Pokémon Creepypasta A to Z

Said It with a Bullet

About six months ago, I was discussing how amazing it was that the Pokémon anime was still running after all of these years, with a friend of mine. Although I still try to catch it every weekend, this friend had ceased watching back in one of the Johto seasons, due to finding the series repetitive.

"The final straw, though," he said, elaborating on why he no longer watched the series. "was that episode that was basically a snuff film."

Understandably, I scoffed at this premise. "You can't seriously tell me they released a Pokémon snuff cartoon."

Well, you're wrong.

He went on to explain that it was a "lost episode" - not too far of a stretch of imagination, seeing as how there were already several episodes that had been given that title. He said it was the "sickest thing he'd ever seen" and that "it gave him nightmares for a long time."

He refused to share the content of the episode, but instead offering the VHS he had somewhere in the back of the closet, claiming that I wouldn't believe him unless I saw it myself.

I had heard about other popular cartoons having legendary, unaired episodes that were reportedly uncharacteristically disturbing, such as Suicide Mouse and Dead Bart. However, the only "evidence" of those ever existing were poorly made Youtube videos by fans of the stories. I figured this was simply Pokémon's version of such.

About a month and a half went by before I saw this friend again. True to his word, he delivered the video tape, but promptly left, not wishing to stick around for the viewing.

Looking the tape over, I noticed nothing strange, save for the fact that it was unlabeled. Already, I was getting chills, having learned the potential horrors of an unmarked videocassette from "The Ring". I decided to press on and watch it anyway - after all what was the worst that could happen? Some amateur production of Ash screaming and his face melting?

I inserted the tape into my VCR and it started right up like most store-bought shows and films would. Initially, I thought perhaps this was just a standard Pokémon VHS with the label removed. Immediately, though, I knew it was something different, when a grainy Japanese title appeared on the screen. The quality was terrible, like the millionth-generation fansubs of Dragonball Z I had seen as a youth. There was no opening theme, just this screen with barely legible hiragana. What I believe to be Meowth's voice actor shouted the title - my Japanese is very rusty and the sound quality was lousy, so the only word I caught was, possibly, "Kojiro".

After a few seconds, the title vanished and was replaced by an extreme closeup of Ash's face, sideways. In what I had believed to be a result of the trashy video quality, it looked like Ash's eyes were wide open, yet completely blank. I soon realized that they may have indeed been blank when, as the focus slowly zoomed out from his face, it was clear that there was a trickle of blood emerging from his right temple. I cocked an eyebrow in confusion.

The scene changed to that of James. A sinister grin was on his face - or at least, what I thought could have been, considering the fact that the video quality was so terrible that I couldn't be sure if I was making out all of the details correctly. What was perfectly clear, was that he held a pistol in his hand.

James said something that sounded like he was gloating. Again, because of my poor knowledge of anything outside of basic Japanese, and the abysmal sound quality, I wasn't able to make out anything he said, but the voice actor sounded entirely different - more of a deep voice, uncannily like Yasunori Masutani's fused villain in the Dragonball animated special "Osu! Son Goku and His Friends Return".

There was another shot of Ash's body, and it was definite that he been shot in the head. The blood had stopped actively trickling, but it was apparent that it had pooled underneath him.