In 1997, 685 children in Japan suffered seizures from watching a Pokémon episode

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Originally published at: In 1997, 685 children in Japan suffered seizures from watching a Pokémon episode | Boing Boing

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I remember buying this on eBay on VHS out of morbid curiosity. Thankfully, it had no discernable me.

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sure, you got your porygon, but, what about your polybius?

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I think this is actually the first time I ever heard of Pokemon. Didn’t affect its popularity, obviously.

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Came here for the Simpson’s parody.

Left happy!

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It was the first time Pokemon was mentioned in mainstream US media, as the property had not yet debuted in the US.

I still remember the middle-aged newscaster of my local news reporting the story, and assuring the viewers that there were presently no plans to bring the dangerous foreign cartoon to American shores.

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Compared to the rest of Pokemon and anime in general that scene doesn’t seem particularly disturbing, it obviously clicked something very specific in the brain.

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I guess this is the South Park counterpart:

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I get that, but given the amount of flashing lights, bold, regular patterns, and regular moving patterns in the cartoons in general, it’s interesting that this one in particular did it, or rather, that they didn’t have a seizure issue every week.

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