EP020

← EP019 : Tentacool & Tentacruel

Original series

EP021 : Bye Bye Butterfree →

The Ghost of Maiden's Peak

EP020   ゆうれいポケモンとなつまつり Ghost Pokémon and the Summer Festival

First broadcast Japan August 12, 1997 United States October 2, 1998

English themes Opening Pokémon Theme Ending

Japanese themes Opening めざせポケモンマスター Ending ひゃくごじゅういち

Credits Animation Team Ota Screenplay 首藤剛志 Takeshi Shudō Storyboard 井硲清高 Kiyotaka Itani Assistant director 井硲清高 Kiyotaka Itani Animation director 志村隆行 Takayuki Shimura Additional credits

The Ghost of Maiden's Peak (Japanese: ゆうれいポケモンとなつまつり Ghost Pokémon and the Summer Festival) is the 20th episode of the Pokémon anime. It was first broadcast in Japan on August 12, 1997 and in the United States on October 2, 1998.

Spoiler warning: this article may contain major plot or ending details.

Synopsis

In the beginning of the episode, Ash and friends are traveling by a ferry from the holiday resort of Porta Vista to Maiden's Peak. Ash notes that they're going to land soon, but Brock moans that he doesn't care about seeing land again as he has missed the summer season and has to wait a whole year for the next one.

After landing they find out that they're just arrived there at the time of the annual summer ending festival. When they decide to go and enjoy it, Brock sees a beautiful girl up the distant cliff. He immediately falls in love with her, but after being run over by a group of tourists he notices that the girl has disappeared. Pikachu seems to notice that the girl is actually a Gastly, but Ash and Misty seem not to notice her at all.

As usual, Team Rocket follow Ash and company to the Maiden's Peak. They come up with an idea to look around for dropped coins, and while pondering it, James sees the same girl Brock saw before. Jessie slaps James to regain his attention. As they leave to look for the coins, James takes a final look at the cliff, noticing the disappearance of the girl.

In the festival, Ash, Misty and Brock meet an old lady who tells them that they should be aware as the young, beautiful girl will lead to a cruel fate. After the old lady calls Misty a scrawny blabbermouth, she decides that they should be somewhere else instead of being insulted.

Meanwhile, Team Rocket put their plan into action, though they do not seem to find anything. Then James notices a penny lying on the walkway, but as he approaches it he is interrupted by the old lady, which Ash and company met just a moment ago. As in the case of Brock, she mentions the young girl to James. Then an Officer Jenny appears and takes away the coin James found. As she suggests them to get to the office to make a report, Team Rocket flees from the scene.

Both Ash's crew and Team Rocket head then at the Shrine of the Maiden. Like every previous year, the shrine's greatest treasure, the painting of the maiden. Brock and James both recognize this as the girl they saw on the cliff before, and try to approach the painting but get blocked by the man introducing the audience to the painting. He then tells the story of the maiden, who waited for her loved one to return from the war on the cliff, eventually turning into stone.

The two groups go to take a closer look at the aforementioned cliff, and Meowth comes up with a plan to steal the painting so they could sell it for a lot of money. They decide to try that later on. As the night falls, Brock is still at the cliff. Misty tries to make him forget the stone so they could go and enjoy the festival, but Brock insists to stay a little bit longer, so Ash and Misty leave him sitting there. When it's about time for the local Pokémon Center to lock the doors for the night, Brock still hasn't arrived there unlike they had planned. Ash decides to go look for him, but Nurse Joy holds him back.

In the midst of the night, Meowth tries to wake up Jessie and James so they could try to steal the painting, but they're not very eager to wake up. Suddenly a strong wind starts blowing, and the doors of the Maiden's shrine are slammed open. The ghost of the maiden floats then from the inside, and both puts Meowth asleep and wakes up James. She also appears to Brock.

Ash and Misty start looking for Brock on the next morning, while Meowth and Jessie start looking for James. Ash and Jessie then meet face-to-face and notice that they both are looking for a missing person. Jessie performs the Team Rocket motto all alone, but then they hear James saying his lines. James is flown from inside the shrine, followed by Brock. As they try to get Brock and James back to normal, the old lady appears again, reminding them of her warning about the ghost of the maiden. Ash's Pikachu shocks James and Brock to get them back to normal.

