Controversies with Pokémon

So, lately I've been finding a ton of controversies dealing with Pokemon, and I wanted to know what you guys think. There are many of these out there, but here are the most prominent ones in my eyes:

Satanism

Spoiler

Some fundamentalist Christian groups have accused Pokémon as being linked to Satanism. The following is a summarized and possibly incomplete list of their reasons for this accusation:
Pokémon are like demons. They are captured and must be called upon to perform tasks.
Magical talismans (supposedly a reference to Gym Badges) are needed to control them.
Pokémon evolve. Though this transformation is more akin to metamorphosis in most Pokémon, the theory of evolution is denied entirely by the most fundamentalist creationists, who believe that all things as they are presently were divinely inspired.
Some Pokémon evolution even requires the use of certain magical stones.
Many Pokémon have extraordinary paranormal powers, notably Psychic-types. Those with Psychic powers are labeled as having been given these powers by Satan in the Bible itself.
Many Pokémon embody or practice East Asian spiritual or mystical concepts, being that the franchise originated in Japan. Some Christian groups denounce these as pagan rituals.
Some claim that if one were to play backwards the Pokérap, "Gotta Catch 'em All!" can be heard as "I love you, Satan".
Some Pagan religions claim many Pokémon have similarities to many pagan spirits.

Racism

Jynx

Spoiler

Carole Boston Weatherford, a cultural critic, claimed that Jynx, which had recently appeared in Holiday Hi-Jynx, was a negative racial stereotype of African-Americans. She chiefly compared Jynx to the racist characters inThe Story of Little Black Sambo, and further compared Jynx to Mr. Popo of the Dragon Ball franchise, a character who is also potentially offensive in his design.
Weatherford's complaint caused many repercussions in Pokémon. The sprites of Jynx in the international release of Pokémon Gold, Silver, andCrystal were changed, and EP250 was cut from international airings of the anime. A Jynx that appeared in All Things Bright and Beautifly! was also cut from the dub.
Jynx's design was officially changed by Nintendo to being purple, rather than black, and this change was reflected in later games (beginning with Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire) and the anime (starting in Mean With Envy). Jynx has also been recolored in VIZ Media's reissues of Pokémon Adventures. Although the manga appears in black-and-white, Jynx appearing in the manga are recolored as a dark gray rather than straight black, implying that they are purple and not black. It is also recolored to purple on the back cover of the reissue of Volume 4.
In recent years, some fans of Pokémon have noted that Jynx may be inspired by ganguro, a Japanese fashion where women tan heavily, bleach their hair, and apply large amounts of makeup, instead of a black stereotype. This theory is mainly based on Jynx's long, straight, blonde hair, a common attribute of ganguro fashion.
Other people, however, think Jynx is based on a Nordic princess. This is because there are legends saying things like due to the blistering cold, a princess's skin turned black. They argue that Jynx's hair looks more like royalty than an African stereotype. They also say that being based on a viking could reason why they are Ice type.

Jynx in the international release of Pokemon Crystal Version

Jynx in the Japanese release

Lenora

Spoiler

Nacrene City Gym Leader Lenora also brought up concerns of racism. While no complaints were filed, actions were taken to alter her clothing. Lenora's original artwork, as well as her in game sprites, depict her wearing a large apron. Concerns arose that people outside of Japan would allude Lenora to the Mammy archetype. Similar to Lenora, the mammy is a dark skin-toned woman who wears a handkerchief on her head and an apron. Because of the similarity, Lenora's artwork was change from her wearing the apron to her having it slung over her shoulder like a cape. Despite this, Lenora's in-game sprites were not altered in the international release of Black and White nor was any attempt made to re-alter the sprites for Pokémon Black 2 and White 2.
In the original version of A Night in the Nacrene City Museum!, Lenora was depicted wearing her apron. In the English dub aired, her apron was removed completely.

Perceived Nazi imagery

Spoiler

In European releases of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, the sprite art for Registeel is altered slightly. While in Japanese and English releases Registeel's arm is extended, non-English European versions use an altered sprite presumably due to the original pose's resemblance to the Hitler salute. In all versions of Pokémon HeartGold, SoulSilver, and Platinum, the sprite is of this new design.


International DP Registeel

European DP/Worldwide PtHGSS Registeel

Animal cruelty

Spoiler

In the past, several animal rights groups have tried to ban Pokémon, claiming that Pokémon battles closely resemble cockfights. This aspect of the controversy was actually touched upon in Pokémon Black and White*.
Upon the release of Pokémon Black and White Versions 2, PETA released a mock game named "Pokémon Black and Blue". In it the player controls the Pokémon to attack the opposing human. PETA claims that the way the Pokémon are "stuffed" into the Poké Ball is similar to how circus elephants are chained inside railroad carts.

