Let's Talk About Pikachu

Pikachu certainly are a species of Pokémon, fictional creatures that come in an assortment of video gaming, animated tv shows and movies, trading cards, and comic books licensed by The Pokémon Company, a Japanese corporation. They are yellow rodent-like creatures with powerful electrical abilities. Generally in most vocalized appearances, like the anime and certain video gaming, they are primarily voiced by Ikue Ōtani. A Pikachu also appears within the main cast in the live-action animated film Pokémon Detective Pikachu, played in CGI and voiced by Ryan Reynolds.

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The Pikachu design was conceived by Atsuko Nishida and finalized by Ken Sugimori. Pikachu 1st appeared in Pokémon Red and Green in Japan, and later in the initial internationally released Pokémon video gaming, Pokémon Red and Blue, for the initial Game Boy.

Pikachu are probably the most well-known types of Pokémon, largely because Pikachu is a central character in the Pokémon anime series. Pikachu is undoubtedly a significant character of the Pokémon franchise and also its mascot, and is becoming an icon of Japanese pop culture lately. It is also viewed

as among the major mascots for Nintendo.

Produced by Game Freak and published by Nintendo, the Pokémon series began in Japan in 1996, and features several species of creatures called "Pokémon" that players, called "trainers", should capture, train, and make use of to fight other players' Pokémon or connect to the game's world. Pikachu was one of the different Pokémon designs conceived by Game Freak's character development team. Artist Atsuko Nishida is credited as the primary person behind Pikachu's design, that was later finalized by artist Ken Sugimori. According to series producer Satoshi Tajiri, the name comes from a combined mix of two Japanese sounds: pika, a sound a power spark makes, and chu, a sound a mouse makes. Despite its name's origins, however, Nishida based Pikachu's generation 1 design, especially its cheeks, on squirrels. Developer Junichi Masuda noted Pikachu's name among the most challenging to create, because of an effort to create it appealing to both Japanese and American audiences.

Standing 40 centimetres (1 ft 4 in) tall, Pikachu were the 1st "Electric-type" Pokémon created, their design designed to revolve around the idea of electricity. They appear as Pika-like creatures which have short, yellow fur with brown markings covering their backs and elements of their lightning bolt-shaped tails. They possess black-tipped, pointed ears and red circular pouches on the cheeks, that may spark with electricity. In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, gender differences had been introduced; a lady Pikachu now comes with an indent by the end of its tail, giving it a heart-shaped appearance. They attack primarily by projecting electricity from their bodies at their targets. Within the context of the franchise, a Pikachu can transform, or "evolve," right into a Raichu when subjected to a "Thunderstone." In later titles an evolutionary predecessor was introduced named "Pichu", which evolves right into a Pikachu after establishing a close friendship with its trainer.

At first both Pikachu and the Pokémon Clefairy were chosen to be lead characters for the franchise merchandising, with the latter as the principal mascot to help make the early comic book series more "engaging". However, with the production of the animated series, Pikachu was chosen as the principal mascot, so that they can appeal to female viewers and their mothers, and since it was believed that Pikachu presented the image of a recognizable intimate pet to children. Its color was also a deciding factor, as yellow is a primary color and easier for children to identify from a distance, and with consideration to the fact that the only other competing yellow mascot at the time was Winnie-the-Pooh. Though Tajiri acknowledged that the character was relatively popular with both boys and girls, the idea of Pikachu as the mascot was not his own, with the company responsible for the production of the animated series OLM, Inc. giving the suggestion to utilize Pikachu’s potential to Game Freak, and stated he felt the human aspect of the series was overlooked by Japanese children who embraced Pikachu by itself more readily. Pikachu was originally going to have a second evolution called Gorochu, which was intended to be the evolved form of Raichu.