Which Pokemon Adventures arc do you recommend?

The best thing about the manga is that it adheres so closely to the world portrayed in the games. More so than the anime or any other Pokémon media.

Of course, Game Boy games could not really show a fully realised world nor the nuances of a Pokémon battle, and how that would really look in motion as opposed to two stationary sprites firing tackle beams at each other. Some things had to be embellished.

You have probably seen and heard a lot of things about the series around the Internet. The more violent depictions of Pokémon battles, including injury and death. Bizarre elements like zombie Pokémon and fused Pokémon. And it is true a lot of this originates from the earliest run of the manga. You will see all of those elements in the Red and Green arc.

However, that arc is the beginning of the story and the foundation of a lot of concepts, characters and plot threads running throughout the series. I feel you would be amiss not to at least try it.

Plus that arc is relatively short. I think it is only three or four volumes of the manga before the Yellow arc begins, which is quite short in itself, and then you are into the Gold and Silver arc.

However bizarre some things may appear on the surface, the story does set them up and they do not strike me as random gimmicks or absurdity for its own sake. I think they serve the story well, and are a relatively small part of the overarching narrative.

Therefore, I would recommend giving the story a try from the beginning with the Red and Green arc.

If you really feel you cannot suffer through it, I would say start with the arc relating to the games that interest you. For the most part each arc is tied to a generation of the games and usually introduces new characters with a new story in a new region, all counterparts to those from the relevant generation of games.

The only caveat is that time continues to move forward in the Pokémon world with each arc. Characters from previous regions and stories reappear, age and develop. This most often happens during chapters based on remake games.

I do not like gen 3, but the Ruby and Sapphire arc is one of my favourites from the manga. It takes place after all of the Kanto and Johto chapters and might be a good place to start if you insist on skipping the early arcs. However I strongly recommend against it.