Here's a little "essay" I made for the manga in the forum for my school's Otaku Club.
=================================================
I
am asking you to read it. It rocks. Just read it, and you'll see the drastic difference. Just think like this: The manga is like any manga, but the TV show is like teletubbies. That's the difference.
Cat/Wolf witch Kyobi said:
I'll give it a shot. I'm trying not to base judgement on the anime
That is what everybody is doing.
Don't. At least not for Pokemon. As I said, the TV utterly defaced the nature of Pokemon and brought it from what would have been a great game franchise down to ashes.
What's worse is that they made it appear everywhere so that everybody could see it. In contrast the manga is 500 times better than the TV, but sales were limited to Asia, because it didn't sell well in the US. Why? THE TV SHOW!!! It has everything to be blamed to it.
In fact, here are the locations for a few snippets for the manga "Pocket Monsters Special", known as "Pokemon Adventures" in the US. Viz stopped publishing it a few years ago, ending it at the 7th book. Book 19 released just a few weeks ago. The character's names are based on game versions: Red (looks like Ash), Green (looks like Gary), Blue, Yellow, and so forth, and the manga follows the game perspective with major twists (but not like the repetitive sidequests in the TV show) that add spice to the storyline.
https://netkun.com/pockemon/story/0411/s3_0411_3.gif
https://netkun.com/pockemon/story/0103/s5_0103_07.gif
https://netkun.com/pockemon/story/0112/s4_12_05.gif
https://netkun.com/pockemon/story/0109/s5-94.gif
The major difference is that this manga features action in every chapter, and minimal of that morality and friendship stuff you see as childhood propaganda in American televisions.
Oh yeah, as a side note, the manga features a character that never appeared in the TV series. The character's name is Yellow.
Picture of Yellow
Cute guy, eh? Here's the catch. It's a girl. That theme has followed the book for a short series as Yellow looks for Red, who has gone missing shortly after being invited to a battle. Yellow was instructed to disguise herself as a boy to prevent being detected by the enemy.
That manga has been discontinued by Viz, so chances are you won't find them. Just look at the scans I provided.
A few more remarks on the manga. It also contains the story in other characters' perspectives. And as you see, one of them has Lt. Surge battling his way through the power plant, and for many reasons. In the anime, Ash leads the way and stupidity follows.
Another good point about that manga is that the characters use novel ingenuities in battle. One of the pictures feature Gold (the Kenta-looking guy) using multiple pokemon to fly. Usually one plan in battle is featured every chapter.
So...see the difference?
