[Manga] List & Chit-Chat on ALL Pokémon Manga

First and foremost, this thread now replaces the old Pokémon Manga/Comics subforum! With this list as the base post, feel free to chit-chat and discuss anything about any pokémon manga whenever you don't feel like creating a whole thread on a subject.

Be civil and nice to fellow members and please follow the rules of PokéCommunity overall and of Pokémon General specifically.

~ Red's Hawt Chibi Pelippers​

Here's a quick FAQ about this thread:

I will frequently add more series to this post. I just thought that this would be an easier way for me to do it and that it might be fun to discuss the latest update and look forward to the next update.
I know that Bulbapedia and Dogasu's Backpack both have excellent Pokémon manga guides (which I encourage you to read), but this one will cover a lot of Pokémon manga that aren't covered in either of those guides and I think that this will improve the Chit-Chat.
I will divide all Pokémon manga series into the same categories that Bulbapedia has, since I think it's a good system. The Pokémon manga will also appear in about the same order, since Bulbapedia sorts it chronologically and I intend to do the same.
Until I say that I have added all series that I know of I will not take requests on what to add next, because I most likely already have it on my to-do list.





Main game adaptions

Pokémon Pocket Monsters – 14 volumes | Published in English by Chuang Yi (out of print and very hard to find)
Pokémon Ruby-Sapphire – 6 volumes | Published in English by Chuang Yi (out of print and very hard to find)
Pocket Monsters D・P – 5 volumes (out of print)
Pocket Monsters HGSS – 2 volumes
Pocket Monsters BW – 3 volumes (ongoing)

Pocket Monsters is a gag manga, the first Pokémon manga ever published and also the most popular Pokémon manga in Japan. It is known as 'the creepy Clefairy manga' in the fanbase. Instead of having the structure that Pokémon Special has with all arcs being within the same series, every new arc is considered a separate series. This is the only Pokémon manga that has gotten a cameo in the anime in episode 362: Lights, Camerupt, Action. Pokémon Pocket Monsters (the first series) has been published in English, Chinese and Indonesian. The Pocket Monsters series are written and illustrated by Kosaku Anakubo.

More info:

Spoiler:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_Pocket_Monsters
https://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/manga/pocket_monsters.html

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Pokémon Special / Pokémon Adventures – 45 volumes (ongoing) – Published in English by VIZ and Chuang Yi

Pokémon Special is an manga adaption of the games with original stories and some original characters, like Yellow and Emerald. The main characters have so far been named after the main games: Red, Green, Blue…
Pokémon Special got published in English under the name Pokémon Adventures. Another thing that changed in the English version was that the boy who was named Green in the Japanese version was renamed to Blue and the girl who was named Blue in the Japanese version was renamed to Green. This is because Pokémon Red and Green was released first in Japan, while the rest of the world got Pokémon Red and Blue.
VIZ's old 1st editions are in a flipped left to right reading format. They changed that to the original right to left reading format when they released their 2nd editions. Chuang Yi's volume 1-40 are flipped, while volume 41 is in the original reading format. Chuang Yi's volume 1-7 are the exactly same as VIZ's 1st editions (except for the cover). When VIZ stopped publishing Pokémon Adventures back in the day, Chuang Yi continued publishing it. Chuang Yi has as far as I know never censored Pokémon Adventures, which is appreciated by the fanbase.
I am almost 100% sure that Chuang Yi from volume 8 to at least volume 15 (but probably longer than that) used to cross-translate their volumes from Chinese, which lead to some errors. You can read more about my theory here. Volume 41 is at least translated directly from Japanese since the Chinese edition of volume 41 has not yet been released. Pokémon Adventures is currently being published in English, Japanese, French, Chinese, Korean, and Thai. Pokémon Adventures has in the past been translated into German, Latin American Spanish, Greek and Polish. (Not so fun fact: Red and Blue were renamed to Ash and Gary in the German translation.)
Story: Hidenori Kusaka | Art: Mato (vol. 1-9), Satoshi Yamamoto (vol. 10+)
(I own some of the VIZ 2nd editions and Chuang Yi editions)

More info:

Spoiler:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_Adventures
https://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/manga/pocket_monsters_special.html
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pokémon_Adventures_volumes
https://www.serebii.net/manga/volume.shtml

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Pokémon Zensho – 1 volume (out of print)

Zensho can mean complete, unabridged or encyclopedia. The best English translation for Pokémon Zensho is probably Pokémon The Complete Story, but the fanbase has always used Pokémon Zensho, since there isn't really a translation that is accurate enough. The reason for Pokémon Zensho's name is because it summarises the storyline of Pokémon Red and Green in just one volume (10 chapters to be exact, starting at chapter 0 (Prologue) and ending at chapter 9). Pokémon Zensho is commonly described as the Pokémon manga that is the closest adaption of any of the Pokémon games. The main characters are named Satoshi (Ash) and Shigeru (Gary). There are two possible explanations for this. Either it is bacause the second name in the default player and rival name lists in Red and Green are Ash and Gary, or it is because of the anime's huge popularity at the time. I think the first explanation makes more sense since it's supposed to follow the games closely. Pokémon Zensho has been released in Japanese and Chinese. It is written and illustrated by Satomi Nakamura. (I own the Japanese edition of Pokémon Zensho.)

More info:

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Pokémon Gold & Silver: The Golden Boys - 3 volumes | Published in English by Chuang Yi (out of print and very hard to find)

Pokémon Gold & Silver: The Golden Boys, or Pokémon Golden Boys as it it is called 99% of the time within the fanbase, is an adaption of the storyline of Pokémon Gold and Silver. Pokémon Golden Boys used to be one of the more dicussed Pokémon manga series on the manga sections of popular Pokémon forums back in the day. Today it is pretty much forgotten by the majority of the fanbase, (which happens with most Pokémon manga series that aren't published by VIZ and in print). This manga is infamous for it's sudden ending. It ends in Cianwood City and you can tell that it got a rushed ending. However, it is still a really enjoyable manga that I recommend to everyone. Chuang Yi might have made some mistakes with the translation, like renaming Silver to Black and renaming Chuck (the Cianwood City Gym leader) to Fergus, or it might have been that way in the original Japanese editions. If this is a translation error it is likely that the volumes might have been cross-translated from Chinese. Pokémon Gold & Silver: The Golden Boys has been published in English, Japanese and Chinese. This manga is written and illustrated by Saito Muneo. (I own the Chuang Yi editions).

More info:

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Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire Strategy Guide manga

I know almost nothing about this manga. I don't even know it's name, though it is possible that it does not have a name. It's basically a promo manga in colour that gives some advice on how to play Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire.

More info:

Spoiler:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/409106101X/
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pokemon-Ruby-Sapphire-Manga-strategy-guide-book-/271131050817 / https://animeartbookonline.com/pokemon-ruby-sapphire-manga-strategy-guide-book.html (A few photos of the manga)

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Pokémon Battle Frontier - 1 volume | Published in English by Chuang Yi (out of print)

Pokémon Battle Frontier, also known as Pokémon Emerald: Challenge!! Battle Frontier is a six chapter Pokémon made by Shigekatsu Ihara, who also made Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure!. The main character Enta reminds me of Hareta, both from apperance and behaviour. Both of them are rash, very compassionate towards their Pokémon and they don't mind a little pain. (Enta likes to headbutt people as a way of greeting, for example). Not all Frontier Brains appear in the story of this manga, but all Frontier Brains are seen on the title page of chapter four. This manga has had the shortest print run of any English Pokémon manga published in volume format so far. Usually this manga is very hard to get, but as of writing this, it is obtainable, for the moment. (I own the Chuang Yi edition of this manga.)

More info:

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Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Commemorative Special - 1 chapter (out of print and extremely hard to find)

Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Commemorative Special is a one chapter (21 pages) long promo manga for Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. It was released in Comic Land (Sho3 コミックランド) 2006/11. The art style is really nice.

