I'm Lauren From Legends of S.H.I.E.L.D. a Marvel Universe fan show part of the Gunny Geek Network. Just like the show you're checking out now, shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others. Find other incredible geeky shows at GunnagNetwork, Do Sam.
And welcome to Play Comics, where once again, we are looking at a video game based on a comic property and how well it represents that source material. And today I'm here with somebody who used to work at my local shop and doesn't now, but you kind of seen him around on the website, I hope. A little bit, because remember those Connor picks we used to have from that evil guy who worked at a store who would make me spend money? I know you do, because you're Connor. Also, you're not evil at all.
Well, I gave all the Peach Momoko variants and Gwen stuff to somebody else first, I'm sure, and then I liked you. Well, great to be here. I hope we don't run into a wild Gwen Stacy while we're talking about Pokemon.
So I do have a council of Gwens on my desk because that is what I have decided is the name for a group of Gwen Stacy's, especially when they are Earth 65 Spider Gwen.
Okay. I mean, that tracks. I'm assuming they're all the Gwens from that miniseries of her multiversal selves.
It's a lot of different Gwens.
Okay, okay, okay.
It's pretty nice. And it's fitting that we're talking here about a term of venery here, which is the fancy word that I learned for groups of animals. And because we are here looking at Pokemon, Fire red and leaf green. Connor, I've kind of been sitting around waiting for somebody to ask me about doing Pokemon. And surprisingly, like, almost 200 regular episodes into the show, you are the first person to ask me about doing Pokemon and actually follow up with it.
Well, I'm honored.
I'm shocked that it took this long. But here we are, we're looking at Pokemon. And what was it that really sucked you into the Pokemon fandom?
You know, it's a toss up between whether or not it was the Pokemon diamond, which is my first ever mobile game at all. We went to a Walmart one sunny afternoon. I think it was 2007. I got a DS Lite and a copy of Pokemon Diamond. And then I don't know if that came first or the trading cards did, but both those together were pretty much my entire hobby for middle school. And it just stuck since then.
And now I am crumbling into dust because my first Pokemon was Red and Blue. Knew when it came out.
Hey, I will say this, though. I'm one of those weird guys that once I get the the newest game of the franchise, I do get the newer one. But I actually will first go back and try to get as many of the older stuff as I can as well. Because, you know, with that DSLite, they have that GBA slot in the bottom. So, I mean, Firered was my next Pokemon game after that, a little bit farther away from Red and Blue, but it's still further back, I think three.
Years, 2004, FireRed and LeafGreen are just a really kind of weird spot because you're essentially taking Red and Blue and modernizing them, but also fixing things and also adding things that were never in there in the first place. And we'll come back to all of that, but really, just like, was there any chance of you growing up when you grew up and not being into Pokemon?
It is highly likely because before that was Star wars and the Star wars mania when I was growing up was the prequels. I grew up on that because a lot of kids from 2010 to 2015 didn't really have a trilogy to go with. I mean, prequels was my thing. So first Star wars movie I saw in theaters was Revenge of the Sith. So that was highly likely something that could have overcome Pokemon. But I would say a good gap that got me into Pokemon was that bridge that is called Avatar the Last Airbender. And I was watching the crap out of Clone wars and stuff. And so when Avatar Last Airbender came on, I think it was around 2006, 2007, that was a gateway just drug essentially to anime, because it is technically almost an anime, or you can define it as anything you like.
But yeah, well, this is taking a turn that I was not expecting at all.
Well, we can't talk about Avatar the Last Airbender because while they do have video games about it, I don't think the comics really influenced. And most of the comics came out in the last decade or so. So it's. They're more new than the original source material. At this point, this man's blinking his eyes away like I have no clue what this man is talking about. Avatar has comics.
I know that they exist, and I know that my wife has a few of the free comic book day ones. And that is about it.
They're surprisingly, really well done and they follow canon. I would say pretty well done as well. But I mean, working at A comic book store. It's all tactile. I just absorb everything just by sitting there. So I have garnered way too much information in that area than I need to.
I mean, some would argue that you've gathered the proper amount of information because you get to come on this show and talk about Pokemon.
Definitely. I mean, mixed with that. And then I think before I even got into comics, I was Star Wars Pokemon, but also retro video game systems. So, I mean, that's where we clicked. Man, I still wish I had my Dreamcast.
We'll talk about that later. What's been your experience with the Pokemon comics and manga?
