Free Comic Friday: Pokemon: I Choose You!

Pokemon: I Choose You!
“I Choose You!”
Story and Art: Ryo Takamisaki
Translation & Adaptation: Emi Louie-Nishikawa
Touch-Up & Lettering: James Gaubatz
Design: John Kim
Editor: Annette Roman

“Pokemon Adventures”
Story: Hidenori Kusaka
Art: Mato
Translation: Kaori Inoue
Miscellaneous Text Adaptation: Ben Costa
Touch-up & Lettering: Wayne Truman
Design: Sean D. Williams
Editor, 1^st Edition: William Flanagan
Editor, Perfect Square Edition: Annette Roman

Published by: Viz Media
Released: May 4, 2019

I've been familiar with the Pokemon franchise for quite a while, but not overly knowledgeable about it. Although the collectible critters have popped up in various pop culture contexts for well over two decades, the reason I'm more aware of them now is the mobile app, Pokemon: The Trading Card Game Pocket.

It's an electronic version of the trading card game I played with my brother many, many years ago, and he's actually the one who suggested I try this out. And, like Heroclix and Marvel SNAP before it, he started playing less and less, while I kept on with it.

I never actually bought Pokemon cards for myself, but I did play a couple of the Gameboy versions extensively in college. Given my affinity for customization, my favorite part was naming the Pokemon. I don't remember a lot of examples, but at some point while I was playing, I was also using “The Usual Suspects” to attempt to understand the textbook by Gilles Deleuze in a film and philosophy class,* so I remember I had a Fearow named McManus, a Magikarp named Fenster and a Bulbosaur named Hockney. Verbal and Keaton were in there somewhere too.

I watched some of the cartoon and at least one of the movies with my brother, though the only detail I vividly recall is Slowking, who could communicate beyond just uttering syllables of his name, standing in a snowy landscape as some potentially earth-shattering event approached, musing that he probably should have worn pants. He's still my favorite Pokemon.

While visiting a friend years later, his daughter, then about 8 or 9, challenged me to a round of the card game. With their guidance, I figured out how to play again and was actually winning, to the point that my Snorlax** was about to secure me a rather one-sided victory. I cut the kid a break and did not attack for one turn... after which she methodically destroyed me.

Other than that, and the delightfully absurd “Detective Pikachu” movie from 2019, my encounters with the game were few and far between until my brother suggested the mobile game, which recently celebrated its first anniversary. I've seen a number of Pokemon I remembered, learned about some new ones and been somewhat impressed that they keep churning these weird little creatures out.

So as I was looking through potential subjects for #FreeComicFriday, a couple Pokemon issues I've snagged over the years caught my eye. I settled on this one from 2019 because the cover features Ho-oh, a legendary Pokemon of whom I pulled four allegedly hard-to-get versions out of five consecutive five-card booster packs in the game. I figured maybe I should learn more about the guy.

But I'll have to do that elsewhere, because he doesn't show up anywhere except the cover.

The first story is an excerpt from an adaptation of 2017's “Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You,” which I have not seen. I did recognize young Pokemon trainer Ask Ketchum and his Pikachu, Pikachu, who does not want to go in a Pokeball. We meet them as they're walking along a road, with Ash trying to figure out how to communicate with this stubborn little critter.

Unsurprisingly, Pikachu does not leap into action when Ash tells him to battle a Pidgey. So Ash decides to capture the bird Pokemon himself by throwing a rock at it, only to have the projectile miss and strike a Spearow, the pre-evolution or basic form of my homage to William Baldwin from all those years ago.

An entire flock of Spearows give chase, and since fighting each other is apparently a natural part of Pokemon existence, they start focusing on Pikachu. Ash defends the grumpy little spark plug, setting the stage, I presume, for their inseperable partnership to come. Finally, Pikachu vaults off his trainer's back and into the sky, unleashing some sort of lightning-based attack before the segment ends.

(The blurb encouraging readers to pick up the full story in the graphic novel adaptation does reference their hunt for Ho-oh.)

Then we get an excerpt from a “Pokemon Adventures” comic featuring a young rookie trainer named Red, who looks an awful lot like Ash, especially in a black and white comic. The text indicates these stories are based more on the video games, where Red is a character and, I've always assumed, the basis for Ash.

Red wanders in to the unlocked lab of Professor Oak, the dude who gives you your first Pokemon and Pokedex in the games I played. He's a bit grumpier than my limited experience recalls, though its rather understandable after Red*** accidentally lets most of his Pokemon escape. Displaying determination and responsibility that surprises the curmudgeonly Oak, Red helps him track down the missing creatures, leading them to the shuttered Viridian City gym, where they're attacked by a wild Machoke, one of the musclebound fighting Pokemon I could recognize even before my foray into the mobile game. A Bulbasaur with whom Red was bonding helps them fight off the creature, KO'ing it once Red correctly guesses the lizard with a flower bulb on its back gets power from sunlight.

Impressed with Red's empathy and intellect, Professor Oak tells him he can keep the Bulbasaur, hands him a Pokedex and sends him on his way to become a great Pokemon trainer.

Ground-floor entries are great choices for Free Comic Book Day issues, but I find the Ash/Red stuff confusing. I might not have chosen these stories, featuring such similar characters in similar circumstances but slightly different continuities. It's kind of like wearing two shades of the same color that are just different enough that they clash. Then again, the folks behind the various Pokemon properties seem to be doing an OK job managing their brand without my tips.

Overall they're decent enough stories, but neither one increased my curiosity about Pokemon lore beyond the casual interest I already have. Then again, I'm a tad older than the target audience. If I was a kid playing Pokemon video or card games and I didn't know much beyond that, this would probably be very appealing.

The issue is read right to left, as in the original Japanese format. It's not the first time I've read a comic like that, but it always throws me off a bit. It's not the turning of the pages; it's remembering that the individual pages flow in the opposite direction that I'm used to. I found the handy guide on the back after I read through it, but I managed.

* - I was mainly there to watch movies for credit, but I had to deal with the philosophy part too.

** - A Pokemon I identify with due to its large size and talent for falling asleep.

*** - Whose name I originally typed as Ash in this sentence.