There was this one episode that aired on December 16, 1997. It was broadcast in Japan. Barely thirty minutes later, 700 kids were on their way to the hospital.
The episode was called "Electric Soldier Porygon." In the episode, Ash goes inside one of his pokéballs. It's pretty innocent, the machine they used to fix the machine allowing them to enter the pokéball was broken. All they did was enjoy an adorable little cyberspace adventure to fix it.
What caused all the commotion was the animation techniques. About 20 minutes in, there comes a point where Pikachu uses lighting bolt to blow up some missiles. Because this was all virtual, normal explosions wouldn't look right, right? The animators instead used a rapidly flashing technique that flashed red and blue lights on the screen. It was to make the explosions virtual.
Then everything happened. Children across Japan were being affected by these strobing lights. Some passed out, or experienced blurred vision. Others felt dizzy, or nauseous. Some even experienced temporary blindness and seizures.
The exact number of children recorded was685 kids. They were all but in an ambulance and rushed to the hospital. Most kids made speedy recoveries, others were diagnosed with epilepsy that was triggered after the blinking lights.
They called it "Pokémon shock" in Japan. The show was taken off the air for nearly four months.
When it aired again, the show's opening credits had been altered so their wasn't a repeat of the incident that occurred.
The episode was never aired again even in its edited form. Porygon was also never shown in the series as well:
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I actually found the video but I ain't putting it on here. If you don't have epilepsy just search up "Pokémon Shock" and it'll be there.
