Pokémon Evolution/Capture/Release Thread

[Hidden Mew]

It genuinely felt like a setup to introduce a new Eeveelution. I mean you have this Eevee that supposedly can't evolve or is merely able to supress evolution strong enough to resist evolutionary stones. Its a pretty interesting mystery. They go through all the Eeveelutions and keep up this whole what will Eevee decide to evolve into mystery, only for it to amount to nothing. Not even a Gigantamax Eevee. The whole thing doesn't even get explained. It just stays an Eevee and the big conclusion to Chloe's arc is to tell us there's so many possibilities. I think this is what frustrated me the most about Chloe's arc and why I'm frustrated with Eevee's on the main cast after her Eevee and Sandy did virtually nothing noteworthy.

Yeah, the setup for a new Eeveelution was there, but once they got to the end of Chole's subplot and didn't evolve it, I just figured that we weren't going to be a new Eeveelution for the upcoming generation. I don't know if giving her a Gigantamax Eevee would have been much better, especially when Chloe was largely uninterested in battling. I guess it would have explained why it couldn't evolve, but it still would have been weird payoff after meeting its other evolutions during the series.

 

[Eclipsical]

I think it was a missed opportunity to not introduce Steel & Dragon-type Eeveelutions in SWSH when there is a lot of history and mythology around knights and dragons in the UK and Europe. You could easily make up some lore surrounding a Dragon-type Eeveelution that kidnaps Sylveons and battles a knight-inspired Steel-type Eeveelution.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the point of the arc that Koharu and her Eevee go through together was to tell the viewer that it is okay not to know what you want to do with your future /and/ that you don't need to find a solution right away; exploring different possibilities is enough. There is an entire world out there for you to explore and there is no rush to find your passion. The series concluding with Koharu not deciding on a particular path or goal and Eevee still being undecided about what she wants to evolve into both serve to get that lesson across.

I personally didn't interpret her inclusion as a hint towards any future evolution or that there was a big mystery behind why Eevee couldn't evolve. The way I interpret it, she can evolve, she just can't commit to any particular evolution because it is an irreversible decision and therefore doesn't allow the evolution process to occur even when exposed to external forces like evolution stones. She would evolve like normal once she actually felt confident in her decision.

While people are entitled to their opinion on the arc and the outcome to their characters, I feel their journey is largely misinterpreted.

 

[RileyXY1]

I'm not really expecting Liko and Roy to get Paldea-only teams. If that was the case then they would have not even done the world traveling format to begin with, and they would have instead set the entire saga solely in Paldea.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I'm not really expecting Liko and Roy to get Paldea-only teams. If that was the case then they would have not even done the world traveling format to begin with, and they would have instead set the entire saga solely in Paldea.

I don't think that the world tour format means that they can't have Paldea-only teams. It isn't like Ash's Journeys team reflected the world tour format of that series either. Four of his Pokemon came from Kanto and he didn't go to Sinnoh to get Riolu's egg. I think it came from the Sinnoh region, but that was only a throw away line that never came up again after its capture episode. Sirfetch'd and Dracovish were caught in Galar, but that was kind of necessity given that one was a regional form and the other was a fossil exclusive to the region. My point is that Ash's Journeys team wasn't really about matching the world tour format of the series so much as just giving him popular/fan favorite Pokemon, something that I don't see them doing for Liko or Roy.

At this point, I still don't know how many Pokemon I expect to see Liko or Roy to get. I'm sure that they'll capture at least a couple of Pokemon, but since we don't really know what their goals are supposed to be yet, I have a hard time imagining either of them with full teams. That being said, since they are traveling with a crew of other characters instead of on their own like Ash and Goh, I still think it's at least plausible for them to use the rest of the crew to showcase older Pokemon while they give Liko and Roy new Paldea Pokemon. The newest generation should still ideally get more priority than the older ones even in a world tour series. They already have Friede around to showcase Pikachu and Charizard, so they could potentially do that with other older Pokemon instead of giving Liko and Roy only one or two other Pokemon from Paldea and call it a day.

 

[BigDocFan]

The preview for HZ009 shows Liko's family owning a Fidough, wonder if this means Liko won't catch one for herself

The preview also shows her battling Lechonk, curious to see if she'll end up catching it, can't say its a Pokemon I want a main character to catch

HZ008 showed Roy battling and defeating a Spearow but he didn't catch it which was a shame

 

[nickdt]

The preview for HZ009 shows Liko's family owning a Fidough, wonder if this means Liko won't catch one for herself

The preview also shows her battling Lechonk, curious to see if she'll end up catching it, can't say its a Pokemon I want a main character to catch

HZ008 showed Roy battling and defeating a Spearow but he didn't catch it which was a shame

I feel like they will spend 5 episodes at least in Paldea, so i think Liko or Roy getting at least one capture in Paldea would make sense.

 

[Eclipsical]

I wonder when we are actually getting to the world-hopping aspect of the show.
So far, every episode has been set either in Kanto or largely on the ship. We'll probably spend a few episodes in Paldea; but after that, I hope they utilize the fact that they can go anywhere freely.

There was a lot of set-up done within those five episodes, but now that we've come out the other side of that, I just hope it doesn't take us multiple episodes to get from region to region and that a lot of episodes aren't brought about by them just waiting to get from Point A to Point B on the ship.

 

[BigDocFan]

I'm hoping they'll stick to travelling around Paldea for a bit, hated how they would spend an episode or two in one region before heading back to Kanto in Journeys

 

[RileyXY1]

I think that their first captures will actually be the other two Kanto starters (with Friede already having Charizard). I think that Liko will get a Squirtle and Roy will get a Bulbasaur.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

I think that their first captures will actually be the other two Kanto starters (with Friede already having Charizard). I think that Liko will get a Squirtle and Roy will get a Bulbasaur.

Doubtful. They already have starters, and Kanto's had waaaaay more than enough focus as of late.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I think that their first captures will actually be the other two Kanto starters (with Friede already having Charizard). I think that Liko will get a Squirtle and Roy will get a Bulbasaur.

I really hope not. They don't really need to feature all three Kanto starters on the cast, especially when they already have Charizard, easily the most popular out of the original starter trio. Giving Liko and Roy another starter when they already have two Paldea starters in between them also just seems a bit much. Not to mention it would risk putting their first Pokemon on the sidelines in favor of more Kanto pandering. We don't need more Kanto pandering or more Kanto starters in the main cast.

 

[Rockapheller]

Full battles are not treated as a type of regular/random battles in the Pokémon anime. Even when Ash has had full teams of six Pokémon early in the series, he still did not have a full battle by near the end of the series. Besides Paul's full battles in DP series in the mid series (and that is for the fact that Paul was shown to be a skilled, advanced trainer and these battles did not amount to much most of the time, such as his battle to Cynthia which did not even show their full teams), the full battles were always kept for the end of the series for the climax.

Even though Horizons do not have a battle oriented focus, neither did S&M series for the most part of the series, I think Liko (or maybe Roy but most likely Liko) will have a climax point of a full battle near the end of the series. So I predict that she is going to have a full team of six on the road. Right now things are going rather smoothly because they want to focus on the individual characters and their communications with people and Pokémon around them, but at some point, things will get faster.

I am saving this post and will compare what things will turn out to be like in the end of the series.

 

[RileyXY1]

I really hope not. They don't really need to feature all three Kanto starters on the cast, especially when they already have Charizard, easily the most popular out of the original starter trio. Giving Liko and Roy another starter when they already have two Paldea starters in between them also just seems a bit much. Not to mention it would risk putting their first Pokemon on the sidelines in favor of more Kanto pandering. We don't need more Kanto pandering or more Kanto starters in the main cast.

Although, the group is primarily based out of Kanto. Roy actually is from there and Liko goes to school there. It would make sense if the majority of their team consisted of Kanto Pokémon because that is the region where they come from.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Honestly, I kind of hope that we'll still get an Eeevelution for every type. You have a Pokemon that can evolve into eight different Pokemon. Granted, giving Eevee eighteen possible evolution might be too much, but at the same time, pretty much all of the Eeveelutions are popular and marketable in their own right. Even before it became a secondary mascot, Eevee was popular primarily because it could evolve into so many different Pokemon. I did kind of expect that Chloe's Eevee being not sure of what to evolve into meant that it would lead into a new Eeveelution, but once they didn't feature any new Eeveelutions during the pre-release of Scarlet/Violet, I figured that it wasn't going to happen. I don't think that they would have saved a new Eeveelution until the games inevitably leaked.

