Is Ash’s Pikachu a Boy or a Girl? Check it out here!

Pikachu is considered to be the mascot of the whole Pokémon franchise. The small, yellow Electric-type Pokémon is quite possibly the most famous creature from the whole franchise and not many people around the world can say that they’ve never heard of Pikachu. The most famous Pikachu is, of course, Ash’s Pikachu and we are going to talk about its gender in today’s article. Ever wondered whether Ash’s Pikachu is a boy or a girl? We have the answer!

Although Gender was introduced during Generation II, Ash’s Pikachu was male from the start and that hasn’t changed. This is evident by looking at its tail, which is shaped like the tail of a male Pikachu.

In today’s article, we are going to talk about the gender of Ash’s Pikachu. You are going to find out whether Ash’s Pikachu is a boy or a girl, and how you can recognize that in the first place. It’s going to be a fun article so prepare yourselves for a quick read.

Is Ash’s Pikachu a boy or a girl?

If you look carefully at the picture above this text, you are going to see a typical Pikachu with its trainer. In this case, though, this is one special Pikachu with its trainer, Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town. Pikachu became the mascot of the whole franchise when he was introduced as the protagonist’s Starter Pokémon in the first episode of the globally popular anime series. Of course, Pikachu was present in the video games and Pokémon Yellow even followed a similar concept as the anime, but Pikachu owes its popularity to the anime series.

Now, until Generation II, the question of gender wasn’t really that relevant in the Pokémon franchise. Save for the two Nidoran (Nidoran♀ and Nidoran♂), no Pokémon had any gender as it wasn’t a concept known at the time. Still, with the introduction of the Generation II games, Gender was introduced as a category in the Pokémon games and that was later translated to the anime series.

This didn’t have a retroactive effect on the anime series’ canon and changes have not been made to the original concepts, but since then, Gender was taken into consideration even in the anime series.

How is Gender determined? There are some Pokémon that are always male or always female. There are also some genderless Pokémon. As for the others, they can be either Male or Female, based on which gender you encounter; most Pokémon have a 50:50 gender encounter ratio, but with some, you’ll encounter one Gender more frequently than the other.

The majority of Pokémon look the same, regardless of their Gender, which means that the Male and Female variants look the same. Still, there are some Pokémon that display some differences in their appearance, through which one can tell the Gender of the Pokémon directly. This is usually some additional element or an enlarged body part, but some, like Pikachu, have a specific design through which one can identify the Male and Female variant.

Namely, with Pikachu, one simply has to look at its tail to determine its gender. A male Pikachu’s tail has a straight end, while a female Pikachu’s tail has a heart-shaped end. It looks like this:

Now, this is the easiest and most accurate way to determine a Pikachu’s gender. This brings us back to the image from the beginning of this section and there, we can see that Ash’s Pikachu has a tail with a straight end, which means that Ash’s Pikachu is a boy.

Are all Pikachu male?

Now that we know about the gender of Ash’s Pokémon, we can continue with some other information. With Ash’s Pikachu being male, one might wonder – are all Pikachu male? The answer to this question is negative. Namely, we know that most Pokémon are either male or female, with some notable exceptions. However, depending on the species itself, players are more likely to encounter a Pokémon of a specific gender than the other in the wild. Gender plays a vital role in breeding, as offspring inherit the species of the mother and compatible moves from the father. However, Pokémon of either gender can be used if the partner is a Ditto.

From Generation III onward, due to how the core series Pokémon games incorrectly determine a Pokémon’s gender from its personality value, the ratios used in the games are idealized approximations. From Generation III to V, Pokémon are more likely to be male than the nominal ratio; from Generation VI to VII, Pokémon are more likely to be the more common gender than the nominal ratio, with Pokémon with a 1:1 ratio being unaffected; in Generation VIII, Pokémon are more likely to be the more common gender than the nominal ratio, with Pokémon with a 1:1 ratio being more likely to be male. Pokémon which are always one particular gender have been unaffected by these changes.

The rations in question can come in several different values, going from 0:1 (for those Pokémon that are always one gender) to 7:1 (for those where you’re seven times more likely to encounter a male than a female Pokémon). Pikachu is, luckily for the players, one of the many Pokémon that have a 1:1 gender ratio, meaning that both genders appear with the same frequency. Most Pokémon use this ratio, to be fair.

Pikachu evolved from Pichu and further evolved into Raichu. Raichu looks like a larger version of Pikachu, with darker fur, differently shaped ears and a longer tail. Pikachu evolves into Raichu when it comes into contact with the Thunder Stone (one of the Evolutionary Stones) at any level. Unlike Pikachu, Raichu also has a Regional Form, Alolan Raichu, that is a dual Psychic/Electric-type Pokémon, while Raichu is just an Electric-type Pokémon. Both of these evolutions use the same gender ratio.

And that’s it for today. We hope you had fun reading this and that we gave you all the information you were looking for! See you next time and don’t forget to follow us!