So my overall thoughts on the longest story arc is... IT'S THE MOST AMAZING STORY ARC EVER... personally anyways. To sum up my review...
- This is the story arc that Pokemon Adventures starts to fully realize it's identity.
- I refer to Green as Red's Rival and Blue as the female protagonist.
- Gold, Silver and Krystal are a fun bunch.
- The world of Pokemon Adventures is more fully realized at different perspectives. This isn't just Gold, Silver and Krystal's story. Like the Japanese movie title of Pokemon - The Power of Us, this is EVERYONE'S STORY! That's why this story arc is also so long, almost everyone has their side of the story and it is also some of the best fanservice in Pokemon history!
- It continues the non-episodic style of storytelling seen in the Yellow Chapter.
- The humor here is pretty funny.
- Awesome fan-service that enhances the story, not slow it down. For example...
- AMAZING Gym Leader Tournament story-line. It made me realize how badass Mr. Mime could be, it was cool not only seeing the Gym Leaders fight each other, showing off their amazing skills, but also fight together against the invasion of Team Rocket. Yes, all 16 Gym Leaders of Kanto and Johto fighting Team Rocket together! IT IS AMAZING!
- We get an insight on the Gym Leader's lives and jobs hinting that the Gym Leader position is a side-job, years before Pokemon Black and White made full use of this idea.
- Janine's side story is personally my favorite, she's a very interesting character and I would like to see her story have some kind of satisfactory conclusion.
- Outside of the Gym Leader tournament, we get to see Gym leaders working with other Gym Leaders. A great example is Lt. Surge working with Morty to find the two missing Pokedex holders, Gold and Silver.
- Gold is a bad-habited but good-hearted trainer that is willing to help not just friends but strangers in need of help. He's clever, crafty and I freaking love his badass Togepi.
- Silver is an interesting mysterious character with a lot of ties to the villains and Blue. I like Silver's and Blue's relationship together, you can clearly see Silver means a lot to Blue. Blue is usually confident, often thinking that everything will be alright in the end. It's why she rarely worries for Red and Green but here she actually freaks out for some time when Silver, the only childhood friend she could trust under the Mask of Ice's care, get's hurt by Will and Karen.
- Crystal (or Krys for short) is the super serious gal of the bunch! She's a responsible but sweet person who takes her job of catching all the Pokemon of Johto for Prof. Oak quite seriously. She is a badass at capturing Pokemon, each and everyone of her Pokemon suiting to a different tactic for capturing. She's so good at her job that not even Prof. Oak can keep up with studying the Pokemon she's captured.
- I like how Red progresses from the Yellow Chapter. From how he raised Eevee into an Espeon, how he's trying to heal his injury from his battle with the Elite Four to his hilarious reaction to realizing Yellow is a girl. That was so damn funny.
- The Mask of Ice is an intriguing and also tragic villain. He is clever, crafty and what's more interesting is how the writer knows how fans reaction to the Mask of Ice's reason for doing all of this will be somewhat polarized. As the Mask of Ice angrily states, "Something that SMALL!? It may seem "SMALL" to you! But it's been my ONLY REASON TO GO ON LIVING!!!"
- We get a unique insight into a younger Prof. Oak, Agatha, Pryce, Kurt and the Daycare Couple's lives as young trainers not too different from the Pokedex Holders.
- The action is amazing!
- Believe it or not, and I carefully looked into this, but Pokemon Gold, Silver and Crystal arc introduces the FIRST MAJOR CANONIZED SHIPPING!!! PikaChuChu shipping! The shipping between Pikachu and ChuChu and Jasmine, the badass steel Gym Leader, is their captain! Later they have a baby together named Pibu, a Pichu that goes with Gold's team.
- The GS Ball plays a major role in the villains plans.
