Pokémon Special/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Compared to both the games and the anime, the manga seems to make up and completely rewrite new personalities and motivations for many characters out of the whole cloth, not just the player characters. (Almost the entirety of generation I and to maybe a lesser extent generation II being very good examples; especially Blue, who has the distinction of being the only Blue Oak counterpart who isn't an impulsive Sore Loser with an over-the-top Awesome Ego, and to a lesser extent Silver, who gets his entire character arc replaced with another one, and that's not even getting into the complete and total alignment-flip of the original Elite Four and Pryce. It's also very much there in later generations, like with Shauna). Even their teams get drastically altered, often with around half being shared with their game counterparts and the other half being completely new, if their entire teams aren't overhauled altogether.
    • Adaptational Villainy: Lt. Surge, Koga, Sabrina, and Blaine start off as elite operatives of Team Rocket prior to making a Heel Face Turn. Kanto's Elite Four are a villainous group who seek to Kill All Humans on their home continent, with Lance being an Omnicidal Maniac Arc Villain (he, Lorelei, and Bruno end up reforming but Agatha does not). Mahogany Town's Gym Leader, Pryce, is the insane Big Bad of the Gold, Silver, and Crystal Chapter with a Dark and Troubled Past. Petalburg City Gym Leader Norman is an abusive father to Ruby. Archie and Maxie, and the members on their team, are depicted as crueler, more ruthless and more unhinged people than their game counterparts, with Archie and Maxie not making Heel Face Turns (until the Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Chapter, that is). Rocket Executive Archer goes increasingly more Ax Crazy and Rocket Executive Petrel is turned from Affably Evil Nice Guy to a major Jerkass. N is a colder, more hostile, manipulative, and villainous character despite still being a well meaning Anti-Villain. Colress is more arrogant, nefarious and prone to emotional outbursts. The whole of Team Flare is Darker and Edgier than their game depictions, including Essentia/Emma. Gladion is more of an antagonistic, power-hungry jerk than in the games. Even some of the good Gym Leaders (Misty, Erika, Whitney, Byron, and Volker) and Frontier Brains (Tucker, Darach) Took a Level in Jerkass compared to their original game characterizations.
    • Adaptational Heroism: Giovanni is still an unrepentant villain but his Noble Demon qualities are more pronounced and he's a better, more loving father to his son, Silver. Silver himself isn't ever the Pokemon abusing delinquent Jerkass he was at first in the games. Cyrus actually has a Heel Realization and makes a Heel Face Turn, something that never happened with him in his games of origin. Rocket Executives Arianna and Proton are made into more moral characters than their game counterparts. Sage Zinzolin, while not a pleasant individual, actively turns against Team Plasma and tries to keep Kyurem away from their reach. Anthea and Concodria, through Adaptation Expansion, are working against Team Plasma from within. The Team Flare Scientists (Xerosic, Bryrony, Mable, Celosia, and Aliana) are depicted with more sympathetic, human qualities than their gameverse counterparts. Even AZ is a more clearly noble individual despite his dark, mass murdering past.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: In the English-speaking fandom, the Ruby & Sapphire arc is pretty divisive, particularly due to its Arc Fatigue and rather infamous conclusion, but it's apparently very popular in Japan.
  • Arc Fatigue: The Hoenn and Sinnoh arcs get the most flak for this, especially the former given how the Grodon VS Kyogre chapters go on and on and on, and the story just does not seem to want to end until it finally does.
    • The Black 2/White 2 Chapter started in 2013, around half a year after the games it's based on, but its run immediately ended due to the manga not having enough magazines and the need to promote the XY arc (since Gen VI was already underway). The arc would only continue in 2016, after both XY and ORAS have wrapped up and SM (aka Gen VII) has begun. Only in 2017 did the arc start to show signs of approaching the climax, which would transpire in 2018-2019. Ironic in that the arc itself is a short one.
  • Ass Pull: Ruby had Celebi on him the whole time in Ruby and Sapphire, and he uses it to undo the deaths of several characters. While it did get some brief Foreshadowing, it still feels like a lazy cop-out to not have to any permanent consequences.
  • Base Breaker: Yellow, who's seen as either a perfectly fine character, or a Canon Sue of massive proportions.
    • To a lesser extent, Red. Fans either love him for being the original hero, or hate him because he's a bland and uninteresting Kid Hero compared to everyone else.
    • Blake is a rather controversial character, with fans either disliking or appreciating his cold and arrogant Mr. Perfect personality, and finding his classmate persona either highly amusing or just plain aggravating.
    • Non-Dexholder example: Shana from Kalos. Some find her pessimism, a complete 180 degree flip from her game canon counterpart, to be off-putting. Others find it refreshing and point out that it makes sense given what happened to X and to Vaniville Town.
  • Broken Base: Whether Viz's or Chuang Yi's translation is better.
    • Another frequent discussion topic is whether this manga or the anime is better.