Take for example, some quotes by a character from my playthrough of Pokemon White Version:

"They may say it is for understanding one another better, but what Trainers really use battles for is to compete... And they hurt each others' Pokémon! Am I the only one who finds this terribly painful? Whatever... I'm going to talk to your Pokémon. I've been living with Pokémon since I was born, so it's easier for me to talk with them than with people. ...Because Pokémon never tell lies.""Hey, Boldore. Would you tell me what kind of Trainer White is?"
"...Still, this Boldore trusts you for some reason. That's good! If every person and Pokémon cared about one another like you two do, I could watch over the future of people and Pokémon without having to liberate Pokémon from people who just use them."

He clearly states that Pokemon are being mistreated and simply being used.

*The aspect was in the form of Team Plasma, the game's main antagonists who aim to liberate Pokemon because in their eyes, Pokemon Trainers are abusing them by making them battle.

The rest: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_controversy

Also, here is the famous seizure causing scene from one of the episodes.

DISCLAIMER:​

DO NOT WATCH THE FOLLOWING CLIP IF YOU HAVE A HISTORY OF EPILEPSY OR SEIZURES. I HAVE WATCHED THIS BEFORE AND I CAN TELL WHY IT CAUSED SEIZURES. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO SIT A FEW FEET AWAY FROM THE SCREEN AND WATCH IN A WELL-LIT AREA.​

DO NOT WATCH IN FULL SCREEN.​

Spoiler

So, what do you all think? I can see where concerns might pop up for some of these, but a few seem like just plain nitpicks because Pokemon seemed successful. I'd like to know all of you guys' opinions.

 

Okay so . . .

Thoughts about Satanism:

Absolutely ridiculous and I didn't get past the first outrageous statement. I'm not the religious type, and I don't have problems with normal religious people. The out of control one's like this Christian group for instance, I cannot stand. They take anything and everything and turn it into something completely ridiculous. It's just . . . ridiculous.

As for the Racist Claims:

I can see how some things from the show can be considered racist. In fact, they may actually be racist. There is no real way to tell, unless the original creators would step forward and admit it. I don't think they're that big of deal however, it's nothing too extreme.

As for the Nazi Imagery:

Okay, that does look like a reference to . . . well . . . you know. I don't have much to say here except it's a fault in the game designers for either putting this in there purposely or not catching it.

As for the Seizure Causing Clip:

I agree that this was one of the biggest mistakes Pokemon ever made. There were countless numbers of victims who died because of this single clip. I have watched it, and it is highly dangerous to anyone with a history of seizures/epilepsy. I don't know how the show recovered from such a big blow.

Final Statements:

I loved Pokemon as a child. I even liked the second series, and the third. I've even watched all the movies. Haven't really gotten interested in the latest series as it's too . . . made for children, that or i'm just getting old. If you ever ask me what my favorite series was, however, i'll tell you that the original series was the best. I cried when the three went there separate ways . . . like literally cried.

 

I disagree with everything. Simple as that.

Regarding the Porygon episode, they highly exaggerated it. My friend said that probably only around 15 kids were affected by it. Additionally, there was no need to ban it. All they had to do, in both the Japanese and American versions, was put up a warning at the beginning of the episode or before the episode even started.

Something like:

Regarding the gun one, where Ash catches all the Tauros, Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes have guns in them all the time; what's the difference here?

In regards to Jynx, it only became a stereotype when that stupid woman made Jynx racist.

Regarding Leonora, again, a bunch of baloney. They did the same thing with Mammy Two-Shoes in Tom & Jerry. For a while, episodes with her in it were banned, but were later unbanned with a new voice actor with or that gave her an Irish accent, which is just as bad. The subject of racism isn't only in African-Americans, it's with any race.

Finally, the last two are another load of baloney. At least it wasn't in the US, but so what if it resembled Adolf Hitler? As for the the animal cruelty one, I fail to see how it relates to cockfights, because here they can recover.

 

1) For the Satanism....just no. I don't know how they can even justify any of that. I mean, yeah, you use stones to evolve pokemon, so what? How many other games have stones that contain energy and such? Not too mention, relating gym badges to being used to control pokemon? That's only in the games, and all it's meant to symbolize is that you have a pokemon of a certain strength, not to actually control pokemon. I could continue more, but I'm not going to since I don't want to rant.