The Long Review
Honestly I think most fans either think of the GSC chapter as either Pokemon Adventures standout story arc or either the most overrated story arc but with good reason. In fact, like a lot of standout arcs, I believe this is where Pokemon Adventures really starts to form it's own identity, especially in world-building. If you don't know what a standout story arc is, it's usually that one memorable arc that really helps define the rest of a series, such as it's characters, world and how far they've progressed together. In shonen jump manga, normally the big three you'd think of are Dragon Ball, Naruto and One Piece. In Dragon Ball Z, that standout arc would be the memorable Frieza Arc, in Naruto that's the Chunin Exams arc and in something like One Piece I believe that's the Enies Lobby Arc. Even if you haven't read those manga's/ watch those anime's, you may get an idea that these arcs really set an overall amazing standard for the characters and world-building of those series. I believe that the GSC chapter is Pokemon Adventures Frieza Arc, it's standout arc that further defines their characters and worlds with a lot of emotion, action, progression and weight to it that previous arcs couldn't nearly get on the same level. In fact almost every Pokemon Adventures fan I've talked to, even those that do in fact hate or think this arc is boring, likes something amazing about this arc that they couldn't help but talk about. There is much done right in the Pokemon Adventures GSC story arc that a lot of other future story arcs would start to follow.
Our main characters are Gold, the gambling girl-chasing bad habited but good-hearted trainer who is always willing to help a stranger in need of help, Silver the recluse who seeks revenge and Crystal (better known as Krys) a kind-hearted but fairly serious trainer who is giving the task to Gotta Catch Em' All, more specifically all the Pokemon of the Johto region for Prof. Oak. They are all, in my personal opinion, really well-crafted characters who get in some interesting adventures alone and together as the series continues. This story starts out simple actually, it's about Gold trying to catch a thief, Silver, in order to reunite Cyndaquil, a Pokemon he just met, with his friend Totodile. What starts out small eventually grows into massive proportions. In fact the story alone starts an unusual turn at the time that would become a norm of the series in that not a single protagonist has any interest in the Gym Badges. In the games, that is literally the objective but here it isn't. The closest we get is Silver getting badges to bypass the guards at the Pokemon League but he didn't really earned them, rather stole them while the Gym Leaders weren't looking having no interest in participating in the Pokemon League. The Yellow Arc actually did this first with Yellow but for the first time this would be for a story arc modeled after entirely new releases. This type of storytelling where characters aren't interested in the Pokemon League is something that would be more common in the future Pokemon story arcs. So what do we get from this?
For the first time, from this we get to see a much bigger and more realized Pokemon world that Satoshi envisoned from multiple points of views, and not just from Gold, Silver and Krys. In previous arcs, we would often see the points of view from the main characters, rarely from the villain or supporting characters on the view. Here we see all sorts of perspectives that would make the story-line unpredictable in an exciting way. From Red and Green's point of view, we see how big of a deal the Pokemon Association is for the first time, what is the process of becoming a Gym Leader, and the aftermath of the RGB and Y arcs. We also see what Blue was up to, getting over her fear of birds by visiting the legendary birds. Not only that their Pokemon actually advance together with them. We see that Red has freed Eevee from the burden of forced evolution, through the power of friendship Eevee evolves into Espeon. Green on the other hand, his first Pokemon Scyther evolves into a Scizor and he later reveals that this whole time while he was away as a young boy, that he was in Johto training under Chuck, the Fighting Gym Leader of Johto. Meanwhile Blue has obtained a Snubull and is revealed that she plays a major role around many of the mysterious events unfolding in Johto. I suppose you could say these are their Gen 2 Pokemon that represents how much they've progressed over time. As for Yellow, we also get to see Yellow taking care of two Pikachu's, Pika and ChuChu. It's later revealed they are in love and ChuChu gives birth ti a baby, a Pichu named Pibu who joins Gold's Team. We also get a better idea that Yellow seems to have feelings for Red and it's not just her but Misty as well too. Unlike the anime, Misty confesses to herself that she loves Red but similar to Yellow, doesn't ever confess to him directly. This is some huge character development for Misty compared to her rather short appearances previously in the RGB and Y arcs actually.
