Pikachu
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The Pikachu ( Japanese ピ カ チ ュ ウ , Pikachū ) is a fictional being and the best-known Pokémon from the video games of the same name by the Japanese game software company Game Freak and a core character in the accompanying anime . It is considered the mascot of the Pokémon franchise and can often be seen on packaging for corresponding products. The name "Pikachu" is made up of the two Japanese sound words Pika ( ぴ か ), for the sound of an electric spark, and Chū , for the beeping of a mouse. Japanese researchers at the Osaka Bioscience Institute named a newly discovered protein , pikachurin, after the Pokémon , which is believed to play a role in movement vision .
Appearance
The Pikachu has a mouse-like body, yellow fur and a rounded head with red chubby cheeks, black button eyes and elongated ears that end in black tips. Two brown stripes run across his back and his flat tail runs in a wide lightning bolt shape. Female Pikachu have a heart-shaped serrated tail. As part of the Electric Pokémon subspecies , it is capable of delivering electric shocks and delivering lightning bolts. In the cartoons and the Pokémon Yellow Edition, the Pikachu, like most other Pokémon, does not make animal sounds, but speaks (in a child's voice) its name or individual syllables.
Originally, Pikachu was a squirrel. Pikachu is based on a pika , also called pikas.
Video games
In the Pokémon role-playing games , the Pikachu is a common Pokémon that you can encounter, fight and capture more often in given landscapes. It can be found in all versions of the role-playing game.Similar to most Pokémon, Pikachu is part of an evolutionary series in which one Pokémon transforms into another. The preliminary stage of a Pikachu is the Pichu ; a pikachu can develop into a raichu with the help of a thunderstone . In some offshoots of the main games, Pikachu has special forms such as the Cosplay Pikachu in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire .
In 1998, the game Pikachū Genki dechū ( ピ カ チ ュ ウ げ ん き で ち ゅ う ; pun on "Pikachu genki desu": Pikachu is doing well) was released for the Nintendo 64 in Japan in 2000 under the title Hey You, Pikachu! was expelled. The title is a form of life simulation with speech recognition : the player uses the enclosed microphone to give instructions that cause the Pikachu to take various actions, as long as it has a certain minimum level of satisfaction. Other parts of the game include a game of hide and seek. Over time, the player receives points that are intended to represent his friendship with Pikachu. The game sold poorly, according to IGN . Fran Mirabella III (IGN) found the controls in the first person perspective to be very cumbersome, they raise the level of difficulty together with speech recognition errors. The graphics correspond to a very early point in the life of the game platform and the acoustic background with short music loops is unpleasant. The Pikachu figure itself is to be rated very positively, whose animations are soft and expressive, which is enhanced by the extensive forms of saying one's own name. In principle, the game is a rather entertaining amusement for young children.
In 1999 Nintendo released a modified version of the original Pokémon Game Boy game as the Special Pikachu Edition , which is based on the Pokémon animated series: At the beginning of the game you don't choose one of the usual three Pokémon, but receive a stubborn one Pikachu, which is initially hostile towards the protagonist and whose affection depends on the actions of the player; the game also contains other borrowings from the television series, such as the antagonistic team Rocket, which recurs in every episode . The title sold over a million copies within two weeks, and 14.6 million copies went over the counter in the long term. The game appeared in Europe a year later.
One of the first games for the Nintendo DS was 2005 Pokémon Dash : The player controls a Pikachu from the top view in a race against other Pokémon by using the stylus draws uninterrupted lines across the screen of the DS and thus dictates the movement of Pikachu. The game comes from the Ambrella studio, which was already used for Hey You, Pikachu! was responsible and received largely poor reviews from critics.
The Pokémon Pikachuis a portable device that - similar to Tamagotchi - has to take care of a virtual Pikachu. The device includes a pedometer with an integrated clock and a colorless liquid crystal screen on which the Pokémon can be seen. Physical exercise with the pedometer on your belt gives you virtual watt units that you can give Pikachu to make friends with. The device sold over 2.5 million times in Japan in the first 30 days.
The successor, the Pokémon Pikachu Color , has a color display and an infrared interface that can be used to transfer watts to other Pokémon Pikachu Colors. It is also possible to use the infrared interface of the Game Boy Color Watt to transfer gold , silver and crystal to the Pokémon role-playing games and exchange them for virtual objects. With an integrated mini game, additional watt units can be earned.
Pikachu is a playable character in all parts of the Super Smash Bros series and faces other Nintendo characters with an arsenal of different, electrically based attacks. As in the anime, it is spoken by Ikue Ōtani .
