This is really interesting, there was this banned episode. I think this is one of the thing that cause Pokemon to drop so low is the ratings and in popularity.

Here are the details:

Banned 4 - Episode 38 - Electric Soldier Porygon

Reason Banned: This is the most famous banned episode, since it caused over 700 kids seizures, vomiting, irritated eyes and other symptoms after viewing Pikachu shocking some vaccine missiles and making them explode. This caused Pokemon to be taken off the air for 4 months in Japan and almost cancelled. Nintendo was blamed for this and Pokemon has taken a lot of criticism due to this.

Aired: This episode was only aired once and has been forbidden to ever air again, even in Japan.

Here are some photos from the episode:





Heres the synopsis:

Ash and his friends are traveling when Pikachu complains that he wants to rest. They bring Pikachu to a Pokémon Center, where they find out that it's having problems because the Pokeball teleporter's out of order, causing them to get mixed-up along the way.

The kids later go to the mansion of Professor Norton Byte, the one who created the teleporter system, to investigate the cause of the problems, and they get caught by the professor who forces them to enter an oversized Pokeball transporter! While they're trapped, he explains that he found out that some "strange people" broke into his mansion, stole the prototype for a CG-Pokémon, Porygon, went into the computer network and blocked the information highway that carries Pokeball's to their destination.

Before they could protest, Norton sends a non-prototype version of Porygon to help them, and transports them into the network. Ash and the others appear through a worm-hole in the computer system, but unfortunately the hole was several feet from the "ground". Porygon enlarges itself and flies down to save the kids and Pikachu, and as they're flying over the network, they see what's causing the Pokeball mix-up; the strange people are the Team Rocket, who've set up roadblocks on the highway to block the flow of Pokeball's. James and Jessie send Weezing and Arbok to fight Porygon, but Porygon counters by mimicking Weezing's Smog attack; they then send the prototype Porygon to fight Ash's Porygon, and while the fight's going, the kids and Pikachu try to remove the barricades blocking the highway.

Meanwhile, back at the Pokémon Center, Nurse Joy hired a computer consultant to put an anti-virus in the system, which unfortunately can't tell the difference between computer code and human beings. Team Rocket gets hit by the anti-virus program, taking out their Porygon, and Ash and the others manage to save them before the anti-virus attacks them again. Everyone manages to escape in the nick of time thanks to Pikachu, but Norton's lab gets blown up in the process, destroying the human-sized transporter. Team Rocket suprisingly thanks the twerps and they walk off without anything else going on. Norton falls to his knees picking up the destroyed remains of his computers, he is done with the computer world. Our heroes go back to the Pokemon Center and find out everything is working just fine, so they continue on their journey.

yes yes, everyone knows about this episode. ive even seen it. (you can download it off of kazaa, although i dont think thats where i got it).

No. It was the semi-immaturity of the show that caused it to drop.

true. this happened waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before Pokemon even came out in America. so it had nothing to do with its popularity.

i think i saw that one on tv
cant be too sure it might have been internet

now that we know what happened on the Electric Soldier Porygon episode....what ever happened to The Legend of Dratini? (i tried Kazaa but it never worked)

oh, that was a cute one. there was this one part where TR had this tickle machine...and that warren guy kept pulling out a gun on Ash...what else...oh yeah! Jessie tried to seduce the warren by dressing up as a schoolgirl!! im serious!!
ever wonder where Ash got all those Taurus? you guessed it...this is the episode he caught them all. it was by accident though...he caught one, but then whenever he tried to catch different Pokemon a Taurus would get in the way and hed catch one of those instead :lol:
i must say...it was a great episode...one of my favs. the Porygon one was ok but this one was better.

i wish they would show that one! :( i wanna see how frustaighted Ash gets after catching all those Tauros!

i wish they would too actually...i always prefer the original version but i think they could probably just cut out the scenes that are inappropriate. although i didnt really see the big deal with the guns. for Ash he only threatened him, and he was shooting at TR...its not like anyone got hurt. and the seduction thing well...its not like she was in a suggestive pose or anything! she was just dressed up and trying to talk in a sexy voice. haha, it didnt even work.
and its an important episode to the series because im sure many fans of the American show were confused when Ash had all those Tauros..
the Porygon episode didnt have anything important so i dont think its a big deal that it was cut out (although it didnt have anything inappropriate, all they would have to do was edit the flashing scene)

i just wish they would edit those episodes and put them on the air... oh! and i also heard that they banned or cancelled a few others as well. the most recent on was Tentacool and Tentacruel because Nastina shoots a bazooka at Tentacrueland it hits him.... how stupid! at least i got it on tape... and there are many more too... they should just edit all of them and put them on the air...

theres an even more recent one. i havent seen it...its a pretty late episode. they banned it because Brock almost kisses a Jynx.

that's even more stupid! how is a kid supposed to enjoy a series when they ban most of the episodes that are important?

I think I saw that one... it's really just the government being Health-Nazis, again. They're going to ban that Blaine's Gym one before long just because Team Rocket used some rocket launcher, I should expect ¬_¬
Or, to put it another way:
For Pete's sake, we aren't bloody morons, we don't need you bloody well hiding us from reality every bloody second.
I love a good rant...

that one?! aw man! i want to give the government a piece of my mind!!!

