Whenever you decide to do a Pokemon adventure that takes place in Ash’s world without a whole lot of screentime for the kid, you better be real sure that you have an absolutely spectacular plot at the ready. Why? Well because now you’re making fans think about the famous champion of Pallet Town and his replacement is going to have a hard time. That happens to poor Koko here. There’s nothing particularly bad about him but he just feels a bit average, maybe even a little boring here. The adventure isn’t one of the most interesting ones but it’s not bad.

The story takes place before the movie as we see Koko growing up. He was a kid who was raised by Zarude. Zarude’s tribe did not like this and so they were banished but Zarude refused to abandon the kid. So he did his best in a dangerous world to raise Koko and make sure that he was okay. The one mistake he made was telling Koko that they were both Zarude and now that the kid is 7, he’s wondering why he doesn’t have any powers. Koko and his friends are then attacked by some Pokemon. Can a mere human defeat them?

It is nice to see how well Koko communicated with the Pokemon at least. I’m glad that you can just pick up that language if you are familiar enough with it. It certainly can’t be an easy task but then you’d also think that one of the Pokemon would have also spoken up and said this couldn’t be true. I guess maybe the Pokemon generally aren’t super smart so none of them could be sure that Zarude was lying? Maybe they’re all basically like kids or I’m digging too deep into a mild plot element.

The main villains here are a bunch of fire type worm Pokemon which pick a fight with the heroes. They are no friends of the Zarude but they don’t mind being bullies against the Pokemon that can’t fight back. It’s one of those Pokemon that are more on the recent side so I can’t say that I’m too familiar with them but they have a pretty good design. I can say right now that you will be a little skeptical about the Pokemon and Koko doing so well against them and I can’t say that I blame you. These guys are huge and really pack a punch. One of them even plays dead to land a cheap shot but ultimately Koko shows why he has a lot of guts.

Then Zarude cleans things up from there. Zarude is not my favorite Pokemon but I will say that he looks pretty good here. He’s nice and loyal and constantly makes sure to look after Koko. I won’t say he did a perfect job as a parent but his heart’s always in the right place. Meanwhile Koko isn’t as annoying as the average kid. He is actually proactive and doesn’t just run away when the going gets tough. That automatically puts him well ahead of where my expectations would normally be.

Of course Ash doesn’t appear much but I do like how he looks very confident the whole time. Technically he’s more the humble sort nowadays but at least from the cameo you would definitely be thinking that he is ready for action. It makes you wish he could have gotten more screentime. Just one more chapter to adapt the beginning of the movie or something. Either way the manga achieves its goal of making you want to go and watch the movie to see how everything played out. It’s exactly what a prequel should always be aiming to do.

The art is okay. It’s what I would call a very basic style. It’s trying to be as easy to read as possible which is nice since you’re going to have a younger audience for this one. The battles look good enough, but it’s never going to be the kind of story where you pause to admire the art. It’s just not detailed or exhilarating enough for that.

It does mean that you will be able to read through the story exceptionally fast. Keep in mind that this is already a short manga so that really compounds the effect. There are no negatives to be found here so I’d say the story also succeeds on being an extremely safe one for kids. It could use a few more strengths but it does have that mass market appeal. If you enjoy Pokemon, then you will be able to appreciate this as something that stays on brand. It’s also rare to be seeing a whole lot of the Pokemon in their natural habitats as opposed to the cities.

The jungle may not be my favorite backdrop but it works well in that context. The story also works almost like a what if with the humans and Pokémon talking to each other like something out of a Digimon adventure. You just don’t see that a whole lot with Pokemon. If more Pokemon could completely talk like Zarude, I think that’d be a really cool thing. It’s probably too late in the franchise to make that a truly regular thing but it would certainly be awesome if that were to be the case.

Overall, This was a fun little story. There isn’t a ton of stakes or memorable moments compared to the average Pokemon adventure but I guess a prologue is going to be a little more limited in what it can do. On the whole it’s still interesting and you can’t have an end of the world plot every time. I would have just asked for more fights to help the story turn the corner into the next level. Now that would have really been perfect. Still, whether you’ve seen the movie or not, you should check this one out.

Overall 6/10