The Ghost of Maiden's Peak (Japanese: ゆうれいポケモンとなつまつり, Hepburn: Phantom Pokémon and the Summer Festival) is the 18th episode of Pocket Monsters of Pocket Monsters (1997 series), Season 1 of Pokémon the Series, and Pokémon: Indigo League of Pokémon the Series: The Beginning.
Synopsis[]
After leaving Acapulco in search of Saffron City, our heroes finally arrive at a small port town in the middle of celebrating a summer festival. In order to recover from their hard journey, Ash and his party decide to participate in the festival. Team Rocket's interest in the festivities, on the other hand, is purely monetary. Brock and James are both bewitched by a picture scroll shown in a shrine open only on the day of the summer festival. The picture depicts a beautiful young maiden in a scene from the legend of Maiden Rock—a point on a cape near the town. According to the priest's explanation, the girl in the picture lived 2,000 years ago, and awaited the return of a lover captured in battle, until she finally turned into stone. Every year at this season, the ghost of this girl steals the spirit of a young man and this year it is James' and Brock's turn. What could the ghost possibly be after? And what is its true identity?[1]
Episode plot[]
Ash, Misty and Brock are on a boat taking them from Porta Vista to Maiden's Peak. Ash says that they are going to land soon and Brock says he doesn't care about seeing land again because summer is over, meaning no more girls in swimsuits, and he has to wait all year for the next one.
After landing, Ash and his friends discover that they are just in time for the annual Summer Ending Festival. When they decide to go to the festival, Brock sees a girl at the top of the cliff. He falls in love with the girl and he runs to the cliff but he is run over by tourists. By the time he has reached the cliff, the girl has disappeared. Pikachu notices that the girl is actually a Gastly before it disappears, but Ash and Misty don't notice the girl at all.
As always, Team Rocket has followed Ash and friends to Maiden's Peak. They need money, so they look around for dropped coins. James sees the girl Brock saw earlier, only this time by the dock. As they leave the dock, James notices that the girl is gone.
During the festival, Ash, Misty, and Brock meet an old lady who warns them that the beautiful girl Brock saw will lead them to a cruel fate. The old lady calls Misty a scrawny blabbermouth and Misty says that they should go somewhere else.
A little ways away, Team Rocket start looking for coins again but they find nothing. Then James spots a penny lying on the ground and as he approaches it, he meets the old lady Ash, Misty, and Brock met earlier. She warns him about the beautiful girl. Then Officer Jenny takes the coin James found away. She says that they should go down to the station with her to fill out a report. Team Rocket stammers that they don't need to and they run off.
Both Ash and his friends and Team Rocket go to the shrine of the maiden. They see the greatest treasure of the shrine, the painting of the maiden. Brock and James realize that the maiden is the girl they saw earlier and they try to approach the painting, but they are stopped by the man presenting the painting to tourists. He tells the story of the maiden, she waited for 2,000 years for her lover to return from the war (but he never did) and she eventually turned to stone.
Both groups go to take a closer look at the cliff and Meowth makes a plan to steal the painting and sell it for a lot of money. Team Rocket plans to steal it later that night. As the sun sets, Brock is still sitting on the cliff. Misty and Ash try to get him to come back to the festival, but Brock asks if he can stay a little longer, so Misty and Ash leave him there and they go back to the festival. When the local Pokémon Center starts to shut its doors for the night, Brock is still on the cliff. Ash decides to go look for Brock, but Nurse Joy stops him and gives him a small lecture on how important sleep is.
In the middle of the night, Meowth wakes Jessie and James up so they can steal the painting, but they aren't able to wake up. Suddenly, a powerful wind starts blowing and the doors of the Maiden's shrine open up. The ghost of the maiden floats out, makes Meowth fall asleep, and wakes up James. The ghost also shows herself to Brock saying she has waited a while for him and Brock says he has waited a while for her, too.
Ash and Misty start looking for Brock the next morning and Jessie and Meowth start looking for James. Ash and Jessie meet face to face and they both notice that they are both looking for a missing person. Jessie recites the Team Rocket motto by herself, but then they hear James say his part. James is thrown out of the shrine, followed by Brock. As they try to get James and Brock back to normal, the old lady reappears and she reminds them about the ghost of Maiden's Peak. Pikachu shocks James and Brock to get them back to normal.
They all go inside the shrine and the old lady says that all young men who have visited Maiden's Peak have fallen in love with the ghost. They decide to protect themselves from the ghost with anti ghost stickers and they stick them on the shrine and themselves. But when night comes, the stickers don't work and like the night before, the ghost of the maiden appears and tries to drag Brock and James towards it over a cliff. Misty and Ash stop Brock in his tracks, even though he does not want to be saved.
After Jessie shoots a bazooka at the ghost (making James fall into the waters below, but he climbs back up), it gets upset and summons some skull like ghosts. Ash scans them with his Pokédex but he doesn't get an answer since the ghosts aren't Pokémon. The ghosts then swarm around them. He accidentally points the Pokédex at the ghost of the maiden and the Pokédex identifies it as a Gastly (who, unlike most Pokémon in the series, can talk), who was also the old lady. Since its disguise has been revealed, Gastly transforms back to its normal form, merging with the skull ghosts in the process. Ash then challenges it to a battle.
