Porygon Was Innocent

November 13, 2024 10:52 AM

90s kids remember when an episode of Pokémon sent hundreds of viewers to the hospital with seizures or convulsions. But there is far more to the story of Pokémon’s banned episode. Writer AJ of Anime Feminist takes a closer look at the investigation of the incident, and its lasting effects on photosensitivity research and accessibility standards.
posted by mbrubeck (16 comments total)

I nearly cried at the photo at the end of the article. Porygon is my partner’s favorite Pokémon, and I’m one of those “in remission” epileptics (though thankfully I only experienced absence seizures), so that feels extra meaningful. And I want that plushie so bad.

I had no idea anime was in general safer for epileptic people. I’m not surprised at America failing to take on the same regulations. It makes me wonder about the higher rates of epilepsy in neurodivergent individuals, and if that is related to the greater popularity of anime in that population too. I know I have watched some American cartoons and gone “no, that feels bad” in a really specific but hard to describe way and turned it off. But I also had the same problem with the original run of Evangelion (which came out in 1996)—I can only watch the remake.
posted by brook horse at 11:07 AM on November 13 [4 favorites]

Rebuild of Evangelion is a sequel, not a remake.

Decades ago I asked myself: Do I want to be the person who does the “well actually” about Evangelion? I gazed out at a sea of geocities guest books and said yes.

Older series should have a flashing lights warning attached so people can avoid them if they need to.

Additionally, Jujutsu Kaisen S2 is amazing despite the production difficulties, but most of the fans are 13 and it’s not too hard to get them agitated enough to sign a change.org petition. 2500 signature is nothing—I know one youth who signed the names of all the teachers at his school to the Chainsaw Man petition.
posted by betweenthebars at 12:00 PM on November 13 [2 favorites]

I remember that I was horrified when I watched The Incredibles 2 because I knew somebody was going to get really sick. Even then, I thought it was inexcusable without a warning and inadvisable with one.

Funny thing, the cursed TV show was the first I ever heard of Pokémon—in the Fortean Times, no less—and for years it was the first thing I thought of when I heard of them. (I’d stopped playing new Nintendo games then.)
posted by Countess Elena at 12:20 PM on November 13

I've often noticed those warnings and briefly wondered his that works, so I'm glad to have the answer now.

The article mentions filters and manual alterations to the material, but what about solutions on the viewer's side? I could imagine a dvd player having an option to apply such a filter, or some form of active glasses (like augmented reality, but probably lodges) that would render (hah!) the kinds of scenes safe… or is fixing it entirely at the source preferred because it's more inclusive?
posted by demi-octopus at 12:25 PM on November 13

About 15 years ago, I helped a friend set up an art piece in a store front window that utilized strobe lights. She said we should put up signs warning about the strobe lights. I went online and the only information I could find said that commercially available strobe lights did not operate in the frequency that induced seizures. It was pretty high. We were running them at around 24 Hz. Never a mention of color. I made a bunch of signs just in case and posted them. This article said that as low as 5 Hz could be a problem. And color. And environment. It’s a lot more complicated than just Hz. Just working with the setup, adjusting lights, etc really gave me the heebie jeebies. No seizures but I felt really uncomfortable. Thanks for posting this article. Though I doubt I will ever work with flashing lights again, at least I’m better informed about it now. Maybe we all just need to tone down all the flashing in general?
posted by njohnson23 at 12:36 PM on November 13 [3 favorites]

Rebuild of Evangelion is a sequel, not a remake.

Decades ago I asked myself: Do I want to be the person who does the “well actually” about Evangelion?
betweenthebars

::cough:: Well, actually, it's both. Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone and Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance are remakes, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo and Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time are sequels.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:57 PM on November 13 [6 favorites]

what about solutions on the viewer's side?

Apple devices—including Apple TV, Mac, iPhone, and iPad—have a "Dim flashing lights" option under the "Display" or "Motion" section of their accessibility settings. (This feature was added in 2023, so you need to be running a somewhat recent version of the OS to use it.)
posted by mbrubeck at 1:04 PM on November 13 [2 favorites]

Rebuild happens after the original series, and after some of the other stories as well, although if this includes the pachinko is up for debate, and it has been debated (not by me). [Spoiler] on the moon tells us it’s a sequel.

On preview - mbrubeck, thanks for mentioning that setting. I’ve been making some poor entertainment choices recently that would benefit from it.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:34 PM on November 13 [1 favorite]

We were running them at around 24 Hz. Never a mention of color. I made a bunch of signs just in case and posted them. This article said that as low as 5 Hz could be a problem …

The signs were a wise precaution. The article actually gives 25 Hz as the upper limit of the most dangerous range:

Researchers like Harding discovered that photosensitive seizures were usually triggered at a rate of 5 to 25 flashes per second, although some people can be triggered anywhere between three flashes per second and 60 per second.

posted by jamjam at 1:37 PM on November 13 [1 favorite]

This was an absolutely fascinating read, thanks for sharing!
posted by Dysk at 1:48 PM on November 13

jamjam,

All the info I could find back then said frequencies much higher than 25 Hz were a problem. I guess, despite all our breakthroughs in technologies doesn’t imply that we know what dangers might lurk in them.
posted by njohnson23 at 1:55 PM on November 13 [2 favorites]

> [I]nstead of lazily applying filters, [Ufotable] painstakingly went through frame by frame to alter the individual elements that had caused the problems to occur and change small elements that would make it safe for people to watch.

This feels like a misreading of Ufotable's blog post, and implies a lot of manual effort. From my understanding, normally a dimming filter is applied to all frames evenly-- instead, Ufotable calculated what % dimming was required for each frame and applied that percentage to each frame. If so, this sounds like it could be done for every show to make them safer across the board. (They also removed the filters for the BD/DVD releases, so they don't deserve as much praise as they get in this article!)
posted by Pitachu at 3:02 PM on November 13

I haven't read the article so it might be mentioned in there, but for a while at least it become common practice for kids' cartoons in Japan to display a message onscreen saying to sit far back from the TV and make sure there were lights on in the room, presumably specifically due to that particular incident
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:31 AM on November 14

It is mentioned in the article! My partner read it and went “oh, is THAT what those were for?!”
posted by brook horse at 7:42 AM on November 14 [1 favorite]

*Aston University, for the record. Useful reading, thank you.
posted by lokta at 11:05 AM on November 14 [1 favorite]

90s kids remember when an episode of Pokémon sent hundreds of viewers to the hospital with seizures or convulsions

Wait, I thought that was the Husk.
posted by notoriety public at 6:22 PM on November 14