>>51213175>Anymore Been the case for a long time so unless you've lived under a rock I don't know how you'd only just gotten to that point.
Pikachu's physique was changed in the anime to give it more varied and expressive animation, Ash's Pika also developed a personality trait of mimicking other Pokemon so it can exaggerate its proportions more, though this was mostly during Gens 3 and 4.
The change would eventually be carried over the the games because, despite was many vidaya purists say, the anime has a surprising amount of sway in that regard. Hell Gen 2 having simple designs was largely due to Sugimori trying to be considerate of the animators and merch producers, to say nothing of the other concepts the anime has spawned that have bled into other facets of the franchise.
