I realize that manga is a change of pace. This is a game preservation site. A review of a chapter of graphic novels seems weird.
In all honesty, I wanted to do this because the story in these was such a vast departure from the games, and if you try to ask if it's the same as the anime, no. The anime was meant for more general TV audiences and the manga was geared towards older, more "hardcore" Pokémon fans.
I say that because of some of the subjects in the manga. The overall tone of the manga is very mature and serious one. I say that not because they use "naughty words" or hand gestures that mean the same, but because they are quite violent. The VIZ translations are a bit more toned-down, but the Singaporean English translations and original Japanese versions don't shy away from anything at all.
Without further ado, I will do my plot synopsis and give my opinion on it. Spoilers, duh.
The manga starts off with Maryanne and Ty interviewing Norman. He comments on how his family is moving to Hoenn from Johto, and from some research, they loved in Goldenrod City before they moved to Littleroot. You then see his wife driving the moving truck to their new house, chuckling and watching Norman talk about her and their son.
You don't know what you're in for...
We then meet Ruby, who she calls to the front to watch his dad on the TV in the truck. Compared to the games, there was room for him to ride in the cab with her, but he chose to ride in the back to work on sewing things for his Pokémon and groom them. It is here that we find that he is a Pokémon Coordinator and thereby hates his Dad for being a "Battle Maniac" and thinks that making Pokémon fight is "Barbaric". To keep his façade going (more to elaborate on later), he blows her off and they continue until they hit a hole in the mud where she asks him to come out and help.
Ruby, of course, says "No." Because he is too concerned with his Pokémon getting dirty. He then has his Ralts do it from the inside, and by the time that they get to their new house, he sits atop the moving truck and looks at the grassy fields and compliments on what a beautiful view it is.
They get to moving their stuff inside, where his Mom asks him "Isn't it so great, being able to see your father again?" To which Ruby blows her off and is obviously frustrated at how he's been spending so much time away from the family (again, more on that later) and throws the gift that his Dad gave him as well as the letter away in his wastebasket beside his desk. He then gets his stuff and Pokémon together to get this elaborate plan of running away together, grabs the running shoes, apologizes to his mom for doing this as he knows full well she didn't deserve his revenge plan on his dad, and escapes with a sheet bend, prisoner style. (Going out the window with sheets tied together.)
He then runs into Professor Birch, who is being chased by Mightyena, a pack of them, and while admiring their beauty, he almost falls victim to them until Sapphire catches him in an outfit made of leaves, masking her identity. He then comes to, and when she approaches him, he rightfully is shocked and thinks she is a Pokémon. She then gets defensive, and with the Pokémon that he got from birch, he chose Mudkip to fight off Sapphire. Professor Birch calls right before the fight, and finds out who Ruby was because of how Ruby's shoes were a special gift and the first of their kind from the Devon Corporation.
They then make a deal for Ruby to get all the contest ribbons in 80 days and Sapphire to get all 8 Gym Badges. What would happen to the loser? Who knows. And then, while Sapphire is out of energy after a Seviper attacks the both of them, Ruby knocks it out without a looking at his Pokémon, measures Sapphire, and tailors some of his clothes while applying some bandages to her, so she goes out in public "looking decent".
Ruby then heads off to Oldale Town where he picks on Mudkip for not being beautiful and gets his just desserts by waking up a sleeping Dustox and finds out that Mudkip helped him fight it off and found where it was, when it was hiding from Ruby and his Pokémon, where the rest of them were asleep. Ruby, using his Pokédex, finds out that the fin on the top of Mudkip's head works as a radar, and heads off to Petalburg City.
Meanwhile, Sapphire returned to her dad, Prof. Birch and Ruby's mom with the Prof.'s bag, extra Pokédex and Treecko. They then call Norman to tell him that Ruby's gone because Birch was able to identify him by his special shoes, and Norman is so angry that he crushed the phone in his hand, to which Ruby's mom says that he did it quite often. This is a sign of who Norman is later on. Sapphire then sets off to get all the gym badges, swinging on vines away from home all the while.
Ruby arrives in Petalburg, with Mudkip atop his shoulder, and for once through the story, wearing his glasses. His myopia isn't a big thing throughout the story, but him wearing his glasses does help him a few times. He hates wearing them though, because of how vain he is. If you ask me though, I don't mind them all that much, and they kind of add to his look.
Ruby runs into Wally, who is trying to catch Pokémon all on his own, and takes out a Nuzleaf who was harassing Wally.
Ruby wants to be friends from that day forward. Cute.
Wally thanks him for his help, but tells him that someone else was going to help him with that. With Ruby getting a sense of urgency to get the hell out of dodge, Wally takes note ofSatan Norman walking up to Petalburg Forest, where Ruby then hides Wally in the bush with him. After telling Wally that he is too weak with Ruby getting quite angry with his old man being an obstinate douche, Norman takes note that there is "someone else nearby", and attempts to find out who it was. Ruby is almost found but, a Breloom helps Ruby hide his location.
Yeah, I'd be afraid of my Dad too if he was commanding sound effects like a Jojo character.
Later that day, after bringing an unconscious Wally back to the hospital because Norman was too focused on finding "whoever that was", probably thinking it was Ruby. Ruby then takes Wally out to catch a Pokémon, where he catches a Kecleon, and after a ledge crumbled under Ruby's feet, Ruby told Wally to take good care of Ruru, his Ralts. The next day, Wally woke up in the hospital again, with Ruru telling him that Ruby is not dead.
We then catch up with Sapphire trying to save a Castform that was sucked into a fountain because Team Aqua as well as Magma, has moles in every company, this one being a repair service for the park. It was going to be a kidnapping of the president for the "special part" for the submarine so it could go down deep, but the President gives it to Sapphire as well as a letter for Steven later on.
Ruby is found by Mr. Briney's Peeko, and we meet Briney who is no longer a frail little man but what I could only decribe as Goku as an old fisherman. Ruby ends up being a bit of a screw up on Briney's boat and is very, very seasick. After Mr. Briney gave Ruby a book about water types, Ruby got attached to a picture of Milotic and wanted one for obvious reasons.
A Crawdaunt then got on board after Briney pulled it up, and using just his Skitty, Ruby took care of it while helping get Briney back on board. Ruby then pretends like nothing happened after giving Peeko a makeover in order to help her, and Briney realizes that Ruby is not all that he may seem and that he is hiding something.
Sapphire enters the Rustboro Gym to find out that in order to get the badge, she must get the highest score on the test of the trainers' school. Being the Pokémon researcher she is, she steamrolls the test and Roxanne challenges her to a battle that Sapphire only beat by figuring out Roxanne's strategy. Using her Nosepass against her, Sapphire beats Roxanne and sets off for Dewford.
Ruby then finds Sapphire at Dewford, and heading into Granite Cave, they act like siblings by being contrarian and go different routes, with Ruby going straight into danger with a flock of Mawile and meeting Steven. Being that he is quite obsessed with his Pokémon, he doesn’t miss the chance to capture his Pokémon evolving, even though it was quite a dunderheaded decision to do as such while he's trying to get away from all the Pokémon rushing towards him and Steven.
The next day, Sapphire fights off Brawly in a similar fashion to what she did with Roxanne. After getting her second badge, she and Ruby set off for Slateport. Mid-trip, they get into an argument where Ruby gets pissed at her for her saying "Your dad isn't a wuss. Why are you?"
After an argument, throws him onto the Abandoned Ship. Ruby finds a Plusule and Minun what were left there to protect the Detector and the Journal that Courtney and her cohort Mitch from Team Magma came to find. After they end up getting away with the Detector anyways, Ruby still has the Journal and Courtney can't remember Ruby's face because he had his glasses on at the time, and was out of the sunshine.
After getting off and saying "Seeya!" to Sapphire, Ruby disembarks at Slateport with Sapphire pretty mad that Ruby "didn't even bother to say thank ya". Mack and Courtney (she's called Marge in the manga but nobody will know who Marge is) then beg to a Maxie to use the detector to engulf the streets of Slateport in flames, and with Maxie getting super intoxicated in his base, he tells them to wait for Mack.
Ruby runs into the Pokémon Fan Club president in Slateport, which is in vast contrast to the games, where the Contest Hall and the Pokémon Fan Club are located in Lilycove. Ruby and the President talk about getting a Contest Hall pass, which are only handed out in Verdanturf Town, which is super convenient for Ruby and the Fan Club President. Ruby then ponders whether trying to enter the contests would have been a good idea anyways, as he knows that his Dad would have IMMEDIATELY caught wind and come after him to beat him.
If you're so concerned about that, then why did you run away from home to do specifically that?
After Ruby and the President and a couple scientists working on the submarine go to work on Pokeblocks, they are knocked out by a Torkoal and Ruby and the President are tied up and thrown in a back room while Mack tortures the scientists for the special sub part.
Ruby and the Pres break out of the back room, and using Ruby's innate senses, he tricks Mack's Slugma to follow him into the submarine, dropping his Pokeblock holder into the water behind him on accident. Ruby then knows that he's in over his head once he began to fight off Mack, but Mack decided to show off to Ruby his fire illusions, and who else does Ruby see but Norman.
Ruby, as a young child, then begs for his illusion of his Dad to allow him to battle and train with him. Mack then tells him that it was supposed to be his worst memories, foreshadowing for later.
After then distracting Mack for long enough, Ruby and Marshtomp escape in the escape pod to the surface.
Sapphire then makes her way to Wattson, but not before being trapped by Coil-boy's robots after being mistaken for a Donphan. Wattson, who Sapphire finds out is very unserious about badges, slaps the badge out of his hand because she wanted to actually earn the badge and not have it given out like candy. She knocks it into a Donphan and lodges it between its scales, pissing it off. After calming it down, they find New Mauville and find that Wattson has been taken hostage by... the generator...
After figuring out the generator's attack pattern, Watton and Coil-boy, his friend, figure out that the generator as well as the whole of New Mauville was built by Coil-boy's ancestor, Robot Man. Once they activate it, it turns into a giant amusement park, and Sapphire is thanked by the both of them for helping them find it. She then takes the badge as she then believes she has earned it, running off to her next battle.
Ruby and Marshtomp surface, and after commenting on how much it stinks in there, Ruby wonders about whether the President and Captain Stern are ok. He then puts his glasses on sees that he's made himself famous for all the wrong reasons. After debating on whether to go back to Slateport, Ruby then realizes that his worst fears have been made true and he knows that now his Dad is on to him, with a visualization of... his dad abusing him. We then see his mom see that he was kidnapped after she wonders why he had to run away from home, to only then faint.
We see Maryanne and Ty catch up to Mr.Abuse Norman in the Slateport Seaport, and he is NUCLEAR. After picking up Ruby's pokeblock holder from the bottom of the water, he figures out Ruby's trajectory and hops onto a jet ski to go kick his ass in battle and physically. Ruby, meanwhile, rubs into a swimmer who is trying to catch a Feebas, and after Ruby kept putting it back into the water because it was "so ugly" multiple times, the swimmer sees that he caught it, and they both make such a fuss that Ruby lets it back into the water as well as his Pokegear.
They continue to fish for the Feebas and then see a Zangoose and Seviper fight until they unintentionally startle them and they chase after Ruby and the swimmer. With the Zangoose and Seviper chasing them, Feebas puts up a Light Screen. With the pursuing Pokémon puncturing the pokeballs with Ruby and the swimmers Pokémon in them, Ruby and co. make their great escape to the Weather Research Institute. Ruby and the swimmer argue about what helped save the both of them, and then the swimmer thinks about forcing Ruby to be his Feebas breeder and living lavishly while Ruby is his slave.
Fun.
Ruby then stresses about half of his Pokémon being groomed and beautiful while half are ugly and unkempt, pounding his fist against the ground. Marshtomp then sees his favorite kind of Pokeblock and runs off after them, continually munching on them. Ruby notices that he's gone, and goes off after him to find that HIS pokeblocks are there, and they are Zuzu's favorite.
Someone behind him finishes his thought for him and lets him know that his time is up, standing behind him like he's about to violently beat him.
That's not far from the truth, as Norman then proceeds to punch him down the stairs, with Ruby and his Marshtomp hitting the wall behind the stairs, shocking the swimmer. Ruby then says that it's about to become "the most violent family quarrel ever", which entails beating your son until he physically breaks, I guess.
Maryanne and Ty are taking care of the President's Castform for him while he's still in a coma, and are looking for Norman or Ruby. Castform tries to show them that they are at the Weather Research Institute, wherein they then realize the same. They run towards the building to see what is happening, seeing Norman at the top but not seeing him beat up on Ruby, I guess.
We then see Norman beating the shit out of Ruby for no reason other than the fact that he ran away from home. Norman begins grilling him for answers as to why he ran away from home and continues to beat him up until his Slaking picks up a set of stairs and Ruby has to fight his Dad. His Dad tells him coolly while he is fighting that "your attacks are of no use against me because I taught you them", but as he rightfully should have, Ruby uses his Marshtomp for some cheap shots.
Yes, this is fucked up. And yes, this is real.
The battle continues on until the stairs that Ruby is standing on are swung over the ledge by Slaking, to which Norman uses to his advantage, to coax Ruby over to him. As Ruby continues to refuse, the stairs that that moron used his Pokémon to swing over the edge begin to fall off the side of the building with Norman and Ruby on them. We then see Ruby's mom talking about how Norman wanted Ruby to participate in contests, and how this was, (I guess) going to help fix up family ties, and that Ruby was too impatient.
To break away from the plot synopsis, I'm going to play devil's advocate for Ruby. Granted, his actions were rash. Yes, he was impatient. HOWEVER. Norman is an abusive father because Ruby is disobedient, and therein caused Ruby to want to run away from home. I will discount what Ruby did on the count that what Norman did was worse, probably fracturing a few bones and almost putting him out with a concussion or two. I am genuinely surprised that he wasn't completely broken from being thrown (or punched) down the stairs a few times.
While the stairs fall off the side, Norman holds onto Ruby's hand in order to make sure that neither he nor Ruby gets impaled. However, if he hadn't had the stairs thrown off the side of the building, this wouldn't have happened. Problem solved. As they are about to fall off, Castform dries up the stairs that Norman was holding onto, causing it instead to crack, and for them to fall. Ruby thinks fast and uses his shoes to move them to the ground where there isn't jagged broken pieces of building and tree trunks that are conveniently spiky, to which Norman thanks Ruby for thinking fast.
Nah, after being searched for by the Winona because the "Gym Leaders Committee" (or whatever, I'll get to them later) sent for him, he just berates Ruby and tells him to not come home until he's gotten all the ribbons. Oh, and to occasionally call Mom. Ruby then thanks his Dad for letting him do what he wants to instead of thinking to himself "fuck off, you old asswipe." And Maryanne and Ty (yeah their names are different in the manga, but I don't care, they are Maryanne and... Tyler... moving on.) take off to Verdanturf Town to get Ruby his Contest Pass, with the swimmer running after them because he wants his Feebas.
You don't know what you're in for...
We then meet Ruby, who she calls to the front to watch his dad on the TV in the truck. Compared to the games, there was room for him to ride in the cab with her, but he chose to ride in the back to work on sewing things for his Pokémon and groom them. It is here that we find that he is a Pokémon Coordinator and thereby hates his Dad for being a "Battle Maniac" and thinks that making Pokémon fight is "Barbaric". To keep his façade going (more to elaborate on later), he blows her off and they continue until they hit a hole in the mud where she asks him to come out and help.
Ruby, of course, says "No." Because he is too concerned with his Pokémon getting dirty. He then has his Ralts do it from the inside, and by the time that they get to their new house, he sits atop the moving truck and looks at the grassy fields and compliments on what a beautiful view it is.
They get to moving their stuff inside, where his Mom asks him "Isn't it so great, being able to see your father again?" To which Ruby blows her off and is obviously frustrated at how he's been spending so much time away from the family (again, more on that later) and throws the gift that his Dad gave him as well as the letter away in his wastebasket beside his desk. He then gets his stuff and Pokémon together to get this elaborate plan of running away together, grabs the running shoes, apologizes to his mom for doing this as he knows full well she didn't deserve his revenge plan on his dad, and escapes with a sheet bend, prisoner style. (Going out the window with sheets tied together.)
He then runs into Professor Birch, who is being chased by Mightyena, a pack of them, and while admiring their beauty, he almost falls victim to them until Sapphire catches him in an outfit made of leaves, masking her identity. He then comes to, and when she approaches him, he rightfully is shocked and thinks she is a Pokémon. She then gets defensive, and with the Pokémon that he got from birch, he chose Mudkip to fight off Sapphire. Professor Birch calls right before the fight, and finds out who Ruby was because of how Ruby's shoes were a special gift and the first of their kind from the Devon Corporation.
They then make a deal for Ruby to get all the contest ribbons in 80 days and Sapphire to get all 8 Gym Badges. What would happen to the loser? Who knows. And then, while Sapphire is out of energy after a Seviper attacks the both of them, Ruby knocks it out without a looking at his Pokémon, measures Sapphire, and tailors some of his clothes while applying some bandages to her, so she goes out in public "looking decent".
Ruby then heads off to Oldale Town where he picks on Mudkip for not being beautiful and gets his just desserts by waking up a sleeping Dustox and finds out that Mudkip helped him fight it off and found where it was, when it was hiding from Ruby and his Pokémon, where the rest of them were asleep. Ruby, using his Pokédex, finds out that the fin on the top of Mudkip's head works as a radar, and heads off to Petalburg City.
Meanwhile, Sapphire returned to her dad, Prof. Birch and Ruby's mom with the Prof.'s bag, extra Pokédex and Treecko. They then call Norman to tell him that Ruby's gone because Birch was able to identify him by his special shoes, and Norman is so angry that he crushed the phone in his hand, to which Ruby's mom says that he did it quite often. This is a sign of who Norman is later on. Sapphire then sets off to get all the gym badges, swinging on vines away from home all the while.
Ruby arrives in Petalburg, with Mudkip atop his shoulder, and for once through the story, wearing his glasses. His myopia isn't a big thing throughout the story, but him wearing his glasses does help him a few times. He hates wearing them though, because of how vain he is. If you ask me though, I don't mind them all that much, and they kind of add to his look.
Ruby runs into Wally, who is trying to catch Pokémon all on his own, and takes out a Nuzleaf who was harassing Wally.
Ruby wants to be friends from that day forward. Cute.
Wally thanks him for his help, but tells him that someone else was going to help him with that. With Ruby getting a sense of urgency to get the hell out of dodge, Wally takes note of
Yeah, I'd be afraid of my Dad too if he was commanding sound effects like a Jojo character.
Later that day, after bringing an unconscious Wally back to the hospital because Norman was too focused on finding "whoever that was", probably thinking it was Ruby. Ruby then takes Wally out to catch a Pokémon, where he catches a Kecleon, and after a ledge crumbled under Ruby's feet, Ruby told Wally to take good care of Ruru, his Ralts. The next day, Wally woke up in the hospital again, with Ruru telling him that Ruby is not dead.
We then catch up with Sapphire trying to save a Castform that was sucked into a fountain because Team Aqua as well as Magma, has moles in every company, this one being a repair service for the park. It was going to be a kidnapping of the president for the "special part" for the submarine so it could go down deep, but the President gives it to Sapphire as well as a letter for Steven later on.
Ruby is found by Mr. Briney's Peeko, and we meet Briney who is no longer a frail little man but what I could only decribe as Goku as an old fisherman. Ruby ends up being a bit of a screw up on Briney's boat and is very, very seasick. After Mr. Briney gave Ruby a book about water types, Ruby got attached to a picture of Milotic and wanted one for obvious reasons.
A Crawdaunt then got on board after Briney pulled it up, and using just his Skitty, Ruby took care of it while helping get Briney back on board. Ruby then pretends like nothing happened after giving Peeko a makeover in order to help her, and Briney realizes that Ruby is not all that he may seem and that he is hiding something.
Sapphire enters the Rustboro Gym to find out that in order to get the badge, she must get the highest score on the test of the trainers' school. Being the Pokémon researcher she is, she steamrolls the test and Roxanne challenges her to a battle that Sapphire only beat by figuring out Roxanne's strategy. Using her Nosepass against her, Sapphire beats Roxanne and sets off for Dewford.
Ruby then finds Sapphire at Dewford, and heading into Granite Cave, they act like siblings by being contrarian and go different routes, with Ruby going straight into danger with a flock of Mawile and meeting Steven. Being that he is quite obsessed with his Pokémon, he doesn’t miss the chance to capture his Pokémon evolving, even though it was quite a dunderheaded decision to do as such while he's trying to get away from all the Pokémon rushing towards him and Steven.
The next day, Sapphire fights off Brawly in a similar fashion to what she did with Roxanne. After getting her second badge, she and Ruby set off for Slateport. Mid-trip, they get into an argument where Ruby gets pissed at her for her saying "Your dad isn't a wuss. Why are you?"
After an argument, throws him onto the Abandoned Ship. Ruby finds a Plusule and Minun what were left there to protect the Detector and the Journal that Courtney and her cohort Mitch from Team Magma came to find. After they end up getting away with the Detector anyways, Ruby still has the Journal and Courtney can't remember Ruby's face because he had his glasses on at the time, and was out of the sunshine.
After getting off and saying "Seeya!" to Sapphire, Ruby disembarks at Slateport with Sapphire pretty mad that Ruby "didn't even bother to say thank ya". Mack and Courtney (she's called Marge in the manga but nobody will know who Marge is) then beg to a Maxie to use the detector to engulf the streets of Slateport in flames, and with Maxie getting super intoxicated in his base, he tells them to wait for Mack.
Ruby runs into the Pokémon Fan Club president in Slateport, which is in vast contrast to the games, where the Contest Hall and the Pokémon Fan Club are located in Lilycove. Ruby and the President talk about getting a Contest Hall pass, which are only handed out in Verdanturf Town, which is super convenient for Ruby and the Fan Club President. Ruby then ponders whether trying to enter the contests would have been a good idea anyways, as he knows that his Dad would have IMMEDIATELY caught wind and come after him to beat him.
If you're so concerned about that, then why did you run away from home to do specifically that?
After Ruby and the President and a couple scientists working on the submarine go to work on Pokeblocks, they are knocked out by a Torkoal and Ruby and the President are tied up and thrown in a back room while Mack tortures the scientists for the special sub part.
Ruby and the Pres break out of the back room, and using Ruby's innate senses, he tricks Mack's Slugma to follow him into the submarine, dropping his Pokeblock holder into the water behind him on accident. Ruby then knows that he's in over his head once he began to fight off Mack, but Mack decided to show off to Ruby his fire illusions, and who else does Ruby see but Norman.
Ruby, as a young child, then begs for his illusion of his Dad to allow him to battle and train with him. Mack then tells him that it was supposed to be his worst memories, foreshadowing for later.
After then distracting Mack for long enough, Ruby and Marshtomp escape in the escape pod to the surface.
Sapphire then makes her way to Wattson, but not before being trapped by Coil-boy's robots after being mistaken for a Donphan. Wattson, who Sapphire finds out is very unserious about badges, slaps the badge out of his hand because she wanted to actually earn the badge and not have it given out like candy. She knocks it into a Donphan and lodges it between its scales, pissing it off. After calming it down, they find New Mauville and find that Wattson has been taken hostage by... the generator...
After figuring out the generator's attack pattern, Watton and Coil-boy, his friend, figure out that the generator as well as the whole of New Mauville was built by Coil-boy's ancestor, Robot Man. Once they activate it, it turns into a giant amusement park, and Sapphire is thanked by the both of them for helping them find it. She then takes the badge as she then believes she has earned it, running off to her next battle.
Ruby and Marshtomp surface, and after commenting on how much it stinks in there, Ruby wonders about whether the President and Captain Stern are ok. He then puts his glasses on sees that he's made himself famous for all the wrong reasons. After debating on whether to go back to Slateport, Ruby then realizes that his worst fears have been made true and he knows that now his Dad is on to him, with a visualization of... his dad abusing him. We then see his mom see that he was kidnapped after she wonders why he had to run away from home, to only then faint.
We see Maryanne and Ty catch up to Mr.
They continue to fish for the Feebas and then see a Zangoose and Seviper fight until they unintentionally startle them and they chase after Ruby and the swimmer. With the Zangoose and Seviper chasing them, Feebas puts up a Light Screen. With the pursuing Pokémon puncturing the pokeballs with Ruby and the swimmers Pokémon in them, Ruby and co. make their great escape to the Weather Research Institute. Ruby and the swimmer argue about what helped save the both of them, and then the swimmer thinks about forcing Ruby to be his Feebas breeder and living lavishly while Ruby is his slave.
Fun.
Ruby then stresses about half of his Pokémon being groomed and beautiful while half are ugly and unkempt, pounding his fist against the ground. Marshtomp then sees his favorite kind of Pokeblock and runs off after them, continually munching on them. Ruby notices that he's gone, and goes off after him to find that HIS pokeblocks are there, and they are Zuzu's favorite.
Someone behind him finishes his thought for him and lets him know that his time is up, standing behind him like he's about to violently beat him.
That's not far from the truth, as Norman then proceeds to punch him down the stairs, with Ruby and his Marshtomp hitting the wall behind the stairs, shocking the swimmer. Ruby then says that it's about to become "the most violent family quarrel ever", which entails beating your son until he physically breaks, I guess.
Maryanne and Ty are taking care of the President's Castform for him while he's still in a coma, and are looking for Norman or Ruby. Castform tries to show them that they are at the Weather Research Institute, wherein they then realize the same. They run towards the building to see what is happening, seeing Norman at the top but not seeing him beat up on Ruby, I guess.
We then see Norman beating the shit out of Ruby for no reason other than the fact that he ran away from home. Norman begins grilling him for answers as to why he ran away from home and continues to beat him up until his Slaking picks up a set of stairs and Ruby has to fight his Dad. His Dad tells him coolly while he is fighting that "your attacks are of no use against me because I taught you them", but as he rightfully should have, Ruby uses his Marshtomp for some cheap shots.
Yes, this is fucked up. And yes, this is real.
The battle continues on until the stairs that Ruby is standing on are swung over the ledge by Slaking, to which Norman uses to his advantage, to coax Ruby over to him. As Ruby continues to refuse, the stairs that that moron used his Pokémon to swing over the edge begin to fall off the side of the building with Norman and Ruby on them. We then see Ruby's mom talking about how Norman wanted Ruby to participate in contests, and how this was, (I guess) going to help fix up family ties, and that Ruby was too impatient.
To break away from the plot synopsis, I'm going to play devil's advocate for Ruby. Granted, his actions were rash. Yes, he was impatient. HOWEVER. Norman is an abusive father because Ruby is disobedient, and therein caused Ruby to want to run away from home. I will discount what Ruby did on the count that what Norman did was worse, probably fracturing a few bones and almost putting him out with a concussion or two. I am genuinely surprised that he wasn't completely broken from being thrown (or punched) down the stairs a few times.
While the stairs fall off the side, Norman holds onto Ruby's hand in order to make sure that neither he nor Ruby gets impaled. However, if he hadn't had the stairs thrown off the side of the building, this wouldn't have happened. Problem solved. As they are about to fall off, Castform dries up the stairs that Norman was holding onto, causing it instead to crack, and for them to fall. Ruby thinks fast and uses his shoes to move them to the ground where there isn't jagged broken pieces of building and tree trunks that are conveniently spiky, to which Norman thanks Ruby for thinking fast.
Nah, after being searched for by the Winona because the "Gym Leaders Committee" (or whatever, I'll get to them later) sent for him, he just berates Ruby and tells him to not come home until he's gotten all the ribbons. Oh, and to occasionally call Mom. Ruby then thanks his Dad for letting him do what he wants to instead of thinking to himself "fuck off, you old asswipe." And Maryanne and Ty (yeah their names are different in the manga, but I don't care, they are Maryanne and... Tyler... moving on.) take off to Verdanturf Town to get Ruby his Contest Pass, with the swimmer running after them because he wants his Feebas.
Attachments
Last edited:
