article on seizure-enducing Pokemon and "violent anime"

[greg]

Does anyone remember when the epileptic seizure-inducing Pokemon episode made a big hysterical panic in the media in 1997, there was one web news article that made a huge logical leapfrog conclusion and went into an editorial diatribe about how violent and wicked anime was? I think it was either ABC News or USA Today. The article basically said that because shows like Pokemon are so terrible and violent, it caused epileptic seizures in children in Japan. I remember there was one site made in protest of the news article, demanding that the news agency apologize for its arrogant assumptions and unfair stereotyping about anime. The Anime Turnpike had a link to it back then.

Do you remember?

[usamimi]

I think I might've found that one? Several Pokemon websites site a USA Today Dec 31st, 1997 article -- I looked up USA Today's archive and found this: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/USAToday/ac ... ing+to+USA

The only thing that sucks is that you can't read the entire article for free--they want you to pay $3.95 to download the full archived piece, so I can't tell for certain if that's the one, but since several websites sighted an article with that date, I'm assuming it is? If anyone's willing to spend $4 for find out, lol.

[davemerrill]

Here's a USA TODAY article, from the Asahi Shimbun:



I personally don't recall any web news editorial claiming Japanese animation to be 'violent and wicked', myself.

We screened a video containing this scene during Opening Ceremonies at AWA 3 (or 4, I forget) and our Japanese guests were aghast. "Are they trying to kill us?" one remarked.

[usamimi]

Nice! I'm glad someone could find it!

I think what happened was that after this article (or similar ones) after the incident was that a lot of local newspapers went on their own tangents while covering the story and added their own opinions...some of which were less than glowing on their obviously biased descriptions of anime. I remember some of my friends saying that at the time of it happening, their parents would start questioning and limiting their anime consumption out of worry that it was true (that anime was wicked and was rotting our children's minds). It didn't last long, though, when people realized just how tame Pokemon was. XD

[greg]

It used to be that news and editorials were completely separate. But now we live in a totally different world with CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, where news reporters feel the need to editorialize simultaneously with presenting the news. The article I remember distinctly went off on how violent anime is, and how this has adverse effects on children. IIRC, it even went as far as claiming that the kids had seizures due to the violent nature of Pokemon. Sheesh, it's just some dumb yellow stripey critter flashing electricity. Big deal. I remember there being a website centered around this foot-in-mouth incident and an online petition against that news agency get them to rescind the article's misstatements. I can't remember where I found that...