A Duo in the Wilderness: Friede and Cap - Pokémon Horizons Episode 35 Review - Bramblin About in the Desert

Pokémon Horizons has finally returned after taking a few weeks off due to the holidays. Now that the festivities are over, we’re back to our weekly schedule for Horizons until the series takes its next scheduled break. This week's episode happens to be a fun, relaxing episode about the group working odd jobs.

True to every typical adventuring group you read about in stories, the Rising Volt Tacklers’ have run into a bit of funding troubles, leading to the group needing to find ways to earn a bit of extra money. Most of the crew comes up with ideas suited to their own talents. Murdock suggests delivering sweets (To be honest, I’d love to pay for Murdock’s sweets); Orla suggests mechanical repairs and Mollie is thinking about doing medical consultation for trainers. Friede meanwhile ends up working odd jobs; one job he gets is the focus of the episode: finding his friend Shine’s lost Bramblin.

Liko and Roy of course tag along with Friede. In Liko's case, she specifically wants to tag along because of her school assignment, which is to make a presentation about what she considers the ideal bond. Since she feels that describes Friede and Cap's relationship, she tags along to observe and make a report about them. Throughout the episode, both she and we, the viewers, learn new things about Friede and Cap thanks to her observations. For example, Cap has an “allergy” where he sneezes uncontrollably when he is called cute; I guess the mighty Captain Pikachu really does have one weakness after all. Despite their strong bond, Friede and Cap don’t see eye-to-eye at times, which causes them to fight. This is a rather unusual sight, but I quite like it because it gives Cap a lot of character. I also quite liked the scene where Friede and Cap pretended to have an argument, which caused Pikachu to leave and for Friede to make Roy and Liko take over the battle, as part of a plot to distract the hunters, allowing for Captain Pikachu to knock out the female hunter’s Avalugg along with the other foes.

Although Bramblin makes its debut here, it’s more plot device than anything in this episode, as the focus is clearly on the main characters. The only two things it did was roll around like tumbleweed, and then get captured by hunters. At least, it did want to be free from the poachers. I guess the reason why Bramblin ran off from its trainer was to use the Let’s Go feature to evolve, which it did! Despite my gripes with Bramblin, I did like its cry, which makes it sound like an air headed ball of grass.

If you’re not familiar with voice actors, I’ll fill you in on some interesting trivia. Friede’s friend Shine is voiced by Kenji Nojima, who has been a recurring name in the Pokémon anime in the past. He voiced Jimmy from The Legend of Thunder! special, Rafe from the Destiny Deoxys movie, and Khoury from the Diamond and Pearl era of the original Pokémon anime, amongst others. He currently voices Roark in Pokémon Masters EX. The female poacher, the one who really likes cute Pokémon and Captain Pikachu, is voiced by Mariya Ise. If you’re not familiar with Japanese voice actresses, she’s the voice actress of Bonnie from the XY arc of the original anime. It’s crazy how they can get two big names that had done major roles in the past as minor characters for this episode. Horizons has done this in a few episodes now.

Anyways, this was a nice episode to get back into Horizons. Hopefully, taking on odd jobs won’t last too long, as plot progression is important. I do wonder what will happen later on. If you've watched this episode, what are your thoughts on how it went?