RIP Pokémon 1997-2023

Over time things can change ♥️

And op is jealous because lesbians welcome "trans man" lesbians because like they are factually homosexual even if they are deeply annoying.

"Why does cropped clothing feel inherently so much more feminine??"

It's bothered me for a long time now that in shows like Pokemon, Ash and the other boys get to wear full-length pants but the girls are always stuck wearing mini skirts or tiny shorts.

Compare what Ash and Brock might wear in your average episode...

To Misty, May (who at least gets shorts to wear under her skirt), Dawn, and Serena...

These kids are going off on adventures! They're walking through forests with tall grass, trekking through caves, climbing mountains, etc., and the girls don't even get to wear clothes the'll protect them from the elements.

Continuing on with Pokémon, while it doesn't feature any of the creepier undertones as Ash's travelling companions because of the very different age range, the difference in clothes between Jessie and James, well... simply speaks for itself!

That aside, I'm frankly flabberstagged by the fact that OP decided against including in her original collage the example of semi-naked propaganda in children's cartoons:

- I support it

- I oppose it

- I don't care

I think the claim that it was not from the US has largely been debunked but I did see it so I included it anyway. for anyone unaware a girl's school was targeted by an airstrike on february 28th 2026, and 168-180 people who were largely young girls were killed. The primary consensus is the Israeli and United States Military are the perpetrators.

now the US government is openly stating they're wanting to end the Iranian government with violence.

There are links to interviews with people who worked on the series, a bunch of interesting trivia and a tiny section on the fandom, and I hope to add even more stuff in the future, including stuff related to the sequel series (unfortunately I don't know as much about them)

So, here we go…

Recently i started trying to research about Kazuki Takahashi’s work from before he created Yu-Gi-Oh, since i find it pretty interesting to see how manga author’s art styles change over time and what elements reappear often in their works, but i soon learned that it is kinda hard to research about his works: not only have most of them never been released again anywhere after they were first published, but there is also not a lot of informations and pictures of them online.

That being said, I did find a lot of things during my research, including a lot of stuff I don't think has even been translated from japanese, so I'm putting them here for more people to see!

BIG WARNING THOUGH: I do not speak japanese, and most of this information was found translating with Google Translator and DeepL, with me joining them up and fixing some grammatical errors, but there might be some big translation mistakes that i didn’t catch, so if you know japanese and sees that something is wrong please inform me in on reblogs; i will put all my sources here to make it easier too.

- The Hajime Miyabi days

In his earlier works, Kazuki Takahashi submitted his stories by the pen name Hajime Miyabi, so this section is named after this first name.

His first published work was a one-shot for the Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday magazine in 1981, and was named Ing! Love Ball; it was made for Shogakukan Newcomer Comic Awards and won first prize! The only picture of it I could find was the cover right here:

I also found this site called Kazuki's Elements and Words, which ended up being essential to this research since it has interviews, synopsis and little descriptions of all of his works! So thanks to it, we get some information about it: There are synopsis to all works on the front page of the site, and here’s the one for this manga: Three guys who love cute girls target a heroine who has a boy crush on her. Knowing her pure heart, they decide to support her, but the story goes that students from another school who target her break in and wreak havoc.

There’s also some Story Previews for this one, that say: A trio of unattractive/unpopular high school students cause havoc at their school! Three guys are always getting dumped. This time, they make a fierce attack on the female manager of the soccer club. However, the girl has a secret crush on the captain of the soccer team. And since there is another rival besides the three of them, they are in big trouble. 

Since this won first place, there are reviews of it by a bunch of famous manga authors, like Leiji Matsumoto and Fujiko Fujio: many of them complimented the love story, but the art was criticized for being hard to follow and messy, and the characters were considered shallow.

His second work was Ano Ko ni Scramble (Scramble for that girl), a one-shot from June, 1982. Found the cover here, and the synopsis is: Dan fell in love with Rio at first sight. The story is about a heroine who doesn't really want to be an idol, and who puts her body on the line to rescue Rio. Seems to be a romance drama.

