"There is a reason why Pokémon was banned in my country for almost a decade"

When Pokémon went worldwide, it was popular in Turkey as much as anywhere else. I was one of those crazy fans back then, as I still am. When I was 5, Pokémon was truly my passion in my tiny life. I used to have a giant pillow with Ash and Pikachu on it and I would stare at it for hours some nights after watching the animé on TV. Of course, that kind of popular stuff caught the attention of authorities. People were worried about their children if Pokémon would have any bad side affect on their kids, while ministers and parliamentarians had statements for parents to be careful about it.Then, the expected bad things happened. First, a boy jumped off a building, thinking he was a Pokémon and could fly. Shortly after, another girl jumped off a building with the very same excuse. I could find this article at earliest. Eventually, the minister of health stated that if something that popular would banish on screens, it would not help anything. Instead, Pokémon had to be gone little by little. Thus, they did not ban the animé on TV's at first, but Charizard Chills! was the last episode aired dubbed on screens. After that episode, it would get back to the first episode all over again. I had no idea Pokémon had console games back then, so I am not sure how they dealt with it, but I know that games were never banned in Turkey. It was only the animé to be considered troublemaker. There was also tazos, but they lost their popularity in a couple of years anyway.Once people forgot about Pokémon due to the limitations, the radio and television supreme council banned Pokémon as they considered it safe to ban at that point. Thus, the animé was never aired. Once a private broadcasting, Star TV aired Pokémon in 2005 starting from the first episode, and they received fine.A memory of mine would be that in 2004, we had the internet connection in our house, and I searched random things related to Pokémon on the internet, and found the pictures of second and third generation Pokémon and I was about to LOSE IT. "I've never seen these before, are they new Pokémon? Are THERE NEW Pokémon?! Is Pokémon STILL A THING AND GOING ON?" Then I was directed to Serebii anyway, and been following that website ever since.In 2009, the ban was removed. If I am not mistaken, Johto and Hoenn episodes began to air on TV's. Now, the XYZ episodes are airing dubbed every week on TV's. But once it lost its popularity, it never gained back again. Only the core fans from back then who were really obsessed with Pokémon like myself remained in the national community. via /r/pokemon http://ift.tt/2fE7040