POCKET MONSTERS SPECIAL: RUBY & SAPPHIRE

DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

MANGA ActionPocket Monsters SPECIAL: Gold, Silver & Crystal
MANGA ActionPocket Monsters SPECIAL
MANGA ActionPocket Monsters SPECIAL: FireRed & LeafGreen

REVIEWS

• 

  TheSoggyCrisp

  70/100
  How to Destroy a Masterpiece!

  I still haven't gotten over this silly little arc in a silly little manga. It's embarrassing how much I've thought about it. But here I am once again now as a review voicing my full thoughts on this hell of a ride. My thoughts are pretty simple for this arc. If you've read it which I'm assuming you have if you are reading this then you know the pain of reading this arc. The reason? Well through about I want to say 98% of this arc its absolutely amazing. It evolves all the aspects I loved about the previous arcs while offering a refreshing experience that truly makes me appreciate this arc. It was easily going to be my favourite arc in my favourite, a part of the pokemon brand I would not soon forget. And then... The ending happened. I really wish I could just ignore the ending and place the crown on this arc as the best in adventures but... That's simply impossible. How do I even review the rest of the arc? All I have are positives, it was incredible. Ruby and Sapphire are the greatest pair of protagonists this manga has to offer and their journey in two parts is fun without any signs of slow down or contrivances. It is a great adaption of the wacky story of team magma and aqua and is fool of fun, shocking and heartfelt moments previous arcs could only dream of having. But as is true for everything, the start and end of a story is what's most important. Those two points are what we remember most about a given story and the mind fuck of an ending we are given for this arc is almost comically bad. I'm sure I don't need to tell you why its so bad. Ignoring all consquences, all drama, a bs plot device. It all appears like the workings of a shitty fanfiction yet its what we were given. I don't care how much you tell me Ruby having Celebi was foreshadowed... It came out of nowhere and drop kicked the great story we had till it was in the hospital with so many brushes it looked like a... Ok maybe that's a bit too much but this wasn't good. I would honestly rather they didn't kill characters, they didn't create such an intense conclusion because at least then we would still have a decent arc but instead we have a great 98% of the story ruined by a plot device out of this world bad. So while I still consider this arc my third favourite in the manga I still can't help but be saddened at what could have been. I don't know why we got what we got. Maybe it was a lack of faith in their audience, outside creative meddling. But at least I can say excluding the ending this arc is the most consistent part of the adventures manga. Maybe having that ending was the curse needed to have such a great story all before it. I'm still hoping through the story arcs I still haven't read that I haven't already reached the peak of this inventive onlook into the world of pokemon.

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• 

  Sabotower

  85/100
  A fun journey with only a few slip-ups

  I'm going to do this backwards and start with the ending, since that is what I know people have issues with. Yeah, the Celebi thing is stupid and you lose a lot of the stakes with the concept of reversing time (but also not reversing time since they still win?) Really, a lot of the finale feels super weird and rushed, with a lot of plot points being rammed into a short period of time (Regi trio, Rayquaza, etc.). So with all of my issues about the ending, why is this score so high, especially compared to Gold, Silver, and Crystal? Well, my biggest issue with GSC was the character dynamics being really lacking, and here the characters are so much better. Ruby and Sapphire are great characters that play off each other very well but are also entertaining enough to spend time by themselves without it being boring. That being said, every time Ruby and Sapphire are on the page together I found myself having a big dumb grin on my face. Even though the story is pretty simple, it is carried by Ruby and Sapphire's characters and the other fun characters that make up the rest of the cast so the entire experience it is just so much fun. I found the ending absurd but I don't think it sullied my experience too much because the way it ends isn't even about that. So many of the arcs so far end with the defeat of the villain, but here most of the final chapter is about the conclusion of Ruby and Sapphire's journey (as I'm writing this I have finished up to Gen 4 so some of the future arcs do actually take this up, like Emerald for example). But I really can't gush enough about Ruby and Sapphire as characters, they are so entertaining and have really distinct personalities, as opposed to Gen 2 where it was just a worse version of the Gen 1 dynamic. I think that only having two main characters really helps the story, as does the length of the arc. I hate that I am so negative on GSC, but it really does help me express my point. In that arc, Gold and Silver play off each other for a good bit, and Gold and Crystal have a bit of time together, but Silver and Crystal hardly interact until the end and Crystal spends so long not even being aware of the other two trainers. In Ruby and Sapphire, it is them being together or them being apart, and those were the main dynamics, which allowed for those dynamics to be better fleshed out. Both Ruby and Sapphire grow substantially in the story because of one another and that helps sell them working together in their final battle, as opposed to in Gen 2 where they just end up together in the end and then decide to work together. Basically what this word vomit comes down to is "Great arc, dumb ending, still great anyways."

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• 

  kempokid

  83/100
  A single, horrifically glaring flaw isn't enough to stop this being the best arc yet

  Pokemon Adventures is a manga series that seems to largely revolve around incremental improvements to its formula, with each new arc largely refining the concepts of previous ones, with Yellow bringing a more structured narrative to the table, and Gold, Silver, Crystal representing an increase in both scope and its characters and now Ruby and Sapphire deciding to alter its storytelling approach to feel more like an expanded take on the games rather than something completely separate. No longer will you see gym leaders being aligned with the evil masterminds and other similar plot developments, and yet, it all makes sense. The first two generations of Pokemon games had very little narrative to speak of beyond broad concepts of some evil guys and wanting to be the champion, but from this game forward, there ended up being a bigger focus on telling a more traditional narrative to go along with what the games already went into. All this is to say, this is the most faithful adaptation yet, but it's also really great and still keeps the same tradition of past arcs where there are a ton of ideas that get massively expanded upon, it just happens that this time they're closer to the source material. I think one of the best things that this arc ends up doing is being able to better structure the idea of multiple plotlines jumping around, with there essentially once again being 2 interweaving plotlines with the protagonists. The kicker is that this time it's paced in such a way where both stories feel as if they get equal focus put upon them at an even rate, so while it can be a bit slower at points, it feels like a constant flow of buildup and intrigue that manages to culminate in a satisfying collision between everything that's being juggled.

  I think that the characters are handled pretty well as well this time around, feeling far more powerfully self-motivated compared to just following the plot arbitrarily, with their actions and dynamics with one another feeling like natural results of their characters as opposed to the outside force of the writer simply willing them to do things for the sake of plot convenience. that's not to say that there aren't any instances of this of course, as there are a lot of issues that get solved through total coincidence, and the grand finale is handled in the most obnoxiously copout way imaginable, but the journey up to that point is played excellently and the decision doesn't really undermine anything other than the raw narrative itself, with none of the thematic weight being lost in the process at all. If the Pokemon Adventures manga continues this trend of feeling closer to an amped up game storyline from now on, count me in if this is what can be done with it, everything feels bigger and more exciting here, so many cool moments, fun scenes and incredible stakes can be felt here that truly makes each and every threat feel mountainous, and I love that one of the comfiest series out there to me is able to have such a high quality adaptation.

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