Maybe we'll get something in the next generation. Despite Eevee's secondary mascot status, I don't think that it's that unlikely for them to give it another Eeveelution. If someone does get an Eevee in this series, then it will probably be unevolved.

Well, Scarlet and Violet already gave the anime a perfectly good Eevee-promoter in a silver platter via Penny, so the anime staff would be insane to not use her for that purpose, especially since other game characters such as Nemona have already been confirmed to appear. Sure, in the games Penny has a team of Eeveelutions that's missing a couple of them plus Eevee itself, but I don't think it'd be too difficult for the anime to add the three missing members and have the whole line on rotation.

Imho this would probably be the best way to showcase Eevee in Horizons, since it kind of allows everyone to have their cake an eat it: the Eevee not evolving this time around is fine due to all of its evolved forms also being prominent and the entire family is showcased by a character who is actually proactive and has an arc and development. This all means that Eevee can stay unevolved without issue since all the evolutions are present too anyway, they also could actually do cool and important stuff this time around instead of just staying useless lapwarmers, and the Eeveelutions themselves don't get Raichu'd for a third time in a row.

...Sadly, I don't really have high hopes for the anime to not screw this up somehow. They're probably just going to give Liko a non-evolving Eevee who isn't going to serve any purpose besides allowing Sprigatito to get off her shoulder and evolve all the way. Or worse, Penny is still the designated Eevee advertiser but gets completely stripped of what makes her interesting and unique as a character in favor of making her timid, helpless, and demure and never really grows out of that and her entire Eeveelution team is absent in favor of giving her only an Eevee that doesn't evolve or even participate in a battle just like Sandy and Chloe's Eevee before it.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

Although, the group is primarily based out of Kanto. Roy actually is from there and Liko goes to school there. It would make sense if the majority of their team consisted of Kanto Pokémon because that is the region where they come from.

Kanto. Has. Had. Waaaaaaay. More. Than. Enough. Focus. Period.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Kanto. Has. Had. Waaaaaaay. More. Than. Enough. Focus. Period.

There's absolutely no reason for Kanto Pokemon to take up the slots on Liko and Roy's team. Or for the doom posting preying on people's worries about this happening. There's especially no reason when Friede, Orla, Mollie, Dot, Murdock, and Ludlow exist. They've been giving most of the older generation Pokemon to them. Friede's whole roster is Kanto Pokemon. Liko and Roy do not need a roster of Kanto Pokemon.

 

[Eitarou]

Liko attending school in Kanto doesn't mean she's from there. She doesn't even attend regular classes anymore.

 

[Daren]

and the Eeveelutions themselves don't get Raichu'd for a third time in a row.

I'm still bemused that a Pokémon becoming incredibly popular due to having a bunch of evolutions resulted in attempts to shove the evolutions out of the spotlight in favour of the base form.
Truly a decision of all time.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Liko attending school in Kanto doesn't mean she's from there. She doesn't even attend regular classes anymore.

Exactly. She's canonically from Paldea. We're literally seeing her home in Paldea this week.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I'm still bemused that a Pokémon becoming incredibly popular due to having a bunch of evolutions resulted in attempts to shove the evolutions out of the spotlight in favour of the base form.
Truly a decision of all time.

To be somewhat fair, it's really only the anime and Gigantamax Eevee that have truly completely shafted the Eeveelutions in favor of Eevee alone: the special Z-Move and the Partner Moves at the very least involved Eevee harnessing the powers of its evolved forms meaning that they were still being acknowledged as an important part of its identity, and in Pokemon Unite it's the Eeveelutions who are playable instead of Eevee. Gigantamax Eevee on the other hand not only robbed us of a potential new evolution for the critter, but it didn't even incorporate the previous ones into its design or G-Max move like Extreme Evoboost did. And of course there's the anime having two non-evolving Eevees in a row that don't do anything because reasons.