Hey guys, HDvee here. Now, one of the biggest
mysteries surrounding the Pokemon anime, is
if Ash’s pikachu will ever evolve into a
raichu. Pikachu is an Electric-type Pokémon
owned by Ash. He is the first Pokémon Ash
ever had and is always by Ash's side, along
with being one of his greatest battlers. Pikachu
was Ash's Starter Pokémon, given to him by
Professor Oak. Ash showed up late to pick
his first Pokémon, so he got stuck with Pikachu.
Though he detested Ash at first, Ash demonstrated
his willingness to sacrifice himself for Pikachu,
and they quickly became friends. To evolve
a pikachu into a raichu you obviously need
a thunderstone, which is why pikachu has never
randomly evolved during battle like ash's
other pokemon. Obviously if pikachu evolves
into raichu then pikachu's attitude may change
towards ash, this has of course happened in
the past such as when charmander evolved into
charmeleon and then charizard. In the Season
One episode "Ash Catches a Pokémon," when
Team Rocket was trying to steal Pikachu, Meowth
accidentally says that Ash's Pikachu's power
exceeds the power level he would possess as
a Raichu. Which is obviously a weird thing
to say seeing as when a pokemon evolves it
gets stronger. We already know that ash's
pikachu is unique, but getting weaker by evolution
seems a little too strange to me, even by
pikachu's standards. With that being said,
today’s video goes over 5 times in which
Ash Ketchum’s Pikachu nearly evolved into
a Raichu. Don’t hesitate to drop a comment
down below about the video and if you found
it interesting or not! Don’t forget to leave
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and I’ll be sure to bring out a new video
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haven’t already to keep up to date and without
further ado let’s get into the video and
I really hope that you enjoy!
So, In the Pokemon animated series, Pikachu
has never evolved into Raichu because PIkachu
refuses to evolve, I guess this Pikachu hates
Thunderstones or something. Actually, the
fact is Pikachu is also not evolving at all
mainly due to the fact that Pikachu is one
of the most popular cartoon characters of
all time. Ash's Pikachu is basically the most
popular character in the Pokemon TV series.
I'm not from their company, but I'm guessing
that when the company decides to evolve Ash's
Pikachu to Raichu, they fear that the series
may likely go downhill and Pokemon products
won't be that popular anymore. They did make
episodes that try to make Pikachu evolve,
but they make sure they make it end with Pikachu
not evolving, maybe to make it more interesting
to see what the outcome is. Sure, attempts
to evolve Pikachu were done in only 5 episodes.
Yet all the attempts have resulted with Pikachu
not evolving in the end. So, here's 5 attempts
shown in episodes aired in the US and Japan
The first attempt to evolve Pikachu is in
the first series in the episode titled: "Electric
Shock Showdown". During the Vermillion City
gym battle against Lieutenant Surge, the first
battle had Lieutenant Surge's Raichu defeating
Ash's Pikachu and Ash lost the match. After
the battle, Lieutenant Surge taunted Ash and
told him he would of won the match if Pikachu
evolved.
In the Pokemon Center, Ash wanted to give
Pikachu a Thunderstone so he could evolve
him into Raichu. As we all know though, Pikachu
refused. According to Team Rocket's Meowth,
Team Rocket were outside the Pokemon Center
looking through a window at this point, Meowth
said that Pikachu refuses to evolve because
he wanted to do this to show every Pikachu
in the world how a Pikachu can beat it's evolved
form Raichu. In the rematch, Ash's Pikachu
defeated Lieutenant Surge's Raichu by using
speed-based moves that Raichu lacked seeing
as it had evolved too quickly before learning
any of the moves in the Pikachu stage.
The next attempt is from episode 40 of the
first series of the Pokemon anime and it is
titled, Eevee and the battling eevee brothers.
The three brothers who are hosting the party,
Sparky, Rainer, and Pyro, see Ash and his
friends with Eevee, and says that that Eevee
is the star of the party. They call for their
youngest brother, Mikey, who is Eevee's trainer.
The brothers, who each own one of the Eevee
stone evolutions, mention that the only way
to win battles is for Mikey to evolve his
Pokémon. Mikey says that he doesn't care
about battles, which makes his brothers and
their Pokémon mad, and they push Mikey even
harder about which of the Eevee evolutions
is stronger. Brock comments that the family
sure is competitive, especially when they
try to push Ash to evolve Pikachu and Brock
to evolve Vulpix. Pikachu plays with Eevee,
and Misty mentions how he once had the chance
to evolve and chose not to.
The third attempt wasn't done by Ash, but
an attempt by Team Rocket in Diamond and Pearl
episode 21 titled Ya See We Want an Evolution!.
After Team Rocket failed to evolve the B-button
league's Magikarp and Feebas with their evolution
machine, Team Rocket tried to evolve Pikachu
with it. Two attempts were done, and both
times failed. When they thought they successfully
turned the machine to a giant robot, the robot
suddenly collapsed because the manual Meowth
was reading said that to turn to the robot,
it had to complete an evolution first. Pikachu,
Magikarp, and Feebas made Team Rocket blast
off again as usual in the end.
The fourth attempt to evolve Pikachu into
Raichu is taken from the episode titled, In
Climbing the Tower of Success. In the episode,
a Thunder Stone was tossed to Ash, and it
almost landed on Pikachu which would cause
him to evolve. However, Ash was scared about
Pikachu evolving, so he prevented this, which
contradicts to the time he offered Pikachu
a Thunder Stone to evolve. The most likely
reason is that Ash now knows Pikachu doesn't
want to evolve.
The last attempt is taken from the episode
titled, Pika and Goliath. After losing the
battle with Raichu, Pikachu is completely
beat. Watching in the distance was Paul, who
stated that Pikachu needed to evolve to even
come close to being an equal to Raichu. Just
as quickly as he appeared, he was gone again.
Brock then states that it's true that Pikachu
can't learn Hyper Beam without evolving. Dawn
then says that Pikachu can't evolve without
a Thunder Stone. Later that afternoon, Pikachu
is seen resting in a hospital bed. As it wakes
up, Ash and the others were waiting for it
to come to. Pikachu quickly tries to rush
off to get Raichu, but Ash puts it back in
the bed, saying that it needs to rest. Then,
Ash got out a Thunder Stone, revealing to
Dawn that Pikachu had been defeated by a Raichu
in the past, referring to his Gym battle with
Lieutenant Surge's Raichu. The Nurse Joy in
Vermilion City gave him the stone and he kept
it all that time in case Pikachu ever wanted
to evolve. Pikachu didn't seem to want to
evolve even then. As Pikachu still seems hurt,
the gang left the room after Ash places the
Thunder Stone on the table next to the window.
Outside, Team Rocket contemplate Pikachu evolving
into Raichu. Jessie says that it wouldn't
feel right, and Meowth is strongly against
it, as he is proud not to evolve himself.
Later that night, Pikachu glares angrily at
the Thunder Stone, quickly turning away from
it. It begins to think about the Raichu it
battled. It sits up, looking at the Thunder
Stone. When the gang come into the room, Pikachu
vanishes and the Thunder Stone is gone. Ash
and his friends go off looking for Pikachu.
A jolt of electricity in the night sky is
seen and Ash runs off in that direction. Ash
then sees his Pikachu, practicing Volt Tackle
on a rock and breaking it. Ash runs over,
happy that Pikachu decides to not evolve after
all.
But with that, wraps up this video. I really
hope you enjoyed it as much as i did making
it! If you did enjoy the video though, please
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also love to hear your guys opinions too on
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