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>A number of advertisers who had been collaborating with Ms. Sakai severed all ties with her as well. A Toyota ad campaign featuring Sakai Noriko at the time was pulled and her clothing line PP Rikorino, which featured over 150 items, was pulled from stores as well. Ms. Sakai was also part of an anti-drug campaign when she was younger. She was obviously pulled from that as well.
>Step Three will be covered a bit later, but before we get into that let's look at how all of this affected Pocket Monsters.
>All things Sakai Noriko were verboten throughout Japan at the end of 2009. Pokemon was no exception.
>Here's what Japan ended up doing. They don't pretend like Pichu and Pikachu never existed. The short is still listed on both the official website for the franchise in general as well as the official website for the movies in particular. Printed movie guides, like the Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! Perfect Guide ~Satoshi's and Pikachu's Adventure Log~ released in 2012, bring it the short as if nothing happened. The art gallery exhibit held in Tokyo to celebrate the movie franchise's fifteenth anniversary back in 2014 covered Pichu and Pikachu just as much as it covered all the other shorts.
>And music from the short continued to be used after her arrest as well. A piece of background music that was basically an instrumental version of the song she sang for the film, Tomodachi Kinenbi, was still being used in the TV series despite its (loose) association with a convicted felon. Other music from the short appeared in later episodes as well.
>Compared to, say, "Electric Soldier Porygon" or "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan," Pichu and Pikachu have it pretty good.