    • Whether the demotion of several important/popular characters not named after the games (such as Wally, Cheren and Bianca) was a good move or not.
    • Whether the Adaptational Villainy of some of the characters is necessary for the plot or off-putting for those who liked their original characterizations. Many people at least agree that the original in-game characters (especially in the first chapter) didn't have much to begin with.
  • Complete Monster: Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius, Big Bad of the Unova saga, keeps his original monster credentials and takes them Up to Eleven, making him come off even worse than his gameverse counterpart. As in the games, he is the true leader of Team Plasma and is thus responsible for all the evil committed by Team Plasma. Posing as a kindly and benevolent individual who seeks Pokemon liberation from trainers, he is in truth a habitually sadistic, self serving, narcissistic sociopath who seeks to disarm all trainers and exploit the power Pokemon possess so that he can become ruler of the Unova region and from there Take Over the World. To accomplish this, he raised his son N in an isolated environment and groomed him to be The Hero of legend by giving him a false view of the reality of humans and Pokemon, making him believe his Pokemon friends needed to be freed from the captivity of trainers, but Ghetsis actually planned to enslave all Pokemon for himself, and had no love for N as his son, viewing him only as a usable and ultimately disposable "decoration" for his Evil Plan. He also used Mind Control to violate other humans' minds and make them release their beloved Pokémon companions, and it's heavily suggested that he's used this on N too in order to obscure conflicting ideas from his mind. On his orders, Team Plasma steals Pokemon from trainers under the ruse of liberation, with his loyal servants, the Shadow Triad, also nearly killing three Legendary Pokemon and abducting three other Legendary Pokemon to be used as test subjects. Ghetsis reveals his true colors when he has his team attack Unova's League Tournament site and place many spectators in harm's way, capturing six of Unova's Gym Leaders to have them beaten down and tied to crosses as a show of his team's power, even getting the one resilient Gym Leader to submit by threatening the life of an innocent hostage, trying to have his Hydreigon kill Black on the spot and then when some trainers stand against him, ordering to have them all killed to make further examples of them. When he faces Black in battle, Ghetsis attempts to kill the boy in order to keep him silent and conceal the truth of N's defeat from the public by sending out a team of Pokémon specifically trained to counter Black's team so that they cannot protect him and then having Black burned alive by flames created by Hydreigon and brought to life by Volcarona, even stating this would kill Black's Pokémon too! When Ghetsis loses the battle, he uses Beheeyem to send Black hurled towards Reshiram as it was reverting back to it's dormant state so that Black ends up sealed inside the Light Stone, while he uses Black and White's distress as an opportunity to escape, cruelly mocking them as he does so. Two years later, Ghetsis captures the legendary Kyurem, has it put into a power amplification and extraction device that tortures it and enslaves it's mind, and uses it's freezing power as a destructive Freeze Ray to decimate many cities, freezing populated areas solid and endangering countless lives, with many likely perishing in Team Plasma's terrorist attacks. Ghetsis planned to put the entire continent on ice in order to extort total control from it's leaders, and when N and some other young trainers try to stop him, he forcibly uses the DNA Splicers on Kyurem and Zekrom in order to boost Kyurem's power and then orders Black Kyurem to attack his opponents directly, being even willing to kill his own son without shame after having used him as a Living Battery for Kyurem along with Zekrom. Even when Kyurem is freed of it's fusion with Zekrom and fuses with Reshiram instead to fight against Ghetsis, Ghetsis refuses to yield and goes down in a mad homicidal rage against his son and all the young trainers who oppose him, unrepentant to the very end. Seeing all Pokémon and fellow humans as tools for his use and thinking so little of their lives that he'd do them harm in a most casual manner with a pleasant grin on his face, Ghetsis sought to dominate everything in his path and relished all the ways he could make others suffer in the process.
    • Sird of Team Galactic most likely qualifies as this. She's first seen working undercover as a member of Team Rocket's Beast Trio in the FireRed and LeafGreen arc, and unlike her comrades she is shown to commit atrocities For the Evulz, culminating in her attempting to petrify Deoxys with an attack from her Darkrai only for it to end up hitting the five young dexholders Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, and Silver, turning them to stone. Sird showed no remorse for this and even took satisfaction in it. We later find out that she ended up saving Archie and Maxie from certain doom only to make the two men duel to the death for a special armor that grants eternal life to whoever wears it. Archie ended up murdering Maxie for the armor, an act of evil that Sird flat out commended. However, it turned out that if the armor was to be removed, it would drain the life from the one wearing it and kill them, which ended up happening to Archie at the end of the Emerald arc. In the Diamond and Pearl arc, Sird reveals her fixation on the Poke'Dex, which is so great that she hijacked Charon's Mind Control program to override one Galactic grunt's mind with her own, effectively brainwashing him into doing her bidding and trying to steal a Poke'Dex from Dia, Pearl, or Platinum - an end to which he'd attempt anything, even risking the three kids' lives in the process. If her latter appearances are any indication, Sird is a Hidden Agenda Villain with probable Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. According to Riley, her aura is one of pure malevolence and evil.
