The Lost Episode of Pokemon Indigo League

I like Pokemon. I'm one of the younger viewers. I remember being glued to the Unova seasons as a very young child. I thought this was really good, but as I got older and watched episodes online, I got more into the Johto seasons. I didn't play the games much, but I just got Red and Blue for the 3DS Virtual Console and plan to play them all in release order with my 3DS, DS, Switch, and GBA. This is my story.

I also watched episodes of the Kanto season. Then were not as good as others, but still okay. After all, the show was still finding it's footing, and it wasn't as bad as that godawful Orange Islands season. I looked through Bulbapedia one day and realized...there was no article on episode 38. It just skipped from Ditto's Mysterious Mansion to Pikachu's Goodbye. What's even weirder was that Wikipedia listed Holiday Hi-Jynx and Snow Way Out as being out of order, and that there seemed to be a four month hiatus between episodes.

After a long while, I tracked down the episode online. The episode started out with the normal theme song. I had heard rumors of the lost episode, but they said 4Kids never received it for dubbing. Yet here it was, the dub's theme, in VHS quality at that. This was gonna be fun, but boy was I confused.

The episode started out with a title card after that. It said &quot;Porygon's Cyber-Power&quot;. In all honesty, the Indigo League dub episode titles were not very good.

Then the plot began with the gang in an anime-created location called Matcha Town. The Nurse Joy at the Pokecenter was really stressed. When they asked why, she said that she sent a Pokemon to another Pokecenter, it wouldn't come through, and in it's place would be a different Pokemon. It turned out that there was a Porygon in a nearby mansion, and that his other prototype had been stolen. It was then revealed why the Pokemon weren't coming through the PC: Team Rocket was inside it and was taking all the Pokeballs for themselves!

Ash and his friends went into the PC to stop them, and then the episode's Who's That Pokemon segment appeared. It was Porygon, because of course.

Ash and his friends were falling through cyberspace, but then a giant Porygon saved them. Then they fought Team Rocket in the PC. Jessie was revealed to have a Porygon of her own, but our heroes managed to get all the stolen Pokeballs delivered to the Pokecenters, and Team Rocket was blasted off again.

Then some antivirus missiles were launched at the team, thinking they were the virus holding back the Pokeballs. This is where things get creepy. If you want to leave, now is your chance.

Pikachu used Thunder to destroy the missiles, and then the explosion caused lots of hyperrealistic lights. Why would this be made for kids?! They could get seizures!

Ash and friends went back to the real world and the episode ended, but I could not get over those lights. No wonder there are no records of this episode. If you want to find it, don't watch it. There are other lost episodes, but this is the most disturbing of them all.

The Truth
If you're a huge poke-nerd, you might recognize this story. Yes, this episode does exist, and yes, the info is all true, except for the fact that 4kids dubbed it. In real life, 4Kids never received it, and actually toned down scenes with similar strobe lights. After this episode, lots of new laws regarding this sort of thing were passed, and while the episode has never been aired or released on DVD ever again, you can still find a copy online if you dig deep enough. Search, and when you strike gold, watch at your own risk