Burning Galarian Moltres - Pokémon Horizons Episode 23 - How to calm down Galarian Moltres

Pokémon Horizons has been great so far, but if I were name one glaring flaw for this series, it would be that scenes that should be considered important are shoved onto off-screen land. The first offense of this was in Episode 5 where Liko got her first win almost entirely off-screen, and then Episode 7 didn’t even acknowledge her defeat of Onia and only her loss against Amethio. Today’s episode is the second offense. The previous episode built it up as if Friede and Amethio were going to have to wait to be rescued by Liko and Roy, but two minutes into the episode, Friede just shows up with Charizard while being a bit battered. How did you get out? There’s no flashback sequence or even a mention of Amethio in regards to this. It’s just Friede going “Ha ha, I managed to escape. Man, that bird was tough.” I mean, it could be Friede’s bad habit of not telling the important details at play here, but at least show a flashback? From a writer’s perspective, this was a poor call.

Frustrations aside, the rest of this episode was rather straightforward, but I liked it. Liko, Roy and Friede brainstorm ideas on how to stop Galarian Moltres. I like that they know they’re too weak to be able to defeat it in battle, so they’re trying to find alternatives. Liko deduced that it’s emotions are out of control as Hatenna was crying when it roared. They managed to come up with a plan after seeing how Sprigatito managed to calm down Fuecoco and Wattrel’s food scuffle.

The rest of the episode was then them trying to put that plan into action. As always, we see Liko spamming Leafage, but it’s part of the plan this time around, being used to spread Sprigatito's calming scent. Friede and Roy play support. In a moment of distress as their plan seems to be falling apart, Arboliva manages to come out of its Pokeball to confront the raging Moltres. Then after that, the pendant glows and Terapagos shows up. With their help, the group are finally able to calm down Moltres, and the reason for its rage is shown; it’s highly implied that Moltres was lonely and missed Lucius. Lucius’s face is actually shown a bit clearer this time around, he looks like an older male version of Liko in a way as they both have blue eyes and black and blue-toned hair. I theorize that Lucius is either Liko’s ancestor, or perhaps even her past self; the latter could be plausible as reincarnation stories are the trend these days. I’m glad that Moltres wasn’t evil at the end. It goes into its Pokeball and now the kids have two Hero Pokémon accompanying them. It makes me wonder when Galarian Moltres will come out and help out. Will Arboliva and Moltres come out together in the future, or will we only see them separately?

This episode really did give good development to Liko as she managed to understand Moltres’s sorrows. This is what she wants to do as a Trainer, and she did it properly here. Since this was the first instance of her showing off her goal, I can’t wait to see how she’ll do this in future episodes; I just pray it’ll be good writing. I personally liked how she managed to use what she had learned from Kabu to good use for this episode. She even mentions this when they met up with him at the entrance of the mine. I can’t wait for the day Liko has an official battle with Kabu because he helped her a lot. That is, assuming she does rather than just Roy. With the path Liko wants to walk as a trainer, would it even make sense for her to join in official battles?

At the end of the episode, Terapagos appears to now be permanently in its Normal Form, rather than turning back into a pendant as it has previously. Where will the story go from here? And since Amethio and his gang saw Terapagos, their sights have changed from the pendant and Liko to just Terapagos. I just hope Amethio and his goons do something substantial going forth. Fortunately, the second arc of this anime has been announced to focus around Terapagos, so hopefully, Amethio does something worthwhile because it’s a serious waste of good character design for him to be so underutilized.

Despite the glaring problems with this episode, I do like how it resolves one conflict but opens up more questions. What is this ‘Rakua’ Lucius mentions? How does Terapagos connect to all of this? I’m honestly more excited for what’s to come than gripe about issues. What do you think will happen with the group going forth?