10 Biggest Pokémon Controversies

While the Tentacruel episode of the anime wasn’t considered, the Porygon episode (Denno Senshi or Cyber/Electric Soldier Porygon) definitely counts as it caused its own controversy rather than simply airing at an unfortunate time.

Porygon is a virtual Pokémon, which while seemingly similar to Digimon is actually quite different. Porygons are created by computers through a logic not really worth getting into, but this means that Porygon’s anime episode took place in a virtual world.

This led to some trippy visuals, psychedelic shapes and flashing lights, which were unfortunately too much for many Japanese children and led to multiple reported seizures.

Rather than risk this occurring again, Pokémon decided to pull the episode entirely rather than just change it. To date, it’s not been made available in syndication or in any collections, and Porygon hasn’t reappeared on TV, either.

The sequence occurred during the climax, so editing would’ve been difficult, but it’s still a shame that such an interesting character has been de facto banned.

The worst part is that the seizures were actually caused by Pikachu’s electric attack, not Porygon at all. Still, there’s zero chance The Pokémon Company were going to can their cuddly little mascot, so unfortunately the digital ‘mon got it.