The Electric Tale of Pikachu Saga (All 4 English Volumes)

This is an early spinoff manga inspired by the Pokemon anime (as opposed to the games). The first chapter was published in Japanese manga magazine CoroCoro, 6 months after the first episode of the anime aired. It follows the loose arc of the show (glossing over large segments) up until the end of the Orange Islands arc.

This is a must have for Pokemon fans, particularly those who enjoyed the anime. It doesn't just copy the plot of the show; the plot greatly diverges at several places and the manga is overall more teenager/young-adult oriented (though the age of the characters remains the same). It not only brings a TON of nostalgic 90's/Early 2000's pop culture references (that western audiences will get), but of all of the Pokemon media, I would say it captures the soul of Pokemon the best. The artwork is amazing and refreshingly different (more gritty in some ways), while the story often poignant, leaving you with memories of what Pokemon meant to YOU when you were a kid. The best way I can put it is that it is very evident that the the author, Toshihiro Ono, was a g reat fan of the franchise, because he just "gets" it. It doesn't come off as something written to best entertain children; it's something written by someone who loved the idea, and took pleasure in writing it.

The volumes are in JPEG format (with no visible compression) around 1100x1600. They are all flatbed scans of pages removed from the bindings, so they are all at the optimum quality for your enjoyment. This is the Viz Media English translation, which was very well done; however one chapter is missing as it was never translated (due to containing a semi-nude scene). Luckily from what I can establish the chapter was mostly filler anyways and wasn't as story driven as the others.

I'll top this off with a request that you PLEASE seed this for as long as you can. It is very hard to get your hands on a digital copy of these (or even a print copy) as it went out of print, and never gained enough western attention to receive further development. Given that the Pokemon franchise has significantly shrunk outside of Japan since the early 2000's, and that the corporations in charge of the franchise (as well as individual rights) have undergone major overhauls/mergers/dissolution, I fear that it's been buried and won't ever be reprinted or continued. I will seed as often as I can, so if you download it and it doesn't make much or any progress, keep it active; you can be sure I'll check back in eventually.

Now without further ado, your journey is about to begin...