 () is the 38th episode of the "Pokémon" anime's . During its sole broadcast in Japan on December 16, 1997, a scene with flashing lights induced photosensitive epileptic seizures in children across the country. Over 600 children were taken to hospitals. The incident is referred to in Japan as the .
The episode was written by Junki Takegami and directed by Kiyotaka Itani, and was broadcast on TV Tokyo. In the episode, Ash and his friends find that there is something wrong with the Poké Ball transmitting device at the local Pokémon Center. To find out what is wrong, they must go inside the machine. Towards the end of the episode, Pikachu stops a wave of missiles with an attack, resulting in an explosion depicted by rapid flashing lights that fill the screen.
After the incident, the "Pokémon" anime went into a four-month hiatus. The episode was pulled from rotation and was never aired in any other country. The incident complicated plans for an American localization of the series, and resulted in new broadcasting standards in Japan to ensure future incidents would be avoided.
Plot.
Ash, Misty, Brock make their way to the nearest Pokémon Center to heal Pikachu's exhaustion, where they discover that the Poké Ball transmitting device is malfunctioning. On Nurse Joy's request, they go to Professor Akihabara, the one who created the Poké Ball transfer system. He tells them that Team Rocket stole his prototype Porygon, a digital Pokémon that can exist in cyberspace, and is using it to steal trainers' Pokémon from inside the computer system.
Akihabara sends Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu and his second Porygon into the cyberspace system using his Dimension Transporter. They realise that Team Rocket has set up a blockade that stops Poké Balls from completing their journey through the network. In an ensuing battle, Porygon is able to defeat Team Rocket's Porygon; unfortunately, Nurse Joy, monitoring the situation and unaware that Ash and the others are inside, approves the use of an antivirus program to resolve the problem.
The program manifests as cyber missiles and momentarily incapacitates Team Rocket before they are rescued by Porygon. As Porygon flees with everyone hanging on to its back, more missiles are fired at the group. Pikachu uses a Thunderbolt attack on the missiles, causing a large explosion. Two of the missiles enter the portal, completely destroying Akihabara's house and the Dimension Transporter, though everyone escapes safely.
Team Rocket thanks Ash and his friends for rescuing them before fleeing, after which Ash returns to Nurse Joy to finally request for Pikachu to be healed.
Broadcast.
"Dennō Senshi Porygon" had its sole broadcast in Japan on Tuesday, December 16, 1997, at 6:30 PM Japan Standard Time (09:30 UTC). It held the highest ratings for its time slot, and was watched by approximately 4.6 million households.
Incident.
Twenty minutes into the episode, Pikachu stops missiles with his Thunderbolt attack, resulting in an explosion that rapidly flashes red and blue lights. The exact scene that triggered the seizures aired at 6:51:34pm, towards the end of the episode. It was broadcast over 37 TV stations that Tuesday night.
Although there were similar parts in the episode with red and blue flashes, two anime techniques, called "paka paka" and "flash", made the scene particularly intense. These flashes were bright strobe lights, with blinks at a rate of about 12 Hz for approximately six seconds.
At this point, some of the viewers experienced blurred vision, headaches, dizziness and nausea. Some suffered seizures, blindness, convulsions and unconsciousness. The Japanese press referred to this incident as .
Affected people.
According to a survey by Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency, 685 viewers – 310 male and 375 female – were taken to hospitals by ambulances. Of these, 208 were admitted to hospitals, including three who were admitted while unconscious.
There was a higher incidence in the 11 to 15-year old demographic, with over 90% of the affected being from middle and high school age ranges; the oldest victim was a 58-year old from Kanagawa Prefecture. TV Tokyo had a limited terrestrial coverage area, but there were some victims from outside of the network's range who received one of its stations either by terrestrial or cable overspill who were affected. Although approximately 1 in 5000 people are susceptible to these types of seizures, the number of people affected by the "Pokémon" episode was unprecedented.
Later studies showed that 5–10% of the viewers had mild symptoms that did not need hospital treatment. Twelve thousand children who were not sent to hospitals reported mild symptoms of illness; however, their symptoms more closely resembled mass hysteria than a seizure. A study following 103 patients over three years after the event found that only 22% were reported to have had seizures after the incident. 15 of these patients were determined to have had visually induced seizures, while 56% of the patients who did have more seizures following the incident also having epilepsy. The three-year study of 103 surveyed patients also found that only 25 (24%) of them were determined to have had seizures before the incident took place.
By prefecture.
The following is a breakdown of the number of people taken to hospital in each prefecture, totaling to 685.
Aftermath.
Immediate response.
More than three hours after the controversial scene was broadcast, NHK General TV became the first channel to report on the seizures at 9:59pm that evening during a news bulletin, followed by FNN's News JAPAN later that evening. The topic was heavily discussed on the next day's news programs, but with the footage frozen in order to prevent further damage.
To prevent any similar incidents from occurring, the episode was pulled from rotation, and it has not aired since in any country.
The following day, the television station that had originated the lone broadcast of that episode, TV Tokyo, issued an apology to the Japanese public, suspended the program, and said it would investigate the cause of the seizures. Numerous video retailers across Japan removed the "Pokémon" anime from their rental shelves in response to the incidents.
Officers from Atago police stations were ordered by Japan's National Police Agency to question the anime's producers about the show's contents and production process.
