Pokémon

Gogoat: A great Pokémon, or the greatest Pokémon?

Actually, it's about ethics in
Video games

Cutscenes

* MMORPG
* Jack Thompson
* Foc.us
* Polybius
* Wolfenstein
* Vivian
* Destiny (person)
* Ruben Sim
* EMPRESS
* Ethical Consumer
* Microsoft
* PETA

v \- t \- e

Pokémon (often simplified to Pokemon when typing the accent is inconvenient; frequently mispronounced as "Po-KEE-mon", "Po-KUH-mon", or worse, "Po-kee-MAN") is one of the most successful and popular Japanese media franchises in the world, featuring cute (or sometimes ugly) creatures beating the crap out of each other to the point of being knocked unconscious. It started in 1996 with the first set of video games, developed by Game Freak and published (and later translated) by Nintendo for the latter's Game Boy portable gaming console (though the games didn't get an English-language release until 1998); it has grown to include many games, manga, movies, and an anime series which has been running for 15 years and counting. One equally long-lived manga series, Pokémon Adventures, includes multiple volumes based on every non-spinoff video game in the series. (There are other manga series, but they tend to feature plots focused on specific video games, such as Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure!'s case, rather than on all of them as with Adventures.)

One anime episode resulted in several hundred children having seizures, and another showed a man inflating fake breasts in order to win a swimsuit competition.

Sadly, it took until Pokémon #638 until the designers finally recognized the error of their previous ways and based one of the glorious creatures on a goat — Cobalion.[note 1][note 2] And again in Generation VI, they gave us a true, Grass-type, non-legendary goat simply called Gogoat.

## Contents

* 1 "Controversies"
* 1.1 "Pokémon Shock"
* 1.2 Pokémon is satanic
* 1.3 Haram-mon
* 1.4 PoKKKémon
* 1.5 PETA
* 1.6 Team Rocket joins the Khmer Rouge
* 1.7 Pokémon Black and White(Washing)
* 1.8 Microtransactions
* 2 Pokémon Go's training of artificial intelligence
* 3 Pokémon Go as an espionage tool
* 3.1 Miscellaneous
* 4 Other weirdness
* 5 External links
* 6 Notes
* 7 References

## "Controversies"[edit]

Being an international phenomenon, a lot of these are colored by the cultural lenses from the parties plus ignorance of Japanese culture. It's a good study on how cultural differences aren't apparent until these sorts of things crop up.

### "Pokémon Shock"[edit]

The "Pokemon Shock" incident was an episode of mass hysteria with a very small grain of legitimate truth to it. "Dennō Senshi Porygon", the episode in question, featured explosions in which the entire screen alternated very quickly between red and blue. On December 16, 1997, when it was aired on Japanese television, 685 people were sent to the hospital.[1] This was dubbed "Pokémon Shock" and caused hysteria, resulting in some guidelines being put in place for the use of flickering images in animated cartoons. The episode itself has been altered to use less harsh flashing lights. One lesser-known casualty is that Porygon and its evolutionary family members, despite not being responsible for the violent flashes, have not since appeared in any newer episodes of the series (aside from extremely minor cameos). In a later follow-up, researchers determined only a small fraction were diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy.[2] Other than this small cohort, most of the victims of the incident were the victims of a "reverse placebo effect," brought on by watching news coverage of the original incident.[3]

### Pokémon is satanic[edit]

Meanwhile, the franchise introduced an actual rough equivalent to Satan/Lucifer years later. Except it's an antimatter dragon so YMMV on whether that makes it cooler.

