this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2025
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Pika is a real animal?
Gen 1 pokemon really are just funny colored real animals.
Pika is pronounced "pie-kuh" generally. Pikachu comes from pika pika (japanese onomatopoeia for "sparking/sparkling" usually with the connotation of clean) + chuu (sound a mouse makes/squeak).
Actually it comes from pika(-tto), the onomatopoeia for a lightning strike.
Not according to an interview by the creator of Pikachu, Atsuko Nishida:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211108083831/https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/creator-profile-the-creators-of-pikachu/
That’s… what I said?
Its light in general, not lightning
“pika” on its own is a sudden flash of light. This onomatopeia is very old (edo era old). What kind of light flashes do you think you’d find 400 years ago? There was pretty much just lightning. Not to be confused with the repeated “pika pika” which like the other commenter said indicates more of a glimmer or shiny and is way more common today.