I don't know when it originally started, but it definitely started after I was playing diamond in Fire Red, and I just picked up the manga randomly at a local Barnes and Nobles or something. And as a kid, you just pick up what you can. So it was definitely out of order when I was first introduced to it, but it gave an actual story to what was going on in those games. And while there is a story going on in those games, there is. It's the basic RPG battle turn style, just game itself. It's got some dialogue, it's got some locations, it's got some character names, and it's got a pretty basic plot to get you to the end game. But other than that, there wasn't really any backstory to anything. It was all just little tidbits that they add in, like, oh, we went to this island and it has an abandoned mansion. You find that, oh, they were researching a Pokemon called Mew, and that's pretty much as deep as they go, which.
Seems to be pretty close to what you get in the anime, which is really what a lot of my Pokemon knowledge comes from. And, like, I can't do the entire Pokemon rap anymore.
Why not?
Because it's been a very long time since I've actually watched Pokemon.
Amen. It's in your soul. You don't have to watch it to remember it. Come on, let's hear it. Come on.
Also, I'm old, and things have left my brain.
Okay, okay, we'll. We'll let it slide. We'll give you this once next time I see at the store. I won't let it slide.
Oh, God, please don't let it be tomorrow.
No, you're good. I came in today, so I won't be there until Saturday.
All right, good.
You're safe. This week, you come in late, so. I'm never there late. I'm around lunchtime.
For me, the Pokemon anime, like, was the super ultimate thing to be watching. Like, we would get in trouble all the time at school for drawing Pokemon. We had this class storybook where things that we had written throughout the year got laminated and spiral bound and put in a book. And our teacher was trying to, like, get this one kid to stop drawing Pokemon on the COVID and eventually realized that she didn't really have a good reason to stop it because one of the stories that somebody had written had Pokemon in it. And so, you know, he's actually drawing things that are in the book that we all put together.
I mean, yeah, those coloring books. And I mean, the manga that was coming out as well. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, manga is really easy to trace compared to regular American comic books and all that. They put a lot more detail into their characters and the design themselves. And I mean, that's not true of all manga. But for Pokemon manga especially, that was a easy thing to trace. And I mean, even the anime that was quite easy to trace as well. So, I mean, I'm a victim of that too. I used to draw Pokemon a lot in school as well. So.
Doesn't end there in manga, just by the nature of being black and white like it is. You don't have to worry so much about, oh, no, what's this thing poking through the page? I can't really tell. It's either there or it's not.
Yeah. And the best thing about that manga is that the game itself is a battle turn system. So there is a lot of fighting and a lot of action scenes in that. So the backgrounds are basically just. I don't know the word for those. Like, oh, they should. They do squiggles on the side. It makes it look they're coming in fast or stuff like that. And it's just simple and easy. I mean, the backgrounds are usually simple and easy because, I mean, so are the pixels that you populated in that game when it came out.
So were you sucked into the movies as well or what? Because I know my little brother definitely had us go into the movie so he could get that Mewtwo card.
Unfortunately, I got into Pokemon a little too late. So that was around the 2007, 2008 era. So the movies weren't as then because, I mean, come on, when the first Pokemon movie came out, people were going crazy in theaters nowadays. They went crazy at home when you watch it on your DVR after you get that late one night on the Cartoon Network show. And I mean, the Pokemon movies are great. I remember the Latios Latios one where they're in a city that is not in any of the games and it's Basically just a third version of Venice, Italy. That is my all time favorite Pokemon movie is that one. I forget what it's called. It's like Pokemon 2000 something. I don't think they had a name for it or it could have been Pokemon. Latios Latios. Did you watch that one?
I didn't.
Disappointed. I know it probably doesn't. Yeah, it probably doesn't hold up to time now. It's been good couple of. It's been about two decades since I've seen it though.
Well we're gonna go think about how much time has passed and then try to forget about that because it's making us sad. While I dropped some promos for a few other show.
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Those are some great things to check out, but first let's finish up here. So Connor, what's really bringing us here today Is Pokemon Firered and Leaf Green, a pair of games that were released in September of 2004 over here in North America. Made by Game Freak and the Pokemon Company, published by Nintendo. Basically these games needed no introduction. When they came out, Pokemon was still in its big old craze. And when this came out, it was very obvious that they were coming in and just saying, hey, here's Red and Blue. And we fixed up a bunch of stuff and made it play like how it would be if the game was made now.
