For the Sailor Moon YTV promo I brought up, it's very possible that promo was made as a joke among YTV staff members - there's another promo similar in nature (but way more offensive), and I can't imagine that one airing on TV. If you know, you know. 12:14 - I accidentally posted the USA airdates of these episodes here. The correct JP airdates are September 2nd, 2003, and October 14th, 2003 respectively. 28:04 The song those kids are singing is “Pokemon Ierukana”- most certainly a Pokemon song, but arguably not “the” Pokemon song. Doubt they knew that either. Also, here's a music list: Kalos Power Plant - Pokemon X and Y Kaminko's Manor - Pokemon XD Ultra Plant - Pkmn Ultra Sun/Moon Stereo Protect - Pulseman Pewter City - Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee To Be Continued - Pokemon Anime BGM The Rockets Unveiled - Pokemon Anime BGM Pokemon Gym - LGPE Silph Co. - LGPE Cycle Partition - Pulseman Mt Moon - LGPE Pokemon Tower - Pokemon Anime BGM Mewtwo Battle - Pokemon Stadium Pocket ni Fantasy - Pokemon Anime Game Corner - LGPE Voltage Algorism - Pulseman Vermillion City - LGPE Quiz - Stadium 2 Prime Cup Semifinal - Stadium Options - Stadium 2 Gym Castle Battle - Stadium Pkmn Selection - Stadium 2

Takeshi Shudo himself setting up a 100 inch projector screen in preparation to watch Electric Soldier Porygon on its premiere night is so fucking funny

Anyone remember a few years ago when the official English Pokemon Twitter made a tweet saying "Porygon did nothing wrong"?

Somehow the joke on The Simpsons about Elecrric Soldier Porygon is more tasteful than the YTV promo. I cannot believe that is a real thing.

Poor Porygon got basically banished into obscurity because they couldn’t bear to place blame on Pikachu causing the strobe effects. Porygon and its line have gotten the shaft for too long from the Pokémon Company. Love the video and can’t wait for the rest of Poke-month!

I'll never forget that the entire Porygon line had to bite the bullet because of the strobe effect that the damn yellow rat did... One of my favorite pokemon will never appear properly in the anime ever

I really hope Porygon comes back someday in the anime, it would be a neat addition to Dot's team in Horizons.

Shit man, you ever seen this awesome mech anime called Gaogaigar, the first half of the series was ALL strobing effects for the villians. Japan sure did love that effect for a min.

It sucks that the Porygon line was pretty much left out of the anime after this incident. I can’t help but wonder what kind of stories we would have gotten if they made episodes based around Porygon-2 during the Gen 2 anime and Porygon-Z for Gen 4.

Love that Porygo-Z voice.

Amazed and glad that you brought up the unaltered ep2-37 somehow slipping into Japanese Hulu. I was shocked when first learning about that. And since the first few rental VHS came out before ep38, the unaltered ep1 does still exist thanks to that release. Wonder how many versions of ep1 exist indeed. Another consequence of the incident ofc is JP channels darkening the footage of broadcast anime whenever bright lights predominantly appear during action scenes, like in My Hero Academia for example. And older series' rereleases or restorations also had flashing lights slowed down or removed. Dragon Ball Kai had some of these changes in comparison to the original Z's effects iirc.

I really with they would let bygones be bygones and let Porygon back into the anime. This has gone on long enough. And while we're at it, stop ignoring Jynx as well and give her an evolution already so she can rejoin Magmar and Electabuzz as part of the unofficial Kanto Trio.

My graduation thesis was on this topic, I spent about 8 months researching about it for work and it was difficult to find information in my language (Portuguese Brazilian), even more so that I am not even intermediate in Japanese. In the end I discovered so much that I had no idea, that it was amazing to see how a single episode has so many nuances and yielded more than 40 pages of analysis. (I studied Linguistics)

Oh wow, I didnt realize how much of a nightmare this became! Really good video, dude!

“He called December 16th the worst day of his life” That was my 5th birthday…

thanks for mentioning dogasu, tons of youtubers just leach content from wikis and fansites without giving proper credits.

Its so insane finally seeing the whole story could really shows how much power pokemon had in that time and even to this day if it was able to comeback and grow EVEN MORE thanks to us

I was a (just turned) 11 year old Animation nerd when I saw a story about this on BBC1's evening news programme. Like most people outside of Japan at the time I had no idea what this "Pocket Monsters" show was, and I honestly didn't have much conception of Japanese animation outside of knowing there was always a shelf of Anime VHS tapes at every Game (the UK equivalent of GameStop). I always remembered the story but didn't remember the name of the show, and as Pokémon took over the world over the following 3 years or so, I didn't make the connection. I actually didn't find out this incident was due to a Pokémon episode until about 6 years ago.

You are probably the MOST underrated KZfaqr I know! You deserve more subscribers!

