Pokemon has been really good about churning out a ton of different miniseries and so this is another one to add to the completed pile. It was a pretty fun series with some action and a lot of good animation. There are only 4 episodes and the final one is more of an epilogue so it definitely goes by quickly. Each character gets their own episode so as you can imagine, the order of how good each episode is really gets determined by the character. I liked 2 out of 3 of the characters well enough though and in the end the writing here is solid so I had a good time.

The series starts with 3 Pokemon students being tasked with filming a video about the school. It’s a pretty massive project and while these 3 are all good students, it’s not like they have a ton of experience teaming up with each other. Filming a video like this is also such a vague mission, it’s hard to even know where they should start. What should they do? Well, each character has their own way of dealing with the project…which to be honest is typically to ignore everyone else and do their own thing but by the end their struggles bring them closer together!

The first episode is about Ohara and she’s cool with doing the project but at the same time it’s all just a bit overwhelming. She’s already so busy and in a way she sort of cracks. Ohara heads off to the mountains to try and cool down, she even considers just giving up on the project and running off but ultimately she makes the hard call and sticks with the team. It was a good first episode to show off the animation and get us used to the characters a bit. In that episode we’re really seeing them from her point of view and of course they don’t seem to be the most impressive. When nobody’s really engaged with a group project it becomes 100X harder.

In the second episode we focus on Aliquis who is a good sport about filming the video but it’s not really his highest priority. He really wants to defeat Nemona and prove himself as the strongest trainer in the land. So he’s really got to focus on training and getting his Pokemon to eat enough berries to get stronger. Unfortunately after enough losses he starts to get discouraged and takes out his frustrations on his Pokemon which is never okay. Along the way he starts to re-evaluate his priorities which is good.

I enjoyed this episode because we got some good action here which is always fun. I’m glad that he made up with his Pokemon quickly too because when you’ve been pals for so long it’s rough to see the trainer just lose it like that. I respect his dedication in wanting to win with the same Pokemon of course but he just needs to train more and more as a unit. For that reason I am glad that the show didn’t just reward him with an easy win all of a sudden and instead he still has to go and train the old fashioned way.

Then we have the third episode with Hohma. He’s a little discouraged because he actually loved making recordings and being creative but he’s not really sure how to approach the other two. He’s the most timid one of the group and has some real self confidence issues. He wants to find a way to really contribute but just can’t think of anything. So the episode’s really about slowly getting his confidence issues up and approaching the team. The toughest part about that is that I feel like the writers didn’t know what idea he should have. The episode easily has the weakest conclusion.

So Hohma’s big idea to save the project and make this a success is treated as an awesome idea but I just don’t see it. What was his idea? “Lets get all of the gym leaders, the Chairman, and the social media influencers to collab with us!”. Yes that would be awesome but it’s super unrealistic in such a short time frame so rather than it be the successful knockout hit that the show portrays it to be, it left me a little confused. It’s cool that it works out of course…but it was a little on the cheesy side.

There isn’t much to say about the final episode because like I noted it’s really just an epilogue. We get to see how the video turned out and then the 3 students say their goodbyes and head out. They’re back to living their own lives again. The ending is almost sad in a way because after they leave we see just how empty the school is and it’s super quiet. I was half expecting some kind of a jump scare as a result but no it just stayed very solemn.

This may not be the most bombastic series out there but I liked the tone and the characters were fun. It can always be hard to make the first move and approach someone but you won’t get anything done if you just stay in the corner. So the show had some good messages about teamwork and stepping out of the comfort zone. It’s also so short that it never drags on or anything and it’s not a big time commitment to check it out. For that reason I would definitely recommend watching it. Lets keep these Pokemon miniseries coming because they’ve been solid so far.

The animation is really sharp for the brief action scenes that we get. This isn’t a series that is super focused on action or anything like that but I’m glad that they still set aside a good budget for it whenever it was needed. That was definitely important. The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side, personally I can’t remember any of the tunes. I’ll say it’s decent enough for the scenes but that’s about all I can say for it.

Overall, Pokemon: Paldean Winds is a good series. It flies by in an instant but tells the story that it was aiming for. It also takes time to really develop each of the 3 characters which also helps for down the line in case we ever get some kind of a sequel series. I’d be down with seeing them return or at least the one who wants to be a great trainer since we can get some good battle scenes there. It’s about time we get another really action packed miniseries right?

Overall 7/10