Pocket Monsters Special

Dogasu's Backpack | Manga Guide | Pocket Monsters Special


The very first volume (left) and the newest volume (right)

Welcome to the Pocket Monsters Special page of the Manga section!

Pocket Monsters Special (ポケットモンスターSPECIAL) began publication in Japan in 1997. The series follows the plots of each main series game and features characters and concepts not found in many other adaptations of the games' stories. It is one of the longest running and most popular Pocket Monsters manga series.

The series has a confusing release history in Japan. Different chapters are printed in different magazines in the same month, often out of order. These chapters are eventually put in the correct order for the graphic novel releases, which usually don't come out until at least a year later. Regardless, fans of the series continue to try to piece the story together because of their love of its writing and the way it handles the material from the games.

The series is being released in the U.S. under the title Pokémon Adventures. It was first released in 1999 in single comic book issues that were later collected in graphic novels. Viz kept this up for seven volumes before canceling the series in 2003 with the end of the Yellow arc. In 2006, Viz released two "best of" volumes, presumably as a test run to see if there was still interest in Pokémon manga.

Three years later, Viz started a new release of the series, starting over from the first volume. This re-release was unflipped and included translations of the extra material that had been skipped over in the first printings. It also featured slightly more strict editing. After Viz finished the Gold and Silver storyline, they decided to jump ahead to the Diamond & Pearl storyline, renaming the title Pokémon Adventures Diamond and Pearl Platinum and presenting it as a new series. At around the same time, the company began to release graphic novels from the Black and White storylines under the title Pokémon Black and White. They would later return to the Ruby & Sapphire storyline, picking up where they left off with the volume numbering. Their collection of stories from the HeartGold & SoulSilver era however, started the volume numbering back at one.