Manga / The Electric Tale of Pikachu

The Pokémon Graphic Novel series (Pocket Monsters Dengeki Pikachu in Japan), more widely known in English by the title of its first Volume—Pokémon: The Electric Tale of Pikachu—is a manga adaptation of the Pokémon anime, written and illustrated by Toshihiro Ono, serialized in CoroCoro Comic from 1997 to 1999 and compiled into four paperback volumes. The first three cover the Ash Ketchum's Indigo League journey, and his Orange Islands travels were covered by the end of the third volume and the fourth volume. Now, that's a lot of show for just four volumes, so of course there was a little plot adjustment.

The series attempts to present a slightly more "grown-up" version of the anime's story, with a more explicit presentation of the violence of the Pokémon world itself. It also recasts Ash's journey as a proper Coming of Age Story, with a remarkable amount of Character Development for the star. It's well-known for its mature art style; more serious, linear tone; and for its unique plot structure.

It was released in the West by Viz Media, first as single issue comics that came packaged with individual Pokémon VHS tapes and later in full paperback volumes. In the year 2000, Viz claimed that they’ve sold over a million copies of The Electric Tale of Pikachu issue 1 (source), which if true, would make it the best selling American comic book of its time. Chuang Yi released their own translation of this manga in Singapore, adopting Viz's changes in later volumes.

Of course, that's not why you heard of this series. (Really, who do we think we're fooling)? Chances are, one of the first things you heard about this series was the fact that it was much Hotter and Sexier than the anime, and ended up subject to far-sweeping Bowdlerization by not just the English translators over at Viz, but also the editors of the Japanese paperpack editions. The original CoroCoro Comic magazine edition is especially notorious for its Stripperiffic variety of Fanservice and especially for its application to the main heroine of the show, Misty, who appears to be all grown-up despite her stated age of 12. This notoriety can be laid squarely at the feet of writer-illustrator Toshihiro Ono, who… well, usually writes something else entirely.

(Something else you may have heard about the series is that Jessie and James got married in the epilogue).

---

This manga contains examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Compared to the anime and the games, The Electric Tale of Pikachu is much more high-tech.
• Adaptation Amalgamation:
  • Despite being an adaptation of Pokémon: The Original Series, this series incorporates a lot of material directly from the original Pokémon Red and Blue that the anime did not.
    • Ash's outfit has a Palette Swap, bringing him much closer to Red's official art.
    • Gary's sister was Adapted Out of the anime but appears here as a minor recurring character.
    • Misty is depicted with the black hair of her in-game sprite and conducts her battle in a black swimsuit, just like in the game.
    • Bill, in the games, is both a pokémaniac and the developer of the storage system. The anime, which didn't use the storage system, ignores his connection to the computers and extrapolates from him being a pokémaniac, turning him into a researcher who occasionally gets stuck in his cosplay outfit. The manga, on the other hand, takes the opposite tack, and establishes him to be the creator of the storage system^note and is implied to work with Professor Oak on new Pokémon tech—and has Professor Oak in cosplay, instead.
    • Gary uses his Venusaur-team from the games, even though the anime eventually went in a different direction.
  • Downplayed from Chapter 8 on, where the character designs take a notable side-step to be more in line with the anime—Misty belatedly gets her official red hair and Iconic Outfit, and Ash's hat has the incomplete triangle symbol restored.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • Some of the early character designs were different from the anime without being sourced in the games. Ash's hat, for example, has a stylized PM on it instead of the triangle. Some of these changes became more like the anime in later chapters.
  • Toshihiro Ono has described his process for creating the manga in interviews—he would receive scripts for episodes of Pokémon: The Original Series that had not yet aired and edit them to fit the format of the manga. The episodes that finally aired would later prove to have been changed from the scripts Ono received, resulting in even more differences.
• Adaptation Distillation: Much of the in-between of Ash's journey is cut out, with most chapters depicting some of the more famous adventures from Pokémon: The Original Series.
  • Ash is only ever seen battling three Gym Leaders, all in the first volume — Brock (who is crushed in one page), Misty (who is fought in the same chapter), and Sabrina (who is fought at the beginning of Chapter 4 before the plot goes in an entirely different direction). The next time we get a progress update, it's volume three and Ash has just collected his eighth badge.