Yeah, I mean Firered and Leaf Green is near the end of the GBA timeline. And they were like, hey, we've never remade Pokemon. We've always essentially released two games different colors and then we do a third that's kind of a combination of the previous two. But we've never remade those two games. So Fire Red and leafgreen were born out of Pokemon Blue and Red or the Japanese version red and Green. But yeah, no, they were highly enhanced. We got color for not the first time, but it was color for the first time in the Kanto region. The Johto region still wasn't in color till 2010. And then we just got the Hoenn Gen 3 games with Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald that were hot alpha that streak. And everybody's like, let's just cool our jets. The DS is coming out. We're going to go back and just redo the Kanto region. The good old days. I mean it had been what, so 2004. The original games came out in 96 in Japan, so probably 98 in America.
That seems about right because I was in third grade.
Okay, so I mean, gosh, that's six, seven years. That's due time for a remake. I mean with their hot on the trails because making 150 new Pokemon almost each game for two years, that's a lot of work. So you can go back and just do just an update. Add in some new story elements from a certain manga that I've read. Why not?
And this game was made on the engine of that gen 3 Pokemon. So you got a bunch of stuff that had been fixed up. You got some type changes in there between the originals in here. You got some glitches fixed up. A few things were tweaked around that, you know, probably didn't really matter. But oh no, Nintendo had a freak out moment. So I mean, no more jugglers dropping balls and stuff.
Hey man, the best part about playing that game is that I got running shoes. I didn't have to walk everywhere. Now were they red? You would think you'd be able to see your shoes, but. Well, there's that opening screen where you introduce to your. You either pick your character between a boy and a girl. I think you were able to see your shoes, but that's before running shoes, so who can tell?
Well, if you're really fast, then they were probably red. But if you feel like you could have been faster, then I'll bet that they were not red.
Okay. Unfortunately, you couldn't catch a blue hedgehog in this game, so.
So maybe they were one of those browns that are kind of red leaning, but not actually red.
I mean, it's possible. I mean, later in the DS era, you can definitely see your feet even on your little sprite there. But they were probably red. I'll give it to you. Especially if you picked the boy character because it's. I guess he's supposed to be called red if you want. Or at least that's how the manga set it up. And then when you face spoiler Alert in the Gen 2 games, you actually face your previous character you played in the last game as the ultimate boss of the end game. It's a.
This is what I get for playing Gen1 Pokemon and then basically stopping.
I'm gonna be honest with you. I never played the original Gen 2, so I've never played Silver, Gold or Crystal. I played Heartgold and Soulsilver when they came out their remakes in 2010. So I'm still not entirely sure because in the remakes you could go to the entirety of Kanto after you defeat the Johto region. So you could go back to Gen 1, that whole area. I don't know if you could do those in the original Gen 2s, but I do know in the original Gen 2, after you beat all of Kanto. Whack. Sorry. After you beat all of Johto and the Pokemon League, you can go up to Mount Silver, I believe it's called, and your previous character that you played in the past game is your final boss. And you can do that in the remakes as well. But they added the whole Kanto region as well, which was a nice surprise.
See, that's pretty cool and something that I feel like, even though I haven't played a bunch of the newer Pokemon games, I know that they're still bringing in things from the older ones and little. I mean, little nods to it, if nothing else. But you never really fully get rid of those old Pokemon. You just have to spread them out more because there's like 900 Pokemon now. And I'm not even joking about that number at all.
Yeah, I stopped playing or picking up the main games in 2012. I think that's when they released Black and White. I picked those up and then I pretty much stopped after that because keeping up, like you said, with the new Pokemon, each that came out with like over 100 each time, that was a lot to keep track of. And you phased out of that Pokemon anime. I would say on main. My case, it was pretty quick. I phased out of that. I think I watched maybe like four or five seasons and I was pretty much done.
I hung around for longer than I probably would have on my own. But a lot of that was because I have a brother who's six years younger than me, and so he would want to keep watching it. And I've watched him with him because. Why not?
Yeah. And when. I mean the five to six seasons, it was whatever I was. It was the current season. And then five to six, I definitely went back and tried to watch all the ones before then. I don't think I got all the movies, but I will tell you, the movies were pretty much my highlight while watching that anime. That Darkrai one was definitely one of my favorites.
