The Banned Episodes

As the Pok�mon episodes get dubbed and aired in America from Japan, there are sometimes cuts in scenes or in speech. These cuts are censorships, used to protect the children in the designated country. In Japan children are allowed to watch more violent shows and have more swearing and other things in it. Sometimes the Japanese animators had certain things in episodes which were deemed unsuitable for airing in the US and other english speaking countries so they ban the entire episode. With the Pok�mon series this happened 3 times in the 1st series and then not again...until the 5th series where an un-expected banning took place. Here are the banned episodes and the reasons why they were banned:

Banned 1 Episode 18: Holiday at Acopaulo (US Name: Beauty and the Beach)
Synopsis Link:	Pictures Link:

This Episode Was Banned because they gave James clevage so he could win a beauty contest. This took over a lot of the episode which is why when KidsWB aired a cut version of it, it was horribly mutilated and severely cut in time.
Banned 2 Episode 35: The Legend of Dratini
Synopsis Link:	Pictures Link:

This Episode was banned because of over use of a Projectile Weapon (A Gun), other eps use Guns but none involve the firing of guns towards other people. In the US there were many shootings by children and it was thought best not to subject children to this sort of thing. The lack of this episode also caused a lot of confusion as there were multiple captures by Ash in it which by going by the US airings...just magically appeared
Banned 3 Episode 38: Electric Soldier Porygon
Synopsis Link:	Pictures Link:

This is the most famous of the banned episodes. It is banned everywhere in the world including Japan. During the episode when Ash and co. are with Porygon in Cyber Space, missiles get fired at them from Team Rocket. Pikachu blasts the missiles with Thunderbolt causing a flashing of red and blue which put 800 Japanese children into hospital with epileptic seizures. After this the show was put on a 4 month hiatus and was almost totally banned with Nintendo to be blamed for it
Banned 4 Episode 252: The Ice Cave
Synopsis Link:	Pictures Link:

The first episode in almost 4 years that was banned made people think why was this episode banned. This Episode was banned due to some people having a problem with Jynx being a "racial stereotype" and since Jynx was prominently in these episodes, they decided not to air it
Banned 5 Episode 377: Shaking Island Battle! Barboach VS Whiscash!!
Synopsis Link:	Pictures Link:

The next episode has not been aired anywhere in the world, not even Japan. It was originally postponed due to massive earthquakes in the area and since it features Whiscash making Earthquakes it would have been bad taste. However this episode was scheduled for a further Japanese showing but didn't air. Now it has come to the US Airing and it again has been skipped
Episodes 682 & 683: Team Rocket VS Team Plasma!
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The most recent episode also has not been released anywhere, including Japan. This episode was to feature the climatic meet and battle of Team Rocket & Team Plasma in Castelia City. It featured seismic issues and destruction of cities. It was due to air in Japan in March 2011, just after the Sendai Earthquakes and the resulting issues at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. As such, it was postponed and eventually retconned out of the series, never to be heard of again.