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Did it feel like HZ's story in arc 5 and 6 went by too quickly?

Sammuel

Sammuel

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It did feel like the plot was going by a bit quickly by 5th and more during the 6th, and as a result it felt like character/pokemon interactions were lacking as there weren't enough filler episodes to make up for it. And felt like some MCs got more attention than others, what do you guys think?
 
Here's some stuff I would have done -

Scrap Ult entirely and give Amethio his spot, give Roy a different Mega and have Liko be interested in it via Absol, have Friede's stuff be entirely changed, have the scrapped episodes instead focus on other characters involved with the plot and have the Laqua finale be much longer.

Gibeon wise the backstory from him and Lucius would be 4 or 5 episodes long.
 
Honestly, the post-timeskip period of Horizons REALLY screams "We wrote everything expecting Gen X to release at the end of 2026" and that no one on the writing team was informed that Gen X was delayed until 2027, and since the plot of Horizons is almost irreparably bound to Gen IX, they had to rush everything to finish it by the end of 2026 and then wrap up the series with enough time to allow for other stuff to be done.

The point of there being no filler is true, but Horizons in general didn't do filler prior to Wonder Voyage - likely because the AniPoke's community perception of filler began to get worse and worse with time, and especially given how poorly filler episodes were regarded during Journeys
 
I'm going to play contrarian for a bit not for the sake of it but because I feel like Arc 5 and 6 going as quickly as they did...was part of the point.

The fight to stop Spinel was a race against time. They had to move fast to become strong enough to stop Spinel and form a big enough alliance to put an end to his quest to attain power and reshape the world in his image. Hamber made it clear to Zirc and Onia from the get-go early on when he asked them to find Amethio that they didn't have a moment to spare and that they needed to get him back in the fight before it became too late for everyone.

Spinel's quest to release the Strong Sphere en masse was a ticking time bomb that if left alone for too long would reach a point of no return where Trainers worldwide would become completely dependent on them and the bonds that tie people and Pokemon together would be shattered, with battles and relationships turning into little more than a vicious contest of strength where raw power and winning are the only things that matter and people and Pokemon see each other as little more than stepping stones for their own success.

And now that he's done for the cast is free to have their own adventures and have fun as they wish. Imo the new arc is Liko and her friends now becoming the new Rising Volt Tacklers as they should be, adventurers discovering the mysteries of the world, which is the vision Friede had when he originally founded the RVTs with Cap, Orla, and Ludlow.

I also feel like contrary to people's accusations against Roy, everything he did get in Arc 6 (Rising Again) was actually being set up for him from the very beginning of the show. Skeledirge is the culmination of Fuecoco's wish to become big and strong like Friede's Charizard. It was Roy's dream from the very beginning to become Rayquaza's Trainer. And he always had a deep admiration of Friede and had a dream of having his own adventures. I can argue there are flaws in how it was executed in practice, but the things he did get in Arc 6 were being built up from Day 1, all the way back to Arc 1. Not enough people realized this because they dismissed him as strictly secondary in focus (even though he's a dual protagonist) and thus didn't pay enough attention to his character. Neither he nor Liko were ever truly sidelined at any point in the show. Liko still got plenty of focus in Arcs 5 and 6, as her Hattrem gained a new move and evolved, she gained Charcadet which became Armarouge, and she gathered allies for Pagogo to unleash its full power to erase the Laquium. Roy pre-timeskip always got plenty of focus, he's just a very simple and straightforward character compared to Liko and thus his focus moments don't stand out as immediately interesting compared to Liko, who's more introspective and nuanced as a character and steers the direction of the story in a more interesting way.

The backlash against him online over the past few months reminds me a lot of the hate Goh got in Journeys because they felt he was "stealing Ash's spotlight" and that he caught Pokemon they felt "should" have gone to Ash. Putting that together I feel like most people have not fully grasped the concept of two characters being dual protagonists who co-share the spotlight together as equals and partners who foil and parallel each other. I can argue that Goh and Roy are not as good as characters as the viewpoint characters Ash and Liko, but that doesn't change the fundamental intention.

I also disagree that Horizons having less "filler" has to do with the online Anipoke community's perception of filler. For one, "filler" is actually not really officially defined in a way that aligns with many Anipoke fans' perception. Filler is easily definable in other anime because they use a manga as the source material, and filler episodes historically are not only episodes that don't advance the plot but are not derived from the source manga and are entirely conceived by the anime team to pad out time for the show's run. Pokemon doesn't use manga as a source material, and what most people call filler episodes in Journeys isn't necessarily "filler" in the eyes of the writing team because that series was extremely loose and not abiding by any specific source material to the T. The lack of filler in Horizons is more simply a reflection of how modern anime is nowadays. Most modern anime is seasonal and concentrated in episodes with main focus on story and character with little room for filler between. Look at the likes of Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer for instance. The structure they go for is extremely different from the anime of the 90s and 2000s like Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Sailor Moon. The old Ashnime formula of that time was more similar to DB/OP/Sailor Moon in that regard, whereas Horizons is more like how anime is today.

Had a lot of thoughts but yeah.
 
I'll say another hot take in this since @RetroPokeFan brought it up but I feel like having Liko and Dot get Megas would've felt like the people making the anime don't have confidence in those two standing out and have to have an obvious advertisment mon make them cool.
 
Both arcs went to fast and it doesn’t even explain how much they got backlash when Friede was alive and it felt like the writers were not even trying to make a effort to make friede fall into the trap that spinel created
 
Arc 5 was actually the slowest imo. Too many episodes were "Laqulium enemy of the week" and most of the Paldea stuff felt redundant. I think some of the captures and evolutions should have taken place during the timeskip so they wouldn't have to use time on them, and the climax being a defeat was definitely an "Ooookaaaaaay" moment. I get they wanted to subvert expectations but I feel the heroes deserved more. The RVT reunion was a bit rushed but it served its purpose well.

Arc 6 I can see why it can be seen as rushed but it's not that bad especially when compared to Arc 4 who had Gourging Fire and Rayquaza back to back. They just had one goal during the arc (Defeat Spinel) and what's what they did most of the time. They trained, beat some bases, reunited with Friede, trained some more and finally beat him. I understand some parts deserved more attention, but what we got was fine enough and stretching it for two years would have been bonkers as I don't see what else the writers could have done withthe story without adapting more game content as filler (aka what they are doing with the new season). Inbalance in character focus is more of a story issue than a pacing issue imo.
 
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