>>57535767Anyway my real complaint is hopefully more substantial. There's this whole thing where Red can only fight Brock during his official matches apparently, and he intends to heal his main 2 Pokemon but the center got rekt and they're all at super low HP, and the only full-health mon is Pikachu which hates his guts. Pikachu has a change of heart when it realizes Red actually cares about it and so eventually gives him the victory, it all works narratively so like the basic framework of the writing isn't really the problem here.
Real complaints:
-The "low HP" stuff feels super forced because they're depicted as having literally no issue easily one-shotting all these nameless NPC trainers before Brock. It's probably supposed to feel tense because one hit and they're dead, but there's not much time for that to sink in because there's only 2 pages devoted to it anyway, and it feels a little too much like Red's just on easy mode, like he's so good he can afford to play with a handicap. I almost wonder if it'd make more sense to just have those mons get weak and lose HP as a result of the fights instead of starting off that way
-Pikachu just instantly one-shots Onix with electricity, it feels a little much. I realize Kusaka possibly hadn't played the games at the time and I don't remember what gen he started actually doing so, but I think at least the other fights before this that might technically be bullshit from a gameplay perspective felt more clever and plausible in-universe (ex. Bulbasaur destroys Machoke with Solar Beam because Red allowed it to focus sunlight on its bulb)
I don't want to sound like I really hated this or am complaining too much because I think things pick up right after this, it all just looks worse written out maybe.
