Raichu · Burning Shadows (BUS) #41

2 comments

1. 

   Stuart Newsby

   (2 years ago)

   Battle of the cheeks: orange vs yellow

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2. 

   Twylis

   (2 years ago)

   Raichu’s historical relationship with Indian elephants has gotta be one of the strangest things of this franchise. In the original Japanese Pokedex book, where many in-game dex entries were sourced from, Raichu’s first instance of being able to knock out an Indian elephant was asserted (as was Gastly’s):
   https://lavacutcontent.com/1996-creatures-pokedex-translation-5/

   These references to Indian elephant didn’t make it into the games (or at least not the English versions which had less text space), but they would show up years later in FRLG’s dex entries — well after real-world references had otherwise stopped. The anime, meanwhile, avoided the issue entirely by changing the Indian elephant to a Dragonite as early as episode 14.

   After FRLG, though, references to Indian elephants were removed from dex entries, edited to simply being “foes several times its size”. This makes sense — FRLG likely just pulled from the original material, whereas future dex entries were edited after Game Freak noticed the continuity weirdness going on.

   Except then Sun and Moon come along and create a *new* reference to Indian elephants! Virtually all of SuMo’s dex entries were brand new and freshly created for the games — yet Raichu’s is yet another almost-verbatim recreation of the original Japanese Pokedex book’s entry.

   And then Legends: Arceus comes along one gen later and seemingly retcons it all into being a Copperajah.

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