Some episodes of Pokémon: The Series can’t avoid being banned or pulled for various reasons.
- "Beauty and the Beach" was the first episode to be skipped in the initial English airing, for showing James crossdressing in an inflatable suit with breasts to enter a beauty contest, in which he taunts Misty about her lack of breast development. It aired dubbed twice as a "lost episode" over three years after its Japanese air date, with the scenes of James crossdressing excised. Even the censored version is excluded from all home video releases and streaming services outside of Asia.
- "Tentacool and Tentacruel" features an enraged Tentacruel wrecking havoc on a large city in an act of revenge against construction crews destroying the Tentacool's reef, including destroying skyscrapers, and the military using realistic-looking weapons to attack it, in an homage to the Godzilla series. This episode had been pulled from most television markets due to the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, but it was aired on American Cartoon Network in 2002, then it was pulled again in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. As of 2011, the episode is airing again. This is one of the best-known banned episodes, as a clip of the Tentacruel smashing a skyscraper was left in the opening theme for the English dub, even when the episode was banned.
- Another episode titled "The Tower of Terror" was also banned after 9/11, this one simply for the title alone. Like "Tentacool and Tentacruel", it too has re-entered the rerun rotation, since the episode is important to the plot (Ash recruiting but not catching a Haunter that later becomes an important part of his gym battle with Sabrina).
- "The Legend of Dratini" was never aired in the US, or in many other areas using due to this episode depicting firearms. Previous episodes had depicted firearms before, but usually for a few seconds (and they were able to undergo Bowdlerization into toy guns), but with the Clint Eastwood-esque Kaiser openly pointing a gun at Ash, this one drew a line no other episode had before. This one left a signiciant Dub-Induced Plot Hole, since Ash captures a herd of thirty Tauros in this episode, confusing a lot of young viewers into thinking they belonged to Professor Oak when they appear at his laboratory without explanation in later episodes.
- "Electric Soldier Porygon" is the most well known one. It only aired once in Japan, but sequences involving continually strobing blue and red lights caused over 700 Japanese viewers — both kids and adults — to experience terrible seizures. While it was removed from Japanese reruns for a period of time, the episode has never seen the light of day in American markets, nor anywhere else in the world, and likewise, has never seen any official commercial home video releases. The sad part is that the bright flashing explosion was caused by one of Pikachu's electric attacks destroying a missile, but because they couldn't really get rid of the Series Mascot (and because the missiles flashed and strobed no matter what they hit, making it hard to point fingers), Porygon took the blame due to being the Pokemon-of-the-episode. As a result, neither it nor its later evolutions have ever appeared in the anime to avoid reminding anyone of the incident, outside of brief cameos in movie intros. Kadabra would have a similar fate much later on, though this was because of a lawsuit by Uri Geller, who has since dropped it in 2020 upon realizing the positive impact it had for kids contrary to what he initially thought.
- According to the late Maddie Blaustein (the second and best-known English voice for Meowth of Team Rocket), the episode actually was dubbed by 4Kids, the plan being to slow down the flashing to the point it wouldn't cause seizures. It was all set to air before Nintendo intervened and forbade the episode from being released internationally. Veronica Taylor (the original voice of Ash), though, claimed otherwise, saying the episode was never dubbed. Due to this episode's huge controversy in Japan and the fact that no clips even appear for Porygon in the Pokérap (while Dratini, Dragonair, Rhyhorn, and a short scene of Ash and friends catching a Gyarados all come from the below-mentioned "The Legend of Dratini"), it's safe to assume that 4Kids was never given a recording of "Electric Soldier Porygon", and Blaustein may have mistaken it for another episode.
- The episode had a lot of consequences, too. Nintendo's stock took a hit (stockholders evidently weren't aware that Nintendo is not directly responsible for the show's production or even the development of the games themselves, though they eventually became partially responsible for the anime's English dub), the anime was put on a four-month hiatus, broadcasters began putting up warnings telling kids to watch anime in a well-lit room and away from the television set, a special program was broadcast presenting the findings of the investigation, as well as showing letters and drawings from fans concerned about the future of the series, and new broadcast safety guidelines were set in place. What's more, an episode titled "It's New Year's Eve! Pocket Monsters Encore" was outright cancelled and is considered a Missing Episode, though since it was to be a Clip Show (such episodes are never dubbed due to being filler), it isn't really a big loss. It is commonly believed that material from the episode was used in the 1999 New Year's special titled "It's the New Year! Pocket Monsters Special!", which was also a clip show that went undubbed.
