Pokemon Craft DX Books

Alright, I don't speak or read Japanese, so much of the information on this site will be culled from unreliable secondary sources and my own interpretation of the visuals.  That being said, I would really like to talk about the Pokemon Craft DX books, despite not really understanding what is happening.

I don't know how many of these books were made, but there are at least two in the series, with the more general introductory book being the most well-known.  Paper crafts are a do-it-yourself style of art that involves folding a paper template into three-dimensional characters (and ten putting them somewhere nice so they don't get crushed).  The first book includes a little story/how-to guide featuring the three main trainers from the games.  Based on the number of items in the table of contents, I assume this book comes with 5 character templates.  Although I only have scans of the Pikachu template, I think there were also Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle templates as well (due to their inclusion in the comic).

As you can see, Red is joined by the unused female trainer.  Now, since this book came out in 1998, audiences would only be familiar with this character via the Pokemon Special manga, where her name is Green (Blue in Japan).  The art style however is closer to the original Sugimori drawings, so she isn't the exact same character.  This Green seems to be a lot more bubbly and nice than her manga counterpart.

I...have no idea what is happening in this story.  Red's mood is shifting erratically from panel to panel.  The paper the trainers keep passing around is blank, so I don't know if they are fighting over what they should do with it or if one of the templates is already on the paper.  Whatever the case is, the trio is very passionate to make these paper creatures even though they have the real creatures right next to them!

Red is being knocked around really badly by this turn of events.  Paper crafts can elicit many an existential crisis.  I've also noticed that Green and Blue are paired with their traditional starters while Red now partners with Pikachu (and Bulbasaur just hangs around).

Some people have called this an origami book, but origami doesn't involve scissors and glue.  Instead we get a complicated template to carefully cut out.  This isn't really a hobby I'd be interested in so I would rather keep the pages intact than damage this rare book to make the creatures.

Based on the ending of the story (which comes after all the templates) I'll assume that the fifth paper craft is actually for that green stadium/pedestal looking thing, rather than another Pokemon.  It also comes with a little placard, so you can pretend you've received a major award when showing this to your house guests.

The other craft book I've seen focuses on Electric types and features templates for Pikachu, Magnemite, and Zapdos at least.  Interestingly, the Pikachu template is different from before, featuring two components to the body instead of one.  I don't know the reason for the change.  Maybe the comic explains.  Or maybe the trainers just get too excited about paper again.

 

So what have we learned?  Well, if you're looking to fulfill your fix for folding paper into the shape of Pokemon or you need to complete your collection of material that features the elusive missing girl trainer from the original games, here's the book for you!  Otherwise, you can probably make cooler creations on your own.