The Search for Laqua is definitely shaping up to be one of the strongest arcs in the entire Pokémon franchise. I already sang the praises of part one and how it established its new characters. This part focuses on how some of those new characters directly impact our main trio. Things are a little formulaic compared to before, with a set of episodes being dedicated to Liko, Roy or Dot as they take on a gym leader. Dot learned to gain more confidence in her planning, we got a fantastic backstory with Roy, establishing why singing means so much to him, and Liko learns to lose…again.
I do find it interesting that Liko has probably lost more battles in this show than she has actually won despite being the main character. In some ways that does make her endearing, especially when you consider the fact that most of the people she goes up against are far more experienced than her. However, it does feel like we’re re-treading a similar resolution that she came to in part one.
I find it a shame, because I do think Dot and Roy’s character development stands out. I loved Roy in particular because a small quirk about him ended up becoming a major defining character trait about his past and was used to relate to him getting stronger in the present. Dot’s character development is arguably a bit more standard, as it is the small recluse learning to gain more confidence in herself, but it’s still done incredibly well and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people find her to be one of the more relatable characters in the show.
Thankfully, my complaints about Liko get better as we get to the final third of the season, where we finally tie the events of this season back to the main plot. Most of it still seems to be brewing in the background, but we’re getting more glimpses about the dynamics of the Explorers and what they’re after. We see Spinel once again being an evil scientist who has a real hate for Amethio, and it makes you wonder if the show is setting him up to be the main big bad of the show despite the fact that we already have Amethio’s grandfather. Speaking of Amethio, the arc they’re setting up with him at the end of this season really gives me a lot of hope for his character moving forward. In some ways, he feels like the Prince Zuko of this show, a villain who is technically doing bad things for the sake of family, but learns to come into his own and make his own decisions after interacting with the main cast.
Now that we’ve gotten the training arc of the season over with, I’m very curious to see how the main plot will end up playing out moving forward. I do hope the battles continue to consistently look this good, because they’re once again some of the best in the series. Very little repeated animation, good use of character abilities, and the power scaling feels just right. In fact, the final battle of this part is probably one of my favorite battles in the entire show so far.
On the audio side of things, the background music continues to be the same. I know that a lot of people are tired of some of the drowning tracks that the series has, but I’m still fine with them. I think it helps that since this season is so action focused, there is more of an emphasis on the battle tracks, which are consistently good. It’s only those slower moments where a character gets melancholic that I would argue the music doesn’t fully fit. For the dub, the cast continues to be outstanding with this part’s standout being Melique Berger as Ryme. Kudos to the writing staff for adapting all of her singing and rapping scenes AND actually making them sound good.
Is this season more of the same? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. The battles are kinetic, most of the character development is spot on, and now we’re finally starting to transition into the plot. In a lot of ways, these two parts are necessary so that our cast could stand a chance against the bigger threats that they are about to face on the horizon. However, I commend the writers for not making this feel like a drag. Just because the plot was on hold for a bit doesn’t mean that there still isn’t a lot you can do with these characters in this environment. Let’s hope all of this training pays off.
