Halloween Town
First Appearance: KINGDOM HEARTS (2002)
Origin: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
If there's anything scarier than Halloween, it's Halloween every day, which is what the Halloween-obsessed town - aptly named 'Halloween Town' - centers itself around. This world is dark and gloomy and full of pumpkins galore, and the citizens are some of the weirdest you'll ever see; even Sora and his friends are dressed to the nines! The town is eerily quiet when they arrive - too quiet, in face - but Donald attributes it to their new, scary appearances since he is now mummified, Goofy is now Frankenstein, and Sora has become a vampire. This gives proud Donald another ego boost, and he struts his way to the icky green fountain where, much to his horror, a towering skeleton dressed-up in a pinstripe suit jumps out to greet the newcomers. After a moment of relief, the amiable skeleton introduces himself as Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King. Jack is a very nice fellow, and after a bit of friendly chitchat, the skeleton reveals that his hometown has a bit of a problem, and just as Sora asks what it is, the problem makes itself clear: Heartless have invaded!
Sora and his friends disperse the Heartless quickly, but Donald is still shaken-up from his experience in the world so far that he accuses Jack of setting them up, which Jack denies. In fact, while the Heartless would be welcome additions due to their frightening nature, they just aren't playing the role right; they're attacking people. This is causing a lot of problems for Jack and he was just on his way to ask the town's residential know-it-all, Dr. Finkelstein, why the Heartless have come to the world when the group showed up. With new friends in tow, Jack heads off to the Doctor's laboratory. Once there, Jack introduces them to the world-renown Doctor who acknowledges quite freely his own intelligence - but that's not to matter since the scientist is frantic with panic; he fears he's created something horrible!
The 'horrible creation' is actually quite intricate, even though it is essentially the Heartless; Dr. Finkelstein suspected that he had lost some 'true memories' and so to bring them back he devised a potion made of forget-me-nots, but as soon as he caught a whiff of the potion, Heartless started appearing since they were in his original memory of Halloween Town. Now the Doctor is frantic to have another look at his potion to see where he went wrong, but the potion is missing, and the Doctor thinks Sally, a resident and one of his creations, must have taken it. Now with his target set in mind, the Doctor sends Jack to find Sally and retrieve the potion. Sora and friends tag along because they want to know more about 'true memories' since they know that in Castle Oblivion, they are forgetting things.
Jack and the party find Sally - who is a beautiful living scarecrow - in the graveyard, and they find out that Dr. Finkelstein's speculations were right. Jack asks for the potion back but Sally is afraid of the potions power and what might happen should it be drunk. Jack, on the other hand, thinks that nothing could be more thrilling, but Sally isn't keen to give it up without thinking of another option to regain their 'true memories' first - but unfortunately for everyone, they won't have the time to look for another option as an enormous living sack of bugs drops in on the scene and beats Sally to the ground, stealing the potion. It is none other than the town's evil, power-mongering fiend, Oogie Boogie! Anything that will bring the town desolation and despair is a job worth doing, in Oogie's eyes, and he runs off with the potion, threatening to drink it; after all, if just a whiff by the Doctor brings the Heartless, what will the entire potion drunk by Oogie Boogie do?
Sora and companions chase after the evil bag of bugs and finally catch up to him in his evil lair, where they demand he hand over the potion. But of course, Oogie wouldn't be an evil brute and live up to his name if he were to just oblige them, so instead, he gulps down the potion! At first all seems well - as well as evildoing can be - but then something strange starts happening, something that scares even Oogie! His body begins to twist and turn and writhe and before Sora knows it, he's cast into an epic battle on Oogie's personalized Roulette wheel with the fiend in question!
Sure enough, Sora squishes Oogie like a bug and everyone returns to the laboratory with the last few remaining drops of the potion where Sally and Dr. Finkelstein are waiting eagerly. It seems that Sora's interest in 'true memories' hasn't gone unnoticed, and the Doctor is happy for the Keyblade wielder to down the rest of the potion as a test subject, but Sora declines, saying that even though he is more keen than ever to discover his 'true memories', he must keep his promise to his friend Axel, to whom he has sworn he will discover the truth on his own. The group goes on to discuss what dangers could lie in wait should Sora drink the potion, and more importantly, what Sora's 'true memories' could really be. With Sora's wondering ever more prominent in the forefront of his mind, the gang leaves Halloween Town to pursue unknown truths.
For Riku in Reverse/Rebirth Halloween Town isn't scary at all, despite its swarms of spooky Heartless. Once again, Riku zips right into the boss' lair - this time the facetious Oogie Boogie - before he splats the bag of bugs like a... well, bug. With everything taken care of in this world, Riku leaves it.
