Why Watching Pokémon’s ‘Thunderbolt’ Scene Caused Sickening Reactions 😱

On December 16, 1997, Japan’s Pokémon anime aired episode 38: “Dennō Senshi Porygon”. About 20 minutes in, a scene showed Pikachu using Thunderbolt to defuse missiles—with a burst of red-and-blue flashing lights at around 12 flashes per second for about 6 seconds.

Roughly 685 children were rushed to hospitals with symptoms like blurred vision, headaches, nausea, dizziness, convulsions, and in some cases brief unconsciousness.

That night, over 600 treated immediately, and within two days, total reports rose to around 12,000, though many were later attributed to mass hysteria—rather than direct seizures.

Medical studies later separated the real from the reaction: only a small fraction had true photosensitive epilepsy. The rest experienced psychosomatic symptoms triggered by anxiety and the media frenzy—a textbook case of mass psychogenic illness.

Because of the incident, the episode was pulled permanently and the show went on a four-month hiatus while Japanese broadcasters introduced stricter limits on flashing frequencies, brightness, and duration.

Today, this episode remains banned worldwide, and Porygon hasn't appeared in the anime since. Pikachu—who triggered the scene—remained unchanged in his popularity, while Porygon received an unofficial "black mark".

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