We typically don't really get a lot of full battles until the end of a series anyway. That's been the case for quite sometime, so I don't think that's necessarily the result f having fewer full teams in the anime.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think its generally at least two a series, with the exception of BW and SM
I could see Liko possibly having a final climactic battle with Amethio at some point. But as you said, they are usually reserved for those "final boss" situations, and I feel Amethio may be the one Liko eventually aims to overcome.
I think that will most likely happen if Sprigatito evolves.
If Liko HAS to have an out-of-ball Pokemon to cuddle they should make it literally anything else but Eevee, and it should preferably be a Pokemon that doesn't have any evolved forms to begin with. We've already had two Eevees in a row in a Togepi-esque role, and having any Pokemon with evolved forms in such a position sucks (I definitely think that Togepi should have evolved into Togetic much, much sooner than it did), but it's especially bad to do it to Eevee, whose entire shtick is evolution itself. Enough is enough. Let main Eevees evolve if we have to have them in the cast and give the shouldermon position to Pokemon that don't actually have anything to look forward to evolutionwise.
I'm curious to see if she'll end up catching Wooper
I'm not thinking so. I think that her first capture will actually be a Kanto starter, which I believe will be Squirtle while Roy gets Bulbasaur.
Much as I would love to see that happen, I'm struggling to see why they would
I really don't want any of them to get a Kanto starter. There is no need to throw in more Kanto pandering and they already have the Paldea starters anyway.
At least it would allow Venusaur and Blastoise to have a chance to shine for once because Charizard is hogging all the spotlight when it comes to the Kanto starters.
While it's true that Charizard takes up a lot of attention among the Kanto starters, I hesitate to say that either Venusaur or Blastiose suffer significantly because of that. They're both still popular and iconic in their own right, even if Charizard is more popular by comparison. They don't really need the extra attention or promotion with being featured in Horizons. It's also a pretty big assumption to say that either of them would even get a Venusaur or Blastoise even if they got a Bulbasaur and Squirtle. Unevolved starters are pretty marketable too.
Nice, would be a great first catch for him if true.
