EP220

← EP219 : Hi Ho Silver... Away!

Original series

EP221 : A Parent Trapped! →

The Mystery is History

EP220   なぞのポケモンＸ！！ Mysterious Pokémon X!!

First broadcast Japan October 18, 2001 United States November 23, 2002

English themes Opening Believe in Me Ending

Japanese themes Opening めざせポケモンマスター (Whiteberry) Ending 前向きロケット団！

Credits Animation Team Ota Screenplay 大橋志吉 Yukiyoshi Ōhashi Storyboard 藤本義孝 Yoshitaka Fujimoto Assistant director 鈴木敏明 Toshiaki Suzuki Animation director 志村泉 Izumi Shimura Additional credits

Screenshots on Filb.de

The Mystery is History (Japanese: なぞのポケモンＸ！！ Mysterious Pokémon X!!) is the 220th episode of the Pokémon anime. It was first broadcast in Japan on October 18, 2001 and in the United States on November 23, 2002.

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

Blurb

While on their quest to locate a mysterious Pokemon, Ash, Misty, and Brock run into their old friends Richie, and his Pikachu, Sparky. They also meet a young boy and his Lanturn, who has made friends with a baby Lugia. Meanwhile, Butch and Cassidy of Team Rocket are hatching a plan to capture the baby Lugia in hopes of eventually catching its parent. Jessie and James also try to catch the adult Lugia, but are unsuccessful.

Plot

The scene left off with Ash and his friends discovering that Sparky is right next to them. They assume Ritchie is here. Ritchie comes out and finds Ash. Ash asks what Ritchie is doing here. Ritchie explains that after the Indigo Plateau Conference, he heard about a mysterious Pokémon here and spent extensive time researching the location. According to his sources, Ritchie thinks that this Pokémon is on an island nearby, so they take a small boat over there.

Meanwhile on the island, a kid is swimming around with a Lanturn and a shadow seems to be under the water as well. The kid seems to be aware of it. When he sees the gang coming on the boat he quickly tells the shadow to hide. They ask about the island. He informs them of his name, Oliver. Ash asks if he knows anything about the mysterious Pokémon that's supposedly around here. Oliver seems nervous, almost as if he was faking his uncertainty. With no answer, the gang goes off to comb the island. When the coast is clear, something pulls Oliver under, a child Lugia! They are being spied upon by an underwater Team Rocket lab. In it resides a Team Rocket Grunt and Dr. Namba. Dr. Namba now knowing about the Lugia, dispatches a submarine for an attempt to capture it.

With the child Lugia no longer a secret, they ask Oliver why the child Lugia is friends with him. Oliver explains that a while ago Lanturn and he were caught in a storm while swimming. The waves were too rough and sent him under the water. Later, he finds that he is back on land with the child Lugia by his side. After that, the parent Lugia had soon shown itself to him. Ash says he saw the parent before, but not the child. Then they turn to Luka, and she explains that the Silver Wing responds with the presence of the parent Lugia. The parent Lugia swims out of the water next to them, with an angered look on its face. The Silver Wing starts to glow red. Everyone starts to convince the parent that they won't do anything to the child, which eventually calms it down. The child goes back to the parent and they go off swimming for a while. Ash, knowing that Luka has diving equipment, asks to see what they're doing. Underwater, the parent Lugia is feeding the child, who then goes towards Ash and gives him a playful headbutt. Above the water, Luka catches the parent jumping above the surface along with the child.

Back at Team Rocket's lab, Jessie and James look around a bit in their new uniforms. They find their way to where Dr. Namba is seeing that Butch and Cassidy are giving their report. Dr. Namba wants something so Cassidy orders Jessie and James (disguised) to go get it. Jessie starts to go into a tantrum but James politely goes out with her. Jessie is dying to get even with them.

Back on land, Oliver is swimming with the child Lugia once again and notices another child Lugia. The original child Lugia goes after it, thinking it's another Lugia, but Ritchie figures out that it's a decoy. By the time this is discovered, it's too late. With the child following it, the decoy turns into a cage. Soon, Butch and Cassidy's sub comes out and they laugh at them, except Jessie, James, and Meowth pop out in their Magikarp submarine to try to grab the catch. Jessie and Cassidy argue for a while and eventually fight each other. Cassidy wins and uses SmokeScreen to get away with the child Lugia.

