PokéFact: The Seizure Episode

Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope that all of you guys had a lovely Christmas. Once again, I am here in hopes to blow your mind with a fact you didn't know. Jeez guys, can't you just lie and make me feel better. :P Ahaha, kidding, but here is my attempt.

On December 16th, 1997 an episode titled Electric Soldier Porygon aired in Japan. It would have been episode 38 if it and another episode were not ban before hand, since It came before Pikachu's Goodbye, and after Ditto's Mysterious Mansion. Any of this sounding familiar? In the episode, there was a scene where Ash and his friends were inside a computer with a Porygon and some missiles exploded.  It was a fifteen second section in which Pikachu used an electric attack on some vaccine missiles. The explosion was shown as a bright flashing object which alternated rapidly between red and blue. Because of this nearly seven hundred Japanese children suffered seizures, vomiting, irritated eyes and other symptoms due to a flashing strobe effect. The Electric Soldier Porygon only aired that single time and was never commercially released or re-broadcast anywhere in the world due to it being banned by the Japanese government. Also, this episode gained Pokémon the dubious title of "Most Seizures Caused by an Animated Television Program" from The Guinness Book of World Records. Despite Pikachu being the one to cause the explosion causing the seizure attacks, Porygon had never had another important role in an episode since. And neither has Porygon-Z who is currently the only Generation IV Pokémon that hasn't appeared in the anime or movies.

So if you were wondering why you never saw Porygon or Porygon-Z, you can blame the episode that caused seizures.