The 18 Most Disturbing Moments In The Pokemon Manga

When it comes to the Pokemon franchise, the vast majority of fans are familiar with both the Pokemon games and the Pokemon anime. However, there is also one long-running manga series (though there are other manga too) called Pokemon Adventures that loosely adapts the stories of the mainline games, while also integrating its own themes and ideas. Each one follows a variety of protagonists on their adventures in the world of Pokemon as well as their own personal journeys.

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Since Pokemon Adventures is based on a children's video game series, one would imagine that it would be fairly lighthearted. And, while most of the manga does have that sort of tone to it, there are certain moments that stand out as particularly strange or disturbing and even a couple of moments that are just downright horrifying.

Updated September 21st, 2024 by Jacob Buchalter: The Pokemon Adventures manga is still going strong, with new chapters coming out regularly for the Scarlet and Violet section of the series. However, while the new stuff is still very high quality, it's noticeably less 'adult' in terms of the scale of events happening in the manga. In the earlier chapters of Pokemon Adventures, and especially at the climatic battles of each chapter, some pretty horrifying stuff was known to happen that longtime fans of the Pokemon franchise wouldn't expect to see. To prove it, let's go over some of the most well-known dark moments in this manga series, in-depth.

18 Ruby Almost Getting His Pokemon Impaled

Pokemon Adventures: Ruby & Sapphire

Let's start things off with an example of something that isn't inherently all that dark, but if it had gone wrong it could've been incredibly dark. So, in the 'canon' of the Pokemon Adventures manga series, Pokemon in their Pokeballs are shrunken down and visible through the semi-transparent top half of the Pokeball as needed. They aren't turned into data or light and 'stored' inside the Pokeball that way, like in other Pokemon media, they're almost compressed.

Now, when Ruby tries to interrupt a battle between a Seviper and Zangoose while helping out a Swimmer, the two Pokemon turn their attention to Ruby before he can properly react, completely impaling his whole team of Pokeballs on their fans and claws. Thankfully, the Pokemon inside weren't hurt as they managed to avoid the claws/teeth, but if they hadn't then Ruby would have lost his entire team permanently in an instant.

17 Steven Stone & Norman (Temporarily) Die

Pokemon Adventures: Ruby & Sapphire

Next up let's talk about the end of the Ruby and Sapphire chapter of Pokemon Adventures, during the climax, a lot is going on, and the stakes are about as high as they can get. In the process of stopping Kyogre and Groudon from fighting and destroying Sootopolis City, Ruby's dad Norman takes control of Rayquaza and Steven Stone takes control of the three original Regis (AKA Registeel, Regirock, and Regice).

However, after they've succeeded at their goal, both Norman and Steven are found to be unresponsive, with Norman's eyes being covered in shadow as he stands stone-still and Steven Stone lying lifeless on the ground. As it turns out, Norman controlling Rayquaza took a heavy mental toll on the man and even more so for Steven, who controlled all three Regis at once. Obviously, like most of the horrifying things that happen in this manga series, these two don't 'stay' dead, but it's still horrifying nonetheless.

16 Giratina Impaling Diamond With Shadow Force

Pokemon Adventures: Platinum

First up, let's start things off with one of the most 'suddenly horrifying' events which is when Giritina impales Diamond and seemingly kills him. This happens during the Platinum section of Pokemon Adventures, in Chapter 433 to be precise. In this chapter, Charon has just revealed his plans to capture Giritina and sends out Heatran to battle both Diamond and Pearl (in hopes of beating Diamond and taking his Regigigas). As they're battling, Giritina ends up nearby, and Charon uses his Slowking to provoke the creature into attacking Pearl.

However, right before Giritina's Shadow Force can catch Pearl unaware, Diamond dives in and pushes Pearl out of the way, only to get impaled himself and seemingly 'killed'. This violence comes out of nowhere and it really seems like Diamond is dead, though fans of the series should know by this point that dead people almost never stay dead in Pokemon Adventures.

15 The Unconcious Gym Leaders Being 'Crucified'

Pokemon Adventures: Black & White

Second up is a moment in the Black and White section of Pokemon Adventures that is one of the rare few instances where the manga was censored in the Viz Media English translation. During the penultimate events of Black and White (chapter 520) that eventually led to Black and White 2, Team Plasma successfully 'takes over' the Pokemon League and has seemingly achieved all its goals.

And, in a show of power, Ghetsis reveals how superior Team Plasma is to the Pokmon Trainer world by revealing the Gym Leaders of Unova unconscious and 'crucified'. Thankfully, their arms and legs are only tied to these crosses instead of nailed to them, but it's still a shockingly disturbing image. So much so, in fact, that in the English Translation, the Gym Leaders are instead tied to long poles instead of crosses.

14 Lusimine Fusing With Nihilego

Pokemon Adventures: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon

When the Ultra Beasts were first introduced in the original Pokemon Sun and Moon games, not much was known about them. However, during the events of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, a lot more is revealed about Ultra Space, and in the Pokemon Adventures telling of this story, both Sun and Moon spend a lot of time in Ultra Space, and so does Lusamine.

While Sun and Moon are battling against Necrozma, who has already stolen all the light from Ultra Megalopolis and is now after Lunala's power, Lusamine appears and butts her way into the battle. And, in doing so, Lusamine brings out Nihilego, who she has already captured in a Beast Ball, and invites the Ultra Beast to 'become one with her'. The next panel shows Sun and Moon utterly horrified as Lusamine 'fuses' with Nihilego, which is a scene that also happens in the games, but is nowhere near as horrifying as it is here.

