Pokémon's Official Twitter Jokes About Infamous Seizure Episode

Forum 3 years ago

Pokémon's Official Twitter Jokes About Infamous Seizure Episode

The official Pokémon Twitter reminisces on the infamous seizure episode with a rallied defense for Porygon. The Pokémon anime series caught the world by storm when it premiered back on April 1, 1997. The series has been ongoing since then, and has followed the adventures of various trainers and their Pokémon, including Ash Ketchum and his beloved Pikachu.

Pokémon season 1 episode 38 - entitled "Cyber Soldier Porygon" - is remembered for inducing seizures in a number of unsuspecting viewers. The episode had one particular scene with Pikachu revving up for a Thunderbolt attack, which led to rapid flashes of multi-colored lights. These bright strobe lights led to seizures in over 680 viewers and was dubbed by the media as the "Pokémon Shock." As a result of the incident, the episode has not been broadcasted since, although it's received a fair amount of infamy and has been parodied in a myriad of popular culture today, including one episode of The Simpsons.

The official Pokémon Twitter made a reference to "Cyber Soldier Porygon" earlier today. The tweet simply read "Porygon did nothing wrong," in reference to the Pokémon at the center of the episode. Since it was tweeted out mere hours ago, the tweet has amassed over 60.3 thousand likes, as fans flood to the replies section to weigh in on the incident. You can catch the tweet below:

While Pokémon Twitter's stance might be that Porygon is innocent, showrunners certainly took a differing perspective. Although the Porygon Pokémon has remained relatively popular among fans of the franchise, the events of "Cyber Soldier Porygon" led the unfortunate Pokémon to be banned from all future episodes of the anime series. However, Porygon has continued to make an appearance in the wider Pokémon community; for example, Porygon won the popular vote for the September and October Community Day for Pokémon GO. As such, it was subsequently featured for a month over other Pokémon such as Charmander, Caterpie, and Grimer.

While broaching the subject of Porygon is a somewhat taboo topic for Pokémon showrunners, many fans hope that the Pokémon will once again be allowed a place on the show. Although "Cyber Soldier Porygon" is one particular episode of Pokémon that will always carry a fair amount of notoriety, it seems that showrunners did all they could to learn from the incident. As such, while Porygon was the Pokémon who was unlucky enough to be linked to the "Pokémon shock" event, perhaps it's time that it gets a second chance at redemption.