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EP020

The Ghost of Maiden's Peak redirects here. For the titular ghost, see Ghost of Maiden's Peak.
← EP019 : Tentacool & Tentacruel
Original series
EP021 : Bye Bye Butterfree →
The Ghost of Maiden's Peak
EP020.png
  EP020  
ゆうれいポケモンとなつまつり
The Ghost Pokémon and the Summer Festival
First broadcast
Japan August 12, 1997
United States October 2, 1998
English themes
Opening Pokémon Theme
Ending
Japanese themes
Opening めざせポケモンマスター
Ending ひゃくごじゅういち
Credits
Animation Team Ota
Screenplay 首藤剛志 Takeshi Shudō
Storyboard 井硲清高 Kiyotaka Itani
Assistant director 井硲清高 Kiyotaka Itani
Animation director 志村隆行 Takayuki Shimura
Additional credits

The Ghost of Maiden's Peak (Japanese: ゆうれいポケモンとなつまつり The Ghost Pokémon and the Summer Festival) is the 20th episode of the Pokémon animated series. It was first broadcast in Japan on August 12, 1997, and in the United States on October 2, 1998.

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Spoiler warning: this article may contain major plot or ending details.
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Blurb

After leaving Acapulco in search of Saffron City, our heroes finally arrive at a small port town in the middle of celebrating a summer festival. In order to recover from their hard journey, Ash and his party decide to participate in the festival. Team Rocket's interest in the festivities, on the other hand, is purely monetary. Brock and James are both bewitched by a picture scroll shown in a shrine open only on the day of the summer festival. The picture depicts a beautiful young maiden in a scene from the legend of Maiden Rock—a point on a cape near the town. According to the priest's explanation, the girl in the picture lived 2,000 years ago, and awaited the return of a lover captured in battle, until she finally turned into stone. Every year at this season, the ghost of this girl steals the spirit of a young man and this year it is James' and Brock's turn. What could the ghost possibly be after? And what is its true identity?

Plot

Traveling by ferry from the holiday resort of Porta Vista to Maiden's Peak, Ash and his friends find out that they have arrived in time for the annual Summer Festival. After the group decides to go and enjoy the festival, Brock sees a beautiful girl with flowing purple hair and a red flower standing on a nearby pier. He immediately falls in love with her, but after being run over by a group of tourists, he notices that the girl has disappeared. Pikachu is the only one that seems to notice that the girl is actually a Gastly, whereas Ash and Misty don't seem to notice her at all.

Meanwhile, Team Rocket follows Ash and his friends to Maiden's Peak and they come up with the idea to look around for dropped coins; James gets distracted by the same girl that Brock saw before. As they leave to look for the coins, James takes a final look at the dock and notices that the girl is gone. During the festival, Ash and his friends meet an old woman, who warns Brock of a young girl who will "lead him to a cruel fate". After the old lady insults Misty, she decides that they should go somewhere else where they won't be insulted, and drags Ash and Brock with her. Meanwhile, while still looking for money, James is also warned by the old woman of the young girl.

Ash, his friends, and Team Rocket head for the Shrine of the Maiden, where they are shown its greatest treasure: a 2,000-year-old painting of the maiden. Brock and James both realize that the girl in the painting is the same girl they saw before. A man tells the story of the maiden, who waited on the cliff for her lover to return from the war, and eventually turned into stone; Meowth formulates a plan to steal the painting. As night falls, Brock decides to stay at the cliff while Misty and Ash leave to enjoy the festival. Later on, Brock doesn't return to the Pokémon Center, which worries Ash.

In the middle of the night, Meowth tries to wake up Jessie and James so they can try to steal the painting. He is confronted by the ghost of the maiden, who causes him to fall asleep, and then wakes up James. She also appears to Brock, telling him that she's been waiting for him. The next morning, both Brock and James are missing, and the others are looking for them. After finding them, the old lady appears again, reminding them of her warning about the ghost of the maiden; Pikachu shocks James and Brock, restoring them to their normal selves. They all head inside, and the old lady explains how all young men passing through Maiden's Peak fall into the ghost's curse; they decide to protect themselves from the ghost by buying a large quantity of ofuda, or anti-ghost stickers, and placing them around the shrine. However, when night comes, they note that the stickers prove useless, and the ghost of the maiden returns. Ash and the others try to prevent Brock and James from being pulled out by the maiden.

After being shot with a bazooka by Jessie, the ghost of the maiden summons several skull-like ghostly apparitions. Ash tries to identify them with his Pokédex, but with no results; but it's still searching. When Ash accidentally points the Pokédex at the ghost of the maiden, it identifies her as a Gastly, who's impersonating the old lady as well. Since Gastly's disguise has been revealed, it transforms back to its normal form. Ash challenges it to a battle, sending in Pikachu, to which Gastly summons a living mouse trap to scare him off. Meowth states that mouse traps do not work on him, so Gastly summons a ball for him to play with, distracting him. Jessie and James send out Ekans and Koffing, which are scared off by Gastly's newly summoned mongoose.

