Cut to the heroes, who arrive in "LaRousse City, the headquarters for anything and everything high tech!", except Porygon because you know. I have to admit, LaRousse City's design is a nice change from the previous movies. The first movie takes place in a creepy castle on an island, the second movie in a rural group of islands, the third movie in a creepy mansion, the fourth movie in a forest, the fifth movie in faux Venice, and the sixth movie in another forest, so a city of extremely high technology is a good move. I checked, and apparently its architecture was based on Vancouver? Yes, because when Japan, the most technologically advanced country in the world, wants to portray technology advanced even by their standards, they think of "Canada."
Ash has come here for the town's battle tower, which he's very excited for even though he's never mentioned it before in the show.
By the way, Team Rocket won't do anything this entire movie. Rather than be powered by fusion power plants or something, this super advanced city runs on wind power. A robot takes their picture and gives them passports to be used for shopping, because that's totally what passports are used for. And passports? Is LaRousse City in another country? Maybe this really is the Pokemon World's version of Canada. In any case, LaRousse City is full of all of the technology you can think of that seems kind of cool but is actually impractical, like moving sidewalks and escalators everywhere. The heroes meet a group of trainers who are also here for the Battle Tower: Rafe and his Blaziken, Sid and his Blastoise, and Rebecca and her Metagross. Each of these side characters will be important exactly once in the plot, which is more than May, Max, and Brock get, so in a way, they're main characters.
In the Battle Tower, Ash meets Tory, who is really freaked out by Pikachu, but the two of them accidentally get entered in the Battle Tower tag team together against Rafe and Sid. Ash sends out Pikachu to battle Blastoise and Blaziken (probably the best choice he could have made, I admit), but Tory reveals that he owns no pokemon, so Ash loans him Torkoal, whose voice sounds nothing at all like Torkoal's normal voice (I checked, Torkoal was replaced for this movie for "unknown reasons"). Tory is incredibly awful and costs them the match, and afterward, Yuko explains that Tory is afraid of pokemon because of his experience with the Spheal. Uh... then why would he be hanging out in the Battle Tower? I mean, if you want to avoid pokemon, that's already going to be pretty difficult, that would be like avoiding cars in the real world, but how do you plan to avoid pokemon in a place people come for the specific purpose of bringing their biggest, strongest, and scariest pokemon along with them?
Tory leaves and runs into a wild Plusle and Minun in trouble, so he helps them out, but runs away the moment they try to thank him. Tory then goes to a greenhouse and talks to a CGI effect.
Somehow, Tory doesn't think this is weird at all, and he's not concealing it or anything, he just doesn't have any other friends to introduce to the CGI effect. Really, that's it. Tory, who by most respects seems normal if fearful and shy, talks to a CGI effect and thinks it's completely normal.
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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005