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| Season | Pokémon Journeys: The Series (Season 23) · A tour of the regions arc (JN006–JN011) |
| Episode | Season 23, episode 11 · English episode 1091 · Japanese episode 1097 · Bulbapedia code JN011 |
| English title | Best Friend…Worst Nightmare! |
| Japanese title | コハルとワンパチと、時々、ゲンガー Koharu to Wanpachi to, Tokidoki, Gengā — “Koharu, Wanpachi, and Sometimes Gangar Too” |
| First aired (Japan) | 2 February 2020 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 12 June 2020 · Netflix |
| Screenplay | Aya Matsui |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Wan, Tsū, Surī (One, Two, Three) – After the Rain · Pokémon Shiritori (Pikachu → Mew Ver.) – Pokémon Music Club |
| English opening | The Journey Starts Today – Walk off the Earth |
| Who’s That Pokémon? | Magnemite (US) · Magnemite (Japan) |
| Previous episode | A Test in Paradise! (JN010) |
| Next episode | Flash of the Titans! (JN012) |
Filler / stand-alone episodeChloe’s first commandGengar
Best Friend…Worst Nightmare! is the 11th episode of Pokémon Journeys: The Series, the twenty-third season of the Pokémon anime, and the 1091st episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 1097, Bulbapedia code JN011). It first aired in Japan on 2 February 2020 and in the United States on 12 June 2020. It falls within the season’s A tour of the regions stretch (EP6–EP11).
Synopsis
A mischievous Gengar haunting the Cerise Laboratory forces Chloe, who has never battled, to give her first command to Yamper, while she wrestles at school with what she wants to do with her life. The morning shows Chloe’s home life: she refuses to get up until her mother, Talia, warns that there will be no time to braid her hair, and her brother Parker and the family wonder why Yamper, cold to everyone else, loves only Chloe. At the lab Goh panics when Dragonite approaches Scyther and Stantler, only to see it hugging them, and his three Wurmple evolve together—but all three become Cascoon, to his disappointment. In the basement, a power cut leads Ren and his Magnemite, Francois, into an ambush by a Gengar, which knocks them out with Night Shade. Outside, Chloe brushes off the boys’ excitement about their new Pokémon and hurries to school, and Goh tells Ash that she was not always so distant from Pokémon.
Chrysa and Professor Cerise find Ren lying motionless, and as they examine him, Gengar drifts straight through them. Yamper attacks, Goh’s Rotom Phone warns that Gengar can move between dimensions and draw heat from its surroundings, and Pikachu knocks aside a Shadow Ball before a Thunderbolt makes Gengar vanish. At school Chloe’s teacher asks the class to share their dreams; Yeardley’s “still in progress” makes everyone laugh, and when Chloe’s classmates assume she will become a professor like her father and then jeer that she has only Yamper and has never battled, she begins to wonder whether she likes Pokémon at all. Talia brings her forgotten lunch, and on a park bench Chloe admits feeling pressured to follow her father. Talia, an illustrator, explains that she nearly gave up drawing comics in high school until a young Cerise encouraged her, but that the decision was hers, and reminds Chloe that at ten she has plenty of time to decide.
Back at the lab Gengar deflects Goh’s Poké Balls with Psychic, Mimey levitates his laundry out of harm’s way, and Gengar’s Ice Punch freezes Yamper solid until Scorbunny thaws it with its hot feet; Gengar escapes behind the smoke of a blocked Shadow Ball. The professor and his assistants track sudden cold spots in the building’s temperature records. When Chloe returns, Gengar attacks her and Yamper leaps in front of her to take a Shadow Ball. Gengar blocks her escape, and although Pikachu’s Thunderbolt stops its next attack, Gengar pins the boys and Pikachu with telekinesis. Yamper ignores Cerise’s order to use Spark, so Cerise asks Chloe to give the command; after hesitating, she does, and Yamper charges through a Shadow Ball and drives Gengar out of the lab. That night Yamper licks Chloe’s face as her parents look on contentedly, Goh vows to catch Gengar one day, and Gengar watches from the top of the lab’s spire.
Major Events
- Chloe’s story. Chloe’s mother Talia and brother Parker debut
- A Gengar haunts the lab and evades Goh’s Poké Balls
- Chloe gives her first battle command, Yamper’s Spark
- Goh’s three Wurmple all evolve into Cascoon
- Ren’s Magnemite, Francois
Captures and evolutions
Wurmple → Cascoon#0268 · Goh · all three of his Wurmple
Trivia
- The screenplay is by Aya Matsui.
- This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Kanto, Galar & beyond story.
Part of our Pokémon Journeys: The Series guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.