  • One chapter actually cobbled elements and characters from a half-dozen episodes all at once as a joke and spun that into its own unique story. ^note Ash's Pikachu, a rebellious Squirtle, and a Charmander loyal to its long-lost trainer all go on a journey with Kangaskhan and Tommy the Kangaskhan Kid to find a rumored Pokémon preserve watched over by a farmgirl and a rough Bulbasaur; along the way they are joined by Team Rocket, having adventures involving Koga and Aya, some persecuted Dugtrio, and the relics of a nation that extolled Meowth.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: While hard to tell with most characters and the monochrome art, this is apparent in color art. Most obviously Misty has (by the end) brown hair instead of red, Ritchie has a completely different design (with blonde hair, even), and Ash has Innocent Blue Eyes instead of his signature brown.
• Adaptation Expansion: Some elements in the anime are actually expanded on in the manga.
  • The manga features a greater sense of male camaraderie between Ash and Brock, Richie, and even Gary. There's a relationship between Ash and Misty, too, but of an entirely different sort.
  • In a rare inversion of Adapted Out, Gary's older sister appears in the manga even though she doesn't exist in the anime.
• Adaptational Attractiveness:
  • Most of the characters have been updated to be Hotter and Sexier; not only do the girls have Adaptational Curves, many men have become Hunks.
  • Ash in particular has become a downplayed Chick Magnet—many women refer to him as handsome, such as Misty's oldest sister Daisy, who in Pokémon: The Original Series mistook Ash for Misty's boyfriend and told Misty she should go for someone less unattractive.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Ash is more self-confident and (occasionally) less bratty than his anime original.
  • Misty's sisters are a Badass Family of dedicated Gym Leaders, rather than a trio of ditzy and self-absorbed performers.
  • Misty herself uses a Gyarados in her gym battle against Ash, a pokémon she did not have in Pokémon Red and Blue or at any point in Pokémon: The Original Series. In the anime, she wouldn't obtain one in Pokémon Chronicles when she got over her phobia of them, while in this telling Gyarados was her first pokémon.
  • Potter, a shy and nebbish One-Shot Character from Pokémon: The Original Series, got a shot in the arm of raw Testosterone Poisoning, complete with all-new Manly Facial Hair. He can hold his breath for indefinite periods of time, leap hundreds of feet in a single bound, run on water, flying side-kick Gyarados, you name it.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Charmander's trainer, who only left Charmander alone for so long because he was almost killed in an accident and was sent to the hospital, and even went looking for him before he fully recovered. They reunited in the mountains, which involved the man dragging his broken body through who knows what turmoil.
  • The lead Spearow from the first episode (a Fearow here) gets a Defeat Means Friendship in this version and actually proves to be more loyal to Ash than Pidgeotto.
• Adaptational Modesty: Nurse Joy, in a stroke of Irony for such a Fanservice drenched series, is wearing a longer skirt and apron than her animated counterparts, who wore miniskirts for years.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • A lot of Jigglypuff's more jerkish characteristics are toned down or outright removed in the manga. It only attacks anyone it sees as a threat to its owner Mimi such as Team Rocket, and doesn't draw on anyone's face when its Sing ability puts them to sleep.
  • Misty's sisters aren't the Big Sister Bullies that they are in Pokémon: The Original Series and lack any semblance of vanity (though they are willing to tease their baby sister).
• Adaptational Villainy: In the anime, the Haunter that was involved in Sabrina's arc was an unserious prankster who only got up to relatively serious mischief. Here, it's a soul-feeding Eldritch Abomination with a god complex.
• Adapted Out:
  • Tracey Sketchit does not appear in the chapters adapting the Orange Island episodes. Ash initially travels by himself, and while Misty does return in the last two chapters, Tracey is noticeably absent.
  • While the Team Rocket trio does appear, the organization itself goes ignored — even Giovanni himself doesn't appear until the final chapter. Ash's battle for the Earth Badge is completely glossed over by the start of volume three.
• All Men Are Perverts: Ash and Brock first bond when they discover, during a visit with Sabrina, a shared weakness for the opposite sex.
  Brock: Ash! Methinks you like pretty girls!
  Ash: Sure do!
  Ash & Brock: DUDE!
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: The cover art of the collected volumes in the United States release downplays or alters the cuter art seen on the original Japanese covers, removing many of the Super-Deformed characters or replacing them outright with more detailed art. Special notice must go to the American release of the third volume, which features original art of Ash, Gary, and Ritchie about to enter battle.
