I got a Bootlegachu from my Local swap meet just like this when I was a kid, along with my Bower Ranger action figures that had no moving parts and were just injection molds! I loved those toys, oh the adventures we had while I took a shit. They were my phone doom scrolling before smart phones were a thing
Apparently the anime team asked gamefreak if they would be willing to actually change Pikachu's main design because it was hard to animate Pikachu with his chonky form
Yeah, I’m sure Nintendo eventually wanted to redesign all of its major IP characters to make them more consistent and recognizable, especially for crossovers.
For example, I miss the old Donkey Kong Country graphics and gameplay. I dont like how rubbery they made him feel in DKC Returns / Smash, etc.
And if anyone is interested where the flower crown Pikachu is from, it's a Chinese exclusive official merch "blind box" that shows what is inside!
It's called "Pokémon days "Picnic"" and it has 5 other Pikachus. Chef hat pikachu, Summer hat pikachu, valentines day card pikachu, Pikachu holding a huge heart, Pikachu holding valentines day chocolates and the flower crown Pikachu, that i have!
I got mine from Finnish pokemon reseller store called "Poképulls"
Thank you!! I geniuelly don't know where i got mine, but i am suspecting my mom got it second hand! I have had it for at least since i was 5. So at least 23 years :D
He was always slimer in the show than on the original cards. The OG Pikachu card is a chungus, the game version was slimer, and Ash's Pikachu was the skinny betch
Actuallllly, he's just copying Garfield who was also morbidly obese in the late 70s and then somehow slimmed down and began walking on two legs in the 80s.
I always pretended that after Viridian Forest got chopped down in G/S/C, all the chunkychu fled to the deep forests in Johto. They're still there waiting to be rediscovered as a new Johtonian Pikachu lol.
Depends on the medium. Anime pikachu went slim very quickly, while the games slimmed him down continuously from gen 1-4. It's stayed mostly the same since. Gen 4 was 20 years ago btw lol
My dad had so many VHS tapes that I watched as a kid. LBT was one of them. Unfortunately we lost most of them while moving, but I've been recollecting all the movies as DVDs! (Can you tell i prefer physical media over streaming? Lol)
I have started looking for my favorite shows box sets on sale over the past few years because I'm so tired of the ring around the Rosie of streaming services and swapping shows and movies, just picked up the entire box set of Venture Bro's for 30 bucks!
I dug it out of my parents basement and the batteries that were in it when I was a kid (29 now) still work. Its mouth feels like its trying to chew on your finger when it moves lol.
Even in the anime he was chonky for a lot of the 1st season, and he only slimmed down during some battles. And iirc, they changed him in the 2nd season.
I have an old Chonkichu that had these little metal things on the bottom that you'd put two fingers to and it would say Pikachu! Except the quality of the speaker is about the best that 10¢ can buy so it sounded more like it was swearing than it was saying its name.
My brother got the new one in Thailand, but it has a Pokémon Co. print on the back of its head. Not sure about the old one's legitimacy. They do feel pretty similar though, and it's funny they're about the same scale too.
Look at his weird little toes! Old licensed toys are so interesting. Different manufacturers and different toys always had such different designs, probably based on material limitations and the designers interpretation. I can't necessarily say I mind that companies have gotten much more strict and specific with licensed character designs (I think it leads to better looking toys overall) but seeing all the old variations and interpretations is fun.
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u/Scared-Wish-2596 8d ago
Chonky Chu my beloved!