it is. my opinion is that pika is overrated.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Note the keyword "Unpopular". Pikachu is overrated and raichu should get more attention is infact, not an unpopular opinion.
I'm not a big toy collector when it comes to Pokemon, but approximately a million years ago Burger King (I think?) did a promotion for one of the movies (I want to say the first movie... might have been the second) and gave away little figurines with each meal and I ended up getting a Raichu purely by chance. Loved that little thing, it was so cute and cemented my preference for Raichu over Pikachu.
EDIT: Just Googled it out of curiosity and found it! Didn't expect it to be that easy to find.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/373923367165
The Burger King Pokemon toys are pretty well known and popular.
Not to me (also my point was this was from 1999, so it's a surprise to see so many of them still in existence)
My Pikachu-related hot take is that Ash's evolving into Raichu could actually work narratively under one specific circumstance: Make him the final boss in the all previous protags return fanservice season 10-15 years from now and give the new guy his own Pikachu or the new Pikaclone. Full circle parallel to Ash VS Lt. Surge
(Also make it evolve into Alolan Raichu specifically)
(Also make it evolve into Alolan Raichu specifically)
Idk about this. It worked for Iris's Axew, but only because he earnestly wanted to evolve right from the beginning. Pikachu's character, by contrast, has always been about wanting to be strong on his own terms and prove wrong the perception that evolution = strength. Ash's battle against Surge demonstrates that Raichu is more physically and elementally powerful than Pikachu, but ultimately they win by proving that those aren't the only things that matter: Pikachu finds a way to defeat Raichu through its superior speed and agility.
I wouldn't mind seeing Ash return down the line, but having him come back in a few years with an evolved Raichu would go against that - I feel like it would imply that Pikachu got over this and "grew up" to embrace conformity, which is a fairly depressing angle to take. You couldn't really even do a parallel with Surge because Surge saw no value in having a Pikachu and evolved his straight away, which is manifestly not the case with Ash - his Pikachu has defeated legendaries and Gigantamax Pokemon.
Although I will concede that if it ever does evolve, Alolan Raichu feels more like the way it should go
One catch is that Journeys revealed Ash's Pikachu inherently has the Gigantamax Factor as it revealed its G-Max form early in Journeys.
And Pikachu with the G-Max Factor are expressly unable to evolve.
In this case it technically counts as a retcon since G-Max wasn't a thing until Gen 8, but this basically explicitly rules out any prospect of Ash's Pikachu ever evolving, as this essentially for all intents and purposes means Ash's Pikachu is explicitly unable to evolve. Not that it would ever want to in the first place, since it was established very early in Ash's story that it didn't want to evolve. But now that basically gives an in-universe catch that ensures it never will even if it hypothetically did change its mind because it outright can't.
Unless, by some chance, Ash one day used Max Mushrooms to undo Pikachu's G-Max factor. Which would undo the catch. But that basically, possibly unintentionally or intentionally, solidified it by making it outright unable to evolve in a way.
And Pikachu with the G-Max Factor are expressly unable to evolve.
In this case it technically counts as a retcon since G-Max wasn't a thing until Gen 8, but this basically explicitly rules out any prospect of Ash's Pikachu ever evolving, as this essentially for all intents and purposes means Ash's Pikachu is explicitly unable to evolve. Not that it would ever want to in the first place, since it was established very early in Ash's story that it didn't want to evolve. But now that basically gives an in-universe catch that ensures it never will even if it hypothetically did change its mind because it outright can't.
Unless, by some chance, Ash one day used Max Mushrooms to undo Pikachu's G-Max factor. Which would undo the catch. But that basically, possibly unintentionally or intentionally, solidified it by making it outright unable to evolve in a way.
Is it ever established why some Pokemon don't want to evolve?
It seems to vary a bit, some cases of it in the anime it seems to stem from bad experiences with the evolved form (Ash's Pikachu and Surge's Raichu and Team Rocket's Meowth and that Persian in Pokewood). Dawn's Piplup wanted to get stronger as Piplup rather than evolving. Ash's Rowlet is just really attached to its Everstone and doesn't care enough about evolving to leave it aside for long enough to evolve.
I find this particular reason bullshit because evolved Pokémon are fairly consistently depicted as stronger overall in the anime. Even Ash's strongest Pokémon sans Pikachu are his fully evolved ones. The real reason was clearly "Piplup is cute and marketable".
The writers could have at least tried to tie it into how a cute smol mon would be more appealing in Contests or something.
The better reasoning would have been the original reasoning that Ash's Pikachu beat Surge's Raichu, their size/ability to learn moves (or in non stone evolutions case, ability to learn moves quicker).
There really isn't a 'good' reasoning for not evolving your Pokemon aside from waiting to learn a level up move (and I doubt in the anime they would know about when mons learn moves, though I believe they know about levels since in the Indigo Plateau or Orange Islands arc, Bulbasaur was shown to be level 88 or smthing), but at the very least, this could be waved off as good enough reasoning.
