Pokémon Creepypasta: Lavender Town Syndrome

 *Trigger Warning: Suicide. Self Harm. Overgrown Millennial Nerds.*

Konnichiwa! Bonjour! Oi! Hey you! Yeah you, Straight Outta Kanto! What d'ya think you're doing still playing Pokémon!? You're an adult! Pokémon is a children's game! But... what if the only safe time to play Pokémon is as an adult? What, you think that's an excuse to be a giant over-sized child of a nerd? Nah-uh! Pokémon is DANGEROUS for children, haven't you ever heard of... Lavender Town Syndrome!?

Let me paint you a picture, dear readers. It's the mid-to-late nineties. “Pocket Monsters” is the hit new Nintendo Game boy craze in Japan, soon to explode globally and change Western Pop Culture forever. The first two Japanese Pokémon games Red and Green are being gobbled up by wee kiddies everywhere. Choosing their partner Pokémon, playing with balls and naming their rival “ass hat” and “butt face”. Fun, innocent times. Until... they reach the part of the game where they arrive in... Lavender Town.

Lavender Town. Ruining childhoods since 1996.

Lavender Town is a sleepy little village at the foot of Rock Tunnel, inhabited by... GHOSTS! It's main architectural point of interest is the Pokémon graveyard “Pokémon Tower.” Not only does that change things up in the lore because if there's a Pokémon graveyard, that means your furry little friends can die. Bit heavy for a “children's” game. Not only that, the Tower is completely haunted by menacing ghost sprites determined to banish you from the building.

AS WELL (yes, it gets worse!) The building is plagued with traditional Japanese Shinto style exorcists who are all displaying the behaviours of persons possessed by spirits. These possessed exorcists make various demands for your blood and your soul. Cheerful!

ON TOP OF THAT.

The chief ghost of Pokémon Tower is in fact the restless, vengeful spirit of a murdered Pokémon Marowak. Marowak was murdered for profit by the evil Team Rocket, much to her child, Cubone's, latent distress. So... dead friends, dead mothers, exorcists, ghosts... It can't get worse, can it?

YES.

It's the Lavender Town musical score that is the primary cause for concern and the fuel behind a decade or more of urban legends and creepypastas. The theme that plays throughout the town is deeply eerie and unsettling to begin with. Perfect atmosphere for a haunted AF town.

HOWEVER.

Rumour has it. In the original Japanese Red and Green versions of the Pokémon the initial Lavender Town theme score contained secret binaural notes only perceptible to children under the age of twelve. These binaural beats were allegedly included to subconsciously add a heightened level of terror in the children playing, giving old Lavender Town that extra spooky kick.

Unfortunately, these supposed binaural notes worked a little too well. Any child who played the game and heard these secret notes were driven mad and compelled to commit suicide by exceptionally vile and gruesome methods. Dismemberment and self-immolation are the most common methods of suicide associated with this urban legend. Those who were purported to have died were claimed to have suffered from “Lavender Town Syndrome.”

The notes were removed from later edits of the game and the original scores never made it over in the Western versions of Pokémon Red and Green, which in the West was Red, and, Green became Blue. The west never received a version of the Japanese Pokémon Blue.

Of course. Game Freak and Nintendo would never have actually put suicide-inducing binaural notes in to their video game scores. There's no denying the music of Lavender Town is freaky, but this ultimately is just a very sick, albeit intriguing urban legend.

It's almost impossible to find the origins of this urban legend. However, it's fair to say that the Easter Egg of you having possibly killed your rival's Raticate and landing them in the Lavender Town Pokémon Tower and the fact that the Lavender Town theme was played as the background to the viral “Hypno's Lullaby” video on YouTube in the noughties are most likely contributing factors.

If you feel like never sleeping again, there are videos on the internet of the “original” binaural note filled version of the Lavender Town theme, as well as a version of the score played BACKWARDS.

Sweet screams, I mean dreams! And one more thing... that white hand on your shoulder... it's not real...

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Listen to the Straight Outta Kanto Podcast Radio Show https://open.spotify.com/show/0FRul8v6Xpy8JFD8clhlok?si=-f1uecxqT5erPBqigRIALg and the music of Venus de Vilo https://open.spotify.com/artist/7hSAeNpNk7ydf8lgE93sHn on Spotify.

