“I won’t show those illustrations to anyone as long as I live,” Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara said.
It’s one of those stories you wish were urban legend; something overheard while queueing at a convention and quietly dismissed as being too absurd to be true.
But no. The tale of Nintendo of America proposing a Pikachu redesign complete with huge breasts has resurfaced, and this time, it’s been verified thanks to recent coverage by Japanese media.
In a feature published by Game*Spark on 29 July, the long-circulating anecdote, originally pulled from a 2000 interview with The Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara, was finally scrutinised in full. Automaton later translated and summarised the piece, confirming what many fans online had feared: it wasn’t a mistranslation. It wasn’t a joke. Someone at Nintendo of America really did pitch a version of Pikachu that resembled an anime catgirl with exaggerated anatomy.
The Bizarre boardroom pitch that nearly reimagined pikachu
"When I first showed Pokémon to them, they told me it was too cute,” Ishihara said in the original Nintendo Online Magazine interview. In response, Nintendo of America’s staff, seemingly unsure how to market Pokémon to a Western audience, suggested alternative designs.
“I won’t show those illustrations to anyone as long as I live,” Ishihara added, describing them as “kind of like the characters from the Cats musical.”
And yes, one of those designs turned Pikachu into what he described as “a kind of tabby cat with huge breasts.”
The confusion initially stemmed from the Japanese word mune, which can mean either pectorals or breasts. But Game*Spark debunked that ambiguity, noting that Ishihara responded with a clear “Yes, exactly,” when the interviewer followed up with: “Like those girls who do Pikachu cosplays at anime conventions?”
So, no, this story wasn't just the product of mistranslation. The idea was never used, of course. Ishihara diplomatically chalked it up to a “cultural difference,” adding that he didn’t want to “compete in the overseas market with that kind of thing.”
Nintendo of America also floated a muscular Pikachu, according to Iwata
Stranger still, this wasn’t the only bizarre Pikachu redesign floating around the Nintendo office.
During a 2008 financial Q&A documented on Nintendo’s official site, the late President Satoru Iwata recalled that “a muscular Pikachu” was also once on the table. Whether this came from the same American design pitch, or was an internal Japanese reaction remains unclear, but it paints a surreal picture of what Pokémon’s mascot could have been.
Ishihara seems determined to bury these sketches for eternity. And yet, fans are morbidly fascinated. On forums like Reddit’s r/todayilearned, users reacted with disbelief and awe, with some comparing the desire to see these images akin to staring into the abyss, as a kind of forbidden knowledge best left untouched.
However, curiosity lingers. One can't help but imagine the franchise-defining disaster that might’ve occurred had Nintendo of America’s vision prevailed. Pikachu, reimagined as a buxom, bipedal tabby girl, would almost certainly have derailed Pokémon's Western success before it began.
Pikachu’s legacy, thankfully remain untouched
Ultimately, what could’ve been a branding catastrophe instead became a global phenomenon. Pikachu, with its round cheeks, rosy eyes, and boundless cuteness, remains one of the most recognisable characters in entertainment history.
And perhaps that’s what makes this tale so jarring. Not just the sheer absurdity of the pitch, but the fact that this wasn’t a meme or fan-made fiction; it was a real conversation inside a real company boardroom, where someone presumably said: “What if Pikachu had boobs?”
We may never see those cursed sketches… and perhaps that’s for the best. But as the Pokémon franchise approaches its 30th anniversary, this curious footnote serves as a reminder that even the most beloved of gaming mascots could’ve taken a very different path.
