Pokemon Episode Caused Seizures? 

On December 16, 1997, a brand new episode of the Pokemon animated series was broadcast in Japan. This was called Computer Warrior Porigon. 

On the night it was shown, the Tokyo fire department found that at least 618 children had suffered convulsions, vomiting, irritated eyes, and other symptoms after watching.

Japanese television network NHK reported that 111 people were still hospitalized the morning after. 

  The show, based on characters from Nintendo's popular "Pocket Monsters" video game, was Japan's most highly-rated program during that time. The episode, "Computer Warrior Porigon," featured characters fighting each other inside a computer.  

TV Tokyo refused to reveal which part in particular caused the seizures, but most of the children developed symptoms about 20 minutes into the program. 

News reports blamed a scene in this episode that featured and exploding 'vaccine bomb' set off to destroy a computer virus. This is followed by five seconds of flashing red light in the eyes of Pikachu. 

Some children were struck later when watching excerpts of the scenes on the news reports.

A juvenile epilepsy expert said that "television epilepsy" can be triggered by flashing, colorful lights. This is seen in the part of the episode that caused the seizures. 

I can say..."television epilepsy" is real. I was told by my doctors when I was little to be careful of scenes like this in television shows and not to see flashing lights otherwise (strobe lights at parties, too). Any kind of flashing could trigger the epilepsy. Although mine was considered idiopathic epilepsy, flashing lights could still trigger it. 

I now understand why my parents would never let me watch Pokemon growing up. Too much flashing!! I don't get how a children's show was allowed to have that much flashing and bright lights in it. @.@ 

Did you guys ever watch Pokemon? Your thoughts?

OH, and do NOT watch that episode! They have videos of it online but I don't recommend seeing it!! 

Link to article in the comments.