Venice and Alto Mare

Avid fans of the Pokémon anime feature films know that the fifth feature film, titled Pokémon Heroes in English, is set in the city of Alto Mare (aka the Water City), a floating city with buildings on small islands and lots of twisty waterways. If all this sounds familiar and bears resemblance to a similar city just off the north-east portion of Italy that goes by the name of Venice, you're not too far off. Alto Mare was actually inspired by Venice.

I've watched Pokémon Heroes a few times, and while I'm not too enthralled about its storyline, I find Alto Mare to be an attractively romantic setting. When the feature film was announced for the first time more than a decade ago, I became captivated with the setting more than I did with everything else about the feature film, and I confirmed myself when I saw the feature film for the first time.

As much as I became captivated with Alto Mare as the setting of the movie, I also became fascinated with its real-life inspiration, Venice. For the record, I've never been to Europe; I've been to a few parts of the world, but not Europe. Regardless, what I've seen of Venice from photographs and what I've read about Venice is enough to make me interested to go there. If there is ever a time in the future I can set aside to go to Venice, as well as enough resources to get there, then I will definitely go to Venice and see it for myself. I'm told and I've read that it's one of the places anyone must see in the world, and I couldn't agree more after its feature as inspiration in the feature film.

I have to thank Pokémon Heroes for instilling in me an attraction for something that already exists wonderfully in the real world. To visit Venice as the real-world analogue of Alto Mare would be so impressive, as if I were to set foot into one amazing subset of the world of Pokémon.