Pokemon Adventures volumes 1-7 Kanto region

 Beginning a new adventure! (well quite an old one) :l

Recently I've been I a huge revert back to my childhood love, that being Pokemon of course! What else would I be talking about?! DIGIMON?! (must say I am a huge fan just making a point :P). Finding myself fully immersed into the video game series I only found it fitting that as a Pokemon fan I must acquire the Pokemon Adventures manga, after reading about it in June 2013 issue of NEO magazine.

And so in 10-12 looooooong days of waiting for amazon to deliver the holy books, I finally dived into the adventures of Red the trainer NOT ASH KETCHUM! The ridiculous excuse for a trainer.

After just reading the first volume I found myself unable to wait to read the next. The story itself written by Hidenori Kusaka, is that of which any fan could hope for following with Red's journey to collect gym badges up against his rival Blue along with Team Rocket coming up with their devastating plots with familiar faces to help Red along the way, and new one's too.

The art/illustration is done by Mato, and I couldn't say it could be any better. The art style consists of both the normal character and chibi style, which brings back the memories of playing the first generation of Pokemon games which couldn't make me any happier :D

 For those who haven't read the Pokemon Adventures manga and have only seen the anime there are a few differences one that the main protagonist is Red not Ash Ketchum, his rival is called Blue (Green in Japanese version), and that the battles and level of strength in the characters differ hugely in comparison to what is in the anime. In the manga Red has a comedic side to him but is also a very serious and strong willed trainer, and the battles are much more gripping in terms of strategy and... what can happen in a pokemon is a lot more horrific...

Yep... poor Arbok :(

        As the story progress Red processed to challenge the poke league as expected, and ends up in the finals battling his rival in a epic battle of the trainer's true strength and wits. I won't say who's won but the story doesn't end there. Once that section ends we then pass two years into the future were Red has disappeared and a new trainer named Yellow appears and journeys off with his Pikachu.

Within 7 volumes, 90 chapters there has been a huge storyline constructed extremely well and would be unfortunate for any Pokemon fan to miss. All the characters are carved perfectly and have never grown annoying or seemed completely useless to the storyline at some point or another, however this could be said for Green (Blue in the Japanese version) as she comes in only as a sort of gimmick for comedic purposes or to assist in the important showdowns. But this is forgiven as it is boring to keep a adaptation of much loved childhood game being completely serious 100% of the time.

There were a few problems I had come across in the manga such as...

     There are a few noticeable mistakes in the manga in terms of character names and Pokemon names... but they are just in few numbers of unfortunate mistranslations (I hope). Other than these few and I mean very few mistakes the manga itself was a very immersing read and depth as the story continues over the other regions seen in games, of course this is just after reading the first region. It is a must read for all Pokemon fans and can now be bought for the first time in the UK, check your local WHSmiths or Waterstones as they may come into stock, but there's also Amazon to fall back on.