EP241

Hocus Pokémon (Japanese: ポケモンまほうでだいへんしん！？ A Huge Transformation with Pokémon Magic!?) is the 241st episode of the Pokémon anime. It was first broadcast in Japan on March 21, 2002 and in the United States on April 5, 2003.

Blurb
''Brock rarely meets a girl whom he doesn't find bewitching, but on encountering a particular young woman, even Ash and Misty can't deny that there is something magical about her. This is all explained when the young trainer explains that she is a practitioner of Pokémon magic. Excited to see the completion of a spell that promises to allow humans to understand the feelings and thoughts of Pokémon, Ash and friends embark on a quest to gather the hodgepodge of Pokémon-related ingredients required for the spell. Can anyone spare any Gloom nectar? What about iron shavings sorted by a Magnemite?''

Plot
and are wandering around in a forest while finding their way to Blackthorn City. Just then, a approaches them and starts squawking. Then, a girl comes running out from the clearing, exclaiming that she finally found a Pikachu. The girl introduces herself to Ash and his friends as, a Pokémon magician. She searches far and wide for bizarre things from different Pokémon such as a from Pikachu. asks Lily to perform magic for her because she once dreamed about being a Pokémon magician when she was little. Lily asks Misty if she'd like a smoother complexion. She says that she would. So, Lily puts everything together and says a magic chant and a lot of smoke rises from the pot. When this happens a bunch of appear and use, covering Misty with it. The main reason Misty doesn't like this is that she is afraid of bugs.

Later, Lily announces that she needs from a. Ash volunteers to get it for her. He finds one and challenges it to a battle. At first, it tries spraying Ash with, but luckily, Murkrow blows it away. Then Parasect finally uses Stun Spore and Lily obtains it with a vacuum. Just then, appears and uses a long mechanical arm to kidnap Pikachu. Lily notices and wants to get the dirt from its claws, so she sends Murkrow to get it. Instead, it makes a hole in their balloon, sending them blasting off again. Pikachu falls from their clutches and into Ash's arms. Team Rocket is later seen slumped precariously over a rock ledge on top of a tall cliff. pops out of its Poké Ball and adds more weight, and the ledge starts to crack. Lily, Ash, and his friends catch up to Team Rocket and Lily goes and gets the dirt from Meowth's claws. As soon as she gets off the ledge, it breaks, and Team Rocket goes crashing into the bushes below.

Later, asks Lily what else she needs and she tells the crew that she needs the tears of an. Ash then asks if once she has the tears she'll be able to perform her magic and read the minds of Pokémon. She says yes. Ash calls out and tells an Aipom to come out, which actually happens! However, it runs off so the group splits up to catch it. Jessie and James happen to pop out of the bushes behind them after they leave. They heard about the spell, so they set out to capture the Aipom and Lily's bag and book so they can make a lot of money. When Aipom lets its guard down, Ash, Misty, Brock and Lily charge at it. A net grabs Aipom and they smack heads instead. Team Rocket strikes again in their balloon and Meowth uses the long arm to get Lily's bag. Then they recite their motto. She orders Murkrow to get her bag back but Meowth uses the arm and it punches Murkrow knocking it out. Jessie and James then make their getaway.

Team Rocket lands their balloon and Meowth is rooting through Lily's bag and grumbling that it's nothing but junk. Jessie and James are looking at the book which Jessie doesn't understand because it's written in an ancient language. But James understands part of it. Jessie gets fed up, and so, to get Aipom to cry, gets ready to punch it, but James stops her. She asks him what his problem is. He tells her to look at the ancient book and she tells him that she could read tea leaves more easily than reading the book. James goes on to tell her that tears achieved through violence won't work.

As a result, Team Rocket tries to figure out what they can do to make Aipom cry. James starts off by telling a bunch of corny jokes but instead it makes Aipom yawn. Then Meowth tells a story about a boy and his mother reuniting. It makes Meowth and James cry, but Aipom is still bored out of its mind. Jessie tells them they'll never jerk any tears from Aipom using clichéd storylines and overblown dramatics. During this time Ash and his friends are looking for Team Rocket but turn up nothing but then Murkrow spots something. Now it was Jessie's turn to tell a story. She tells a story about a prince and princess and if she couldn't be his princess that her end was near. Anyway after her performance Aipom is fast asleep so Jessie gets angry and picks up Aipom to try and punch it again but once again James stops her.

