Summary
Key takeaway: In the episode “Tower of Terror”, Ash and Pikachu have an out-of-body experience after being seemingly killed by a falling chandelier. Ghost-type Pokémon have tremendous power that can pull human souls out of unconscious bodies, as demonstrated in this volume. Despite the dark and potentially hurtful nature of this episode, it still counts as another week’s Pokémon story and Ash remains calm about the situation.
The Pokémon anime usually plays things pretty safely, without putting their characters in too much danger (at least outside of the movie). However, there is a big exception to this quite early in the series, when Ash and Pikachu have out-of-body experiences.
In the episode “Tower of Terror”, Ash is making his way to the Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town, hoping to find a Ghost-type Pokémon he can use to defeat Sabrina, an extremely powerful psychic and leader of the Gymnasium of Saffron City. When the party arrives at night, Misty and Brock are afraid to enter the building at night, but they are eventually lured in. Ash and Pikachu quickly find themselves the victims of an invisible prankster, sending things flying and generally scaring the group. Haunter and Gengar emerge, then sink to the floor, but when Ash and Pikachu attempt to give chase, they drop a chandelier above them, causing the chandelier to fall over their heads, rendering them both dead.
Haunter extracted Ash’s soul from his body
Ghost Pokémon removes Ash and Pikachu from their bodies upon witnessing the event, causing them to take on ghost forms. Ash and Pikachu join the ghosts playing and pranking their friends. The ghosts try to entice Ash and Pikachu to stay with them forever, but Ash refuses and says he needs to return to his journey. That’s when Misty and Brock find Ash and Pikachu’s bodies, and as they start to panic a bit, Ash and Pikachu’s spirits return, bringing the two bodies back to life, seemingly no worse off than wearing them.
Ghost-type Pokémon often have a dark design and will continue to be a major threat, such as when Litwick nearly killed Team Rocket. However, that only comes close; here, Ash and Pikachu’s souls actually leave their bodies, causing them to die by any definition. During the original broadcast, Misty even said the word “dead”, although this was later edited. The fact that a ghost Pokémon can pull human souls out of unconscious bodies is certainly a terrifying power, one that matches the dreaded Pokédex entries that some of these Pokémon, like Gengar, have had for years. via. Despite dying at the age of 10, Ash remained fairly calm about the whole situation and seemed very confident that he could come back to life at any moment.
Haunter was actually traveling with Ash temporarily and was crucial in helping Sabrina out of the peril she was in. However, the episode itself is surprisingly dark from the start of the series, and amazingly unlikely it isn’t. attracted a lot of negative attention at the time. Besides the movie, here it is Pokémon The episode made up Ash and Pikachu’s closest encounter with death and it was treated as another week’s Pokémon story.
