The Pokémon Company has been anything but shy about celebrating the franchise’s 30th anniversary. I, for better or worse, am a sucker for a good ol’ strategy book, so one drop I was excited enough to preorder was the new Deluxe Character Book. While the book does show some age-old favoritism for specific Pokémon, it also serves as a colorful and thoughtful celebration of the full franchise.
The book’s construction definitely has a premium feel. The gold-lined pages make it stand out against any selection of guide or coffee books. The cover art features an array of Pokémon in gold and silver line art, offering some entertainment in finding each Pokémon hidden in the collage. Full color is reserved for Pikachu, who is also the star of the inner cover art, and unsurprisingly much of the book in general.
The guidebook initially greets you with a foreword from the CEO of The Pokémon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara. He expresses his gratitude to Pokémon fans, who he hopes “can unearth for the first time or rediscover the magic of the Pokémon world.” A cute detail here is a full color picture of Exeggutor, who Ishihara has previously mentioned is his personal favorite Pokémon, underneath the President’s signature.
This gracious foreword is followed by an introduction that frankly had me feeling things. In just a few short paragraphs, this introduction outlines what Pokémon is and has been throughout its 30-year history. This is a very core part of the book: an attempt at encompassing information from each segment of the franchise, and embracing Trainers at any point in their Pokémon journey.
From there, you essentially get a full-on encyclopedia that includes every Pokémon in numerical Pokédex order, from Bulbasaur to Pecharunt. Chapters are generally organized by region, each of which starts with a general overview page that briefly describes the region’s relevance to particular Pokémon games, arcs in the movies and TV series, and appearance in TCG form.
The exceptions to that structure are entire chapters dedicated to Pikachu, New Discoveries, and Legendary and Mythical Pokemon.
Each of these sections has a specific page color and little labels in the top corner, making it easy to flip through. An Index at the back also indicates the pages dedicated to individual Pokémon in alphabetical order.
Now, what exactly do you learn about each of the 1,025 Pokémon included in the book? In short, what you’d expect from a particularly elaborate Pokédex.
For every single Pokémon, you get a sprite image, the English and Japanese names, and a table containing the following information:
- Category
- Type
- Gender
- Related Pokemon
- Height and Weight
- Characteristics
Most of those sections are pretty self-explanatory. “Category” is just another word for the funky categories assigned to each Pokémon, like Tentacool being the Jellyfish Pokémon. “Related Pokémon” lists out special evolutions, like Mega and Gigantamax forms, as well as general evolutions that first appeared in separate regions and are thus out of Pokédex order. “Characteristics” offers a pretty similar description to what you’d find in a Pokédex entry, though these are entirely fresh descriptions that are each a couple of sentences long.
Like most things in the Pokémon world, don’t expect every Pokémon to be treated equally. While every single Pokémon gets that basic info chart, some of them get a bit of extra love.
For starters, as mentioned, we get a full five-page chapter dedicated to Pikachu. Every “First Partner Pokémon,” aka starters in each mainline game, has a full page spread dedicated to its evolution cycles. There are also some other non-starter evolutions that get full pages, like Gastly to Gengar and Ralts to Gardevoir.
I initially assumed these full-page spreads were reserved for three-stage evolutions, but there’s a couple of exceptions, like Wobuffet, who also gets the full-page treatment.
What’s included in these larger entries varies for each Pokémon, but in general, the book certainly tries to pack in and pay equal respect to information from the games, the anime series, and the TCG.
Using the Wobuffet page as an example, you get a section dedicated to Animation, showing screenshots and brief descriptions of the Patient Pokémon’s notable appearances across multiple seasons. The TCG section has images of multiple card iterations, offering a glimpse into a range of art styles and abilities.
And, of course, you have the Video Game section. One thing I’ll give this book tons of credit for is that this section is never as simple as “what the Pokémon looks like in-game,” and instead tries to showcase how the Pokémon may have appeared across the video game series in a particularly unique way. For example, the Wobuffet page features Quiz Wobuffet in the somewhat niche GameCube release, Pokémon Channel.
Those who’ve memorized every Pokédex entry are unlikely to find any surprises in here, but I’d describe the goal of this book as synthesis as opposed to invention. I, personally, have not kept up with animated Pokémon, so I always learn something in those sections. I imagine the same goes for anyone who isn’t entirely caught up on the TCG scene.
The particularly robust pages are, to me, nothing short of glorious. The question I’ve been sitting on is how much to criticize the book’s “favoritism” in only dedicating these to certain Pokémon.
TPC often gets flack for only highlighting particularly popular mascot Pokémon, especially when it comes to recent merch drops and collaborations. Yes, the book would be a massive tome were it to dedicate single pages to each individual Pokémon, but I’d still argue this was one of the better opportunities for Pokémon equity.
I’ll acknowledge that there’s truly an endless amount you can ask for when it comes to Pokémon. This particular character guidebook definitely succeeds as a holistic homage to the full franchise. Well, at least until we get our hands on Winds and Waves.
Pokémon Deluxe Character Guide (Hardcover)
5
Blythe Dujardin
Audience Development Coordinator
Blythe (she/her) is an Audience Development Coordinator at IGN who spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.
