Pokemon Go
© Eugene Hoshiko, APPeople gaze at their smartphones as they play "Pokemon Go" at Akihabara district in Tokyo, Friday, July 22, 2016. The wait is over for "Pokemon Go" fans in Japan. Users began tweeting it was available Friday morning, and the Pokemon Co. and the developer of the augmented reality game, U.S.-based Niantic Inc., confirmed its launch shortly after.
Energy officials in Japan are finding that the augmented reality smartphone game Pokémon Go and nuclear power plants do not mix.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) has reached out to San Francisco software development company Niantic and the Tokyo-based Pokémon Company in an attempt to get them to prevent monsters from appearing in areas radioactively affected by the Fukushima nuclear meltdown of 2011.

Although so far, no game-playing trespassers have yet been reported onsite in Tepco's three major power plants (one being the dangerous Fukushima No. 1, damaged by a catastrophic earthquake), Japanese officials nonetheless became worried that they would see straying gamers attempt to catch virtual reality monsters in dangerous radiation zones after three teenagers found their way inside an Ohio plant.

Although a spokesperson for Tepco would not comment as to whether any Pokémon had been found in any nuclear facilities, The Japan Times reports that "Pokemon characters did pop up inside the compounds of some Tepco nuclear plants."

Pokémon Company, for its part, relayed to the Japan Times that it is against Niantic's policy to drop any Pokémon inside the boundaries of power plants, however, due to "a bug," some were appearing anyway. Niantic later told the Guardian that they "would modify the game if the company discovered problems." The problem has reportedly since been resolved.

In addition to Tepco, the Holocaust Museum and the Auschwitz Memorial have likewise requested Pokémon be removed from their properties, though in these cases, the probability of imminent danger was not a factor.