What If Ash's Pikachu Evolved?

It came close to evolving in a few episodes. The first time was in Vermilion City where Nurse Joy gave Ash a thunderstone but Pikachu wanted to beat Richu as a Pikachu. The next was in the DP series where the same thing happened again and Ash had kept the thunderstone all that time. Pikachu took it away from Ash. Also I think there was an episode in either BW or XY where a thunderstone nearly caught Pikachu. What do you think would happen if Ash's Pikachu ever evolved?

Damn, then the whole pokemon franchise mascot would change to a raichu.

If Pikachu evolved, then it'd be much more difficult for the writers to 'reset' Ash when he starts a journey in a new region, with him always being 10 years old. It'd sound strange to promote that Ash is 10 years old starting out on his journey with a Raichu, when he had Pikachu all these years.

Pikachu is the mascot, and Ash is the anime's means of promoting it so if he evolved into Raichu, there won't be Pikachu promotion anymore. Pikachu's personality even involved him denying himself from evolution, and Team Rocket stealing the Thunder Stone that was once given to Ash back in Kanto.

I think it would never be the same if Ash's Pikachu has evolved, for sure, not to mention that Pikachu has been a mascot of Pokémon for pretty long, too.

Besides of that, Ash's Pikachu has decided to not to evolve because he wants to fight and win against Raichu without evolving, to protect his honor (as told in Electric Shock Showdown), and this has been proven over the years that he can be strong without need of evolving at all, even though it was brought up again in Pika and Goliath. Even Team Rocket would agree with it, for sure, that they stole the Thunder Stone that Ash kept when he's in Sinnoh region :)

Ash would quite possibly win the Kalos League, and then feel obligated to go back and win every League in the regions before that.

If that would happen, then Japan loses it's signature mascot, and that might lead to end of this franchise. Might.

Karnavaly said:

Basically, if Pikachu evolved... that'd be the endgame of the anime. Since Pikachu is the mascot of the entire franchise, seeing him evolve would mean the anime is probably coming to an end. He probably will never evolve, though, since mascot characters usually stay the same throughout the entire series. Same with Meowth, btw. If he eve evolves (he won't), that'd be anime endgame as well.

Click to expand...

Yeah, right. Ash's pikachu's evolution will only mean the end of the pokemon franchise but I don't think pikachu's ever gonna evolve coz it does not have the will to do so.

If Pikachu evolving would be a problem, why not settle and have Serena evolve into a Pikachu? That would be almost the most romantic thing ever. It would be like Twilight, but also Romeo and Juliet, and also probably Love Hina (to please Famon.) Everyone would be really impressed with it.

Pika garners a lot of sales by being the mascot if you look at all the special pikachu dolls and the like. So having him evolve in one of the main medias would be very unlikely. Can't sell pika if there is less pika for people to enjoy.