    • The Masked Man from the G/S/C Chapter seems to qualify, what with him abducting six different children and raising them to be molded into his followers, brainwashing many members of Team Rocket with Mind Control masks, having no compunction with threatening to kill anyone in his way (even threatening the life of a small child in order to get something from her grandfather), risking bringing about the death of the entire planet through a Time Crash, and being an emotionless madman who claims that Pokemon are only useful as tools and weapons. It's majorly averted in the end, with both the characters and the reader realizing he's just an insane but miserable and lonely old man who does love Pokemon and is motivated by a desire to make things right for his Lapras, but has become a Misanthrope Supreme due to holding his pain and grief in for years.
      • Similarly to the above there's Cyrus in the D/P/PL Chapter, an emotionally shut off Omnicidal Maniac who seems so monstrously evil and utterly detached from humanity but only because he's a deeply disturbed man who had rejected the concept of human spirit due to his Freudian Excuse. When seeing emotion, willpower, and intelligence united together to defeat him, he realizes how wrong he's been all along and has a change of heart afterward.
      • Cyrus' ex-crony Charon subverts it only because, despite being characterized as a cynical, greedy, utterly self-serving old sociopath with little to no redeeming features, he lacks the capability to pull off any of his heinous plots.
  • Counterpart Comparison: The manga is commonly compared to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure recently due to the overuse of kanji words in a scene (notably some of them are the same to the Menacing symbols from JoJo) as well as the fact that the protagonists change all the time after every part and that there is a large amount of Gorn.
  • Crack Pairing: Many, many ships in this fandom.
  • Demoted to Extra: To an extent, Cheren and Bianca in the Black and White arc. In a way, the two titular main characters even take on their Character Development arcs from the games. Subverted by the Black 2 and White 2 arc, in which Cheren becomes a regularly appearing character.
  • Downer Ending: The conclusion of the FRLG arc. The next arc rectifies it, though.
    • Similarly, the conclusion of the BW arc, until the following arc's resolution rectifies it.
  • Easily Forgiven: Team Galactic. Easy to understand with Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter because they were misled all along (by both Cyrus and Charon), but Dia pretty easily forgives Cyrus for trying to kill them once he finds out he's made a Heel Face Turn. Subverted with Charon, though; all his cowardly attempts to weasel forgiveness out of anyone ends with his comeuppance.
  • Ending Fatigue: See Arc Fatigue. Once Groudon and Kyogre begin their battle, the climax of the Ruby and Sapphire arc goes on, and on, and on...
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Blaine and Mewtwo in the first arc, Norman in Hoenn.
    • Wally for awakening a legendary and whom Took a Level in Badass. Also there are fans who wish he took Emerald's spot as the main character in the Battle Frontier.
    • Leo, the Youngster/Pokemaniac cross who makes it to the Unova quarterfinals, thanks to his adorable appearance and his awesome pants.
    • Mimi and Zuzu, Ruby's Milotic and Swampert respectively, are also very popular.
  • First Installment Wins: An official poll conducted in 2005 saw Red, the first protagonist, voted as the most popular character in the series. In second was Yellow, the second protagonist, who at the time of the poll had not made an appearance in years.
    • The latest human and Pokemon poll shows Red topping yet again (with Gold, Ruby, and Yellow ranking 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, respectively) , while Pika tops the poll for the Pokemon.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In the American Pokémon community, this is pretty much THE popular Pokémon manga. In Japan, not quite so much; sure, it's popular enough to have lasted as long as it has, but THE popular Pokémon manga there is the Gag Series Pocket Monsters, of which the American base is not all that fond. Admittedly, it may help that the vast majority of other Pokémon manga end up under No Export for You.
  • Growing the Beard: The manga really started to hit its stride in the second volume with the introduction of Green, the expansion on Team Rockets' plans, and the first glimpse at Mewtwo. Then it really took off in the following volume with the raid on Silph Co.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • The RS arc was chosen via poll to be re-released in wide-ban format. The arc whose legendaries had nature-based abilities and used them to wreak havoc on the region. Cue the horrific earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan right afterward. The aforementioned Tohoku Earthquake caused the publisher to postpone the release of second and third volume of wide-ban format.
    • When fans first saw the image of White trapped in the Nimbasa Ferris Wheel with N, there were a lot of rape jokes going around. When the following chapter came out, what N did to White is arguably one of the biggest tear jerkers in the entire series. It was even called a G-rated version of the Netorare Genre.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: So much that it's almost more prophetic than hilarious.
    • In the Yellow arc, there's a flashback of Oak's Kangaskhan beating one of Agatha's ghosts with a Dizzy Punch, which should be a total cop out seeing how Normal moves don't affect Ghosts. Now about a decade later in the newer games, Kangaskhan is given the ability Scrappy...which allows Normal (and Fighting) attacks to hit Ghost types.