Ash sends out Pikachu to battle it, but Gastly, after warning Ash that it possesses abilities that other Gastly do not have, makes a large, living mousetrap to scare Pikachu off. Meowth says the mousetrap doesn't bother him and Gastly makes a ball of yarn for him to play with and to distract him. Jessie sends out Ekans, who is scared off by Gastly's mongoose. James tells Koffing to use Poison Gas, but it is stomped down by the mongoose who grew much bigger and was wearing a gas mask.
Ash calls out Charmander, but quickly has to recall him because Gastly made a fire extinguisher to repel it. Ash calls out both Squirtle and Bulbasaur. Gastly makes a giant Blastoise and a Venusaur, which scares Ash's Pokémon. For fun, Gastly combines them into a hybrid Pokémon called a Venustoise. Realizing that Gastly is too powerful, Ash had no choice but to give up. Misty tries a different way, she uses a stake, a cross, garlic, and a hammer to fight Gastly, but gets annoyed and tells her that it is not a vampire. The sun then starts to rise and because Gastly hates sunlight, it disappears saying that the ghost of the maiden and the old lady will come back to the festival next year.
The next night, the festival continues and Ash and his friends have fun since everything is back to normal. The true ghost of the maiden appears and, revealing that she and Gastly are friends, thanks Gastly for keeping her legend alive. Gastly responds by saying it vows to find her lost love, and when it does, it'll remind him that she still waits for the day he'll return to her and she thanks Gastly for it.
Brock, heartbroken by the belief that what he saw wasn't an actual girl, decides to join Ash and Misty and, strangely, Team Rocket, who are celebrating the end of the festival.
Debuts[]
Character[]
Pokémon[]
Move[]
Quotes[]
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- Jessie: "Prepare for trouble, and make it double. Doing this by myself is a real drag. To protect the world from devastation. To unite all peoples within our nation. To denounce the evils of truth and love."
James: "To extend our reach to the stars above."
Jessie: "Jessie?"
James: "James."
Jessie: "Team Rocket blast off at the speed of light."
James: "Surrender now..."
James bursts out of the house.
James: "...Or prepare to fight."
- Gastly: "Ha! What a nuisances. This is too easy. Here are Bulbasaur's and Squirtle's evolved forms, Venusaur and Blastoise. And just for fun, I'll combine them into one super Pokemon. To make Venustoise. Try that on for size!"
- Ash: "We lose, it's just too strong."
Misty: "Then how about this?"
Gastly: "What's that?"
Misty: "It's a cross. I also got garlic, a stake and a hammer."
Gastly: "Augh. What do I look like, a vampire or something?"
- Gastly: I may not be a vampire, but I hate sunlight. It's time for me to go until the next festival. Don't forget the ghost of the Maiden. She and the old lady will return next year, too!
Gastly: "This summer is over, but your legend will continue to live on."
Maiden's Ghost: "Thank you, Gastly."
Gastly: "My pleasure. I enjoy keeping alive the stories and legends that people have forgotten over the years, and if I do a good job of it, I make a few bucks as well."
- "Well I am a ghost Pokémon. Perhaps one day I'll meet the young man you love. And if I do, I'll remind him that his true love still waits for his return."
~Gastly
- "If only you were 2,000 years younger. Maybe next year."
~Brock about the Maiden's Ghost.
Trivia[]
- Maiden Peak is a real mountain in Oregon.
- One of the creatures Gastly transforms into is a real-world animal: mongoose.
- This is one of the few episodes that a Pokémon other than Meowth speaks with its mouth and not telepathy.
- When Team Rocket started to do their motto, Jessie had to do both hers and James parts until James intervened and said "To extend our reach to the stars above".
- The Statue atop Maiden's Peak is near identical to the statue that had the Philosopher's stone inside of it, which was important in the first eight episode of the first season of Slayers, which voice actors Eric Stuart and Lisa Ortiz did voice work for as Gourry and Lina respectively.
- "Who's that Pokémon?": Gastly (JA and EN)
- The end of the episode had the characters at Maiden's Peak celebrating Obon, a Japanese holiday where the spirits of ancestors roam the earth.
- Gastly was apparently hired to keep old legends alive, but it is unknown who it works for.
Dub differences[]
- Ash claims that, since Gastly is a Pokémon, he can battle it with his Pokémon in the Japanese version.
- In the English dub, the script was rewritten to refer to the talismans as "anti-ghost stickers".
Mistakes[]
- James' Koffing uses Poison Gas even though Koffing could not use this move until Generation II.
- When Ash says "We lose. It's just too strong.", the red part that adjusts the size of his hat is white.
- After Gastly creates Venustoise, Squirtle has a chipmunk voice while scared stiff with Bulbasaur.
- Gastly stated that it hated sunlight, but while disguised as the maiden's ghost and the old lady during the day, it was not bothered by it. It is possible that its disguises protect it.
- When Gastly showed up at the shrine disguised as the maiden's ghost, the old lady disappeared. But since the old lady was also Gastly, it is possible that she was just an illusion.
Video[]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ^ (n.d.) . "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak | Pokémon TV (pokemon.com)". From The Official Pokémon Website | Pokemon.com. Archived from the original on January 21, 2024.
