Pokémon Shock Edits -- Episode 001

Dogasu's Backpack | Episode Comparisons

After the December 16th, 1997 airing of Pocket Monsters Episode 038, "Cyber Soldier Porygon," OLM went back over the first 37 episodes of the TV series and re-edited them to reduce any strobe lights, flashing, quick background color changes, or any other special effects that even slightly resembled the types of images that sent all those children to the hospital during the "Pokémon Shock" incident. This was probably done both out of an abundance of caution as well as an attempt to show the public at large that OLM and every other party involved was taking the incident seriously.

Thankfully, the versions of Episodes 2 - 37 that the Japanese Hulu site has of the series are all the pre-Porygon edits, meaning it is now possible to do side-by-side comparisons of the changes made. Below is a gallery of those changes. The 1997 original broadcast version is on the left while the 1998 re-edit is on the right.

WARNING

The animated gifs below contain rapidly flashing images that may potentially trigger seizures for people with visual sensitivities.. While there was never any issues reported when the "unedited" episodes originally aired in Japan back in 1997, and the gifs presented here are all kept at a small 300 x 225 pixel size, viewer discretion is still advised.

If you are concerned about viewing such images then please navigate away from this page immediately.

- Dogasu's Backpack

Episode 001 "Pokémon I Choose You!"

Japanese fan P-Switch figured out that there are at least six different versions of Episode 001 in Japan, each with varying degrees of edits:

The original version as it aired on April 1st, 1997.
The post-Porygon edit from 1998
The Kids Station version
The ANA CD-ROM version
The 2012 digital remaster version that aired on Pokémon Smash!
The 2017 HD remaster version included on the Pocket Monsters The Movie "I Choose You!" Blu-ray

Going through each and every version of this episode is a whole giant project onto itself so I will have to save that for another day.

In the meantime, click on the link below to see a comparison of Episode 002 onwards.