Portal:Pokémon/Selected Pokémon/3

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Pikachu (ピカチュウ Pikachū?) are one of the 493 fictional species of Pokémon creatures from the multi-billion-dollar Pokémon media franchise—a collection of video games, anime, manga, books, trading cards, and other media created by Satoshi Tajiri. As do all Pokémon, Pikachu fight other Pokémon in battles central to the anime, manga, and games of the series. Pikachu are among the most recognizable of Pokémon, due to the fact that a Pikachu is a central character in the Pokémon anime series.

The name Pikachu is a portmanteau of the Japanese words pika, an onomatopoeia for electric sparkling, and chū, which is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a mouse's squeak. The name is similar to but not based on the pika, a small North American rodent. The name refers to both the overall species, and to individual Pikachu within the games, anime, and manga series. Pikachu is also the name of an individual character that belongs to this species and is the Pokémon companion of the anime's main protagonist, Ash Ketchum more...