1997 Pocket Monsters #3, Kosaku Anakubo Cover, Beckett 9.4 (White)

Kosaku Anakubo’s Pocket Monsters began in CoroCoro Special in April 1996, only weeks after the games launched. It was the first true Pokémon manga, arriving before the anime and before most of the world had heard of the games. It is full of gags, and unruly. In it, Red travels with a rude, scheming Clefairy, the Pokémon talk, and its relationship to the franchise canon is treated with cheerful indifference.

The series ran for twenty-three years across fourteen volumes and seven successor series. Volume 3 belongs to the original opening run, when Pocket Monsters was still the only Pokémon comic in existence. It bears Blastoise's first manga cover appearance, while Sugimori’s game designs are already being reinterpreted through another artist’s hand.

First-printing tankōbon, the standalone paperback books published in Japan, are difficult to find in high grade from this period.

This is a first edition, first printing, graded BGS 9.4 (White)—the highest grade recorded for the volume.