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| Season | Pokémon: BW Adventures in Unova and Beyond (Season 16) · Farewell to Unova arc (BW123–BW128) |
| Episode | Season 16, episode 30 · English episode 780 · Japanese episode 785 · Bulbapedia code BW127 |
| English title | The Island of Illusions! |
| Japanese title | 幻影の島！霧の中のゾロアーク！！ Gen’ei no Shima! Kiri no Naka no Zoroāku!! — “Phantom Island! The Zoroark in the Fog!!” |
| First aired (Japan) | 23 May 2013 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 24 August 2013 · Cartoon Network |
| Screenplay | Junki Takegami |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Natsumeku Sakamichi (Summerly Slope) – Daisuke · Te o Tsunagō (Let’s Join Hands) – Shiritsu Ebisu Chūgaku (TV broadcast: live-action version 2; DVDs: the original animation) |
| English opening | It’s Always You and Me (Version 3) – Neal Coomer & Kathryn Raio |
| Who’s That Pokémon? | Zoroark (US) |
| Previous episode | Crowning the Scalchop King! (BW126) |
| Next episode | To Catch a Rotom! (BW128) |
Filler / stand-alone episodeZoroark debuts
The Island of Illusions! is the 30th episode of Pokémon: BW Adventures in Unova and Beyond, the sixteenth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 780th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 785, Bulbapedia code BW127). It first aired in Japan on 23 May 2013 and in the United States on 24 August 2013. It falls within the season’s Farewell to Unova stretch (EP123–EP128).
Synopsis
On a fog-shrouded island sanctuary, the group discovers that a Zoroark has been secretly running an abandoned Pokémon Center out of loyalty to the Nurse Joy who once saved it. After a giant shadow looms over their ship, the group lands on Grand Spectrala Island and crosses at low tide to a smaller island rumoured to hide giant Pokémon.
There a giant Heatmor sets the forest ablaze, a fleeing Foongus’s Spore puts Axew to sleep, and a hooded figure stops the Heatmor before both vanish. The group takes Axew to a run-down Pokémon Center, where a Nurse Joy and an Audino make old-fashioned medicine but are never seen together.
The hooded figure, an older Nurse Joy who inspects Pokémon Centers, accuses the young one of being an impostor. An illusion reveals the truth: more than ten years ago she ran this Center and rescued a Zorua from a hunter’s trap; after the Center closed, the Zorua, now a Zoroark, kept treating wild Pokémon and scared off hunters with a giant illusory Heatmor. The older Joy agrees to reopen the Center with Zoroark, and the group helps clean it.
Major Events
- The Island of Illusions. Grand Spectrala Island’s sanctuary
- A Zoroark runs an abandoned Pokémon Center out of loyalty to the older Nurse Joy who saved it
- Team Rocket’s Basculin submarine debuts
- Japan’s TV ending switches to the live-action version
- Music from the fourteenth movies
- Zoroark’s TV debut
Pokémon making their anime debut
Zoroark#0571 · BW127
Trivia
- The screenplay is by Junki Takegami.
- This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Unova story.
Changes in the English Dub
- Music from the fourteenth movies
- Japan’s TV ending switches to the live-action version of Let’s Join Hands (to BW138)
Part of our Pokémon: BW Adventures in Unova and Beyond guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.