Now added english captions. Taken from a VHS Tape. From 17th December 1997 (The day after the incident) I wonder if Chadtronic is going to watch this video and even react to it? Probably not. Oh well. Thank you for watching.
Let me just remind all you new viewers that this was released a year before the show went international and was branded as Pokémon which is why they are addressing it as Pocket Monsters and also why they mispronounced Pikachu’s name
SlypherSpoons For all we know the newsman may have misunderstood the Japanese guy when given the concept of the franchise for him to run a news story by I mean I know its hard to imagine never having Pokémon in the states because we’re so use to it now but that’s how it was in late 1997 we hadn’t the slightest idea on what the franchise was about
My depression has been cured for 10 minutes due to this amazing news report. Thank you pakucho. I will remember to paint my toaster yellow when I use it tonight in your honour.
@@Anonymous-oh4xw They were singing the "POKEMON NO NAMAE~~!" ("the names of the Pokémon!") part from the song "Pokémon Ieru Ka Na?" ("Can you say the Pokémon?"), which is basically the Japanese "Poké-Rap".
The constant flashing effects that used to be frequent in Nintendo games (i.e. Link losing a life in "Adventure of Link") had to be toned down in future releases, too.
@@stressball1324 I work in this industry and well-meaning attempts to "upconvert" interlaced footage (which almost always results in half of the vertical and half of the temporal resolution being destroyed) is something I deal with constantly.
@@h8GWNot especially. This show will have been shot on film and the flashing effects were likely done that way too. So the effective max frame rate of those parts is 24fps (unless video effects have been mixed in later). The benefit of it being digitized and processed correctly is that all the video camera footage retains the original look of the news broadcast.
It feels genuinely strange that this above everything else is how the UK and a bunch of the rest of the world first knew about this franchise. Fantastic upload, though! Quality is especially excellent.
This was my first experience with the pop culture phenomena known as Pokemon. I saw a slightly edited version of this news report on Ten News here in Australia. Yet who would have thought that I would be playing good games like this in the not too distant future. Also, "Pakucho"?! How times and experiences have changed.
Pokémon is an abbreviation of Pocket Monsters, it's funny how people haven't been curious about the name of 'Pokémon'. or even try to conceive it as an error on the News for naming it like that when it's the original name.
the anime was released March 1999 & the game was released in the UK October 1999, so this was Pokemon's first appearance on British Television before hand, also to add that this was the only time footage from the banned episode was shown outside of Japan.
I was always disappointed they never toned the flashing down or put Porygon in another episode so we got to see it properly and it had a proper place in the series as if I remember right Porygon never showed up again
Since this is a known problem, I don't see why Disney did the rapid flashing white/black screens for The Incredibles 2. These seizures are far more common in children. I remember going to the theater and they had postings everywhere about how the movie should not be watched if prone to epilepsy, but many of these children were not epileptic, and it was a one time thing. I know they took certain precautions, but you can't control how people watch things over streaming services or on DVD/blu-ray. It would've been far far safer to change the way the hypnosis worked and not put that scene in the film at all
I'm not a Pokemon or anime fan at all, but have an interest for banned episodes so this news report is a great find! Now if only we could find a news report about the banned Wicked Witch episode from Sesame Street or the Lion and the Bear off of Teletubbies.
Guys my friend in school watched the episode at school recess and he was on session 3 he had to get up and go out of the classroom without a pass because he had no time and I thought he went to the toilet in green building and vomit 🤢 🤮
I had seizures as a kid and I wanted to see this scene for myself... obviously I outgrew my epilepsy and it didn't effect me at all... but I am sure if I were still a kid, it would affect me and back to the hospital I would go.
Funny thing is, this WAS before photosensitive epilepsies became commonplace on all videogames so I guess the British Epilepsy Association won in the end :)
Imagine just having an epilepsy episode and then the hospital staff decide to play the news showing the episode again, a 2nd epilepsy episode right there in the hospital
Wow, this goes to show that the United Kingdom pretty much solved the problem nearly 2 decades before Japan did. Even American parents had concerns about it since 1990 about what children were watching on tv, whether it was to get them to buy merchandise or seeing flashing lights on TV....The same country (The UK) whom also had a "Video Nasties" list of Banned Horror films in the 1980s....That's interesting..How did Japan not adopt the same things that the UK did back in the 1980s and 1990s?? Now that's something I would like to know how the UK found this solution decades before video games became a mainstay in pop culture.
Pokemon seems to have more to a ring to it than "Pocket Monsters". Just imagine if they released Tamagotchi with the title literally just being "Got an egg" lol On the other hand, I can sorta see why they didn't go with "Pocket Monsters" internationally, because Nintendo most likely would get sued because "Pocket Monsters" sounds a lot like the toy line "Monster in My Pocket". It actually turns out that the company who owns "Monster in My Pocket" attempted to sue Nintendo in 2000, due to the name sounding very similar to the franchise. Since both were entirely different, Nintendo was ruled in 2001 to be not infringing the "Monster in My Pocket" IP.
I guarantee you if we have social media back then that incident would've been all over the place It would have been all over RU-vid All over Twitter and Facebook
WoW! So the finally appearing live footages of this mysterious event added more pieces to the puzzle.. !Ty.. now if only somebody had a copy of that rumored report that allegedly had caused more seizures /:
Watched this episode. And honestly I feel kinda cheated that we never got it out west. Feel like this was why polygon was always so mysterious to me.... because we never get the episode that introduced it.
@@Chicken_Nugget1 Well, the colors are beautiful, but dad told me if I watched that many times, I might get a seizure! By the way, my dad told me a fact that it's not just that Porygon episode that gives people seizures, rock concerts do, too. Believe me. My dad is so smart.
I watched the specific scene just now on YT and it even made me feel nauseated until I looked away.. saw stripes and pokadots/woven shapes in the flash. Absolutely crazy that was even allowed initially
My father absolutely does not believe a word of this incident ever happening. I may believe it but I absolutely do not understand it. Just cartoon lights causing seizures to even those who don't have anything like epilepsy suffering seizures and vomiting, big whoop!
That I can understand. IT Chapter II had a warning for people who might have photosensitive epilepsy. But it didn’t mention seizures thank God, since I had been waiting months for the exciting conclusion. I did however wear two pairs of sunglasses during this scene of black and blue lights. The movie was great.
@@caeldrums The Japanese refer to all animation as "anime" since anime just means "animation" in Japanese. So The Simpsons for example in Japan is called anime. And Japanese anime fits the definition of cartoon, so to call them cartoons is correct. Also The Japanese don't play semantic games like you Westerners with tism do about the cartoon vs anime description.
I do not think Pokemon did anything wrong i mean sure the episode did cause allot of people to go to the hospital that is true but i do not entirely blame Pokemon for this. The reason being that back in those days it is likely allot of people in the world did not know about the possibility from seizures and epilepsy back then. They likely had no idea flashing lights would be a problem of any kind. Even when i was younger back then i knew nothing about seizures and epilepsy as i am not nor have i ever been prone to these things. Even though cell phones like iPhones were not around yet then i think even then people kids even had the old bad habit of staring at any screen all day if they could. Kids like me back then LOVED cartoons, TV, Computer games (yes PC games back then were called that), and even the video games of that current era. So anything overall i think with flashing lights as such WOULD have come up in one of these kinds of ways eventually and likely nobody would suspect it would do any harm really. Would i watch this likely forbidden episode if i could well... probably. I mean i am not prone to epilepsy and i am not superstitious either.
I was kid, I didn't see that news.. My dad told me he remembering that news but he don't even know about Pokemon in 1997...before come to USA in September 1998.