- The incident made international headlines, and as a result, was fodder for snark. The Simpsons, South Park and Drawn Together all mocked the incident at one point in their lives.
- The Pokémon Jynx was originally depicted as having a black face. However, this was interpreted as a racial stereotype, leading to episodes featuring Jynx being either dropped from the schedules or edited to remove Jynx from the story. Jynx's face was subsequently recolored purple.
- In the USA, "Holiday Hi-Jynx" was pulled on-and-off due to this controversy permanently in 2013, when The Pokémon Company International removed it and two Orange Islands episodes featuring this original design ("Stage Fight" and "The Mandarin Island Miss Match") from the lineup for good, leading to two so-called "Complete Collection" DVD reissues. Surprisingly, while Japan re-aired the episode with Jynx edited to the modern color, it remains off the air in the US.
- A late-Johto episode where the black-colored Jynx appeared with a Nurse Joy ("The Ice Cave!") was left undubbed by 4Kids and most dubbing teams (except a few Asian dubbing teams) most likely due to this.
- In addition, the Jynx controversy also ultimately led to a filler episode in the Sun and Moon series being banned because of accusations of Blackface; in this case, Ash painted his face when dressing up as a Passimian.
- The short "Pikachu and Pichu" was banned from further re-releases in Japan as part of the unpersoning of narrator Noriko Sakai following her drug abuse scandal in 2009. As this is a case concerning a specific voice actor, its foreign dubs are still clear for circulation.
- An episode featuring Pokémon using the move Earthquake note has never been shown anywhere in the world. Its scheduled broadcast coincided with massive earthquakes in Japan, which resulted in it being dropped out of respect for the victims and it has never been reinstated. The episode was known in Japan as "Shaking Island Battle! Dojoachnote VS Namazunnote !!". As a result, the move itself has been banned from usage in the anime ever since "Whiscash and Ash"note , alongside the moves Fissure and Magnitude (although the move Bulldoze would debut in the XY anime).
- The two-parter "Team Rocket vs Team Plasma", which was supposed to be one of the main episodes of the "Best Wishes" series (and the on-screen debut of the titular Team Plasma), had its airing cancelled because of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the associated Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Since it was so important to the season's overall plot, it was supposed to just be a temporary delay, but the episodes ended up never airing at all. Instead, future episodes significantly rewrote Team Plasma's role, and some animation sequences that would have appeared were recycled into later episodes.
- The two-parter was to be followed by an episode where Cilan entered a fishing competition. This was postponed to be episode 37 due to references to a tsunami. This, however, required some rewriting, as the episode was supposed to see recurring character Bianca temporarily join Ash's group. The actual episode 25 features Bianca in the group with little explanation, and the ending of what was now episode 37 was quickly rewritten so that Bianca would bid the group farewell, rather than join it. The original episode 27 also saw Team Rocket return to their old white uniforms and slowly start transitioning back to their old comic relief role after a lot of backlash against their new serious, humorless personas. The dubbed version of A Venipede Stampede! deleted the scenes of Ash and his friends going with Professor Juniper to find out what caused the titular stampede and changed the narrator's dialogue to say Ash was looking forward to his next gym battle to better tie into Battling For The Love Of Bug Types!...but this caused some Dub Induced Plot Holes namely where Pierce (the TRio's Unova contact) went and why Giovanni was no longer interested in the Meteonite, which never appeared, as well and why Professor Juniper's research into the stampede went nowhere.
- Subverted with the episode "An Undersea Place to Call Home!". The episode was scheduled to air in Japan on April 24, 2014, but was postponed out of respect for the victims of the MV Sewol ferry capsizing, as the episode involves a sunken ship. It later aired in Japan on November 20 that year, but American viewers had to wait until February 7, 2015, when it aired as part of a four-hour marathon on Cartoon Network. The postponement of this episode created yet another continuity error, as it involves Ash developing a technique to use in his rematch with Grant. The dubbed version of this episode had the narrator speaking in past tense and creating a "flashback episode".
- There are reports that the episode actually aired in South Korea on August 8, 2014. Keep in mind that the Sewol disaster occurred in that country.
- For historical reasonsnote , a number of early episodes were banned in South Korea because Japanese cultural references featured prominently. This frequently led to problems with continuity if the episode included anything pivotal to the storyline, such as Ash winning a Gym Badge or a regular character acquiring a new Pokémon.
- The 64th episode of the Sun and Moon anime, also known as "Satoshinote and Nagetukesarunote ! Touchdown of Friendship!!" was never aired outside of Japan since it involved Ash wearing facepaint that resembled Blackface in order to resemble a Passimian so he can play American Football with them.
