Pokémon

In Pokémon’s first generation, released back in 1996 in Japan, there were only three Ghost-types, all part of the same evolutionary family. They were Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar. All three, as hinted by their purple palettes, are also part-Poison, but this isn’t really the norm for Ghost Pokémon going forward. In fact, over 1,000 Pokémon later, these three are still (almost) the only biohazardous phantoms out there.

Of the three, Gastly is the one whose Poison typing is very obvious, since it is surrounded by a purple, misty haze that is clearly poisonous gas. In fact, Gastly’s favourite method of attack, according to the Pokédex, is to simply envelop its victim’s body with its own and suffocate them with this noxious emission until they pass out. Folklore states that the poisonous gas comprises 95 per cent of Gastly’s body; the remaining 5 per cent is made up of the souls who have died from the gas. From this, it should be clear as to where Gastly’s name comes from: it’s a combination of ‘gas’ and ‘ghastly’ (which means ‘dreadfully frightening’). Appropriately enough, it also sounds like ‘ghostly’.

When exposed to strong winds, Gastly’s body is quickly blown away, so groups of this Pokémon sometimes cluster under the eaves of old, abandoned, dilapidated buildings to escape the ravages of the elements. This gives a neat in-universe reason for Gastly’s ‘haunting’ of abandoned houses: it has to, for its own protection. Nonetheless, Gastly still likes to frighten and play pranks on people, too, just for fun.

The billowing gas cloud that surrounds Gastly’s body may have been inspired by fire spirits such as the onibi, which is (roughly) a Japanese version of the will-o’-the-wisp – a ghostly light sometimes seen by travellers at night, especially over bogs and marshes. According to Japanese folklore, onibi are spirits born from the corpses of humans and animals. In real life, these mysterious fireballs are often explained by natural gas leaks.  

In Gastly’s earliest in-game sprites, there was no distinction between its black body and the gas cloud, giving it a completely gaseous form. Gas, vapour, and mist are widely associated with ghosts and are seen by some as evidence of spirit manifestation. But Gastly’s newer artwork (as seen at the top of the page) depicts it as a dark orb surrounded by purple gas. Whether this orb is where Gastly has drawn some of its gas together into a more compact form, I’m not sure, but it makes Gastly resemble a head surrounded by shadow flames, which is similar to a Japanese yōkai called Sōgenbi, a type of onibi fire spirit. Sōgenbi takes the form of a burning, floating head, said to belong to Sōgen, a monk who stole from the offering box. As punishment, he was condemned to wander the Earth forever as a disembodied, tormented head, wreathed in ghostly fire. 

Next time, we’ll look at Gastly’s evolved form, Haunter, which seems to be losing its gaseous form slightly and has developed disembodied hands.