There really isn't a 'good' reasoning for not evolving your Pokemon aside from waiting to learn a level up move (and I doubt in the anime they would know about when mons learn moves, though I believe they know about levels since in the Indigo Plateau or Orange Islands arc, Bulbasaur was shown to be level 88 or smthing), but at the very least, this could be waved off as good enough reasoning.
I don't think this reasoning makes sense for the anime verse because it's trying to go for a slightly more realistic(?) bend. Or at least a less gamified one. Levels stop actually existing at some point and TMs are just flat-out missing. Pokémon just learn moves over time via general training (or the occasional deus ex machina) and there really isn't a good reason why evolution would/should play into that.
Size could technically be a factor but this also doesn't really seem to functionally matter for combat performance in the anime. Larger Pokémon can still be fast. Hell, Ash's Sceptile gets the jump on Speed Forme Deoxys!
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I'd point to not look too deep into the Pikachu x Raichu thing..
Anything related to early Pokemon (be it games or media) is to always be taken with a grain of salt. Back then there was little to no logic involved in the writing, it was just about making if cool for kids.
In case you forgot, in the early anime you could actually occasionally see "normal animals" like dogs or insects around humans, or the whole concept of "what happens to kangashkan's kid when it leaves the mother/father, does it magically grow a kid out of nowhere?".
(Edit: how could I forget Pikachu hitting a wet onyx with electricity?)
Any time you try to put logic in 10+ year old episodes, somewhere in the world a kid gets kidnapped by a Drifloon.
Stop trying to put logic into old media. Think of the children.
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You do have a point. Whilst I understand that anime is used to promote Pokemon and its pals, it kinda makes it predictable, especially when it focuses on it more than storytelling.
Like it's no concidence that Uroto happened to have a Dragonite, that a few weeks earlier it can mega evolve.
Eh, different continuities aren't necessarily bound by the same rules. G-Max Pikachu being unable to evolve in the games and Ash's Pikachu being able to Gigantamax is more of a happy accident, if anything - there's a mechanical reason the NFE GMaxes can't evolve in the games so it's not like that was done with the intention of it paying off in the anime. What I'm getting at is that if the writers wanted to have Ash's Pikachu evolve in the anime I don't think they'd let the fact that he was able to Gigantamax stop them.
And I would actually make the case that it weakens the original arc of Pikachu deliberately and consciously not wanting to change to say "well, he couldn't have done so anyway even if he'd tried". It feels like fixing a plot hole that never was and it's a trope I feel like I see in a lot lately (the whole "they were inherently special all along" thing - it's so ubiquitous in long-running media).
Unless you want to theorise reeeeeeally wildly and say that Pikachu's stubbornness and strength of will was so immensely powerful it metastasised inside him and gave him the Gigantamax Factor, which... actually squares the circle in quite a nice way now I think of it. And isn't all that out of line with the way willpower has been portrayed in this universe.
I noted this a while back as I rewatched the original series a few months ago when they started being put on Youtube.
Given the target audience, I think they were leaning into the idea of "I don't want to grow up" quite hard, but for a lot of Ash's Pokemon in particular it often came off more as "I'm fine as I am, thanks, and I won't be told by you or anyone else that I have to change". There's quite a strong message of non-conformity there, particularly with Bulbasaur refusing the call to join others of its kind in evolving at a certain time - it's literally not following the crowd, and holds its ground by saying "I'll do this when I want". Which is basically in tune with Ash's personal philosophy of doing things his own way.
Evolved Pokemon in the anime are shown to be generally stronger as a rule of thumb but there's nuance to it; a lot of the time we're shown that impressive-looking Pokemon actually... aren't. Ash's Charizard, for instance, is big and strong and typically wins its early fights by virtue of that (in Johto, Misty calls Ash out for using it to easily win against smaller unevolved opponents) but it's poorly-trained and disobedient and when it gets compared against multiple others of its kind it's shown to be much weaker than they are. In one of the episodes I've just watched Ash and Misty get into a dispute with three trainers and Tracey observes that each of their Pokemon is lacking in some way: one is vitamin-deficient, one has poor colouring, and one needs more exercise.
And even though levels don't exist in the same fashion as the games, the advantages to delaying evolution are still shown to exist in a similar manner: in the Bulbasaur episode, for instance, it defeats Team Rocket by learning Solarbeam, something it's only able to do thanks to delaying evolution. And, of course, as in the games, some Pokemon are outright unable to learn certain moves after evolving; Brock explicitly calls out Surge's Raichu as not having learned the speed moves it could only learn as a Pikachu (which is true of all the games up to SwSh). That doesn't make his Raichu weak - obviously not, since it defeats countless challengers' Pokemon with ease - it's just a flaw in its method.
Granted, it's never really explained in either continuity why exactly delaying evolution results in quicker acquisition of moves - I mean, the gameplay reason is obvious, but I mean a lore reason. Whatever the case, it's fairly evident that age =/= evolution, and that maturity and wisdom are qualities unevolved Pokemon are just as capable of having as evolved ones.
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Are baby pokemon the exception then?
