Captain Pikachu fights like every inch the rat he is. There, I said it. In the first four episodes of new Pokemon anime 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Horizons, our hatted rat takes💦 on two major battles, and fights like a yellow belly in both. His technique is simply using Double Team &ndash🎐; any Pokemon player will tell you how infuriating that is – before materialising behind his opponent and Thunder Punching them in the back of the head. It’s a coward’s way to fight, and annoys me greatly.
Other than that, however, Pokemon Horizons is a lot of fun. Protagonist Liko has moved to the Kanto region to continue her education and get her first partner Pokemon, but things quickly spiral out of control. She struggles to bond with Sprigatito, tꦫerrifying adults invade her dorm, her nan’s pendant houses secret power, and suddenly she’s whisked away on an airship by a Pikachu wearing a captain’s hat.
Warning: Spoilers for the first four episodes of Pokemon Horizons to foll🔥ow
The anime starts off slow, detailing Liko’s strugglesꦗ to make friends and bond with Sprigatito, who has more interest in being a regular cat than a Pokemon. But adventure soon finds its way to her, as a mysterious organisation tries to steal her grandma’s pendant. A man riding a Char🐷izard rushes to her aid, and she follows him despite her misgivings, resulting in an exciting adventure unlike most Pokemon anime so far.
Horizons takes a lot of cues from Studio Ghibli, most notably in the airship that Friede (the bloke with the Charizard) rides. He and♈ Captain Pikachu are part of a group called the Rising Volt Tacklers, who have been paid by Liko’s mum to protect her. It’s unclear exactly why Liko’s parents thought she needed a floating fortress to follow her around school, but it proves handy after the power of her grandmother’s amulet brings nefarious villains to her dorm.
Friede’s – or should I say, Pikachu’s – airship is reminiscent of Howl’s Moving Castle, although I found it slightly weirdly rendered. It looks smooth compared to the textured surfaces of the anime’s forests and characters, almost like a 3D asset composited over the anime later. It lacks the detai💝l that makes Howl’s chicken-legged building special, but it suffices as a centrepiece for Horizons’ action.
While the airship is a little lacklustre, the characters are great fun. The on-board chef has cutlery-shaped hair, while there’s also a grandpa who looks like a Drampa, and a strong focus on cute Pokemon to accompany them. Alongside main partner Sprigatito and Captain Pikachu himself, the other ‘mons on board include the likes of Elekid, Rockruff, and Fuecoco, the latter of whom is put into especially memeable situations every episode. A cynical man might suggest that the abundance of cute Pokemon is a merchandising decision much like Pikachu’s new headwear, but people like cute mons♑ters so why not give them what they want? My personal favourite cameo is a moaning Poliwhirl at Liko’s school, but I’m not sure it’ll get the plush treatment soon.
You don’t learn a lot about the antagonists in the first four episodes, which TheGamer saw ahead of the series’ December 1 release on BBC iPlayer, but Ceruledge is the perfect monster to accompany an evil team. The opening episodes are also light on Roy content, with the secondary protagonist only appearing for the first time in Episode 4. An island kid who𓂃 wants nothing more than to be a trainer and who h♑olds an ancient Poke Ball that washed ashore, I’m going to hazard a guess that he stows away aboard the airship before it departs. His supposedly empty relic ball also almost definitely holds the shiny Rayquaza which has been present on all the promotional material but absent from the anime so far.
The most interesting part of Pokemon Horizons, though, is Liko’s amulet. Like Roy’s ancient Poke Ball, this too contains a Pokemon: a creature that looks suspiciously like Terapagos, the star of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Scarlet & Violet’s upcoming DLC, The Indigo Disk. The fact that animeඣ viewers will find out more about Terapagos two weeks before playing the game is an interesting twist on the usual formula, and I’m intrigued as to the interplay between anime and game going forward.
The opening episodes of Pokemon Horizons set up an intriguing plot that will likely have repercussions on the forthcoming game DLC. It clearly looks to ape Studio Ghibli but, despite a fun sense of adventure slowly snowballing over the first four episodes, falls short in both style and substance. Howe🎶ver, if you’re into Pokemon and want to get your next top-up of lore, then Horizons will drip-feed you that juicy goodness over its 30 20-minute episodes. I just hope that Captain Pikachu learns to fight properly by the series’ end.
