Ghost Pokemon are great. I often say that Water is my favourite type, but if I lived in Pokemon Land - which is actually a world of pure horror - I’d probably be a Ghost trainer. Of all the types in existence, Ghost probably has the most variety and novelty. Also, Ghost Pokemon are cute. You come into my house on the day my Hallow is to be ‘eened and ask me to do blasphemy against Haunter? That is not justice. Your Haunter is alive.

There’s a reason I chose Haunter specifically above - if you’ve read the headline of this piece, you’ll probably have a fairly decent chance of guessing what that reason is. Of all the brilliant ‘mons in Pokemon’s most brilliant type category, Haunter is undeniably the brilliantest of all. Google didn’t put a red squiggly line under that, by the way, so pedants begone. We’re only here to advocate for Haunter superiority.

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I know a lot of you out there are big fans of Gengar, Haunter’s beloved older sibling. Gengar, however, is merely the second best Ghost Pokemon of all time. Haunter doesn’t have a rubbish Gigantamax form and, actually, disembodied claw hands are way cooler than stumpy little phantom limbs. Gengar is great. Haunter is better.

This is unequivocally proven by Haunter’s actions in the anime. While it’s not in a whole bunch of episodes, it’s one of the key characters in the first season’s scariest episodes, in which it befriends Ash and rouses Sabrina from her stony-faced waking slumber. If Haunter wasn’t a legend, Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu, and Sabrina’s mam would all be figurines getting repeatedly pelted by an oversized ball in a Sisyphean dollhouse nightmare. How does Haunter save them? Not by battling. Not by spooky shenanigans. Not even by any real means with proper gravitas attached. It spits out a bomb, explodes it, and makes Sabrina laugh for the first time in about ten years. Haunter, you might say, is extremely fun at parties.

haunter

There’s quite a bit of Haunter slander in the world of Pokemon. Most of its Dex entries paint it as a malevolent spirit hellbent on murdering people, and there’s one Haunter in the manga who is literally a serial killer. The thing is, right, there are a lot of human wrong ‘uns as well. One dickhead Haunter doesn’t represent an entire species, especially when it’s the best Ghost species Arceus ever created.

Let’s look at another anime episode, A Shipful of Shivers. Here, Haunter and Gastly guard the trophy of their trainer in a shipwreck 20,000 leagues under the sea. Do you know how long they’ve been there? 300 years. Three. Centuries. Why do they do this? Because they’re fiercely loyal and a pair of bona fide legends. When Togepi falls down a hole in the ship’s deck, all they want to do is play with it. I mean, Tower of Terror from season one shows the whole Gastly family playing pranks on Ash and the gang as if it’s nobody’s business. Unlike other Pokemon and the majority of people, they want nothing more than a good old-fashioned laugh. I love Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar, but wow is Haunter the best of the bunch.

It is true that Haunter can immobilise people by licking them, and that great big tongue it flings around certainly likes to lick. That’s not great, I admit. Still, when Haunter licks Misty and she freezes up, Ash berates it. What does Haunter do? It cries. It’s only messing! It was all a laugh! It already said sorry!

It’s Halloween weekend and Ghost Pokemon are all the rage. While I agree with celebrating the series’ best type, I’m not going to entertain any argument that any Pokemon who isn’t Haunter is the best ghost. It’s simply untrue. On this day of all days, give Haunter the respect it deserves. If you don’t, I hope one shows up at your gaff and licks you.

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