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are a fictional species of Pokémon. Pokémon are fictional creatures that appear in an assortment of comic books, animated movies and television shows, video games, and trading card games licensed by The Pokémon Company, a Japanese corporation. The Pikachu design was conceived by Ken Sugimori. Pikachu first appeared in ''Pokémon Red and Green'' in Japan, and later in the first internationally-released ''Pokémon'' video games ''Pokémon Red'' and ''Blue'' for the original Game Boy. Like other species of Pokémon, Pikachu are often captured and groomed by humans to fight other Pokémon for sport. Pikachu are one of the most well-known varieties of Pokémon, largely because a Pikachu is a central character in the ''Pokémon'' anime series. Pikachu is regarded as a major character of the ''Pokémon'' franchise as well as its mascot, and has become an icon of Japanese pop culture in recent years. ==Concept and design== Developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo, the ''Pokémon'' series began in Japan in 1996, and features several species of creatures called "Pokémon" that players, called "trainers", are encouraged to capture, train, and use to battle other players' Pokémon or interact with the game's world. Pikachu was one of several different Pokémon designs conceived by Game Freak's character development team and finalized by artist Ken Sugimori. According to series producer Satoshi Tajiri, the name is derived from a combination of two Japanese sounds: ''pika'', a sound an electric spark makes, and ''chu'', a sound a mouse makes. Developer Junichi Masuda noted Pikachu's name as one of the most difficult to create, due to an effort to make it appealing to both Japanese and American audiences. Standing 1 ft 4 in (0.4m) tall, Pikachu are mouse-like creatures, and were the first "Electric-type" Pokémon created, their design intended to revolve around the concept of electricity. They appear as mouse-like creatures that have short, yellow fur with brown markings covering their backs and parts of their lightning bolt shaped tails. They have black-tipped, pointed ears and red circular pouches on their cheeks, which can spark with electricity.〔Pokédex: It lives in forests with others. It stores electricity in the pouches on its cheeks. 〕 In ''Pokémon Diamond'' and ''Pearl'', gender differences were introduced; a female Pikachu now has an indent at the end of its tail, giving it a heart-shaped appearance. They attack primarily by projecting electricity from their bodies at their targets. Within the context of the franchise, a Pikachu can transform, or "evolve" into a Raichu when exposed to a "Thunderstone". In later titles an evolutionary predecessor was introduced named "Pichu", which evolves into a Pikachu after establishing a close friendship with its trainer. Initially both Pikachu and the Pokémon Clefairy were chosen to be lead characters for the franchise merchandising, with the latter as the primary mascot to make the early comic book series more "engaging". However, with the production of the animated series, Pikachu was chosen as the primary mascot, in an attempt to appeal to female viewers and their mothers, and under the belief that the creature presented the image of a recognizable intimate pet for children. Its color was also a deciding factor, as yellow is a primary color and easier for children to recognize from a distance, and with consideration to the fact the only other competing yellow mascot at the time was Winnie-the-Pooh. Though Tajiri acknowledged that the character was relatively popular with both boys and girls, the idea of Pikachu as the mascot was not his own, and stated he felt the human aspect of the series was overlooked by Japanese children who embraced Pikachu by itself more readily. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pikachu」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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