The forgotten Pokemon episode that sent 700 children to hospital
The banned episode of Pokemon has been named “Pokemon Shock”
The chronicles: 700 children to the hospital after watching the episode.
On December 16, 1997, TV Tokyo and other Japanese broadcasters aired episode 38 of the Pokémon anime series, causing disturbance to approximately 12,000 viewers and sending nearly 700 children to the hospital. What caused that accident and how did the company react?
The Pokémon enthusiast has in fact replaced an in-depth analysis on the author’s old blog, dating back to a . Here, Shudo in his blog,few months before his death, said: “I was going to get to work on Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back, when there was this unfortunate accident .. it notes a sequence present in the episode thirty-eight caused epileptic seizures, headaches, nausea and more to a substantial number of spectators. From a certain point of view it was this episode that allowed me to create the film. The team was busy managing the situation, and therefore I had virtually carte blanche. The film became a success for this too “.
The episode 38 of the first season of Pokemon caused seizures to the audience.
The causes of “Pokemon Shock”.
Episode 38, titled “Porygon Electric Soldier” and never aired in Italy, was aired in Japan (see more here – be careful -) in the late afternoon and watched by around 27 million families. A few minutes before the end of the episode, Pikachu uses the thunder-shock move on some missiles launched by the security system of a space base, causing a large explosion represented by the rapid alternation of red and blue lights. The scene caused some epileptic seizures, and the episode caused Nintendo’s stock market shares to collapse.
While Shudo acknowledged – with his post – the seriousness of the situation, he also stressed that it would not be possible to create a film in the dark under the supervision of the team. With a budget of just $ 5 million Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back has come to collect more than 170, an exorbitant figure given the standards of the time (see our ranking of anime films gross income)