13 Zombie Pokemon

Pokemon Adventures: Red & Blue

Right in the very first volume of the series, quite a few horrifying things happen. Red goes through all the towns of Kanto, gathering gym badges one by one as anyone who played a Pokemon game before would expect. Then, he eventually ends up in the renowned Lavender Town. Mr. Fuji tells him about the ghosts in the tower, and how Blue went into the tower earlier to investigate, so Red goes to check it out as more of a challenge than anything else.

But, after walking not even 10 feet in the door, Red runs into the ghosts of deceased Pokemon, but they’re a lot more zombie-like than ghost-like. In fact, after destroying the degrading remains of a Psyduck, Red notices these things are basically decaying corpses piloted by Ghost Pokemon. It's a rather dark event that's very quickly glossed over, but that one panel of zombie Psyduck with the empty eye-sockets (save for one deflated eyeball) still haunts many readers to this day.

12 The Destruction Of Vermilion City

Pokemon Adventures: Yellow

Next up is an event in the series that’s a lot more horrifying in regard to the scale of its destruction as opposed to anything straight-up 'scary'. The events of Pokemon Adventures Yellow feature a character of the same name (Yellow) searching for Red after he disappeared after the events of Red and Blue. To do that, Yellow has to cross the ocean but doesn't have a water Pokemon to use as a mount or a boat to carry her.

So, Yellow enters a surfing tournament in the hopes of winning the grand prize, a Dragonair, that can take her across the sea. But, during this competition, the Dragon Tamer Lance (AKA the current Elite Four Champion) shows up all of a sudden and has his own Dragonair launch a Hyper Beam that basically atomizes a large portion of Vermilion City in an instant. It's never brought up how many casualties this caused, but considering the crater it formed, Dragonair's absurd power had to have killed a fair number of unsuspecting citizens.

11 Arbok Being Decapitated

Pokemon Adventures: Red & Blue

This next event is one that usually gives most readers whiplash when they get to the panel depicting it, as it feels like this violence comes out of nowhere. During the events of the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town, Red bumps into Blue, who has seemingly been possessed by a ghost (along with his Charmelon). After figuring out it's a Ghastly doing this, and using Solarbeam to blast it away, Blue breaks free of the possession to find that it was Koga's Ghastly that possessed him. After Koga does some evil narration about the Pokemon Tower being a perfect base for Team Rocket (which he's a part of in this story), Koga begins to use his Arbok to chase down both Red and Blue.

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But, just when Koga thinks that he's used Arbok's acid to melt down Blue's Charmeleon, it's suddenly turned back on him when that very same Charmelon uses its tail to slice in Arbok in half. It turns out Blue used that same decaying Psyduck zombie mentioned above as a decoy for Arbok's acid to get the upper hand. They leave this, now decapitated, Arbok on the ground and escape the tower, which is brutal. Even though later on in the story it's revealed that the Arbok was fine and can regenerate its body parts at will, this was still a moment where most readers figured out that Pokemon Adventures is a lot different than most other Pokemon media.

10 Archie & Wallie's Descent Into Madness

Pokemon Adventures: Ruby & Sapphire

Hopping right from Red and Blue to the Sapphire and Ruby stories in Pokemon Adventures, this next disturbing event is entirely focused on the Legendaries Kyogre and Groudon. These two primal beasts were constantly locked in a neverending battle (in the distant past) that created new islands but was also just generally catastrophic in nature. Eventually, because of the production they caused, both of them were sealed away into these orb-like Relics that allowed humans to control them, the Red and Blue Orbs.

Now, over the course of events in the Ruby and Sapphire volumes (as well as in the Ruby and Sapphire games, to an extent), the leaders of both Team Magma and Team Aqua, AKA Archie and Maxie, do a lot of evil things. And, as a result of their schemes, they both end up controlling the very Orbs of the Legendary Pokemon their organizations were built around. But, throughout the rest of the events of the Ruby and Sapphire volumes, Archie and Maxie slowly lose more and more of themselves and become more and more controlled by Kyogre and Groudon instead of the other way around. From here, the two go through quite a lot over the course of multiple volumes, as they absorb the Orbs into themselves, lose control of themselves to Groudon and Kyogre, make an alliance with each other, are essentially 'killed', fight each other to the 'death' over a suit of armor, have a brief stint as an armored villain named Guile Hideout (Archie only), and even manage to return from the Distortion Realm. Finally, in the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire chapters (of the manga, not the handheld mainline games) these two attempt to control Primal Groudon and Kyogre once again, before eventually turning into dust after helping save the world.

9 Giovanni Murdering Magmar

Pokemon Adventures: Red & Blue

In basically all of Pokemon media, Giovanni is depicted as the evil leader of Team Rocket, the terrorist organization that seems to always be causing some sort of trouble. In Pokemon Adventures, Giovanni is even more dastardly than he is in the games and the anime. He proves himself to be capable of some rather heinous acts, like the time he killed a couple of wild Magmars by first freezing them with Cloyster, and then shattering them into pieces, all to prove a point to himself that Red is too soft.

Red had just battled these Magmar as they had set fire to the Pewter City Museum, and he had used a newly caught Sandshrew to create a sandstorm that both put out the fire and disabled the Magmar. But, once the Pokemon were unable to fight back, Red stopped fighting, as he didn't like the idea of attacking defenseless Pokemon. Once Red is out of view, Giovanni notes to himself that, while Red is a strong trainer, he's much too soft, as Magmar tends to track down and get revenge on their opponents. Just then, those same Magmar pop out of the sand and leap to attack Giovanni, only for Giovanni to use his Cloyster to freeze them whole (though Cloyster isn't really 'known' for being fast). Then, Giovanni breaks these frozen Magmar into pieces, quite literally killing them. Even across all of the volumes of the Pokemon Adventures manga, this still remains one of the few times where Pokemon are fully killed and don't come back.