YMMV / Pokémon RéBURST

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Fraud himself. Is he a Worthy Opponent who's actually Evil All Along or a Tragic Villain Well-Intentioned Extremist from a rich and glorious background?
• Audience-Alienating Premise: RéBURST is basically the Pokémon version of Digimon Frontier, with the characters becoming Pokémon-human hybrids to fight instead of sending out Pokémon to fight for them. Given how far this strays from the franchise's traditions, it's easy to see why this manga ultimately tanked.
• Cliché Storm: RéBURST doesn't break any new ground or play around with the conventions of the Shōnen Demographic. The tropes used in the manga are ones you've seen many times before, played straight without any creativity.
• Fan Nickname: Pokémon Frontier, on account of both being departures from their respective series' usual Mons mechanics by having the heroes become the Pokemon by way of transformation trinkets containing a Pokemon in some form, merging them together.
• Fetish Retardant:
  • If a female is in a fanservice-y pose (in the splash pages, color or otherwise), expect her pose to require a rubber spine or her body to have misshapen parts.
  • The BURST forms themselves look too human for Pokémorphs while simultaneously looking too inhuman for gijinkas, hitting just the right measure of "human" to turn off fans of both.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When images of Pokémon Sun and Moon's Z Crystal were revealed alongside its Japanese logo in early 2016, it was pointed out how it suspiciously resembled a Burst Heart from Pokémon RéBURST, right down to the shape. Given that this coincided with fan speculation about the (rather divisive) theory of Ash-Greninja being not just a simple Super Mode, but potentially a Fusion Dance, following its reveal to be usable in-game - the similarity between Z-Crystals and Burst Hearts set the Epileptic Trees over what exactly this could mean, on fire. Consequently, many well-known Pokémon bloggers started referencing the Pokémon RéBURST manga, to support their theories that it was going to be the next major game mechanic. While any presumed connection was eventually debunked with the explanation of the Z-Crystals and their Z-Moves... during Pokémon Sun and Moon's climax, the Big Bad does actually end up fusing with the Ultra Beast◊ - (later revealed to be extradimensional Pokémon) Nihilego - right before your final battle against them.
• Moment of Awesome: Ryouga taking the Akebo head on like a man, followed by the Akebo shattering on impact with Ryouga's body.
• Narm: The one genuinely emotional moment in the Manga, the "Mother" chapter, is almost immediately undermined by Karuta's cartoonishly exaggerated growth-spurt soon after.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • How does a Pokémon get turned into a Burst Heart? One chapter reveals that the Great Gavel have laboratories doing this. And no, it's not kid-friendly either: This manga could have been re-classified as Seinen if the author didn't intentionally skip the procedures out, but it shows.
  • This also crosses into Moral Event Horizon where you are really abusing Legendary Pokémon by compressing them into Burst Hearts against their will, as opposed to disable them like in other works. Imagine how this can become one of the most thought-provoking acts in the entire franchise ever. It's impossible to abuse such God-leveled Pokémon in such way in other media, even games themselves.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general consensus is that this manga isn't really horrible (it's unlikely any official Pokémon work ever could be) so much as it is just plain dull.
• Tear Jerker: The "Mother" chapter. Karuta finds out that his mother has died, just after he brought the medicine needed for his village.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Miruto is part of a group investigating crimes throughout the region yet it is never expended upon till the point their goals or even name was never mentioned at all and only serve as part of Miruto's background. It could have interesting to see if said organization opposed or evek new about the Great Gaval Organization instead only ones fighting them being Ryouga's group and allies.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The majority of the BURST forms look less like humans fused with Pokémon and more like humans wearing flayed Pokémon flesh, with the worst cases amounting to little more than a human's head on a Pokémon's body◊.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Unlike most Pokémon manga, this one is geared towards older teen readers and isn't kid-appealing to begin with.

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