This is WILD (long)

[Abe' Mark Nornes]

I heard this on NHK last night and couldn't believe it. I *knew* they were
after our brains!!! 

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'Pocket Monsters' shocks TV viewers into convulsions

              At least 651 young people in 30 prefectures were taken to
hospitals with convulsions and other maladies Tuesday evening after
watching the popular TV cartoon "Pocket Monsters," based on the
best-selling Nintendo Game Boy software of the same name, the Fire Defense
Agency Agency of the Home Affairs Ministry said Wednesday. As of 12:30 p.m.
Wednesday, 135 of the 651 viewers still required hospitalization.

              In Kitakyushu, an 11-year-old girl's condition deteriorated
and she was temporarily placed in an intensive care unit. One 5-year-old
girl in Osaka and a girl in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, were listed in
serious condition, officials said.

              A doctor at the University of Tokyo Hospital, where four
children were admitted after seeing the footage, said viewers seemed to
have been affected by strong flashes of light from one scene in the program
that stimulated nerve cells and caused the irregular conditions.

              The program was broadcast throughout most of the country,
airing at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday on TV Tokyo and its 37 network stations. The
game and the television program are commonly called "Pokemon" by fans.

              TV Tokyo reportedly was flooded by calls from angry viewers
Wednesday, and Posts and Telecommunications Ministry officials said they
planned to question TV station officials later that afternoon. TV Tokyo
launched a task force to determine the cause of the incident. The team
includes not only network employees but also outside lawyers and doctors.
Some children treated at hospitals told doctors that they suffered
something like whiteouts and that they felt sick after the eyes of
"Pikachu," one of the most popular characters on the program, flashed.
Pikachu is modeled after a rat.

              Other children lost their memory of having viewed the
program, doctors said. Those who received treatment range in age from 3 to
about 20, officials said. Some of those stricken reportedly came down with
their problems while viewing the footage during later TV news reports on
the incident. Of the 651 viewers who were taken to hospitals, 77 were in
Kanagawa Prefecture, 76 in Osaka Prefecture, 71 in Tokyo, 70 in Saitama
Prefecture and 61 in Aichi Prefecture. Those still hospitalized include 18
people in Aichi Prefecture, 15 each in Osaka and Kanagawa prefectures and
13 in Tokyo. Hiroshi Uramoto, public relations officer of TV Tokyo, said,
"I saw the video of the program. I think the scene that caused the problem
is one in which tensions become high and color flashes are emitted for a
duration of four or five seconds. "But I believe the same technique was
used in the past," he said. TV Tokyo said the episode was subtitled "Denno
Senshi Porigon" ("Computer Warrior Porigon''), and featured characters
battling it out inside a computer. The scene that is believed to have
caused the problems showed Pikachu creating lightning to counter missiles.
The television screen whitened out for one to two seconds when the
lightening hit the missiles, viewers said. The screen emitted intensely
bright lights, whose effect viewers described as being as powerful as
looking directly into the sun.
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Those affected by 'Pokemon' show number in thousands

              The number of viewers affected by the "Pocket Monsters"
television program Tuesday evening continued to increase Wednesday, with
schools around the country reporting that thousands of children were made
ill. Nearly 90 students at public elementary and junior high schools in
Tokyo missed school Wednesday due to illnesses attributed to watching the
cartoon, Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials said. The survey was
hastily arranged after nearly 53 children were rushed to hospitals after
the program aired Tuesday evening. It covered all 1,396 public elementary
schools and 872 high schools in Tokyo.

              The officials said 80 elementary and eight junior high school
students were absent Wednesday. No high school students missed classes
because of the TV program, the officials said.

              According to the Toyohashi Municipal Government in Aichi
Prefecture, more than 70 percent of elementary and 35 percent of junior
high school students in Toyohashi viewed the show. Of the 24,000 elementary
and 13,000 junior high school students in the city, 1,338 felt sick after
watching the program, officials said.

              Among 52 elementary schools, 1,169 students felt ill,
including four who were taken to hospitals and 11 others brought to
hospitals for checkups. Among 22 junior high schools, 152 students said
they felt sick, and one was taken to a hospital by ambulance.

              In Yokohama, 1,658 elementary and high school students
reported eye irritation and nausea, according to the municipal government.
Four were hospitalized for convulsions. Yokohama sent notices to schools
saying that the students who suffered symptoms from this incident should
limit their TV viewing to 30 minutes to one hour a day.

              In Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, 1,523 kindergarten, elementary
and junior high school students in 140 schools reported feeling nausea and
dizziness. Six were hospitalized. The Sakai Municipal Board of Education
sent written messages Wednesday to school principals to tell their students
not to watch television when feeling sick, and to stay at least 2 meters
away from the TV set.

              A 5-year-old girl who was in serious condition in Osaka's
Sumiyoshi Ward has recovered consciousness, and was apparently ready to
leave the hospital Wednesday afternoon, according to Shigeru Yamayoshi, the
doctor who examined her. "If the treatment had been delayed, the girl could
have suffered from an aftereffect in her brain due to oxygen depletion,"
Yamayoshi said.

              According to the doctor, the girl was struck by a convulsion
at about 7 p.m. Tuesday and stopped responding to her mother. By the time
she was taken to the hospital, she was unconscious. She recovered after
being treated with artificial respiration. "Judging from the circumstance
and her symptoms, it seems like she suffered from light-sensitive
epileptics," he said.