Just then Ash and his friends catch up to Team Rocket and demand that the stolen stuff to be given back. As usual, this is where they start a Pokémon battle. Lily uses against Jessie's Arbok's  which sends Arbok flying into the balloon basket. Then it's Ash's Pikachu against James's Weezing. Weezing uses attack and Pikachu uses Thunderbolt until Weezing runs out of sludge. During this, Brock frees Aipom. Then Lily has Murkrow use against Weezing. Weezing rams Team Rocket into the basket. Pikachu then uses on Team Rocket and the balloon which makes it blow up and sends them blasting off again. Of course, Aipom finds this funny, laughing so hard that it produces tears of mirth. Ash quickly grabs a jar and tries to catch a tear but he trips and takes a nose dive on the ground so Pikachu quickly grabs the jar and catches the tear. Both Lily and Ash thank Pikachu.

Lily mixes in all the ingredients for the spell and then she asks who will volunteer. Ash begs to be picked, so Lily picks him. He finishes the spell with Pikachu's Thunderbolt. A lot of yellow smoke surrounds Ash and he comments that he felt a little like he's getting into Pikachu's mind. Then Lily, Misty and Brock gasp. Ash asks what happened. He looks up to his friends and asked them how they got so big. Then the camera cuts to Ash and zooms out to reveal that he was turned into a Pikachu! He wants to know why they were looking at him so funny so Misty gets out her mirror and shows him. Ash sees what has happened, and freaks! Lily explains this wasn't supposed to happen but when she looks in her book, the next page is covered in slop that makes reading the page impossible. Misty asks Lily if Ash will be a Pikachu permanently but she says of course not, just until the spell wears off. Ash calms down and says, "In that case this is awesome! I'm a Pikachu!" He goes off to play with Pikachu, Murkrow, and. Misty and Brock exclaimed that the spell probably worked; after all, Ash was inside the mind of Pikachu. Brock adds that Ash is certainly thinking like one. The episode closes with Ash, Murkrow, Pikachu, and Togepi playing together.

Major events

 * is transformed into a.

Pokémon debuts

 * Ashachu

Humans

 * (transforms)
 * Jessie
 * James
 * Jessie
 * James

Pokémon
Who's That Pokémon?: (US and international),  (Japan)


 * (Ashachu; newly transformed)
 * ('s)
 * (×3)
 * (image)
 * (image)
 * (image)
 * (picture)
 * (picture)
 * (picture)
 * (picture)
 * (picture)
 * (picture; Japanese version only)
 * (image)
 * (image)
 * (picture)
 * (picture)
 * (picture)
 * (picture)
 * (picture)
 * (picture; Japanese version only)

Trivia

 * This is the first time a human is transformed into a Pokémon in the . The concept would later be explored further in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game series and its adaptations.
 * The English title for this episode is a reference to the magic words "".
 * After the second time Jessie tried to punch tears out of, warned "No tears for fears!", referencing the band . The band would later be referenced in the episode of the same name.
 * Meowth's puppet theater act appears to be a reference to 's.
 * A nonexistent move is used in this episode, 's "Thunderspark".
 * At one point, Meowth says, "A little jab will do ya." This is a reference to the slogan "A little dab will do ya."
 * Music from Pikachu's Vacation and The Power of One can be heard in this episode.
 * An instrumental version of Face Forward Team Rocket! is used when James and Meowth try to make the Aipom cry.

Errors

 * uses, a move that it cannot legally learn. However, Parasect can learn a similar move,.
 * In the scene where Ashachu tells Pikachu,, and to play, when the scene goes back to Misty and Brock, Togepi is seen in 's hands.
 * Also, Murkrow is seen to come out of nowhere when calls all of the Pokémon.
 * In the scene where blasts off,  disappears despite being in the balloon in the scene before.
 * When Ash turns into Ashachu, his bag disappears. It is shown that Ash's bag also got transformed into his Ashachu form.
 * claims that he, Ash, and Misty had never met a Pokémon magician before. However, they met Melvin in The March of the Exeggutor Squad.
 * In the dub,  is called.

Dub edits

 * In the Japanese version, there was a picture of in 's book. The dub replaced it with a flower being kissed by a Jynx.
 * After Misty is attacked by the, there was a short scene cut in the English dub. In this scene, everybody feels sorry for her because she has arachnophobia. The frequently used "clock" transition and part of the first shot of the next scene, a pan down to the main characters, are both cut from the dub.

In other languages
Hokus Pokémon EP243 EP241 無印編第241話 精灵宝可梦 第242集