What is your opinion on the Horizons anime so far?

[Kurolegacy]

Agreed. While I haven't dropped the series outright yet, this is the most disinterested I think I've ever been with the Pokemon anime.

Yea same here. I keep up with it via screenshots and discussions of the episodes but at times I just don’t find myself motivated to watch it week to week and will end up falling a couple weeks behind before watching the episodes. I can honestly say that this is a first for me that the major plot episodes just aren’t a draw to me because I just don’t find the appeal in resolution in Pokémon of all things that is brought about via talk no jutsu which has basically become the writers’ go to with Liko ever since she found her goal. I get that their thing with her is about understanding others but it just feels like they’re trying too hard to be deep. In the number of anime I’ve seen, understanding is a common theme that happens but those writers come up with a variety of interesting ways at which said understanding is achieved that stays true to the series that they’re apart of. Even Pokémon itself has explored the concept of understanding but didn’t make it the entire point. For Liko’s story though, it’s completely surface level while believing itself to be deep. Really to sum it up, Horizons insists upon itself.

 

[Yami-no-Game]

It's not dreadful but it's been super hard for me to get excited about it. I admit I've even skipped some episodes and just looked through the episode pictures and read summaries because I didn't want to spend 20 minutes watching an episode that I knew I would find boring. I wish the protagonists were more interesting or worth rooting for.

 

[Kurolegacy]

It's not dreadful but it's been super hard for me to get excited about it. I admit I've even skipped some episodes and just looked through the episode pictures and read summaries because I didn't want to spend 20 minutes watching an episode that I knew I would find boring. I wish the protagonists were more interesting or worth rooting for.

Yea, I can honestly say that Amethio is at this point a more interesting character that Liko and Roy as he’s a proactive character striving for his goals and takes active initiative in it. When he says that he wants to become stronger or capture Rayquaza, you know you’re going to see him work for it and face adversity, the kinds of traits that you’d typically see in the protagonists despite him being a villain. When your villain is unintentionally the more interesting character, something has gone horribly wrong.

 

[Nicolas721]

The beginning looked really promising. An action-filled treasure hunt with its own lore and completely new characters? Hell yeah, I'm in. However, time passed and the problems started not only to appear but to become frustratingly common. Liko and Roy's development feels stagnant and gets paused a lot, it feels like the plots of them getting stronger and them encountering the Titan Pokemon run at different speeds, it's like the second half of BW where Ash's team made into the league with only half of their development done. And the Titan Pokemon...wow, every. single. time. they are defeated or evangelized by a Deus Ex Machina and the remaining time of their episodes is just repeating Terapagos' lore over and over. It's just so boring!

Also, the pacing has been very confusing as of late (post-opening change), 5 semi-fillers in a row, then the terrible Lapras Arc, then 5 semi-fillers AGAIN? Why not use that time to properly develop the characters or bring back the popular ones like Nemona or Iono? Yes, I know some things have been teased with Iono, but there's nothing concrete to date. To me it feels like the writers just want to get as far as possible of the old formula but don't have very clear ideas with how to replace it, without understanding what made that formula great. Thankfully it still has not reached it's first year so it has enough time to change course, at the very least I'd like to see it take more seriously its drama.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

It's just so boring!

And that is Horizons in a nutshell to me-boring.

 

[Kurolegacy]

And that is Horizons in a nutshell to me-boring.

Yea, I’d say this sums up my feelings on the Luscious storyline

 

[Weddingbells]

My biggest gripe with the filler episodes as of now is that it could use it to develop the rvts, which as of now feel utterly pointless. I swear the story could just be about liko, friede , and Roy and barely anything would change

I remember the hype of a mainly adult cast in HZ premiere and now there just background decorations. I hate when they do that stupid handshake Bec the show wants me to see them as a found family when they just feel like a bunch of friendly co workers at best

 

[Kurolegacy]

My biggest gripe with the filler episodes as of now is that it could use it to develop the rvts, which as of now feel utterly pointless. I swear the story could just be about liko, friede , and Roy and barely anything would change

I remember the hype of a mainly adult cast in HZ premiere and now there just background decorations. I hate when they do that stupid handshake Bec the show wants me to see them as a found family when they just feel like a bunch of friendly co workers at best

Yea, it honestly feels like the writers want Strawhats kanpai energy with the RVT handshake but really haven’t remotely earned it because the majority of them just feel like NPCs.

 

[Sakuraa]

There are a few flaws, but it's easily the best thing to come from the anime in years. I haven't regularly watched or enjoyed the show this much in ages.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

There are a few flaws, but it's easily the best thing to come from the anime in years. I haven't regularly watched or enjoyed the show this much in ages.

Well, I'm glad somebody is.

 

[UxieLover1994]

The arc seems to have slowed to a crawl since the RVTs left Galar with little progress. No captures, no evolutions, only moves being learned. I can't say if we're heading into a similar situation as Ash's journey in Johto, but if nothing happens between now and Easter, then there's a problem.

At least they're putting more effort into the anime's potential than Journeys ever did, promoting SwSh and PLA as well as SV, and we've not had too much baiting so far.

 

[Kurolegacy]

The arc seems to have slowed to a crawl since the RVTs left Galar with little progress. No captures, no evolutions, only moves being learned. I can't say if we're heading into a similar situation as Ash's journey in Johto, but if nothing happens between now and Easter, then there's a problem.

At least they're putting more effort into the anime's potential than Journeys ever did, promoting SwSh and PLA as well as SV, and we've not had too much baiting so far.

To be fair, putting more effort in than Journeys is such a low bar to clear that it could be classed as a tripping hazard. Journeys was such a botched and lazy series that I don’t know what they were thinking.

 

[UxieLover1994]

To be fair, putting more effort in than Journeys is such a low bar to clear that it could be classed as a tripping hazard. Journeys was such a botched and lazy series that I don’t know what they were thinking.

Either way, an improvement over a trainwreck of a series like Journeys is still an improvement. But even so, Horizons hasn't been much better given how slow it's been after Galar, and it seems to be heading for a similar situation as Johto in the OS where months could pass with nothing major happening, leaving audiences bored and causing ratings to drop.

 

[skynerel]

They should’ve started this adventure with a more seasoned trainer and avoid the kids being severely underdeveloped as trainers.

 

[Kurolegacy]

They should’ve started this adventure with a more seasoned trainer and avoid the kids being severely underdeveloped as trainers.

That or not give the protagonists so many lifelines that there’s no actual reason for them to prioritize getting stronger. It’s to the point that over 30 episodes into the series, Liko and Roy are still being given objective battles by the adults to give them little training wheel victories rather than a real battle even if they aren’t expected to win they show how far they’ve come and grow as a result. Hell, they even got that bit right with Amethio in the following episode and he got development despite losing.

 

[BeautifulSylveon]

I definitely have a problem with the "Pokémon in the human world" direction the writers are going. Not just the cyberbullying thing with Dot, but also Mollie's comment on "Only trainer-owned Pokémon can be taken to a Pokémon Center ". I just don't like it. I don't want to be reminded of the real world when I'm watching Pokémon.

 

[Kurolegacy]

Not to beat a dead horse on issues with Horizons but one thing that I really find that I’m not jiving with Liko and Roy is that the 2 of them just feel too sanitized when it comes to children. While they have their own character flaws to develop, compare them to children from the likes of Beyblade, Yugioh, Digimon or even previous Pokemo series and the 2 really lack much in terms of emotional range. With all these characters we see them bicker, see them get annoyed or frustrated when things do’t go their way, can be stubborn as a mule, get angry or even act out in playful or mischievous ways. You don’t really get any of that with Liko and Roy to the point that, as children characters, they feel kinda like dry paint. They just feel like these kind of idealized behaved children sans slight moments where Roy goes off script. As many issues as Goh had writing wise, even with him they nailed emotional range so I don’t get how they fell so short here.

