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Answerman - Shame And Atonement

Jynx has appeared multiple times since the "blackface" outcry, but in it's modern purple colouration. Older episodes that featured the black incarnation have also been edited to change the colour to purple. Kadabra was never banned from the anime, it just hasn't appeared for a while. One had a role in a late AG episode, around the time PUSA took over from 4Kids. Middle stages in general tend to miss out; there's a preference to show the cute first form, and the tough final form. IIRC, it's the TCG that Kadabra has essentially been exiled from.

mdo7 wrote:

OK so either the seizure thing only effect Japanese kids. Has there been any report of "Pokemon Shock" seizure outside of Japan like in another Asian countries (ie: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) that's been caused by that episode prior to the ban? If there's no incident of it, then there must be a genetic predisposition to seizure and bright light color on TV.

If so, why do American video games like Ratchet & Clank contain a similar disclaimer that appears at the start of each game in the series? Maybe a better explanation is that the episode in question was either not released or released in an edited form after its original run on Japanese television.

Also from Justin's description it sounds like Japanese parents and schools wildly overreacted to what might have been just a few incidents of actual seizures caused by viewing that particular episode.

The episode did send 685 kids to the hospital...

If the episode was shown in other part of Asia at the same it was shown in Japan and no incidents of seizure was reported in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc... prior to the episode ban, then it would validate my evidence.

Though I'm still surprised there isn't a Harry Potter anime by now.

Pokemon in general tends to bend it's knee towards international pressure, which is incredibly rare to see for a Japanese franchise and why modern games take place in random international countries like America and France.

The show was only marginally more violent than an American cartoon, nowhere near the level of other kids anime, and outside of a few suggestive keyframes that had more detail than usual there was zero fanservice. It was noticibly more sterile than kids anime usually is so I think Marvel or Disney had something to do with that, maybe with the idea that they may want to air it internationally with as few edits as possible.

mdo7 wrote:

If the episode was shown in other part of Asia at the same it was shown in Japan and no incidents of seizure was reported in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc... prior to the episode ban, then it would validate my evidence.

It didn't. This episode was aired only on TV Tokyo, in Japan, on December 16, 1997 at 6:30 p.m., and that's it; the show only reached other countries about a year later, starting from the US.

My guess is that whatever version of the episode is floating around somewhere must be an edited version or merely a fake. I mean, there's no way the studio would have left the film as-is when handing it over to foreigners. I wouldn't risk an international fiasco, at least.

As for this "atoning for your drug sins" thing:

Sakai Noriko and "Japanese" Morality"

Quote:

The episode did send 685 kids to the hospital...

I don't think it's fair to call that an overreaction. Almost 700 kids is a lot, and depending of the type of epilepsy, effects could linger for quite a while. 2 of them HAD to stay in the hospital for 2 whole weeks. Maybe it was just 1% (or less) of the children watching Pokemon at the time, but that's still a high number, and surely you can't say that taking meassures so that never had to happen again was wrong.

Which isn't to say that TV Tokyo and the show producers overreacted. The episode did send 685 kids to the hospital, although only a small number ended up diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy.

I don't think it's fair to call that an overreaction. Almost 700 kids is a lot, and depending of the type of epilepsy, effects could linger for quite a while. 2 of them HAD to stay in the hospital for 2 whole weeks.

It's likely the strobe-lighting effects aren't as much of a concern these days due to the switchover to digital TV broadcasting. Analog TV screens were harder on the eyes.

Do you have epilepsy? Not just anyone can get triggered by watching something, it's only people with epilepsy. Also an internet stream of the episode isn't at a very high resolution or bitrate compared to watching it on TV to begin with.

If so, why do American video games like Ratchet & Clank contain a similar disclaimer that appears at the start of each game in the series? Maybe a better explanation is that the episode in question was either not released or released in an edited form after its original run on Japanese television.

4Kids was also forced to edit all previous episodes' lighting effects. It's obvious. They dimmed the lights in places and slowed down flashing. This is back when 4Kids' editing was really crappy and easy to spot. Without even watching the Japanese version, you can tell exactly what they edited. They did much less of it too. .

