Pokémon Horizons Volume 3 (EN) Thoughts, Volume 4 Coming November 22.

Hey everyone- whether or not Netflix makes good on the plan to delist the JN seasons today (the “leaving soon” message is gone on my profile); I am drafting my full look at the first HZ storyline. With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on Volume 3 of Pokémon Horizons’ English dub.

Courtesy- Netflix/The Pokémon Company

This volume contains the final two episodes of “The Departure of Liko and Roy” storyline, and the first nine of the “Terapagos’ Shine” storyline. I still don’t know why they didn’t just include them in the last volume; but I’m just glad the next volume will contain the rest (at least going by online summaries I could find). Also, the next volume streams November 22. I know that date has plenty of pop culture events already (the new Moana and the Marvel VS Capcom collection being my most anticipated); so let’s focus on this one for now.

Though there still issues carried over from previous volumes, the “Terapagos’ Shine” storyline does have better pacing than “The Departure of Liko and Roy.” The infectious energy of Iono is indeed welcome, as is Liko’s grandmother Diana. They even managed to streamline some dialogues that bugged me in the subtitled episodes.

While I do still wish they would incorporate more material from the games into the story and characters (just reading summaries of the most recent episodes, I can say I am very much not a fan of the anime’s variant of Grusha; who was one of my favorite Paldea gym leaders); the animation is still a highlight. I may have plenty of issues to talk about with these storylines; but at least I can agree that the anime looks great. 

I am roughly 40-50% done with my full review of “The Departure of Liko and Roy,” and once that is done; I will begin outlining all the episodes of “Terapagos’ Shine” once the English dub comes stateside. I still don’t know what will happen after this anime is over; but I’d be fine with “you know who” coming back. Most likely, I could see the next anime directly adapting characters from the games. That will be all for now, take care.