Everyone knows about Pokemon. The games and the anime are famous all around the world. The main manga, however, has been living in the shadows for a while. Does it deserve to be more known? Definitely.

STORY
The manga follows the events of the games, not the anime series. With each game release, the manga starts a new arc. The strongest point of this manga, however, is its continuity : even though each arc tells a very different story (just like the games), they actually make a point to link EVERYTHING altogether.
As a result, the protagonists are all related to each other some way or another.

Since it's a single continuity, the games that tell the same story (like Yellow tells the same story as RBG, or Emerald tells the same story as RS) actually make for different arcs in the manga. The FireRed/LeafGreen arc is a sequel to the original RBG arc, the Emerald arc is a sequel to the RS arc, the HeartGold/SoulSilver arc is a sequel to Gold/Silver/Crystal arc, and so on.

Overall, the story is the best Pokemon has to offer (except for the Sun/Moon games and the DP anime). Not only everything is tied up altogether, it's also far more epic than the games or the anime. Some arcs even have a 14-chapters long final battle. Other arcs even have... a bitter end. Yep. Some of these stories end up badly!

The only flaw, that really brings it down in my opinion, is the pace. Overall it goes way too fast on the important points of the plots... and yet, overall each arc feels too long for what it tells.

Another problem is the loss of this strong continuity the manga established. While the first three generations are tied up strongly, starting from 4G, each arc tells a story very independant from the rest. For example, the HGSS arc barely has any link to the story in Sinnoh.



Also, the quality of the story varies greatly between each part.
While the first three generations are very interesting to follow, the fourth generation is a huge mess.
It tried to use ALL the Legendaries of 4G, but there are so many that they couldn't tie everything up correctly and they messed up a lot of these Pokemons.
Besides, the final battles are a huge let down, especially considering they concern the Pokemon Gods. Like, Groudon and Kyogre felt way more powerful than Dialga and Palkia or even Arceus... As a matter of fact, Arceus is far better handled in the anime movie than in HGSS.
And the arcs of this 4G aren't tied up correctly. HGSS is meant as a prequel to DPP, but the links between those two parts are so thin that HGSS felt utterly pointless.
Finally, while the first 3 gen are serious and epic, the 4G has much less serious vibes. It's a shame, considering it's THAT generation.

For the rest:
- the 5G is very interesting but the production is a huge mess (it's been 7 years since it started and it's not even finished!). I feel like they rushed the final part. At least it's better written than the 5G games (or the anime, of course).

- 6G was surprisingly dark and had strong character development. Sadly it dropped that development halfway and became a huge pack of action without much story. Lysandre's ambitions in this version of the story was disappointing. But the final arc, ROSA, was great. Only the end was way too abrupt, but it was a very nice ride.

- 7G is pretty average. In this version of the story, they mixed up all the different arcs into a single one: Team Skull, Aether Foundation, Nekrozma, they wrote all of it into a single arc (which is still ongoing). It feels wrong to me, each of these stories should have had an entire arc. Also, I feel like they screwed up the characters. While the 3G has memorable characters with nice relationships, in this part, it all feelt flat.


Long story short, the result varies a lot between generations. Just like the anime or the games. My favourite part in the manga is definitely 3G, I wasn't disappointed by a single arc and the way it's tied up to the previous arc is great.


ART
I don't read manga for the drawings, so I don't really care, but... it's not very good. The characters are very small in the beginning, and while they rectify it later, it is very annoying during the first arcs.
But the worst is the battles. A lot of the fights are pretty bad. Many of them end up in one hit, and that includes important ones. There's almost no full battle, even in the Leagues. They clearly avoided those in purpose, and while I understand, I still wasn't satisfied with most of the fights, which I find too short.



CHARACTER
That's probably the best and the worst of this series.

The good thing is the characters are BADASS. The villains are real evil, they're dangerous and don't hesitate to harm their enemies. The main protagonists are awesome. Some are OP, but that makes them badass.
And more importantly, most characters have actual story (which the anime and games lack a lot).

However, if most characters have background, most of them still don't have much development, which is a waste. The worst has to be the relationships between the characters: it is there, there is something, but they don't go too deep into that.
My favourite characters are Black and White. They're the protagonists with the most interesting relationship, yet it never went anywhere with that.



ENJOYMENT
It's a very long manga and I just discovered it. I didn't read everything because I don't have the patience. However, what I read, I loved. The final battle arcs are great, the characters are great, the way the various stories are tied up is great.

However, the fights aren't really good and the pace is very irregular. Basically, the anime is more stable, but the manga tells a way better story, with a lot of twists and turns. Except for 4G, which is a disaster.

If you like Pokemon, it's definitely worth reading. However, be warned there are some very incomplete versions on the net : better read it in legal ways! Also, even though it is divided like the games, it has to be read from the very beginning to understand everything.