In fact almost all 16 Gym Leaders here get a lot of character development here.
The Gym Leader in particular that gets the most character development and has an interesting point of view is Janine, the new Kanto Gym Leader of Fuschia City. To this date I have never seen any, if at all, character development for Janine in almost any other adaptation of the Pokemon Gold and Silver games. In fact she's never appeared or mentioned once by the anime in anyway and the manga does an excellent job on explaining how much of a complicated character Janine is. She's a young girl who was taught by Koga, her father, that Team Rocket was her future and a great source of pride. We get to see just how controlling but also somewhat inspiring Team Rocket's Giovanni is and she believed that for a while until Koga left to pursue his own individual freedom away from Team Rocket. She's confused, saddened and angry that her father went missing all these years, left Team Rocket behind. Now she has no guidance or master to follow anymore, left to her own will to follow. You may think, hey, she's her own person now but actually when your a person whose been raised to follow a certain envisioned person or a set of ideals without issue only to be thrown out the door with no guidance, you may not feel happy but rather angry and confused, pondering on what to do with your life and that's what Janine's situation is. She has no clue what to do with her life now, blindly searching for her father, desperately seeking answers and this is a characteristic that she actually relates a lot to Suicune who similarly is looking for a master who can uphold a set of great ideals. They even both part with a smile to each other, knowing how much they are similar together. I really hope in the future that the writer gives Janine an interesting and satisfying conclusion some day.
As for the other Kanto Gym Leaders, we pretty much get an idea that they've been progressing over time, getting stronger.
- Green is the new Viridian Gym Leader of course and seeks to fulfill those duties as right away as possible.
- Brock is kind of just there for Steelix's big reveal.
- Misty is lovesick for Red.
- Surge is investigating Team Rocket all these years, encountering the villain and is searching for the missing Gold and Silver with his trusty iron-tail sidekick, Raichu, who really shows a new fighting style with his sharp blade-like iron-tail, something not really explored a lot in the anime.
- Erika's got a new Bellossom and is even chosen as the Captain of the Kanto Gym Leader team for the amazing Gym Leader Tournament later on in Blaine's place.
- Janine is searching for her father.
- Sabrina shows how freaking badass Mr. Mime can be! Yes, this story arc is so good that it will show you how badass Mr. Mime is.
- Finally we got Blaine who has been entrusted by Red with Mewtwo. Outside of Janine, he's also a highly interesting character who has changed from a cold-hearted Rocket scientist in the RGB arcs to a scientist who is friends with Mewtwo and is willing to protect his friends. As the story progresses, we get to see a badass introduction of Entei as a giant shadowy beast looming over Blaine, his trainer at the time who actually heals away a serious injury relating to Mewtwo.
For the Johto gym leaders, although we don't necessarily see any huge character development like Blaine or Janine, what we do get is an insight into their jobs and lives long before Pokemon Black and White started to fully implement this with all the Gym Leaders.
- Falkner is a Policeman who is trying to live up to the position of the Violet City Gym Leader, a position his father had.
- Bugsy is an archeologist, mistaken for a girl by Gold, as he is exploring the Ruins of Alph
- Whitney is best friends and a co-worker with DJ Mary, a host of the Radio Tower
- Morty is a psychic who is paid to see into people's futures
- Jasmine is a shipper who likes to ship Pokemon at the daycare including Red and Yellow's Pikachu.
- Chuck is the owner of a dojo and is Green's teacher
- Pryce is a mysterious yet seemingly happy old man who loves Pokemon and loves to make ice sculptures
- Finally we got Claire, a dragon tamer who is disappointed with the number of "weak" trainers she absolutely beats while showing some concern for her cousin, Lance of the Elite Four after all these years suspecting Blaine, a former Team Rocket Scientist, to be somehow involved.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg of how much research of the Pokemon games goes into the Pokemon Adventure series.