I love the amount of research that went into this, you weave a really compelling narrative with info I really wish was more accessible ❤ that sailor moon promo is insane btw

great video. weird to think that for the franchise not much changed really with its impact. Like this episode could have never been made and Pokemon still would be the juggernaut it is. correction btw at 18:48 - 700/4.6 million is 0.015% (roughly 1 in 6571), meaning you're more likely to suffer epileptic symptoms than you would find a shiny (before Gen 6)

december 16th 2022 was definitely my pokemon shock, and it doubling as a way to divert attention from the incident was certainly a bold move

Amazing job. I learned more about Pokemon in this half hour than I did when I was working on the American version of the show! Keep up the great work!

Thanks for this video man, it was fascinating and I learned a lot! :D

What's really interesting after this happened is that a law on January 7th, 1998 was passed that proposed laws regarding strobe lights or seizure content included on CRTs, Internet, and most of the media for the next 26 years to come into the future. I've heard about this event back in the early 2010s as well as looking into the wikipedia article talking about this. And it explains why I used to see many video games from the 2000s onward mentioning about "nausea, motion sickness, or seizures" in future video games to come. Nintendo wouldn't include it inside the games until 2003/2004, and since then has been part of the gaming landscape for quite some time. So while Porygon was banished up until Pokemon 2023 (Pokemon Horizons), it was quite sad to see Porygon get the short end of the stick, when in reality it was the animators that didn't have the same foresight that United Kingdom did when checking media first before they went on the air, and even British TV companies would tell producers to keep an eye out of content that could get people epilepsy or seizures (considering Britain was one of the foundations for Seizure and Epilepsy research back in the 1880s). But to be honest, here's the thing....I've seen bright lights at parties, including strobe lights...And believe it or not, they were bright. And considering I actually did a test to see how bright CRTs would go up to, just goes to show that CRTs at the time had a huge lightbulb inside of it. If this was an LCD or OLED screen, it wouldn't have much effect nor would computers/laptops would either, because the amount of light going into the screen wouldn't be as massively bright as the lightbulbs would. And on the other hand, if they weren't sure how the episode would have gone, they should have done an audience test of say ten children to watch it, and if something physically happened to them, they would have save so much time from having to get sued by the government themselves. And also, who did not notice that being exposed to strobe lights for 30 minutes straight would cause headaches in both adults and children's eyes???

Poké-Month is back, baby!!! What a way to start this year's Poké-Month off. The letters, faxes, and fan art from the kids at the time (even from some of those who were affected!) was honestly really sweet to see. Even this early on, Pokémon had captured the hearts of thousands of people. This is probably one of your best Poké-Month videos, at least in my eyes. Big ups to you, Dogasu, and everyone else who shared their experiences with the Pokémon Shock.

I genuinely said "The fuck, guys?" at that YTV promo.

Honestly surprised Porygon still gets any attention at all

This was so great!!

I've heard so much about this over the years, and now I'm gonna see the full story. Thanks bro, you and dogasu are the real MVPs!

It's funny to say how you say the games have nothing to do with it, but those early Pokemon games kinda had some intense black-white flashes going on aswell. On later re-releases they censored all animations like mostly attack animations, that had flashing.

Dogasu is a MVP in those regards 💪

Never knew how much more lively those visual effects were. Like you, I thought it was just a cost-cutting measure.

anime for smaller kids would add a small PSA before each episode started, talking about watching the show in a well lit room and being away from the tv when watching These would never be used in dubs, at least the ones we would get using the American dubs (I'm Mexican), the only time I've seen one of those PSAs dubbed was on Inazuma Eleven(Super Once in Latam), some fans joke about watching the show with the lights off lmao

Who remembers that one wrestling promo in 2017 when Jinder Mahal referenced the Porygon episode against Shinsuke Nakamura?

I'm kind of curious how far along Pokemon Yellow was in terms of debugging. the Porygon episode shuffled episodes around in development, like there's an episode that involved a trainer with a Farfetch'd stealing Pokeballs, yet Jessie had one more pokeball than she should've had (Lickitung), which is highly curious, espcially since Pokemon had a few episodes that alligns with real life holidays in Japan (being March 3rd, despite airing in July). there's also a low chance of baiting a Dragonair in the Safari Zone. it begs to question if the game went gold, but the anime writers backed out of their plan with the Princess episode and slotted in Lickitung instead. Farfetch'd episode aired a few months before Lickitung's. the introduction of Togepi probably also hampered things, presumably the movie and anime teams were isolated from eachover before its egg appeared. Pokemon Snap came out long after the Aerodactyl episode, and Game Freak was still open to the idea of spinoffs at the time, so the development of that game doesn't mean Todd Snap's appearence/Togepi's egg was a pre-development jumping off point. Pokemon Picross was also revealed and in-development to the extent that the furthest episode it referenced was episode 69 (Nov 1998). though concurrent anime references either extends as far as the Pikachu short from the second movie (July 1999), or to the unannounced Snow Way Out episode (october 1998). it only appeared twice in issues April and May 1999 issues of Corocoro. there is an unused Togepi stage which probably alludes how far along they were, at least before the Porygon episode happened. the unpredicted pushback of GS's development, gameboy camera sprite comparisons and the gameboy color's lack of enhancement for JP-Yellow might hint stuff too. Honestly, it's weird how they omit TR's pokemon from the wild roster in the game, yet sticks more in-line with Ash's journey in general. like Weedle was one of the first pokemon he attempted to capture but ran off, and there are lots of Kakuna/Beedrill in an episode.

