Pokémon SPECIAL Images

Pokemon SPECIAL/ADVENTURES (Often abbreviated to ‘Pokespe’) is one of Pokemon’s most popular, official manga franchises. It is written by Hidenori Kusaka and was illustrated originally by Mato until health issues had caused her to retire from illustrating for the series. Satoshi Yamamato has filled her place since.

The series focuses on characters called ‘Dexholders’ -characters loosely based off of the rivals and protagonists from the main-line game series (With the exception being Emerald and Yellow). The series swaps protagonists as each game comes out and each arc wraps up; though many protagonists make cameos or help new characters out from time-to-time.

Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokemon franchise, has heavily praised the manga series, claiming it captures his original vision of the world perfectly. Though the target for the manga is for a younger audience, it is often brought up in the Pokemon fandom for having darker themes than the anime and games at times.

Because the protagonists are treated as individual characters and have personality and physical differences from their game counterparts, they will now be tagged with their proper character tags.

• Zerochan