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Pikachu is actually based on a squirrel

No.35463898 View ViewReplyOriginalReport
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0004412363

>The design for Pikachu, one of the main characters in the popular game franchise Pocket Monsters, better known as Pokemon, was based on a squirrel — not a mouse — developers of the game at the time of its 1996 debut have told The Yomiuri Shimbun.

>This is the first time the designers have revealed the story behind Pikachu’s origin. The Pokemon Co., the Tokyo-based brand management company for the Pokemon franchise, will add this information to its website as early as late May.

>According to the developers, including Ken Sugimori, 52, an executive at game developer Game Freak Inc., and illustrator Atsuko Nishida, who was working at the company when Pokemon was released, Nishida was tasked with designing a “cute monster” character that met two specific conditions: It must be an “electric type” that used electric attacks and must have two stages of evolution.

>Nishida said she initially created a character that resembled a “vertically long daifuku rice confection with ears.”

>After being told it needed to be cuter, she created a new design based on a squirrel, an animal she wanted to own as a pet at the time.