*Disclaimer* I do not hate Pikachu if it sounds like I’m dissing Pikachu. Pikachu is one of my favorite Pokémon. Objective here is to give Pikachu’s older sibling some much needed love.
Several months ago, I came across an article by The Gamer, in my Facebook feed and the title was, “25 Awesome Things Fans Forgot About Pokemon*” (link will be at the end of this post, I have put it on Tumblr before but I don’t think the articles I post have been that popular). I thought to myself, “Well this looks interesting, I’m gonna read it.” When I got toward the end of it, I noticed a fact that just about reduced me to tears. The number one fact was simply this, Raichu Exists. Ouch. If any gen 1 Pokémon is underappreciated, its Raichu. Does the Pokémon company hate Raichu?
This instilled in me a new found love for Raichu. A few years back when XY BreakThrough came out, I bought the Burning Spark theme deck featuring Raichu because the box art was nice and I liked the artwork on the card. Now, I am trying to get two decks ready to go for Tekko that are built around Raichu. One for the standard format (Raichu GX) and one for expanded format (Raichu Break). Just trying to show Raichu some love here…anyway back to how Raichu is underappreciated and overshadowed.
Right from the get go, Raichu has been forgotten. Pikachu was made the adorable mascot of the Pokémon Franchise. The first impression you get of Raichu, is in the opening theme of the anime when Ash’s Pikachu faces off against Lt. Surge’s Raichu (which I believe has been characterized as a jerk Raichu…). So right off the bat, fans have a negative image of Raichu because he kicked Ash’s Pikachu’s butt in a fight. In the Pokémon video games (please anyone correct me if I am wrong, for I have never played the video games, I only know what I read about them), if Pikachu is your starter, it won’t evolve into it’s more powerful, older sibling Raichu. However, I have also read that if you happen to like Pikachu better than Raichu, it’s not recommended that you evolve your Pikachu until toward the end of the game for the sake of completing the dex. From an outsider who hasn’t had much experience with the games, to me that seems a little sad, because before the Light Ball, Raichu was the better pick for your team. However even if Pikachu had the **Light Ball, it does not get a speed boost, just an attack boost, so given that, Raichu is still faster. A little later, is a side-by-side comparison of their base statistics. When generation 6 dropped for Pokémon, a cool, new type of evolution was introduced to the gameplay….mega evolutions. Raichu got snubbed of a mega evolution and yet I’ve seen so many fakemon/fanart designs for a mega Raichu, that actually look pretty epic. And some of them actually look like what would have been Raichu’s older sibling, Gorochu.
That said, when generation 7 rolled around an interesting and new form for certain Pokémon (mostly gen 1 Pokémon), were Alola forms. Raichu finally gets some love? Perhaps. He did get blessed with an adorable Alolan form….with dual typing may add…electric and psychic typing. I still have yet to see an Alolan Raichu GX card and I still have yet to see Alolan Raichu printed as a psychic type. With gen 8 starters having been dropped recently, I think my wishes for that are slim to none.
This next one might be slightly out of place but let’s compare the base stats between Pikachu and Raichu. All stats directly taken from: https://veekun.com/dex/gadgets/compare_pokemon?pokemon=Pikachu&pokemon=Raichu
Raichu Base Stats: Pikachu Base Stats:
Base EXP: 218 Base EXP: 112
Base Happiness: 70 Base Happiness: 70
Capture Rate: 75 Capture Rate: 190
HP: 60 HP: 35
Attack: 90 Attack: 55
Defense: 55 Defense: 40
Sp. Attack: 90 Sp. Attack: 50
Sp. Defense: 80 Sp. Defense: 50
Speed: 110 Speed: 90
Base Stat Total: 485 Base Stat Total: 320
Effort: 3 Speed Effort: 2 Speed
I recently read that the Pokémon company has made Pikachu more viable as an attacker via an item called, “Light Ball” which to my understanding is an item that only a Pikachu can weild (to me that begs the question, why? Why can only a Pikachu wield the Light Ball?). It raises special attack and attack stats and therefore makes it slightly better than Raichu overall. At least that is my understanding of how the item works. I have also read that in Gen 3, I believe, that Pikachu beat a Raichu with Light Ball, however it doesn’t stand a chance now against Alolan Raichu. Here is the link to the WikiFandom page on the Light Ball; ** https://pokemon.fandom.com/wiki/Light_Ball
In the Pokémon tcg, Raichu has gotten the short end of the stick. And while I don’t know much about how the tcg started back in Base Set, however from about DPP on, I can tell you a bit there because I follow a lovely blog called, @pokemon-card-of-the-day and they have done a wonderful job of shedding light on how the tcg has evolved over time….Please check their blog out, its awesome! Anyway I digress..back to Raichu. To my knowledge and understanding, I don’t think that Raichu has been part of any top cut/competitive deck until now. And for various reasons I suppose. With all the electric support running around in the current format (pun intended), and the Shining Legends Raichu GX, somebody wants my boy to win. Of course, from experience, the most viable Raichu GX deck is the Snuggly Generator variant, not Raichu x Magnezone variant (too bulky). I hope Snuggly Generator Raichu GX somehow goes to World’s this year. I really do.
Raichu to my knowledge has been printed in half or less than half (Bulbagarden article said 43 different cards I think…) of the sets that Pikachu has been released in, and yet, Raichu has had some beautiful card artwork. Several examples come to mind when I think of all the lovely artwork featuring Raichu. Base Set Raichu comes to mind, he just looks so happy. Another example is Expedition Base Set Raichu, the holo with the stars and Raichu, again looks very happy. Or how about the artwork for Raichu in the Black and White Next Destinies set? He is walking down a street with balloons looking perfectly happy…or how about a throwback to some of the first EX cards released? Raichu was fortunate enough to get 2 different EX cards with beautiful artwork. For my last, and slightly more recent example, take the Radiant Collection Raichu from the XY Generations set, it’s just plain adorable….and yet he isn’t popular. That begs the question….why? Raichu has had some awesome artwork in the tcg…so many gorgeous cards Imo.
Raichu, you are a the goodest of boi’s and deserve a ton of love! Thank you for existing. You are absolutely adorable. Thank you to something wonderful I recently discovered on Tumblr; Pokéganda blogs…I discovered two for Raichu! Thank you @raichu-propaganda and @raichupropaganda for showing Raichu some love! :)
Here is the link to Raichu’s Bulbagarden page for it’s appearances in the games, anime, manga and tcg, and just about anything else you want to know on the soft, squishy boi; https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Raichu_(Pokémon) Whoever did this Bulbagarden page, very nice job. I love the detail in it. Thank you.
Thank you to @dragonair–propaganda for complimenting Raichu the other night, that really made my night. I absolutely adore the Pokéganda community, and follow a bunch of the blogs.
Below is the link I referenced at the beginning of this post, if anyone was interested in reading it. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this long winded post, it has been brewing for several months, and I have put a little over a month worth of time into this.
*https://www.thegamer.com/pokemon-awesome-things-fans-forget-trivia/
~MistyMay
A cringy af post from 2019 but Im okay with that. Raichu still is my son ❤
