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I think this manga is pretty much rushing through the gym challenge, but given how much the game forced you into focusing on that, I'm fine that the manga is more character focused. In fact, in the manga the gym challenge isn't the protagonists' real goal anyway. They were just using it to get attention on their search to help locate Schilly's lost Pokemon.
Professor Magnolia is a hilarious old woman, Sonia and Nessa actually interact, they gave Marvin a personality despite him just being one of the early trainers you face in the game, the rivals feel like they have more developed personalities here than in the game, and of course the protagonists are cool, smart, and play off of the rest of the cast well. And I think the comedy is done really well in the manga.
I'm curious what they have in mind for Bea and Allister. Could they make Glimwood Tangle out to be some kind of spooky forest they all end up having to travel through together? I'm pretty meh on the sixth gym unless you use Melony and Gordie to make mother and son jokes. Spikemuth will likely be Piers in full on in big brother mode. And hopefully Raihan's battle feels more likely than in the game. He didn't even have a proper gym mission, well neither did Piers but he has an excuse since Spikemuth was poor and didn't even have a proper gym anyway. And the semi-finals and finals could be much more interesting with a more developed cast. Maybe neither protagonist ends up winning? Maybe they leave to do something else and Hop actually does become champion in the manga. And imagine if they do adapt the post-game story and the DLC stories. Those would be epic if the writer could fully ham all those over the top people up even more.