Some Christian fundamentalists have stirred up a Satanic panic claiming the series promotes witchcraft, the occult, and blasphemy.[4][5][6][7][8][9] In particular, they've latched onto the fact that the franchise features Pokémon "evolution," concluding that the series promotes the theory of evolution[7] despite the fact that the concept of "evolution" in Pokémon is completely different from the actual theory[10] and more closely resembles stages in the normal growth of an organism -- most notably insect metamorphosis (the creator of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri, had a fondness for insects when he was a kid and collected them as a hobby; the aspect of catching wild Pokémon in the games was intended to allow people in more urbanized areas to have what was essentially a virtual version of his hobby). Despite such moral panics, the Vatican has so far found Pokémon to be highly acceptable,[11] although the existence of Lord Helix may temper that in the future.[12]

Actually there's a very similar game series with Satanism and occultism in it, it's called Shin Megami Tensei, but no one bats an eye for these. Probably because it wasn't exported from Japan for a long time and the first game released in North America was a spin-off action game for Nintendo's failed Virtual Boy system called Jack Bros. Additionally, the series is marketed for a much more mature audience, with many games not recommended for those under 16. Also, the newer games are much lighter and softer (e.g. the Persona series) than the older ones, with a few notorious exceptions having been released lately for the handheld Nintendo 3DS (Namely the Devil Survivor series, Soul Hackers, Shin Megami Tensei IV, and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, the last of which actually pissed off some people... but those were Hindus[13]).

### Haram-mon[edit]

It happens that in 2001, Saudi Arabia briefly banned the Pokémon franchise completely, claiming that the series ~~defames the name of Muhammad~~ promotes Zionism.[14][note 3] Some fundamentalist Muslims also claimed "Pokémon" means "I am Jewish," showing complete ignorance of the fact that the series originated from Japan (and that "Pokémon" is a contraction of "Pocket Monsters" -- Poketto Monsutā -- when written in Japanese). Why the Saudi government still allows games such as Yu-Gi-Oh, a card game which has actual Jewish references,[15] remains a mystery for the ages.

### PoKKKémon[edit]

Pokemon "Jynx" prior to the change.

The Pokémon Jynx's design and appearance has been heavily criticized by cultural critic Carole Boston Weatherford, who described Jynx as representing blackface after seeing the character's depiction in the anime.[16] Due to complaints, Gamefreak modified her appearance and now depict Jynx with purple skin instead of black, though criticisms from 1UP.com and similar sources have persisted. Jynx was likely inspired by ganguro, a Japanese fashion where women tan heavily, bleach their hair, and apply large amounts of makeup, instead of a black stereotype.[17]

### PETA[edit]

For some reason, PETA ~~has~~ had no issue over a game where wild creatures are captured and forced to battle.[note 4] They then released a "parody" game on the day of release of Black 2 and White 2, proving again that they don't do any research.[note 5][18] When Pokémon X and Pokémon Y were released, PETA released another ~~abomination~~ parody game named Pokémon Red, White and Blue that tries to connect Nintendo to ~~McCruel~~ McDonald's and mocks dual-version release and the idea of a third version for Arceus knows why.

### Team Rocket joins the Khmer Rouge[edit]

The Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Cambodia banned Pokémon Go due to players trying to catch Pokémon in former Khmer Rouge torture centers. Similar occurrences have happened in Nazi concentration camps and Hiroshima bombing memorials.[19]

### Pokémon Black and White(Washing)[edit]

June 2019 saw a rather heated controversy arise over one Japanese artist's depiction of the new Pokémon character Nessa with slightly lighter skin than she actually is depicted as. A few overreactions in response on Twitter caused artists to take matters into their own hands by depicting Nessa either as straight-up white or pitch-black, culminating with one artist's drawing of her as a monkey.[20]

### Microtransactions[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Loot box

Like many other video games, Pokémon has jumped straight into this controversy. Pokémon Go's eggs have been criticized for basically being loot boxes.[21] Pokémon Unite, which was developed by Tencent (a huge controversy in and of itself due to the company's connections to the Chinese government) has been criticized for its pay-to-win mechanics[22] and also contains gacha mechanics (basically lootboxes) as do a number of other Pokémon mobile games.[23][24] The problems with including these gambling mechanics in games aimed at children and that are also very popular among neurodivergent people who are particularly susceptible to lootboxes[25] have not gone unnoticed.