    • The new "critical captures" feature in the Black and White games sound a lot like capture spots.
    • So, you dress up as a Rocket member to infiltrate their base, only to have your cover blown because your disguise was ripped off by the thief who stole one of the professor's Starter Pokemon. Special did it long before the HGSS games were released.
    • Zapmolcuno is finished off by a Blastoise, Charizard, and Venusaur simultaneously using their strongest attacks. It's the Triple Finish!
    • In the GSC arc, Misty ends up fighting Suicune in a cave behind Tohjo Falls. Turns out there really is a cave there in the game canon...
    • Eusine's Electrode can fly around with the power of electric currents. Gen 4 introduces Magnet Rise [1].
    • The manga started FatherlyShipping in the GSC arc. Hilariously enough, rather than having Falkner and Janine respect each other over their mutual daddy issues, the HGSS games took it into the other direction.
    • In Pokemon Platinum, you get the chance to purchase an insanely expensive villa and furnish it with insanely expensive furniture. Good thing that the lead character of the corresponding arc was conveniently already established to be insanely rich.
    • A green jewel meant to control Rayquaza...Emerald had one on his forehead before the HGSS games came up with the concept.
    • It took five generations for Game Freak to have the Gym Leaders more involved with the plot, have secondary jobs, and have them directly oppose the evil villainous team. It took only one for this manga, which told this sort of story since it's first arc.
      • Similarly, the third generation introduced the plot element of Well-Intentioned Extremist or Knight Templar villains planning to use the powers of a Legendary Pokemon to create a "new world". Again, it took only one for this manga, with the Elite Four having this sort of plot in the second arc.
    • Black's Munna clearing his head is a reference to the C-Gear. There is now a Munna C-Gear skin available.
    • In the GSC arc, some Rocket grunts fill a Spider Web with electricity. Gen 5 introduces the move Electroweb.
    • In the Platinum arc, Caitlin's personal Pokemon is a Gallade. As it turns out in the BW games, she is a master of psychic Pokemon.
    • The confirmation of the World Tournament showcasing the Gym Leaders and Champions in BW 2... yep, Poke Spe already called it in the GSC arc.
    • N gives his Servine to White. In Black 2 and White 2, it's possible to catch N's Pokemon.
    • Being able to rent Pokemon actors in showbiz in Black 2 and White 2? Looks like the BW Agency will have a new source of revenue...
    • A trainer with the ability to read the hearts of Pokemon and hear their inner voices tries to separate humans and Pokemon through the power of a legendary Pokemon. Now, is that game universe N, or this manga's version of Lance? (The sole difference is that N isn't murderous about it.)
      • A psychotic Evil Redhead Misanthrope Supreme Omnicidal Maniac who attempts to use the power of a legendary Pokemon to eradicate humanity from both his homeland and the world, sparing only select elite trainers who would rule over the new world he'd create. Is that Lysandre from X and Y or this manga's version of Lance?
    • Pryce pointed out that each of the major villains wanted something for their goal. For Giovanni, it was possessions (matter), for Lance, it was a Pokemon utopia (space), and for him, it was to go back in time. Come Pokémon Diamond and Pearl with Dialga (master of time), Palkia (master of space), and Giratina (master of antimatter). This comes full circle in the HeartGold and SoulSilver Chapter , where each former villain fights their respective dragon).
    • In the first part of the RBG Chapter, Green steals her Squirtle from Professor Oak. Come Generation II, game Silver does the exact same thing. Naturally, this was tied into the story in Generation II, possibly being what started the idea of them having a Like Brother and Sister relationship and Dark and Troubled Past together.
    • Kusaka and Yamamoto went to France. A month later, Generation VI was announced and the Kalos region is based on France.
    • Most readers found Ruby scaring away a wild Salamence, an intimidating pseudo-legendary, with just a Poochyena, Ralts, and a Skitty to be a bit far-fetched. Then Gen VI came out and introduced a new Fairy type amongst a select group of Pokemon, with the Ralts line being one of them. Fairy types are super effective against Dragon types. Salamence is a Dragon type. This scene holds much more water now. Likewise, Gold's Togepi takes down a Tyranitar and a Dragonite, both weak against its' Fairy-type.
    • It is noted that Emerald's Pokemon are extremely affectionate towards him and go out of their way to please him. In two different battles, Sudowoodo barely survives an attack that should've taken it out and Sceptile breaks free of the "frozen" status on its own. Both of these instances are now possible in-game via Pokemon-Amie, which works through affection.
    • Viz called the climatic battle of Hoenn "The Beginning and the End with Groudon and Kyogre". The Ruby and Sapphire remakes are called Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (The last and first letters of the Greek alphabet, respectively. Beginning and End).