According to the site, the main guy's name is Gojo Dan (he is described as being “hard-edged”) and the main girl is called Kisaragi Rio; there’s also a dog named Koro. The owner of the site complimented this one for being very sentimental, and also commented: There were many scenes that come to mind for Yu-Gi-Oh! fans, such as the handkerchief with tear marks on it and the episode where the dog bites the buttocks… I’m not sure what he means by that to be honest.

His next work was Kyogaku Sensen SOS!! (Co-educational front SOS!), another one-shot from 1982. Found a cover here:

Synopsis is: A boys' school and a girls' school decide to merge, and the hero and heroine team up to prevent it! In the end, the hero and heroine are unable to prevent the merger, but love buds between the two.

The site says that it is a romantic comedy,that the main dude's name is Yuya Hitoyoshi and the lady is Chiharu Kazama. This Yuya is described as having selfish and passionate beliefs. Also found this blog from a Yu-Gi-Oh fan that read both this manga and the next, having this to say about this one: A love story. The content is so hot that even I blush when I read it.The heroine is cute!

(BTW I tried researching a bit, and I'm unsure if the “hot content” part is saying that the story is sexy, or if it is sentimental… who knows, maybe it’s both)

Next we have Yu Yua Yu, a one-shot from the end of 1982. This one I could only find a picture on this video by youtube channel Yaku Mitsuru's Secret Treasure House, so sorry by the stuff over the picture:

Synopsis is: Isamu lives with his mother and sister. The mother is a detective who loves motorcycles and Magnum. This is a heartwarming story in which the affection between parent and child deepens through the case.

Main character seems to be a guy named Isamu Uesugi, the mother is called Yu Uesugi and the sister is named Yua Uesugi, and she’s apparently older than him. Apparently a point of conflict in the story is the mother being very busy with work and the son wanting to spend time and get pampered by her. Both the owner of the site and that blog post praised this one for its sentimental moments, and the parent-child dynamic.

This one was his last work to be published in Weekly Shonen Sunday; from 1983, it’s a one-shot called Hajimemashite Ran Desu!! (Nice to meet you, I'm Ran!). I found a cover here:

Synopsis is: When a mysterious teacher wearing a gakuran arrives at a new school, he falls in love at first sight with a beautiful teacher. Her rival is the gym teacher, Mr. Tsukinowa. This is a story of a heated love battle between teachers.

Some story elements from the site: the main guy is called Rindo Ran, and was created to be an ideal teacher, being really nice and cool; his love interest is named Mii Aima, and is a music teacher, and she has a younger brother named Hayal Aima, who is also very cool apparently. The owner of the site mentions that the story being focused on teachers was pretty rare and refreshing, but the main character acts pretty childish. 

- The Kazuo Takahashi days

Now we move to the next era of Takahashi’s work, where he started to use his real name in his manga, Kazuo Takahashi (yeah, Kazuki is not his real name!). His first work under this name was also his first serialized work: Go-Q-Choji Ikkiman, released on Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 1986; that being said, it was not an original creation of his, but an adaptation of an anime of the same name. This one actually has a lot of pictures online, starting with some cover pictures:

Synopsis is: A story about Ikki Sawamura, a.k.a. Ikki Man, who saves the earth from extinction by playing "Battle Ball," a sport similar to baseball. Myanimelist above also mentions that there are aliens on this, and that Ikki himself is an alien… so this is pretty different from his previous down-to-earth romance stuff. 

The site has two pages about it, and says that having the anime and manga being made at the same time made this a “tightrope walking project”, but they still enjoyed the manga on it’s own right, especially because of the development of the characters, like the main character Ikki and his rival Samson, who they find one of Takahashi’s best characters (maybe because of his appearance being attractive?? the translator is kinda weird on this part). 

