Game Freak goes into great detail on the creation of Pikachu

Pokemon Co. recently hosted an interview with Game Freak co-founder Ken Sugimori, character designer Atsuko Nishida, and game designer Koji Nishino to talk about the creation of Pikachu. You can see tidbits from that interview below.

- Pikachu was specifically designed to be cute
- Pokémon were originally envisioned to be more “tough-looking” overall
- a few people in the company expressed desire for cuter Pokémon
- Sugimori was unsure of how to approach a cute design since he was coming at it from a “boy’s perspective”
- the women of the company were turned to to make Pikachu cute
- Nishida wasn’t on the Pokémon team at first, as she was actually working on character designs for a Mega Drive game
- after switching over to the Pokémon team, she was given the vague outline to design an “electric type” with “two evolutions”
- the original design was done directly in pixel art and resembled a daifuku (a mochi rice cake filled with sweet filling)
- Pikachu’s electricity-holding cheeks were inspired by squirrels
- the color yellow was chosen because of the electric motif
- yellow also naturally complimented the red-green-blue colorings of the first-generation starter Pokémon
- Nishida collaborated with Nishino on the design
- Nishino sent it back a few times, telling her to “make [it] even cuter.”
- Nishino was so attached to Pikachu’s design that he purposefully made Pikachu harder to find in-game
- Pikachu’s rarity only made it more popular amongst players
- Pikachu’s name came from “Pika-Pika,” which is a Japanese onomatopoeia for glittering and shining
- the “chu” part comes from the sound of a mouse squeak
- Sugimori attributes Pikachu’s biggest break in popularity to the anime
- it was a very deliberate decision to have Pikachu as Ash’s partner Pokémon
- the team thinks Pikachu’s simplistic and appealing design is what makes it a fan favorite