This Legendary Pokemon Finally Gets The Move It Deserves

It looks like Lugia will finally have the ability to create storms.

Lugia is set to be the focus of this summer’s Pokemon the Movie: Everyone’s Story, which features Ash and Pikachu exploring what appears to be the Johto region. We don’t know what role Lugia will play, although it will appear at a Wind Festival in Fura City.

As part of the promotional campaign for the new movie, the Pokemon Company is giving away a special Lugia via Serial Code to any Japanese fan who pre-orders a ticket to the movie between now and July 12th. This Lugia is maxed out at Level 100 and knows the moves Aeroblast, Defog, Tailwind, and Hurricane, all of which are Flying-Type Moves. Aeroblast is Lugia’s signature move, but fans are excited that Lugia can now learn Hurricane, a move it’s not typically able to learn.

Hurricane is a powerful Flying-Type move that batters opponents with powerful winds. The movie is unique in that it can hit Pokemon that use semi-invulnerable moves like Fly, Bounce, or Sky Drop and it has a chance of confusing opponents. When the move is used in rainy weather, Hurricane always hits its opponent.

Hurricane wasn’t introduced as a Pokemon move until Pokemon Black and White, so on one level it’s not surprising that Lugia can’t learn it. However, Lugia is known for its ability to create and calm storms and multiple PokeDex entries refers to its ability to create hurricane force winds with a single flap of its wings. What’s even more confusing is that Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres all have access to Hurricane even though there’s not a “canon” reason for them to use that move (besides the fact that they’re super-powerful Bird Pokemon, of course.)

So, it looks like the Pokemon Company is finally correcting a weird omission by giving Lugia access to the Hurricane move. The next question is whether Pokemon fans outside of Japan will get this special Lugia as well. That largely depends on what other surprises the new Pokemon movie has in store for fans between now and its release this summer.

Pokemon: Everyone’s Story will be released on July 13 in Japan. An international release will likely follow in the late fall.