Pokémon Pocket Monsters

Pokémon Pocket Monsters, known in Japan as Pocket Monsters (ポケットモンスター), is one of the first Pokémon manga to come out in Japan and ran for 14 volumes. In Singapore it is published by Chuang Yi in English. It has a sequel Pokémon Ruby-Sapphire. The author is Kosaku Anakubo.

The manga follows Red, a young boy competing with a rival, Green, to complete the Pokédex and become the champion of Pokémon. In this manga, Pokémon can talk. It is thought that a Clefairy is the main character, although it is just a follower of Red. Clefairy is obnoxious but lovable, whose big mouth sometimes gets it into trouble. Surprisingly enough, Clefairy comes up with clever ideas to help Red and Pikachu.

In the first few manga books, Red's team consists of Pikachu and Clefairy only. However, later on, Red gains a valuable companion in Tyrogue, as well. Pikachu himself is unable to talk, similar to the Pikachu in Magical Pokémon Journey.

The story also goes to the Johto region, where Red gets introduced to trainers Gold and Silver, supposedly based on the video game characters. The story then goes to Hoenn in the last book, where Red thinks of receiving a Torchic and abandoning Clefairy. It is after this that the story continues under the name of Pokémon Ruby-Sapphire, starting the volume number from 1.

Characters

 * Red (レッド) (Isamu Akai (赤井 勇)): Charged with completing the Pokémon Zukan, he is Green's rival.
 * Pippi / Clefairy: Red's first Pokémon ally. Clefairy is very vulgar and likes to do 'sick' things to attract attention.
 * Pikachu: Pippi's younger cousin who joins Red and Clefairy. He is unable to talk.
 * Green (グリーン) (Kai Midorikawa (緑川 開)): Red's rival.