Review HZ130: Hambel on the Night of the Blood Moon

Hamber dude, you may be old but that team of yours just keeps getting sick as all hell especially now it's revealed he has an Ursaluna. This guy absolutely means business.

Good to know even before she joined the Explorers, Coral was just as much of a vicious sh*t as she is now. Hamber is what connects them all as he made offers to them to join their team.

Ha ha ha ha so Ult's basically going to be doing nothing but essentially be the Mega Evolution cheerleader while Liko, Amethio, Diana, Cap and the other three will be participating. Kid's really just become dead weight at this point.

Battle between Mega Medicham vs Ursaluna was pretty cool, might easily be my favourite recent battle so far.

Friede's been called up so he's definitely starting to make preparations now. Can't wait to see him back with Liko and the others again.

Great episode today and I'm more than hyped up for the upcoming final battle now. It feels like it's getting closer and closer so pleeeease pretty pleeease don't let me down guys. This is something I've been looking forward to during this incredibly underwhelming timeskip phase of the show.
 
Last edited:
What an epic episode for Hamber to stalk on Coral, Sidian and Chalce to tell them to turn back for not continue being Spinel Underlings. Otherwise, it all too late.

Sadly, didn't work and even with his newly capture pokemon, Ursaluna wasn't able to do it. Especially Chalce Mega Evolve her Medicham.

Overall rating: B +
 
Hamber's battle against the other Explorers was so cool! I absolutely love how he used Trick Room to turn the speed boost of the Strong Spheres into a handicap. And the reveal of Blood Moon Ursaluna in the Haze was amazing! A bit sad that there was zero setup for this (similar to Diana's Pecharunt) but I'll pass on it for the sheer spectacle it was.
Hamber lost the fight, but he won the moral battle. Agate won thanks to her bond with Medicham, proving the old man right, even if she still refuses to change sides.

I'm divided on the flashbacks. Agate's goal is very noble. But she became such a ruthless person while trying to reach it. I don't think I can follow Hamber on this one... he turned a kind teacher into a cold and merciless battler obsessed with strength. And he made a criminal out of her. There's zero path for Agate to accomplish her dream, where she is now, and I don't even think she realizes it. If anything, mega evolving shows her true nature... but... it doesn't look like she was questioning herself at all?
I wonder if Hamber regrets recruiting her? I don't like that we barely saw his mindset at the time. He basically acted like a pseudo Master Oogway, promising to each admin exactly what they wanted in exchange of hard training. Was he seriously believing in it? Was he lying for Gibeon (who was not even mentioned in the episode)? They had a chance to make past Hamber a clearer character and I think they completely fumbled on that.

The preview is interesting, looks like a half-Friede half-Roy episode, with the return of Master Mayonnaise and Sohdayo (for real this time). Roy will probably get the Lucarionite Z, concluding this arc's battle upgrades.
 
Doubl - Echo said:
Hamber lost the fight, but he won the moral battle. Agate won thanks to her bond with Medicham, proving the old man right, even if she still refuses to change sides.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure it was a complete moral victory. Yes, the final blow came after Mega Evolution, but before that, Hamber lost two Pokémon to attacks enhanced by Strong Spheres.
 
I think this episode could have been much bigger and gone in a different direction, perhaps even offering a "sacrifice" for Hamber's character. The writers lacked the courage to do so, especially since they eliminated several characters earlier. But it was a good episode. Much better than I expected.

I think it's a shame that storylines like these were never shown during Ash's time. This episode is the kind of thing I would generally expect in the Adventures manga or other anime productions.

Horizons deserves praise for having episodes focused on recurring characters and not just sticking to the protagonists. I don't yet have an opinion on the anime as a whole. But I really hope the next one follows this kind of character development. One thing I wanted to see was how Strong Sphere was received in relation to characters we already know, even if they were from Paldea.
 
Agate selling her soul to get her town a new school I can get...but why is her face almost always stuck just ONE expression?

Because seeing her smile (twice!) and sad here threw me for a loop. @_@
 
I did not say anything yesterday about this because I was not sure whether Spinels conversation with Agate was vague or if I did not catch something, but it really was somewhat vague. I really wonder what is the exact nature of their deal. We can assume that Spinel promised her to fund the school in her homeland, but is there all there is to it? And why would she back Spinel over Gibeon? We can assume that they were plotting the take over for a longer while. Did Gibeon and Hamber not offer her enough? Or maybe she saw it as a shortcut. Gibeons explorers have had much more of a "prove yourself and we will maybe give you what you want" vibe, when Spinel's explorers are much more like "we take what we want". And yeah, since Gibeon just gave up on laqurium and lost, she simply would not have gotten what she wanted at all if the Explorers disbanded and Spinel did not take over.
So yes, now I'm gonna be an Agate apologist too.

Edit:
I am willing to bet that Spinel would agree to fulfill Agate's wish only because he gets something out of it too.
Like making a whole region rely on Exceed's financial support.
And creating a brain drain. Just consider this from his perspective: a whole underdeveloped region, that is filled with people who could become skilled workers for him, only for a low price of...getting Agates cooperation. Win-win.
And then he can make the people there potentially extract resources from their region for him. He would also make himself into the saviour of the region: creating workplaces and education opportunities... in return for more influence.
 