I mean, kind of? They're, well... babies, so are by nature sillier and more impulsive and impetuous than other species; Misty's Togepi for instance was quite badly behaved a lot of the time. But that's generally because they're literally very young - we see other newly-hatched Pokemon that aren't nominally babies behave in a similar infant-like manner, like Ash's Phanpy and Larvitar, Lillie's Vulpix, May's Eevee, and Dawn's Cyndaquil.
Not sure if this was intended as a gotcha or not but there's a fair few baby Pokemon in various continuities that are shown to be pretty powerful - Ukelele Pichu, that one Aura Sphere Riolu, May's Munchlax, Diamond's Munchlax, Brock's Happiny, Ash's Riolu, Paul's Elekid - generally as a result of good care and training, and several don't evolve at all (which backs up my original point)
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My issue with this portrayal, which may just be on the anime's bad writing than the idea itself, is that in Pikachu's case I swear this idea only ever seems to come up in the context of "Big Bad Raichu beat me up, but I don't want to take a shortcut to win" to the point that the Sinnoh incident with Sho directly calls back to Lt. Surge with the same Thunderstone Ash refused to use that time. I don't feel like this paints a particularly fair picture because in both cases the idea of Pikachu evolving is not presented as a neutral choice that Pikachu elects not to take, but a negative that comes across as stooping to an antagonistic rival's level (compare Bulbasaur where the Garden and evolution ceremony is not itself presented negatively with the other Ivysaur/Venusaur being fair/good mons, only the fact that Bulbasaur is being strong-armed into it).
If Pikachu simply did not want to evolve and it was an unspoken agreement, this would be fine with me, but these are the explicit points at which they call attention to it and it paints the idea of Pikachu evolving as an objective negative. To a degree it also feels a bit like mascot shilling, the same vibe I got with Leon and his "regular beats Mega" Charizard match against Alain. I don't hold it to the degree of demonizing Raichu itself since the evolved mon has plenty of positive portrayals, but it still feels overdone the 2nd go around for "look how good the mascot is!" (Pikachu is cute, it is NOT strong unless you're an anime character).
I wouldn't mind this so much if they addressed the matter outside those particular contexts, whether it's Pikachu perhaps consoling a mon that can't/doesn't want to evolve like a Male Salandit/Combee, or even just raising the idea of "I want to evolve one day, but on my own terms, not to beat a jerk"
My theory is that even if evolution is not 1-1 with aging, it does still have a physical correlation. Baby Pokemon are less physically capable than evolved/"adult" stages, but conversely, unevolved Pokemon might be akin to children/adolescents having more adaptable brains/habits, as in the hormones and chemistry etc, that makes learning easier for them ("Old Dog/New Tricks" idea in a way).
In some mons this is as extreme as Stone Evos flat out not learning further moves (perhaps because you can induce it rapidly rather than "gradually" by raising as Friendship or Levels are meant to approximate), but it also would make sense if you think of a "Teenage" Quilava being faster to pick up the ideas for Flamethrower than the "Adult" bodied/brained Typhlosion.
Well it wasn't, i was more questioning your point.
Though that point right there does make me question what evolution even is in pokemon if its not tied to age or even battle experience, i mean its sort of implied to be a natural thing right? But if it is natural how can a pokemon just.. not do it? like it would kinda make sense if they were holding off on doing it till later but some pokemon just dont evolve period.
Its just odd to me considering even if some pokemon dont want to evolve NOW they wouldve had to at some point whether it be through experience or because of their own bond with their trainers (Happiness/Affection) or even just being traded away
All good then :)
Well, we see old unevolved Pokemon in the anime sometimes (like there's a very aged Treecko I recall from one of the Hoenn episodes, and that surfing Pikachu the group meet in Kanto who's at least 40 years old), so it's definitely not age. I would say that it is tied to battle experience, it's just that the two don't go hand-in-hand - you can have a wealth of experience without having to evolve, or even being able to. I guess I would just view it as a process which can happen, but not one which necessarily will happen - it's just transitioning to a new form or stage of life, but not everyone does that (at the same time, or at all).
Like, you can fight Bug Catchers in HGSS who have unevolved Weedle and Metapod way beyond the point they should evolve, but conversely Lance has several Dragonite significantly below level 55. You can find wild Pokemon that are evolved yet hugely underlevelled; you can also find wild Pokemon long past the levels they should have evolved at. Obviously levels are a gameplay mechanic, but my take on this has always been that the skill of the Pokemon and trainers is the crucial factor here - maybe those underlevelled Pokemon are skilful enough to evolve far earlier than is typical and maybe those "overdue" ones are simply weak and developmentally lagging behind.
In the Adventures manga Cheren's Snivy fails to evolve despite being his first Pokemon, which Black is confused by - the implication seems to be that they didn't bond properly and that lack of fulfilling connection is what's holding it back. Which I've always found such an interesting notion, it's kind of analagous to a person not being able to move past trauma or a psychological issue and allow themselves to "grow" emotionally.
Would they have to, though? I remember when I first did the Battle Tower in Sapphire being surprised to see my opponent use a level 100 Shuppet.
Similarly the trading thing is largely a gameplay contrivance; in other continuities we sometimes see those Pokemon evolve through other ways (like Misty's Politoed).