• Art Evolution: Quite a bit of the art was redrawn in the transition to manga volumes, with many panels and characters reframed and in more detail and the odd scene even rewritten.
• Babies Ever After: The epilogue shows Jessie and James of Team Rocket as a couple, with Jessie pregnant.
• Battle Couple: Jessie and James of Team Rocket, though the epilogue suggests they abandon Team Rocket after becoming an Official Couple.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Ash and Misty are constantly at each other's throats, a fact which quite amuses Brock.
• Big Damn Heroes: At one point Ash gets to enter by smashing his way through a window and taking a kick at James.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Ash and several pokémon get roughed up enough to draw blood at a few points in the manga—Ash and Pikachu are both bleeding during the climax of their fight with the flock of Spearow, and Ash's Charizard positively mauls Ritchie's during the Creatures Cup.
• Book Ends: In the first scene of Chapter 3, Misty teases Ash for possibly having an interest in her. In the last scene of Chapter 3, Ash and Misty's sisters tease her for possibly having an interest in Ash.
• Bowdlerize: A rare twofold case. Ono actually self-censored part of the manga later in the transition from the CoroCoro Comic magazine to tankobon volumes because he decided that he had made it too risque, and then removed most of the remaining fanservice after Viz received parental complaints about the early English release. Chuang Yi's publication has slightly less censorship than the Viz release and is closer in line with the post-self-censored version.
• Brick Joke: In volume two, Duplica's Ditto does a bad imitation of Ash, but Misty pretends she can't see a difference and uses the opportunity to clobber Ash (who was being a doofus). A gag comic at the start of volume three has another Ditto imitating Ash, equally poorly, but when the impostor pervs on Misty, she actually fails to discern the impostor and clobbers Ash a second time.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • There is only one Nurse Joy and one Officer Jenny, who cameo in the second volume. There are plenty of policewomen and Pokémon Center attendants, but they are all distinct and unique to the manga.
  • Zigzagged with May Oak, Gary's older sister from Pokémon Red and Blue, who was Adapted Out of the Pokémon: The Original Series but appears here as a recurring character.
  • Ash catches a Beedrill, an Oddish, and a Fearow that his anime counterpart did not.
  • The team of agents or mercenaries that work with Sabrina to capture the Black Fog in chapter four.
  • Mimi (Mika in Japan) is a little girl who appears in volume 3, who wants the home-invading Clefairy to take her up to heaven to see her Mama.
• Character Development:
  • After crushing the Pewter Gym, Ash gets a little too smug in front of Misty, who stages her gym challenge with the explicit point of demonstrating that Ash isn't taking things seriously and that his Pokémon don't respect him enough to follow his orders. Ash learns his lesson the hard way, even before Misty launches into "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • Ash goes through a Heroic BSoD following his disastrous match against Richie, on the brink of quitting training entirely, until Misty and Brock snap him out of it. He's vastly more at peace with himself by the time he arrives in the Orange Islands, ready to start anew.
• Chaste Hero: Unusual for this franchise, this trope is averted to hell and back with Ash.
• Chekhov's Gun: In Chapter 3, Ash's Caterpie evolves unexpectedly to Metapod and Misty explains to him that Caterpie are the fastest-evolving pokémon. Metapod evolves to Butterfree later during the same chapter.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Downplayed. When Ash finds Brock at Sabrina's home in Chapter 4, he asks the latter why he's visiting and Brock mentions that he and Sabrina are old friends. When Ash disbelievingly prods him on being Just Friends, Brock breaks down and shamefacedly asks him not to rub it in. At the end of the chapter, Brock gets to hold Sabrina in his arms and comfort her.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Unlike in the anime, where it was formally released, in this manga Ash's Butterfree just randomly disappears after a few chapters.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: Zig-zagged—in Chapter 8, Ash rushes out of his sleeping bag to help Pikachu rescue the other Pikachus from Team Rocket, but forgets to put pants on in the process and spends the rest of the rescue sequence in a T-shirt and boxers. While Misty's reaction to this is played for laughs, the scene that follows is taken rather seriously and Ash remains oblivious to his lack of pants for pretty much the entirety of it.
• Comic-Book Time: Averted, Ash particularly rushed to become a Master because he remembers that vacation time from school isn't unlimited.