    • Gurkinn states that the Tower of Mastery holds secrets to the Mythical Pokemon Diancie. A week later, Coro Coro reveals that Diancie has a Mega Evolution.
    • In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Primal Kyogre is several times larger than regular Kyogre and its body composition now matches that of seawater. In the Emerald chapter, Guile Hideout uses Jirachi to wish up a monstrously-large fake Kyogre made out of seawater.
    • In the Ruby and Sapphire chapter, a shard of the Meteorite plays a vital role in the final battle of Hoenn. Come the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire games, a Meteorite Shard is a Key Item is needed for a different but equally important part.
      • Even better, Ruby theorized that the energy contained in the meteor shards could be used to pacify Groudon and Kyogre. As it so happens, Rayquaza eats meteors to power its Mega Evolution, with which it can completely shut down the abilities of Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre. In the Delta Episode, the legend told by the Draconids even states that the wind created by Delta Stream stripped them of the natural energy necessary to power their Primal Reversions and sent them to slumber.
    • Team Magma's hideout is nothing more than a cave, Maxie is sometimes shown drinking, and the him and Three Fires often snarked but clearly looked out for each other. Team Aqua had a snazzier hideout, Archie was the trusted head of the TV station, and he and the SSS ultimately ditched each other. In the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire games, this is all but reversed; Team Magma are modeled after scientists and are personally indifferent to each other, while Team Aqua look like pirates and clearly treat each other like family.
    • The Ruby and Sapphire chapter ended with the main characters being send to an alternate timeline where everyone survived the final battle, then the games Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and Sun and Moon made the concept of alternate timelines canon.
    • In the Ruby and Sapphire chapter's backstory, a Salamence trashed a lab, resulting in Rayquaza's escape. In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, there is a new character called Zinnia that owns a Salamence and is related to Rayquaza. This was even tied together in when Adventures got to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
    • In the FRLG chapter, Mewtwo splits the physical manifestation of its psychic powers, its spoon, into pieces to fire onto its opponent. Gen 5 gives Mewtwo a new signature move, Psystrike, which uses its special attack to deal physical damage. The XY chapter shows the move again, this time explicitly calling it by name.
    • The Sun and Moon series of the anime has a Trainer School setting. The manga did this first with the B2W2 arc.
    • Yamamoto tweeted that he modeled Moon after Bae Doona's character from the movie The Host. She's well known in the west for her role in the Netflix show Sense8, where she plays a character named Sun.
    • Very early in the finale of the frist arc, we have Professor Oak disguising himself as a boxer for his participation in the Pokemon league. Fast forward to Sun and Moon, a certain Professor has a wrestler like persona for the Battle Royale.
  • Hype Backlash: It's very rare, but it happens occasionally as a result of its common perception as the "official" manga or the one and only manga, and the fact that is greatly overshadows the other manga in the fandom's eyes. Of course, the reason it overshadows the other manga is that most of them never get released outside of Japan as well as not being long enough to warrant much discussion.
  • Internet Backdraft: The Blue/Green switching has turned into this as there are some fans who prefer the original names and there are others who prefer the dub ones, making discussions about those two characters confusing at times. And naming the female character "Leaf" is generally not a good idea, as they claim that said name is not used in this adaptation.
  • Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Really a lot. (SpecialShipping, OldRivalShipping, etc.)
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Green has been shipped with Red, Blue, Silver, Sabrina, and even Yellow.
    • Despite Yellow's obvious crush on Red, fans have shipped her with many, many other characters, including those who have yet to appear!
      • How has Red not been mentioned yet? He's been paired with EVERYONE.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Kusaka seems fond of this trope for his villains:
    • Giovanni manipulated nearly every event in the first Chapter of the manga and can predict how a battle will turn out, what moves his opponent will make, how to counter-attack, AND the time it will take for it all to happen, all with a suaveness, dignity, and imposing demeanor of a Diabolical Mastermind Yakuza boss. Given he's been a trainer for YEARS, and wrote THE BOOK on Ground types & his Viridian powers, though his has not been explained, it makes sense, and makes him a poster-boy for this trope.
    • Lance of the Elite Four, whose plan to wipe out humanity while eliminating all opposition that could stand against him is very nearly successful, and at the tail end of it he even manages to outplay Giovanni himself!
    • Green also demonstrates aspects of this, despite being a heroine; she manipulates nearly every event in the second arc by setting Yellow on her quest and telling her never to remove her hat-- which she bugs with a GPS beacon and recording device. "I've been... um... using Yellow as my learning aid!" She eventually becomes a Guile Hero.
    • The Masked Man / Pryce of the Gold, Silver, and Crystal Chapter, whose plan was years in the making and came just an inch of success in the end.
