If you stop to think about it, it is kinda remarkable that this 10-year-old Pokémon-training newbie somehow manages to defeat every top trainer in a region, most of whom are veteran adults, and become Total Champion of Everything within what seems like a very short timespan.

Gotta love video game wish fulfillment.

I have to give props to the very first season of the anime; despite its overall weirdness, it was actually very realistic in showing Ash not only not winning his first ever Pokémon League competition, but not even placing very high. That's life, kid.

 A running theme in this comic is taking in-game dialogue (in this case, the first line of this comic) in an unexpected direction. Kinda puts a new spin on the conversations you engage in on your Pokémon journey.

 Oh, Bug Catchers.

I characterize them in this comic kind of like the 6-year-old kid down the street who loves Pokémon but can't grasp the mechanics of the games, and keeps pestering you to tell him how to catch a level 100 Charizard in Viridian Forest.

 I highly doubt it's just coincidence that Blue happens to come strolling along right when Red wanders onto Route 22.

Also, I feel like Blue is just about the ultimate in hypocrisy and double standards; he's perfectly content to criticize Red all day long, but proves himself inferior to Red at every turn, and he basically uses his trash talk to try to disguise that fact.

It's kinda nice that later games in the series made the rival characters less ascerbic.

Also, I am so psyched to play Legends: Z-A, but I'm still trying to finish another game I've been playing over the past few months, and I'm dying trying to stay as far away from Pokémon-related things as possible so as to avoid spoilers. #gamerproblems

 I feel like anyone who insists it was sheer random chance that your Pikachu totally wrecked his Pidgey either doesn't understand Pokémon battles at all or is really, really in denial.

 Yes, I'm sure that particular nickname took a considerable amount of time and effort.

I like giving my Pokémon really nerdy nicknames that usually have to do with science. One of my favorites was in Pokémon Sword, when I named my Arctovish "Ariston", which was the nickname of a notable specimen of Leedsichthys discovered in England in 2001 which was named after a European washing machine model.

Yep, that's how I roll. (dons nerd glasses)*

*I always wear nerd glasses anyway because I'm nearsighted. So just imagine me taking my glasses off, but then putting them back on, real slow and cool-like.

 I just think it's really weird how the guy who teaches you how to catch Pokémon does his little tutorial right in the middle of Viridian City. You know, where there are no wild Pokémon. And how you can repeat the tutorial as often as you want, but it's the same Weedle every time. I feel like this guy's hobby is crafting pretend capture tutorials.

Later games actually have the capture tutorial happen out in tall grass, so it makes more sense.

I had a lot of fun just making him look so ridiculously excited about that "wild" Weedle.