Here’s some pictures of the interior (i believe Samson is the buff guy in that second picture). (sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

His next work was the first of his manga to be released in 1990 on Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump, where all of his future manga would be published; it was called Tokio no Taka (Eagle of the King of the Flame? this title is complicated to translate). Cover from this Twitter post:

Synopsis is: A story about cool people fighting for justice and leaving for the wilderness in the end… Which is kinda vague, and there’s not a lot of information on the site besides some comments that it is more serious than his previous and later works, how it was clearly inspired by Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and that it’s page count was impressive. We do have an interior picture, and one photo that shows a little interview that Takahashi did, with a cute doodle of himself. (Sources 1 is that twitter post, 2 is here). This is also the only one-shot to be re-released after its first publishing, on an issue of his next serialized work.

His next work was a one-shot called Battle Mind, from 1991; we have only a cover for this one, but I find it very interesting, since the design of the lady is very similar to Tea/Anzu, especially that hairstyle, and her clothes kinda look like what she wore in Death T!

Synopsis is: A story about a boy whose homeland is invaded by a dictator, who awakens with supernatural powers, fights alongside resisters, and drives out the invader. According to the site, the hero's name is Kurenai Shinku and the lady who looks like Tea is "Lime". Also, the page mentions that Takahashi talks a lot about a guy named Antonio Inoki on this, a wrestler that notably inspired that face that Joey makes a lot in the anime. At first I thought he might have helped in some way in this, but reading better I now believe it was just Takahashi fanboying because he met him before finishing the manuscript for this.

And now, his last work before Yu-Gi-Oh was serialized from 1991 until 1992, this time a completely original work of his: Tennenshoku Danji Buray (Man of Natural Color BURAY? Another one with a weird name to translate…) This one also has a ton of images, beginning with all the covers, with this main character that looks a lot like Mako Tsunami/Ryota Kajiki in some pictures:

Synopsis: Buray uses his strong body to make money as a "hit man". His reason for making dangerous money is to support the orphanage where he grew up. However, the main reason is to attract the attention of Ms. Ruriko, who runs the orphanage.... This moving film follows Burai, who thinks only of himself, as he grows into a full-fledged man through the lives of the people he encounters through professional wrestling. Yeah, Takahashi loved wrestling, if this and the previous entry didn't tell you.

The site has three different pages for the Buray manga, and the second one is the most interesting for me: it shows that during the manga’s run, they released a survey asking the readers some questions about the manga, like what they thought about the art, the main character, the plot, and most interesting of all, what they wished to happen next (though according to the site’s owner, all options eventually happened in the story). Here are the options given:

And now we have the images from the interior of the manga, and they are fascinating for me for how different they are from the YGO artstyle, yet you still can find some familiar things; these older men from pictures 4 and 5 and some of the more expressive faces are very YGO, for example! (sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

- Kazuki Takahashi era, AKA Our Conclusion 

A few years after Buray, in September of 1996, Kazuo would take the pen name Kazuki Takahashi and create Yu-Gi-Oh for Weekly Shonen Jump, which is where this research ends. His work from after YGO is a lot easier to find online, so I will not talk about it in here, but i think that seeing how much his artstyle changed over time:

Looking after pictures of those first one-shots, I saw that a lot of the covers for Weekly Shōnen Sunday from around that time had something related to Urusei Yatsura on it, and i’m guessing his manga were trying to go for that niche, with very a very rounded artstyle and romance and comedy as a big element. After he did Go-Q-Choji Ikkiman, which probably had to follow the look that the anime already had, he seemed to try a more Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure/Fist of the North Star with Tokio no Taka and Buray for some extent, while Battle Mind seems to have a more traditional 80s manga style, but in all of these you can see some elements that will be seen again in Yu-Gi-Oh beginning to appear (like those buff men from Ikkiman, Tokio no Taka and BURAY kinda reminding me of Ushiou and Goro Inogashira).

And then when you get to YGO, his style begins with traces of those previous works, but develops to become a lot more unique, a way more stylized look full of pointy chins and big hair; it was honestly super cool to see how much it changed from that beginning with his weird one-shot that somehow won a first prize in a Newcomers competition.

I’m not very good at finishing essays to be honest, so i’ll end this by putting a last picture in here: one of his way later works from 2020, coming from this account that used to translate his instagram posts: