The Pokémon Adventures manga will be re-released in America this summer, according to listings on Amazon.com.

The listings, discovered by PokéBeach yesterday, state the release dates for the first two volumes as June 2 and August 4 respectively (you can preorder now). The manga’s publisher, Viz Media, has not made any official announcements on their web site as of this post, but I’m sure they’ve said something at a convention or two.

I’ve been reading through these manga since October, and it is certainly the most serious and plot-driven series in the franchise – a shame they stopped printing it at volume 7 back in 2003.

It is worth noting that this reprinted series is being left in the original Japanese format (read right to left). Back in 2003, the series was “flipped” so Americans could read it left to right. This is actually a very costly and time consuming process that made it difficult to bring manga stateside. Since then, however, many publishers have learned that not only do most Americans not mind things being left in the original Japanese format; they prefer it.

To learn more about the manga, listen to our episode about the compilation edition of the manga, Pokemon Special Manga: Yellow. And if you’ve been to a Viz panel recently, please let us know.

[Pokemon Special Podcast] [PokéBeach] [VizMedia] [Amazon#1] [Amazon#2]