And I can't believe somehow we've gone through this whole time without really saying the, like the plot of Pokemon. You're a 10 year old who is thrown out into the wild, wild world with nothing but your backpack and one Pokemon that I hope you pick the right one for because you have to go fight everybody, including adults who know what they're doing.
You know everybody's going to pick Charmander as soon as they start this game. Let's be honest.
I. Okay, so.
Oh, did you pick Charmander? No. What was your first playthrough? Don't lie to me.
My first playthrough I picked. Picked Squirtle.
Okay, that was me too.
And my second playthrough. By then, my brother had got. I had blue. So by then my brother had gotten red. And we decided that he was going to keep starting his game over again and again and again so that we could both have all three starters because he would just trade them to me and then start his game over.
You. You. You were lucky. I didn't have anybody to trade with. I never finished that Pokedex.
Oh, we still didn't. But at least we had all the starters.
That's fair. I mean, I still have blue, yellow, and then I have whatever the local game shop gave me. It's like the one in 365 on the GBA. So I have like 365 games on there. And then I have emulators as well. Can't afford to keep up with those 80 to $100 cartridges anymore.
My days of finding good things at the flea market dried up one cold, wet winter morning when I decided I just didn't want to get out of bed.
You can preach there. I picked up. I didn't even realize how crazy things got in 2020. But I remember going to the flea market. I think 2008, 2009. I picked up a pack of Pokemon cards from their first base set from 1999. Do you know how much a pack of those cards go for?
Sealed $69.
More. Closer to like 500 and up. What? Yeah, I mean, the first set of Pokemon cards, just a sealed booster pack of. I think it's either 10 or 11 cards. I. I mean, people could definitely quote me wrong here, but I've seen sales for people with the booster boxes where, you know, the stores would get a box of like 50 packs and they would open it up and it's like little display. They flip over and they sell them out of that. People sell those booster boxes for well over hundreds of thousands of them. It's just that collectible market has just exploded along with video games.
That is ridiculous. And I'm so glad that I don't go out to the flea market anymore now because I don't think I could handle it.
Yeah, there's a lot of people that. They bring out all of that collectible stuff and they're like, we know what the prices are. And then they gouge it up a little too high than what they're supposed to be. Or market. At least. Should we get into some of the manga?
We should. Because this is. My brain is just completely exploding from. I knew things had gotten bad with retro games. I didn't realize they were quite this bad.
Oh, do you want me to look up how much a Dreamcast costs now?
No, because we will discuss that later.
Okay. So, yeah, the Pokemon manga originally came out either. I don't remember if it was the year of or the year after. Oh, sorry. March 1997 is when the Pokemon manga officially started. It was written by. I am definitely going to butcher these names. Hide Nori Kusaka and illustrated the first nine volumes by Mato. And then volumes 10 and up. Satoshi Yamamoto. Essentially. I think it was like every three volumes would be centered around a certain game. The first three were red and blue and green. The next Three were yellow. I think they did a little bit more for gold, Crystal, and Silver. And then they did the Hoenn region, which is Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby. And then finally they rounded it out with leafgreen, Firered, Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. And then they did separate volumes, not continuing the number system for every other game after that.
See, that's just really cool because then you can go in there and find the volumes that actually go with your game, if you care. Or you can just read a bunch of Pokemon stuff because it's Pokemon and it's going to be cool no matter what.
You definitely can jump into any single one of them based on the game. But unfortunately for the first God, it's all the way up to Gold, Silver, and Crystal. There is plot lines that they kept from Red, Blue and green, especially with Team Rocket. And some of the main characters. You definitely can still jump into any single one of them if you don't really care about the overarching plot. But if you're a huge Pokemon fan, definitely start from that beginning and go up. When you invited me to do this podcast, I decided I was going to code and read back as much as I can until this day. And I think I'm halfway through Emerald, Ruby and Sapphire. So I think I'm on like volume 18 right now. It's a. There's a lot. But yeah, I mean, some notable things about this manga is that the creator of Pokemon, Satoshi Tajiri, he says this is essentially the closest version to how he sees the Pokemon world being an actual thing. He doesn't. The anime was definitely more geared towards kids. And Ash Ketchum is a slightly similar character to Red, but also very, very different. I mean, very noticeable differences are that Brock and Misty, they're gym leaders. They don't go out and adventure with the main character. They stay. And they're a little bit more sure and battle hardened than when we meet them in the anime with their aloof personalities.
I don't know if I like that because I like big, dumb, goofy Brock.
