The Lavender Town Song
Shortly after the release of the original Pokémon games, there was a reported spike in the number of child suicides in Japan. It is often said, usually in spooky voices, that the music that plays in Lavender Town was responsible.
Many supporters of this myth say the game’s programmers put specific frequencies into the music that would cause extremely negative psychological effects, thus resulting in increased suicide cases. This partially isn’t true. The town’s music did have a binaural effect which only children could hear, and this apparently caused severe headaches and migraines to those children listening with headphones. Due to this, the developers changed the music and softened the higher pitched notes for the games’ Western release. However, there remains no accessible, concrete evidence that there was a link between an increased number of child suicide cases in Japan in 1996 and the Pokémon games.
Lavender Town’s music is still unsettling to this day, even after getting toned down. When you pair the melody up to the town’s backstory, it gets even more unnerving. This is where trainers visit a haunted tower to mourn their dead Pokémon. As you make your way through the tower, you can speak to possessed and delirious trainers, facing off against ghost-type Pokémon that you can only see with the help of a special item.
It may not be true that the music resulted in these suicides, but it’s a damn creepy town either way.
