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| Season | Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl (Season 10) · Pachirisu, Hunter J & the road to Floaroma arc (DP019–DP024) |
| Episode | Season 10, episode 24 · English episode 488 · Japanese episode 491 · Bulbapedia code DP024 |
| English title | Cooking Up a Sweet Story! |
| Japanese title | 対決！サトシ対ピカチュウ！？ Taiketsu! Satoshi Tai Pikachū!? — “Showdown! Satoshi VS Pikachu!?” |
| First aired (Japan) | 29 March 2007 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 16 July 2007 · Cartoon Network |
| Screenplay | Shinzō Fujita |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Together – Fumie Akiyoshi · Kimi no Soba de ~Hikari no Tēma~ (By Your Side ~Hikari’s Theme~), Pop-Up Version – Grin |
| English opening | Diamond and Pearl – Chris “Breeze” Barczynski |
| Previous episode | Faced with Steelix Determination! (DP023) |
| Next episode | Oh Do You Know The Poffin Plan! (DP025) |
Filler / stand-alone episodeSugar the RaichuPop-Up Version ending
Cooking Up a Sweet Story! is the 24th episode of Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl, the tenth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 488th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 491, Bulbapedia code DP024). It first aired in Japan on 29 March 2007 and in the United States on 16 July 2007. It falls within the season’s Pachirisu, Hunter J & the road to Floaroma stretch (EP19–EP24).
The last episode of the weekday run (16 July 2007); the series then took a summer break until 1 September.
Synopsis
During a practice battle for the Floaroma Contest, Pikachu dodges Piplup’s attacks with backflips and then absorbs Pachirisu’s Discharge through its tail before a Thunderbolt shatters a rock. As the dust settles, a young woman named Theresa walks up and asks to borrow Pikachu for three days, and Croagunk’s Poison Jab ends Brock’s flirting. Theresa takes them to the bakery run by her aunt Abigail, who has been heartbroken since her Pikachu, Sugar, vanished, and who needs help to bake for a contest in three days. Theresa wants Ash’s Pikachu to pretend to be Sugar. Ash worries Abigail will notice, but when Theresa explains that Sugar used to scratch its head with its tail, Pikachu copies the gesture perfectly, and Abigail happily accepts it as her missing partner.
The bakery comes alive again, with customers greeting “Sugar” and Abigail’s spirits soaring. She takes Pikachu to gather Aspear Berries, which it knocks from the tree with Thunderbolt, but Team Rocket recognise Ash’s Pikachu and attack. Abigail calmly has Pikachu fire Thunderbolt upward so that a hard Aspear Berry drops on Seviper’s head, and a second Thunderbolt blasts the trio away. Theresa reveals that Abigail was once a Coordinator who competed in the Grand Festival, and when Abigail hears that Ash is heading for the Eterna Gym she challenges him to a battle. Ash sends out Aipom: Abigail has Pikachu blast the ground with Thunderbolt so the flying dirt wipes out the Double Team copies, but when Aipom’s rapid Focus Punches corner Pikachu against a rock, Abigail steps into the line of fire, forfeits and goes inside.
That night Ash finds Abigail on the porch with Pikachu, gazing at the moon, and before he can confess she tells him she has known all along. It is the anniversary of the night Sugar left, frustrated that it could not crack open the tough Aspear Berries and determined to grow stronger. Suddenly a mechanical arm snatches Pikachu into a Thunderbolt-proof cage, and Ash clings to Team Rocket’s mecha while the others follow in Theresa’s van; Staravia’s Wing Attack fails, and Ash falls when Staravia is knocked out. Then a powerful electric attack stops the mecha in its tracks. A Raichu scratches its head with its tail, revealing itself as Sugar, now evolved, and it smashes the arm and the hull with Focus Punch, grabs the cage and blasts Team Rocket away with Thunderbolt. The next day Abigail’s cake, made with Aspear Berries pulverised by Sugar’s Focus Punch, is a triumph.
Major Events
- Ash’s Pikachu stands in for Abigail’s lost Pikachu, Sugar, which returns as a Raichu
- The Pop-Up Version of the ending begins
- Aired with DP025 as a one-hour special in Japan
- The last episode before the US summer break
Captures and evolutions
Pikachu → Raichu#0026 · Abigail’s Sugar · evolved off screen while it was lost
Trivia
- The English title plays on to "cook up a story", in a bakery.
- The screenplay is by Shinzō Fujita.
- This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Sinnoh story.
Changes in the English Dub
- Dub-only cold open; the Japanese opening scene plays after the theme song, with the title card after it: the first dub episode since EP157 whose title card does not follow the opening immediately
- Abigail becomes Theresa’s aunt, a former Grand Festival competitor (in Japanese, her grandmother, who entered several Contests)
- The Pop-Up Version of By Your Side begins
- Lucario score
Part of our Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.