If you’re a big fan of the long-running Pokemon anime, and you want to be the very best, the best that ever was, then you’ve got to check out this new hardcover book. It covers everything you ever wanted to know about the characters, Pokemon, battles, and adventures in the book’s more than 200 pages! Now, keep in mind that this book is just about the anime cartoon show. It doesn’t have anything about the games in it. But it’s still a high quality piece of work, so let’s take a look inside!

The first part of the book goes over what a Pokemon is, and talks about the main character in the cartoon: Ash. I’m not really a big fan of Ash myself, but a lot of kids think he’s cool. The book goes over Ash’s visual changes over the years, as well as every Pokemon he’s ever caught. Here’s a sample of one of those pages:

The first section also goes over Ash’s gear he uses in the cartoon, like his Pokedex and Poke-Balls used to capture the monsters. There are also sections for reoccurring characters, like Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny, as well as various other Pokemon facts and lore. Only problem I had with this section is that it kind of focuses more on the recent seasons of the cartoon, and not the original stuff.

The next sections go over the different regions of the Pokemon world that Ash travels to in the seasons of the anime. These locations include Kanto, Orange Islands, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Unova. Each section is organized in the same way. First the book talks about the main characters Ash travels with as well as the Pokemon they own. Then it’s a brief overview of their adventures, as well as play by play commentary of all the gym battles in that location! Here’s an example of that:

Then last they’ll go over the regular and Legendary Pokemon found in that region. Sometimes they’ll dedicate special pages to certain characters and events. This is one of my favorite pages about Team Rocket. They were always my favorite characters. Are they still even in the cartoon show? I haven’t watched it in a long time.

After repeating the process with all the regions, the last page before the index talks about the life lessons in the Pokemon cartoon. Here’s what that page looks like. Just wanted to show off the high quality full color artwork found within.

While a lot of people snub the Pokemon anime, you have to admit, it’s still one of the better video game-based cartoons out there. When I used to work for The Dallas Morning News and was getting paid to write Pokemon articles, I would watch the show a lot to learn all I could about Pokemon. I would record the shows on VHS (this was the late 90’s) and then take them home from college so my little brothers could watch them. I could really see a young reader just pouring over this book if they enjoyed the Pokemon cartoon. Only problems I had was sometimes the text was hard to read if it was in front of a map, and they didn’t talk too much about the Pokemon movies and spinoffs (like Mystery Dungeon and Origins). But otherwise, it’s a fantastic book for Pokemon cartoon adorers.

Tags: Misc, Television