However Pokemon fans don't just love Pokemon Adventures for it's faithfulness to much of the Pokemon games lore, they love how it's also willing to stray into it's own path, to it's own liberties in diving further in the Pokemon world. Blaine isn't a Team Rocket scientist and isn't involved with Mewtwo in the games but in the manga he is and it's an interesting backstory that we later see again explored in future arcs. As the story progresses,
we get to see more insight on why not only Silver hates Team Rocket so much but how Blue, who went missing since she was five in Pallet Town, is involved in all this. You see it turns out that Blue and Silver are close friends and you can definitely see it on how Blue expresses worry and concern for Silver's health when he's in danger more than any other character. Blue has always been a sly fast-thinking character who seemingly never worries about anything either because she has a plan or she knows many of the character she meets, like Red or Green, are not weak but reliably strong. So it's actually pretty rare to see Blue show great concern over... well anyone. She rarely does because she's usually confident that things will be alright but when she sees Silver lying there hurt, she freaks out. You later realize, and at the story explains, that these two have been close childhood friends who went missing together because of the Mask of Ice, the main villain of the story. It's actually kind of tragic and sad seeing these kids taken away from their parents all these years, not even remembering who their parents were, to be forced to rely on each other, all the more reason why FireRed and LeafGreen's chapter, how it started on how Blue and Silver found freedom away from the Mask of Ice smiling happily together, holding hands with their very first Pokemon, Jiggly and Sneasel, giving me a tear in the eye.
Finally we get to the Mask of Ice. For the fans I've talked to, he's a badass but somewhat polarized villain. Fans seem to think that he is an amazingly crafty and clever villain and they praise him for that. However it's the reason why he did those things is where things get sort of polarized and really, I suppose it's really up to your point of view in the end. So if you kept on reading this review and haven't reached on who the Mask of Ice is,
SPOILER ALERT! The Mask of Ice turns out to be actually quite a tragic villain. As the story progresses it becomes increasingly obvious who the Mask of Ice is, it's Pryce the Gym Leader of Mahogany Town. Pryce seeks the ultimate prize, the GS Ball, a Pokeball that can capture time itself, specifically Celebi. What isn't obvious is how a short old man with a friendly smile who loves Pokemon with all his heart sitting in a wheel chair is able to become this tall looming figure who claims that Pokemon are just weapons. Even if you figured out his identity, you still remain clueless on why? Why is Pryce going this far and it's revealed why, again multiple POVs that help world-build Pokemon Adventures world, through his past with his best friends, Prof. Oak the Pokemon Champion, Agatha of the Elite Four, Kurt the Pokeball Maker, and the unnamed Daycare couple who all look young, alive and cheery and happy as kids. It reminds you of the final picture of Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver and Krystal all happily hanging together on the hillside looking forward to a happy and bright future... however... it isn't a happy and bright future here, at least for Pryce anyways. Pryce wasn't some greedy or power-hungry madman. He becomes a madman later on but at a younger age when he was a kid, he was just a sweet and innocent boy who lost his Lapras's parents to an avalanche. From this, the young boy felt angry, saddened and even became more depressed and isolated from his friends who tried to cheer him up with a song. It's actually quite sweet how Oak, Agatha and the rest of the crew got together to make a song from scratch.
