Pokémon Horizons: The Series

ポケットモンスター(2023) (Pokemon (2023))

7.4(10,724)

MAL Score

Ranked #2593

Popularity #3993

Action
Adventure
Comedy
Fantasy

Duration: 24 min
Aired: Apr 14, 2023 to ?
Status: Currently Airing

Synopsis

In the Pokémon-filled world, a fresh journey begins with Liko, a shy girl from the Paldea region who heads to Kanto to enroll at Indigo Academy and learn the ways of a Pokémon Trainer. There, she meets her first partner: Nyahoja, a temperamental Grass-type cat Pokémon.

Before leaving home, Liko receives a distinctive, shining pendant from her grandmother as a good-luck charm—only to find it has drawn the attention of a mysterious group called the Explorers, who attempt to take it from her. She’s saved by the Rising Volt Tacklers, an adventuring crew led by Friede, a Trainer who rides a Lizardon. After repeated run-ins with the Explorers, Liko chooses to travel with Friede and his team across the regions, seeking answers about the wider Pokémon world and the hidden power tied to her pendant.

Otaku Consensus

Pokémon Horizons lands as a confident franchise reset: its 7.41 MAL score and 73/100 AniList score reflect approval for Saori Den’s steadier, more serialized direction, OLM’s clean weekly-TV craft, and the found-family travel format that gives the world room to breathe beyond standard badge-chasing. Its recurring weakness is pacing: the school, travel, and ensemble priorities can make individual episodes feel gentler and less urgent than viewers expecting constant tournament escalation may want.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Pokémon Horizons if you want Pokémon as a roaming ensemble adventure rather than a simple ladder of battles, and especially if you like creature shows where the team dynamic matters as much as the next matchup. It scratches some of the same itch as Digimon Adventure’s group travel and One Piece’s shipboard found-family energy, but keeps Pokémon’s accessible comedy, partner-creature emotion, and tactical battle grammar. OLM’s long-running familiarity with the franchise gives it a polished weekly rhythm, while the aviation angle and wider regional movement make the world feel less like a checklist. It is also a useful entry point for fans curious about the post-Ash era: familiar icons remain, but the emotional center is deliberately rebuilt around a new cast and a more mystery-driven journey.

Key Characters

C
Captain Pikachu(VA: Ikue Ootani)
Captain Pikachu turns the franchise mascot into a commanding crew figure, with Ikue Ootani giving him a sharper, more authoritative presence than the usual cute-partner template.
F
Friede(VA: Taku Yashiro)
Friede is the series’ adult adventurer anchor, the kind of capable mentor character who keeps the travel structure feeling like an organized expedition rather than a loose road trip.
D
Dot(VA: Yoshino Aoyama)
Dot stands out because the show uses her as a modern, socially mediated type of Pokémon character, adding a different texture to the crew’s more traditional adventuring energy.
H
Hogator(VA: Daiki Yamashita)
Hogator’s appeal comes from Daiki Yamashita’s expressive comic delivery, which helps the Fire-type starter register as a personality rather than just a battle asset.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
The series is produced by OLM, the studio most closely associated with the Pokémon TV anime, and it benefits from that institutional knowledge: battles, creature acting, and comedy beats are staged with the clarity of a team built for long-form weekly production.
2
Saori Den is credited as director across episodes 1-136, giving the early run an unusually consistent guiding hand for a currently airing, long-form franchise series.
3
AniList’s highest tags are Travel and Proxy Battle at 97%, followed by Animals at 95% and Creature Taming at 87%, which accurately frames the show as a moving-world adventure where Pokémon partnerships and indirect combat structure matter more than a single school setting.
4
The Found Family tag at 83% and Aviation at 66% are not decorative labels: the series’ identity is built around an adventuring crew and aerial mobility, making it feel structurally different from the most static academy or gym-route entries in the franchise.
5
Its character-design lineage is unusually broad, with original character design credits spanning franchise pillars like Ken Sugimori and Atsuko Nishida alongside artists such as Hitoshi Ariga, Yusuke Kozaki, Haruko Ichikawa, Mari Shimazaki, Ryousuke Ooshiro, and Yusuke Oomura.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokémon, is credited for the original plan, tying Horizons directly back to the franchise’s foundational authorship even as it functions as a new-generation TV reset.
Fun fact 2: Captain Pikachu is voiced by Ikue Ootani, the same performer whose voice has been central to Pikachu’s anime identity for decades, making the character both a continuity bridge and a fresh variation on the mascot.
Fun fact 3: Daiki Yamashita is credited for both Hogator and Achigator in the main cast data, a notable bit of voice continuity for fans tracking Pokémon performances across forms.
Fun fact 4: The show began airing on April 14, 2023 and is still listed as currently airing, placing it among the long-form modern Pokémon productions rather than a short seasonal anime.
Fun fact 5: Haruko Ichikawa appears among the original character design credits; outside Pokémon, she is widely known as the creator of Land of the Lustrous, making her presence an eye-catching name in the series’ design pedigree.