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Review HZ007: Special Training! Captain Pikachu

Pretty decent training episode where we get to see Captain Pikachu toy around with Liko's Sprigatito and Roy's Fuecoco for a bit.

And it looks like there's also another member secretly on board with the Rising Volt Tacklers... and they may just have something to do with that Nidothing we've been seeing a lot.
 
Jaye said:
- The theory that the old man is Nidothing lost some momentum. While Liko was watching a stream in the Pokemon Centre, the old man was fishing.
Click to expand...

Turns out I was onto something.

Anyway, the other member is called Dot and is the ship's information expert so will likely be full of convenient knowledge for the sake of plot advancement. They also created the app the crew uses to communicate. Dot wasn't particularly impressed with Liko and Roy's battling skills but came around to them enough by the end to inform them Rayquaza was in Paldea, so I'm expecting to be a blunt character (lack of social graces, probably) who's probably nicer than they let on.

Hopefully, this episode will go a long way towards assuaging people's concerns about Liko being a battler. It was her idea to consult Friede and Cap about training and she's determined to not be a liability to them. Whether she does gyms or anything of the sort is neither here or there, as the important thing is she knows the importance of handing herself during battles. She also now knows the key to battles isn't spamming the same move over and over and actually watching what your opponent is doing. Baby steps.

This is a unique situation because we've never had two complete novices on the cast at the same time and I'll be curious to know if their rate of progress will differ. Liko leans towards strategic thinking and caught on to what Cap was doing quicker than Roy did, but Roy did nonetheless absorb the same lesson and only lost because Sprigatito learned Quick Attack. Deciding to have Liko win outright rather than end it in a tie seems like something that'd be relevant later on.

(I swore to not compare Horizons to OS if I could avoid it, but I just find it funny how Liko and Roy got actual coaching whereas Ash was told to strap Pikachu up to a generator and juice it up to get over a type disadvantage. OS was a wild, wild time.)

On the whole, I found the episode... okay? I expected something relatively lowkey since we're coming down from the tension of the last six episodes, but this was arguably the first episode that could stand on its own and it felt a touch too safe, for lack of a better word. The whole "find the real Pikachu!" thing wasn't the most compelling thing they could have done for training, especially as the answer was something as simple as chasing the clones down until they found the real one. Captain Pikachu, as a concept, is absurd, but the most interesting thing it did was pull a funny face. The lesson was fine, but also very specific to battling and I don't know if it'll have any greater relevance in a show that isn't centred on that.

I guess I'm just used to Pokemon being a little more outlandish with its scenarios. It's not bad at all - better for Horizon to do its own thing rather than imitate what came before - but I do hope not every scenario is going to played so straight going forward.
 
Another boring episode. I hope we get to take a break from Friede soon. He is my least favorite character right now.

I wonder if Nidothing might be connected to Amethio? Both have purple hair and are mysterious.
 
Welp, the whole theory to Ludlow being Nidothing is lost, which is a little disappointing cause it makes me go what's even the point of this guy being here? Seems we're learning more of the true identity of Nidothing though which is nice.

Overall it was a pretty lowkey episode. Kinda nice to see them doing some training after we hardly ever saw it in Journeys. Nice to see Liko get her first on screen win also.

Another nice thing was this mysterious Dot kinda telling Roy through Quaxly that this Rayquaza has something to do with Paldea, which gives me the hope that Paldea's gonna get much more focus.

Another overall decent episode.
 
Last edited:
LuxrayOfTheWild said:
Welp, the whole theory to Ludlow being Nidothing is lost, which is a little disappointing cause it makes me go what's even the point of this guy being here? Seems we're learning more of the true identity of Nidothing though which is nice.

Overall it was a pretty lowkey episode. Kinda nice to see them doing some training after we hardly ever saw it in Journeys. Nice to see Liko get her first on screen win also.

Another nice thing was this mysterious Dot kinda telling Roy through Quaxly that this Rayquaza has something to do with Paldea, which gives me the hope that Paldea's gonna get much more focus.

Another overall decent episode.
Click to expand...

What if Dot is Ludlows grandchild.
 
I enjoyed this episode. Seeing Liko and Roy want to do some training after battle last time was nice. I still just wish it would have been some of the other crew Pokemon like Muk, Slugma, Snorunt, Noctowl, etc. Those Pokémon barely do anything aside from just chill around, meanwhile Cap is always around and we've seen him battle already. I hope those other crew Pokemon will do something soon.

But speaking of the crew Pokemon, thank goodness, Quaxly finaly showed up a bit more. I hope the best character will start to get more screentime. Sprigatito and Fuecoco have gotten good moments, let's let Quaxly get some focus. Especially if we're going to be seeing the true Nidothing soon. Ngl, I didn't expect to see a tease of the real person behind Nidothing anytime soon, but I'm for it if it means more Quaxly screentime.

Roy continues to be the cutest little bean, and I love how he sings to Fuecoco to encourage it when battling. I hope this will be a trend. It was nice to see Liko learn a battle strategy that resulted in her winning in her rematch against Roy. 7/10 seems fair for today.
 
A good training episode for Cap Pikachu training the kids to get used with their starter. Nidothing identity starting to reveal herself as each episode passed by. Even though name reveal as Dot. But I'll still prefer, her face completely reveal.

Also, Congratulations for Liko's Sprigatito for gain new move set, Quick Attack. Now, her partner can avoid opponent attack without easily getting hit.

Overall rating: B+
 
That was a fun episode! I liked seeing Liko & Roy learn the basics of battling.

Cap continues to be the coolest little guy around.

Fuecoco is revealed to know Tackle while Sprigatito is revealed to know Scratch, and also learns Quick Attack. I always like Pokemon learning new moves as part of their development.

We finally get teased on our presumably final member of the RVT (at least for now): Dot! Turns out that she's Murdock's niece and is in charge of all the tech-stuff that goes on around the Brave Asagi. She seems super smart (as evidenced by all her creations, as well as predicting Roy's defeat and managing to locate Rayquaza so fast, though I doubt Rayquaza will be staying in one location for long) but also very withdrawn. I feel like being Gurumin online is sort of her escape, where she can actually be herself without having any actual people in the room with her while still having some semblance of social interaction. Looking forward to (hopefully) seeing her in full next episode (though I could see it taking a bit more time to get her to open up and come out of her room permanently)!

Anyways, a good episode all around! Not as particularly eventful has the past few, but a solid bridge between what came before and what comes next.
 
Max1996 said:
I'm probably one of the few that never really believed the theory, since Ludlow wasn't really shown to be as spry as Nidothing.
Click to expand...
The theory spawned because people were looking for an explanation for his presence. He's just kinda there and doesn't really hang around Friede, Orla, Murdock, and Mollie. Plus, Quaxly seems to hang with him often. The speculation from certain credible leakers like GryphonCool and pokeanimenews also fuled it.
 
Please note: The thread is from 11 months ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.

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