By Matt
The Pokemon TV series is definitely one worth watching again. But there’s a whole other side to the story. Currently, a total of five episodes have been banned. The process is that the creators of the show in Japan send the completed animation to the U.S. for a redub in English. 4Kids, which (used to) broadcast Pokemon, found some of the episodes a little too extreme for children (because in Japan, there were less restrictions on what children could watch). Instead of airing the episode, they would skip it.
The first banned episode is from Season 1, Episode 18. Its name was “Beauty and the Beach”, and its setting was centered at Porta Vista, a beach town. Basically, Ash and his friends decide to help fix a friend’s boat by entering a Pokemon Beauty Contest and winning prize money. Team Rocket, who is there at the time, also decides to give it a shot. In Japan, the animators included a scene where James dressed up to look like a woman, which was supposed to be pure comic humor. Apparently, 4Kids decided it was not appropriate for children in the U.S. to watch and banned the episode. Even though this episode was the scorn of 4Kids, it eventually became a “lost episode” and aired in 2000, even though the original in Japan aired in 1997, making this the longest delay for an episode to be broadcasted.
Continue reading “Banned Pokemon Episodes”