Remember like two months ago when I put out a call for a translator for hire to decode a batch of Japanese tweets for me? Well, David took on the job, and thanks to his hard work, I now have some exclusive content to share with y'all. I normally don’t post manga stuff, but I make exceptions for things that are especially interesting to me, and this certainly falls in that category!

For those of you who don’t know, both the writer (Hidenori Kusaka) and the artist (Satoshi Yamamoto) of Pokémon Adventures have active Twitter accounts (@k_hidenori_ and @satoshi_swalot, respectively). At one point, Yamamoto released a series of tweets that looked back on the creation of Adventures, reminiscing about the origins of character designs, plot points, and other behind-the-scenes info. In honor of VIZ Media finally getting around to releasing the Ruby & Sapphire arc in the United States ^{(TEN YEARS!)} I’ve gotten translated all the tweets I could find where Yamamoto revealed unique tidbits about the villains of that particular storyline.

“In my brain, racked by sleep deprivation and thoughts of deadlines: ‘Huh? I don’t want to use the word 'bad guy.’ I really hate that old duality of 'good and bad.’ Can you define Team Aqua and Team Magma as 'bad’ to begin with?’ I got stuck in this loop of thoughts and became unable to set dialog in the speech bubbles.”

Click “Read More” to see all the info, but be warned–there’s spoilers if you haven’t read the story!

Note that the segments properly called “rounds” are referred to here as “chapters” instead, and that the human characters’ names are left in Japanese, for flavor. I also included pictures~!

TEAM AQUA

When the SSS trio characters were first introduced in Chapter 188, Yamamoto didn’t know they would become admins later on in the story, so:

“…their designs were slapdash, more like minor characters; there was a medium-build guy, a big guy and a girl. I have a feeling Shizuku even had hair.”

Of the three, Yamamoto says Izumi is the only one whose design is directly based off of her in-game sprite.

“And then there’s Ushio who, in contrast to his rather gruff face and brawny build, has very polite mannerisms; if we were speaking hypothetically, he’d be Suneo in Gian’s skin, but his behavior would be like Dekisugi-kun. (What a glorious mess that would be.) He’s not straightforward, and to be honest, he’s a villain I quite like.”

(Suneo, Gian, and Dekisugi are characters from Doraemon.)

“During one of our meetings, I asked Kusaka-sensei, 'I wonder if it’d be better to draw it in a more evil style?’, to which he replied, 'Oh, sure, please go for it,” in the most laaaid-back way ever, but later down the line, the series would gain a reputation as a 'trauma-inducing manga’ by the readers, lol. And thus, we end the untold story of the birth of Ushio’s evil-looking Azumarill.“

"On the other hand, Team Aqua’s SSS have a slight preference for making their opponent lose ignominiously, because of their sly nature. But even though that’s the case, it’s never done out of spite—just the opposite, in fact. In particular, Ushio is a character who is very much defined by trying hard to prove himself, but never being rewarded for his efforts. Suffering disgraceful defeat is also the sacred path of a man, lol.”

Yamamoto considers Team Aqua to be the more realistic organization (compared to Team Magma) without any doubt. (Probably because they are actually organized!)

“Pelipper looks like it’d be a pain to ride, that is to say, Shizuku riding perched on its short back was just *lol*. As far as that goes, we’ll say it’s a riding style that looks as though you’ll go flying off upside down if your grip (that looks like it’ll hurt your hips) slips. And so, Gold in the HGSS arc gets that passed down to him.”

“Aogiri abandoning Shizuku on page 79-81 specifically gives me the chills. After this, in this way, I feel his overwhelming sense of power and strength—even more than when he’s being possessed by Kyogre and become a completely immoral person.”

“The first panel on page 134 has my favorite composition. It has a cool feel to it, even though it’s the SSS. I won’t say that’s because Ushio isn’t around, but…lol.”

“For Ushio to come out so nonchalantly [in chapter 232], one has to wonder if he completely trusts Aogiri—whether just out of being manly or because he’s dense. He did a bunch of terrible things, but after having almost fully recovered [from his injuries at Mt. Chimney], then getting slapped by Walrein as usual, his condition is once again…Well, when I think of it like that, I almost feel sorry for him, lol.”

“The Gym Leaders meet defeat, but Shizuku gives an unexpected helping hand [in chapter 250]. What is the true motive behind his betrayal…? Man, I hope I get to draw that someday.”

