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The Reason Why Pikachu Chosen to Be Ash's Starter

Shadao

Pikachu's Global Adventure
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A GameSpot Interview with Junchi Masuda reveals exactly why Pikachu was chosen to be the star of the Pokémon anime as Ash's partner, as well as why the Pikachu species was even in the Viridian Forest in the first place. Depending on what you believe, this might be surprising to some people or not:

"I think the biggest reason is that Pikachu was Ash's partner in the animated series, and that's probably what caused it to be such a success and endearing and widespread. But why was Pikachu chosen as the partner for Ash in the animated series? If you remember back in the original games, the first forest you go into, Pikachu was a very rare Pokemon there. It was a situation where, in places like an elementary school class, maybe two or three kids would have encountered Pikachu. The rest of them hadn't seen him before. It was a cute Pokemon, hard to get, and other students would wonder "How did you get that?" So Pikachu got a lot of buzz, but the internet wasn't around then like it is today; it had to spread by word of mouth. It was a rumored Pokemon that existed in this forest.

That was one of the reasons we chose it as the partner for Ash in the animated series. We wanted to feature it because of the rumors that spread about it. The guy who originally coded that part of the the forest, he liked Pikachu because it was a cute Pokemon. He just wanted to catch it for himself, so he made it very low encounter rate. Extremely rare.

Though I guess he wasn't always as cute as he is now [laughs]."


- Junchi Masuda

It's quite funny how Pikachu's rise to mascot status was due to the fact it was the legendary urban Mew of its day (only it's real and not found under a truck).
 
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This is not far from the theory my brother and I had; that it being the first rare encounter led to it's popularity which led to it being Ash's starter.

It's funny to think about; I don't think I ever just stumbled on Pikachu in Viridian Forest unless I was looking for it, and in the pre-internet days I can see it getting that sort of word-of-mouth effect (there were strategy guides, though).
 
I am pretty sure Pikachu wanted nothing to do with Ash before the Spearow attack. So it didn't chose to be his starter. At least not right away.
 
But, very hilariously, Pikachu was given to him by Prof. Oak, rather than Ash went out to Viridian Forest and catch it by himself.
 
I know that before Pikachu, they planned to feature Pippi as the star Pokemon. Funny to see it's one of the stars in that gag manga called Pocket Monsters. Wonder if this is some coincidence or not...
 
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So that's why Pikachu was chosen
 
Also important is that: catching Pikachu is the most obvious way to defeat Misty.
 
The good old days... my cousin told me that the grassy area in the lower left corner of the forest was a 'Pikachu hotspot' for some reason - maybe he found his Pikachu there (kinda like how people prefer digging through the exact grass patch Wally found his Ralts just for extra luck). But really, all those times I played through Red version, I only caught Pikachu once or twice.

Interesting interview.
 
That coder must have been pretty naive since in the Power Plant, Pikachu had a 25% encounter rate. Sure, it's pretty late in the game before you can actually get there, but the coder simply wanted the Pokemon to himself period, not just having it early in the game first. And didn't the games have guide books in Japan back then?

Still, pretty good story.
 
That coder must have been pretty naive since in the Power Plant, Pikachu had a 25% encounter rate. Sure, it's pretty late in the game before you can actually get there, but the coder simply wanted the Pokemon to himself period, not just having it early in the game first. And didn't the games have guide books in Japan back then?

Still, pretty good story.

I believe Pikachu was originally going to be a Power Plant exclusive Pokémon, but the coder took a liking to the little mouse and want to sneak one early in the most unlikely location available at the start of the game... the bug forest.
 
Please note: The thread is from 7 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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