Marcello runs the Sunflora Lodge with his wife Sophia in the small town featured in Moving Pictures (EP189). The couple has been married for 50 years and built an oddly specific but genuinely sweet tradition: photographing themselves surrounded by hundreds of wild Sunflora on their wedding anniversary. They'd kept it up every single year without fail.
When their 50th anniversary rolled around, though, things fell apart. The weather turned unusually cold, and the Sunflora—which normally congregate on the south slope—just didn't show up. It looked like their perfect streak was about to end.
Enter Ash. He happened to have a Sun Stone he'd won at the Bug-Catching Contest, which he used to evolve a Sunkern he'd recently caught. The newly evolved Sunflora attracted all the others, drawing them back to the lodge and saving Marcello and Sophia's tradition. Todd captured the anniversary photo for them, making it 50 pictures in 50 years.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
