Pokemon Anime Finally Revisits Porygon After Controversial Ban

Despite its long history, the Pokemon anime has done well in avoiding many if any catastrophic scandals. Sure, fans aren’t always in love with the show’s story or characters, and Pokemon has kept its nose clean for the most part. In fact, only one thing has managed to shake up Pokemon real bad, and that happens to be Porygon.

So, what happened? Well, Pokemon tried to pretend the monster didn’t exist for the longest time, but that is over now. After all, the anime just made tribute to the character at last, and it marks one of the first times Porygon has shown up in the anime since its controversial debut.

As always, Pokemon is putting out new anime clips, and the end of June saw something rather peculiar come to mind. Fans have just realized a Pokemon trainer was shown looking at their phone in a recent anime trailer for the game Pokemon Masters, and it was housed in a Porygon cell phone case.

The case is hard to mistake given its pink-and-teal color scheme. It also has Porygon’s distinctive eyes and mouth. The case could be referring to any of the three Porygon monsters found in Pokemon, and fans just realized this little reference is the first one made to Porygon ever since “Cyber Soldier Porygon” debuted back in December 1997.

For those who remember, Porygon became a sort of pariah after the infamous episode aired. Pokemon put out the special episode more than 20 years ago, and it saw Ash and the gang enter the computer system which transfers pocket monsters between Pokemon Centers. Accompanied by a Porygon, the episode housed several scenes which caused more than 680 seizures in Japanese viewers. Once all these incidents went public, The Pokemon Company pulled the damning episode for rebroadcast, and it has not been since. Oh, and Porygon was kept out of the anime ever since for good measure.

Now, it seems Pokemon is ready to slowly bring the pocket monster back into the anime even if just through a trailer. A phone case may be a small nod, but it is a nod nonetheless. So, here’s to hoping the Pokemon will show up in the anime for real before too-too long.

So, do you think Pokemon needs to forgive and forget the whole Porygon debacle…? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!