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| Season | Pokémon Journeys: The Series (Season 23) · Monarch Leon & the World Coronation Series arc (JN012–JN018) |
| Episode | Season 23, episode 16 · English episode 1096 · Japanese episode 1102 · Bulbapedia code JN016 |
| English title | A Chilling Curse! |
| Japanese title | 呪われたサトシ…！ Norowareta Satoshi…! — “Cursed Satoshi…!” |
| First aired (Japan) | 8 March 2020 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 11 September 2020 · Netflix |
| Screenplay | Akemi Omode |
| 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? | Gengar (US) · Gengar (Japan) |
| Previous episode | A Snow Day for Searching! (JN015) |
| Next episode | Kicking It from Here Into Tomorrow! (JN017) |
Plot episodeAsh catches Gengar
A Chilling Curse! is the 16th episode of Pokémon Journeys: The Series, the twenty-third season of the Pokémon anime, and the 1096th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 1102, Bulbapedia code JN016). It first aired in Japan on 8 March 2020 and in the United States on 11 September 2020. It falls within the season’s Monarch Leon & the World Coronation Series stretch (EP12–EP18).
Synopsis
The Gengar haunting the Cerise Laboratory latches onto Ash’s shadow, and when Ash learns that it was abandoned there by a Trainer who never came back, he wins its trust in a battle against Team Rocket and catches it. Ren is terrified by Gengar on his way back with a coffee, and Ash and Goh rush off hoping to catch it. Downstairs, Gengar has wrecked the place and flung Pikachu into the air, then pelts Ash with objects and Shadow Balls—until Ash orders it to stop and, to everyone’s surprise, it fades away. It has not left, however: it has attached itself to Ash’s shadow. Professor Cerise explains that the building was rumoured to be haunted by a poltergeist before he bought it, but because he was never bothered, the pranks always died down. Chrysa suggests that Gengar may resent all the newcomers, and when Ash feels a chill and suffers a string of bad luck—a broken chair, a trampling by the Pokémon, a collapsing floor—Goh decides that Gengar has cursed him.
Ash and Pikachu run into Vermilion City to clear their heads, dragging a panicking Gengar along in Ash’s shadow. Around a corner Ash bumps into a man whose girlfriend jokes that he must still be cursed; he replies that he is glad “it” is gone, since he never won a battle or caught a Pokémon with it. Gengar recognises him as the Trainer who abandoned it three years earlier at the site that became the lab, promising to return; its anger grew over the years as it drove away would-be buyers of the building. When the man calls it miserable, Gengar reveals itself and fires a Shadow Ball, and Pikachu’s Electroweb blocks a volley meant for him. The man flees, Gengar vanishes, and Ash, furious at how it was treated, runs off to find it. Goh insists he only wants to catch Gengar himself, but Scorbunny sees through him and they follow.
Team Rocket find Gengar first and invite it to join them; when it replies through Meowth that it cannot trust humans, James sucks it into a vacuum tube. Pikachu smashes the capsule with Iron Tail, and Ash asks the surprised Gengar to help him, telling it that he already trusts it even if it does not trust him. The Rocket Prize Master gives Jessie and James a pair of Dusclops; Ice Punch freezes Pikachu’s foot until Gengar frees it with a Shadow Ball, and Gengar overpowers both Dusclops’ Night Shade with its own, lands an Ice Punch after vanishing, and finishes with a Shadow Ball that blasts Team Rocket off. As they head home, Ash collapses and Gengar catches him. He wakes in the dorm with a fever—Goh apologises for blaming a curse—and is hit by an apple and then a Poké Ball. Gengar appears and gives a faint nod, Ash catches it, and Gengar rains apples on him before settling on the lab’s spire with one of its own.
Major Events
- Ash’s Gengar. The lab’s poltergeist Gengar, abandoned there by its Trainer three years earlier, latches onto Ash’s shadow
- Ash catches it, his first official Ghost type, giving him Pokémon of all 18 types, and his last Poison-type catch
- Team Rocket’s twin Dusclops, the only time the Prize Master gives two of one species
Captures and evolutions
Gengar#0094 · Ash · the lab’s abandoned poltergeist; his first official Ghost type
Trivia
- The screenplay is by Akemi Omode.
- This is a plot episode: it advances the Kanto, Galar & beyond storyline.
Changes in the English Dub
- The horror-style title card, read by the narrator, is redone in the standard font
- Ash’s mishearing of いわく付き (“with a shady history”) as イワーク付き (“with an Onix”) becomes “Haunter’s house”, dropping his Onix daydream
Part of our Pokémon Journeys: The Series guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.