Major events

• Ash and his friends meet up with Ritchie again.
• The group encounters a Lugia and its child, which is later captured by Team Rocket.
• Ritchie is revealed to have obtained a Pupitar nicknamed "Cruise".
• Butch is revealed to own a Hitmontop, while Cassidy is revealed to own a Houndour.

For a list of all major events in the animated series, please see the history page.

Debuts

Humans

• Oliver
• Dr. Namba

Pokémon debuts

• Pupitar
• Lanturn
• Silver

Characters

Humans

Pocket Monster TV

• Ash
• Misty
• Brock
• Jessie
• James
• Ritchie
• Oliver
• Dr. Namba
• Butch
• Cassidy
• Luka
• Team Rocket Grunts

Pokémon

Who's That Pokémon?

Who's That Pokémon?: Spearow (US and international), Pupitar (Japan)

• Pikachu (Ash's)
• Meowth (Team Rocket)
• Togepi (Misty's)
• Wobbuffet (Jessie's)
• Bayleef (Ash's)
• Arbok (Jessie's)
• Pikachu (Ritchie's; Sparky)
• Pupitar (Ritchie's; Cruise; debut)
• Houndour (Cassidy's)
• Hitmontop (Butch's)
• Lanturn (Oliver's; debut)
• Lugia (Silver)
• Lugia (anime; Silver's mother)

Trivia

• Ash and James refer to the events of the second movie when they first see a Lugia, making this the third episode in which events from the movies are referenced. The first to do so are The Battle of the Badge and Showdown at the Poké-Corral.
• Jessie and Cassidy break the fourth wall in this episode.
• This episode marks a rare instance in which Jessie and James wear black uniforms prior to the Best Wishes series.
• This episode is featured on Volume 8: Lugia from Viz Media's Pokémon All-Stars series.
• Music from The Power of One can be heard briefly in this episode.
• Team Rocket does not blast off in this episode.
• The Japanese title of this episode is similar to the original title for The Power of One, "The Phantom Pokémon X's Explosive Birth", a movie which also featured a Lugia.

Errors

• Consistently in the beginning of this episode, Ash and Ritchie incorrectly refer to Blue Point Isle as Blue Rock Isle, the literal translation of the Japanese name.
• Cruise's Headbutt is incorrectly referred to as Take Down in the dub. In addition, Pupitar cannot legally learn Take Down.
• Ash claims that the mysterious Pokémon had flown over them, however it had actually swum beneath them.
• When Luka appeared on the scene to save Ash and his friends from Butch and Cassidy, she addresses Cassidy by name, though the two had never met before.

Dub edits

• In the Latin American dub, during Team Rocket's motto, Diana Pérez, Jessie's voice actress and José Antonio Macías, James' voice actor, switch dialogs, causing Jessie to say her lines with James voice and vice versa. The reason of this is unknown, though it was probably a joke from the actors, because they seemed to attempt to imitate the voices of each other.
• For some reason, the dub shuffled the footage around at the beginning of the episode to include Ritchie, while in the Japanese version, he doesn't appear until after the title card.

In other languages

Language		Title
Bulgarian		Тайната е разкрита
Mandarin Chinese		神秘的神奇寶貝！Ｘ！
Dutch		Het Geheim Ontrafeld
European French		Double jeu
German		Das Comeback von Butch und Cassidy
Hebrew		התעלומה נפתרתhata'aluma nifteret
Hindi		मिल गया रहस्यमई पोकेमोन Mil gaya rahasmay Pokemon *
Italian		Il Pokémon misterioso
Polish		Tajemnicza historia
Portuguese	Brazil	O Mistério já era
	Portugal	Mistério Desvendado
Spanish	Latin America	¡El misterio es historia!
	Spain	El misterio es historia

← EP219 : Hi Ho Silver... Away!

Original series

EP221 : A Parent Trapped! →

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