• Coming of Age Story: While it is present in the anime, Ash realistically undergoes huge Character Development within this manga.
• Composite Character: Pidgeotto and Fearow are a weird blend of this and Decomposite Character — Fearow ended up replacing Pidgeotto as Ash's main flyer.
• Crippling the Competition: To increase his chances of winning an upcoming Pokémon race, Dario does this to his rival Lara Laramie by spooking her Ponyta, causing it to throw her off and break her arm, leaving her out of the race — until Ash shows up and gets involved. Later, he tries to cripple Ponyta directly by leaving some henchmen with Squirtle, Wartortle, and Blastoise in their path. He nearly succeeded, too, or, well, almost.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Sabrina has a trial match with Ash, in which her Abra outclasses Pikachu literally in it's sleep. As Sabrina explains, Abra being asleep is not actually a limitation in combat.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Chapter 4 introduces the Black Fog, a Haunter that has been gorging itself on human souls for centuries. Several Pokedex entries have flavor text alluding to Haunter as a life-stealer, but this is one of the few adaptations to actually take that depiction seriously.
  • The manga is a lot more explicit about the violence going on in the Pokémon world. Take for example Charizard's disobedience in battle against Ritche. Instead of scaring off Ritchie's Charmander with Flamethrower and then disobediently slacking off soon after, Ash's Charizard go into a fierce battle-frenzy against Ritchie's Charizard; Ritchie's Charizard eventually proves the weaker and nearly dies.
• David Versus Goliath: In the show, Dragonite and Charizard are roughly equal in size with Charizard being less massive. Here, Dragonite is visibly smaller to the point Drake's is less than half the size of Ash's Charizard, leading to a rare example of the trope where the Goliath is the protagonist and underdog.
• Deadpan Snarker: Ash and Misty both have their moments.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • While still prominent characters, Misty and Brock are no longer Ash's constant companions. Brock doesn't sign on until he meets Ash in Saffron City, and Misty doesn't join up until they meet in Fuschia City, and they all go their separate ways after Ash gets his eighth badge.
  • Pidgeotto, one of Ash's most loyal fighters in the anime, leaves in the most anti-climactic manner possible^note Ash attempts to call him out—only for his Pokeball to eject a note that says "I'm beat! Off to get some R&R. Don't forget to write! -Pidgeotto" the same chapter it debuts in and never comes back. Its slot is filled by Ash's Fearow.
  • Jigglypuff only appears in one chapter, as a companion to a human girl named Mimi. Another Jigglypuff appears for two pages in an Orange Island chapter, but that's it.
  • Team Rocket are present and recurring, but they don't appear until the second volume and don't have the personal interest in the twerps like in the original anime — they just have the bad luck to keep running into them.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: In Chapter 4, Ash wakes the Black Fog up by ricocheting pebbles off of its forehead—even more offensively, he very nearly catches it.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Ash can get rather preoccupied with cute female trainers and it's shown that he loves looking at Misty's body in the uncensored version. Of course, with Brock, it goes without saying.
• Driven to Suicide: In one instance, a Pokémon commits suicide. In so far as that kind of Pokémon could — the suicide was the "Black Fog", a giant Haunter that preyed on human souls. It was so proud it preferred death to being captured.
• Early Adaptation Weirdness: The manga deviates much more from the anime than later Comic Book Adaptations. It's also much more Hotter and Sexier than any other adaptation of the series.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference:
  • Technically, Misty never had a static costume design, changing outfits with some relative frequency (she only really got to wear her Iconic Outfit from the anime for the last part of Volume 2 and a chapter or so of Volume 3). For the first half of the manga, she was even depicted with black hair.
  • While Brock didn't have anything very dramatic change, his very first appearance at the beginning of Chapter 2 features him wearing a tank top never seen again.
• Ecchi: In the original Japanese version, the story takes place in a World of Buxom where nearly every woman is gorgeous and many dress in flattering or very little clothing. Not so in the English release, where most of the Fanservice was Bowdlerized.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Black Fog, a colossal, soul-stealing Haunter that lives in the ruins of Lavender Town.
• Fanservice Extra: Misty and Jessie contribute a fair bit of sex appeal to the Japanese release, but most of the Fanservice consists in the fact that nearly every professional woman is wearing a Stripperific uniform.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: Team Rocket in this manga even moreso than in the show!
• Harmless Electrocution: Ash is zapped by Pikachu many times throughout the manga. And each time, he'll have no long-term damage or he'll just have tattered and singed clothes... only to be fine again in the next panel or two.
• Healing Spring: The uncensored Chapter 6 ends with the characters frequenting a hot spring where the waters are loaded with the minerals of Evolution Stones, which are said to heal stiff necks and other ails and maybe even help humans "Evolve". Misty wonders if it will have any effect on her bust.
• Heel–Face Turn: The Team Rocket trio in the fourth and final volume. They put aside their differences with Ash after he gets them lunch and a place to sleep while they were starving and exhausted. They spend the Orange League arc watching from the stands, giving Ash advice, cheer him on in the final battle. In the epilogue they appear to have quit Team Rocket and are last seen delivering a letter to Ash's mom, reading her son's adventures to her, before driving off into the sunset with Jessie visibly pregnant.
• Hot Springs Episode: A brief scene that was entirely cut in the Viz Comics translation (but is retained in Chuang Yi Comic's translation with the addition of Censor Steam effects) in Chapter Six.
• Hotter and Sexier: More so than Pokémon Adventures, in no small part thanks to the fact that the mangaka is also a hentai artist.
  • Misty's new Iconic Outfits are both Stripperiffic. Even the Bowdlerized western version puts her in a skin-tight wetsuit. Her sisters also receive similar flattering outfits.
  • Even after Viz Comic's censoring, many of the cute girls and Pokémon Center nurses are far more shapely and dressed in more flattering manner than in most other Pokémon media.
  • Zigzagged with Jessie in the original Japanese, whose uniform shows less skin than her anime original while her breasts are more pronounced.
  • Sabrina wears a pair of flattering black tights during her appearance early in the manga (which in the Japanese versions appear to be straight-up panty hose) and midway through her chapter is implied to be naked during a medical scene (of course she's also comatose).
• Hurricane of Puns: The nicknames Ash decides to give to his Pokemon.
• Instant Cosplay Surprise: Rudy springs a Fairy Tale Wedding Dress on Misty in volume 4 (it's really just a cardboard cut-out).
• Kissing In A Tree: Brock teases Ash and Misty in the middle of a Belligerent Sexual Tension moment.
• Knight of Cerebus: The Black Fog turns the work from its typical lighthearted Coming of Age Story to a much more serious volume as it's a villain who drains the souls of people making it responsible for dozens of deaths.
• Lap Pillow: Misty did this briefly when Ash finally succumbed to sleep, after weeks separated from Pikachu.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Chapter 2. Misty, seeing that Ash wasn't taking his training seriously, personally steps in to put him in his place and engineers a gym challenge meant to deflate his ego. Once Ash fails Misty's gym challenge, however, the latter immediately goes overboard and subjects him to "The Reason You Suck" Speech, dragging things out long enough for Ash's Metapod to evolve into Butterfree, who immediately turns the tables and allows Ash to succeed at the challenge anyway, followed by Misty trying to stop Pikachu using his favorite food —a rice ball— to distract the Mouse Pokémon from retrieving Ash's hat. Ash retaliates by tossing his Fearow's favorite food —a dumpling covered in soy sauce— onto his hat, allowing the Beak Pokémon to retrieve it, leaving Misty humiliated and furious.
• Lower-Deck Episode: The first chapter of volume 3, which is about Ash's doubting Bulbasaur trying to prove a local Ivysaur wrong about his belief in a Venusaur-god that protects the latter's town. Ash, Misty, and Brock are busy doing part-time jobs so they can have money for the road again.
• Male Gaze:
  • Ash can't help but stare at Misty in her swimwear during Chapter 2 (or her wetsuit, in the localization); in fact, she belts him in the face with a Shellder because he was staring too much.
  • There are also several panels in various chapters that focus on the bust or hips of the extremely attractive Pokémon center nurses before the point of view changes to show that Ash had been fixated on them the whole time. In particular, Chapter Six demonstrates this when Ash barely pays attention to a lecture about evolution stones given by a nurse who was wearing an extremely flattering outfit in the uncensored version.