I will say this, though. I do like him too. He doesn't show up very much in the manga. He only really shows up later when they start to say we need to bring all the gym leaders together. But yeah, no, I mean, I grew up on that rock too, so I always loved him trying to hit on Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny.
Officer Jenny.
I knew that'd be your type. I mean, another noticeable difference about this Pokemon manga. Definitely more violent than the games in the anime. There is literally. I saw an arbok, which is that blue, big purple snake. They literally cut it and you just see it looks like juice coming out of like, you know those stakes that you see in anime where you cut them in the side and you see like the. The bone inside, the juiciness of it. Yeah, that's what an arbok looks like in the inside with some juice that I'm assuming is his blood coming out. So definitely a lot more violent, especially those battles. It is. That is some stuff to read. I definitely recommend reading it because I. The plot is just super fun and it pretty much follows the games pretty well. And then, I mean, later on when they remake into Firered and Leafgreen, they take a lot of those elements from that manga into that game through plot and story as well.
That seems really weird to me that they would make the manga and knowing how just really into this little kids were makes something that might not be child friendly.
I mean, I get what you're saying, but also around that time you had Dragon Ball Naruto, because It's like a late 90s, early 2000s, you had Inuyasha, a lot of those battle type anime manga that essentially promoted a lot of fighting. And then, I mean, you saw him get rough and gruff and you saw some blood and stuff. Inuyasha especially saw quite a few people get killed. Dragon Ball was a little bit less about that. They were just about fights. Took like five to six episodes to actually throw a punch, but you get there. So I kind of see it as they kind of wanted to get a little bit more with the current generation. A little bit more violent, a little bit more pretty much gore almost. I wouldn't say the entire thing was leveled up to an 11, but it's definitely gone up a few ticks for the violence. I mean, especially if you compare the anime. Oh yeah, there's a lot more violence.
So how often would you have parents come back to the store and like, oh no, you sold me this kids thing. And it's not for kids at all.
I think back then when you're reading the manga and then you give it to your dad or your mom because they asked. They want to know what you're reading and they want to see it. They see all those little creatures fighting and those people with those big heads and eyes and they're like, oh, okay. And then they read a line of dialogue and it's ooh, use Thundershock or something of that effect. And they're like, okay, this is fine. I mean, that arbok getting sliced in half was rather small panel. They did kind of show you it getting sliced in half. And then another panel after that showing the essentially body laying on the ground after that. But it's hard to not miss, as I would say. So they had to pretty much read a couple of chapters. And you know that attention span for parents, they're like, okay, we're gonna look through it, make sure it's all right for a kid. But pretty much not too much we're gonna effort is gonna be put into reading this.
So normally this is about where I would start asking, what does this really get right and what does it really get wrong? Looking at Pokemon, the manga, but more so than a lot of episodes, we've hit on those specifics a lot already. Like, this is basically, you have your game, let's make a manga. Or you have a manga, let's just make the game version of it.
Yeah. From my understanding of Red and Blue, the original gameplay, there's these islands. So after you beat the Elite Four and you become the Pokemon champion, Fire Red and Leafgreen have a post game almost. So does Red and Blue, but not so much. Did you and Red and Blue have islands you can go to after that when you travel on the SS Anne? And the islands were all called like, Island 1, Island 2, Island 3, Island 4. Did you ever have that?
I don't remember really doing it.
Okay. I have played. I still have my copy of Pokemon Blue, but I don't think I've ever fully played after beating the Elite Four. But I know in Firered and Leaf Green, they had a post game beyond going back to Cerulean City to catch Mewtwo. They essentially had these four islands. And you had another team rocket subplot that you had to go through as well. And then it helped when you went back, you could challenge the Elite Four and Pokemon League a second time with increased levels. But from my understanding is that when I was reading the Pokemon manga, they talked about the islands before Fire Red and Leaf Green even came out. So they pretty much took that and put it into those games. I mean, they introduced Lugia in the manga in Kanto on those islands. So as another good influence that they pretty much added into from the manga into the game. So you got a whole new post game out of it.
It's really hard to have something right or wrong about Pokemon because just depending on what kind of perspective you're looking at it, it changes things up a lot. Like, if you're looking at this and saying, oh, I mean, it's not following the character Red that's in the manga. It's following somebody else. Or if you're more somebody who super fixated in on the anime, you know the same kind of thing. It's not following Ash. It's somebody else. So you have your story as the player instead of the story of the characters in the manga and the anime. But you're still hitting all the same things that they would hit in that world.
