Is Pikachu on a diet?

Question

I noticed that Pikachu evolved a little over time.
I wonder why he changed his form so much, so I'm a bit worried about Pikachu. enter image description here

@kuwaly: At least in the anime, Rocko is often seen cooking meals, also for Pikachu. — looper, Apr 23 '13 at 12:27
As time passes, animation level and quality becomes better and better! — votelessbubble, Nov 06 '13 at 09:26

score 43 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 23 '13 at 01:52

It's most likely a matter of different character designers over the different generations of the franchise. The original design was created by Game Freak's (original game's designers) character development team and finalized by artist Ken Sugimori. The games themselves had changes in Pikachu's designs, which were in turn mirrored by the anime:

enter image description here "Green and Red", 1996

enter image description here "Blue", 1996

enter image description here "Yellow", 1998

enter image description here "Gold", 1999

enter image description here "Ruby and Sapphire", 2002

enter image description here "Diamond and Pearl", 2006

enter image description here "Platinum", 2008

enter image description here "HeartGold and SoulSilver", 2009

Ken Sugimori is also one of the character designers for the first TV series from 1997. In 2002, Pokemon Advance had Sayuri Ichiishi as the character designer. And in 2006, Pocket Monsters and 2010's Black and White has Toshiya Yamada in charge of character designs.

enter image description here from the "Advance" generation

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 08 '14 at 06:49

I wouldn't say it's Pikachu losing weight but a reasonable design alteration. The head can move realistically instead of just being glued to the body, the feet are better defined, and the arms are more expressive. Even the ears have some flexibility. If anything, the tail looks bigger.

Is Pikachu on a diet?

2 Answers2