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Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure! - 8 volumes | Published in English by VIZ and Chuang Yi

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, or Pokémon DPA as it is sometimes called within the fanbase is a manga based on Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The main charcter is a boy named Hareta who has lived in the woods until his adventure began. He is very compassionate towards his Pokémon and sometimes even gets physically engaged in the battle (shielding his Pokémon with his own body, for example). With him on his journey is Professor Rowan's assitant Mitsumi and sometimes also Jun, who is a trainer with a crush on Mitsumi. Hareta's goal is to meet Dialga and later on in the story also to stop Team Galactic. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure! has been published in English, Japanese and Chinese. This manga is written and illustrated by Shigekatsu Ihara. (I own the VIZ editions.)

More info:

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Image credits:

Yeah, this is really impressive :3 Manga Reader X will keep working on this list and it'll really be helpful for people who feel a bit lost in the pokémon manga world or just don't know what to read next I think.


So! I've found a manga app for my iPhone where they have the BW Pokémon Special manga. I'll keep reading that because it's as good as finished now, right? And I want to get a better feeling for Black and White's personalities.

Not really. There's a mess with the magazine chapters since there once were three magazines (now two magazines) that published unnumbered chapters. Some chapters have been categorized using the VIZ editions, the Kurokawa editions and coherency, but there are gaps of untranslated chapters.

I just read the Chuang Yi versions here, I mean they sell it locally here, since I am from Singapore.

Been reading the Pokemon Adventures series and also the Pocket Monsters one (I call it the Clefairy Manga though) ever since I was very young (about 5-7), thank god for Chuang Yi! Never heard of the Pokémon Zensho though. The Clefairy one is very funny and I recommend you to read it because it almost made me died from laughing.

However, due to the lack of time, I have only read until to the end of the FRLG saga and I have recently started on the Emerald saga!

Pocket Monsters is not really my taste:



https://snarp.dreamwidth.org/40223.html - Contains nudity that might be inappropriate



I read the first chapter of volume 1 and the artwork wasn't really that good and the jokes weren't that funny either (but that might be because it is generally hard to make accurate and good translations for gag manga.)

Yeah, Chuang Yi used to rule when it came to publishing Pokémon manga. Nowadays both Chuang Yi and VIZ sucks at Poké-publishing.

Can anyone tell me where i can get those old school " Pocket monster" manga ? I really want to collect them or at least read them online
@Manga Reader X: Pocket Monster isn't that bad , i agree that the 1st volume isn't good enough because it relied too much in nudity, lame jokes and even some pokemons wasn't in their "correct shape" but it was his 1st volume, even other mangakas made mistakes in their 1st book . If you give it a shot , try reading next 2 volumes and you'll see the difference

You would have to get second hand copies from private online manga sellers in Southeast Asia. It's not going to be easy, but it's not impossible either.
Only the first chapter is available online in English. There are three different scanlations of it. The oldest scanlation from 2005 is extinct since long ago. The other two from 2012 are still available.

I wouldn't waste money to import Pokémon Pocket Monsters. I'd rather spend it on Pokémon manga that I enjoy.

I think I would enjoy manga with more mysterious storylines like Pokémon Special better :]

I have almost not heard of Golden Boys at all, just heard it mentioned a couple of times on sites but overlooked it mostly. Maybe it's worth looking into? Sad thing that it ends abruptly. Anyone who has read it, would you say that it's story and setting is comparable with PokéSpe or Electric Tale of Pikachu maybe? I like the half-original stories of PokéSpe but I love the setting of EToP.

I would say that it resembles PokéSpe, yes and it is in my top four of Pokémon manga I have read (not sure where to place it exactly in my top list).

I enjoy both Pocket Monster and Pokemon Special though :) So i guess i have to fly all the way to Singapore just to find the original copy of Pokemon Special and Pocket Monster, not cool at all :"( Even if i have the chance to fly over there, the price of 7$/ volume is way out of my league :((
@Manga Reader X: do you happen to know the relation between Black and White arc in Pokemon Special ( appeared in volume 43) and " Pokemon Special B&W arc" ?? They are 2 different series but why did they release both of them ?

Pokémon Special is released in magazines much earlier than it's released in volumes. Currently it's released in CoroCoro Ichiban and Pokémon Fan. In the past it was also released in Shogaku Yonensei, but that magazine got cancelled. When the chapters are released in magazines they are unnumbered and not all chapters are even released in magazines. The magazine chapters are not the final versions either, so artwork and sometimes even details in a chapters storyline are changed for the volume editions. The guy who used to translate Pokémon Special into English imported two different magazines, if I remember correctly. The chapters were numbered using VIZ editions, Kurokawa editions and continuity.