Oh, no. I'm not saying they have any definite plans to, I'm saying I wouldn't be surprised if they did. It seems like the kind of crap they'd come up with.

i have that episode, i got it for Christmas one year, btw, it's a special Christmas episode for those of you that didn't see it. it's horrible that they got rid of that episode, i mean, it was just Jynx's Lovely Kiss attack! <_<

they also stopped showing the episode in Lavender Town, i think it was The Ghost of Terror Tower or something like that, they stopped showing it because they thought that it would remind people of September 11th. how stupid is that?

on CN i was watching Pokemon and one day Ash lost to Sabrina, and the next day, out of the blue he had a Haunter and was gonna have a rematch!

that really pissed me off.... i really wanted to see the Tower of Terror... it was on once when i was in 4th grade... but my baby-sitter (yes i had a baby-sitter...) turned it on, but being the Christian she is, she changed the channel... that pissed me off..

are you sure youre talking about the right one? the old Christmas special, Holiday Hi-Jynx, is not banned. thats where Jynx is Santas helper or something, and theres the Lapras than can speak telepathically...blah blah. the one that got banned is different, it came later in the series...the 4th season i think.

do you know what it is called?

I saw the tower of terror. It was awsome! I don't see how it would remind me of Sep 11...

Okay, I'm a Christain and I wouldn't change the channel on that...I don't see how being a Christain would have anything to do with that....

And about the Sept. 11 thing, the planes crashed into a tower, and in the episode there is a tower, and there are ghosts in the tower(possibly thought of spirits of people killed) and there are politics that are idiots(In real life). That's how. :(

I liked that episode, too, and also have no clue how it would remind anyone of 9-11. I also don't see what is so wrong with it that 2l4u's babysitter wouldn't let her watch it in fourth grade. It's just a TV show!, and she was in fourth grade for crying out loud!

i saw terror tower too...i have the book version of it....and none of this has anything todo with why pokemon lost popularity

Does anyone know anywhere else other than Kazaa you can get those two
Electric Soldier Porygon
The Legend of Dratini
on a site or something to download from ?
Being on terrestrial television I dont get all the beasty new ones like on Sky ...

I am stuck on terresrial aswell....its such a measly existance...sob...sob :(

Pokemon basically continued to remain popular for once until the arrival of other monsters like Digimon. Kids will be kids right? They are attracted to these kinds of things. Just hope Satoshi can create more new Pokemon... and new ideas to attract more kids.

Another factor was that religion....., something that caused wars in our past. Christians think that Pokemon were spawns of the devil. OMG(O my God)!. IN THAT CASE, ain't the animals that they resemble spawns of the devil too? :( . No offense but although I am a Christian, i respect what others believe as I believe that no matter what religion( Except cults) you worship, as long as that religion teaches you to be a good guy, it's ok. For me, I am Christian but I believe that no matter what religion you are you are worshipping one true god of differing language, values and appearance( Don't spam me Ok :( )

Anyway, I detest Digimon because they are too artificial, Digital...
Pokemon, Alien, man-made or natural, resemble animals around us so I feel more natural to them.

People, humans, mostly take nature for granted as Pokemon are evolved animals, the kids after a while start to feel bored. These kids grow up into the above people. But some of us are still into it ^_^ anyway. The RPG game(Red--->Ruby) is made on a 2-D base and when swamped by a market of 3-D games, they lose out. The show too has got to show an ending and then... made another character (not Ash)...Blah.etc. So it is up to us to keep these creatures alive in our hearts. :) :rock:

I agree with you. Another reason would be the fad itself. While it was at its peak, Pokemon draw a lot of fans. However at the same time it draws many hater as well (always happen whenever something is popular). As the fads died down, some fans left, but the stigma of Pokemon being for a younger audience remains. Let just look at it this way, mention Pokemon to non-fans and the first thing that come to mind is Pikachu. It doesn't help either, that Pokemon was associated with children. As a result, you have people shunning Pokemon because they feel that Pokemon is childish.

good arguments, ^_^ but i think that a lot of pokemon populartiy was jumping on the bandwagon, you know a few people liked, then to appear cool everyone followed them, never reall y appreciating it, not like us the true fans ^_^

That's also one of the reason. During the fad, many likes Pokemon because it's regarded as cool. Once it's over, Pokemon wasn't the longer the coolest thing to do, and these people shun Pokemon and moved on to other fads. Just more prove that fads could be a double-edge sword.

amen to that! :)

It will always be popular in my heart! ^_^ no matter what, i will continue living loving Pokemon! one day, it will be popular again! i believe that!

so do i! :D but, u know it wouldn't take much to start another pokemon fad....

hmmmmmm... i have some ideas that will make it more popular! more exciting games for GameBoy Advanced, a realistic Pokemon adventure game, just like for GBA, but for Game Cube or other systems. something like FF, but with pokemon! new pokemon, and.... uh...... oh.... i'm outta ideas...

What about Pokemon anime show in CGI? :lol: Just in imagine Pikachu rendered in 3-D in the style of Walking with Beasts.

Strange....first thing the comes to my mind is Charizard.... :huh:

Anyway, a lot of those people that aren't Pokemon fans should actually just take one good look at Groudon and then tell me that it's childish. I'd like to seem them try! :lol:

Charizard comes 2 me aswell...i think its because it was on the cover of the first pokemon game i bought...red ^_^

If ninetendo didnt make so much pokecrap then ity woudlnt of lost the popularity. The stupid thing was that I was one of many that bought cards, dolls, sweets, Toys ect. Perhaps if they didnt make so much rubbish then maybe it would be more popular in TV show and game weise even if nintendo are losing the way they make pokemon as they seem to be looking more like digimon or somthing from monster rancher.

hmmm, for some reason, Groudon sorta looks a lot like a Digimon to me...

Ye! someone agrees with me! but they are looking less and less like pokemon. the 151 were cool, some of the 251 were ok and like 5 of the 351 i think look pokefied

the only cool ones out of the 251 were the starters and the legendaries...