The Birth of Mewtwo: Pokémon Radio Drama

Alola, PokéNerds! We here at Straight Outta Kanto hope you’re staying safe inside like a Cloyster or Clamperl with a shut shell and being as neurotic about hand washing as I would envision Psyduck to be!

As we’re currently without a day job like many of you guys out there right now, there’s not really a major reason to keep to normal routine hours. Not gonna have a great impact on my health down the line – but for now I am loving an almost twenty four hour devotion to all things Pokémon with no interruptions.

Last night, I finally got to tick off one of the Pokémon related items on my nerd bucket list! I’d heard whispered years ago about a Japanese exclusive Pokémon radio drama called “The Birth of Mewtwo” that aired in 1998 in advance of the Mewtwo Strikes Back movie.

(Fun fact, the title “Mewtwo Strikes Back” always confused me as a child. As far as I was aware, this was the first movie – I didn’t understand why Mewtwo was striking back when technically speaking he hadn’t been struck in the first place…!)

This five part radio play was written by Takeshi Shudo and according to Bulbapedia aired on Japanese radio over the five Sundays preceeding the release of the movie. An animé adaptation quietly followed.

I found all five parts of the radio play adequately subtitled and readily available on YouTube. Obviously this was released right at the start of the Poképhenomenon and therefore that meant it was much more flexible in its freedom with regards to plot and characters that we know now, but were still fresh and unformed twenty two years ago. Fan fiction writers – buckle up!

The five short radio episodes are narrated by “Sakaki”, or, as we know him: Giovanni. Enigmatic Daddy and mastermind of Team Rocket. However, while Sakaki narrates the present day, he refers to an incident twenty years prior involving the then Boss of Team Rocket… his own mother. Not only is Giovanni’s mother the Boss of Team Rocket, her underling is none other than… Jesse Rocket’s mother.

Both women are represented as cold, materialistic, domineering and maternal-rejecting profit seekers. Miyamoto, Jesse’s mother, even proclaiming to have left Jesse (or Musashi) up for adoption so that she Miyamoto can continue working tirelessly for Team Rocket.

The plot initially starts out with Sakaki’s mother and Miyamoto examining their South American fossil finds. Enter Mew’s eyelash fossil. Team Rocket are thrilled. They hand the fossil over to their science team – fronted by Dr. Fuji – with the intent of trying to replicate the original Mew from such a small fragment of fossil through the power of cloning and genetic mutation.

However, the plot darkens considerably as the series progresses and travels through time from the twenty years old find of Mew’s fossil all the way to the present. Dr. Fuji has been endeavouring all this time to create Mewtwo and… something else.

I will not spoil the highly dramatic and emotive plot twist, but let’s just say from episode three get your tissues ready, the feels just got real.

For a promo show for what is in essence a children’s movie, the radio play gets very serious with regards to making the listener think about the morals and ethics of human/animal cloning and genetic manipulation. How far is too far in science?

Don’t get me wrong, the show isn’t heavy all the time. Miyamoto, Jesse’s mother, is the main comic relief character for each episode. There are also elements of audio slap-stick comedy that really add charm and warmth to the drama. Also, the backstory and insight in to the family backgrounds of the well known characters is fascinating and adds an alternate perspective on current accepted theories.

As a fan of the Pokémon franchise for twenty one years, I can honestly say this was one of the most unique and stand alone additions to the Pokémon universe cannon I have come across.

It may be too left of centre to be everyone’s cup of polteageist, but for hardcore fans who’d like to expand their PokéLibrary of knowledge – I would highly recommend “The Birth of Mewtwo.”

Tell Straight Outta Kanto what you think on:

Twitter: @KantoOutta and @VenusDeVilo

Instagram: @straightoutta_kanto and @venus_de_vilo

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ and https://www.facebook.com/VenusDeViloTheVoiceOfHorror/

Join the Pokemon Fan Club Ireland Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/

Listen to the Straight Outta Kanto Podcast Radio Show https://open.spotify.com/show/0FRul8v6Xpy8JFD8clhlok?si=-f1uecxqT5erPBqigRIALg and the music of Venus de Vilo https://open.spotify.com/artist/7hSAeNpNk7ydf8lgE93sHn on Spotify.