    • Team Galactic's Cyrus also qualifies; through careful planning, series of tactical diversions, and sheer determination, Cyrus manages to stay one step ahead of the heroes and succeeds in capturing the Lake Guardians, harnessing their power to create the Red Chains. When the second one was incomplete due to the Guardians' escaping, Cyrus had a weaker artificially-created Red Chain as a substitute. With the Red Chains, Cyrus takes control over Dialga and Palkia, forcing them to fight each other. The resulting clash will tear apart the Space-Time continuum, allowing Cyrus to create his "complete" world in its wake. Upon his defeat, Cyrus begins to see the error of his ways and later returns to assist the Dex Holders in taking down the traitorous Charon. Cyrus then departs alongside his loyal commanders to lands unknown, commending the Dex Holders for their noble and "complete" hearts.
    • Ghetsis in the Black & White arc has some serious credentials for magnificence too, being a Crazy Prepared Manipulative Bastard and The Chessmaster extraordinaire who actually subverts his game counterpart's Smug Snake status in the BW Chapter, having planned everything out well in advance (including his fallback scheme) and never losing his composure, ending his role in the arc not through a Villainous Breakdown but by trapping The Hero in the Light Stone and getting away scot-free.
    • Colress in the B2/W2 Chapter, who manages to stay one step ahead of the law while wreaking terrible destruction upon Unova, all while remaining perversely likable in his eccentric manchild attitude.
    • Lysandre of the XY/Z Chapter is also a strong qualifier. Like Giovanni and Cyrus he's suave, intelligent, stylish and ruthless, and like Ghetsis, has a back-up plan that he launches immediately once his initial master plan fails.
  • Memetic Mutation: It's quite popular on pixiv to take a scene from the manga and render it anime-style.
    • Medleys are also popular on niconico, usually with fans (as the characters) singing original lyrics.
    • Fans have no doubt in their minds that the author, Hidenori Kusaka, can see into the future. That, or he may just have a Celebi.
  • Moe: Yellow should definitely count.
    • Many a Dia fan has stated that he is the personification of adorableness.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • While the Elite Four's plan for human genocide is horrific on it's own, Agatha's part in it is especially bad because she has no good reason for it - she simply desires greatness and to prove the supremacy of strong Pokemon trained by elite trainers in order to spite Professor Oak. She also gleefully expresses her desire to see both Oak and his grandson Blue dead.
    • What the Mask of Ice did to all the children he kidnapped put him on the line. Threatening the life of Kurt's granddaughter in order to make him comply with his commands sent him soaring over it into practically irredeemable territory. This is actually made tragic when it's learned that all this is done because Pryce cannot let go of a past tragedy and desperately wants to reunite his Lapras'. When the plan fails, even Pryce seems to find himself unforgivable, briefly attempting to kill himself before Celebi prevents it
    • Archie crosses it when he murders Maxie in order to claim the Guile Hideout armor. Well, at least we think he did. They Never Found the Body. But he probably did, as during the ORAS arc, they say that they were both transported to the Distortion World - which basically mean they died - and managed to escape during Giritina's rampage in the Platinum arc, after which they gain new bodies and act as The Atoners for their past sins.
    • Sird crossed the horizon when she had her Darkrai turn the four Kanto trainers plus Silver into stone and left them there for dead.
    • Cyrus' plan to tear the entire universe apart through a time/space distortion and then recreate it but devoid of spirit counts or would've had it not been stopped and Cyrus not subsequently learned the error of his ways, as does Charon and Giratina nearly killing Dia.
    • To many readers, N crossed it when he manipulated White's Tepig, Gigi, into abandoning it's trainer and going with him to get stronger in battle rather than performing for the BW Agency, and both he and Gigi show no concern as White fell off the Ferris Wheel and slips into a coma. (It doesn't help that this felt very out-of-character for N given his gameverse character, who's not a Manipulative Bastard and hates seeing Pokemon getting hurt in battle!)
    • Ghetsis, being the habitual Dog Kicker that he is, has crossed the line several times over. His original Moral Event Horizon plans from the games are still here, but on top of that he has six Unova Gym Leaders captured, beaten up/tortured, and hung up on crosses in order to make a statement of Team Plasma's superiorty, and then tries to have his Hydregion kill Black with fire on the spot. When normal trainers interfere and stand up to Team Plasma, he orders for them to be killed too! Then when he and Black face off, he unleashes a team specially formed and trained to counter Black's team so that he can render Black defenseless and then murder him and his Pokemon via burning alive in order to cover up N's defeat. But the ultimate kicker is what happens after the battle - Ghetsis has Beheeyem thrust Black towards Reshiram as it's reverting back into the light stone so that Black and his Pokemon get sealed inside the stone as well! Purely out of spite and sadism!
    • While Ghetsis and Team Plasma as a whole go further over the line with freezing Castelia City and many other cities in Unova, Colress' part in it deserves special mention, as Kyurem is tortured inside of his machine and put under Mind Control thanks to his science, and he's positively gleeful at the results of the freezing and is excited at the possibility of freezing more targeted locations. If that wasn't enough, he personally tries to have Blake, Whitley and their Pokemon killed by turning Kyurem on them, freezing their bodies that he then orders to be dumped off the Plasma Frigate and into the sea below.
