Pryce (Yanagi in original Japanese language versions) is in charge of the Glacier Badge, and resides in Mahogany Town. He is an expert on Ice types. His signature Pokémon are Swinub and Piloswine. Pryce's name may be derived from the word ice.
In the anime
Pryce starts out as a cold and abrasive man who believes that Pokémon are for battling and nothing more, as a result of an incident from his youth. During a storm, his beloved Piloswine disappeared and Pryce believed it to have abandoned him. During an encounter with Ash, the two of them are trapped underground and come across a frozen Piloswine, which turns out to be Pryce's. Realizing that it had tried to find healing herbs (the two had previously been badly burned by a Magmar), Pryce reconciles with his reunited Pokémon and turns over a new leaf, once again seeing Pokémon as friends. Afterwards, Pryce battles Ash having his Dewgong defeated by Cyndaquil and Piloswine by Pikachu winning Ash the glacier badge.
In the manga
Possessing an ability to control his ice sculptures as if they were real Pokemon, for training, Pryce is the oldest Gym Leader of Johto and lives by himself, rarely visited. For some reason he, like Whitney, was not visited by Suicune like the rest of the Gym Leaders. Pryce's main Pokemon is his Swinub.
It turns out Mask of Ice, the villain of the Gold/Silver/Crystal chapter is actually another ice puppet created by Pryce and controlled by him (via Pokegear when necessary). Pryce's plan is to use Ho-oh and Lugia's feathers and create a special Pokeball with which Celebi, a time-traveling Pokemon could be caught. His aim is to repair his old mistake as a trainer, which caused a death of two of his Pokemon just before their egg hatched. Pryce actually succeeds in all of his plans and disappears in the stream of time after Celebi escapes. He does realize his mistakes however and his life-long pain gets healed. Massive Tearjerker Alert!
