A professional illustration of Pikachu with happy friendly expression featuring iconic bright yellow coloring, black-tipped ears, and red cheeks.

Pikachu

2018Reaction image / image macro / fan art subjectsemi-active

Published March 10, 2026 · Updated March 17, 2026

Also known as: Surprised Pikachu · Shocked Pikachu

Pikachu is the electric-type Pokémon mascot that became one of the internet's most recognizable meme subjects, most famously through the "Surprised Pikachu" reaction image that took over social media in late 2018. Originally designed for the 1996 Game Boy games Pokémon Red and Green, Pikachu's wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression from a 1997 anime episode became shorthand for feigning shock at predictable outcomes. The character's near-universal name recognition made it perfect meme material, spawning fan art, reaction images, and format templates across every major platform.

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Overview

The Pikachu meme is less a single template than a decades-long fan tradition built around one character. A DeviantART search for Pikachu returns over 460,000 posts, from soft chibi redraws to elaborate crossovers, and Tumblr hosts thousands of gifs, edits, and blogs dedicated only to the character3.

Urban Dictionary captures how deeply the design cut into mainstream awareness, calling Pikachu 'Japan's Mickey Mouse' and the go-to name older parents use for every Pokémon they spot on screen4. Reaction formats built on wide-eyed anime screencaps, Detective Pikachu stills, and slapstick moments from the show are shorthand for shock, deadpan, and mock innocence across Twitter2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Pokémon anime (source image), Tumblr (meme format)
Key People
Atsuko Nishida, Ken Sugimori, Angela / "angrypokemon" on Tumblr
Date
2018 (Surprised Pikachu meme); 1996 (character origin)

Pikachu was designed by Atsuko Nishida at Game Freak, with the design finalized by lead designer Ken Sugimori, for Pokémon Red and Green on the Game Boy, released February 27, 19962. Nishida modeled Pikachu after squirrels rather than mice, inspired by how squirrels store food in their cheeks. She adapted this into Pikachu storing electricity in its red cheek sacs2. Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri later changed the species classification to a mouse2.

The franchise originally planned for Clefairy to be its mascot, but Pikachu's popularity in the anime series made it the obvious choice1. In the show, protagonist Ash Ketchum receives Pikachu as his starter Pokémon after arriving late to Professor Oak's lab, and the two develop a bond that drove the series for over 1,000 episodes4.

The specific screenshot that became the Surprised Pikachu meme comes from Season 1, Episode 10 of the anime, "Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village," which aired in Japan in 19976. In the scene, Ash foolishly sends his Butterfree against a wild Bulbasaur and gets easily beaten. The camera cuts to the group's shocked reactions, with Pikachu visible in the lower right corner looking stunned5. On TV, it was a blink-and-miss moment6.

A Tumblr user named Angela (handle "angrypokemon") posted the screenshot on September 26, 20187. She later told Wired that she had taken the screenshot back in 2017 but sat on it for a year before posting4. Her caption paired the image with a joke about addiction, and the format clicked immediately7.

How It Spread

Within four days of Angela's Tumblr post, the image hit Reddit's r/MemeEconomy6. A few days after that, it appeared on the Facebook page "Meme Extreme"6. The format then leaked into unrelated subreddits like r/Freefolk (Game of Thrones), r/me_irl, and spread heavily across Twitter6.

By late October 2018, "Surprised Pikachu" was everywhere. The format worked for politics, gaming, relationships, and self-deprecating humor. Even corporate social media accounts started using it for engagement7. Despite debuting in late September, it became the most-used meme of 20184.

The timing raised eyebrows. Pokémon's Detective Pikachu film was announced and its first trailer dropped in November 2018, right around the meme's peak4. Some wondered if the meme was stealth marketing. Angela shut that down: "I WISH Pokemon hired me as a sleuth marketing coordinator. That seems like a fun job"4.

The official Pokémon Twitter account leaned into it, using the Surprised Pikachu format to promote the Detective Pikachu trailer with the caption: "When you star in a trailer for a new movie, but everyone's talking about Mr. Mime"6.

In March 2019, Twitter users discovered their accounts were being suspended for "depicting gratuitous gore" after posting the meme6. The leading theory on r/OutoftheLoop was that enough users mass-reported the image to trigger Twitter's automated content removal system. In other words, the meme got so oversaturated that an organized effort by annoyed users tried to get it blanket-removed from the site6.

How to Use This Meme

The typical Pikachu reaction post pairs a wide-eyed or startled screencap from the anime, or a Detective Pikachu still, with a caption about a surprising or absurd situation. Fan art variants often redraw Pikachu into other franchises or costumes, and older parents jokingly calling every Pokémon 'a Pikachu' became its own running gag.

Frequently Asked Questions