A Boy and his Lapras Song (Original Japanese Lyrics)
Just look from there once more
Look from the place that you returned to
Just let the soft, soft waves
heal your heart so tired from sadness
Just begin to dream once more,
to bring back your 'courage'
And from just that dream,
let the passion you once forgot
into your smile and melt your frozen heart
Yes, on that Friday that I saw you
riding on the back of Laplace
Let your emotion overflow
Just like you did back then
Let me see that shine anew
Let me see that shining you
Just like you did back then
Let me see that smile anew
Let me see that smiling you
In the end however, Pryce pretty much goes mad at this point depending on how you look at it. He seeks the GS Ball to capture Celebi himself, the reason is that he wants to save Lapras's parents and reunite them. Thinking about it, this story is not that different from AZ in Pokemon X and Y, a character some Pokemon Adventure fans think is inspired by Pryce. Like Pryce, AZ is traumatized by the loss of his Pokemon and is willing to do anything to bring it back from the dead, even if it means starting a war and making others miserable in the process. Similar to here, Pryce makes one thing clear. In the VIZ media translation he says to the pursuing Gold, "Oh, and I lied to you about one thing... I told you Pokemon are tools to me but it's not the Pokemon who are tools. It's EVERYONE ELSE!! Everyone I have to use in order to bring back the Pokemon I love!". Some fans think that Pryce doing all of this for the sake of one Pokemon seems kind of ridiculous and the things is,
the writer kind of realizes this kind of thinking and states what you see as small is not necessarily small to other readers or to other characters, as we see how a lot of people thought AZ's story was quite sad but others thought his tragedy was kind of dumb. As Krystal states "That's it!? Of this evil was in the name of something that small!?" The thing is, Pryce not only refutes this, he's absolutely pissed that someone would dare say that his reason is small. As Pryce says, "Something that SMALL!? It may seem "SMALL" to you! But it's been my only reason to GO ON LIVING!!" I thought this was interesting because Pryce's reasons can be seen as either devastatingly tragic or ridiculously small by readers, depending on the readers point of view and the writer seems to even acknowledge this possibility. It's the reason why he's somewhat polarized among fans and Pryce even states it that this is literally his reason for living. I thought that was interesting.
So all in all, that's the world building and characters but it doesn't end there! There's that amazing fan service that the Yellow Chapter did! So if you read the GSC story arc, you'd know by now that this story arc has SO MUCH FAN-SERVICE and yet it actually adds to the story, not slow it down. A lot of manga and anime tends to have this fan-service problem where it slows down the story for the sake of attempting to appeal to fans. Pokemon Adventures however melds this together to it's story. For this case, the fan-service literally makes up some of the major plot points including the major endgame storyline near the end. A great example being the AMAAAAZING Gym Leader Tournament where we get an idea of just how strong these Gym Leaders are and man they do not disappoint. What happens after the Gym Leader Tournament is Team Rocket's Invasion of that Gym Leader Tournament forcing ALL 16 Gym Leaders to work together against this massive onslaught Team Rocket Grunts. It is so amazing! We get to see Misty, Blaine and Surge entrusted with Suicune, Entei and Raikou in action. We get to not only see who the Mask of Ice is but Blue and Silver's past. We get to see Yellow revealing to Red that she is actually a girl and hahaha, Red's look on his face is so damn funny. He has the funniest, "Whut?" look on his face in manga history. It doesn't end there, we get to see Silver punch the chatty Will in his face, not with a Pokemon but with a literal human fist. We get to see Krys befriend and ride Misty's Suicune. We get to see Gold successfully hatch the son of Pika and ChuChu, a Pichu named Pibu who successfully destroys a slenderman-like form of the Mask of Ice. And finally...
...everyone gets a happy ending. The Mask of Ice doesn't lose, he wins. He gets everything he wanted, he saved the Lapras couple from the deadly avalanche and reunited their baby with them. He won and endlessly drifts in the tides of time with a warm smile and tears of joy. Gold reunites with the rest of the Pokedex holders and everyone is alright in the end until Green steps in and tries to arrest Silver as his duty as a Gym Leader. This shocks Blue but Gold, the bad-habited but good-hearted trainer he is, steps in and protects Silver. Green complies and later on in future story arcs, Green and Silver even work together, most notably discovering a new evolution. Blue is going to try to find her parents, Crystal is heading off to work with Prof. Oak, Gold is going to train off with Red and Yellow happily goes back to the Viridian Forest with ChuChu. It's a happy ending for everyone.
