[Manga] Manga vs anime canon?

[sabrina_diamond]

So I do like watching the anime, but depending on the manga every gym-leaders' personality varies wildly, especially Sabrina's...

So let's discuss manga and the Pokemon anime's depiction

 

[Jbsundown]

I've not read all the manga. But up to Hoenn at least, Manga is my preferred canon and I think a much better story in every way!

 

[_confused_piplup_]

Personally, I consider truly canon only the games. Both anime and manga change the story and sometimes it can vary quite much. I haven't read the manga if not the Sinnoh arch and I was completely disappointed by how so many characters were just depicted differently. While trying to stay more truthful to the games even the anime changed stuff.
However, honestly, while I do think that every media should display the original story because that's how it was intended, I think that every media has its own "public" and "strengths", so I understand why they adjust the content to their needs. Still, it was pretty disappointing.

 

[Orion☆]

As a game canon buff, I respect manga that dare to deviate from game canon, such as Adventures. That, however, doesn't mean I personally like them. The way the "evil" Gym Leaders and Elite Four were handled in the first few arcs (the Kanto/Johto ones) is absolutely disastrous in my opinion, because it left the manga with a lot of practically unredeemed villains running around. Points to the authors for trying, though. Hilariously, the fan game Pokémon Xenoverse takes place in the Adventures continuity and has the exact same problems as that manga, up to and including unredeemed villains.

I personally prefer it when adaptations of the games expand on what is already there. Zensho, for example, explicitly confirms that Blue and Daisy lost their parents at a young age, and it was also one of the first manga to depict Koga in ward duties in the Safari Zone, years before FR/LG confirmed it as game canon. Oddly enough, I also like it when a massive change is done for comedic purposes, like having Agatha be a vampire in Anakubo's Pocket Monsters manga. After all, nothing is sacred!

 

[Palamon]

In my opinion, everything is canon, just in separate worlds. As it's pretty obvious that Pokemon has several multiverses and different timelines where similar events occur, but fold out differently. Think of it like every single Pokemon cartridge is a different "world" but the story folds out the same, and the legendary that appears depends on which version of the "world" you're in. (Since you can never meet Palkia in the Diamond "world", for example.

Anyway, the anime and manga are completely different takes on the franchise and really shouldn't be compared. And, the Gym Leaders in the manga were only evil in the first manga chapter. Not only were they not evil in the R/S chapter, they weren't in the D/P chapters and so on, either. In fact, I'd say they were pretty similar to their game counterparts after the R/S saga.

In the anime, unless the Gym leaders travel with Ash, they're barely focused on and thus don't really appear after Ash beats them. Like, most of the Kanto leaders only appeared once with some very few exceptions in Surge and Erika, I think. And this honestly followed suit in every single series up until I guess Journeys where some got a reappearance.

But, really, it's not fair to compare the "canons" as they are wildly different. I've read up until Sun/Moon and haven't finished that one, but the stories are all meant to be seen as their own thing.

Also, I just want to say counterparts =/= the same character. Lady Berlitz is not Dawn. Sapphire isn't May, etcetera. They are completely different characters that shouldn't be treated as the same ones.