On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, shares in Nintendo (the company that publishes the games that the anime is based on) fell by 400 yen the following morning to 12,200 yen (almost 3.2%). The president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, said at a press conference the day after the episode had aired that the video game company was not responsible since the original "Pokémon" game for its Game Boy product was presented in black and white.
Effect on the Pokémon anime.
After the airing of "Dennō Senshi Porygon", the "Pokémon" anime went into a nearly four-month hiatus.
The episode "Holiday Hi-Jynx", which would have aired the following week, December 23, 1997, was pulled following the incident, and would not air until October 5, 1998. Airing out of order caused confusion to viewers because Ash still had a Charmander instead of Charizard, and Misty did not have Togepi yet, but Starmie and Horsea.
All 37 episodes of "Pokémon: Indigo League" were rerun on Kids Station in Tokyo leading up to the show's return on April 16, 1998, with airing of "Pikachu's Goodbye" and "The Battling Eevee Brothers". After the hiatus, the time slot changed from Tuesday to Thursday.
Before broadcasting resumed, the special program was shown. Broadcast in Japan on April 16, 1998, host Miyuki Yadama went over the circumstances of the program format and the on-screen advisories at the beginning of animated programs, as well as showing letters and fan drawings sent in by viewers, most of whom were concerned that the incident would lead to the anime being cancelled.
"Dennō Senshi Porygon" itself has never been aired again, in any country. The "Pokémon" anime has not featured Porygon or its evolutions, Porygon2 and Porygon-Z, in any subsequent episodes outside of brief cameos, despite Pikachu being the one to cause the seizure-inducing strobe effect.
By station.
The series was and still is syndicated to stations outside of the direct coverage area of the six stations of the TX Network. The following table lists the final episode of the Pokémon anime that aired on the station before the hiatus and the title of the program that initially replaced its timeslot.
Effect on localization.
When the episode aired, "Pokémon" was only distributed in Japan. Shortly after the incident, speaking to "USA Today", Mike Lazzo, vice president of programming for Cartoon Network, reassured parents that American children were unlikely to suffer seizures provoked by cartoons as U.S. networks at the time rarely aired anime, which he argued was substantially different to animation aired on Cartoon Network.
According to then-president of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa, he had first raised the possibility of bringing "Pokémon" to the US market three weeks before this episode aired. The incident occurred while Nintendo of America was in negotiations with ShoPro to localize "Pokémon" for an American audience. However, Arakawa believed that the coverage of the incident in the US was fairly calm compared to Japan, as the US had previously reported on cases of epilepsy being induced by video games so the concept was already well-known—instead, he argued that it only increased the series' name recognition.
In his book "Pokémon Story", Masakazu Kubo of ShoPro notes that initially the incident increased the reluctance to bring the series to the US market, but due to concerns that the entire "Pokémon" TV show could end up being banned from Japanese TV, instead it was decided that pursuing an American release was essential to repairing the series' reputation in Japan. Kubo argues that once it became accepted in Japan that the incident was due to technical problems with how the show was broadcast rather than the show itself, there was no longer a need for a US release to restore the series' reputation in Japan, but the negotiations continued regardless.
Starting on January 4, 1998, ShoPro conducted in-person negotiations with Nintendo of America for licensing the "Pokémon" anime for the US market. In early January 1998, 4Kids Entertainment announced that they intended to air "Pokémon" in the U.S., albeit ensuring that the flashing effects were removed. "Pokémon" successfully premiered in the U.S. (without this episode) in September 1998.
Changes to television standards.
Many Japanese television broadcasters and medical officials (along with the United Kingdom's Independent Television Commission) came together to find ways to make sure the incident was not repeated. They established a series of guidelines for future animated programs, including that flashing images, especially those with red, should not flicker faster than three times per second; if the image does not have red, it still should not flicker faster than five times per second; flashing images should not be displayed for a total duration of more than two seconds; and stripes, whirls and concentric circles should not take up a large part of the television screen. The Harding test for content that now airs on Japanese TV and streaming sites ensures no more than one flashing light occurs every 10 frames, reproduced at 29.97 FPS, where "flashing lights" are classified as extreme changes in colors from one frame to the next. Footage may either clear or fail checks, or "pass with a warning" in which case the video's luminance is automatically adjusted to mitigate potential effects.
After the incident, TV broadcasters voluntarily added on-screen warnings to shows targeted at young children encouraging viewers to watch anime in a well-lit room and to sit far away from the television set.
In popular culture.
The "Pokémon Shock" incident has been parodied many times in popular culture, including a 1999 episode of "The Simpsons", "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo". In the episode, Bart watches an anime entitled "Battling Seizure Robots" featuring robots with flashing eye lasers, and asks: "Isn't this that cartoon that causes seizures?" The flashing eyes cause him, Marge, Lisa, and Homer to have seizures. The same scene is seen again in the episode's end credits, this time covering the entire screen.
An episode of "South Park", "Chinpokomon", revolves around a "Pokémon"-like phenomenon, called "Chinpokomon". "Chinpokomon" toys and video games are sold to children in South Park by a Japanese company. The company's president, Mr. Hirohito, uses the toys to brainwash the American children, making them into his own army to topple the "evil" American "empire". These toys included a video game in which the player attempts to bomb Pearl Harbor. While playing this game, Kenny has an epileptic seizure and