Viz's "Pokémon Adventures" Website

"This is the comic that most resembles the world I was trying to convey."

Artist:  Mato Writer:  Hidenori Kusaka

Published in 1997, Pokemon Special follows the game closer than the anime (but not as close as the manga Pokemon Zensho).  The manga follows the adventures of Red and his rival Green ("Blue" in the American version) and later Blue ("Green" in the American version) and Yellow.  Red battles all the gym leaders like in the game and anime, but his first pokemon's a Nyorozo.  There are a total of thirteen tankobon (graphic novels)  in Japan.  I personally like this rendition of the manga the second-best, second only to Ono Toshihiro's version.  The plot's interesting in that almost all of the gym leaders are corrupt and associated in some way with the Rocket-Dan, and the storyline dealing with Myuu/Myuutsu is really interesting as well.

Pokemon Special was translated into English by Viz.  Viz only published the first seven graphic novels, ending at the Yellow Saga.  In Japan, however, the series is still going strong with Volume 21 due out soon.  At this time, it's unlikely that Viz will translate and publish the rest of the series.  However, you can purchase the graphic novels that they did translate on the official Viz website.

In 2006, Viz released two "best of" volumes.  You can find a listing of what chapters are in what volume here.

The first six American graphic novels. 
Click on each thumbnail to see a bigger version.