Shine! The Brilliance of Fire and Art! - Pokémon Horizons Episode 48 Review - Avant-garde? More Like Art-vant-gardener!

Congratulations, Roy, it took 44 episodes, but you finally won your first official battle! You're finally making some progress! This week's episode of Pokémon Horizons highlighted both Roy's positive and negative qualities, and showed off what he's like as a character. He’s an innovative kid; but he's also impatient. I think that he needs to have someone tell him that he doesn’t need to rush, and that he needs to take his time to progress and improve his battling.

I’m a little surprised that Roy had two battles in one episode. The first was a match between him and Nemona, which he loses, obviously. This battle showed his impatient aspects, with Roy immediately wanting a rematch with Nemona as he blamed his loss on the rain, only to get stopped by Brassius telling him to focus on art. Roy's second battle was the long awaited rematch between him and Brassius. This time, Roy was a bit more strategic and got his first victory.

I love the parallelism of this match. When Brassius first appeared all the way back in Episode 10, he was having an art block, and Roy was the one who helped him out of his funk. In this episode, it's now Roy who's struggling, and Brassius is the one to give him advice by comparing battles with art. Like art, battles can use many different strategies and styles for expression. Pokémon Trainers meanwhile express themselves with their Pokémon choices and battle style, so Pokémon training is itself an art form in a sense. Speaking of which, Roy's Fuecoco learned Stomping Tantrum during his first match with Brassius, but it’s ultimately his newly learned Flame Charge that scored his win in this episode. You know what this means? Fuecoco got rid of Ember! I think what makes Roy’s battle exciting is the fact that Fuecoco has the most variety in his move pool. It's been seen using the most moves of the main Pokémon by far! Liko's Floragato mainly uses Magical Leaf and Quick Attack and sometimes Scratch, while Dot's Quaxly only knows three moves.

This episode's subplot with the art festival is actually quite nice! Like how Katy’s episode focused around baking, Brassius’s episode focused on art and creativity. Liko’s father Alex and Hassel both appear in this episode as well, with Alex coming to the festival due to his picture books. I was a bit disappointed that Hassel and Brassius’s relationship was only mentioned, and their closeness wasn’t really shown other than them saying pet names to each other. I get that this is a kids’ show and that the focus is on Roy. Maybe if they were to make another appearance in the future, their closeness will be shown? Despite that, I do love how each of the kids’ art works is a reflection of themselves in a way. Liko is a naturally gifted artist thanks to being Alex’s daughter, but she works with her Pokémon as they finger paint and she does the Arboliva drawing. Roy uses clay, and when things get awry he and Fuecoco end up burning the clay, being forced to use metal rods to hold it up. I’m actually amazed that Roy can make a clay sculpture of that caliber, it seems like he has a lot of artistic talent as well. I think that him using clay is a reflection of his active personality and his remote island upbringing, given clay is made from minerals found in nature. Dot’s art piece meanwhile revolved around using her Tinkatink’s hammer obsession to make a ferris wheel. She’s the only one to borrow another trainer’s Pokémon for their art project, as she borrow’s Roy’s Wattrel for the mechanical aspect of the ferris wheel, reflecting her tech-savvy background. As someone who loves art, this really got a kick into my artistic creativity. I hope that it does the same for all you artists out there!

Now that Roy has passed his Basics test, it’s Dot’s turn! Will she pass? Will she fail? I have this inkling of a feeling that she’s going to fail the first time and then pass the second time. Why? For drama. Anyways, what are your thoughts on this episode and what are your predictions for the upcoming Dot vs Iono match?