Japan To Pokémon Go Players: Stop Going to the Fukushima Nuclear Site

Japan wants the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone to be classified as a no-go area for
Pokémon after the discovery of some Pokémon— it’s gotta be Nucleon or a corrupted
Chyinmunk, right?— on the power station’s site.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco), the company responsible for the nuclear site that experienced a radioactive meltdown in 2011, has requested that Pokémon Go developer Niantic prevent Pokémon from appearing on, or near, the site…because where there are Pokémon, there are people … a lot of people.

Even before Tepco’s formal appeal, the company had banned employees from playing Pokémon Go on site— probably understandably because the employees would dominate Pokémon Uranium— and, since a group of Ohio teens snuck into a nuclear power plant, Japanese energy providers have been on high alert for adventurous trainers.

Since the game’s launch, the Pokémon Go craze has led to some minor chaos— even forcing some gamers into personal interactions. In Japan, already, Nagasaki has requested the removal of Pokémon from Nagasaki Peace Park, a memorial to the victims of the atomic bombing of the city in 1945; New Zealanders have been led to Hells Angels hideouts; holocaust museums have been overrun with Pokestops; and even gamers have been forced to interact with the general populace.

Though the game has sort of become the exercise app that actually works, the global frenzy — or maybe obsession is a better word — has, and can, put gamers at risk, and in this instance, it’s nuclear radiation.