    • If Lysandre's part in the destruction of Vaniville Town didn't immediately put him far over the line, locking Emma's expansion suit and forcing her to fight 'til it almost gets her killed most certainly does.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • The Pokémon Tower sequence, featuring zombie Pokémon and Blue's Charmeleon cutting an Arbok in half (though you find out later that it lived...)
      • The bit from Arbok's Pokédex description stating that it could survive and regenerate as long as it still had its head was confirmed canon in the Yellow chapter.
    • Blaine's Mewtwo cancer. His skin is literally bubbling and melting off, and from the RGB arc to the GSC one, the cancer spreads from his forearm all the way to his chest.
    • Red in the Yellow arc getting beaten to a pulp, falling off a large hole and getting frozen alive.
    • Green's hand getting cut off during her battle with Lorelei which later reveals to be her Ditto transforming as a fake hand.
    • The infamous conclusion to the FRLG arc.
    • The artist said that he was a fan of monster and horror movies, and that he wanted to incorporate as much of it as possible in the final battle of the RS arc; it shows.
    • Maxie setting Norman's corpse on fire during the final battle of the RS, right for Ruby to see. Can you imagine how Ruby felt, having already seen his father die in his arms?
    • Some of the villains in general. Giovanni having his Cloyster freeze and kill two Magmar early on. Pryce's insanity, masked supervillain identity, and brainwashing of his followers. Archie and Maxie's ruthlessness and descent into total madness. Cyrus and his cold, sinister glares. And Arceus, where to even begin with Ghetsis and Lysandre?
    • Team Plasma freezing Castelia City. Entire skyscrapers are frozen solid like Popsicles, and civilians are seen getting frozen alive in the streets, with so much frost and slush on them that they resemble snow people rather than actual human beings. Arceus only knows how much of the city's large population, either on the streets or in the buildings, perished in this horrifying terrorist attack...
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses/What Measure Is a Non-Badass?: There are those who bash White for being a Neutral Female and not being an Action Girl like her predecessors. Never mind that:
    • 1) There's still plenty of time for her to grow into an Action Girl. After all, Yellow knew even less about Pokemon training when she started out.
    • 2) She has a full-time job that doesn't leave her room for Pokemon training, nor does her job require it.
    • 3) Said job involves running her own business. When she actually does decide that she needs to learn how to fight, she actually has to suspend her agency.
    • And all this ends up a moot point anyway, since she does become a very competent Action Girl by the end.
  • The Scrappy: Yellow and Emerald attract the most ire from fans. Especially the latter; the former being more of a Base Breaker.
    • Sird is one of the least popular villains in the series due to being seen as a poorly written Hidden Agenda Villain Sue whose actions make her a walking Diabolus Ex Machina and whose involvement in the plot has gone absolutely nowhere.
    • On the Pokemon front, White's Tepig, Gigi, seems to be the most reviled Mon in the series. Many fans will probably never forgive her for ditching her trainer and then showing no concern as said trainer falls from the top of a Ferris wheel and slips into a coma.
  • Shared Universe: The regions from the Pokémon Ranger series also exist in the PokéSpe-verse, although the manga for it only exists online.
  • Shipping: There is a fandom for the shipping aspect. The shipping index applies here.
  • Ship Tease: Arguably Wallace and Winona.
    • There's also Ruby/Sapphire, Ruby/Courtney, Green/Silver, Blue/Green, Gold/Crystal, Silver/Crystal, Red/Yellow, Silver/Yellow and Red/Misty.
    • The Sinnoh trio gets a lot with each other in their arcs. OT3, anyone?
    • As of now, it's probably safe to say that every single member of the 4 Power Trios has had notable moments with each other.
    • Don't forget Bill and Daisy, which is quite nearly canon.
    • White admits to herself that she finds Black to be pretty cool within two days of meeting him.
      • When White goes missing, Black spends the whole night looking for her, and, upon meeting the person who he thinks is responsible for her disappearance, immediately sics his entire team on said person.
      • The train scene. Oh boy the train scene.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Despite the shipping fandom being peaceful in general, small breaks happen every now and then. Blue/Green and Green/Silver shippers in particular are quite bitter enemies. And the less said about the ongoing Dia/Platinum vs. Pearl/Platinum debate, the better.
    • Most N/White shippers tend to have quite a bit of flak to launch at Black/White shippers, and vice-versa. A bit ironic, really, since the game-verse ship (FerrisWheelShipping) comes from the ever-famous ferris wheel scene, while in the manga, that scene is probably one of the biggest Tear Jerker moments in the series, with White losing Bubu to N and falling a good dozen feet to the ground, landing on her back/side. Unsurprisingly, said scene hasn't halted the shippers even slightly.
