Ghoul Daze! – Pokémon Season 11, Episode 38

Filler / stand-alone episodeSummer Academy, part 3Dusknoir

Ghoul Daze! is the 38th episode of Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension, the eleventh season of the Pokémon anime, and the 553rd episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 557, Bulbapedia code DP090). It first aired in Japan on 21 August 2008 and in the United States on 17 January 2009. It falls within the season’s Hearthome Collection & the Summer Academy stretch (EP86–EP91).

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

Synopsis

The Summer Academy’s next lesson teaches the students how to approach Ghost-type Pokémon, and that night they will work in pairs to find a hidden medal at the Summit Ruins, with points awarded for speed. While searching for a partner, Conway meets a mysterious girl and falls into a trance; Kendall asks to partner Dawn, promising to protect her from Ghost-types, Ash teams up with Angie and Brock with Mitchell. As the pairs set off in the dark, one of Rowan’s assistants notices a girl who seems to have been left behind, even though the whole Blue Team has just departed. On the trail the students meet Professor Rowan’s tame Ghost-types: a Haunter grabs Angie’s Shinx by the tail and Pikachu shocks it before Ash apologises, while Brock wins safe passage by feeding the Ghosts. When strange eating sounds frighten Kendall away, Dawn finds Conway walking alone towards a cliff edge, led on by the ghostly girl.

A Dusknoir catches Conway’s arm before he falls, snapping him out of his trance, and he faints at the sight of it. Dawn arrives to see Dusknoir looming over him and accuses it, and it waves its arms and vanishes; reviving Conway, the two wrongly conclude that Dusknoir has taken the girl to the spirit world. Meowth, trying to scare Ash and Angie in a Banette costume, gets its zip stuck and is helped by a real Banette, then flees in terror at the Ghosts around him, only for the girl to lure him with food until Dusknoir intervenes. Meowth faints, and Jessie finds him, panics at Dusknoir, and drops him to run. Brock and Mitchell offer Dusknoir food but are driven off by Will-O-Wisp, and Dusknoir spots the girl hiding in the bushes. A Misdreavus’s Screech separates Ash and Angie, and the girl beckons them onward. Back at the Academy, Rowan explains that a newly uncovered cave in the ruins may lead to the spirit world.

Ash and Angie reach the ruins first and claim the medal, and the girl urges them towards the cave. When Dusknoir appears, they battle it to protect themselves and her, and Pikachu and Shinx stun it from behind. Then the girl opens a swirling portal and pulls Angie into the air; Ash holds on to her, and Dusknoir grabs both of them, anchoring itself with its tail against the pull. As the portal drags them closer, Dusknoir turns and blasts the girl, collapsing the cave entrance, and the ghost girl vanishes. Ash and Angie realise that Dusknoir was protecting them all along, and it flies away. Conway is badly shaken to learn that his partner for the night was a ghost. The next day Rowan awards 30 points to every team, leaving the Blue Team ahead by 260 to 220, and Ash vows that the Red Team will take the lead. Like Darkrai in The Rise of Darkrai, whose music plays in its scenes, Dusknoir is a misjudged guardian.

Major Events

• A night-time medal hunt at the Summit Ruins
• A ghost girl lures Conway, Ash and Angie
• A misjudged Dusknoir protects them
• Ash and Angie claim the medal
• Dusknoir’s TV debut

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Dusknoir#0477 · DP090

Trivia

• The English title plays on “school days”, with ghouls — in the line of Sick Daze and Training Daze.
• The screenplay is by Junki Takegami.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Sinnoh story.

Changes in the English Dub

• dango become a “fried cakeball skewer”
• The Ruby and Sapphire ruins music and Darkrai’s music from The Rise of Darkrai

Part of our Pokémon DP: Battle Dimension guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.