Hey everyone, I'm a newbie in the forum but I'm kinda getting used to it by now, here's my first post.
This is a true story that I lived through, I personally think it's a bit ironic that's why I thought about sharing it here (not a creepy-pasta)...
I live in the middle east (not a terrorist FYI LOL); in Egypt if you want to know exactly, and like many other countries we watched the Pokemon anime, it was dubbed in Arabic and was such a huge success because of its high view rates, and so was the merchandise as it was highly bought. But suddenly the show disappeared from all channels; never aired or even mentioned. Soon enough the merchandise did too, and Pokemon just vanished from our lives.
Not all people knew what happened and why, especially the young ones like my friends and I; the only thing I thought of back then was that the franchise is getting old and they thought it was a losing card, that was hard to believe but it was the only explanation I had.
Many years later, I remembered the whole thing and wanted to surf the net to know news about my beloved show, so I did; and as I was wandering around Bulbapedia I came across an article about "Pokemon in the Arab World"; I instantly started reading it and fell in shock when I knew the reason behind the disappearance...
A controversy, but not just any controversy, it's the one caused by something we call ignorance; some guy, who is somehow the highest religious authority in KSA, made a Fatwa (saying) claiming that Pokemon promotes gambling and Zionism and that the show and the merchandise should be banned, he also ordered Muslims to never let Pokemon-related material into their homes.
The funny thing is, people all over the Middle East completely ignored the show's universal film rating and fell for what the guy said leading to a mass wipe-out of Pokemon across the Middle East.
Some countries like KSA made an official ban of the franchise, other countries like mine didn't,
still the franchise disappeared due to concerned parents and shop owners banning Pokemon themselves, and the only TV channels that aired the anime stopped doing so because they followed the Fatwa...
Another funny thing, EVEN if the show had gambling (at least); wouldn't Arabic TV channels censor it? That wouldn't be a big deal to them because they are good at censoring obscene stuff from everything on Arab TV, but I guess they were too stupid to see that.
The last funny thing is that a few years later we find shows like
"Yu-Gi-Oh" and
"Bakugan" airing til today on our screens while they and Pokemon are nearly the same in concept.
The whole disappearance is not what saddens me most, but the reasons that lead to it, and the scene we made by our ignorance.
It was never about
Religion or
Nationality, it's about
Stupidity;
Would you believe me if I told you a Japanese cartoon promotes Zionism?
Would you ban a video-game from your kids' life if you heard something bad about it, or would you check first if it's true?
You decide.
Thoughts?
Further reading (I recommend it):
Link 1 (Ahram newspaper website) (this one kinda sums it all)
Link 2 (BBC website)
Link 3 (BBC website)
Link 4 (Bulbapedia)