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Can you catch both starters in Aniimo?
You choose one starter and the other one is gone for good. Here is what that actually costs you, and why it is less than you think.
The short version
- You are restricted to a single starter, and the choice cannot be altered without restarting the game.
- The starter you pass on cannot be caught later in the wild.
- Helion and Lunara have identical base stats and stat distributions across every category.
- Both are Holy element DPS, the element the game also calls Light, so neither has a weakness the other avoids.
- Each has its own combat transformation, which is a temporary power boost and not a permanent evolution.
- Neither starter sits in the numbered Aniilog. They are classified as special Aniimo.
Short answer: no. You pick one starter, you keep that one, and the other is gone from your account unless you start the game over. It is not catchable in the wild later, and there is no second chance built into the story.
The good news is that the decision costs you less than it looks like it does. Helion and Lunara are built to the same numbers. What you are actually choosing is how your starter plays and what it looks like standing next to you for the rest of the game.
This page covers what the choice locks in, what the two share, and why the transformation people call a starter evolution is not an evolution at all.
You cannot get both, and the game does not soften that
Players are restricted to choosing a single starter Aniimo. The selection between Lunara and Helion is permanent, and the one you turn down cannot be caught later in the wild. The only way to change your mind is to restart the game.
The same one-or-the-other logic runs through the pair elsewhere. A human can hold only one blessing at a time, Sol or Lun, never both. Your character creation guide covers the blessing in full. For the purposes of this page, treat it as the same rule wearing a different hat: the game is built around the sun and the moon being a fork, not a collection.
So plan the choice as a one-off. There is no later patch of tall grass where the other wolf is waiting.
The choice arrives after you have already caught things
You encounter and capture multiple Aniimo before the game ever presents a formal starter selection. That trips people up, because the first creature you catch feels like it should be the starter and it is not.
Lunara and Helion are introduced early in the story as two special creatures, and they exist to teach twining. After you select one, the game teaches you the mechanic properly. How twining works has its own guide on this site and it is worth reading before you get there, because the starter is the creature you will learn it on.
Aniimo starter stats: the two are mirrored
Helion and Lunara have identical base stats and identical stat distributions across all categories. Not similar. The same. They share the same combat role and differ only in play style and appearance.
They also share an element. Both are Holy element Aniimo, the element referred to in-game as Light, and both fill a DPS role. Because their elemental typing is identical, neither one has an elemental weakness the other avoids. There is no matchup in the game where one of them is safe and the other is not. Our Holy and Light element combat guide handles what that typing means in a fight.
Which is why selecting a starter purely on meta rankings is a common mistake, and one the beginner mistakes guide lists. When the numbers are mirrored, a ranking is telling you about play style preference dressed up as power. Pick the wolf you want to look at and the moveset you enjoy driving.
Helion
- Divine wolf representing the Sun.
- Light element DPS, the element also called Holy in game.
- Identical base stats and stat distribution to Lunara.
- Classified as a Special Aniimo, outside the numbered Aniilog.
Lunara
- Divine wolf representing the Moon.
- Light element DPS, the element also called Holy in game.
- Identical base stats and stat distribution to Helion.
- Classified as a Special Aniimo, outside the numbered Aniilog.
Aniimo starter evolution: it is a transformation instead
Each starter possesses a unique combat transformation form. This is where the search term sends people wrong, because it is not an evolution.
Starter transformations offer a temporary combat power boost. Your starter does not permanently become something else, and there is no evolved final form waiting at a level threshold to reward you for picking correctly. The transformation is a button you press in a fight, and then it ends.
The practical upshot: you are not choosing a growth path. You are choosing which transformation animation and kit you want to be pressing for the whole game.
Neither starter is in the numbered Aniilog
Helion and Lunara are classified as special Aniimo and sit outside the numbered Aniilog. That was true during the Global Closed Beta and it remains true in the released game.
During the beta, that classification had teeth. Because both starters counted as Special Aniimo, neither could be chosen for the Bond Pact sealing event at the end of the Global Closed Beta.
If you are working through the numbered roster for completion, your starter does not count toward it and neither does the one you skipped. That is a small mercy for completionists, since a permanent fork in a numbered list would be unfinishable by design.
Where to start
Pick on appearance and play style, not on a tier list, because the stats behind the two are the same. Then stop thinking about it. The other wolf is not coming back, but it was never going to give you anything the one you kept does not already have.
Every fact on this page was re-checked against the released game on 20 September 2026.
