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Apparently Nintendo of America wanted to give Pikachu… and I quote… "huge breasts" during the localization of Pokemon.
Localization is a delicate process, some things that make sense in one region may not translate to another, not even on the actual act of translation either. A prominent example is Kirby looking pissed on the cover of every game for the American box art but being his usual cute Kirby self in Japan, or the Crash Bandicoot covers in Japan which were wildly different from the by comparison edgier US design. And turns out Pokemon had a redesign suggested that may have changed the way we see the games forever.
In an interview with Nintendo from around the launch of Pokemon Gold and Silver (uncovered by Game*Spark and translated by Automaton), The Pokemon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara said: "When I first showed Pokemon to them, they told me it was too cute. The staff at Nintendo of America then suggested their own designs for the characters – I won't show those illustrations to anyone as long as I live."
Ishihara added that "they kind of looked like the characters from the Cats musical. So, for example, Pikachu was changed into a character shaped like a kind of a tabby cat with huge breasts."
When asked if it was akin to women who do Pikachu cosplay at conventions, Ishihara said: "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 already caused all manner of controversy when they first arrived, with some even calling it satanic, so was the world ready to see Pikachu with breasts? Were other Pokemon going to get human anatomy added onto them? What exactly is Diglett? These are the questions we have avoided by The Pokemon Company standing its ground and saying no to a stacked Pikachu, and we're better off for it.