Ash decides that it is his turn again and calls out Charmander, but Gastly summons a fire extinguisher. When he summons out Squirtle and Bulbasaur, Gastly summons a Venusaur and a Blastoise, which it combines into a hybrid called "Venustoise". As a last resort, Misty tries to use a cross, garlic, a stake, and a hammer to ward off Gastly, comparing him to a vampire, much to Gastly's bafflement. As the sun starts to rise, Gastly disappears, warning that the ghost of the maiden and the old woman will return for next year's festival.

The following night, the festival continues, with lantern boats sent out to sea to help guide any wandering spirits. The true ghost of the maiden emerges from her stone self, thanking Gastly for keeping her legend alive and hoping her true love will return. Brock looks on at the statue, longing for another chance to meet the maiden. As the festival draws to a close, Team Rocket beat on some Taiko drums while Ash and Misty dance to the music.

Major events

For a list of all major events in Pokémon the Series: The Beginning, please see the timeline page.

Debuts

Pokémon debuts

Characters

Humans

Dare da?

Pokémon

Who's That Pokémon?
Venustoise (Japanese: フシギックス Fushigix)

Who's That Pokémon?: Gastly

Other


Trivia

The mongoose
  • The priest says the great war the maiden's lover went off to happened 2,000 years before the episode's events.
  • One of the creatures Gastly transforms into is a real-world animal: mongoose.
  • While the Venusaur and Blastoise that Gastly summoned transform into "Venustoise," they appear to be performing the Fusion Dance.
  • Venustoise's appearance is the first time a fused Pokémon and an animated series original Pokémon appears in any medium. The idea of a fused Pokémon as a game mechanic does not occur in the core series until Generation V with Kyurem and its fused forms.
  • The outfits that Ash and Misty wear during the festival reappear in the fourth Japanese ending song, Pokémon Ondo.
  • The similarly named Maiden Peak is a real mountain in Oregon.
  • The Maiden's Peak statue is almost identical to the Orichalcum statue that was a plot device in early episodes of the Slayers anime series.
  • There are many Japanese cultural references in this episode, especially during the festival at the end.
  • The festival is the first time Misty is seen with her hair down.
  • The Gastly in this episode is the only known one to date that is able to speak and shape-shift.
  • This is the first episode to feature another Pokémon, other than Meowth, that is able to talk without telepathy. The second is A Shipful of Shivers.
  • The kanji on the fire extinguisher Gastly uses to extinguish Ash's Charmander's tail flame was left unedited in the dub.
  • In the Arabic dub, the storylines underwent alterations, and numerous scenes were either censored or entirely omitted, likely because of the extensive representation of Shinto religious elements in ways that are against Islamic culture. Consequently, the episode was subsequently excluded from broadcasting rotation and certain VHS releases. This episode was later re-dubbed when S01 was added to Netflix in 2017.
  • The festival in this episode bears a striking resemblance to the one from the 1993 OVA Mega Man: Upon a Star. However, in this festival, there is no Whack-a-Mole.
  • This is the first episode to show a real ghost, as the true spirit of the Maiden speaks with Gastly near the end.

Errors

  • James commands his Koffing to use Poison Gas, which Koffing could not legally learn in a Generation I game unless it was traded back from Generation II. At the time of the episode's original airing, no Generation II game had been released yet, meaning that at the time of this episode airing, Koffing was completely unable to learn Poison Gas by any means.
  • When Ash says "We lose. It's just too strong", the red part that adjusts the size of his hat is white.
  • When Misty brings out garlic, a stake, and a hammer against Gastly, the bottom of her shorts aren't colored in properly.
  • Ash's miscolored hat

    Ash's miscolored hat

  • Misty's miscolored shorts

    Misty's miscolored shorts

Dub edits

  • Kanto Pokérap: Day 5 (Version 2)
  • The fan that Misty held had its kanji erased.
  • Misty (or, at least, someone who sounded suspiciously like her) shouted "Let's go to the ferris wheel!" twice in the scene; specifically, right up to the part where Brock says "She was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen...".
  • James finds a United States penny on the ground which was originally a ¥5 coin in the Japanese version. However, the ¥1000 and ¥5000 bills in the old woman's cash register were left unchanged.
  • James mentions the F.B.I. when he encounters the old lady.
  • The Japanese version features the background music track Dazzlingly Beautiful Girl, which is a rearrangement of the Pokémon Tower theme from the Generation I games. This track is not present in the dub.
  • The o-fuda the group wears are referred to as "anti-ghost stickers" in the dub.
  • Brock's "Hey! Let me go!" line in the dub was actually "You guys...!" in the Japanese version. The original version implied that Brock was in a trance and his friends broke the trance.
  • In the Japanese version, Ash says that, since Gastly is a Pokémon, he can battle it with his Pokémon.
  • The ball that Meowth was playing with had the word "Matatabi", meaning "catnip", which is erased from it in the dub.
  • The mongoose says "mongoose" in the vein of a Pokémon in the original version instead of "Dinner time!".
  • The final scene of the festival has a version of Pokémon Ondo being sung in the background, which is removed from the dub.
  • The ¥5 coin in the Japanese version

    The ¥5 coin in the Japanese version

  • The penny in the dub

    The penny in the dub

In other languages



← EP019 : Tentacool & Tentacruel
Original series
EP021 : Bye Bye Butterfree →
Project Anime logo.png This episode article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of Pokémon animation.
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