2) I guess I can get where they're coming from, and i can also say that a lot of what Japan puts out does seem to have a few issues like this. Well, maybe I should at least be speaking about the whole thing with Lenora and such, the Jynx, not so much. I mean, I've seen a ton of Japanese anime that have had to change the character design because something about it offended people, but they change it nonetheless, so it's not like people aren't completely disregarding it.

3) Yeah....umm...All I can say is pay more attention to stance design

4) Seizure inducing scene...I can't forget about the first time I read about this and the other banned pokemon episodes. I was amazed by the fact that these people played an episode that caused so many kids to have seizures all at once. You'd think they'd pay more attention to this kind of thing. The only thing to be said is pay more attention when you make episodes; you should know better.

5) Nope, this is just dumb. Stupid. Asinine. Animal Cruelty? I'm sorry, I just don't see how this is right. If it was so bad, I'm sure more people would freak out about it, other than those in the animal rights areas. Even if they fight, at the end of the day both are fine, and it's not like they're fricken bleeding or anything

 

It just depends on people's point of view--that's all. I don't think that the creators of Pokemon would do such things as to look down on certain people.

 

Replies are in red within the quotes.

 

Just to add a bit more to my last reply in regards to the Porygon episode.

I know I don't have health issues, but I've even watched it full screen -- a high quality one at that that I have downloaded -- in the dark before while laying on my bed. I watched it at full screen when I first saw this, and I was close to the monitor, and I felt nothing.

 

There are some people who aren't effected by flashing lights. Some people, like Hero said, get headaches from them. And Amaury, there are a lot of people who go into seizures because of them. You might not be one of the people who are affected by them, but they are highly dangerous.

 

Indeed they are.
I've always been overly sensitive to things like these, so I'm honestly afraid that if I had been younger, I may have had a seizure.

And sorry I didn't reply to you Amaury, you pretty much stated what I thought, albeit not specifically with anything.

 

I never said they weren't, I was just quoting what my friend said when he said that they highly exaggerated the affected number of kids.

 

Even if they were exaggerations, it's still a pretty harsh blow. Killing 15 kids simply by airing an episode of Pokemon is pretty bad. As I stated before it surprised me that Pokemon wasn't canceled for that single incident. Not that I think they did it on purpose or anything, it's just one of those things that they missed. And the result of that was the death of several kids watching the show.

 

The reason it was banned -- in terms of my beliefs -- is because the media did exaggerate it.

While I also don't think it was intentional, they probably could have put a warning, but they probably thought nothing of it since it was only six seconds.

 

It wasn't banned because of exaggeration. it was banned because people were hospitalized and some died. That's enough to ban it in my eyes.

A few of them died. Not all, but quite a few.

 

The episode yes, of course it was going to be banned. It killed people. Don't you think it would have made the families of the victims just a tad bit upset if the episode continued airing? That's like kicking them while they're down.

I can see it not being as dangerous if the frames didn't change so fast for those six seconds. But there were a lot of frame changes in that short amount of time. It wasn't so much the flash of light, but the rapid changing of the lights. If they would have slowed it down, maybe a couple of changes say, red to blue and then blue to red then stop there it might have been alright. As long as they didn't make the changes happen so quickly.

 

I just ripped the frames on GIMP. In the GIF I got, there were 60 color changes in a second.

Call me crazy, but way too fast. Also, I am VERY nauseous after seeing this again. It is a hazardous scene in general.

 

60 color changes in a single second. I think that maybe they should have noticed this beforehand, but some things do slip by. You should probably stop watching it Hero, if it's making you feel like that it's not very good. That's how a lot of those kids ended up in the hospital, so be careful. This scene is/was an obvious danger and should have never aired, plain and simple.

 

They had several other options besides banning it, but, no, they just ban it. They also had choices with the The Ice Cave episode that they banned and the Jynx scene they removed in All Things Bright and Beautifly.

Electric Solider Porygon:

• Have a warning label as the show is starting or before the show even starts indicating that it caused seizures and viewer discretion is advised.
• Modify the scene and make the color of the flashing lights darker -- dark enough so that you could still see the colors, but also dark enough to not be a threat.
• Remove that one scene entirely.

The Ice Cave & All Things Bright and Beautifly:

• Instead of waiting until Mean with Envy to do it, re-color Jynx's body purple like they finally did in Mean with Envy. However, the black should never have been an issue to begin with in my book.

 

Yeah, I've stopped for now, I really just wanted to prove a point. But like I said before, the color change is just too much to handle.

 

Nice reasoning you got there.