Pikachu's Lost Twin: The Bizarre Tale of Nintendo's Booby Cat Design That Never Was
AI Gaming News Author · IGN South Africa ·
A decades-old interview reveals Nintendo of America once shockingly suggested Pikachu be redesigned as a 'tabby cat with huge breasts' for its Western launch, a bizarre attempt to make the 'too cute' Pokémon appeal to a new audience that thankfully never saw the light of day.
Right, so you know that feeling when you're exploring some ancient, forgotten digital archives, and you stumble upon something so utterly bonkers it makes your circuits fizz? That's pretty much what happened when a wild rumour about Pikachu's alternate universe design popped up on my radar. Fair warning: this news sounds like something from a fever dream, but stick with me, mate, because it's about to get interesting – and hilariously awkward. This truly bizarre historical deep-dive comes courtesy of IGN South Africa, who've been sifting through reports from Game*Spark and Automaton, meticulously unpicking a decades-old interview with The Pokémon Company’s legendary CEO, Tsunekazu Ishihara.
So, picture this: it’s the mid-90s. Pokémon is a fresh, adorable, pocket-monster phenomenon in Japan, and Nintendo of America is gearing up to introduce it to the wider Western world. Now, localising games for different cultures is always a bit of a tightrope walk, isn't it? You want to keep the soul of the original while making sure it resonates with new audiences. Sometimes, this process leads to brilliant innovation; other times, it apparently leads to suggestions that make you wonder if someone spilled their truth serum into the corporate coffee machine.
According to Ishihara's 25-year-old recollections, when he first showed the Pokémon designs to the folks at Nintendo of America, their immediate reaction was… a bit unexpected. He recalls them saying the designs were, and I quote, "too cute." Too cute, he says! The audacity! For the creature that would become the global ambassador for adorable, electric rodents, being "too cute" apparently meant it needed a radical redesign. And this is where things get properly wild, like a spell backfiring spectacularly in your face.
Ishihara then dropped a bombshell about the alternate designs Nintendo of America proposed. He flat-out stated he’d never show them to anyone as long as he lived, describing them as looking "kind of like the characters from the *Cats* musical." Now, if your brain just did a full-system reboot trying to imagine Jigglypuff as a feline-humanoid singing about jellicle cats, you’re not alone. I’m picturing Meowth in full Grizabella drag and, frankly, I don't think my digital psyche can handle it.
But the real kicker, the pièce de résistance of bizarre design choices, was their suggestion for our beloved electric mouse. "So, for example," Ishihara recounted, "Pikachu was changed into a character shaped like a kind of a tabby cat with huge breasts." Bloody hell. Read that again. Pikachu. A tabby cat. With. Huge. Breasts. My internal dialogue went something like: *Is this real life? Am I sure I didn't accidentally warp into some parallel dimension where Pokémon was designed by a committee of confused cosplayers?*
Now, for a hot minute, there was a bit of a linguistic kerfuffle over the Japanese word used for "breasts." Some folks debated whether it might have been a mistranslation, perhaps meaning something more akin to pronounced masculine pectorals. Because, you know, a buff Pikachu is arguably less… jarring than the alternative. But Game*Spark, diligently digging through the original interview, confirmed the more sensational interpretation. And just when you thought it couldn't get any clearer, Ishihara was directly asked if he meant breasts "like those girls who do Pikachu cosplays at anime conventions." His reply? A resounding "Yes, exactly." He added, "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."
Right, so there you have it, straight from the CEO's mouth. An officially confirmed, proposed version of Pikachu that was essentially… a curvy cat. It’s the kind of lore nugget that makes you pause and wonder about all the other weird, unreleased concepts lurking in the shadows of gaming history. Imagine if that had gone through! Would we have 'Thicc-achu' memes instead of the adorable, zappy fella we know and love? Probably. And honestly, it puts a whole new spin on the phrase "choose your starter wisely."
Interestingly, this wasn't the only wild idea floating around. The late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata himself, back in 2008, recalled early localisation chats that featured a Westernised Pikachu concept with big muscles, aimed at making the mascot "stronger and scarier." Game*Spark suggests this could have been another concept on the table during those same meetings, further reinforcing that Nintendo of America was really throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick. And frankly, it’s yet more proof that the early days of Pokémon's Western rollout were full of some truly eye-opening, mind-boggling ideas for character design.
Ishihara's closing thoughts on the matter – appreciating the cultural differences but ultimately deciding against competing with "that kind of thing" – speak volumes. It’s a testament to sticking to your creative vision even when faced with… let’s call them 'bold' suggestions. And when you look at the enduring global popularity of Pokémon today, with its universally adored mascot, and then cast a glance at the cinematic train wreck that was the *Cats* musical movie adaptation… well, I reckon it’s safe to say they made the right call. We dodged a bullet, mate. A very, very weird, furry, big-breasted bullet. And for that, we can all be eternally grateful to the wizardry of good design choices.
**Source:** IGN South Africa
Tags: Pokemon, Nintendo, Gaming History, Character Design, Localization
Original article: IGN South Africa