To sum it up:
Nobody knows what chapter numbers the magazine chapters will have in the volumes before the volume is released. The chapters aren't even the final version and the whole magazine publishing system is a headache inducing mess. So the translator made a completely new listning for the magazine chapters and there are also a lot of missing chapters.

I think it's strange how that works :x That the chapters in magazines are unnumbered. I mean, they do follow a story so the chapters aren't exactly standalone.

I have added Pokémon Battle Frontier to the list now. A few years ago this manga was near impossible to find (but I found it anyway). Luckily for Pokémon manga fans it is being sold on eBay at the moment.

Here's a theory why Pokémon Battle Frontier had such a short print run: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=3275262#3275262

Here's a quite bloody scene from Pokémon Battle Frontier. You have been warned:

Red's Hawt Chibi Pelippers said:

I think it's strange how that works :x That the chapters in magazines are unnumbered. I mean, they do follow a story so the chapters aren't exactly standalone.

Click to expand...

Not really. The Japanese magazine system (as far as I understand) is that a lot of different manga (usually one chapter / manga) are (sometimes randomly) thrown into a big, fat and very cheap magazine. CoroCoro for example, is A5-sized, about 6 centimeters (2¼ inches) thick, and often more than 800 pages in length and costs 480 yen (~3,7€ / $4.8) per issue. So basically you get a huge dose of a lot of manga monthly for a very cheap price. You get what you get. So, in that context it doesn't have to be in the right order, numbered and without gaps. If there was a magazine that only published PokéSpe and nothing else (like VIZ did back in the day), then numbering would probably be required.

OH my, I had no idea it worked that way. That seems really strange but yeah I guess a lot of manga for a cheap price is nice for some. I would rather have mine well ordered even if it cost a little, not much but a little more - but then again, I don't even buy manga online so it's a bit weird for me to say that.

Oh, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure! That's another one I have got to read.

I have added Pokémon Diamond & Pearl: Commemorative Special to the list. Now this is as far as I know the only page in English that has any info about that manga.

Red's Hawt Chibi Pelippers said:

Oh, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure! That's another one I have got to read.

Click to expand...

One of my favourites. Funny and action-packed:





This scene was censored in the VIZ edition:

One of the pictures I hotlinked to didn't show up, so here it is:




I have started a tumblr where I show my Pokémon manga collection: https://mrxpokemonmanga.tumblr.com/

Manga Reader X said:

I have started a tumblr where I show my Pokémon manga collection: https://mrxpokemonmanga.tumblr.com/

Click to expand...

That's cool!

I definitely like Chuang Yi's front covers more than Viz'. Also don't like that they censor stuff. I never understood that with Blue's bust, for instance, because the first time I read that arc (Yellow?) I guess it was the Viz version.

Red's Hawt Chibi Pelippers said:

That's cool!

I definitely like Chuang Yi's front covers more than Viz'. Also don't like that they censor stuff. I never understood that with Blue's bust, for instance, because the first time I read that arc (Yellow?) I guess it was the Viz version.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Nope, volume 3 is part of the Red, Green and Blue arc.

Well, there are some pros and cons with both the VIZ and Chuang Yi editions:



VIZ

Reading format: Original (right to left)
Translation: Japanese --> English
Censorship: Yes
Covers: Quite edited
Other: Arcs renumbered as separate series --> N00b posts on Serebii Forums



Chuang Yi

Reading format:
Flipped (left to right): vol. 1-40
Original (right to left): vol. 41

Translation:
Japanese --> English from VIZ 1st editions: vol. 1-7
Japanese -- > Chinese --> English: vol. 8-14 (speculated) | vol. 15-22 - confirmed
*vol. 23-40 translations unknown*
Japanese --> English: vol. 41

Censorship: No
Covers: Not very edited (the vol. 1 and 3 covers are flipped, though)



I prefer to read the VIZ editions, but read the specific censored scenes from the Chuang Yi editions.