 |
|
| Season | Pokémon Journeys: The Series (Season 23) · Beginnings & the Cerise Laboratory arc (JN001–JN003) |
| Episode | Season 23, episode 1 · English episode 1081 · Japanese episode 1087 · Bulbapedia code JN001 |
| English title | Enter Pikachu! |
| Japanese title | ピカチュウ誕生！ Pikachū Tanjō! — “Pikachu is Born!” |
| First aired (Japan) | 17 November 2019 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 12 June 2020 · Netflix |
| Screenplay | Reiko Yoshida |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | None – JN001 has no opening · Wan, Tsū, Surī (One, Two, Three) – After the Rain (used as the ending and credited as the main theme song) |
| English opening | The Journey Starts Today – Walk off the Earth |
| Who’s That Pokémon? | Pichu (US) · Pichu (Japan) |
| Next episode | Legend? Go! Friends? Go! (JN002) |
Plot episodePikachu’s originGoh and Chloe meet Mew
Enter Pikachu! is the 1st episode of Pokémon Journeys: The Series, the twenty-third season of the Pokémon anime, and the 1081st episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 1087, Bulbapedia code JN001). It first aired in Japan on 17 November 2019 and in the United States on 12 June 2020. It falls within the season’s Beginnings & the Cerise Laboratory stretch (EP1–EP3).
Released on Netflix in the US on Friday 12 June 2020, the first of four batches of twelve episodes (JN001–JN012); Teletoon had already premiered it in Canada on 9 May 2020, and POP showed it in the UK in a sneak peek on 25 May 2020. The official Pokémon YouTube channel posted the episode in full on 13 July 2020.
Synopsis
Long before Ash’s journey begins, a lonely wild Pichu is adopted by a family of Kangaskhan near Pallet Town, while six-year-old Goh and Chloe meet the Mythical Mew on a Pokémon camp that young Ash oversleeps and misses. The story opens four years before Ash becomes a Trainer, as six-year-old Ash shows Delia a poster for Professor Oak’s Pokémon Camp; she signs him up but warns that he will have to wake himself up on the day. In the woods outside town, a tiny Pichu drives off an Ekans with Thunder Shock but is left exhausted, and he notices that, unlike the other wild Pokémon, he has no family. A drifting group of Koffing sprays him with a foul gas, and the dazed Pichu tumbles off a cliff straight into the arms of a mother Kangaskhan. Frightened at first, he soon warms to her and her baby, and when the herd moves on she tucks him into her pouch. Sharing Oran Berries with the baby, Pichu feels for the first time that he belongs somewhere.
Weeks later the camp begins, but Ash has smashed his alarm clock in his excitement and sleeps through the departure, so Professor Oak sets off with Goh, Chloe and the other children. On the walk Goh names every Pokémon they meet, recites facts about each and even corrects Oak’s claim that all Pokémon evolve; Chloe urges him to make friends, but Goh wants to find a rare Pokémon nobody has ever seen. Lagging behind on a bridge, the pair watch a Mew dodge a Nidoking with Teleport and beat it with its own Fire Blast, then chase it as it transforms into a Magmar look-alike, a Tauros and a Lapras. The baby Kangaskhan, hunting for Pichu in a game of hide-and-seek, spots the Lapras-shaped Mew and climbs after it until a ledge crumbles beneath it. Mew turns back and saves the falling baby with Psychic, returning it to its mother. Oak catches up and explains that Mew is said to carry the genes of every Pokémon, and Goh vows to catch it one day, while Ash sits miserably at home.
Time passes, and Pichu and the baby Kangaskhan both grow. When a rainstorm drives the herd into a cave, Pichu sees that his adoptive mother is struggling to carry both of them; he tries to climb down to lighten her load, but she simply picks him up again. That night, while the family sleeps, Pichu slips out of the pouch, takes a tearful last look at them and walks out into the dark. Grateful for their kindness and companionship, he evolves into Pikachu on the spot, is startled by his new reflection in a puddle and twirls around in delight before waving goodbye and setting off alone. Four years later Professor Oak hands this same Pikachu to an eager young Ash, who is promptly zapped with Thunder Shock, although the two soon become inseparable friends. In the present day, in Vermilion City, a grown-up Goh is fired up and ready to pursue his dream of catching Mew.
Major Events
- Pikachu’s origin (prequel). A wild Pichu is adopted by a family of Kangaskhan and evolves into Pikachu, the first on-screen Pichu evolution
- Six-year-old Goh and Chloe meet Mew on Professor Oak’s Pokémon Camp, which Ash oversleeps and misses
- Pikachu evolved four years before Ash’s journey began
- Ash’s new outfit
- No Japanese opening (1·2·3 runs as the ending)
- The first episode dubbed by Iyuno and the first released on Netflix
- The first series premiere with no new species or region
- The first full episode on the official Pokémon YouTube channel (13 July 2020)
Captures and evolutions
Pichu → Pikachu#0025 · Ash’s Pikachu · in the wild, four years before Ash’s journey
Trivia
- The screenplay is by Reiko Yoshida.
- This is a plot episode: it advances the Kanto, Galar & beyond storyline.
Changes in the English Dub
- The opening and title card are moved to after Pichu meets Kangaskhan, so the credits no longer run over the start of the episode
- The post-credits scenes of Chloe and Goh come before the credits
- The “To Be Continued” text is dropped from the dub (kept in the Pokémon TV and US YouTube versions of the first five episodes)
- Megan Hollingshead returns to the English cast
- Debut of the English opening The Journey Starts Today (Walk off the Earth)
- In Japan the episode has no opening, and 1·2·3 runs as its ending
- The dub replaces the title-card music (the original is kept on Pokémon TV and US YouTube)
Part of our Pokémon Journeys: The Series guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.