How can you tell Pikachu’s gender?
When Pokémon became an anime in 1997, it not only began stacking the building blocks of the ridiculously popular franchise we know today but also generated a shining star that has begun to rival even Mickey Mouse for global ubiquity.
The popularity of Ash’s Pikachu influenced the release of one of the key games of many a childhood: Pokémon Yellow. Meanwhile, Pikachu quickly became the mascot for The Pokémon Company itself. Pikachu and The Pokémon Company are so intertwined that, when Ash finally became a Pokémon Master and walked into the sunset with his Pikachu, they still found a way for their next flagship TV series to feature a Pikachu. His name is Captain Pikachu, and he’s wonderful.
But as omnipresent as Pikachu now seems, did you know there’s a trick to decipher the gender of the one that just popped up in Pokémon Go (or in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, or in Sword and Shield)? Or say, the gaggle of Pikachu in Pokémon Concierge?
Pikachu’s visual traits, explained
Fortunately, if you’re looking to identify Pikachu’s gender in Pokémon—whether in a game, a show, or something else—there’s an easy-to-spot method. How to tell a Pikachu’s gender hinges on a single trait.
At the risk of stating the obvious, in the real-world wild, male and female members of the same species often have different markings. Or else, they have completely different physical traits, like antlers for male deer. Pikachu actually follows a similar principle: you can tell a Pikachu’s gender by looking at its tail.
The tails of male Pikachu have pointed ends connected by more-or-less straight lines. Female Pikachu tails curve at the end, with the two round shapes meeting in the center to form the top half of a heart.
Happily, a Pikachu’s gender doesn’t have an effect on its stats in any Pokémon game. And in case you’re wondering: when a female Pikachu evolves into Riachu, her tail is shorter and less pointed than a male Riachu’s. It’s not as obvious of a difference, though.
This means that Ash’s Pikachu—and Pokémon’s Pikachu mascot—is male. Most Pikachu merchandise depicts the male version, too, but the determined soul can hunt down a female Pikachu plush, especially if the plushies come in pairs. I wish you the best of luck sorting through the 141 results on the Pokémon Center website for “Pikachu plush.”
There are a lot of Pokémon that sport physical differences between their male and female versions, but most of the differences are so subtle, that they’re borderline unnoticeable. For example, a female Houndoom has marginally smaller horns than her male counterpart. Pokémon whose appearance greatly changes depending on gender typically belong to later generations, like Meowstic, Pyroar, and Oinkologne.
In any case, perhaps now you can have a Pikachu-themed gender reveal party which will greatly confuse all your in-laws and less-cool friends.
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