HorizonsShipping

NewHorizonShipping is the het ship between Liko and Roy from the Pokémon fandom.

Canon
Liko is a new protagonist who debuts in the Pokémon Horizons series, after 25 years of anime broadcast. She is originally from the Paldea region, in Cabo Poco. She is a girl who has a great thirst for adventure and her goal is to discover the mystery behind her pendant. Her first Pokémon is a Sprigatito, received from her Indigo Academy. She is currently an observatory sentinel in the Rising Volt Tacklers.

Roy is a boy originally from Kanto, although the specific island where he lives is unknown. His goal is to discover the mystery of an ancient Poké Ball given to him by his grandfather. His first Pokémon is a Fuecoco. He is also one of the members of the Rising Volt Tacklers.

Pokémon Horizons: The Series
Wanting to meet Fuecoco again, Roy snuck on the Brave Asagi, but he got caught by Captain Pikachu, waking up everyone on the aircraft in the process. Roy wanted Fuecoco to be his partner, but Friede told him that Fuecoco had to reciprocate those feelings as well. He and Liko searched all over the Brave Asagi, and while they weren't able to find Fuecoco that night, Roy decided to left it some Oran Berries. Some episodes later, Liko and Roy had a sparring battle, which ended with both of their Pokémon just exhausting themselves. After a training session with Captain Pikachu, they had another battle, which went much better. Although Roy ended up losing, he wasn't dejected, and promised to battle Liko again later.

Much later, Liko and Roy head to the Paldea region thanks to the Brave Asagi and both head to Liko's homeland of Cabo Poco. There Liko is reunited with her father while Roy decides to explore. After resolving a family matter, Liko decides to tell her father that she will continue traveling with the Rising Volt Tacklers, including Roy. After leaving home, Liko and Roy head first towards the confines of Paldea. There they first meet a champion of Paldea, Nemona. After a chat, Liko and Rod also head towards Artazon to look for the Gym Leader, Brassius and later to see the Arboliva Forest.

There, they separate but they promise that if they get lost, they would use the Giant Tree as a meeting point. When Rod gets lost, he goes there and realizes that said tree has an old Poké Ball like the one he has and decides to go up and get it. However, the tree begins to move and reveals that it is a Dominant Arboliva, so he uses Fuecoco to fight it alongside Liko's Sprigatito, who warns him not to use Ember because it could start another fire. Fuecoco manages to unbalance it and they finally manage to weaken the giant Pokemon. Said Pokémon takes the children and shows them how disastrous the forest was left by the last fire, which causes them some guilt. Rod and his Fuecoco begin to plow the land and with the help of the Rising Volt Tacklers manage to revitalize the forest. It is then that a mysterious Pokémon emerges from Liko's pendant and the Arboliva engulfs them in a sphere of light, where they have a vision of the legendary adventurer Lucius. Arboliva then goes into his Poké Ball and is left in the care of Rod and Liko.

After this, Liko and Roy finally meet Liko's mother. There she also meets Friede in a library and they talk about Roy's mysterious Poké Ball and Liko's pendant, but the Liko's mother doesn't know much about it. Finally, she reveals to Friede the whereabouts of Liko's grandmother, so that they ask her and says goodbye to him, but not before telling him to take care of Liko.

Behind the scenes - Cast's opinion
Although the current director of Pokémon Horizons, Saori Den, did not say anything physically in any interview, the clarification that appears in the magazine CoroCoro in a character connection table with an bi-directional arrow between Liko and Roy that says "Just Friends" means that they doesn't have any type of romantic feeling for each other, but it doesn't means that "Saori Den herself doesn't support the ship in any means" (like some people might believe, specially those who doesn't support this ship) This doesn't deny the possibility of the shipping receiving more moments in the future, specially after considering the times Liko has blushed because of Roy, so it's unknown if Saori Den or the animation team "supports or not" the ship; specially because some known ships in the Pokémon franchise started being platonic/friends only at some point.

Fanon
Upon its debut, NewHorizonShipping was popular among new fans who were eager to see a fresh air that the anime promised after the repetitiveness of Ash as the main character. Many at first believed that between Liko and Roy there was going to be something more than a friendship since all the covers of Pokémon Horizons show them together. There are even fans who say that this ship is much better than all of Ash's ships.

This ship generated a lot of hype when in one of the scenes, Roy shamelessly approaches Liko and taking her by both hands and looking at her in front, says "I wanted to see that face again". This made some fans (and Liko herself, like it can be seen in the scene) to believe that Roy "wanted to see HER face again", but he was actually talking about seeing Fuecoco's face again... Liko had a subtle blush during the confusion, so some fans believed that at some point Roy will have a desire to have Liko as his girlfriend, but there are some other fans who don't agree with this happening because of their preference of seeing them under a platonic light.

In addition, a main reason for "not supporting the ship" is that both Liko and Roy are 10 years old, which indicates that they are still in their childhood time and therefore fans say that for this reason "they can't get married", something that also happened with the ships of Ash and his female friends. Even when this, ironically, can be said as well against ships of the same gender... so, this argument is unfair to be used only against the ship between Roy and Liko. Besides, there is also a main reason to support the potential behind this ship and that is the chemistry and supporting relationship between the two, with the absence of exaggerate teasing, mocking, or arguing (being portrayed under a different direction compared to previous ship-teasing from Ash's era, where it was implied Misty or Serena had romantic feelings for him in the japanese, original version of the show)

This ship seemed like it was going to be the most popular Pokémon ship until an event happened that was going to change everything: OLM Studios, the official Pokémon anime studios, released a June 2023 CoroCoro magazine, there is a summary of Liko about her character description that doesn't say anything about her feelings towards Roy, the same viceversa applying to him towards Liko, which made fans suspect something "bad" was happened to the romantic ship. This "bad" suspect is confirmed when there is a character connection table with an bi-directional arrow between Liko and Roy that says "Just Friends", which made fans lose faith on the romantic ship and therefore, made NewHorizonShipping lose popularity. Still, it's nothing definitive and this can change in the future, specially considering different ships from the Pokémon franchise that started like friends... starting as a platonic, only friends dynamic allows the bond to start more natural, and their interactions to evolve or feeling more authentic, organic. However, the people who dislike the ship might use the "Just Friends" arrow as a reason to refuse to ship it...

Due to this anime actually in airing, this ship has poor fanfics in main fanfiction sites.

This ship also has rival ships, mostly AirBodyguardShipping (Liko/Friede) in Liko's side and AirTechShipping (Roy/Dot) in Roy's side. Also GuruminShipping in Liko's side (even if this can be only Liko being "starstruck")

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