Medical experts link convulsions to TV show's flashing lights

              Flashing lights from television screens are the likely cause
of convulsions and other ailments that hit viewers of a popular cartoon
program Tuesday evening, according to experts who gathered in Tokyo to
discuss the incident.

              After examining a tape of the "Pocket Monsters" episode,
pediatricians and psychiatrists said the show repeatedly emitted light
stimulation that could cause convulsions. It is known among experts that
flashing lights can sometimes lead to convulsions, regardless of program
content.

              Many people are not affected by such flashing, but some who
are predisposed to it could become sick or even have seizures, the experts
said. "Five to 10 percent of the population is said to be susceptible to
flashing lights," said Shunsuke Otawara, a professor emeritus at Okayama
University Medical School. Children around 5 to 15 years old are most
sensitive, and two-thirds of people afflicted are female.

              Recent studies show that stimuli such as red lights,
perpendicular light patterns and lights flashed at 10 to 30 times per
second are particularly apt to cause fits, he said. Although some doctors
have pointed out that the people afflicted by the "Pokemon" episode may
have suffered epileptic fits, children who are not epileptic could have
been affected by the show's intensely flickering lights, experts said.

              Toshio Yamauchi, a professor at Saitama Medical School and a
leading epilepsy specialist, said convulsions are likely to be diagnosed as
"light-induced fits." The symptom is different from "light sensitive
epilepsy," which epileptics would suffer from light stimulation.

              The Japan Epilepsy Association released a statement that
"Pocket Monsters" should not be linked to epilepsy without a doctors'
diagnosis, in an effort to avoid discrimination against people with
epilepsy.
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Animators stumped by cartoon's 'special effects'

              Animation producers remained stumped Wednesday as to why
techniques that have been used "hundreds of times" sent "Pocket Monster"
viewers to the hospital Tuesday night.

              "We are taking the situation very seriously," said Takemoto
Mori, the program producer at Shogakukan Production Co. "But we cannot
understand why it turned out this way, since we did not use any special
technique."

              Mori said Tuesday's episode included a technique called
"paka-paka," in which different colored lights flash alternately to cause a
sense of tension, and another called "flash" in which a strong beam of
light is emitted. These techniques are commonly used in animation, Mori
said, stressing that they do not constitute foul play.

              A producer at another TV station agreed. "The paka-paka
technique is classic and has been used hundreds of times in the past," he
said. "But I have never heard of such damage stemming from the technique."

              He suspects that the incident occurred because a climactic
scene intensified the two techniques. "If this technique were to be banned,
the animation production would be destined to change," the producer added.

              Most animation shows are contracted out, and each station
checks the programs prior to their airing. The producers and the station
screened Tuesday's episode of "Pocket Monsters" separately, resulting in a
double-screening, according to its producers.

              The incident caused other stations to be cautious with their
animation shows. TV Asahi expressed fear that it would result in
"villainization" of TV animation.
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Eleven TV affiliates suspend 'Pokemon' indefinitely

              Eleven stations affiliated with TV Tokyo decided Wednesday to
suspend broadcasts of the popular "Pocket Monsters" animated series after
hundreds of viewers fell ill from watching the program Tuesday evening.

              The number of people hospitalized after suffering
convulsions, fainting or otherwise feeling sick while watching the program
reached 208 on Wednesday, government and local authorities said. In all,
685 households in 30 of Japan's 47 prefectures were affected. Victims
ranged in age from infants to 58, according to the Fire Defense Agency.

              TV Tokyo and its 37 network stations currently run the
program each week. The Tokyo-based broadcaster requested that the 31 local
stations that haven't yet aired the episode in question to not show it. It
was scheduled to be broadcast on those channels next Tuesday night.

              Eleven of the network stations have decided to suspend
broadcasting the program for an indefinite period, according to station
officials. The 30-minute "Pocket Monsters (Pokemon)" episode was shown on
TV Tokyo at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Ambulance calls were most frequent between
6:50 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., agency officials said.

              Some victims also were stricken while watching TV news
programs later in the evening that replayed at least one of the segments
believed to have caused the trouble -- an explosion followed by bright
flashes that continued for five seconds. Still others became ill while
watching videotapes of the show.

              The Posts and Telecommunications Ministry on Wednesday
afternoon called in TV Tokyo officials and interviewed them about the
broadcaster's plan to cope with the incident. The Health and Welfare
Ministry, the Education Ministry and prefectural police departments across
the nation were looking into the incident.

              Masato Shinagawa, the post ministry's Broadcasting Bureau
chief, told reporters that the broadcaster began investigating the incident
and was having the flashing scene examined by experts in an effort to
pinpoint the cause as soon as possible. "We asked TV Tokyo whether the
content of the program was in line with the spirit of the Broadcast Law,"
Shinagawa said. "We will continue to observe the broadcaster's
investigation."

              Tetsuo Tamura, director at TV Tokyo, told a news conference
Wednesday that it has decided to cancel the episode's scheduled future
airings on 30 stations outside the Tokyo area. The broadcaster will also
decide whether the TV station will continue the program before next
Tuesday, when its next episode is scheduled to run, according to Shinagawa.

              Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto reacted cautiously to the
cartoon controversy. "Rays and lasers have been considered for use as
weapons. Their effects have not been fully determined," Hashimoto replied
when asked to comment on the cartoon.

              He was referring to the episode's explosions and flickering
lights, which reportedly caused severe physical reactions among its young
viewership. "It's not clear how they would affect the viewers," he said,
while acknowledging he does not know much about the Pocket Monsters.