Who designed the original Pikachu sprites for the first Pokémon games?

Atsuko Nishida designed the original Pikachu sprites for the first Pokémon games. She developed the species during Red and Blue’s production after being asked to create a cute Electric-type Pokémon with an evolutionary line.

Nishida was given several design requirements: Pikachu needed to be Electric-type, it had to evolve twice in the planned concept, and its final evolution needed to look strong. Pikachu ultimately evolved into Raichu through a Thunder Stone, while the planned middle-stage species was later removed from the games.

The original sprite was shaped by the Game Boy’s technical limits. Nishida used a single color identity that would work with the Super Game Boy’s hardware, and the earliest in-game Pikachu was more slender than the rounder version familiar from later artwork and animation.

Ken Sugimori is often credited generally because he created much of Pokémon’s official artwork and supervised the visual style. Pikachu’s original game design, however, is specifically associated with Nishida. Pichu was added later to create a pre-evolution for the line.