"" (, Hepburn: , "Computer Warrior Porygon") is the 38th episode of the Pokémon anime's first season. During its sole broadcast in Japan on December 16, 1997, multiple scenes with flashing lights induced photosensitive epileptic seizures in children across the country. Over 600 people, mostly children, were taken to hospitals; many others experienced milder symptoms that did not necessitate hospitalization. Furthermore, it is estimated that the total number of children who were affected in some way, even if they were not taken to the hospital, reached several thousand. 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 that is 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 that future incidents would be avoided.
Plot Ash, Misty and 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, a scientist 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 "" had its sole broadcast in Japan on Tuesday, December 16, 1997, at 6:30 p.m. 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 6:51:34 p.m., towards the end of the episode. It was broadcast on 37 TV stations that Tuesday night.
Although there were similar parts in the episode with red and blue flashes, two anime techniques, called and "flash", made the scene particularly intense. There were multiple sequences of bright strobe lights, alternating between red and blue, or red and white-blue. The episode's film was played at 24 frames per second, alternating colors every frame in these sequences, meaning that each color flickered at 12 Hz. These sequences ranged from 0.5 to 4 seconds in duration, with the problematic sequence running for 4 seconds.
After viewing the problematic sequence, some viewers experienced blurred vision, headaches, dizziness and nausea. Some suffered seizures, blindness, convulsions and unconsciousness. The Japanese press referred to this incident as . The Pokémon anime's General Director Kunihiko Yuyama said "We used red and blue flashing for all the explosions inside our cyber space, because we wanted to give the explosions an electrical feel, that set them apart from the explosions seen elsewhere in the show. And so that's why we used those colors so much in this episode."
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, although many recovered from their symptoms on their way. Of these patients, 208 were admitted to hospitals, including three who were admitted while unconscious. Two patients remained in hospital for over two weeks.
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.
According to a follow-up survey conducted in Saitama Prefecture, approximately 1 in 20 children had symptoms, such as headaches and dizziness. According to a report published by the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, 10.4% of viewers experienced some kind of symptoms. 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 had 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.
Prefecture Number of hospitalized cases Hokkaido 38 Aomori 1 Iwate 0 Miyagi 0 Akita 0 Yamagata 0 Fukushima 2 Ibaraki 26 Tochigi 18 Gunma 18 Saitama 70 Chiba 45 Tokyo 74 Kanagawa 76 Niigata 0 Nagano 7 Yamanashi 6 Toyama 0 Ishikawa 0 Fukui 0 Shizuoka 12 Aichi 60 Gifu 10 Mie 7 Osaka 76 Shiga 0 Kyoto 29 Hyogo 5 Nara 2 Wakayama 0 Tottori 0 Shimane 1 Hiroshima 0 Yamaguchi 11 Okayama 18 Kagawa 10 Tokushima 1 Ehime 1 Kochi 0 Fukuoka 45 Saga 10 Nagasaki 5 Kumamoto 0 Oita 1 Miyazaki 0 Kagoshima 0 Okinawa 0 Total 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 "", 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.
"" 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 despite Pikachu being the one to cause the seizure-inducing strobe effect in one of these scenes. In spite of being absent from the anime, The Pokémon Company continues to feature Porygon in all other aspects of its branding. Porygon remains obtainable in the video game series, is featured in manga adaptations, included in merchandising, and referenced in advertising thereof.
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.