Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea by Makoto Mizobuchi

Ash and his friends May, Brock and Max, are travelling in a great desert when they encounter huge bubbles of water containing Water Pokémon. They have stumbled onto Lizabeth, a performer in the Marina Underwater Travelling Pokémon show.

With her are her grandfather and a boy named Jack, and after giving Ash and his very thirsty friends some water, put them up for the night. May falls asleep under the light from a strange egg in a container of water, and dreams of a mysterious temple under the sea. This is the Temple of the Water people. The temple can only be seen on nights of a lunar eclipse

But meanwhile, Jesse, James and Meowth have come to try and steal the egg for themselves. but when they touch it, they suddenly switch bodies! They try to make away with the egg anyway, but Jack insists on getting it back. Ash wants Pikachu to use Thundershock, but Jack tells him he can't damage the egg. Instead, Jack uses a capture beam on a Fearow, and has it get the egg back. From that, Ash infers that Jack is a Pokémon Ranger, and Jack confirms it. The egg is from a rare water Pokémon named Manaphy that lives near the temple. He wants to return it to its kin.

But then, the pirate whom Jack took the Manaphy egg from shows up. His name is the Phantom, and he wants to steal the treasure known as "The Crown of the Sea" from the temple, and was counting on the Manaphy to lead him there when it hatched. He's come to get his Egg back, and Ash and the others stall Phantom while May flees with the egg, but it hatches, and the baby Manaphy bonds with her immediately, thinking of her as its mother.

The others flee to the sea, where they are led by the Manaphy to safety. The Manaphy is also known as "The Prince of the Sea", and it enabled them to breathe water long enough to escape. But when Jack starts out to take Manaphy back to the temple, it switches bodies between Ash and Jack so that Ash, Max, Brock and May accompany Jack and Manaphy to the temple

Unfortunately, Phantom and his pirate crew follow them, seeking the temple and the treasure. As the moon is slowly covered by the Eclipse, can Ash and his friends keep the temple safe, or will its riches be plundered by Phantom?

This wasn't a bad short story for the Pokémon universe, being nicely set up, with a fairly evil villain, and yet, which allowed Ash to be heroic and victorious at the same time. Of course, it's used to introduce a new Pokémon (Manaphy), though not being a big follower of POkémon, I can't tell if Pokémon Rangers were already introduced or new to this story, but if you haven't seen them before, you will only get a shadowy idea of what they do and why.

I can't say much about the motivation of the villain, except to say that he's a pirate, and his motivation is greed for the crystals in the crown. But the true treasure of the crown isn't monetary, but its ability to bestow special water powers on those it deems worthy. We don't get a clue how, except that it's presumably magic.

In the end, it's not bad for a kid's manga, but it's not especially deep or complicated, either. Just perfect for young kids who are already thrilled by Pokémon.