Pokemon S01E23 Review: Death and Taxes

Pokemon, Season, Episode 23: The Tower of Terror / Capture at the Pokemon Tower

Otherwise known as "in which our main character fucking dies". And in a kid's show where references to death are quietly shoved under the carpet, it's actually something that sort of surprised me a fair bit when I watched it the first time. Still, for a supposedly "spooky" episode, this one isn't really all that scary, unlike the Sabrina episode before this, or the Gastly one a while back. In fact, other than the whole "briefly dying and becoming Casper" bit, the episode is mostly comedic! Gastly, Haunter and Gengar, the ghosts that supposedly haunt the Pokemon Tower of Lavender City, are less vengeful spirits of the dead and more like bored pranksters. Hell, even the episode sets up the tone pretty well, with the opening scene basically being our heroes -- mostly Ash -- fooling around in the mist, which was pretty funny. Ash clearly doesn't have a sensible bone in his body, and unlike Misty, Brock and Pikachu, isn't the slightest bit afraid of the potential of specters. Knowing Ash's lack of intelligence, though, it's likely he's forgotten all about the Gastly encounter.

When they reach the titular Pokemon Tower, everyone's all reluctant to go in, even Ash, and we get a cute bit of Pikachu and Ash snuggling into sleeping bags. Of course, poor Team Rocket ends up getting the first to feel the brunt of the ghost pranksters, in this caste, Gastly, who makes use of his disappearing and reappearing abilities to scare the beejezus out of James and Meowth, causing some slapstick comedy and infighting before the entire team just falls through the floorboards, causing the unintentional echoing "shrieks of the damned", as Brock puts it, for the onlookers outside.

Our heroes finally grow the balls to explore the tower with Charmander serving as a walking lantern, but Gastly goes off to the attic to gather his two big bros, Haunter and Gengar... and we see them just lounging on sofas (does Haunter even need a sofa?) watching Japanese comedy shows with lots of physical violence. They're just having a riot, and I absolutely love how they have snacks and drinks and shit. It honestly looks like a good time, especially with Haunter's shapeshifting powers mimicking the exaggerated expressions in television. I completely forgot that the ghosts are just trying to do what they see on television, and that's honestly a pretty neat little detail!

And as the ghost prank bros observe our heroes as they enter the dining hall, they end up causing this entire typhoon of poltergeist cutlery, scooping up Brock, Pikachu and Charmander and swirling everything in the room around and causing our heroes to book it out of the tower. Once they're outside, Ash gives this long speech about how they need a Ghost-type as an ally to beat Sabrina, and actually succeeds in making Pikachu and Charmander get motivated enough to walk, complete with dramatic music... but as the music abruptly stops, we get the revelation that Misty and Brock elect to stay behind.

And as Ash goes to the seeming source of ghostly moans and groans, he orders Pikachu and Charmander to attack Team Rocket by mistake, which is cruel but also funny. Of course, while Ash thinks Jessie's burning hair is a will-o-wisp, an actual ghost actually shows up, and it's Haunter, who shocks the shit out of Ash with pop-out eyeballs and tongue, and paralyzes Charmander after a staring contest leads into a Lick attack. Meanwhile, Gengar pops out of the ground and just whacks Ash in the head with one of those straight-man-comedian paper fans often seen in Japanese comedy.

Ash, surprisingly, quickly catches on that Gengar and Haunter are just doing all this shit to be funny and make jokes, even glancing at Ash to see if they get a reaction... and an irate Ash just goes "m'eh, you guys aren't funny." causing Gengar and Haunter to get so depressed that they stop bouncing around and just sink into the floor.

As they sink onto the floor, Ash and Pikachu going around causes the chandelier on top to straight-up just fall and crush Ash and Pikachu, and I do actually like the sudden discharge of electricity from Pikachu, and the ghost bros laughing at the funny prank... before stopping and realizing that, shit, something's wrong. Gastly and Gengar look mortified, but Haunter just... uses his hands to RIP OUT THEIR FUCKING SOULS.

And yes, this leads to basically the remainder of the episode being Casper happy ghost fun time, with the ghosts bringing Ash and Pikachu out of the tower to see the view and walk around, with Ash being kind of a dick and whispering in Misty and Brock's ear before lifting Misty into the air. And as the terrified Misty and Brock charge into the Tower, worried that something wrong's going on... Ash and Pikachu enter the ghost bros' little playground and realize that the ghost-bros just want someone to play around with, and Ash tells them that he has to go, making them pretty sad.

And the ghosts return to the scene of Ash and Pikachu's presumably deathly-cold bodies with a panicking Brock and Misty straight-up yelling at him to wake up and don't die, and... kind of a huge, huge dick move for Ash to basically cause them to think that they died, even if it's just "for a prank". Ash and Pikachu thankfully re-enter their body no problem, they go out of the Pokemon Tower, and Ash says that he's giving up catching the ghost Pokemon... but then Haunter shows up and tags along anyway, seemingly because it's fun. Mostly he scares off Misty and Brock. It's... it's interesting, though, that Ash never actually captures Haunter at any point, and considering how obsessed he was with GETTO DA ZE in the early episodes, it's kind of weird that he never even mentions catching Haunter.

The episode ends with the horrifying-but-also-funny scene of the ever-abused Team Rocket, having fallen down through the entire tower, electrocuted and set on fire, apparently been captured and tied up to a merry-go-round by Gastly and Gengar. Considering the three of them were pretty lonely by themselves, poor Haunter leaving really doesn't bode particularly well for Gengar and Gastly, huh?

Anyway, it's a pretty fun episode all around. It a fun little subversion of the ghosts of Lavender Town from the games, adapting none of the darker storylines from the games -- or, hell, not even mentioning the whole "Pokemon Tower is a graveyard" bit. The ghosts turn out to be pranksters that sometimes take things a bit too far, but the animation in this episode is particularly expressive with the three ghost-bros. Probably one of the better ones in early Pokemon, as far as just straight-up dumb fun standalone episodes go.

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Pikachu, Meowth, Gastly, Charmander, Haunter, Gengar
• Humans: Ash, Brock, Misty, James, Jessie

Assorted Notes: 

• I really don't want to keep bringing up "haha, Japanese people using English words is funny", but Gastly's Japanese name is Ghos, while Haunter's Japanese name is Ghost, and that will never not be funny. 
• I do like the fact that Haunter and Gengar get the bulk of screentime because Gastly got an episode all to himself earlier this season.
• Gengar looks SO FREAKING CONCERNED when the chandelier fell down on Ash and Pikachu. 
• Always loved the little detail of Charmander and Pikachu being scooped up on plates during the poltergeist scene. Another fun detail is Gastly using the light-lavender gas around him to manifest little hands to move the swing around. 
• Dub Changes:
• When they find Ash and Pikachu's body, Misty and Brock are straight-up panicking that Ash has died in the original Japanese version, whereas their dialogue was just "you gotta wake up" or variations thereof in the dub. We also get Brock's reference to how 'this is the screams of hell' changed to him referring to a torture chamber. 
• In the dub, Jessie smacks Meowth for what seems to be no reason at all, which is due to some odd translation choices removing Meowth's comment that Jessie (who fell on top of him) is heavy.