Review HZ008: The Secret of the Unopened Door

[BigDocFan]

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/HZ008

The latest episode of Pokemon Horizons has aired, discuss here

 

[Adelon]

Huh? No comments yet? Y'all sleeping like Komalas today

Apparently Murdock is Nidothing's uncle. Also Nidothing uses male Japanese pronouns to refer to herself, sounds like she could be nonbinary.

 

[SamurottMan]

Dialogue heavy so I didn't get much, but overall fun episode.

I'm loving Quaxly getting more and more screentime. Chilling with Ludlow a lot makes sense now given he's Dot's uncle.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Huh? No comments yet? Y'all sleeping like Komalas today

Apparently Murdock is Nidothing's uncle. Also Nidothing uses male Japanese pronouns to refer to herself, sounds like she could be nonbinary.

Not necessarily. There are girls in anime who use male Japanese pronouns. They’re usually the more tomboyish types of girls. Based on Dot’s appearance she could essentially be the tomboy counter to Liko’s girly girl.

 

[Singaporean]

An alright episode for the filler before landed on Paldea. Also, dot truly don't want anybody know her identity till next week. Also, congratulation of Roy won his first battle.

Overall rating: C+

 

[Emelie]

Interesting similarity between Iono and Dot that they both use male pronouns, even though they act very cutesy on the Internet. Somewhat similar to Penny as well since they both like to stay in their rooms. Why does it feel like Horizons is just replacing the game characters with similar OCs?

Also the cast is just getting bigger. I miss when the anime was about a group of 3-4 people traveling. Staying on the ship is boring and I'm not sure how they will have time to develop everyone.

 

[JohtoKid103090]

An alright episode for the filler before landed on Paldea. Also, dot truly don't want anybody know her identity till next week. Also, congratulation of Roy won his first battle.

Overall rating: C+

Too bad Roy didn't catch Spearow.

 

[Sakuraa]

I enjoyed this episode a lot more than I expected to. It was really great. It was nice seeing Liko and Roy get a lot of spotlight and attention as they did their respective tasks.

Liko was super cute today. I love how excited she was to watch Nidothing's live stream and to hear her comment read. It was really cute seeing her try to bond with Dot even though she refused to open the door to speak to her. Hopefully they'll be able to become closer as time goes on.

Roy continues to be the cutest character in this show. He has the most adorable expressions and I love how excitable he is about everything. It was cool seeing him battle that wild Spearow. I did wish he at least attempted to catch it, but it's fine. Hopefully we can see more of that soon. Seems they're keeping up this focus on finding Rayquyaza and I'm guessing we'll see more of Roy's goal to find it as the kids spend time in Paldea.

Dot is turning into an interesting character. I do still find it weird how this girl was living on the airship since the beginning, and the crew only just mentioned her in the last episode. But honestly speaking, I'm really only interested in seeing more of her so I can see more of Quaxly. I still enjoy her Nidothing persona as a character though.

Also, I just realized why I liked this episode and the previous one so much. Those damn Explorers weren't here. I hope they stay gone for a while TBH. I much prefer watching Liko and Roy have their adventures without dealing with any interruptions. They're so charming and endearing to watch together.

I'm excited to see what Liko and Roy get up to in Paldea. 9/10 episode.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Kind of a lowkey slice of life episode. It was nice getting to really see who Nidothing is. Seems Dot is pretty reclusive and Liko's trying to connect with her, but its not gonna be easy. Kinda nice getting to see Roy experience the city also after spending his whole life on a small island. Nice to see him get his first win. Also a detail I notice is that this city (Wherever it is) felt more lively. I mean unlike in Journeys when you were at big locations like Castelia City, the streets felt lively with all the people and Pokemon around. Also noteworthy was the whole little subplot of Friede and Murdock's secret stash of sweets. That was kinda amusing and it seems Dot found it by the end.

Overall a lowkey episode, but still pretty nice.

 

[Serverus Snope]

Too bad Roy didn't catch Spearow.

It would've been vindication for the original anime's infamous Spearow slander.

 

[Jaye]

This might be the strongest episode yet. While the stakes are comparatively lower than the the first two episodes, a lot happens and they manage to get it all in without the pacing dragging and while delivering some good comedy.

The first big thing was Mardock. He spends the episode trying to tempt Dot out of her room by leaving sweets in a secret compartment in the kitchen (aka a cupboard out of reach of small people), but he has to do it in secret because to him, it's an uncool thing to do. Putting aside the clear overlaps with Saguaro from Scarlet/Violet, what Mardock was doing here was respectable because it showed his consideration for his niece while acknowledging the solution isn't as simple as forcing Dot out of her room. There's a lot to unpack from this relationship (the role of Dot's parents, for example). Dot venturing out and taking the sweets at the end was, well, a really sweet moment because no matter what she says about meals being a bother and being too busy to go outside, she's still responsive to people's kindness.

