10 Ways The Pokémon Adventures Manga Could Replace The Anime
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Although the Pokémon anime is more popular, the manga is superior in many respects and could even replace the TV series completely.
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The beloved Pokémon franchise is about to turn 25 next month, and its spawned several money-raking series. Obviously, a major focus is the mainline video games, but the TCG and anime have played huge roles in the endurance of the property also. One particular series under the banner of the mega-franchise is the manga series. Pokémon Adventures isn’t as much a household name as the games or eternal anime series, but it has more quietly been making good-quality content.
With different Pokémon series running on multiple different timelines and canons, Adventures follows its own as well but takes some creative liberties that arguably makes it a more compelling story compared to the conventional anime that gets pumped out on a regular schedule. Here are 10 ways Pokémon Adventures could become the new anime.
10 Plenty Of Source Material
A great reason and way for Pokémon Adventures to be adapted into an anime is for a team to take advantage of the vast amount of chapters already out. The amount of source content out could make things easier to map out in a longer-term, and also allow a hypothetical studio to take its time in creating something worthy to air.
The manga has been publishing since the late ’90s and is currently collected in over 50 volumes, so having to improvise and jam in heaps of filler episodes wouldn’t be necessary, nor would individual episodes need to move at a snail’s pace. It would be for the best, as the One Piece anime—after a point—started slowing down the pacing of each episode in order to not catch up to the manga.
9 Following The Style Of The Games
While the anime, games, and manga all follow their own canons, Pokémon Adventures is the closest to following the narrative style of the games. The art used, particularly in earlier arcs, even takes a lot of inspiration from classic Ken Sugimori art for the Pokémon in Kanto and Johto regions. Most of the main characters are close adaptations from the protagonists of the games–like Red and Blue–even though Red looks notably different from Red/Blue/Yellow, FireRed/LeafGreen, etc.
Reading through the Adventures manga captures a lot of the atmosphere and tone of what it feels like to play through the mainline games, even with the creative liberties taken here. Naturally, this makes for an effectively nostalgic read, as if the manga is putting the adventures fans had in the games into book format.
8 Uses JoJo’s Narrative Structure
Definitely two wildly different manga, a creative team could look to the narrative structure and style of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to flesh out the script of an anime adaptation. The current anime has been following a perpetual child in the form of Ash for over two decades, but an Adventures anime, while bringing back older characters, progresses the story to a new protagonist as arcs go by. This is an effective and natural storytelling device as the world of Pokémon is one that follows stories in different regions, each with their own native Pokémon species, and a great excuse to explore new and original characters—as well as bringing back said older fan-favorites—while not beating the same tired characters further into the ground.
It’s much like JoJo having each part follow a new JoJo, but occasionally bringing back former main characters like Joseph and Jotaro in supporting roles to the new protagonist. This would ensure a hypothetical anime’s longevity.
7 Fresh Cast Of Protagonists
Going off the last point a bit, an anime adaptation of some kind for Pokémon Adventures would bring in–to an extent–a more fresh cast of protagonists. As far as the current anime goes, adapting characters like Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, etc. will be a great way to bring protagonists to life who are typically confined to the games.
However, touching on Adventures’ several creative narrative liberties, there are some original characters like Yellow and Emerald that give some fresh faces and new perspectives on top of the almost JoJo-like rotating cast of protagonists through different story arcs.
6 Giving It To Notable Studios
As with any big-name anime production, a capable studio needs to be sought out to craft something special. One studio that comes to mind that’s handled a major and hit anime is Production I.G. The studio recently wrapped up the second cour of the fourth season of Haikyuu!! and continued solid work in the art direction and art style, with having a new style that’s an homage to the manga.
A similar approach to their art direction and style throughout there looks like something that would be at home in a potential Adventures anime. Even more encouraging in having them helm Adventures would be because of their experience working on the Pokémon Origins anime miniseries, which had an art style that’s welcome to the world of Pokémon.
5 Using Origins As Inspiration/Starting Point
Origins could be a catalyst for an adaptation of Adventures either as using it for creative influence, or both that and as a starting point based on the plot points covered there. Origins could be a template for how they could write and adapt the manga arcs as well as how they execute the art direction, while still using influence from the manga’s art—similar to Haikyuu!! season four.
As for using it as a starting point, the creative team could use the story beats from Origins and essentially make an Adventures anime be the fleshed-out version of the former. It could serve as the perfect launchpad for the Red, Green & Blue arc.
4 Selecting Certain Arcs Over Others
If the issue would be long-term commitments, a way to remedy this is getting selective when it comes to which arcs get adapted. Since Pokémon is structured by multiple, individual regions that act like countries or continents, and Adventures anime could pick which arcs to adapt based on what makes most narrative sense and has the most potential.
A no-brainer would be to adapt the Red, Green & Blue, and Yellow arcs to cover the region and characters that started the series off, plus getting to Yellow himself to introduce a more original character, then they could transition to Gold, Silver & Crystal. The team could go from there and just make sure that each season/arc ends in a satisfying manner.
3 Using Unusual Antagonists
A particularly fun creative change done to shake things up differently from the anime and even games is that some of the villains in Pokémon Adventures are the Elite Four themselves. For instance, in the Kanto region, Agatha, the Ghost-type specialist, is outright evil and even recruits some of the other classic E4 members to join her cause.
She even has no qualms with killing, which is one of the things that makes this series weirdly dark by Pokémon standards. Certainly, bold, unconventional takes, using creative plot devices like this could be one of the selling points for these stories.
2 Using Generations/Chronicles As Influences
Similar to Origins, Generations and Chronicles could be used as reference material in terms of how to tell stories more based on the games when writing an adaptation of Adventures, assuming a creative team for an anime chooses to take their own narrative liberties.
Generations is an anime series of short stories highlighting major story events from the mainline games. When it comes to Chronicles, the episodes on Raikou in Johto come to mind and could serve as an example for making something more original that could serve as an Adventures OVA/special, though both could be influences for this.
1 Alternate With The Current Anime
Another way to replace the current anime with Adventures is by not replacing the former outright. Since the anime essentially gets something new yearly, a season or arc of Adventures could release in between those of the current series. This could benefit both, as the manga would finally get its time in the sun, while the conventional series gets more time to cook in the oven.
The final result could be getting two separate series that put out good quality content in their own right—but not exactly needing Adventures to follow a strict, yearly quota.
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