## Pokémon Go's training of artificial intelligence[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Artificial intelligence

Niantic announced in 2024 that it was building an AI-based geospatial model based from the real-world data that it had gathered from players since 2016. Given that AI did not start getting much public attention until 2023, it is doubtful that any but a very few players even considered this as a possibility. Niantic later announced in 2024 that players had to be in a public place and opt-in to "scanning" to have the data be added to the model.[26][27] In a talk titled "Coordinates of tomorrow: Why spatial computing needs a new map", Niantic's Senior Viced President of Engineering said that he "could definitely see" this AI model being sold to militaries for use in war.[28]

## Pokémon Go as an espionage tool[edit]

All commercial social media companies spy on their users: that's how they make money by compiling user data for advertisers, what is known as surveillance capitalism. In 2024, several people alleged that Pokémon Go was being used for government spying as well: a Belarus official, Alexander Ivanov, Aleksandr Dugin of Russia, and senior officials in Egypt.[29] In 2025, it was announced that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund would be purchasing the gaming division of Niantic that includes Pokémon Go,[30] leading to speculation that the game would be added to the Saudi espionage toolkit.[31] The purchase announcement was despite there having been a Saudi fatwa, claiming that Pokémon promotes Zionism and encourages gambling.[32]

### Miscellaneous[edit]

Other lesser known "controversies" include right to publicity infringement,[33] Nazism,[33][note 6] materialism,[34] and gambling.[35][14][note 7]

## Other weirdness[edit]

In 2011, long after most people other than PETA had stopped complaining about the series, Republican Presidential hopeful Herman Cain killed his chances of being president (again) by quoting the theme song from the second Pokémon movie in a speech, referring to the writer for said line as "a poet".[36][note 8] Some analysts have noted that the decision might not have been as bold as many people thought; by then he had already lost most of his support, it was in fact his concession speech, and much like poor Kadabra he had already been accused of wearing the Number of the Beast.[37] Besides, Ronald Reagan lifted the phrases "evil empire" and "freedom fighters" straight out of the opening crawl of Star Wars...

## External links[edit]

* Bulbapedia: A wiki dream come true for all you Pokémon fan ~~atic~~ s!
* Pokémon Database: If you want your information to be in a much more readable format than Bulbapedia.
* Serebii: Another source of information, though primarily edited by only one guy. Famous for Bulbapedia's (mostly one-sided) feud with it.
* Smogon University: A site focused primarily on competitive play, though they also have communities for spritework and roleplaying. Is affliated with Pokémon Showdown, an open-source battle simulator that is free to use.
* Official website
* A very hilarious spoof in Uncyclopedia of the Satanic panic claims
* Pokémon promotes the NWO!
* A 6 things list from Cracked
* The franchise page on TV Tropes.

## Notes[edit]

1. ↑ Yet there have been a plethora of sheep Pokémon over the years: Mareep, Flaaffy, and Whimsicott.
2. ↑ Arceus, however, was goat-like. And also God. But stuck in a fence. There was also Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam who were also goat-like. And also Satan.
3. ↑ It is speculated that this is because the symbol for colorless energy in the spinoff trading card game resembles the Star of David
4. ↑ In reality, only a couple of Pokémon have issues with battling.
5. ↑ Their parody suggests that characters don't care about the well-being of their Pokémon, but in fact the player characters all do, and only villains are shown not caring for their Pokémon (with animated series protagonist Ash Ketchum suffering the most grievous character derailment of all the human characters, all for the sake of a shallow parody). This was in fact a plot point in the original Black and White games, proving that the PETA parody is obviously uninformed.
6. ↑ See here, keep in note that the swastika (or manji as the Japanese call it) can have a completely different meaning and it's not always associated with Nazism.
7. ↑ Note that although the "gambling" (which actually involved game tokens and not the in-game character's money) was removed in the non-Japanese versions of HeartGold and SoulSilver, it was for the purpose of making it easier to release the games in Europe. For some reason, the video game-rating system there is extremely strict when it comes to gambling references: after all, New Super Mario Bros. DS, in a later release for the Wii U's Virtual Console, received a 12+ rating from the European age rating board, comparable to a T-rated game. (In case you were wondering, the gambling machines were replaced with a card game that resembles a cross between Minesweeper and Picross.)
8. ↑ If he wanted to be profound and quote Pokémon, he should've stuck with this line from Pokémon: the First Movie villain Mewtwo: "I see now that the Circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are."

