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"Creativity"

Pokémon Adventures: Volume 1 Review

Before I go in depth with this review, I need to state my background with Pokémon, and this series. I watched the animation when I was a kid. I didn't really play the games a whole lot, as I could never finish them. But when I started to become more open minded to things, I played the old Pokémon Leaf Green version. Since then I've played every Pokémon game that came out, and am a big fan of the games. I never played the cards, didn't really delve into the animation, but do like the whole Pokémon universe in general. But I did brush into this manga as a kid. I had a weird magazine that held several adventures of this manga, and for some reason I had that thing for the longest time. I no longer do, but I had it for so long, and almost memorized what was in it, and always wondered what happened in the adventures before and after it. Eventually I was in a closing bookstore (a sad thing to see) and I saw a manga shelf. I had never read manga before, and was interested in getting into them, as I try to stay open minded. I saw this manga, and instantly I wanted to buy it, as I felt like I needed to finally learn what events took place before and after the few that I had read. This was the first manga I had read in it's entirely, and even though this is the only entry in the series I read, I really want to buy more. The story is based of the games, and you follow Red as he goes on little adventures, catches a hell of a lot more Pokémon than ash, and lots more. He like most trainers, has a rival (blue) and even though he catches many Pokémon between the adventures you read, he only carries three at the moment. Each Pokémon read used had character, but still aren't amazing by any means. They gave a good origin story for one (not giving spoilers) But one thing I noticed this focuses a lot more on the people than the Pokémon. Most games in the series I wouldn't give the character badge for the people, but would since the Pokémon count as characters. The Anime makes a good balance of the two, and this one I think is more focused on the human characters. But this is still a really good Manga. The theme of adventure is really good, and it covers a lot of story in just a few short pages. This one Manga alone contains so much, I'm wondering how few until it reaches the end. It's still very well done, and even though I'm not big on art, I found it interesting to see Pokémon in manga form. A lot of the time the characters look really circular and small, and I found when it did that kind of annoying for some reason. It's a tiny thing, and hard to explain, but it's hardly a problem. In fact, this hardly does anything wrong. It was kept at a well adventurous pace, I'm interested to find out what happens further, and it introduces characters at a well pace. I really do wonder if Red will catch legendary Pokémon, or maybe if he does capture at least the original 150. He seems a lot closer to his goal in this one volume than Ash was his entire existence. This manga after reading it felt classic, as it began what feels like a big journey, showed a legendary Pokémon already, and starts what could be a very good series. I know this might just be a little more better for me, as I grew up with those few sections from this manga, and finally got to see what happened around it, but that doesn't mean others won't like it. Now whenever I see a manga shelf, I'll look for this series, and try to find the next volume, but until then I'll know that this one is excellent.

Pokémon Adventures: Volume 1 gets a 5/5

Spoilers: All right, so the adventures I had read as a kid were from where Red met his Pikachu to when Red and Misty started moving as a team. I did not know anything about how Red started, and didn't know what happened in the events afterword. I didn't know how he obtained his bulbasaur and Poliwirl, but know I do. Speaking of which, I like Poliwirl's, or should I say Poliwrath's, origin story. If that hadn't been included I really would have thought the team needed something more, but now I can't look at Poliwrath the same, as that was really good character development. I'm a little confused on gym leaders though. Right now I think he has one badge, but he fought like four gym leaders, plus many of their roles changed. Everyone but Misty seemed to be bad guys, even Brock. Their roles had changed completely from the games, and especially the anime. I don't know if the elite four or Pokémon League are in this, but I wonder if Red will win, and I'm pretty sure he has a better chance than some other people. But that's not the only changed role, I felt Oak was totally different! He was kind of weird, but I liked the whole segment where he got Bulbasaur from him. Each adventure was really good, and I have to say this could be a good series, and I haven't read much manga, so this isn't saying much, but this one might just be may favorite volume so far in any manga.