Furthermore, the games PokéPark Wii: Pikachu's great adventure and its successor PokéPark Wii: The Dimension of Desires have been released for the Wii console from Nintendo . In both parts, the Pikachu is a playable main character. The games simulate the life of Pikachu in a fictional landscape, the eponymous PokéPark . The aim is to master certain mini-games and make friends with other Pokémon.
In the video game Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu! Pikachu is, among other things, the main character of the game. It's the only Pokemon that Pokemon-Ami can be used on, which means the Pokemon can be played with.
Anime
In the anime series and in the movies, unlike in the mangas, a Pikachu instead of a Clefairy is the constant companion of the protagonist Ash Ketchum and his best friend. The series begins with Pikachu being assigned to the protagonist as his very first Pokémon, but rejecting him as his Pokémon trainer , ignoring his orders and occasionally attacking him. In the course of the first episode, the main character wins the trust of his Pokémon, so that it lingers by his side and becomes stronger and stronger as his preferred fighter over the course of the series. However, each time it avoids advancing to Raichu. Since it is very favored by its trainer, it will never be traded in with any other Pokémon. As usual in the series, it is not given a name and is instead called "Pikachu" with its species name. In almost every episode, Team Rocket , a group of Pokémon thieves, tries to steal Pikachu. However, it fails every time.
The main character's Pikachu is shown as a particularly idiosyncratic specimen, which defends itself against being kept in a Poké Ball , which is common in the fictional world of Pokémon, acts largely independently outside of combat and occasionally acts around it with cute (" kawaii ”) comments on gestures or loosens up the plot.
During the cartoon's planning phase, the producers were looking for a Pokémon to be the focus of the series. Pikachu was already one of the most popular characters back then and was considered to be potentially equally accessible to boys and girls, which is why it was selected for this part. According to Satoshi Tajiri , creator of the Pokémon games, Pikachu is perceived differently in Japan and the United States: children in the United States would prefer items that depict Pikachu with his trainer, while in Japan there is a focus on Pikachu alone.
reception
In 2003 and 2004, the Forbes Magazine website published an overview of the ten most profitable fictional characters. In both, Pikachu was run on behalf of the Pokémon franchise. In the Asian Time edition of December 1999, Pikachu was named second behind Ricky Martin in the category "The Best People of 1999" (English, translated: "The best people of 1999").
The autonomous Pacific island of Niue minted one New Zealand dollar commemorative coins from Pikachu in 2001 in a number of 100,000 copies.
Pikachu was the official World Cup mascot for the Japanese national soccer team in 2014 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Time asia : Interview of November 22, 1999 with Satoshi Tajiri , page 2 (English, accessed June 11, 2008)
- ↑ on the popularity of the Pikachu: nordicom.gu.se ( memento of the original from June 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Yearbook 2002 des Nordicom, Göteborg University, page 54 (English, PDF, accessed June 10, 2008; 1.3 MB)
- ↑ Researchers: 'Pikachurin' protein linked with kinetic vision. Daily Yomiuri, July 22, 2008, archived from the original August 1, 2008 ; Retrieved July 25, 2008 (English).
- ↑ ピ カ チ ュ ウ は 大 福？ 初 め て 明 か さ れ る 誕生 秘 話: 深 読 み. May 2, 2018, Retrieved February 5, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ ign.com : Review of the Development of the Pokémon Series, page 2, paragraph on Hey You, Pikachu! (English, accessed June 10, 2008)
- ↑ ign.com ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Hey You, Pikachu! (English, accessed June 10, 2008)
- ↑ ign.com : Review of the development of the Pokémon series, section on Pokémon Yellow (English, accessed June 10, 2008)
- ↑ Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition. VGChartz, accessed July 24, 2014 .
- ↑ nintendo.de : Game overview for the Pikachu edition (accessed on June 10, 2008)
- ↑ ign.com : Review of the Development of the Pokémon Series, page 4, section on Pokémon Dash (accessed June 10, 2008)
- ↑ metacritic.com : Average rating from English-language game reviews of Pokémon Dash (English, accessed June 10, 2008)
- ↑ sfgate.com : News from May 28, 1998 (English, accessed June 10, 2008)
- ↑ Pikachu shouldn't be the star. Retrieved November 4, 2019 .
- ↑ Time asia : Interview of November 22, 1999 with Satoshi Tajiri (English, accessed June 11, 2008)
- ↑ forbes.com : Top-Earning Fictional Characters 2003 - Entry on Pikachu (English, accessed June 11, 2008)
- ↑ forbes.com : Top-Earning Fictional Characters 2004 - Entry on Pikachu (English, accessed June 11, 2008)
- ↑ Time asia : The Best People of 1999 (English, accessed June 11, 2008)
- ^ Niue Coins with Rulers. In: Chiefa Coins. Retrieved September 12, 2010 .