My first impression of Dot is her potential as a character lies in her relationships with Mardock and Liko, rather than anything troubling her specifically. The episode doesn't allude to anything traumatic, nor did anyone else on the crew seem overly concerned about about her shut-in status. Instead, it focused on this really fun interaction she has with Liko. They're both socially awkward in completely different ways. Liko thinks they can bond over a shared love for Nidothing, not knowing Dot IS Nidothing, and happily gushes about all of Nidothing's good points even though nobody asked (imagine if she'd acted like that on the bus in episode one). Meanwhile, Dot has this abrasive way of talking and comes across short-tempered and rude, but we can understand it comes from a place of embarrassment because this other girl is singing her praises from the other side of the door. While Dot is trying to push people away, Liko was very much the aggressor in the relationship, a role we hadn't seen her in until now. It's a powder keg waiting to explode and I hope they spend some time playing around with it before the big reveal.

I keep saying it, but Horizon's character work is really impressive so far. Liko has the awkward energy of someone who is highly self-conscious in social situations, but the moment she's alone or the conversation lands on something she's passionate about, all her quirks come out. High-energy and openly eccentric characters like Roy are harder for her to deal with because they're on completely different wavelengths, yet at the same time, she is this character to someone like Dot. Liko's too nice to tell Roy if he's being annoying, but Dot wouldn't have any problems whatsoever. The potential is there for a dynamic trio who can bring out the best in one another. Meanwhile, the older members of the crew really felt like they had been together for quite some time. Mardock trusts Friede enough to keep his sweet making a secret, while the others know them well-enough to know when they're keeping secrets.

To wrap up, while I wasn't too enthusiastic about last week's episode, this one gave me something else to be excited for besides the plot concerns the pendant and Pokeball. With such a big main cast, it's integral we see strong relationships and these sorts of episodes are encouraging.

 

[Eitarou]

...so that first comment Nidothing read was clearly from Zir. I guess we found his quirky gimmick.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

Interesting that Dot's livestream wasn't actually live, given her avatar on screen didn't match her actual reactions and movements at all when reading Liko's comment

 

[Eclipsical]

Another good episode! It feels like we got a bunch of good characterization in this episode for most of the characters.

We get our full introduction to Dot in this episode. She is antisocial and reclusive, as expected. We learn that she has an interest in historical/mysterious objects, so I wonder if her role is to research and direct Liko & Roy on where they might find clues relating to their respective items. I'm looking forward to seeing how her and Liko become genuine friends. Also, her hair looking like a Cherrim is a neat little detail, considering she also has two different "modes". I do hope she gets a good deal of attention and development. As I have said before on the forums, I think Quaxly is great and it would be a shame to have him stuck in a supporting role.

I think Murdock got a lot of shining moments here. Him trying to make donuts for Dot to get her out of his room was really sweet (pun intended).
Everyone being immediately suspicious of Friede & Murdock over the sweets was funny.

We finally land in Paldea next week! Speaking of, I wonder what region we were in this episode? I doubt it was Kanto, since they seemingly arrived in Paldea the next day. The only regions geographically close to Paldea are Kalos and Galar.

 

[ehh123]

...so that first comment Nidothing read was clearly from Zir. I guess we found his quirky gimmick.

It's sad that an adult has to be reminded that you can't just spam your strongest attack over and over again during a battle. Maybe that's why he is just a henchman.

 

[ena9219]

Anne gets another appearance after a few episodes of absence. Dot is cute and definitely going to be close friends with Liko by the end of the series (Current progress: instead of getting messages via a duck gets yelled at directly). Liko shows just how much of a Grurumin fangirl she is, while Roy sets out to get information about shiny Rayquayza and ends up with a polishing cloth. Murdock tries hard to get his niece to eat sweets and, of course, his long struggle to do so ends in the same episode we find out about it. Fride was presumably just involved to get some of the rejected sweets.

Liko would presumably make more progress with Dot if she mentioned having a pendant that is actually a baby legendary Pokémon.

 

[Nicolas721]

The only regions geographically close to Paldea are Kalos and Galar.

That's assuming they follow their real world inspirations, which as far as I know hasn't been confirmed neither in the anime or the games.

 

[BigDocFan]

Given Liko's attempts to befriend Dot, part of me wonders if she might join Liko and Roy on their adventures

 

[Vengeful Ghost]

I need like a folder of Liko reaction images as this series progresses. This girl is a fountain of memes

 

[Fairy Type Arceus]

So theory time. Dot is the leader of the explorers. First of all she has heavy Penny vibes, almost like she's replacing her in the anime and she was the leader of team star. Plus she has way to much pokemon battle knowledge not to already be an expert in battle herself. But the last big piece of evidence, the Info she was interested in...certainly sounded alot like the stuff Amethios boss is after, Likos pendent and Roy's pokeball. In the episode where Amethio was kicked off the mission and his boss was there, except not in person just like how Dot is always in her room.

If Dots not the leader of the explorers she atleast has some relationship to the person who is considering her interest in the things that they are also looking for.