we’ve been getting recently with the Collector’s Editions.

[nyabby]

@ascendedbidoof

@nyabby, I mistook what you meant when you said “outcry for a faithful English adaptation in the late 2000’s”. Made me think the first edition in 2000 was different than what was released in 2009. I doubt there’s a difference, it was probably just a re-release kind of like what we’ve been getting recently with the Collector’s Editions.

The outcry was mostly due to the pages being flipped and artwork edited. It was a constant topic in forums during the early to mid 2000’s.

[ascendedbidoof]

@nyabby, I see what you mean now! Because they changed the format of the manga to read from left to right instead of right to left they had to flip all of the artwork and change things so it read correctly to an English speaking/reading audience. The release in 2009 keeps the original Japanese format as a vast majority of manga releases do nowadays.

That’s really interesting. I appreciate you bringing that to my attention because I had no idea.

[joponnes]

I have all the internationally released ones if you want me to add the covers of the rest of the books at some point

[ascendedbidoof]

@joponnes

I have all the internationally released ones if you want me to add the covers of the rest of the books at some point

Absolutely, that’d be awesome!

[nyabby]

@joponnes

I have all the internationally released ones if you want me to add the covers of the rest of the books at some point

Do you happen to have the Chuan Yi (might’ve misspelled that) English release? I think it was released in Philippines or Singapore? I know the company went out of business. They where the first to do an English release back in the early 2000’s. It’s existence is partly what prompted fans back then to make their feelings known about the western English adaptation.

If you do I’m curious to see what differences there may be translation-wise between it and the modern English release.

[thesirknight]

That was the Singaporean release, if I remember correctly. I love Pokémon Special dearly, and back than the only legal way for me to read it was buying it on ebay and having it shipped from Singapore.
Which was expensive. I learned Japanese and read the manga in Japan before the new English editions were released.
As for the Chuan Yi translation, I just read a few volumes (15, 30-32) and didn’t notice anything strange other than the fact that the pages were mirrored.
The Diamond and Pearl arc contains a lot of humor, especially puns on Pokémon names, which was done well as far as I remember.
I think it was also the Chuan Yi edition in which you can find the Cyrus line that turned into a meme (“Dia, what is a straight man?”) He is talking about the tsukkomi/boke dynamic in Japanese comedy duos.

[joponnes]

@nyabby

@joponnes

I have all the internationally released ones if you want me to add the covers of the rest of the books at some point

Do you happen to have the Chuan Yi (might’ve misspelled that) English release? I think it was released in Philippines or Singapore? I know the company went out of business. They where the first to do an English release back in the early 2000’s. It’s existence is partly what prompted fans back then to make their feelings known about the western English adaptation.

If you do I’m curious to see what differences there may be translation-wise between it and the modern English release.

Unfortunately no, i’ve only collected these pokemon adventure mangas but i’ll poat pics of them when i find some time, busy times!

[azulryu]

So glad you did this! I was able to see some of the artwork from non-translated versions at my old LGS and then picked up some of the comics/manga once they found an English release. I think the storyline is more engaging and more teenage focused than the anime.

It’s interesting because Charmander’s back spike appears in a couple of comics outside of this series. I’ll have to look through to find them again. The early era of Pokemon was a lot darker and I love how involved Blaine is in this storyline as being the major scientist behind Mewtwo’s creation. He definitely plays a bigger role which I think was also reflected in the early TCG as well.

[ascendedbidoof]

@azulryu

So glad you did this! I was able to see some of the artwork from non-translated versions at my old LGS and then picked up some of the comics/manga once they found an English release. I think the storyline is more engaging and more teenage focused than the anime.

It’s interesting because Charmander’s back spike appears in a couple of comics outside of this series. I’ll have to look through to find them again. The early era of Pokemon was a lot darker and I love how involved Blaine is in this storyline as being the major scientist behind Mewtwo’s creation. He definitely plays a bigger role which I think was also reflected in the early TCG as well.

I think the manga and anime both have their merits. I like that the anime can take it’s time and go into fun side stories and focus on specific Pokemon. The manga goes at a super fast pace but it has a more focused narrative and like you said is more engaging. I enjoyed how involved pretty much all of the gym leaders are in the story as well as some of the other NPCs we meet throughout the game. At first I was disappointed that it wasn’t closer to what Pokemon Origins was but in retrospect I’m happy that it was it’s own thing instead of being a different take on the same story. I was originally going to stop after the first 7 volumes but I’m glad I pressed on.

[joponnes]

Again took my time after promising to do something but here are all the international ones i have in my possession, few of the newer ones i haven’t ordered yet but will post those too when i get my hands on them for anyone interested in reading these in the future i give a little spoiler warning tho since the covers usually kinda have something to do with what’s happening in the story. I’m skipping the first 2 boxes since they are already posted and continue from box 3.

Ruby & Sapphire

Firered, Leafgreen & Emerald

Heargold & Soulsilver

Diamond, Pearl & Platinum

Black & White

For this third B&W set i don’t have the box, but it should be the only one missing here from already released ones.

Black 2 & White 2

A third volume has already been released but i don’t have it yet. A fourth and final volume for B2&W2 should be released next month and i’ll order them both along with few others then.

X&Y

AlphaRuby & OmegaSapphire

This set hasn’t, at least yet, been released in a box but it’s anyway finished already

Sun & Moon

Also, no box at least yet since the set is still ongoing. 10th volume has already been released but i’ll order it with the B2&W2 ones. 11th volume should be released later this year too and the final 12th volume in the beginning of 2022.

The first volume of Sword and Shield has also been released but the same goes for it, will order it next month with the others i’m missing, and the next volumes for S&S have also their release dates later this year and in the beginning of next year. Will post more photos every time i get the new releases!

[joponnes]

Decided to only buy these 3 now and the rest sun & moon ones when the last one is released in the start of next year + start of sword & shield era at the same time, i don’t have time to read basically at all atm and figured i try to make it slow and don’t buy something to tease me while sitting on the shelf anyway, will keep on updating here the covers of new ones every time i get them but not necessarily getting them soon after their releases until life settles down.

[swolepoke]

I actually recently came into the possession of this artwork done by the artist behind Pokémon Adventures, Satoshi Yamamoto!

[joponnes]

Difficult to make these posts after that grail post by @swolepoke but i’ll try anyway I’m finally up to date with my posts since i just got all the rest of these that have been released which means here’s the last of sun & moon era and the first three published books from sword & shield era

https://i.imgur.com/zQppApT.jpg(image larger than 4 MB)

[ascendedbidoof]

@swolepoke, WOW! That art is so good! How did you manage to come across that? (Also, didn’t see your post until just now lol)

@joponnes, nice update! How often do the new volumes come out? I figured they would be further into Sword and Shield now.