Last edited:
Well, now I know what was in the other half of the "Diana and Hamber's Kitakami rendez-vous adventure" episode, which was scrapped and chopped to pieces. We've been robbed, robbed I tell you!!!!!!11 (no, I have no evidence to back this up).

Explorers were also robbed of 1/3 of their episode because we needed to list all the 18 tera candidates. Like, yes, this is important but eh I wanted more of these backstories.

Trick Room is exactly what I'm gonna run when I'm too old to keep up with kids' battling pace.

Whoa is this some dark worldbuilding in this ep. Turns out some regions (Kanto) have universal education with on-line programmes for children who live on a rock in the middle of the sea... while other regions have zero schools in whole towns. Yes, I know, this is how it is in our world, but Pokemon was this, y'know, technomagical utopia. And there seems to be very little oversight over corporate power grabs and poisoning the (Pokemon) population which is another level of "unexpected realistic dystopia".

NumberOneSpinelApologist said:
I am willing to bet that Spinel would agree to fulfill Agate's wish only because he gets something out of it too.
Click to expand...
Not to mention a safe haven to retreat to once sh*t hits the Fan Rotom (though the terms of the deal could suddenly change once Spinel needs Agate more, than she needs him)
 
Amazing episode! Not only did they gave us drama, but a great battle as well. I'm glad that one of my favorite pokemon from gen 9 finally got to make its debut. This one cements Chalce/Agate as my favorite member of the explorers. I love that despite all the shenanigans, she has a noble goal at heart, which makes me think that she will eventually drop the explorers altogether. It's only a matter of time before her conscience fully kicks in. Hamber did a great job at confronting her, she was trying hard to ignore his words because deep down she knows she crossed a line for her cause. I'm also intrigued to know where she comes from (region and hometown), which I suspect will be a location exclusive to the anime. I already liked her design before this, she is so mysterious and has an interesting clothing style that makes me wonder if it's somehow inspired in the region she comes from. It was nice to see Friede there at the end, I miss when he was a regular on the show and I want to know more about his space mission.
 
Last edited:
This episode really made it feel as though we're about to enter the endgame, and yet there is still roughly a year, give or take, until Winds & Waves is released. I'm very curious as to how that will impact the anime. It would be very weird in my opinion to have 80-90% of the anime be about this one very specific story about our heroes assembling the Six Heroes and the 18 Tera-Types to purify the Raquium, and then have the last 10% be random irrelevant side quests to bide time for the next anime. The only thing that would maybe make sense off the top of my head is an epilogue arc in Area Zero revolving around the origin of Terapagos. The fact they specified that Ult's father, Salt, is a subterranean explorer could tie into that (If he is anything like Ult, him illegally entering wouldn't be too surprising).

The episode itself took the opportunity to shine a light on the admins of the Explorers and why they joined the Explorers in the first place. This is the first time we've really gotten a look at their backstories. I wonder if this will ultimately lead to some actually confliction and eventual betrayal by some, if not all of them. Sango & Onyx already don't seem to have the motivation or interest to keep going with the mission outside of wanting to do whatever they want (and they even included a flashback to that scene where they first showed their dissatisfaction). Agate is the only one of the three who has a goal that spans beyond herself, so her wish to create a school for children in her hometown would make it harder for her to defect when it might mean losing that. However, will she really be able to live with herself if the foundation upon which she is teaching children is built on suffering and falsehoods? The fact that she can use Mega Evolution is proof that the bond between her and Medicham is real and important to her.

Hamber came out of the episode looking like a badass with his Blood Moon Ursaluna after schooling them in the morality department. I like that they have these two capable, older characters who still are able to have adventures.

On our heroes' side, they have a representative for each of the 18 Tera-Types. However, I think it is risky to only have one of each. If even one is taken down unexpectedly, the entire plan is a bust. I wouldn't be surprised if there will need to be some last-minute improvisation once they actually try to execute the plan. Again, Terapagos is able to Terastalize Pokemon by itself so I wouldn't count Ult out of the lineup just yet, and maybe even some additional uncounted allies who may show up.
 
I was not expecting them to go there with Agate's backstory but I'm very happy they did!! This episode was really good in all honest, just a solid battle and argument between the explorers and their teacher. I feel like based on the line of "carrying proof of that bond" I wonder if the other two also have megas or if its just agate (because the accompanying shot focused on their wrists). Side note Dot in the hoodie at the start of the episode was really cute and Dot and Roy having a genuine solo interaction for once was also cool to see even if brief. Also seeing the actual consequences of strong spheres taking full effect is really nice, I was worried they'd avoid it but no we open the episode on how bad it will be.

Next episode looks very fun!! Besides him being here everything else seems cool!! Lucario Z has been teased since series start, as was Lucario vs Hawlucha (which turned out to be Master Mayonnaise's, guess Hawlucha runs in the family) which means we finally get to see mega Hawlucha!! I'm really excited its easily one of my favourite megas. Other stuff from the preview is Ann finally being in her outfit we've been seeing in marketing and twitter posts (which I'm excited for, the outfit is really cool), and Perrin surprisingly re-appearing (now show me more Iono please)!!

