~How many nuggets you gonna sell old man
Hey, two posts in a day! Well the last one was at like, midnight, so whatever. I mentioned the Pokemon doujin in the last entry and thought eh, might as well go ahead and scan it. It's so easy to update the page with them now, why not?
Anyway, it's an old Gary-centric anthology called System All Green from 1998. 1998! There's something about Pokemon stuff from the pre-GS era that has a unique feel to me. Like it brings up a kind of nostalgia that new Pokemon stuff, or even later Pokemon eras, don't. I think it's because at this point, the whole Pokemon franchise was so new. No one had any idea what a huge behemoth it'd turn into. No one really knew where it was going. Everything looks kind of rough and awkward and weird, and even though the Pokemon world was much smaller back then, it felt bigger, if that makes sense. Or more like at that point, there were no limits. It was in one way a highpoint of the Pokemon craze, but at the same time it's just a drop in the ocean compared to the behemoth that Pokemon is now. It's hard to explain, stuff from the 1998-2000 era of Pokemon just has a very unique feel to it all its own that later Pokemon stuff doesn't quite have. Even the toys and such from that period just seem a little different. ANY OTHER OLDSCHOOL POKEMON DORKS OUT THERE, DO YOU GET WHAT I MEAN ABOUT THIS
Back to the point - I don't really remember when or how I got this. I'm not at all surprised I have it though, since for some weird reason I have a soft spot for Gary I can't explain. It's fairly long at about 50 pages and has a lot of little quick 4komas or one-shot stories, though there are two longer ones. One has three Garys talking, who I assume are animeGary, RedGreenGary, and possibly either BlueGary or mangaGary, I'm not sure (Red/Blue for the US was Red/Green in Japan but I won't get into the boring details here at the moment). Then there's another longer story with Gary thinking about his Pokemon career, presumably. It's mostly silly though.
It's G-rated, though I THINK there's some Ash/Gary subtext running through some bits of it. Ash/Gary was a big pairing back in the 98-00 era, at least on the Japanese side. Or at least that's the impression I got. Afterwards as the world expanded and Gary went off to do his own thing it sort of dwindled off, I think.
I'll post some of the pages here, though if you want to pick up the whole thing you can snag the zip at the doujin page. There are two little 4komas done in the style of the game that I think are pretty cute, and by style of the game I mean the little fat chibi Gameboy sprites. NOW THERE'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEE VERY OFTEN
Front and back! It's actually one continuous shot.
I didn't want to get too rough with the spine at first, so ENJOY BLURRY EDGES
This was a sort of two page spread, in that Gary's hand went off onto the other page, but eh. These kind of shots are tough to scan, let me tell you, but breaking this one up wasn't so bad.
Here's the three Gary story! Again I was wary with the spine at this point, and I figure that in the extremely unlikely event someone wants to translate this and needs clearer scans, I'll go back in and break the spine properly to make sure all the text is legible. BUT AS IT IS, I ASSUME IT WILL NOT BOTHER MOST
this is the most suggestive page in the whole thing and i'm not even sure it's supposed to be. MAYBE IT IS?
Bunch of Ashes running around as well apparently.
BROCK AND MISTY ARE UNDERCOVER
ash why do you have so many muks
(or was it grimer, one was betobeta and one was betobetan... i think?)
Here's the game sprite styled ones I was talking about! Haha, adorable.
gary don't eat pokeballs, what
And here's the longer more thoughtful story.
what could gary be thinking about
GARY WAS HERE, ASH IS A LOSER
I wonder what the oldest doujinshi anyone's ever scanned is? I think the oldest ones I've got go back to 1996 or so, but there have to be older ones than that.
I also posted this at dreamwidth with reluctant ambivalence. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!
Anyway, it's an old Gary-centric anthology called System All Green from 1998. 1998! There's something about Pokemon stuff from the pre-GS era that has a unique feel to me. Like it brings up a kind of nostalgia that new Pokemon stuff, or even later Pokemon eras, don't. I think it's because at this point, the whole Pokemon franchise was so new. No one had any idea what a huge behemoth it'd turn into. No one really knew where it was going. Everything looks kind of rough and awkward and weird, and even though the Pokemon world was much smaller back then, it felt bigger, if that makes sense. Or more like at that point, there were no limits. It was in one way a highpoint of the Pokemon craze, but at the same time it's just a drop in the ocean compared to the behemoth that Pokemon is now. It's hard to explain, stuff from the 1998-2000 era of Pokemon just has a very unique feel to it all its own that later Pokemon stuff doesn't quite have. Even the toys and such from that period just seem a little different. ANY OTHER OLDSCHOOL POKEMON DORKS OUT THERE, DO YOU GET WHAT I MEAN ABOUT THIS
Back to the point - I don't really remember when or how I got this. I'm not at all surprised I have it though, since for some weird reason I have a soft spot for Gary I can't explain. It's fairly long at about 50 pages and has a lot of little quick 4komas or one-shot stories, though there are two longer ones. One has three Garys talking, who I assume are animeGary, RedGreenGary, and possibly either BlueGary or mangaGary, I'm not sure (Red/Blue for the US was Red/Green in Japan but I won't get into the boring details here at the moment). Then there's another longer story with Gary thinking about his Pokemon career, presumably. It's mostly silly though.
It's G-rated, though I THINK there's some Ash/Gary subtext running through some bits of it. Ash/Gary was a big pairing back in the 98-00 era, at least on the Japanese side. Or at least that's the impression I got. Afterwards as the world expanded and Gary went off to do his own thing it sort of dwindled off, I think.
I'll post some of the pages here, though if you want to pick up the whole thing you can snag the zip at the doujin page. There are two little 4komas done in the style of the game that I think are pretty cute, and by style of the game I mean the little fat chibi Gameboy sprites. NOW THERE'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEE VERY OFTEN
Front and back! It's actually one continuous shot.
I didn't want to get too rough with the spine at first, so ENJOY BLURRY EDGES
This was a sort of two page spread, in that Gary's hand went off onto the other page, but eh. These kind of shots are tough to scan, let me tell you, but breaking this one up wasn't so bad.
Here's the three Gary story! Again I was wary with the spine at this point, and I figure that in the extremely unlikely event someone wants to translate this and needs clearer scans, I'll go back in and break the spine properly to make sure all the text is legible. BUT AS IT IS, I ASSUME IT WILL NOT BOTHER MOST
this is the most suggestive page in the whole thing and i'm not even sure it's supposed to be. MAYBE IT IS?
Bunch of Ashes running around as well apparently.
BROCK AND MISTY ARE UNDERCOVER
ash why do you have so many muks
(or was it grimer, one was betobeta and one was betobetan... i think?)
Here's the game sprite styled ones I was talking about! Haha, adorable.
gary don't eat pokeballs, what
And here's the longer more thoughtful story.
what could gary be thinking about
GARY WAS HERE, ASH IS A LOSER
I wonder what the oldest doujinshi anyone's ever scanned is? I think the oldest ones I've got go back to 1996 or so, but there have to be older ones than that.
I also posted this at dreamwidth with reluctant ambivalence. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!