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Skilled Investigator
Suicide Sound: The Lavender Town Syndrome Story
As anyone who has played video games will tell you Nintendo has been the top dog for decades with such hits as Mario Brothers, Metroid and The Adventures of Zelda. Recently Nintendos biggest smash has been the game Pokémon, or Pocket Monsters.
Released on February 27th, 1996 as “Pokémon Red” and “Pokémon Green” in Japan (the subsequent “Pokémon Blue” was an international release and was an upgraded copy of the original “Green” version) to great success with the younger audiences that Nintendo has always marketed to, Pokémon was seen as the life saver for the Gameboy and Gameboy Color.
The object of Pokémon is to battle and collect little cartoonish monster while completing a series of on-going quests with the ultimate goal of being a “Pokémon Master”. The nature of these quests varies from level to level and in order to complete the quests and capture the creatures a player may have to stay in a level for over an hour.
Shortly after the release of the game Japan experienced a spike in suicides in children aged 7-12. This caused the public to link the suicides to the popular game that most of the victims had been playing. This is no subliminal message or cult symbolism however; the culprit is a simple song broadcast over tiny speakers.
In the stage known as “Lavender Town” an ultra-high frequency sound is rumored to be produced that adults cannot hear but can be heard by small children as their middle ear bones have not yet set. It is also inferred that over an extended length of time the constant exposure to these high-frequencies could cause distress to the listener even if they do not recognize any actual disturbance at the time.
This story appears to be confirmed as prior to the release of “Blue” that Lavender Towns theme was reportedly fixed but not until a substantial amount of damage had been done. Some figured point to as many as 200 suicides that can be attributed to Lavender Town Syndrome and there are still more reported cases of severe headaches and other ailments.
At the time of the writing of this article I have been unable to confirm the degree of physical or mental distress that might come with prolonged exposure to what’s been called the “Lavender Town Tone”. Examples of these tones are available on various websites.
Later Nintendo and Pokémon would come under fire again in 1997 for the Dennō Senshi Porygon incident where over 635 children went into epileptic seizures after a sequence in a Pokémon episode flashed alternating blue and red colors. This caused Pokémon anime to go on a 4 month hiatus.
As anyone who has played video games will tell you Nintendo has been the top dog for decades with such hits as Mario Brothers, Metroid and The Adventures of Zelda. Recently Nintendos biggest smash has been the game Pokémon, or Pocket Monsters.
Released on February 27th, 1996 as “Pokémon Red” and “Pokémon Green” in Japan (the subsequent “Pokémon Blue” was an international release and was an upgraded copy of the original “Green” version) to great success with the younger audiences that Nintendo has always marketed to, Pokémon was seen as the life saver for the Gameboy and Gameboy Color.
The object of Pokémon is to battle and collect little cartoonish monster while completing a series of on-going quests with the ultimate goal of being a “Pokémon Master”. The nature of these quests varies from level to level and in order to complete the quests and capture the creatures a player may have to stay in a level for over an hour.
Shortly after the release of the game Japan experienced a spike in suicides in children aged 7-12. This caused the public to link the suicides to the popular game that most of the victims had been playing. This is no subliminal message or cult symbolism however; the culprit is a simple song broadcast over tiny speakers.
In the stage known as “Lavender Town” an ultra-high frequency sound is rumored to be produced that adults cannot hear but can be heard by small children as their middle ear bones have not yet set. It is also inferred that over an extended length of time the constant exposure to these high-frequencies could cause distress to the listener even if they do not recognize any actual disturbance at the time.
This story appears to be confirmed as prior to the release of “Blue” that Lavender Towns theme was reportedly fixed but not until a substantial amount of damage had been done. Some figured point to as many as 200 suicides that can be attributed to Lavender Town Syndrome and there are still more reported cases of severe headaches and other ailments.
At the time of the writing of this article I have been unable to confirm the degree of physical or mental distress that might come with prolonged exposure to what’s been called the “Lavender Town Tone”. Examples of these tones are available on various websites.
Later Nintendo and Pokémon would come under fire again in 1997 for the Dennō Senshi Porygon incident where over 635 children went into epileptic seizures after a sequence in a Pokémon episode flashed alternating blue and red colors. This caused Pokémon anime to go on a 4 month hiatus.