Which Game Freak artist designed the original Pikachu?

Atsuko Nishida designed the original Pikachu.

Nishida was a Game Freak graphic artist who worked on Pikachu during development of Pokémon Red and Green. Lead designer Ken Sugimori asked her to help create a cute Pokémon that could balance the many more intimidating creature designs in the project.

Nishida’s initial concept was based on a squirrel rather than a mouse. She used the animal’s cheek-pouch behavior as inspiration for Pikachu’s electric cheek sacs, while the final species classification became a mouse Pokémon. Sugimori later finalized the design and created unified promotional artwork for the original Pokémon.

The first Pikachu design was more rounded and heavier than the slimmer version familiar from much of the anime and later games. The anime’s animation needs helped shape Pikachu’s later appearance, and subsequent game artwork adopted those changes for consistency.

Pikachu became the franchise mascot partly because its cute appearance appealed broadly and avoided favoring one of the three selectable starters. Nishida also designed other important Pokémon, including Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle.