Pokémon Horizons

Life After Ash

I remember exactly when I knew the kid in the red hat was gone for good. It's a weird cultural sadness, seeing a mascot who hadn't aged in 25 years finally hang it up. For millennials, Ash Ketchum was a constant in a crazy world. So when OLM and The Pokémon Company announced *Pokémon Horizons*, it wasn't about whether the animation would be good or if new Paldean creatures would sell. We just wondered if this universe could survive without its loudest, most hopeful core.

The answer is yes. Mostly. But the real shocker with *Horizons* isn't how the world is built; it's how deeply its vibe has changed.



We start with Liko, our new main character, and she just doesn't have the fierce drive that defined the last one. If Ash was a Saturday morning cartoon hero barreling into danger, Liko's a quiet kid staring out a window, lost in her own thoughts. Minori Suzuki gives her this amazing, shaky voice. Suzuki made her name playing idols and singers—like Ena in *Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage*—and she brings this compelling, wavering uncertainty to Liko. Listen to her short, shallow breaths before she speaks in the early episodes. It's the sound of a middle schooler scared to say the wrong thing.

You see it in her body language, too. In the first episode, when Liko meets her first Pokémon, the grass-cat Sprigatito, she doesn't throw a Pokéball triumphantly. She backs away. Her shoulders slump forward. Sprigatito completely ignores her, cleaning a paw instead of acknowledging its new trainer. The camera stays on Liko's face as her mouth tightens into a nervous line. It’s a subtle, brilliant scene that explains everything about this new era. We're not watching a conqueror aiming to win a league. We're watching a kid trying to just exist without apologizing for it.



Which makes it a little annoying when the show gets nervous and goes back to old habits. (Maybe it's a company rule; I'm not sure how much freedom the writers really have when there's a huge merchandise stream to protect.) But whenever the bigger plot about the evil Explorers pops up, the pacing stumbles. The show introduces a flying airship led by the super charming Captain Pikachu and a group of adult crew members who act like a makeshift family. It feels a lot like *One Piece*, or even *Cowboy Bebop*, swapping bounty hunting for studying old cultures.

When it focuses on that dynamic, it shines. When it forces Liko and her energetic counterpart, Roy, into long, episode-filling battles, it drags. As Bradley Russell noted for GamesRadar+, the series "boldly starts afresh" but "can't quite escape the long, long shadow of Ash." He's right. Sometimes the script clearly wants to be a serialized character drama, but the ghost of the old formula demands a monster-of-the-week fight.



Yet I still watch it. I’m still thinking about how rare it is for kids' TV to let its heroes be unsure of themselves. Ash knew his fate from the moment he overslept in episode one. Liko just carries a mysterious pendant from her grandma, hoping someone else can tell her what it means.

That feels so much more real to what growing up is actually like. You don't usually leave home knowing exactly who you are. You stumble out the door, mess up a few times, and hope your cat eventually decides to walk with you.