If Nintendo of America had its way, Pikachu could have been given “huge breasts” and Pokemon would have “kind of looked like the characters from the Cats musical,” according to a recently unearthed interview.
The interview is from around the launch of Pokemon Gold and Silver and is between Nintendo and The Pokemon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara, who still serves as the company’s president and CEO today. In the interview (dug up and translated by Japanese gaming outlet Game*Spark), Ishihara said when Pokemon was first shown to Nintendo of America for localization, it thought it was “too cute.”
Nintendo of America staff then shared some of their own, alternate Pokemon character designs. The designs were apparently so traumatic that Ishihara said he “won’t show those illustrations to anyone as long as I live.”
“They kind of looked like the characters from the Cats musical,” Ishihara said. “So, for example, Pikachu was changed into a character shaped like a kind of tabby cat with huge breasts.”
Later in the interview, Ishihara is asked to clarify what the design looked like, and if it looked similar to when women dress up like Pikachu at anime conventions.
“Yes, exactly,” Ishihara said, seemingly clearing up any potential confusion. “They presented that kind of design to us for real. I thought it was interesting, in a sense of appreciating such cultural differences. However, I didn’t want to compete in the [overseas] market with that kind of thing.”
Pokemon, of course, would go on to be released overseas with relatively few changes from the original Japanese version, creating a multi-media juggernaut that still continues today. It feels fairly safe to assume that might not have been the case had Pokemon all been anthropomorphized animals with big boobs. After all, that’s Digimon’s thing.
In other Pokemon news, Pokemon TCG Pocket recently removed two instances of plagiarized art in its new Wisdom of the Sea and Sky expansion, and is now conducting an “investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game.” Meanwhile, the next major Pokemon release, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, will arrive on October 16. A Nintendo Switch 2 Pokemon Legends bundle is available now for preorder.
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