All,
Our kids minds are too precious to fool around with.
Bill
Here is a couple of stories from 1997 when over 600+ kids in Japan went into
convulsions from watching the show. Doctors traced it back to all kids watching
the show so intently and the flashing of the screen combined with the colors
used caused them to go into convulsions.
TOKYO (AP) _ Colors exploded on TV screens across Japan, a cartoon
character flashed his sparkling eyes _ and hundreds of young viewers fell
into fits of spasms and nausea.
More than 600 viewers watching the hit cartoon ``+Pokemon+'' Tuesday
night suffered epilepsy-like seizures about 20 minutes into the show and
were rushed to the hospital, broadcaster TV Tokyo said Wednesday.
TV Tokyo is cancelling the segment on 30 other stations scheduled to
show it. The bizarre sickness has officials considering new programming
guidelines and mothers concerned that Japan's wildly popular cartoons
could be harmful.
``I'm worried,'' said Keiko Murakami, who watched the program with her
three children at their suburban Tokyo home on Tuesday, though none of
them got sick. ``I have to warn my kids that the program could be
dangerous.''
TV Tokyo would not say which scene in the show sickened the children.
But viewers and news reports said a vividly colored explosion mixed with
the strobe-light flashing of a character's eyes seemed to trigger the
illness.
``It gave me a headache. Lights kept flickering in my eyes, then I
felt sick,'' Hiroshi Kobari, 14, was quoted as saying by the national
Mainichi newspaper. ``It was like getting a carsick.''
TV Tokyo said about 650 viewers aged 3 to 20 fell ill, including some
who saw a portion of the show on a news program. About 150 were still in
the hospital on Wednesday.
The show, ``+Pokemon+,'' _ a Japanese rendering of ``pocket monsters''
_ is based on characters in a game produced by Nintendo Co. The weekly
show has been broadcast on 37 TV stations nationwide since April and has
the highest ratings in the Tokyo area for its broadcasting hour at 6:30
p.m.
TOKYO (AP) _ ``Pocket Monsters'' was one of the hottest kids' shows on
TV, an action-packed cartoon that kept millions of Japanese children glued
to their sets every Tuesday evening.
It was, in fact, too exciting. After an especially intense episode
More??
last December sent hundreds, if not thousands, of kids into convulsions,
it was taken off the air.
Now ``+Pokemon+'' is ready for a comeback.
TV Tokyo's decision to bring the series back into its lineup April 16
follows separate investigations by the network and the National
Association of Commercial Broadcasters into the mass convulsions.
But as producers ready a toned-down version of the show for a slot in
prime time and talk of possible syndication to the United States,
questions remain over how far networks should be allowed to go in lacing
children's programming with ratings-grabbing _ and potentially dangerous _
visual thrills.
``This incident was something that hit us out of the blue,'' Hiroshi
Uramoto, spokesman for the TV Tokyo network, said Tuesday.
``Before this case, there really weren't any rules regarding the use
of visuals,'' he said. ``But I think this has been a chance for
broadcasters around the world to re-examine the possible dangers of what
is shown on the TV screen.''
Those dangers were made shockingly clear last Dec. 6, when at least
700 +Pokemon+ viewers _ mostly young children _ were rushed to hospitals
with symptoms ranging from nausea and hyperventilation to convulsions and
even loss of consciousness.
The reactions are believed to have been touched off by a scene
More??
depicting a vividly colored explosion. The scene featured a few seconds of
rhythmic strobe-like flashes of blue, red and white, each about
one-thirtieth of a second long.
Researchers say the flashing lights might have simply overexcited some
of the afflicted children. In other cases, however, they might have acted
directly on the brain, causing the convulsions by disrupting the natural
pacemakers that regulate its normal patterns.
Uramoto said TV Tokyo has already revised its own in-house production
rules to limit the use in children's shows of flashing lights, moving
stripes and the color red.
The broadcasters' association is expected to announce the findings of
its study into the incident in the next week or so. Officials refused to
comment, but are likely to suggest similar guidelines.
The general fare on Japanese TV is surprisingly wide-open.
Graphic violence and programming with nudity or other sexual content
is common and generally accepted, as are the commercials for hard liquor
and tobacco that flood the prime-time airwaves.
Unlike in the United States, there is virtually no movement in Japan
to introduce a ratings system or install program-blocking v-chips in
television sets.
But while acknowledging a stress on fast-paced action, Uramoto denied
that Japan's attitudes toward children's programming are more lax than
More??
those elsewhere.
``As part of our investigation, we sent people to the United States
and England to study their rules regarding visual expression,'' he said.
``What we learned is that no one really had any rules.''
Susumu Abe, a well-known commentator on children's issues, agreed that
the network doesn't deserve all the blame, and said that many of the
sickened children were sitting too close to the TV and in darkened rooms.
``This incident only reveals how little adults know about children in
general,'' he said.
The +Pokemon+ characters are based on a video game produced by
Nintendo Co., which was embroiled in a similar controversy several years
ago when a handful of teen-agers suffered seizures while playing another
one of its video games.
The company now attaches a warning that epilepsy-like symptoms can be
triggered by the games. It has not had any problems with +Pokemon+,
however.
Soon after its debut last April, the +Pokemon+ TV series became one of
the most popular children's shows in the country.
At its peak, the cartoon was broadcast on 37 TV stations nationwide
and had the highest ratings in the Tokyo area for its 6:30 p.m. slot. Some
12 million people are believed to have watched the Dec. 6 episode.
Likenesses of its main character, a rabbit-like creature called
More??
``Pikachu,'' continue to adorn everything from bed covers to bags of
potato chips.
Network spokesman Uramoto said that of the 4,000 or so calls the
network has received regarding +Pokemon+ since the incident, 70 percent
have been demands for the show to be put back on the air as soon as
possible.
He said an American company has even expressed interest in syndicating
the cartoon for U.S. audiences, but refused to give any other details.
``It has gotten a lot of attention,'' he said. ``I guess that from a
business perspective, it makes sense.''
(et)
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