Has there ever been an official word on Porygon's absence from the anime? I feel like I would've heard it if there was.

i remember watching a few 90s anime that had a disclaimers to turn the lights on and sit back

28:04 Sounds like those kids were singing a line from Pokémon Ierukana, which serves as Japanese Pokérap so one can make the argument that they were singing the Pocket Monsters song...at least the song with all the Pocket Monsters? Anyways, it's a shame that the episode caused such a ruckus, because having seen the episode I do feel that it was a very good episode with a fun premise and entertaining action.

I think whichever translator must've misread the kanji for 杜子春, the Akutagawa story Shudo helped adapt, it seems to be called Toshishun not Tokuharu from what I can see.

WHAT WAS THAT PORYGON Z VOICE?! It sounds like a confused Tim "The Toolman" Taylor lol

Also CartoonGamer Glitter Force (English Dub of Pretty Cure) well the Smile dub had to darken because Saban didn't want a Porygon incident.

ash ketchum hiatus was announced 25 years after the 4 month hiatus of anime was announced

Imagine if the Pokémon franchise ended like, how would the world be? Not one I want to live in that's for sure

26:34 The thumbnail for episode 12 made me laugh xD

I liked the video! Great job for the research man! Also what was the source of the clip of the 13:42 mark?

It's interesting to hear all these details regarding such an infamous event in Pokémon's early history. Nice work on the video! Also, that Sailor Moon promo is, uh... pretty distasteful.

The first episode of Poké-Month has finally arrived. Been waiting for this episode about Electric Soldier Porygon. I'm glad I have a VHS copy of the original Japanese airing of the episode with the commercials intact. 30:19 Funny Mike Lazzo said this and Toonami started shortly after with Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and the other early animes on Cartoon Network. Toonami even aired on Kids' WB for a while.

Fun fact, 4Kids got the copies of a couple of pre-Porygon episodes to dub, and they're still the versions you can see on Netflix today. It really does mess with my mind knowing there was a real chance at some point that Pokémon wouldn't come back!

Great entertaining video! Cant wait for the Tara Sand interview coming up?!

Great video man!

Poor-ygon…

Does "Flashing slowed down 86.24%" mean down *to* 86.24% of its original speed? I'd assume so, but that wouldn't be much of a decrease..

Glad to see more context to the story

Oooooh I knew this story though the back of my mind I feel sorry to all of those kids who seen it back in 1997

Oh we are so back to Poké-Month!!

I was generally surprise that both Ash's Departure and Pokemon Horizon's announcement was on the same day Electric Soldier Porygon aired in Japan. I wonder in the future, could we see retrospective for Pokemon Horizons, once all the episodes is released, either in japan or the english dub? I want to know more about the creation and making of the show because it's one of my favorite shows.

I understand they don’t want to be reminded of the episode, but given the technology we have today (which is much more advance) wouldn’t it be best to edit out the epilepsy scene nowadays?

22:10 That's not a 4 that's the Jupiter symbol what's with that Sailor Moon ad

I've heard of this from long ago but this beings it in new light

I'm a big pokemon anime fan and even did a paper where this was part of the paper and did so many other reads on this, and there's a lot that I didn't know which is cool.

Cyber Soldier Porygon*

So if they did create an edited version… Does that mean that 4kids did in fact get a tape? I wonder if Eric Stuart or any of the others have that in their own personal collection since they never got around to putting it on the air here. Hopefully one of them are lucky enough to have that tape.

PORYGON SPOTTED !!!

I have this porygon episode on vhs. But it’s the kids wb edit

17:36 wait what? i never heard that before

😮

16:04 it is ironic do you think it's just like rain

22:40 that is so touching especially that 22:42

I thought I was the only one who felt sick watching spiderverse.

23:26 This story is oddly funny to me

0:51 or you were born more than a few years ago, when that was in the news...

Looks like I'm early

Damn Japanese blamed a harmless anime instead of the 700+ cases of undiagnosed photosensitive epilepsy.

15:28 She IS Ash and Misty’s kid.

Excaliburfansubs did nothing wrong

Okay you're just getting started and you're already wrong about something just to let you know. This wasn't something that was unknown to the japanese. Intense flashing lights had always been a thing in Japanese media. The real crucial difference was that so many people were watching because of how popular Pokemon was