My likodot crumb for this week is Liko talking about the bonds they've made and the shot panning to Dot alone and then Roy and Ult paired up, I see what you're doing animators :wynaut:
 
Chalce is a very beautiful woman with and without makeup.

Other than that, holy crap, the reveal that she has a Mega Bracelet was crazy. Does this mean she had been holding back on all of her fights with Dot all this time?

Hamber is one of the coolest old guys in the franchise.
 
I was expecting an Explorers backstory episode, so I'm a little disappointed that we just got snippets of the trio's, but I still felt this was a solid episode.
I was particularly excited for this one, because I thought it was a Sango episode and if you know me, than you know that cute lil' Sango's my goat, but eh she didn't have much to do this time around.
She just lost to Hamber and that was that.
I do want to talk about one line from her's though, that I think perfectly sums up who Sango is as a person.
Screenshot_2026-03-07-19-37-12-554_is.xyz.mpv_1772909835591edit.jpg
I love Sango a lot and yet, I never questioned why she does why she does.
Why she'd join such an evil group like The Explorers.
Fun. It's all for fun. The way I see it, whether it's getting the newest pastry or trying to blow up literal children with her Glalie, her motivation is just to have fun.
I know it's common for villains in media to do what they do just for fun, instead of some deeper reason, but I just love that in Modern Pokémon, we have a comparatively simpler villain than others.
She doesn't want to prevent an apocalypse or was driven mad due to the loss of a loved one, she's just evil for the love of the game, and I love that about her!
So yeah, it's nice knowing how Sango ticks.
I do wish we had more of her in this episode though.

This was definitely more of an Agate episode and I have to say, she was awesome.
Particularly that scene where she Mega Evolved Medicham, that really shocked me in a good way.
The imagery of Medicham against the moon is just excellent
Screenshot_2026-03-07-19-41-42-734_is.xyz.mpv_1772910324126edit.jpg

I never really cared that much for Agate before, she just didn't interest me, but this episode definitely made me like her more. Learning that she joined the Explorers to help her students definitely makes her more sympathetic, although I do wonder if she's lost sight of her goal overtime. Perhaps this job has corrupted her.

Onyx's backstory just being that he wanted to get stronger isn't as compelling as the other two, but it's fine.

I do think it'd be nice if we learned more about Hamber, like why does he do all he does? We learned what made two of the Explorers tick, why not the episode's namesake?

In terms of the battle itself, there were a few bits of animation that made me think "oh yeah, weekly show", but definitely solid overall.

I am curious what Friede has to report to the gang, definitely invested in what's going on.

Screenshot_2026-03-07-19-26-56-673_is.xyz.mpv_1772909454421edit.jpg
Liko's line here feels like it's alluding to Horizons possibly ending sometime soon or at least the Explorers arc, god I'm gonna miss this show so much.

Oh, and I just wanna say, I totally called Mega Mewtwo Y being this episode's Mega Evolution!!
 
Strong Spheres have spread throughout the world and are already ruining the bonds between trainers and Pokémon, but the good news is that the Rising Volt Tacklers have figured out that they have all of the Pokémon they need to erase the Rakurium. Agate, Sango, and Onyx are sent to guard Mt. Kurumi, where Hamber shows up to try to convince them to leave the Explorers, for whom he originally recruited them. Flashbacks show that Sango joined because she just wants to run wild and have fun (her idea of fun just happens to include explosions), Onyx joined to get stronger (Hamber having demonstrated that he was just a big fish in a small pond before) and Agate wants funding for the school she used to work at (ironically enough this sympathetic goal led to her becoming the most ruthless of the three). It is revealed that Hamber has a Bloodmoon Ursaluna after his other Pokémon are defeated (although Dusknoir does quite well for a while using Trick Room, it is defeated once that runs out). Ursaluna proves itself quite capable in battle (tanking the inevitable Self-Destruct from Sango's Glalie and nearly defeating Agate's Strong Sphere-enhanced Medicham), but is defeated once Agate Mega Evolves her Medicham (revealing that she can do that). It is also implied that Sango and Onyx have access to Mega Evolution, but they don't use it. Meanwhile, Fride finished analyzing the data he obtained from his trip to space and is ready to rejoin the Rising Volt Tacklers after one last, unspecified errand.

The idea of Mega Evolution as proof of bonds seems a bit odd when applied to Onyx since his ace can't use it, and he only really uses his Aerodactyl for transportation. That oddity aside, if the Explorers have access to Mega Evolution, it seems likely that Liko and Dot are going to need it to overcome them (Assuming Sango, Onyx, and Agate don't quit the Explorers before using it against the RVTs). Either way, Mega Evolution is a valuable asset they should obtain, but if they are going to be facing it, they need it much more than they otherwise would, especially since their Terastal-using Pokémon will be occupied with helping Terapagos purify the Rakurium.
 
Back
Top Bottom