Rizelmine used the warning messages; I think it aired in 2002. It was an extremely silly show and actually used the warning as an opportunity for humor, showing the female characters in scanty clothing and having them say things like, "You're too close!"

This kneejerk reaction even applies ex post facto: when guitarist Suzuki Shigeru of ’60s hippie band Happy End was arrested for marijuana in February of this year, all the classic Happy End records — perhaps the most canonic recordings of Japanese pop music history — became unavailable through major commercial channels.

enurtsol wrote:

This kneejerk reaction even applies ex post facto: when guitarist Suzuki Shigeru of ’60s hippie band Happy End was arrested for marijuana in February of this year, all the classic Happy End records — perhaps the most canonic recordings of Japanese pop music history — became unavailable through major commercial channels.

So even a member of the sort of band one might expect to be associated with smoking marijuana gets blowback from the record labels? Sheesh.

OK so either the seizure thing only effect Japanese kids. Has there been any report of "Pokemon Shock" seizure outside of Japan like in another Asian countries (ie: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) that's been caused by that episode prior to the ban? If there's no incident of it, then there must be a genetic predisposition to seizure and bright light color on TV.

enurtsol wrote:

This kneejerk reaction even applies ex post facto: when guitarist Suzuki Shigeru of ’60s hippie band Happy End was arrested for marijuana in February of this year, all the classic Happy End records — perhaps the most canonic recordings of Japanese pop music history — became unavailable through major commercial channels.

So even a member of the sort of band one might expect to be associated with smoking marijuana gets blowback from the record labels? Sheesh.

It's stupid, I say let the fans decide if they want to support the artist again instead of the record label or the industrial standard.

The episode has not been exported anywhere, even to other Asian countries whose dubs are based off the original Japanese version instead of the English 4Kids/TPCi version (which all European and Latin American dubs are).

I wish there'd be more adaptations of the Western classics. Maybe an animated version of "Crime and Punishment" or "La Reine Margot". Or another adaptation of "The Count of Monte Cristo" (as good as Gankutsuou was, I'd prefer it to stay a little more the source material).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Pokémon Porygon or its evolutions have never appeared in the Pokémon anime after that episode. It seems they're still trying to avoid further controversy.

I would have to disagree. At the current rate, they will run out of new light novels to adapt in the near future. It is already noticeably they are animating some less than great/older material. Nowadays is not about if they are going to adapt the new best seller manga, but when.

So sooner or later they are going to need new material to adapt. Of course it would be too much of a hassle to adapt anything owned by disney/warner (unless they ask for it, like in Marvel Disk Wars). But there is plenty of good material from smaller publishers. We already saw some of it when they adapted Witchblade into an anime.

So mark my words, it is not about when we will see anime based on non japanese manga/light novels, it is about when and who will make the successful first big step (companies are risk averse, but no one argues with success).

Porygon was also banned from the series and pretty much everywhere outside the games. Even though Porygon had nothing to do with the specific incident in the show.

IIRC, it's the TCG that Kadabra has essentially been exiled from.

J. K. Rowling is one of the most controlling authors in the world. Every single aspect of the Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios Orlando had to be cleared by her, right down to what beverages could be sold there. If I ran an anime studio, I'd want nothing to do with Rowling and Potter.

It's not just anime. Here in the UK every news story piece that has flash photography in its vision is given a warning to the audience by the news presenter before it is shown, but to date whether anyone has been affected by looking at flash photography images on video is not known. However I know of a work coleague who could not look at the production stack monitors if a feed was breaking up and flashing during alignment of sat signal carrier. She would have leave the gallery until it was stable, poor woman. we would always have to warn her in advance before assigning an Outside Source (OS).

For beverages, I can see why: She seems to be rather outspoken about the Harry Potter brand image, and she really, really does not want it associated with drunkenness of any sort. She will block any attempt to make Harry Potter merchandise that would likely wind up at bars, pubs, and taverns, for instance.