The main characters Red and Blue are supposed to be Ash and Gary. That's what the anime base is off of. And then you have a third character who is the girl character is supposed to be Gree in the manga. She is a thief. She steals a squirrel from Professor Oak and then she's all about. You learn later on why she's kind of annoying. It's typical 90s, unfortunately, girl archetype where she's the annoying kind of brat kind of gets in the way. Know it all. But she grows on you because you realize she's also from the same town as Red and Blue. And you find out later on that she was abducted as a kid from legendary Pokemon. Ho. Oh. From her town. And then trained to be a Pokemon assassin. That got me kidding.
Oh my God. Are you making me care about the thief now?
And then she escaped along with another kidnapped child, and she is now trying to hunt down that legendary Pokemon to find the guy that brainwashed her into becoming a Pokemon assassin. So yes, I am trying to get you care about the girl character. I would say she actually had more. She had more backstory than the two main characters.
Yeah, I would say that too. That's insane.
Yeah, Red was just really good at Pokemon battles and Blue was the grandson of Professor Oak.
I feel like this is probably the dumbest question you're going to hear today and maybe even for the rest of the week. But if you somehow found somebody who did not know about Pokemon and they wanted to get into Pokemon, would you give them either Firered or Leafgreen as part of a primer course to get into Pokemon if they were really, really.
Serious, like they said. I've been interested in Pokemon for a while. I've done a little bit of research and I really want to get into it. And especially if they're a gamer. Yeah, Firered and Leafgreen. That's where I started for GBA or just Game Boy in itself. And it's such a fun area. I always go back and play Fire Red Leaf. If it was a new person that was the exact Opposite of what I just described. I'd throw them in with Pokemon, Let's Go Pikachu or Let's Go Eevee, which is their current remakes of that era. But it's Nintendo Switch, so easier for somebody to jump into. I mean, you're gonna bat an eye when you tell somebody, hey, go buy a Game Boy. Which is still 100 to $150 today. And they're like, I have to pay what? To get a system for almost 20 years now. Sorry, I dropped.
Okay, you bring up a good point, because I didn't even think about that. I'm just looking at this like you have a pretty modernly made game that essentially goes back to the beginning. It's pretty simple, but it has a lot of the current quality of life aspects that you expect in gaming. And you only have three generations of Pokemon to worry about. So, like, yeah, I would give them this game. I mean, I would probably give them a Pokemon game from whatever they had handy, console wise. Because I don't think you're really going to go wrong. It's just going to be, you know, okay, what do you have handy? Here's the Pokemon for that generation of Game Boy.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, if they were just like, hey, yeah, what do you have handy? And just give them whatever I have. Because you could just jump in, really, to any game. And for the most part, I guess it really depends on your generation because I know a lot of the newer kids, if you give them a Game Boy or a Game Boy advance, they're gonna be like, what are these graphics? Why is it so suck? Why is it slow? Why can't I go diagonal or sideways? And all that extra movement detail that they just come to expect in everything. They're like, yeah, I don't really want to play this. It's kind of boring. It's slow, it's old, that type of thing. I mean, it just. It just depends on a ton of factors. But I mean, fire, red, leaf, green is a great starting point for anybody in Pokemon.
Is there anything else you can think of that we really need to keep in mind when looking at the Pokemon manga versus the Pokemon games?
Well, I can pretty much say game mechanics wise in Inside the Pokemon Manga, the whole plot is later revealed that they're trying to get all the gym badges because they have their specific power attached to a gym badge. Because there's only, Come on, you're going to have a challenger come in, win constantly. But in the Pokemon manga, the actual gym badges are more and more Of a limited quantity because they have this associated power with them. And Team Rocket has a device that where if you put all of them in there, some they have this power. I can't remember what power specifically was. I think the Elite four, who's also the secondary bad guy is the come in after Team Rocket. They essentially wake up Lugia, the legendary Pokemon in one of those numbered islands we talked about earlier. And that's pretty much taken out later on in Firered and Leafgreen. They essentially strip that and basically say, oh, with these badges you can use this certain hm, like Cut, Fly, Surf. You're now able to use that. And then also if you get Pokemon in an outside trade the certain level like oh, you beat Brock, any Pokemon that you receive that's 20 or below from a trade will actually listen to you. If you got a Pokemon you traded for like level 21, it's gonna maybe do an attack every four moves for you. So I mean the badges they kind of downgraded and made more into a game mechanic than then. I mean also the battle mechanics. The manga is pretty more. They use a lot more Pokemon than just one. They don't introduce double team battles, I believe, until the Gen 3 Pokemon. So Sapphire, Ruby and Emerald version. And so you have that double team. And I would say it's inspired by the manga because they started to use a lot more Pokemon at once for battles. So you'd have two to three. Even if the Big Bad is about to beat you, throw all six out. And I mean they pretty much change up those battle mechanics. I mean you also later find out that the Pokeballs, those are very interesting too because they're see through. So you can see the Pokemon in the Pokeball and they kind of later do that. Adopted it in gen 4 games as well where you can craft your own Pokeballs and sometimes you can have a see through Pokeball. Those are just really fun.
