The Ancient Puzzle of Pokémopolis – Pokémon Season 1, Episode 72

Filler / stand-alone episodeFillerGiant Pokémon

The Ancient Puzzle of Pokémopolis is the 72nd episode of Pokémon: Indigo League, the first season of the Pokémon anime, and the 72nd episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 74, Bulbapedia code EP072). It first aired in Japan on 26 November 1998 and in the United States on 14 October 1999. It falls within the season’s Christmas, Mewtwo & the road to Indigo stretch (EP64–EP73).

Synopsis · Major Events · Trivia · Dub Changes · All episodes

Synopsis

Ash is having a practice match against Brock, Pikachu vs. Vulpix while Misty is doing some fishing. Just as Pikachu and Vulpix are about to use some of their most powerful attacks, Jigglypuff jumps in the way and they have to redirect the attacks, hitting the rocks behind them. The attacks blast away the layer of surface rock and reveal a hidden temple, they pick up a golden artifact on the floor, as they’re checking it out a female archaeologist called Eve, she snatches the artifact and starts to examine it, the rest of her archaeology expedition then show up and praise her for finding the artifact.

Eve claims credit for the find despite the protests of Brock and Misty, and instructs her expedition to move their camp to that location. Team Rocket are watching from the mountainside and realise that something potentially very valuable may have been found. Ash and co head into Eve’s tent where she studies their findings, and the group discuss that this could be the site of the lost City of Pokémopolis, a place destroyed by a storm long ago where people regarded Pokémon as signs of natures power. Just then another archaeologist runs in, he’s found another relic made from the same material as the one that Ash and co found, this one looks like a spoon.

Eve has also found a keystone with carvings on it that say “Beware the two great powers of destruction, the shadow of the dark device will grapple with the prisoner of the unearthly earth, and the sacred city will be no more as day is swallowed up by night, darker still for you when they return to lay waste the world but no human knows the secret to soothe the powers and guide them back to the shadow world”, it seems that Eve has been trying to decipher what exactly this means for quite a while, and its the toughest Mystery shes ever faced. That night the group stay in Eve’s trailer with her, but while they sleep something is happening with the two artifacts they found, and Team Rocket are outside trying to plunder the temple, with Jessie sending Arbok to tunnel beneath the temple and bring back the most valuable thing it can find. Arbok then returns with some black balls, but they start glowing and then Arbok disappears, something heads toward Team Rocket and they try to flee but are frozen in place and they too disappear. The next day Eve, along with Ash and gang go outside the trailer to find giant footsteps leading from inside the cave, and a device on the floor, one of the expedition hypothesises that it could be the dark device and picks it up, he too disappears before everyones eyes. The device levitates and the middle part of it shows all those captive within it, Ash notices Team Rocket are trapped inside the device.

The device heads toward the group who all turn and run, but the device freezes several members of Eve’s expedition in place before capturing them inside. Eve along with Ash and gang take refuge in her trailer. A giant Gengar with tribal markings forms outside, the two artifacts they initially find begin floating around in the trailer. Even Professor Oak can see what he believes to be a storm forming in the distance. Ash rushes after the giant Gengar to try and stop it because the nearest town is Pallet, his hometown. Brock sends out Onix to go underground and try to block the Gengar, Ash sends Pidgeotto who tries to use gust to blow him back, but Gengar captures it inside the dark device. Onix tries to bind the Gengar but instead sinks inside it, also falling prisoner to the dark device. The group flee to the trailer where they find Eve, along with the artifacts they found floating around. The spoon combines with the original artifact they found and a dark shadow forms, a giant Alakazam forms in front of them, directly in front of Gengar. As the two begin an epic battle, Eve finally solves the riddle from the ancient tablet and realises that it was these same Pokémon who destroyed Pokémopolis. The tablet says no one knows the secret to stopping these creatures from destroying everything, so the group is still none the wiser.

The giant Alakazam and Gengar continue their battle, Jigglypuff turns up and starts singing its song, it doesn’t put Gengar and Alakazam to sleep but it does activate an ancient device that makes an XXXL version of Jigglypuff appear, the song from this Jigglypuff is what soothes the ancient powers of destruction, they have finally found the solution to the riddle, if accidentally. When everyone wakes up all the missing people and Pokemon are returned and the giant Gengar and Alakazam have returned to the shadow world, they also conclude that a giant Jigglypuff must have been the protector of Pokémopolis. Team Rocket were also rescued, and fled the scene without troubling Ash and gang, promising to not be so easy on them next time. So the mystery of Pokemopolis is solved, but we still haven’t solved the biggest mystery of all; will Ash ever get around to training for the Pokemon League?

Major Events

• Debut: Alakazam (main series). Lecture: Rapidash. All-Stars Vol. 2.

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Alakazam#0065 · EP072

Trivia

• The English title plays on “metropolis”.
• The screenplay is by Atsuhiro Tomioka.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Kanto story.
• The Who’s That Pokémon? segment features Alakazam in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Jigglypuff in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.

Changes in the English Dub

• Thunderbolt called Thunder Shock and Quick Attack called Agility
• Dub ending: Pikachu’s Jukebox — My Best Friends

Part of our Pokémon: Indigo League guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.