Pokémon fans thrilled with Porygon's reappearance in the anime

Twenty-six years ago, an episode of the Pokémon anime titled “The Electric Soldier Porygon,” starring the digital creature of the same name, premiered in Japan. This ended up having a negative effect on Japanese audiences and tarnished the series’ reputation for several years, leading to Porygon being banned from the anime altogether. But now, an image has just appeared that gave hope to fans, although we regret to inform you that not everything is what it seems…

Will Porygon appear alongside Liko in Pokémon Horizons?

A bit of context: In 1997, “The Electric Porygon Soldier” caused a huge controversy because of a scene in which Pikachu was destroying rockets sent by Team Rocket, and they exploded into flashing red and blue lights. This sequence caused epileptic seizures in a lot of people, and more than 600 children were hospitalized. Due to this horrible situation, the episode in question was never aired again and both Porygon and his evolutions, Porygon2 and Porygon-Z, never appeared again in any episode of the series. Although he had not caused the explosion, unfortunately his name was in the title of it.

This was a huge controversy because the Pokémon anime had not even begun airing in other countries, and it led to other anime having to take precautions so that something like this would never happen again. The incident was even parodied in The Simpsons. But more than 26 years have passed, and many fans are hoping that all this has been forgotten, begging for Porygon and its evolutions to reappear in the anime. Especially now that Ash Ketchum’s story came to an end and a new era began, with the series starring Liko. That is why this meme that was shared by several Twitter users did not take long to go viral.

In the image we can see Liko, the main character of Pokémon Horizons, together with her Sprigatito meeting a whole evolutionary family of Porygon, Porygon 2 and Porygon-Z. It’s a really adorable scene and many people on the internet rejoiced with the expected return of Porygon to the anime. Unfortunately, we have to inform you that this is 100% fake. This is not a screenshot from the series, but was created by Thiago Sinaz, a talented artist who is dedicated to illustrating images in the Pokémon anime art style. We recommend you take a look at his profile if you are a fan of this series and are interested in his work.

It should be noted that fooling the entire internet was never Thiago’s intention, but many people stole his image, cut off the watermark and used it to make everyone believe that Porygon had returned to the anime, with the intention of accumulating views and likes. At the moment, The Pokémon Company has expressed no desire to bring back this controversial digital creature, but fans continue to hope that it will make its well-deserved return in the near future. You never know, maybe Thiago Sinaz’s image will come true someday.