A resurfaced interview has revealed thatNintendoof America originally pushed for Pikachu to have “huge br**sts” when bringingPokemonover to the West. Yes, you read that right.
Without a doubt,Pokemon is one of the most recognisable and beloved franchises in the whole world. It’s been that way ever since the first game released and set in motion the anime, TCG, movies, and a whole lot more.Everyone has their favourite Pokemon(mine’s Meowth, thanks for asking), but there’s one that rules the roost as the poster ‘mon of the series.
I am, of course, talking about Pikachu,who has been a big part of the series ever since Red and Blue launched in 1996. Pikachu’s popularity skyrocketed thanks to the Pokemon anime and release of Pokemon Yellow, which caused his cutesy and iconic design to be front and centre of the series forevermore. It was almost a very different story, though.
Pokemon’s main mascot almost lookedverydifferent when the series debuted in the West
Thank God Nintendo of America’s redesign was ignored
For some time now,there’s been a rumour that Pikachu was almost given a much raunchier design when Pokemon was being localisedfor Western audiences. Well,as pointed out by GamesRadar+andreported by Automaton, that rumour actually has some credibility to it, as The Pokemon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara actually confirmed it in a very old interview.
Japanese website Game*Sparkmanaged to dig up an old interview from around the time Pokemon Gold and Silver released, where Ishihara shared some interesting facts about the attempts to localise Pokemon. While there have been debates about whether Ishihara’s use of “mune” meant chests or br**sts,the full interview confirms it’s the latter.
Ishihara said that Nintendo of America thought Pokemon was “too cute” and suggested redesigns. Those redesigns, which Ishihara says he’ll never show to anyone “as long as I live” looked like characters from the Cats musical. Pokemon’s CEO then notes that Pikachu was changed into a character “shaped like a kind of a tabby cat with huge br**sts”.
When I first showed Pokémon to them, they told me it was too cute. The staff at Nintendo of America then suggested their own designs for the characters – I won’t show those illustrations to anyone as long as I live, but they kind of looked like the characters from the Cats musical. - Tsunekazu Ishihara
That could still mean chest, but the interviewer asks if the design was “like those girls who do Pikachu cosplays”, causing Ishihara to confirm that was indeed the case. The Pokemon Company’s CEO said that he thought it was “interesting” to see the cultural differences, but that he didn’t want to compete in the overseas market by pulling that kind of move.
You’re welcome for having Pikachu ruined for you like that interview did for me. I’ll never look at the little guy the same way.
