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Review: He is a She

He is a She by JustBluePanda

Genre: Adventure, Drama, Pokéfic, Romance

Current Length: 7 Chapters, Complete

Schedule: N/A

Quote: "If I hadn't had fear, then I also wouldn't have been able to know what it's like to have bravery in my heart. Bravery awakens when you're consumed by fear." -Red

Taking place in an alternate universe, Green, Blue, Red, and Yellow were all good friends growing up until Red and Yellow gets attacked by a wild Scyther. Red sacrifices himself, so Yellow could be safe, but as a consequence, these two are torn apart. Five years later, Yellow is encourage to go on a Pokémon Journey. There's just one problem: she encounters Red, who thinks she is a he (no title pun intended).

Warning: I was given the okay by the author to give spoilers, and I will touch on some major spoilers.

Also, please note, I have not read any of the Pokémon Specials Manga (if I could, I would being how awesome these types of Pokéfics are; however, I just don't). With this in mind, I do not really know how the characters act in the manga vs. anime (Pokémon Origins Anime, if we're being specific). I do appreciate how close the last scene in the book mimics the MewTwo episode, and (according to the limited knowledge I do have of the Manga with the Pokéfics I've read) how Green and Blue's dialogue in the prologue is towards each other. That was really nice to see, especially since I could pick up on those sorts of details. It's definitely the kind of book that any Pokémon fan could pick up and read, whether they know a lot or very little about the manga.

Now, with this in mind, I do not know the people in this manga very well, so my knowledge is limited. I appreciated how Red and Yellow were given descriptions as to what they wore. While I know what Red looks like (from the anime/Let's Go games/being Ash's counterpart), the same can't always be said for Yellow (or at least, when I first read a Pokéfic about her, I didn't know what all the main characters from the manga looked like. Since then, I've figured it out, but it's still nice to have in there).

This creates a problem though. Red and Yellow are the only ones described. Other descriptions are left out. The biggest example of this is Chuchu. This could've been common knowledge to fans of the manga, but it took me until the Cinabar Gym Battle to realize that Chuchu was Yellow's Pikachu. I knew in the manga she had a Pikachu, but I wasn't sure if that held up here or if it was a Chinchou since she lived in Johto for a while. Since this took place in a different universe (which was shown as Yellow can't talk to Pokémon...that's what she does in the manga, right?) I wished there was more detail shown.

Of course, this problem leads into another problem: pacing. The pacing of the story is really strong in the beginning. It flows from one chapter to the next without any interruption. That is until Chapter 4 when Yellow has somehow obtained seven Gym Badges. Wait? How did the other six Gym Battles go? Did she meet up with Red after that? With this being a romance book, I would've liked to see more of their interactions, even if he had no idea that Yellow was, well, Yellow as she gave him a pseudonym, Viridian, or Viri. Even if it was a slight mention, or transition between her figuring out she wanted to become the next Champion when talking to Red turns into her training hard to obtain Gym Badges, bringing her to where she is now...there's so much missing that could've been brushed over.

And speaking of Viri, I was a bit shocked as to why Oak, Green, and Blue didn't call her out about her lie. I mean, at this point of the book, it hasn't been revealed on how Red made it out of that Scyther attack alive, nor did it mention how Yellow and Red's parents felt about each other's kids. It would've been good to hint that either Oak, Green, and Blue knew of something on why Yellow would've wanted it to be kept a secret or that they weren't even in the room because is seemed as if they had mysteriously disappeared during this sequence. Giving some acknowledgment to the scene would've been nice.