Thread: Those old Pokémon chapter books

Now that I have a 7-year-old little brother who can read these things, he's now a Pokémon fan too. Well, somewhat - not "fans" like us, but "fans" in the sense that he sometimes gets crazy about it (probably) without knowing what he's doing.

But it's a blast to the past for me as well, because I remember having those books in the library myself when I was only 7 or 8. And these are from the times of Johto, not the Diamond and Pearl books that exist now.

What really caught me about these books is how crappy the artwork is - it looked like somebody tried to trace Sugimori's artwork in MS Paint, and then superimpose it on a radially striped background like you sometimes see in comic books. They're not even actually pictures of what happens in the book. Others are just scan-prints of the anime, and do show what is happening.

Gonna move this to the Manga and other media section...since this is specifically about another medium.

I have about 6 of those books some where in my room, they bring back memories...

Originally Posted by Sazand*ra

What really caught me about these books is how crappy the artwork is - it looked like somebody tried to trace Sugimori's artwork in MS Paint, and then superimpose it on a radially striped background like you sometimes see in comic books. They're not even actually pictures of what happens in the book. Others are just scan-prints of the anime, and do show what is happening.

i always noticed that even as a child. i swear the illustrations (that don't come directly from the anime) look like they were made in Pokémon Project Studio or something XD

(yeah i have like 20 of these books :P)

I have a few of these somewhere in my room and damn I loved them as a kid.

But now thanks to this thread I looked for one and found one and saw that you where right about the crappy artwork =P!

I have a few of these, I think for the OS I have 3 from Kanto and 1 from Johto. I remember as a kid I was VERY proud of myself for finishing the Johto one because it was a full 12 chapters long with 83 pages in a big font. xD I also have 4 from the Battle Fronteir era and a chapter book for the Manaphy movie, but I never read them. It got them probably in 2007 with some Sinnoh-related books (non-chapter and non-anime-adaptation books) as a huge set and by that point I had already out-grown kiddy chapter books, so. xD

I also have this Pokemon Junior thing based off of the Nidoran episode in the Orange Islands, which is still a chapter book, but it's aimed at an even younger audience than the normal chapter books. I wrote a book report about it in third grade. For one of the parts of the report, we had to write a summary. It was one of the first times I ever had to write a summary for something, so I wrote done practically every detail about it. My teacher wrote on the corrected version that summaries are supposed to be short. xD

Also something interesting about these books - not once do they use the names of the Pokémon (i.e. Pikachu, Mareep, Oddish, etc.) as anything but a proper noun (i.e. never things like "the Mareep", "your Pikachu", etc.).

But they did put in things like "the Mouse Pokémon" and "the Tiny Turtle Pokémon" in places where it definitely did not fit.

Wait, are you talking about the animé novelizations, written by Tracey West and others?

Those weren't very good at all.

Originally Posted by PS3D

Wait, are you talking about the animé novelizations, written by Tracey West and others?

Those weren't very good at all.

Well, not in the technical sense, no, but with a functional pair of nostalgia goggles...
I remember the illustrations that everyone's talking about, and I only just realized how cheap they were.
Another thing: the fact that they were in nonchronological order confused the hell out of me when I was a kid. It went from Ash losing to Richie in the finals because Charizard was being a dick to Misty trying to conceal the fact that her sisters were Gym Leaders. Why, exactly?

I've seen a few at my library before (which has or has had almost every anime ever in).

But dang, on the 'pedia, just the cover artwork makes me cringe.

Originally Posted by Arc Blader

Well, not in the technical sense, no, but with a functional pair of nostalgia goggles...
I remember the illustrations that everyone's talking about, and I only just realized how cheap they were.
Another thing: the fact that they were in nonchronological order confused the hell out of me when I was a kid. It went from Ash losing to Richie in the finals because Charizard was being a dick to Misty trying to conceal the fact that her sisters were Gym Leaders. Why, exactly?

The "animé novelization" series went in non chronological order too. The first book had the first two episodes, "Electric Shock Showdown", and "Pikachu's Goodbye". How's that for non-chronological?

Also, they had be the same ones, because of the page length and chapter format (~80 pages, give or take).

I remember having one based on the Saffron City/Lavender Town arc. It made very little sense at all, was terribly cheesy, and cut out a lot of scenes. It was like having another filter go through the animé script and mangling it even more.

My local public library has like three dozen of those. I read a couple once years ago, don't remember what I thought of them. Although it might have been "BOOKS Y U NO HAVE TRACEY"

Dear God, the West books... I still have like six of the damn things. I loved 'em to pieces as a kid. I'm thinking of handing them down to my little cousin, but they're a little nostalgic to me, despite their awfulness.

Originally Posted by PS3D

The "animé novelization" series went in non chronological order too. The first book had the first two episodes, "Electric Shock Showdown", and "Pikachu's Goodbye". How's that for non-chronological?

Also, they had be the same ones, because of the page length and chapter format (~80 pages, give or take).

That's... what I was talking about. :/
Come to think of it, it's these things that got me into Pokémon in the first place. I happened to pick up the book that covered the Saffron Gym, I got hooked, and the rest was history.

Originally Posted by PS3D

Wait, are you talking about the animé novelizations, written by Tracey West and others?

Those weren't very good at all.

Yeah, I'm talking about the anime novelization.

And yes, this thread is reminiscing about their narmy horribleness.