Lavender Town Syndrome

[Pikachu3828]

A creepy story that has been making the rounds on the internet lately is something called 'Lavender Town Syndrome'. In brief the music for Lavender Town in the original Pokémon Red/Green was supposed to be different from Pokémon Blue. The original music was meant to be found very disturbing to small children and led to a number of suicides in Japan, prompting the change in music. To read about it in full, click here.

Here is a YouTube video supposedly showing the original Lavender Town music:


The extra notes that children found disturbing are meant to only be able to be heard by young children (convenient) and not affect teenagers/adults at all. This is possible as it's a proven fact that children can hear higher pitched noises that fade from detectability as they age; however I'm 21 and could hear a difference. The music is indeed different to the Lavender Town music we know although it's possible these videos were made and the extra bits added just to lend some authenticity to this rumour. It's practically impossible to get hold of an original Red/Green cartridge to be able to verify this which is partly what this rumour thrives on.

Considering there was never any mention of this phenomenon (and what a phenomenon it would be - video game music causing children to kill themselves!) around the time it was supposed to have happened and there are no Japanese reports from the time of this happening it's safe to say it's rubbish. However, it is true an episode of the Pokémon anime did cause many children to have seizures, so who knows?

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

No way this is real. The whole fact that the seizure thing was world wide news, the episode was banned in all countries and porygon is barely allowed to make an apearance in the cartoon anymore.

Where was the news story on video games causing children to kill themselves? Why wasnt the game banned, the area removed and the music director barred from ever working again? The reason, because its fake. If this was real, Pokemon would have been banned long ago and the games would never have been released in the west - maybe pikachu or one of the other monsters may have made a cameo appearence in another nintendo game (maybe as an assist trophy in Brawl) - but there is no way something that major would have been allowed to carry on if kids were killing themselves over it. Maybe it would have if they just got depressed, or scared - but not suicidal.

[LordLucario123]

Really... freaking... creepy.

... O___O

[Goggy]

This... is really freaky. o///o

[teamgalactic2]

A little inappropriate

[pikalover1234]

This is real, to a certain extent.

There are several low notes that are hidden in the background of the Lavender Town theme. (I believe that they are Bianual and Beta?) They switch off so rapidly that it causes uneasiness in many young children, teens, and (In rare cases) young adults. Another myth is that some undisclosed interview with the developers of Red and Green released that they acknowledged the problem, and they put it in there to give the town another level of creepiness. Whether you'd like to believe that if your problem. I mean, we've seen crazier stuff right?

But all that aside there might only have been one death at MOST. Even saying that sounds like an exaggeration. Most of the kids departed for the doctor's office with upset stomachs and migranes. Nothing worse I can assure you.

That is unless a few select kids were very sensitive to these noises in which, One or two might have suffered a heart attack or had a seizure. (Hence being scared to death. It's quite possible)


And to think It only took me a whole week of curiosity and Google searches and listening to discover the inner secrets of this song.

[cheerio495]

I have a question that doesn't related to the topic. Why did they decide when releasing gen.1 in America (and possible other countries) did they decide to change the green version to Blue?

On topic now, the music didn't seem any different, but them again I haven't played the games in about a month, nor do I turn the music on much.

[pikalover1234]

That is a question that....
You know I don't really know.

You may concider a Google search.
That's how I solve all my problems.
(Not that it solves anything)

[teamplasmaftw]

It isn't real. DONE

[Beldarius]

I figure the cacophony of the rapidly-changing notes probably upset a few children, but not enough to really make them commit suicide.

Heck, I've heard worse cacophony than this. Courtesy of the Super Robot Wars OG soundtrack I happen to own. Some of the themes on that CD are really freaking creepy (but I have to say SRW easily has the best video game music in the whole world, what with a full classical orchestra playing several themes). Listen for yourself (headphones = epicness). This theme is the personal bgm theme of Gilliam Yeager, one of my favorite SRW characters. Imagine if Pokémon had music like this. >////<