Pikachu (Ash)

**Pikachu** is a Pikachu owned by Ash Ketchum, formerly by Professor Oak.

## Personality

At first, Pikachu was extremely disobient towards Ash, but after gaining his trust, Pikachu became extremely loyal to Ash.

While not always immediately trusting of strangers, Pikachu is generally friendly to humans and Pokémon alike. Pikachu took a liking to Misty very early in the series, and he has retained this liking of Misty throughout the series.

Pikachu acted like a big brother towards Misty's Togepi.

In **Mewtwo Strikes Back**, Pikachu, Meowth, and Meowthtwo were the only Pokémon not to participate in the giant battle; Pikachu stood motionless as Pikachutwo repeatedly attacked him.

In *A Fright to Remember!*, Pikachu developed amnesia and became very easy for Meowth to trick and convince Pikachu that Ash was an enemy, to which Pikachu became hostile towards Ash. However, upon recovering from amnesia, Pikachu returned to normal.

On several occasions, Pikachu has developed an electric flu, causing him to become overcharged with electricity and extremely powerful. During these instances, Pikachu will sometimes accidentally let off electric and can become extremely ill.

As shown in *Showdown at Dark City*, Pikachu has a fondness for ketchup, but he will eat and enjoy almost any other human or Pokémon food.

A running joke in the anime is Pikachu using Thunderbolt at the beginning of each series to destroy a female companion's bike or shock the companion herself. This has happened to Misty, May, Dawn, Iris, and Bonnie.

Pikachu is always happy to battle. He often tries his very best, but when he loses, he doesn't complain or feel bad about himself, especially when Ash reassures him.

Ash and Pikachu are almost identical personality-wise, and thus are the perfect match for one another. Most others agree, with the exception of Burgundy, who in *A Connoisseur's Revenge!*, said that Ash had a terrible relationship with all of his Pokémon.

The idea of evolving into a Raichu was first raised to Pikachu in the episode *Electric Shock Showdown*. After suffering a crushing defeat by Lt. Surge's Raichu, Nurse Joy presented Ash with a Thunder Stone. Ash gave Pikachu the choice, but it smacked the Thunder Stone away with his tail, refusing the evolution, and defeated Raichu using its superior speed. In *Pika and Goliath!*, Pikachu battled Sho's Raichu. The two were evenly matched, until Raichu used Hyper Beam to defeat and severely injure Pikachu. At a Pokémon Center, Ash revealed that he still has the Thunder Stone he acquired in *Electric Shock Showdown*, just in case Pikachu changed his mind about evolving. Once again, Pikachu chose not to evolve, and defeated Raichu in a rematch with a combination of speed and spinning techniques. Team Rocket stole the Thunder Stone, as they also wished for Pikachu to not evolve.

## Battle Skills

In general, Pikachu are not particularly powerful, but Ash's Pikachu is an exception, with his power being praised by several people. In *Pokémon Emergency!*, Meowth remarked that Pikachu's power "far exceeds its evolutionary level". Pikachu has also defeated Pokémon that were too strong for Ash's other Pokémon to defeat, such as Lance's Dragonite and Korrina's Mega Lucario. He was also the second of Ash's Pokémon, after Charizard, to defeat a legendary Pokémon in battle, defeating Brandon's Regice to win the Brave Symbol. He later fought Tobias's Latios to a draw in the semi-finals of the Lily of the Valley Conference.

However, at times, Pikachu has been defeated with relative ease by his opponent; for example, he was overpowered very easily by Lt. Surge's Raichu, Sabrina's Kadabra, Blaine's Magmar, Bugsy's Scyther, Whitney's Miltank, Chuck's Poliwrath, Roark's Rampardos, Fantina's Drifblim, Cress's Panpour, and Viola's Surskit, despite having a type advantage over Panpour, Scyther, Poliwrath, Drifblim, and Surskit. He also drew against Winona's Pelipper and Norman's Vigoroth, and struggled against Crasher Wake's Floatzel (not actually defeating him). Furthermore, he has lost twice to Trip's Serperior, as a Snivy in *In the Shadow of Zekrom!* and as a Servine in *A Rival Battle for Club Champ!*, despite Trip being a starting Trainer and Serperior being inexperienced at the time.

## Trivia

* Pikachu has used two moves Pikachu can't learn in the games: Tackle and Leer.

 Released
 Borrowed from another trainer