• Mirror Match: The fight between Ash and Ritchie during the climax of the Creatures Cup. Squirtle and Butterfree are different enough, but they draw after one round. Both boys' Pikachu are also crippled after one attack each. And then there's the Charizard vs. Charizard fiasco.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After the disastrous climax of the Indigo League, Brock and Misty find Ash suffering a Heroic BSoD over his horrible decision to let loose an untrained Charizard in the match.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: During the final moments of his match with Ash, Richie challenges him to a duel between their "secret weapons", which turns into a Charizard-on-Charizard fight that gets quickly out of hand when Ash loses control of his own monster. After a few blows, Ash's Charizard takes the lead and starts to full-on maul Richie's (who can't recall his because his Charizard's "return mechanism" broke). The match doesn't end until Ash recalls his own Charizard... and thereby forfeits.
• Nosebleed: When Ash, Brock and all the other boys see Misty completely in the nude this happens. They also end up drooling and can't seem to stop looking.
• Older Sidekick: Brock in Chapter 4; despite being the older and more experienced traveler, he takes a definite backseat to Ash, who rallies the mercenaries against the Black Fog and confronts the Black Fog first and head-on.
• Outdoor Bath Peeping: In the uncensored manga, Misty takes a Waterfall Shower in the local hotsprings and belatedly discovers Ash, Brock, and Mikey are in the same spring and staring blatantly.
• Precision F-Strike: Even in the English translation, the odd "hell" and "damn" managed to slip by in early issues. Keep in mind, this was a full two decades before Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
• Precocious Crush: Ash has a crush on Gary's sister. At one point Gary exploits this by offering Ash a picture of his sister for his Poké Ball, which contains a giant Slowpoke. Ash is dismayed to find it to be a goofy picture of May with her face stuffed with bean bun. One wonders (not really) what he was hoping to see.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Jessie and James get married at the end of the series, and Jessie is shown to be pregnant. In the anime, their relationship was seemingly platonic.
• Put on a Bus: Pidgeotto leaves Ash to "get some R&R", during his battle with Misty, leaving a note in its Pokéball. It is never seen again.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Misty returns to the Cerulean Gym with the specific purposes of putting Ash in his place for getting too big for his britches, and is only too happy to let him have it when he fails her gym challenge. She drags it on for so long, that Metapod turns into a Butterfree and puts Gyarados to sleep.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Jessie's Arbok, which in this adaptation is a massive beast three times as long as any man is tall.
• Rule of Sexy: Gratuitous fanservice is all over the place in the first three volumes of the manga; it is apparently a rule in Kanto that Pokémon center employees wear Stripperific uniforms.
• Secretly Wealthy: Downplayed. Ash meets Misty when she's dressed in hiking clothes and biking around the wilderness, but the Cerulean Gym—Misty's home—is an immense and fabulous facility with an aquarium built into the ceiling and a gym battlefield the size of an Olympic swimming pool (complete with ice floes, no less). It really blows the beat-up old Pewter Gym out of the water.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: Inverted, Jessie shows very little of her body in comparison to Misty due to having a less revealing outfit than the anime to the point where it doesn't show anything revealing. Misty on the other hand who is one of the main protagonists shows off a lot of skin showing the bottom of her breasts.
• Shipper on Deck: Ash and Misty's relationship is poked at by multiple characters.
  • Misty's sisters suggest Misty is perhaps protesting Ash's win a little too much near the end of Chapter 3.
  • Brock jokes that Ash's constant bickering with Misty is actually impressive flirtation technique in Chapter 7.
• Ship Tease:
  • This comic has Pokéshipping. Lots and lots of Pokéshipping.
    • Ash and Misty start developing Belligerent Sexual Tension as early as Chapter Two, complete with banter, Ash discovering what a knockout figure Misty has, and Misty getting a little too frustrated over losing.
    • When Ash and Brock find Misty in Fuchsia City, Misty is jealous when Ash makes a beeline for her older sisters and puts him in a headlock for his trouble. When Ash lays on the flattery to make it up to her, she pretends not to be moved, but starts sharing food with him.
    • When separation from Pikachu puts Ash through an emotional ringer, Misty is the one who takes care of him, even letting him use her for a Lap Pillow at one point.
    • Ash's hard-won victory at the Orange Islands championships moves Misty to tears, with Jessie nudging her knowingly.
    • The epilogue briefly alludes to a misadventure in which Ash and Misty somehow wind up in the same bath.
