Pokémon

Today, I’ll be looking at one of the earliest, clear examples of a man-made Pokémon, one that cannot normally be found out in the wild. Created in the Pokémon Lab on Cinnabar Island after extensive research, Porygon is a virtual organism made entirely out of advanced computer programming code. It can manifest in the physical world as a fully rendered, tangible entity, with an inorganic, bird-like body composed of pink and blue polyhedra and prisms. But this Pokémon can easily revert its body back into a stream of digital code, enabling it to enter and travel freely through cyberspace while checking for suspicious data. It was programmed with a copyright protection to prevent rival companies from duplicating Porygon through electronic means.

Porygon does not need to eat or breathe (though it will accept food if offered), so researchers were eager to test it in a variety of hostile environments. In fact, the scientists who created Porygon dreamed of using it to explore space, though that never came to fruition, perhaps because its programming contained only the most basic actions. Porygon may have been created using the most advanced technology available at the time, but that was a few decades ago now, and many of its parts have since become obsolete.

In Pokémon Red andBlue, there is only one Porygon in the game – and it needs to be bought using (lots of) Coins from the Game Corner in Celadon City, a casino that is secretly run by Team Rocket. The fact that you can never find or catch Porygon – you can only buy one – is apt because it makes it feel like a manufactured product. How Team Rocket obtained a Porygon, however, is not revealed. My own head canon is that some scientists left the Pokémon Lab on Cinnabar Island and joined Team Rocket (which may also explain why there are lots of Rocket-affiliated Scientists in the Silph Co. building in Saffron City), and when they did so, they took at least one Porygon with them.

Porygon’s name derives from ‘polygon’ (a geometric shape) and possibly ‘origami’, since this Pokémon seems to be based on the concept of an origami bird rendered using digital software. In particular, the flat, rigid shapes that comprise its body are similar to the polygonal meshes used to create 3D computer graphics. Looking back at Porygon now, three decades after its debut, it has blocky, low-res geometry, mirroring the early 3D graphics and CG modelling of the 90s.

According to Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokémon, Porygon was created out of irony. ‘I wanted to add something real into the world of Pokémon, and thought it’d be interesting if the game had an artificial Pokémon,’ he once said in a 1997 interview. ‘I made that decision specifically because it’s on Game Boy. Everyone kept telling me, ‘Tajiri, you need to start making polygon games for next-generation consoles.’ But I was designing Pokémon for Game Boy, where it’s impossible to use polygonal 3D graphics. But people kept hounding me about it, so I thought it would be ironic to include a Pokémon called Porygon.’

Porygon’s only major animated series appearance was in EP038, ‘Dennō Senshi Porygon‘ (commonly called ‘Electric Soldier Porygon’ in English), which was broadcast in Japan on 16 December 1997. The episode is infamous for its flashing strobe effects, which induced photosensitive epileptic seizures in children across Japan. The frames which caused the seizures are a four-second section in which Pikachu uses an Electric attack on a group of missiles. The resulting explosion flashes brightly and alternates rapidly between red and blue. After viewing the problematic sequence, some viewers experienced blurred vision, headaches, dizziness, and nausea. More serious symptoms included seizures, blindness, and unconsciousness. Over 600 people, mostly children, were taken to hospital. Two patients remained in hospital for over two weeks.

Because of this incident, Dennō Senshi Porygon was never commercially released or re-broadcast anywhere in the world, and the Pokémon anime went on hiatus for four months. The show has also not featured Porygon or its evolutions in any subsequent episodes outside of brief cameos, despite Pikachu being the one to cause the seizure-inducing strobe effect.

Speaking of Porygon’s evolutions, this is Porygon2. Starting in Generation II, Porygon will evolve when traded while holding an Upgrade, a device produced by Silph Co. that is ‘filled with all sorts of data’. I suppose it’s a bit like installing new firmware, providing better processing, improved stability, and expanded functionality. The result is an updated, higher-powered version called Porygon2. Its name, which seems lazy at first glance, is actually appropriate and believable for a Pokémon that is, in essence, an upgraded ‘Version 2.0’ of Porygon, the next step in technological progress.

Porygon2’s graphical qualities have certainly improved from the blocky, low-res count of its predecessor – it is a better-rendered and more rounded, refined creature. It’s almost like the Upgrade has given Porygon lots of new pixels to smooth out its sharp edges, mimicking more advanced modelling techniques.

Porygon2 was upgraded to work in space and explore other planets, but it failed to measure up – primarily because, like its pre-evolved form, this Pokémon can’t fly. It is artificially intelligent and capable of learning new behaviours and emotions on its own, including information it does not need to know. As a result, it will sometimes perform motions or abilities that are not in its programming.

The third and final form of Porygon is Porygon-Z, which evolves from Porygon2 when traded while holding a Dubious Disc. According to the lore, the Porygon line was given additional software in order to further increase its abilities. The initial idea was to give Porygon2 modified programming to enable it to travel through other dimensions, but it did not work as planned. Due to an error or a faulty update (often blamed on an incompetent engineer), the resulting Pokémon, Porygon-Z, became corrupted and unstable. It exhibits highly erratic behaviour and twitchy movements, making it difficult to work with for research purposes. It also has odd, misaligned proportions, a floating, detached head, hypnotic eyes, and an awkward, unbalanced posture. In short, it just looks wrong. In fact, academics can’t even agree on whether Porygon-Z should even be considered a true evolution of Porygon2.

What I find very interesting about Porygon-Z is that the item required to make Porygon2 evolve is called the Dubious Disc, which is described as having an unknown producer. The Upgrade, by contrast, is stated as having been produced by Silph Co. This strongly hints that a different party or organisation cracked Porygon’s code in a questionable (and probably illegal) way and then distributed an unauthorised version, perhaps an experimental code. Porygon-Z is essentially a shady third-party mod riddled with bugs and glitches, and maybe even infected with malware, which may explain its appearance and mannerisms.