Pokemon S01E38 Review: D-D-D-Digimon Digital Monsters [Banned Episode #3]

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 38: Electric Warrior Porygon

Yeah, this episode is the famous 'seizure episode' that caused hundreds of children to be hospitalized in Japan, and perhaps is one of the most controversial episodes in the history of animation, ever. The controversy surrounding this honestly pretty unremarkable episode is probably one of the biggest things back during the Pokemon hype in the 90's, and I mostly remember it from detractors who use the incident as total proof that Pokemon is totally the brainchild of Satan or something. It's just a huge, unfortunate incident unforseen by the animators, and it's very fortunate that no one was too seriously hurt by this. Of course, while the Porygon episode have basically been napalmed and unperson-ed by Japan, it's easy to find bootlegs of this episode online. Just, y'know, make sure you are in a well-lit room and don't look too closely during the seizure flash moments.

I watched this episode for the first time in my life yesterday and... and it's an alright episode? For all of the grief that some people throw in Nintendo's way for exorcising Porygon's episode, it's a genuinely pretty throwaway episode whose biggest claim to fame other than the real-life incident is perhaps the setting, which takes place in a bizarre Tron-esque digital world.

Basically, our heroes arrive in Matcha City, and when they arrive in a Pokemon Center, they discover that some shit's been going down and the Pokemon Transfer system is compromised, with rare Pokemon being sent and not arriving, or replaced with Magikarps. We get our heroes investigating this thing, coming into the laboratory-mansion of exaggeratedly hammy mad scientist, Professor Akihabara, who greets them with a bizarre 3D image, and later forcibly recruits our heroes and transports them with his Porygon into the d-d-d-digital world, where they have to do combat against the digital monsters wreaking havoc in the system. No, not you, Agumon, sit down.

Apparently Team Rocket stole Porygon-Zero, sort of a prototype version of Porygon (it's just Porygon with a Rocket flag on its tail) and has been putting up roadblocks in the "information highway", represented, of course, with a literal futuristic highway. It's clear that the episode's written or meant to be a parody of someone who's seen the internet jargon, and since it's the 90's, just sort of makes up things as they go. The "anti-virus program" is a literal attack drone controlled by the tech service. The "bug" is a literal hole in the digital world. The information highway is a literal highway. It's... it's frankly ridiculous.

Porygon shows off his ability with the Conversion ability, which I didn't see coming because it just changes its exterior to match Weezing's, with those little craters all over his body. Considering the games and comics tended to just show Conversion as Porygon just changing its type, it's genuinely fun to see the exterior changes that happen. Porygon Zero and Porygon fight each other, and I'm not sure why Zero is allied with Team Rocket? Did they really capture this one successfully? We get a fun bit where the Porygons just transform into giant shields, a sword-bill, a hammer bill and whatnot, which is not something I associate Porygon with, mostly just knowing him for being weird and able to digitize itself into data. It's neat.

I also do love the visual image of Ash and company moving the roadblocks, causing the pokeballs to turn into light and data, Star Wars lightspeed style. Speaking of Star Wars, Nurse Joy calls in a tech specialist, who installs an antivirus program, represented here by a drone that the tech dude controls. It's first a weird futuristic ambulance, then a giant syringe X-Wing, and finally a gigantic cannon. The anti-virus will kill every foreign body indiscriminately, which is more silliness caused by someone who thinks a computer virus is anything like a real-life microbe virus, but eh. Our heroes rescue Team Rocket from a 'bug hole', and as they zip towards the exit from the digital world, Pikachu use thunderbolt on the missiles, which... which unfortunately causes that particular seizure-inducing visual effect to happen. If nothing else, it did give me a headache due to how fast the light flashes.

Somehow, this digital explosion is transported to the real world, blowing the shit out of Akihabara's house and all of his human-transportation machines. And... and the episode is resolved, just like that, with them making sure the Pokemon Center's okay.

And... and ultimately, it's a pretty throwaway episode that would mostly be remembered for its weird-ass setting if not for the unfortunate real-world accident caused by that red-and-blue flashing lights. I did enjoy Porygon's wacky abilities in this episode, and the writers clearly understand jack shit about actual computer system (or are pretending to be dumb). It's pretty tongue in cheek... and it's a bit of a shame that this did end up being the most infamous of Pokemon episodes for a pretty unfortunate reason. 

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Psyduck, Pikachu, Chansey, Ninetales, Magikarp, Porygon, Meowth, Arbok, Weezing, Bulbasaur
• Humans: Misty, Brock, Ash, Nurse Joy, Jessie, James

Assorted Notes:

• "Fantasy in My Pocket", a far more livelier tune, replaced Meowth's Song as the ending theme in this episode. They really go through the ending themes pretty fast, huh? 
• The names of the two Porygons, "Unit 0" and "Unit 1", are apparently homages to Neon Genesis Evangelion. 
• Apparently, in the anime, Akihabara built the Pokemon Transport System instead of Bill, who... who's just a weird cosplayer in this universe, I guess. Akihabara borrows his name from a famous electronics district in Japan. 
• The Ban:
• Other sites can inform you in a better and more elaborate way to talk about the actual events of the unexpected and unfortunate accident caused by the strobing effect caused by the alternating red-and-blue light effect used in this episode, causing hundreds of children to be affected and hospitalized after this episode aired. The numbers vary from around slightly more than a hundred to more than 700 depending on news outlets, but it's clearly a fair amount of children that suffered from headaches and seizures. 
• Thanks to this episode, the Pokemon anime was quickly pulled off air and went into a hiatus for four months while an investigation went into place to figuring out what caused the seizures, with Pokemon videos being pulled from stores and rental places. When the series came back, some episodes were shuffled around, the episode was banned and as far as Nintendo is concerned, will never ever see the light of day ever again.
• Porygon and his future evolutions Porygon2 and Porygon-Z would also be exorcised from the anime, with their only appearances being limited to brief cameos in "the world of Pokemon" sequences of certain movies released a couple decades afterwards. It's interesting, though, that Nintendo still ended up approving Porygon2 and Porygon-Z's creation in future games considering what happened here. Their appearances in games, manga and the TCG are unaffected.
• Every single episode before this was re-edited for future broadcasts, dimming or slowing down certain scenes with flashing effects. It's the post-edited versions of the episodes that would be featured in future broadcasts and DVD's, and are the ones used to make the international dubs. Other older anime like Dragon Ball, Doraemon and a bunch of other anime were also subjected to this edit change. Some newer ones also tend to feature slightly-dimmed scenes whenever flashing effects are used -- ones that come to mind immediately are the season 3 openings for My Hero Academia, which features sudden dimming of scenes when lightning-style effects flash across the screen. 
• A vast majority of TV shows aimed at children would often add a message in front of their shows that goes along the lines of "make sure the room is well lit, and that you're watching a good distance from the TV". You can blame Porygon for this.