A Glimpse of the Glow

"Whenever I write, I always have this goal in mind: to express in manga form the surprise and wonder that one feels while playing the Pokemon games."

- Hidenori Kusaka

What is Pokespe/Pokemon Adventures?

Pokemon Adventures/Pokemon Special/Pokespe is a manga by Hidenori Kusaka, illustrated by Mato for the first nine volumes, and Satoshi Yamamoto from then on. The story is based on the Pokemon games, with each arc following characters going through the gyms and/or fighting the evil team within their own regions (with some twists). It starts with the RGB arc, following the three titular characters starting their journeys and coming together through rivalries and common enemies. Some subesequent arcs build onto the story of previous arcs, while others are mainly self contained.

My History with Pokespe... Part I

A friend of mine introduced me to Pokespe in middle school, and I immediately fell in love with how the manga made a Pokemon journey feel so real. The variety of personalities created unique adventures that drew me into the Pokemon world much more intensely than I had experienced with other Pokemon media at the time.

I used to read it online and then go out to the bookstore to buy the latest volume. Pokespe even led me to making friends online, having become an admin on a Pokespe fanpage on facebook, and then RPing Pokespe OCs on instagram and kik. Some of the people I met through this remain my closest friends.

My History with Pokespe... Part II

Pokespe being my first online fandom led to me being introduced to a lot of concepts that shaped my journey of self discovery.

The obvious one and the one I think is pretty common among Pokespe fans relates to the various interpretations of Yellow's gender. For context for those people who haven't read Pokespe: Yellow starts their arc in disguise as a boy, and is later revealed to be a girl. I've always liked stories like that, but with Yellow I took it even further, which eventually led to me discovering the concepts of nonbinary genders and genderfluidity. I've seen Yellow interpreted as everything from a tomboy to a crossdresser to nonbinary to genderfluid to bigender. Personally I like a mix of those. I tend use he/she/they pronouns for Yellow, and to me they kind of represent an ideal of gender that I strive for.

The second big concept that I internalized from Pokespe (though it really is central to all of Pokemon media) is the concept of rivalries. Pokespe places a lot of emphasis on rivalries as an essential relationship for those who are seeking growth, and as someone who was always pretty competitive, I fell in love with the idea. I could go on forever about rivals (and maybe I will come back and edit this later with that).

My History with Pokespe... Part III

Pokespe is a huge inspiration for me. I remember teaching myself to draw by tracing panels from the manga (something I continue to do for the edits I have on this page). On top of drawing, the manga's story drove me to start writing as well. I got into roleplaying online because of Pokespe, and created my own stories based on that world. Many of my OCs from my RP days became characters for my current stories (XR - one of the mascots for my website, actually used to be a Jolteon). I truly believe that without Pokespe I would've never had the motivation to develop my creativity and artistic side.

Pokespe Favorites

Here's a bunch of my favorite parts of Pokespe, and what I like about them! These things might change over time as I re-read and change my opinions (Except Bill being my favorite character, I don't think that's gonna change).

Favorite Arc: Ruby & Sapphire

Second Favorite Arc: ???

Third Favorite Arc: ???

Favorite Character: Bill

Favorite Dexholder: Yellow

Favorite Rivalry: Red & Green

Favorite Battle: ???

My Pokespe Bookshelf

I collect physical copies of the Pokespe manga, and I wanted to display them online as well. At some point I'll go through and re-read every volume, and I'll try to add something to say about each one in here. It'll be like a journal for every Pokespe volume.

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Credits/Notes

All art on this page is my own edits of official art and panels from Pokemon Adventures

Obligatory "I'm using Green for the boy (Green Oak) and Blue for the girl" I've gone through phases of different uses of the name but I think I'm settled on this way because it's literally just in their designs (Green has green eyes and Blue has blue eyes, and the eye thing is important to Blue's backstory)