Can the Pokemon see out?
Yes, they can. And another more of the violent nature of the manga is that sometimes they break the Pokeball. So and so a they can either not come out of the Pokeball and are stuck until they repair it or they are. I believe if the Pokeball is fully destroyed, they will come out. I don't know what they do then they just throw another Pokeball in them or transfer them. It's just the mechanics they're updating frequently. And the manga is definitely very influential. I mean even with ownership of the Pokemon like trading and such. I mean they have it so that the Pokedex allows You to trade between another Pokedex user in the manga. But they pretty much just sometimes Blue will throw Red. Here's my Machamp. Use that for the next week or so and get it back to me. And Machamp will just listen. And Red won't even have to give Blue another Pokemon to make up for it. It's just interesting, those mechanics, how they change and differ. I mean, like we said, the Satoshi Tajiri, that creator of Pokemon, he says this is his ideal. Like what he would see Pokemon as in real life or more of a. I would say traditional rpg, like, you know, Final Fantasy. Well, no, that's more turn based. More modern RPGs is what I would say. If it was more fluid, if the battle mechanics were more fluid than that. Turn based.
But I thought Pokemon were your friends and not just tools that you used to beat up on other tools and humans and making them sad.
Yeah, I mean, back in the day, I mean, it was more like tribal. I mean, you have wild Pokemon, you got the small tribes of humans. And then eventually they created Pokeball and started catching them and battling them. But then, yes, they also use them to help. Like construction workers will use a Magnemite or Machoke to power something or lift something up. And I mean, you see that a lot in Pokemon anime. But in the manga they pretty much elaborate on that. Especially more so when you get to like Vermillion City. They use the electricity to power the ships, the lights. There's an abandoned power plant where you find that legendary bird Pokemon zone, Zapdos. That's all electric Pokemon that you find in there. So it's interesting, you've completely shattered my.
World here because for the longest time I thought that Pokemon, they're my best friends in the world that I had to defend. And now I'm just finding out that they're just cogs in the machine.
I mean, definitely as the Pokemon, we get the new generation of each game coming out now. We get choose those more advanced, more humans. Populated cities with all this technology and skyscrapers is starting to look more and more like our world because you get to Kanto and from my understanding is that all of the Pokemon regions are based off of prefectures in Japan. So there is a Kanto Prefecture, Johto 1, Hoenn 1. And I mean they're pretty much based off of that. And Japan is still pretty rural. It's not. The coasts are really where people are centered. And you have to get to most places by either train or plane at this point. There's not too many roads connecting it with for your cars or even updated roads for that matter. It's more footpaths. But yeah, T. Rocket's kind of a little bit more evil. Your Pokemon are definitely used and abused, unfortunately.
Now I just feel bad for all my little Pokemon friends.
Ah, don't be that. Don't feel bad. I mean, Lavender Town, I think that's the right town. It's where you exit the cave after being in total darkness. And it's a graveyard city. They have like a tower that you go up and there's all these ghost Pokemon and a lot of tombs and gravestones that are dead and deceased Pokemon. What you don't realize is that it's your rival, Blue. He was there before you, and you see him as you enter, he leaves. And there's some dialogue and some other little things you can find up in the tower. But it's really sad because one of his Pokemon died while he was in that tower and he was going to visit and leave. And so you can pick that up of all the little context clues and little dialogue. But it's super sad. And it's also in the Pokemon manga as well. They did a really good job.
Well, I thought I knew everything that I needed to know about Pokemon because of the fact that I am almost 40 years old and I am learning now that there is a lot of more Pokemon lore than I ever knew existed. And I am going to go curl up into a ball and cry now.
