Every banned Pokémon episode and why they were pulled from TV

polygon.com:

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: it’s tough out there for a Pokémon anime completionist. Tracking down every episode across all 26 seasons makes nabbing the franchise’s many colorful critters seem downright easy by comparison. And the kicker? Even if you do technically “catch ‘em all,” there are still a handful of Pokémon episodes that are tricky — if not outright impossible — to watch. Why? Because these suckers were banned.

We don’t mean they never aired (meaning nobody saw them), or were postponed, or were briefly yanked from circulation. The banned Pokémon episodes we’re talking about were pulled following public outcry and haven’t been seen in their original form — or any form, in some cases — since. We’ve rounded all of them up below, complete with a full rundown of the reasons they were banned, from offensive stereotypes to public safety concerns.

As alluded to above, a trio of Pokémon episodes never aired — like, ever. This isn’t quite the same as being banned, but these unseen entries nevertheless deserve a shout-out. The three unaired Pokémon episodes are season 8’s “Battle of the Quaking Island! Dojoach vs. Namazun!!” and season 14’s two-parter “Team Rocket vs. Team Plasma!”. 

Japanese network TV Tokyo opted not to broadcast the former due to its unintended overlap with the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake, and the latter because of its similarities to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. All three episodes were initially slated to air later on in Pokémon’s run, but were ultimately discontinued.

A lot of what made it onto TV in the late 90s wouldn’t fly today, but even so, Pokémon season 1, episode 18, “Beauty and the Beach,” was an obvious non-starter. It boasts a frankly astonishing amount of sexually-charged material, including multiple people — Ash and Brock among them — ogling Misty in a bikini. Oh, and Team Rocket’s James struts around with a pair of blow-up breasts and body shames Misty, just for good measure. It’s got “moral panic” written