Viz Media Announces Two New Pokemon Manga Series

Two new Pokemon manga are set to hit US bookstore shelves in 2018.

Viz Media announced that they were publishing translated editions of Pokemon: Sun and Moon, a continuation of the popular Pokemon Adventures manga, and Pokemon Horizon, a short series featuring a young trainer and his Rockruff.

Like previous editions of Pokemon Adventures, Pokemon Sun and Moon follows two characters named after the video games from which they originated. Sun, the male protagonist of the series, is a courier in the Alola region working to earn 100 million yen, while the female protagonist Moon is a newcomer to the series.

Pokemon Adventures is a longrunning series written by Hidenori Kusaka and illustrated by Satoshi Yamamoto. The series is considered to be one of the most accurate representations of the Pokemon games, and has some darker themes than the Pokemon anime. For instance, several Pokemon and their trainers have died in the manga, just as characters occasionally perish in the games.

Pokemon Sun and Moon will be the third ongoing Pokemon Adventures currently by published by Viz Media. The publisher is also releasing Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 and Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire in the US and just finished releasing Pokemon X and Y earlier this week.

The other new Pokemon manga series is Pokemon Horizon, a two volume manga following a young trainer named Akira and his partner Rockruff. Interestingly, Pokemon Horizon may be set within the anime's continuity, as Ash and Pikachu both made cameo appearances in the book. Pokemon Horizon is written and drawn by Tenya Yabuno.

The first volume of Pokemon Sun and Moon will come out in spring 2018, while Pokemon Horizon will be released in Spring 2018.