 

[Weddingbells]

Not to beat a dead horse on issues with Horizons but one thing that I really find that I’m not jiving with Liko and Roy is that the 2 of them just feel too sanitized when it comes to children. While they have their own character flaws to develop, compare them to children from the likes of Beyblade, Yugioh, Digimon or even previous Pokemo series and the 2 really lack much in terms of emotional range. With all these characters we see them bicker, see them get annoyed or frustrated when things do’t go their way, can be stubborn as a mule, get angry or even act out in playful or mischievous ways. You don’t really get any of that with Liko and Roy to the point that, as children characters, they feel kinda like dry paint. They just feel like these kind of idealized behaved children sans slight moments where Roy goes off script. As many issues as Goh had writing wise, even with him they nailed emotional range so I don’t get how they fell so short here.

I see your point with them being sanitized because honestly liko and Roy just aren't engaging characters.

It's hard to gaf about Roy and his goal when for the most part he feels like an after thought to the plot. All of the ancient heroes revolve around liko and her family. Roy, the one who actually wants to be an ancient adventurer, is stuck with the raquayza plot which feels poorly written. Most of the time it just involves vague sightings . The show wants me to care about Roy outburst last time he saw the thing but why should I? We barely see him train despite being so weak he hasn't won a battle since episode 8.

Yet he never seems bummed out about it, now when he sees raquayza he is suddenly desperate that he wants a death wish? Just seems forced. Other than that, what does he have going? What else about him is actually interesting. His wattrel the writers forget exist?.

Liko on the other hand is just dull. The "idk what I want to do" is already repetitive especially for female pokegirls and it's not like they are doing it in a interesting or unique way. She seems so passive sometimes. She lements about how she wants to have no regrets about being strong yet after that episode she rarely trains with sprig. What happened to the girl who would sneak out every night to train at school? Fuck she has to be convinced by molly to catch another Mon. Some day "oh she isn't a battler" but when her life is in constant danger, I'm sorry she doesn't really have a choice

She is also widely inconsistent. She can take the conia but an old man gives her struggles. She is pretty clever yet all she can do for the most part is spam leafage? Doesn't want to regret feeling weak and doesn't want to burden friede yet she rarely trains . Ofcourse not Bec we gotta shill tf about cao so liko can have constant inner monologues about how amazing he and friede are.

Also her goal is basically Pokemon master. "I want to connect to Pokemon feelings" that's literally most trainers and considering she came right after Ash controversial leave, it way too similar. Even if it's vague like Ash, that would be fine if it was engaging. For the most part it just results with Deus ex talk therapy with the hero mons. Idk we don't really see her struggle to connect with mons, what hurdles will she face? Also her meek, quiet, personality worked better when she was at school. With the rvts she just kinda boring. She also has flaws that aren't really interesting and are the dreaded "nice flaws " writers give to characters when they're afraid to make them unlikable. Like "caring too much"

Rant over lol

 

[UxieLover1994]

I'm starting to think that the idea of a "World Tour" just doesn't work for an anime that refuses to exploit its potential.

Although I wouldn't think the traditional plot of Ash and Pikachu going around challenging Paldea's gyms (and Team Rocket following them) would be faithful to the plot of SV and their expansions either, given their heavier themes wouldn't translate well in a series with strong black-and-white morality. Also, having an eternal 10-year-old attend Naranja Acadamy after becoming World Champion and be presented as a mere (transfer) student learning all the basics won't sit well, and may imply yet another BW reset to older audiences.

Liko and Roy attending Naranja as students would work better than this "World Tour" nonsense, but again, the anime's too "black-and-white" to properly adapt the arcs in Scarlet. I'd hate to imagine they'll make Team Star, Professor Sada, and her AI be outright evil and Kieran be straight up mature if this option is taken.

But we're not at the one-year-mark yet, and many shows have a slow start. Horizons may pick up later on and be an actual improvement over Journeys, or we could see back-to-back trainwrecks that would cause us to question the direction the anime has gone since 2016.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

Horizons may pick up later on and be an actual improvement over Journeys, or we could see back-to-back trainwrecks that would cause us to question the direction the anime has gone since 2016.

Call me jaded, but I'm betting on the latter.