Though the Pokémon Horizons series is the current monster-taming anime airing on TV overseas and on Netflix here in the States, the best animated Pokémon stories are not found on either. Instead, you’ll find the most lovingly animated and heartwarming Pokémon cartoons on the series’ YouTube page, with some truly stunning limited series and short stories popping up on the channel every year or so. One of its best 15-minute shorts, “Dragonite and the Special Delivery,” was released in February of 2025 to commemorate the series’ 29th anniversary, but it was only ever dubbed in Asian languages. Until today, that is.
The English dub of “Dragonite and the Special Delivery” is streaming now on Pokémon’s YouTube, and it stars a young girl named Hana who, inspired by a Dragonite who flies around delivering mail to the citizens of Scarlet and Violet’s Paldea, decides to work at the post office when she grows up. Though she starts out stuck sorting the mail, she takes on the initiative to find the sender of a mysterious letter that is missing an address, and it takes her and her Fuecoco on a journey that reminds her of why she’s doing this in the first place.
It’s a very sweet story full of the super sentimental, emotional swells that a lot of Pokémon’s limited animated series tend to lean into. It’s also really, really pretty to look at. One of my favorite parts is a segment in which Hana and her Pokémon friends fly through various regions across the Pokémon world, so there are plenty of nods to other settings, even if you’re not big on Paldea.
I’m very behind on Pokémon Horizons, but even if you don’t watch the weekly episodes, I can’t recommend going through Pokémon’s limited animated series enough. There are some real gems on that channel like Pokémon Evolutions and Twilight Wings, and they often dive into the universe in a more grounded, human way rather than relying on the same competitive sport storylines that were so central to the anime for decades. Even in “Dragonite and the Special Delivery,” we see a lot of humans and Pokémon interacting with each other in the mundane, day-to-day parts of life, as when we see a Litwick use its flame to warm up wax before a post office worker seals an envelope with it, and these small moments really help build out the world.
