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Originally Posted by Wikipedia
The design and art direction for Pikachu were provided by Ken Sugimori, a friend of the creator of the Pocket Monsters game, Satoshi Tajiri, and the species appeared as the starting character for players in Pokémon Yellow: Special Edition for the Game Boy. In the early Pokémon video games, all Pokémon were portrayed by two-dimensional sprites, but in later releases appearance has been conveyed by 3D computer graphics. Throughout the games, Pikachu has been portrayed with no spoken dialogue. In the series' anime, Pikachu has facial expressions, body language, and speaks by repeating syllables of its name, using different pitches and tones.
Though not the first Pokémon created, Pikachu was the first "Electric-type" Pokémon created, conceived after the type was suggested to Sugimori and designed around the concept of electricity and the common symbol for lightning. The name is a portmanteau of the Japanese words pikapika, an onomatopoeia for electric sparkling, and ch?, which is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a mouse's squeak. In an interview, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl director Junichi Masuda noted Pikachu's name as one of the most difficult to create, due to an effort to make it appealing to both Japanese and American audiences. It refers to both the overall species and to the individual within the games, anime, and manga series.
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