Quoted By:
>I always wondered why Pikachu never seems to grow in power, until I read this very page and realized something. Pikachu can't get any more powerful, because he can't evolve. Because he never evolved, he never learned better moves, and never got the stat boost becoming a Raichu would give him. Because of his/Ash's lack of foresight in his third (?) gym battle, Pikachu can be defeated by many lower level Pokémon (for example, Cress' Panpour, a water type, early on in Best Wishes) and is probably lucky to have ever defeated anything better than him.