Ever since Pokémon Horizons began its run, the new anime series has displayed some determination to modify the formulas that we became used to in the previous anime series that ran for two decades. One of the biggest changes was to include a time jump to age up its main characters, and one shocking twist was to kill one of its main characters. With its latest episodes, however, Pokémon Horizons decided to backtrack the latter — Professor Friede (voiced by Taku Yashiro in the original Japanese and by Crispin Freeman in the English dub) is surprisingly back from the dead.
The reveal was made in the series’ 100th episode, titled “We Are The Rising Volteccers!” which kicked off with a Pokémon battle with the first-gen Tauros. The episode is a turning point in the series because it marks the re-ignition of the Rising Volt Tacklers — a group of explorers that travel the world on a blimp in search of a team of legendary Pokémon called the Six Heroes (Black Rayquaza, Arboliva, Galarian Moltres, Lapras, Kleavor, and Gouging Fire). The “death” of Friede had pretty much ended the team, but as soon as they decided to bring it back to life, they discovered that Friede and his Charizard are very much alive.
Last year, Professor Friede and Charizard disappeared after what looked like a deadly explosion of the blimp. This is the event that prompted the one-year time jump, because Friede’s friends needed time to deal with his death. In the new episode, however, an encrypted voice message is revealed and we hear Friede’s voice announcing that he’s been hiding. He does apologize for not being able to send the message sooner, though. The message makes it pretty clear that they will all meet again, but since Friede didn’t reveal his location, chances are that he won’t be back as soon as fans of the character would hope.
‘Pokémon Horizons’ Is Repeating a Trope As Old as Time
As much as it might anger some fans, characters returning from the dead is the kind of event that happens in pretty much every long-running series. Game of Thrones famously brought Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) to life for the final seasons of the HBO series, and Supernatural did it a bunch of times. In the anime world, characters returning from the dead are also common territory in titles like Bleach, Dragon Ball, Naruto, and many others.
Aside from the shocking return, another surprising fact from Pokémon Horizons is realizing that the spin-off series is already at 100 episodes. The series has proven itself as a worthy successor to the stories of Ash Ketchum, and chances are that it will keep going for many more seasons. Last week, Netflix announced that, aside from Part 3 of Pokémon Horizons Season 2: The Search For Laqua debuting this month, fans can already look forward to Part 4 arriving on the platform later this year.
You can stream Pokémon Horizons on Netflix.
- Release Date
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April 14, 2023
- Network
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TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TVh, TVQ, GBS, TSC, Nara Television
- Directors
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Fumihiro Ueno, Hiromichi Matano, Ayumi Moriyama, Yūichi Abe, Junya Koshiba, Hiroyuki Okuno, Masashi Tsukino, Makoto Ooga, Satoshi Saga
- Writers
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Kureha Matsuzawa, Naruki Nagakawa, Dai Sato, Michihiro Tsuchiya, Naohiro Fukushima, Deko Akao