## References[edit]

1. ↑ Oh noes! It's Pikachu, Causing children to ~~die~~ be sent to the hospital!!
2. ↑ Mikkelson, D. (August 8, 2007). "Pokeman Seizures".[sic] Snopes. Retrieved August 10, 2019.
3. ↑ Goodhart, Benjie (December 16, 2022). "'There was an explosion, and I had to close my eyes': how TV left 12,000 children needing a doctor". The Guardian. `{{cite web}}`: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: `|publisher=` (help)
4. ↑ Religious Objections to Pokémon
5. ↑ "Christian perspective on Pokémon"
6. ↑ The Dangers of Pokemon!
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Pokemon: What is it?
8. ↑ "The Danger of the Pokemon Fascination"
9. ↑ Some fundamentalists claim that if you backmask the Pokemon rap, you'll apparently get "I love Satan!"
10. ↑ The concept of Pokemon "evolution" fully explained
11. ↑ That's right, the Vatican said it: There is no Satanic brainwashing in Pokémon
12. ↑ Leave it to the hivemind of the Internet to create a cult out of a bloody fossil.
13. ↑ Hindus are Pissed That Krishna is in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Banned in Saudi Arabia, now one wonders if anyone has the guts to bring Pokemon Platinum into the kingdom now.
15. ↑ "Qli" on the Yu-Gi-Oh Wiki
16. ↑ Question of the Month (September 2009): Racism and Pokemon, David Pilgrim, The Jim Crow Museum, Ferris State University
17. ↑ Pokémon Controversy, Bulbapedia
18. ↑ If you really want to see it...
19. ↑ Pokémon Go players banned from Cambodia genocide museum
20. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20190621002135/https://twitter.com/Evulart/status/1141854858280079360
21. ↑ Pokémon GO's Eggs Absolutely Are Loot Boxes & It's Clearly Gambling, Laura Gray, Screen Rant 18 March 2021
22. ↑ Pokémon Unite feels a little too ‘pay to win’ for some players, Tyler Colp, Polygon 30 June 2021
23. ↑ Energy Rewards - Limit & How To Get, GameWith 26 September 2021
24. ↑ Pokemon Masters is a 2019 gacha game designed to catch all your dollars, Daniel George, AppTrigger 28 April 2019
25. ↑ Microtransactions Are An Accessibility Issue (The Jimquisition), Jim Sterling, 27 September 2021
26. ↑ Building a Large Geospatial Model to Achieve Spatial Intelligence by Eric Brachmann and Victor Adrian Prisacariu (November 12, 2024) Niantic.
27. ↑ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2024/11/23/niantic-pokemon-go-data-ai-map/76488340007/ by Felecia Wellington Radel (November 23, 2024) USA Today.
28. ↑ Pokémon Go Data ‘Adding Amplitude to War Is Obviously an Issue,’ Niantic Exec Says by Emanuel Maiberg (Nov 25, 2024 at 3:19 PM) 404 Media.
29. ↑ How Pokémon Go became entangled in international espionage: 'Zero evidence' augmented reality app was ever used for spying by Western intelligence, despite state bans and claims that persist to this day (December 3, 2024) The Week.
30. ↑ Saudi Investment Fund pays $3.5bn to capture Pokémon Go by Tom Gerken (March 12, 2025) BBC.
31. ↑ Saudi Arabia Buys Everybody’s Sensitive Pokémon Go Location Data by Karl Bode (Mar 14th 2025 05:29am) Techdirt.
32. ↑ Saudi revives fatwa on ‘Zionism-promoting’ Pokemon (20 July 2016, 4:30 pm) The Times of Israel.
33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Uri Geller sues Pokemon, claiming it defames his name!
34. ↑ Pokemon the Movie: 2000, Pop Matters
35. ↑ Lawsuit Slams Pokemon as Bad Bet for Addicted Kids
36. ↑ We have to link to this again.
37. ↑ 999 is awfully close to...