  • Parodied with Misty's affection for Mikey in Chapter Seven, who is so Moe In-Universe that her protective instincts come out when he's harassed by his brothers, only to be thrown when they accuse her of being a seductress. This ultimately culminates in a goofy romantic fantasy of Misty and Mikey sharing a Meadow Run.
  • This manga gives Brock and Sabrina an Adaptation Relationship Overhaul by making them Childhood Friends, and Brock gets to hold her in his arms at the end of her chapter when she rushes to him for comfort.
• Shock and Awe: Ash's Pikachu. Richie's Pikachu as well, during the Indigo League arc.
• Shout-Out: Once when Ash names his Pokémon in the Viz translation. "Jean Luc Pikachu", "Felix The Cat-erpie", and "Walter Pidgeotto".
• Sore Loser: Chapter Two depicts Misty engineering some Laser-Guided Karma for Ash to teach him a lesson about training seriously. At the climax, she's riding high on her "The Reason You Suck" Speech when a Deus ex Machina lets Ash turn the tables on her. Humiliated and furious, Misty protests Ash's new badge by insisting that giving badges out to trainers just for getting lucky would ruin the gym's reputation—her sisters, however, have no such problem.
• The Stations of the Canon: Zigzagged. Many events of the comic are lifted or at least informed by the anime, but there are many deviations as well.
  • Ash does a lot of traveling solo (off-screen, to be fair); he has a few run-ins with Brock and Misty before they officially join up with him in Saffron and Fuschia City, respectively, and then they go their separate ways once Ash has his eighth badge. They reconnect briefly at the Indigo League, but Ash remains solo until Misty rejoins him halfway through the Orange Islands arc.
  • Following the main islands saga, he and Gary also apparently do some traveling together as well, with frequent accompaniment from Misty and Richie (and the latter apparently picks up a buxom Love Interest).
  • Ash's Mt. Moon adventure is specifically a detour to catch Clefairy that ends up with Ash being able to participate in one of their tribal ceremonies.
  • Sabrina's anime characterization and arc are completely tossed out in favor of a vaguely Miko-esque version of her who wants to kill an Eldritch Abomination from Lavender Town.
  • Ash's stint at the League is actually one of the most direct adaptations in the manga, especially the matches against Melissa and Richie.
• Stripperiffic: In the first three volumes of the uncensored releases.
  • Nearly all the professionally employed woman—especially the pokémon center attendants and nurses—are wearing Form Fitting Fanservice Costume uniforms.
  • Misty wears Barely-There Swimwear during her gym battle with Ash in chapter 2.
• Stupid Sexy Friend: Downplayed, given Ash and Misty are still merely acquaintances in the first volume. In Chapter 2, Ash tells Misty You're Not My Type, only to learn at the start of their Gym Battle that she's vastly more attractive than he first realized.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After catching the Snorlax who's been gobbling up all the grapefruits on the Grapefruit Islands, Ash is supremely pleased with himself... until he realizes that Snorlax eats up to 800 pounds of food every single day and there's no way he can afford to keep it.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In the original Japanese release, back when the Orange Island attendants were wearing the same Stripperific kind of uniforms as other Pokemon Center attendants, the woman who counseled Ash on how to care for his Lapras was named Ruri. In the censored Japanese version, the Orange Islands attendants are all wearing much more conservative dresses, but the woman who helps Ash is named Kotone. In a piece of Side-Story Bonus Art featuring all the attendants, both Ruri and Kotone show up and are indicated to be twins.
• Tamer and Chaster: While the untranslated manga is notoriously Hotter and Sexier as a whole than anything else in the franchise, the Fanservice and Male Gaze tapers off substantially through the third and fourth volumes. Ono himself got rid of some of the raunchiest stuff when transitioning his work to manga volume format and later removed pretty much the rest of it for the West.
• The Three Faces of Eve: Misty's sisters—with Deadpan Snarker Tomboy Misty in tow, they make a Four-Girl Ensemble.
  • Daisy, the Team Mom, serves as the wife.
  • Violet, The Tease, is the seductress.
  • Lily (most eager of the sisters to confront Ash once he makes his challenge) is a Genki Girl, and thus, the child.
• To Be a Master: Discussed. Ash intends to go professional as a trainer, and Misty lays out some numbers indicating that the process of going and staying pro for more than six months whittles the hopefuls down to a fraction of a fraction of the original pool of rookies for any given year.
