The Pokemon Anime Just Made EVERYONE CRY.

Must you make my cry while I'm sick, Pokemon Horizons? 😭 Discord: discord.gg/Ftu9V5wrBN Twitch: www.twitch.tv/pokeferlax

Regarding Penny's role in the S/V games. In short, she was the Boss of Team Star, who worked with a heroic transfer student (who was either Florian or Juliana) to bring down her own team before it would become the monster it was formed to oppose. As part of this, Penny *hacked into the League registries* in order to issue League Points and TM access to her agent. After succeeding at this, she admitted to the hacking. As punishment, Geeta offered her the choice of either paying off the LP debt, or working it off with "volunteer engineering" which could lead to full-time employment at the Academy. She accepted the engineering offer. Meanwhile, Team Star was punished for 18 months of truancy in a similar way: the sprawling fortresses they'd constructed all over Paldea would become part of the Academy, and they would be invited to continue to operate them as school-endorsed training centers. So for Penny to be an Academy engineer is absolutely in line with game events. Because of the Star Training Centers, we can even have Team Star in the plot without contradicting the game timeline. ^.^.^

Rika actually felt more charismatic in the anime than what I remember in the game, she gives off better extrovert energy with her dialogues than the ones in game. I especially liked how she was teasing Liko telling her to give rubbing Clodsire a try, but then just spook and warn her off saying she can't do that without gloves cuz it's poisonous

I love Rika's charecter so much, she's so full of herself! 💚 The battle was great, the animation was sick, Lokix popping was super cool to see. Liko also did amazingly well even though she lost and I really wanted to give her a hug when she cried 😭💙 This might just be my favourite Liko episode so far, I'm giving it a 9/10!

Pokeferlax: Liko-Meowscarada Battle Bond? Me: Well, both Greninja and Meowscarada are Dark Type. And they both get Protean as an Ability.

Liko crying made Pokeferlax cry so hard it took him an extra day to finish this video

This battle broke the rules of the assignment. It was said in last weeks episode that only the student is allowed to terastalize, but Rika terastalized the clodsire, breaking the rule.

It might just be me, but Liko crying in this episode reminded me of Serena crying in X and Y, specifically when she loses her first Showcase after Fennekin trips on its costume

Despite the outcome of the battle, Liko did a pretty good job in her battle!!!!! This tag battle definitely was the best of the 3 with Rika's consecutive attacks from Katy's unleashed battling with Lokix both supportive & offensive (got super surprised Swarm activated) & Liko's Floragato learning Acrobatics {Love she learned the move after being inspired by Lokix's battle movements & maybe from its Bounce attack!!!!} And if it's any consolation for Liko, She was the only one to make her Elite 4 get Serious enough to go Tera; that's saying something in comparison with the others. At least after crying, I'm glad Liko felt better afterwards. AND at long last, Liko has Finally Found it; Beyond the Battle- Liko has Finally found Her Drive ~ the joy in Serious Battling!!!!!!!!!! Our Girl's On her Way!!!!! She's finally found the joy in battling for real & it will make her stronger!!!!!

During one of Dot's scenes, we got some subtle hints towards Paradox Pokémon through Dot referencing the magazines in the school library. I felt that was nice. PS. Get well soon.

WHAT A MARVELOUS STEP FOR LIKO IN UNDERSTANDING BATTLING MORE & HER POKEMON MORE & GOOD PALDAIAN ELITE MEMBERS MEETING, get better soon

It’s not really related to the episode but I wanted to share something I had in mind for some time. After watching episode 54 and reading some theories about Pokemon Horizons, I noticed some things about the dynamics between Liko, Amethio and Friede. It’s not a secret, but there’s a good chance that Amethio will have redemption and Liko will contribute to it. However, I think their relationship is much more important in the story than what we might think. And I think Friede also has his part to play in it. I warn it will be VERY long and I apologize in advance for the mistakes (I use Google translation). I) How Liko sees Amethio from episode 1 to 44: Until episode 45 of the series, Liko had a negative image of Amethio. After all he had tried to steal her pendant, kidnap her and Sprigatito. After episode 2, she never interacted with Amethio again until episode 45 (thanks to the Reddit post that pointed that out to me). She only saw him from afar, trying to capture Rayquaza or Terapagos, to confront Friede, that sort of thing. Why didn’t the writers make them interact more times before this episode 45? This is what we will see in the second point. II) The evolution of Liko: In my opinion, the reason behind this choice is that Liko needed to grow. Her growth as a trainer is also linked to her growth as a person. At the start of the series, Liko knew very little about pokemon trainers, did not know what she wanted to do or what she wanted to become. With the help of Sprigatito and the Rising Volt Tacklers, she was able to gain self-confidence, become stronger (although still not enough) and discover the kind of trainer and therefore person she wanted to become: a person who can understand the feelings of others. This is how Liko will convince people/pokemon to follow her ( 6 heroes, Hatenna ) and make them evolve ( Dot ). This will surely be how Liko will be able to change Amethio. If from episode 1 to 44 she had interacted more often with Amethio, Liko would have understood that he was not a bad person but she couldn't have done anything for him given her lack of self-confidence, power, and being building herself as a person. So, while Liko was evolving both in power and in maturity, someone had to deal with the "Amethio" case. And that person is Friede. III) Dynamics between Friede and Amethio: I think this point deserves to be further developed because their dynamics are rather interesting, but I will only focus on what it brings compared to the Liko/ Amethio dynamics. Friede faced Amethio because he was the only one strong enough to do it. Friede is an intelligent and observant person, he understood that Amethio was not 100% bad. He makes several remarks that show it and the simple fact that he agrees to team up temporarily with him in episode 45 also proves it. Do you think he’d team up with Spinel or Sango? I wouldn’t. However, even if Amethio is not "evil", this does not prevent him from being their enemy and a threat to the crew. Friede is an adult, with responsibilities, he cannot afford to waste time trying to make him change sides, to understand his motivations to join the explorers even though he is a rather just person. However, this is clearly not the case for Liko. IV) How Liko sees Amethio since episode 45: We come to the famous episode 45. This scene (very cool) where Amethio saves Liko from draco-meteor is very important. It is at this point that Liko discovers that Amethio is far from being entirely bad. There are other elements that prove it to her, the alliance between Friede and Amethio, but also the little monologue just after he saved her where he shows his anger towards Spinel. This makes Liko understand that he does not share the vision of Spinel and the other explorers, that he is different from them. Amethio’s answer when Liko thanks him for saving her is not "Don't misunderstand, it’s because you have a connection with Terapagos," but "Don't misunderstand, I will capture Rayquaza". I will translate the first by "I saved you but it was because it was related to my goal" and the second by "I saved you but I remain your enemy". Quite different meaning. Liko has clearly changed her vision of Amethio, even describing with admiration his terrastalize Ceruledge as "amazing". If it was Spinel or Sango, she would call their pokemon "powerful" or "dangerous" without showing admiration. V) Theory for the future So I think that now Liko has seen that Amethio has some good in him, she'll want to try to better understand his reasons for joining the explorers and surely to understand the kind of person he is. Maybe Conia and Zirc will play a role in that too. Anyway, it makes me want to see their next interaction. In the arc Terastal debut, Liko becomes more independent, she no longer needs Cap to come and save her every time. Liko becoming more independent and stronger, she will be able to deal with the Amethio case in her own way, differently from Friede. If Amethio has his redemption with Liko's help and becomes her ally, there would be a nice parallel with Lucius and Gibeon as well as Hamber and Diana. Where Liko’s family (whose last name is still unknown) had problems with the Explorers, either with Gibeon who (probably) betrayed Lucius, or with Diana and Hamber who separated because they (probably) had a different vision of adventure (or something like that), Liko and Amethio, who started as enemies, will (probably) become allies. Anyway I finally finished, thank you to all those who had the courage to read this ^^ .

I saw an Alolan Vulpix plush in my local con and my mind screamed "It's Pokeferlax!" when I realized, I felt so dumb (I'm pretty new to Pokemon, Horizons is my first Pokemon anime)

I agree with everything you've said so far! This episode is so good and hit so hard. It was really something else, from the animation, the characters bouncing off one another, everything felt so intense and exciting. Something I also loved that wasn't mentioned was how Rika bounced off Liko, from before the fight when she noticed Liko was stressing out and opted to comfort her and help her relax, to how she fawns over her Clodsire, to her post battle comfort speech with Katy to Liko. Plus, Dot and Penny being two adorable introverts struggling to talk to one another. It's great <3

0:41-She gets that job AFTER Operation Starfall is finished so maybe Team Star is good now

It was a great episode. The crying scene was well animated and has great attention to detail you ever notice how Liko's eyes look puffy after crying? It made the scene look more realistic, like when you cry your eyes will look puffy. This is the first time in Pokémon anime history this has happened if I'm not mistaken

Likos learns why battles is so much fun

I really hate how some people say that Liko is crying is because she's a "sore loser", Liko’s entire character arc and personal conflict has been about how she struggles to understand her Pokémon’s feelings. When Floragato was a Sprigatito she showed early on in the series that she loved battling. And while Liko has a natural talent for battling she never had a competitive personality. The episode where Liko gets called out by Kabu for letting Roy win the Litwick gym test and not finishing the battle against the gym trainer is the clearest example of her not taking battling seriously. There’s so many moments in the show that built up to this scene of Liko finally understanding and sharing the same thrill and fun of battling Floragato does and in this episode she cried because it took her so long to finally realize this. She cried because she finally gave it her all in a battle and wanted to win badly but lost. it was tears of relief if anything and even Katy more or less said that while comforting her.

This is the first episode I've watched of Horizons since the Flying Pikachu episode when it first aired, and man, it definitely reminded me why this series is so awesome. I may do a deep dive back into this show to catch up now. Thanks so much for covering these!

Lokix is an amazing Pokemon, I hope people start to realize this now. Even in the games, it’s awesome with tinted lens.