The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red

The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red, is a Japanese manga written and drawn by Hidenori Kusaka and Mato respectively. This was then officially translated and published through the company VIZ Media in 2006. 
 

Manga as a whole, has always had a huge impact on the graphic design world. At its very basis, it is centered around graphic design principles. With limited panels, and traditionally being in black and white, to tell a story through such limitations, one has to be incredibly precious about the information you leave in, and the information you leave out. Each stroke must be purposeful, impactful, but most importantly: understandable. In particular, The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red conveys these principles excellently through its very simple and clean cut style. It’s able to show action and personality in the fewest of strokes.

Culturally, the Pokemon Adventures series was a phenomenal hit in its home country Japan, having 12 million copies sold by September 2014 as the series progressed. Though this wasn’t just exclusive to Japan— VIZ Media’s first publication from the series, The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red, was placed in ICv2’s Top 20 Graphic Novels in April 2008. And with this high demand, as VIZ Media continued to publish more and more entries of this series it reached a striking 28 million copies sold worldwide by August 2017. It's safe to say that this series would aid in popularizing the franchise to what we know it as today. 

The Best of Pokemon Adventures: Red covers the first main overarching plot of the series. It follows our main protagonist, Red, and essentially serves as a compilation of his ‘best’ moments throughout this arc. It is more of a collage than a linear entry into the series.

Viz, Press Release -. “Viz Turning 20.” IGN, May 17, 2012. https://www.ign.com/articles/2006/06/16/viz-turning-20. 

“Interview: The Creators of Pokemon Adventures.” Anime News Network, November 29, 2016. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2016-11-29/interview-the-creators-of-pokemon-adventures/.109300. 

Animeuknews, Demelza. “Pokémon Adventures Collector’s Edition Volume 1 Review • Anime UK News.” Anime UK News, April 25, 2020. https://animeuknews.net/2020/04/pokemon-adventures-collectors-edition-volume-1-review/.