• Underboobs: Most of the girls sport these. Misty is the biggest example where almost all of her outfits have this in mind. This showcases the bottom of the breasts of the girls.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Misty and Ash. Slight overlap with Belligerent Sexual Tension as well. (In one side-comic, a Ditto impersonates Ash and proceeds to touch Misty's butt and spy on her in the nude; later, Pikachu tries to warn Ditto that a beaten-up Ash is hunting the little blob down).
• Vague Age: Everyone who is not Ash (10 years old) or Misty (12 years old). For example, Professor Oak is a middle-aged hunk.
• Vapor Wear: In the uncensored original manga, many of the girls are drawn such that they could not possibly be wearing bras. In particular, pre-censorship outfits for Misty show a lot of underboobs.
• Villainous Rescue: Arbok twice in volume three, who cuts short any attempt to fight back against Team Rocket with its Glare.
• Waterfall Shower: In both Japanese versions of the Eevee-centric chapter, there's an epilogue featuring Misty in a mineral-filled hot spring bath (the minerals being bits of Evolution Stone). Misty, who travels with a couple of perverts, proves to be Not So Above It All when she washes her chest beneath a hot spring waterfall in the hopes of getting them to "evolve" before catching Ash, Brock, and Mikey spying on her and streaking off into the night.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Ash's Pidgeotto leaves to "get some R&R" at before Ash's gym battle with Misty, never comes back and is never mentioned again. His slot as a loyal flying type is filled by Fearow.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Rudy decides to put on a dress when his sister gets upset that Misty won't be staying with them (she really wanted an older sister).
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: One chapter in the third volume features Florinda and Potter from the anime Filler — with a much more badass Potter. This version of Potter can leap a hundred feet into the air out of a lake and can do battle with Gyarados. He just happens to have a paralyzing fear of snakes.
• Worldbuilding: This manga added a great deal of depth to the setting that the contemporary anime and games did not.
  • Pokémon are ranked according to rarity, which Ash tries to exploit to boost his Trainer Level, except he only managed to catch Pokemon from the lowest rank.
  • Misty breaks the stats on trainers down for Ash: For every thousand applicants, only two hundred make it far enough to be pros, and out of that batch of pros, only ten can stay active in the league for more than six months.
  • Lavender town is changed to be the ruins of a civilization that used to worship Pokémon and the big Pokémon race in Fuchsia city is actually part of an annual independence festival for a hundred nomad tribes in the area.
  • In the games and even the anime, early gym leaders suffer an Improbable Power Discrepancy—i.e. Gym Leaders encountered early on will be much weaker than basic trainers and monsters encountered midway through the games. In line with a popular piece of fanon, in this series the Gym Leaders do in fact adjust their challenges to suit the challenger. When Ash arrives at Cerulean Gym, Daisy asks if he's planning to compete at the Cascade (2nd) level.
  • Unlike in, say, Pocket Monsters: The Animation, where kids become legal adults at the age of ten, here kids are merely excused from school to go Pokémon hunting once they gain their license, but only for a year.
• World of Buxom: Every female has massive bust sizes in the uncensored manga. Common ones are Jessie who has breasts bigger than her head and Misty who doesn't wear a bra and shows off a lot of Underboobs.
• World of Snark: Ash, Misty, and Brock constantly sass one another, likewise with Jessie, James, and Meowth.
• You Don't Look Like You:
  • Ash's mom has a noticeably different appearance than her anime self, especially with her let-down, lighter hairdo.
  • In Pokémon: The Original Series, Misty's sisters were nearly identical—they all wore long, wavy hair and mini-dresses; the main way to tell them apart was their color palette, with some minor differences in how each's hair fell and the decoration of their dress. In Dengeki, only Daisy keeps the same hairstyle, while Lily and Violet have all-new haircuts to distinguish themselves, and all three are wearing unique outfits.
• Younger Than They Look:
  • Ash is ten-years-old, but outside of panels with gag art he looks (and acts) like a young teen.
  • Misty is stated to be twelve-years-old^note Which is still older than her anime counterpart, where she is actually ten years old, though this was never revealed in the dub, but her attitude, dress, and Adaptational Curves make her seem like an older teen.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: In this continuity, the Dream Eater attack actually sucks out an opponent's soul, which the Black Fog has used on both humans and Pokémon alike for years.

---