The Superhero Secret – Pokémon Season 3, Episode 22

Filler / stand-alone episodeGligarmanGligar debut

The Superhero Secret is the 22nd episode of Pokémon: The Johto Journeys, the third season of the Pokémon anime, and the 138th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 140, Bulbapedia code EP138). It first aired in Japan on 9 March 2000 and in the United States on 17 February 2001. It falls within the season’s Between the Gyms stretch (EP135–EP140).

Synopsis · Major Events · Trivia · Dub Changes · All episodes

Synopsis

Whilst continuing their journey to Azalea Town Ash and friends see something mysterious pass by overhead, Brock thinks it was a Gligar. The group continue on their trail curious to see the Gligar properly, when they fall into a hole dug by Team Rocket. The hole is filled with water so they are unable to use electric attacks to get out.

All of a sudden something flies into the hole and saves Togepi, taking it to safety. Just then a guy in a costume appears with his Gligar and announces himself as Gligar man. Gligar man sends his Gligar to attack Team Rocket, it latches straight onto Jessie’s face sending her into disarray and the group into Chaos before chasing Team Rocket off and returning to Gligar mans side.

Ash and friends are freed from the hole and Gligar man safely (ish) returns Togepi to Misty, before disappearing into the distance on a motorcycle. He leaves Ash and friends with a whistle to blow whenever they are in trouble. Just then a girl named Latoya arrives and asks if Ash and co have seen Gligar man, she doesn’t say why and then promptly leaves on her bicycle. The group head in the direction she went and around 15 minutes later they arrive at a town to find lots of people advertising Gligar man merchandise outside a giant toystore, they head inside to find Latoya works there, just then her father comes out proclaiming himself the owner of the toy store. Ash asks to know more about Gligar man so the guy plays a video showcasing Gligar man and Gligar defeating some sort of giant bug.

Ash questions why the Gligar man they met in the woods didn’t look like the one in the video… the toy store owner awkwardly answered that it’d been a few years since the video. Togepi is very excited to see the toy store owner and this confirms for Misty that he is infact Gligar man, she says that she knows he is Gligar man and he says he isn’t, but calls her by name…. and as she never told him it, that gave definite confirmation that the toy store owner is Gligar man!

The friends are quite excited to learn more about Gligar man and so head inside the Gligar mansion to find out the secrets about him. Latoya tells the group that originally her fathers toy store was struggling and he wasn’t selling much so he invented Gligar man and made up lots of stories simply to sell more, he even dressed as Gligar man to advertise it himself…. But eventually he started actually living it. Latoya doesn’t seem to like her father pretending to be a super hero and tells him it would be better if he would just go back to being a businessman.

The group enter the secret lab of Gligar man, and learn a little more about Gligar man. Gligar man makes a dig that he has no family to take over from him as Gligar man/woman at Latoya and offers Ash the opportunity to be trained up as a future super hero, Ash politely declines. All of a sudden a gligar man whistle is blown; someones in trouble! Team Rocket appear on the screens in Gligar man’s secret labs dressed in outrageous generic badguy outfits.

Team Rocket have taken the toy store staff hostage and messed up the toystore. Gligar man and Gligar arrive to confront them, closely followed by Ash and Pikachu. Meowth then reveals their latest device; a mechanical Spinarak with which they capture Gligar man, Ash and Pikachu, stringing them up outside in front of crowds, intent on revealing Gligar man’s secret identity. The staff come out and tell Mr. Parker (toy store owner, Latoyas father) to hang on in there, it seems they actually all knew he was gligar man the whole time.

Seconds later things are looking bad when a different superhero emerges from the rooftops, its Gligirl! She calls Gligar back and uses it to cut down Gligar man, Ash and Pikachu. Pikachu uses its agility to send the Mecha-spinarak into disarray and cause it to collapse. The battle continues and eventually a combined effort from Pikachu and Gligar sends Team Rocket’s mechanical monstrosity right back at them, causing them to blast off once more.

Latoya explains that she has decided to become Gligirl and suggests her father retires… he declines and the two discuss becoming a father-daughter superhero team. Gligarman (Mr. Parker) and Gligirl (Latoya) along with the employees of the toystore wave goodbye to our heroes and they continue on their way.

Major Events

• Gligar debut
• Batman/Kamen Rider parody

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Gligar#0207 · EP138

Trivia

• The English title plays on “Gligarman’s secret identity”.
• The screenplay is by Hideki Sonoda.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Johto story.
• The Who’s That Pokémon? segment features Gligar in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Mareep in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.

Changes in the English Dub

• Dub inserts “The Time Has Come (Pikachu’s Goodbye)”.
• Pokémon Karaokémon: “Pikachu (I Choose You)” (Élan Rivera).

Part of our Pokémon: The Johto Journeys guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.