Battle For The Leader Spot? | POKEMON HORIZONS Episode 122 REACTION
Added 2025-12-20 13:46:39 +0000 UTCLoved the episode, seeing the backstory and then the change in the relationship between Friede and Roy was great!
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The final episode of 2025 is really packed! From learning about what Friede has been up to in this past year to seeing him battle Roy and formally passing down the role of leader to Roy now... it's really good and packed stuff! Now... after our annual Christmas + New Year break... the next episode will air on January 9th and then there is another one week break after that as well. Until next year then... for what surely will include the climax of Horizons as a whole eventually as well... but who knows when that's gonna happen... - 5:45: Indeed, it's Daigo aka. Steven making a cameo appearance as the first major physical appearance of a game character who had appeared before in a prior Pokémon anime series. - 7:37: I mean... Mega Starmie is far more shiny in the anime than it is in the game. That has been commented on by several other viewers of the show as well. - 7:53: As a fun fact: This command center background in Moosdeep City of Hoenn is basically 1:1 reused from a Journeys episode which took place there. (The Devon Corporation building design is taken from the XY series.) - The move which was replaced by Flare Song is Flame Charge as the used moves after that new move was learnt. Fully embracing the slower nature of the Pokémon! - 21:27: As we know from the games, Rayquaza's "Mega Stone" is the Meteorite... which - come on - this totally is! It's something from space after all. - 25:12: This bonus segment, Mega Evolution Showdown which replaced Mega Gurumin segment for this episode, is part of the "Charizard's Charge!" campaign which is currently going on. Like you can get a giant Alpha Charizard in ZA right now as well through mystery gift. Plus, what was depicted here is an Ultraman reference in it - the actual basis for Mega Starmie's design after all. - 26:30: Friede not contacting them and the reason for that not being explained really well in this episode is the biggest negative of the episode fans have picked up on. Like in episode 100 in his message (which we now saw he sent right before heading to space)... he said that some Explorers were watching him... and I am like ??? after watching this episode. Though like yeah, the Explorers were searching for him at one point as well as seen in the episode. Episode Staff: - Written by again series script coordinator 松澤くれは (Kureha Matsuzawa) who wrote the previous episode as well. - Storyboarded by 西田章二 (Shōji Nishida) who previously storyboarded episode 79 (the kids vs Geeta to gain access to Area Zero). - Directed by 岩田義彦 (Yoshihiko Iwata) who previously directed episode 110 (Part 1 of the Mega Voltage climax). - Animation-directed by: 新岡浩美 (Hiromi Niioka) - previously AD on episode 112 (Part 1 of Episode: Mega Evolution) 柳原好貴 (Kōki Yanagihara) - previously AD on episode 115 (the beginning of Rising Again) 大西雅也 (Masaya Ōnishi) - previously AD also on episode 115 松本めぐみ (Megumi Matsumoto) - previously AD on episode 117 (Lacey's training with Ult mostly) - These past episodes and cour have shown renewed animation production stability not seen like this since before the timeskip which is great to see - especially with in-house episodes no longer having studio only animation directors as well as each episode only having one Chief Animation Director. Though... of course, we do kinda now need to see more episodes ulitizing this stable production with actual action animators in them - aside of again series main action animator 忍田雄介 (Yusuke Oshida)... noone of the usual bunch was actually present in this episode... I wonder on what event they will appear next now and if they will appear all at once (leading to at least half an episode of great quality) or spread out for smaller scenes across multiple episodes. Oshida here confirmed that he was in charge of the Flare Song animation which was great, yeah!
DomiDsLP
2025-12-20 18:16:03 +0000 UTCYes, indeed, the two Bluebery Academy character scenes were finally replaced in the OP. One with Friede, Instructor Starmie and Charizard and the other with Masquernya battling Blacky and... a silhouette of... *something* seen in the background... I have absolutely no clue what that is.
DomiDsLP
2025-12-20 17:28:35 +0000 UTC
