After 26 years of adventuring in the Pokémon anime, protagonist Ash Ketchum finally called it a day at the tender age of perpetually 10-years-old. But after adamantly refusing to age up its hero for most of the anime’s run, The Pokemon Company appears to finally be doing the unthinkable in Pokémon Horizons and letting its new protagonists, Liko and Roy, grow up a bit.
The news comes from the recent CoroCoro reveal of the next arc in Pokemon Horizons, Mega Voltage, which confirmed that this new arc include a “time skip” that will age up Liko and Roy by about three years. This includes new designs for the main cast that shows Liko, Roy, and Dot looking noticeably taller and more mature than before:
What’s more, these kids exist in the same universe as Ash Ketchum, even if he’s not in the anime at the moment. So this means that, off-screen somewhere, Ash has also aged three years with them, as have the rest of the gang of Misty, Brock, May, Dawn, Serena, and everyone else. Will we see the grown up Ash Ketchum in this arc, or ever? Who knows? But fans are already speculating that things may be headed in that direction either now or in a future season.
Mega Voltage will also feature the return of Mega Evolutions, likely to coincide with Mega Evolution returning as a mechanic in the game Pokémon Legends: Z-A. We can also see that Liko’s Floragato evolved at some point into Meowscarada, and Roy’s got a shiny mega Lucario.
One notable absence in the reveal is Friede, captain of the Rising Volt Tacklers. His partner, Pikachu, is present and seems to have Friede’s goggles, and fans seem to think they’ve spotted cracks running across the sides of the goggles, perhaps suggesting that something not-so-great has happened to Friede — uh oh.
The Mega Voltage arc will begin airing in Japan on April 11 of this year, though it won’t show up in the United states for a bit, as the English dub is significantly behind. We’ve been a bit cool on the anime series since it aired, giving Pokémon Horizons Season 2 a 5/10 for “refusing time and again to commit to its strengths.” Here’s hoping the time skip infuses some new energy into the Rising Volt Tacklers.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
