>>57952111Horizons is... fine. I think the setup for Horizons was really interesting. A series with a larger focus on its plot that kept us wondering what would happen next, and what the truth behind certain elements was, sounded pretty awesome. That feeling was only accentuated by the fact we hadn't even received the DLC for the games yet, so we didn't know almost anything about Terapagos either. I think Horizons honestly had a lot going for it.
However, for about a year now, Horizons has clearly experienced a dip in quality that is very difficult to ignore. Plot points are rushed, the animation quality has gone down (most likely from outsourcing almost every episode by now) and battles feel very robotic a lot of the time. It's a real shame, because I think the first 25-50ish episodes had a lot of promise to them.
I think the problem with the anime, however, is very obvious now that the Teraleak happened and few of the internal meetings were leaked. Horizons was very poorly planned. A lot of details were constantly reworked, and even in December of 2022 they didn't really have a lot of things from Horizons planned (and they seemed to clash a lot with GF when it comes to the vision for a Paldea anime). It seems they had an initial premise planned, but a lot of later events, reveals and even plot points were left up for debate once they saw viewer reactions. I feel like this is the main reason the anime has turned out the way it has. I think one of the GF writers said it in a meeting too, but they basically describe Horizons as being written like a serialized manga would (which just isn't feasible because animation takes much longer).
As a result, a lot of Horizons' later episodes feel really poorly paced, in my opinion? And, because they are basically making things up on the spot, I imagine there's just not enough time to produce a lot of really good episodes. If they wanted to make Horizons so plot-heavy, they should have outlined the full story way, way earlier.
