>>25261261They definitely didn't anticipate Pikachu's future popularity in 1996 or whenever someone submitted Raichu's design. There was probably no way of knowing until the story for the anime had been set in stone by 1997, but by then the games had hit market and Raichu was out in the world.
Raichu still managed to carve out a name for himself as Pikachu's bigger and more badass counterpart on Surge's team (and in the first movie), so I think it worked out well enough for them. I still remember being really pissed off when I played yellow for the first time in 1999 at being unable to evolve my Pikachu with a thunder stone
because I was too much of a noob to catch it the first time round in Viridian forest.
They probably didn't anticipate that Pikachu would still be the mascott 20 years later, while Raichu has gotten no attention whatsoever since the 90s.
