Darkrai

is one of the 493 fictional species of Pokémon creatures from the multi-billion-dollar Pokémon media franchise - a collection of video games, anime, manga, books, trading cards and other media, created by Satoshi Tajiri. Darkrai is one of the legendary Pokémon that appears in . The purpose of Darkrai in the games, anime and manga, as with all other Pokémon, is to battle both wild Pokémon, untamed creatures encountered while the player passes through various environments, and tamed Pokémon owned by Pokémon trainers.

Darkrai's name is a portmanteau of the English word dark and the Japanese word for .

Biological characteristics
Darkrai resembles a dark, sinister ghost, although, surprisingly, it is only a Dark-type, and not a Ghost-type. Its main body color is an obsidian black. Its head is small compared to the rest of its body and is surrounded by a strange necklace of red, teeth-like projections that resemble a Misdreavus' necklace. Its eyes are bright blue with white pupils, giving it an other-worldly appearance. White hair or smoke floats from its head, obscuring much of its facial features. Its club-shaped arms are clawed and look muscular, with parts of them appearing tattered. The top of its body is connected to the lower half by a tiny waist that looks as if it is squished by the upper half of Darkrai's body, giving it an hourglass figure. Parts of its body seem to trail off into nothingness, like ribbons growing thinner at the ends. It appears to have no feet, although it is able to extend stilt-like appendages from its tattered-appearing torso.

It possesses the power to lure people into deep sleeps and show them dreams. On nights of the new moon, when it is active, it shows horrible nightmares. Some believe it is a counter part to Cresselia, as the Lunar Wing is capable of severing Darkrai's hold upon its victims. Additionally, Newmoon Island, on which Darkrai resides, is located right next to Fullmoon Island, where Cresselia resides.

Personality

Darkrai has had mixed personalities added to it. In the movie The Rise of Darkrai, and (Technically) Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia (in the Darkrai extra mission, though), Darkrai has a heroic personality. In the games Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness, Darkrai has an evil personality. In the same games, Darkrai has a loyal personality, if you talk to it while it is waiting to go in to a dungeon, it may say "(Hero's name), I will follow you wherever. Let me emphasize it: wherever!" This implies that he did not regain his wicked ways.

In the video games

Darkrai is one of the legendary Pokémon in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl for the Nintendo DS, making its first appearance alongside the other Fourth-generation Pokémon. It is the first Dark-type legendary Pokémon, and despite its appearance is not a ghost type. Darkrai is the complete opposite of Cresselia (even right down to their home islands - Fullmoon Island vs. Newmoon Island), who is known to cure the dark nightmares Darkrai causes to humans and are unable to awake. In Canalave City, a small boy suffers from an illness with regard to the fact that he thrashes about in nightmares, trying to say Darkrai's name. The only cure for the boy's illness is the wing of Cresselia. His personality here is the exact opposite of his anime counterpart.

Darkrai was expected to be obtained in Newmoon Island at level 40, if the player has an event item called the Member's Card. The player will stay the night at the Harbor Inn in Canalave City and be put into a deep nightmare by Darkrai. The player will then end up on Newmoon Island with the man from the Inn and find Darkrai, or, by a strange old man who seems to be trying to scare the player to sleep. However, a major glitch has been announced by Game Freak which enables the capture of Darkrai and a glitch that allows the player to encounter it without the Member Card (along with Shaymin),by surfing through the walls of the Elite Four buliding, despite the fact that it is an Event Pokémon. Although the glitch has been patched, Darkrai's official release will not concern Newmoon Island, perhaps due to the event location's mass publicity. Instead, it will be released on July 14 (in Japan). It will be housed within a Cherish Ball, hold an Enigma Berry, and have the moves Roar of Time and Spacial Rend, moves that were originally exclusive to Dialga and Palkia. This is possibly due to Darkrai's connection with Dialga and Palkia in the Pokémon movie Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai.

Darkrai is also the primary antagonist of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness. In these games, its wish is to envelop the world in darkness, thus spreading the nightmare that the sailor's boy suffered in Diamond and Pearl. At the beginning of the game, Darkrai causes the player's character to suffer amnesia and turns it into a Pokémon. In the main story, Darkrai caused Dialga, the Temporal Pokémon, to lose control of time, later leading to the planet's paralysis. When that plan fails, Darkrai causes a distortion in a fabric of space (in the second story), thus forbidding any Pokémon from evolving (main character and its partner) until Palkia, the Spatial Pokémon, is recruited to the team. Later, Darkrai creates a Cresselia illusion that appears in the dreams of the main character and tells him that it is causing the distortion in the fabric of space. Eventually, Darkrai is defeated at Dark Crater, where Palkia appears and prevents it from escaping through time, causing Darkrai to lose his memory. It can later join the team at Miracle Sea B3F or Mystifying Forest 13F if a Secret Slab or a Mystery Part is in the items bag.

On May 31st and June 1, Darkrai was available at Toys R' Us.

In the anime
Darkrai, along with Palkia and Dialga appear in Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai, the tenth Pokémon movie. While he starts off as a dangerous figure and causing damage to the town, he eventually shows that he is, in fact, trying to save everyone.

Many years before, a young girl named Alicia found the injured Darkrai in the town garden. Unafraid, she offers to help him and tells him that he was allowed to stay in the garden because "this was everyone's garden". Touched by her kindness, Darkrai stays. Unknown years later, Alicia's granddaughter Alice fell from a high cliff and was rescued by him. This is possibly because he believed Alicia and Alice to be the same girl, because he continued to protect Alice into adulthood and called her by her grandmother's name when he lay injured.

When an injured Palkia arrives and begins to mess with the dimensional stability, Darkrai attacks it to make it leave. However, no one in town can see Palkia, so they all believe that Darkrai is a menace. All the town Pokémon trainers (except Ash, Dawn, and Brock, who have since begun to unravel the truth of Darkrai's actions) join together to fight off Darkrai, ending in failure. Despite this, when Dialga shows up to finish its fight with Palkia, Darkrai continues to fight both of them yelling, "This garden is everyone's!"

In the final moments of the fight, Darkrai was overcome by the two opponents and disintegrated into nothingness. However, when Ash and his friends were preparing to leave town, a large shadow appeared on the canyon wall showing that Darkrai was still alive; how he survived is unclear, but he may have been revived by the repentant Palkia.

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See Also

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