Yeah, I mean, all the. I mean, all the Pokemon lore is there. The basics, the structure is in the games. The manga just really brings it out. And as they create the New Generations remakes, they take some stuff from that manga to more explore around that. But I mean, let's be honest, while I do have a little bit more knowledge because I've been in it more recently than you. I will say though, once we get into anything past Gen 4, I'm at a loss. And I think there's like three or four gens after that. So I'm just in the same boat as you are when it comes to that.
And finally, if you were going to grab one Muppet and just throw them into the Pokemon world, which Muppet would have the hardest time trying to convince all the humans there's. That they are not actually a Pokemon.
So Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets, it's. They would do perfect in there. They would be the first Pokemon to be discovered who can actually talk. Yeah, they would blend in real well.
Oh, gosh. And they're humans, so that makes it even better. They're just walking around and everybody sees this thing that looks really, really human, but they still think it's a Pokemon. Oh, that is amazing.
Yeah. And then they're chastising them each time they fail to kill capture it. It's just wonderful. Why aren't we doing well? Hey, you want. Do you have any editing skills? I can do some great Photoshop and sprites. You want to make it. You can do the voices.
We'll. We'll discuss that later too, because I. I'm very interested in trying to make that happen now.
Yeah, no, no, I'm. I'm on board. I'll. I'll write some scripts, I'll get out some jokes. I'll keep it PG Ish. Later. Later.
It has been great talking to you about all of this. If people want to hear more from you, where else can they find you? Around the Internet?
Well, you really can't find me on the Internet because my job would tell me not to say that. You can find me at a local comic store at 1209 D. Sam Rittenburg Boulevard in Charleston, South Carolina. I am usually there every Wednesday and Saturday.
Connor lives in the back room.
Yes, there is a cot and a hot plate and we're still trying to get a hose input in the back.
Well, that's what the McDonald's next door is for.
They do not have a hose. I've tried. Boo. Yeah, too many issues.
Well, normally I would have links to all that down in the show notes, but Connor is just a figment of our imaginations. So I don't really have anything to link to on this one. As for where to find me, the best place to do that is over on playcomics.com where there's links to all the social media things, which is basically just blue sky because, yeah, it's blue sky. And that's where I have settled in. And it's really nice and I like it over there. And I don't want anybody to ruin that little dream because what else do we have in this weird, crazy world that we are living in right now? If you want to be on the show yourself, then there is a link down in the show notes where I have the list of things that I'm looking to get booked the soonest. I'm going to be updating that list in the next. I'm going to call it the next few weeks just to give myself a little bit of wiggle room there, but it really needs to happen. So if you see something on that list, let me know. Or if you have a friend or just somebody that you know that you think would be good for it, let me know or let them know. And then they can let me know. Or, you know, ultimately the thing is just let me know that you know somebody because that's good. And honestly, I've gotten some great guests just from people saying, hey, you should get this person on the show. If you want to help support the show, then you can always be like Dan McMahon or Ono class and give the show money because you know that that's just unfortunately a thing that has to happen. Well, you know, the podcast cost the money part. You don't have to give me money. That's always cool. If you don't just share with people and tell me how much you liked something or that you didn't like something, because then I at least get feedback and I am a attention starved narcissist right now who just wants to hear from people. Because I just. That would be nice. I just think that would be really nice. Don't forget, the Play Comics is on the gunnygeek.com network, home to such wonderful shows as Legends of Shield where we are looking at the greater Marvel Universe. And it's really fun and you should go check it out. Even though we're on a little bit of a break right now, you know, go check out all the old episodes. This stuff is old and it's been out, but you can also watch it. And if it's a thing you didn't watch before, who cares that it's older? Just go listen to it. Anyway, Carrington and I currently have like four or five episodes of Sugar Spite and everything is fine. Recording recorded. We're gonna get a few of those edited up and then we're gonna get those out. I think that's gonna be a really fun show and you're probably really going to enjoy it. I know we're having a lot of fun recording it. We have a few guests lined up for things, but for the most part it's just going to be me and Carrington because that's how we want to roll. Also, we don't want to have to deal with trying to schedule somebody for every single episode because that would be a nightmare trying to. To make three people work. If you like the music that I'm rudely talking on top of right now, head on over to BackingTrack GG and check out all the great music over there. Maybe use some of it for your own project, but most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics, and go find yourself a new favorite character.