They get inside, and the old lady states that all young men have fallen into the curse while passing through Maiden's Peak. They decide to protect themselves from the ghost by buying a bunch of anti-ghost stickers and sticking them around the shrine and the two cursed ones. However, when the night comes, they note that the stickers do not work, and like on the previous night, the ghost of the maiden appears. Ash and others try to prevent Brock and James from being pulled out by the maiden.

After being shot with a bazooka by Jessie, the ghost of the maiden summons some skull-like ghostly things. Ash tries to identify them with his Pokédex with no result. However, he accidentally points the Pokédex at the ghost of the maiden, and Pokédex identifies her as a Gastly. Since Gastly's disguise has been revealed, it transforms back to its normal form. Ash then challenges it to a battle.

Ash commands Pikachu to start the battle, but Gastly summons a living mouse trap to scare Pikachu off. Meowth states that mouse traps don't work on him, but Gastly summons a ball for him to play. Jessie then sends out Ekans, only being scared off by Gastly's newly summoned mongoose. James commands his Koffing to attack with the SmokeScreen attack, but the mongoose stomps it down.

Ash decides it's his turn to try again and calls out Charmander. Gastly summons a fire extinguisher, and Ash has to call Charmander back. He then calls out both Squirtle and Bulbasaur, but Gastly summons a Venusaur and a Blastoise, which causes Ash's Pokémon to get too scared to do anything, and just because of it thinks it's fun, it combines them into a hybrid called Venustoise. After repeatedly being beaten by Gastly, Misty tries another strategy. She uses a cross, garlic and a hammer, comparing Gastly to a vampire. However, the sun starts to rise once again and as Gastly hates sunlight, it disappears.

On the following night, the festival continues on. Ash and friends have fun, and everything's back to normal. As the episode ends, the true ghost of the Maiden appears on one of the festival boats, thanking Gastly for keeping her legend alive in the town.

Major events

Debuts

Pokémon debuts

• Gastly

Characters

Humans

• Ash
• Misty
• Brock
• Jessie
• James
• Ghost of Maiden's Peak
• Officer Jenny

Pokémon

Venustoise

Who’s That Pokémon?: Gastly

• Pikachu (Ash's)
• Meowth (Team Rocket)
• Bulbasaur (Ash's)
• Charmander (Ash's)
• Squirtle (Ash's)
• Ekans (Jessie's)
• Koffing (James's)
• Gastly (talking Pokémon; debut)
• Venustoise (a crossbreed of Venusaur and Blastoise)

Trivia

• The priest says the great war the maiden's lover went off to happened 2000 years before the episode's events.
• As the Pokémon Zangoose had not yet been introduced, one of the creatures Gastly transforms into is a real mongoose.
• The outfits that Ash, Misty, and Brock wear during the festival reappear in the fourth Japanese ending song, Pokémon Ondo.
• Maiden Peak is a real mountain range in Oregon.

Dub edits

• Virtually every single Japanese word in the festival area was edited out.
  • The fan that Misty held had the kanji erased.
  • Also, Misty (or, at least, someone who sounded suspiciously like her) shouted, "Let's go to the ferris wheel!" twice in the scene (Specifically, right up to the part where Brock says "She's the most beautiful girl I've seen...").
• The penny was originally a coin worth 5 yen in the Japanese version. However, the 1,000-yen and 5,000 yen bills in the old woman's cash register were left unchanged.
• The o-fuda they wear were referred to as "stickers" in the dub.
• Brock's "Hey put me down!" line in the dub was actually "You guys...!" in the Japanese version (the latter of which implied that Brock was in a trance and his friends broke the trance).
• Ash says that, since Gastly is a Pokémon, he can battle it with his Pokémon in the Japanese version.
• The ball that Meowth was playing with had the word "Matatabi" (meaning "catnip") which was erased from the dub.
• The mongoose says "Mongoose" in the original instead of "Dinner time."

In other languages

• Czech: Duch Dívčího Útesu
• Dutch: Het spook van de Maiden Klif
• European and Brazilian Portuguesee: O Fantasma do Pico da Donzela
• Finnish: Neidonkallion aave
• French: Le fantôme de la jeune fille
• German: Die verlorene Seele
• Italian: Il fantasma delma scogliera
• Latin American Spanish: ¡El fantasma del Pico de la Doncella!
• Russian: Призрак Девичьей Скалы
• Iberian Spanish: El fantasma de Dante Speak

← EP019 : Tentacool & Tentacruel

Original series

EP021 : Bye Bye Butterfree →

This episode article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of Pokémon animation.