  • Signature Scene: One of the most memorable moment in the manga early on is Koga's Arbok getting chopped in half, establishing the manga's darker atmosphere.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Throughout the events of the Ruby and Sapphire arc, Wally was heavily foreshadowed to become the next Dex holder for Emerald. Unfortunately, when Emerald arc finally came around, a new character was created, and Wally was quietly pushed to the side, to the disappointment of many a fan.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Manga based on the first two Pokémon Ranger games done by Kusaka are made canon with the Diamond, Pearl and Platinum storyline. Pokémon Colosseum, despite having a manga and being ideal for Kusaka's Darker and Edgier treatment, has not been given this treatment.
  • Toy Ship: The most canon romance with the Dex holders so far is Ruby/Sapphire, through a Slap Slap Kiss relationship. But they're only kids.
    • More tellingly, if two kids are willing to change themselves due to a traumatic event from long ago where they blame themselves for hurting the other, all for someone they'd just met, you do have to wonder just what drives them.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Pryce, aka the Masked Man. The reader is clearly supposed to find him sympathetic since he lost his two Lapras to a freak accident, and it's made obvious that he truly cares about his Pokémon in general. That doesn't really justify kidnapping children to be forced to work for him, brainwashing a group of criminals, funding a program that forces evolution (which is implied to be painful), attempting to murder 2 minors, and risking a Time Crash of the entire planet. He can easily come across as a huge Jerkass because of all the things he did just to reunite with them instead of just accepting a loss that wasn't really his (or anyone else's) fault, or even trying to go about it in a less extreme manner, but he never learned to cope and it drove him mad. The only mitigating factors are that one chapter shows that he does care about the children he captured but due to his frigid emotional state he can't express this except in ice sculptures, and that he seems to feel guilty about all that he's done, as he attempts to strangle himself after it appears to have all been for nothing.
  • Values Dissonance: Norman and Giovanni are good fathers?
    • The latter in particular is Hilarious in Hindsight because HGSS games show that Giovanni was a complete asshole to his kid! He may or may not have loved his son but that doesn't change the fact that he walked out on him.
      • Except in this canon, that didn't happen, as Giovanni was only separated from his kid because his son was kidnapped by Pryce. Then he spent ten years trying to track him down. This version of Giovanni may still be a terrible person, but he's a much better father.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Thanks to his long red hair, there's hardly a reader who hasn't mistaken Silver for a girl upon seeing him for the first time. In-story, Gold mistakes Bugsy, the Azalea Town gym leader, for a girl when meeting him.
  • Villain Sue: Arguably Sird, who has had in a hand in pretty much everything evil since she debuted, has survived things she realistically should not have been able to live through, and has never been defeated in battle as of yet. For a while it even seemed as though had psychic powers to petrify people or control peoples' minds somehow, too, but it was later explained that it was her Darkrai and her hijacking Charon's Mind Control system for one Galactic Grunt's mind respectively.
    • N shows signs of being one too, being portrayed as almost all knowing when it comes to Pokemon, able to break people's spirits with a simple Hannibal Lecture and make things go his way. It's subverted at the very end when he's revealed to be nothing more than a disposable brainwashed pawn in his father's evil scheme.
    • Zinnia in the Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire arc pulls a similar subversion. She's shown to have secretly influenced much of Team Aqua and Team Magma's actions in the original Ruby and Sapphire arc, as well as having been responsible for Ruby and Sapphire's childhood trauma due to it being her Salamence that caused the incident, and being seemingly unbeatable as a trainer....but then she turns out to not be the Chosen One she believes herself to be and she nearly gets killed by Rayquaaza as a consequence, her injury being so great that she can't even mount it in order to fight Deoxys in space. She owns up to her mistakes and makes a Heel Face Turn afterwards.
  • Woolseyism: Viz switching Green and Blue's names around may be this seeing as Red and Blue were the original games to come out in the US.
    • During GSC, Gold faces the Sprout Tower's sages. In the Japanese original, they have punny names; this is kept in Chuang Yi's version, but Viz played it for game accuracy and the pun was lost.
    • When the Gym Leaders are introduced during the Pokemon League, Lt. Surge is referred as "The Lightning Soldier" rather than his official game title, "The Lightning American", because we're not sure if America exists in this canon.
    • At the end of the GSC arc, rather than editing out the image of Gold patting Green's butt, Viz made Gold claim it was an accident. Since Gold's face still indicates him doing it on purpose, it works by making him seem like he was making excuses for himself.
    • Dia and Pearl's pun-based manzai skits are different in every translation, for obvious reasons.
    • In the Viz release, the main characters are named Blake and Whitley, rather than the Japanese names of Lack-Two and Whi-Two, which work fine for Japanese...not so much for English.
  • The Woobie: All of the kids qualify on at least one point of their stories.
  1. ↑ Interestingly, no current Dex entries at the time said anything about it being able to fly, but a future one did
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