“The vests are a way to differentiate between the SSS and general members, but, let’s see, I can’t remember…was that an original idea for the PokeSpe setting? In any case, I’m caught up on giving these three clothes that are different from one another.”

“The number one thing that Ushio (who in particular looks like a big brawler-type) brings to the forefront is something based on an idea of Kusaka-sensei’s. He is adamant that 'things are boring if they behave exactly how they look,’ so he advocated for 'Ushio being sensitive and nervous.’”

TEAM MAGMA

“As I was working on Hokage’s character design, I aimed for such a 'cool’ design that it even had a vibe of me uncharacteristically sucking up to popular opinion. Oh well, there were only curveball characters** left, so I thought just one character like this wouldn’t hurt…or something like that, anyway, lol." 

** characters who change a lot from their initial conception or aren’t what they seem

"Page 12, panel 4, slanted Hokage. While slanting the manuscript in the copy machine, I copied it a million times until I got the best slant. Just when I thought I finally got it right, I found it subtly lacking for the panel and tried again. I found myself in no short supply of paper spread under my hand when drawing the manuscript, lol. Hand-drawn manga aren’t the most environmentally friendly, if you know what I mean.”

“In addition, I’ve made it so that Matsubusa, similarly to Aogiri, is the polar opposite of the impression one gets from his official artwork. However, to completely disregard the clothes, the hairstyle, the looks…That is, he doesn’t look very wild and rough. So, in order to make him look and act more like the head of a band of crooks, I gave him the same poncho as the Three Fires and had him throw down booze while sitting on the ground.”

“I touched upon this in the Chapter 217 commentaries, but Matsubusa (who I originally drew very rough to match him being a bandit-like character)—I read the original work and fixed up his design to make him more cool. Mostly because, at the time, I was being teased by my readers saying, 'he drinks so much that it’s affecting his health and changing his looks,’ lol.”

“Incidentally, I have it set up so that the horns on the hoods of Team Magma’s ponchos get longer the higher in rank you get, and made Matsubusa’s horns curve inward like those of a stag beetle.”

“For the most part, Kagari fights in a cruel, wild and cool manner, and a feral child [Sapphire, in the Abandoned Ship] compares well against all that.”

“Probably the best part of this chapter [243] was Homura saving Shizuku, and Hokage feeling sorry for Shizuku. There was one person who had the same thought and helped this be a famous scene, so I’ve colored the image in the opening of Volume 40, lol.”

The “one person” is probably Kusaka. 

“Panel 4 of page 14 fits as though it were tailor-made for this screentone. It’s as though it’s a screentone that exists just for Hokage. So, even now, when I’m assigning screentones to things, it’s always "this background here, put some Hokage on it,” lol.“

"At this point in the serialization, I was shocked that a lot of people were saying Hokage’s face on page 48 was 'cool.’ Personally, I had intended the face on the last panel to be cool, so I felt a very wide gap between me and my reader’s sense of aesthetic beauty, finding myself in a whole heap of doubt about things. Even now, that hasn’t really changed, lol.”

About Homura’s not-so-genius plan to revive Mt. Chimney by exploding coal in it:

“'While I’m not entirely sure, in order to fake the logic [of this scene], you have to do it flashy and in a big panel.’ Homura and I have the same amount of brains, so going off the very precise (lol) calculation that, if you toss a huge fireball into a dormant volcano, it’ll turn into an active one–I’ll face this head on with a drawing or a two-page spread, or something.”

“In any case, Homura’s lack of subtlety will end up destroying the evidence of Team Aqua’s secret operations [at Mt. Chimney] in grand fashion. I’m sure he’ll get an earful from Kagari for that one, lol.”

About chapter 199, when Kagari and Homura are arguing after arriving at the Abandoned Ship, Yamamoto says that,

“…Perhaps, even in battle (with Pokémon or their bare hands), it’s most likely that Kagari wouldn’t lose. Homura, conscious of that fact himself, would most definitely take the opportunity to back down (not because he’s taking it easy on a woman). That’s basically how I picture Kagari and Homura’s relative strength.”

“This might count as divulging trade secrets, but: I wrote the ends of Homura’s dialog in katakana, which made him out to be a character that required little thought and, to be frank, seemed kind of dumb. There was supposed to be a character [like this] who became a model, with long, wavy hair, a buttchin, manly eyebrows and droopy eyes, but…I can’t remember, was it from an anime or a manga?”