Hello there. Two days ago I saw a youtube video titled "This pokemon fan manga broke me". I was intrigued, so I found the American translation of this fan manga. And before you ask "Wait ZERO you're a fan of pokemon?! You've never mentioned this before!" I am not a fan of pokemon in the strict sense. I think it's cool and I play pokemon showdown from time to time, and also used to watch the old animes as a kid. The biggest thing for me with pokemon was reading the pokemon adventures manga, which was pretty cool. I have to tell you something. I have never. EVER. cared so much about fictional characters before until I read this comic. It's called Festival of Champions, but don't look it up yet, let me explain some things. First off, there is gore, violence, and cursing(up to the s-word), as well as character arcs that will make you cry in the middle of the night because they are so awesome and sad. Also after chapter 0 it skips to the tournament preliminaries and reveals backstory during the tournament, just to tell anyone who's confused. And also quick name translations: Ash = Red, Gary = Green, Female protagonist in pokemon games = Blue(because there isn't really a character in the anime that resembles her) With that aside, let me get into why I like this manga so much. First and foremost, the characters are so deep. Not just the protagonists, the characters they battle have dreams, interests, personalities, and ideas. Characters in most pokemon content(that I've seen at least) felt one-sided and boring to me. Like misty basically was a background character in the original series. In this, she is a person with dreams and tragedies and thoughts that seem so real and human. Even the pokemon have depth. Red's pikachu and cubone have really sad pasts, as well as Blue's(formerly Green's) espeon. You get to see inside the minds of the pokemon and their pasts and relations with their owners and it's just so beautiful. Plus all the protaganists have incredible character arcs. Secondly, the creator is really in depth with the pokemon canon. Things in Festival of Champions make logical sense in the pokemon world. The games and anime and fan theories and ideas all come together in a coherent way that's amazingly crafted. Third, LOOK AT THE ART STYLE! ITS FRIGGIN GORGEOUS! Fourth, the battles are very well done.The strategies in each trainers mind and their fighting style is really apparent in the battles, and all the battles have high stakes and are emotional. I absolutely recommend. If you are a fan of pokemon or even just casually like it you have to read this series. Instructions on where to find it are in the notes and credits after the actual credits.
Press space or click to see some of the artwork. Credit to Seijun for hitting it out of the park on the creation of this series. Watch this video, it's a really cool animation of the panels in the comic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDTe-QFKw5g Don't use the links in the YouTube video. Look up "Pokemon Festival of Champions English Translation" and go to the Mangakaka link. Thanks for listening to this fan rant.
