Updated October 28, 2022 by Ernie
“I wanna be the very best like no one ever was. To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause. I will travel across the land, searching far and wide, teach Pokémon to understand the power that’s inside. Pokémon, gotta catch ’em all!”
Table of Contents
Welcome back Pokémon trainers in the land of the unknown. Here, all your questions can be answered, and all the mysteries residing in the vast world of the Pokémon will come out to the light.
We came across many riddles as we traveled through the fantastic world of the Pokémon, might it be in the game as a player, while reading the manga, or following the adventures of our heroes in the anime.
Of course, some of them piqued our interest more than others. If you ask me what I’m most curious about it would probably be the identity of Ash’s father, who’s Professor Oak’s Pokémon, or why Pokeballs hurt Jesse.
However, recently, there is one more thing that’s been bugging me. It’s not the most burning question in the world or anything like that, but it is still a question that needs to be answered.
There is a veil of shadow surrounding the truth behind black-tailed Pikachu and it’s time to open the curtains on it.
Are we looking at some sort of conspiracy that has been hiding the existence of another Pikachu or is it what we know as the ‘Mandela effect?
Stay tuned, all the evidence that we need to answer that question has been gathered, all we need to do is put the pieces together to uncover a mystery that is revolving around the most famous electric creature in the anime world, Pikachu!
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THE MYSTERY BEHIND THE LEGEND OF PIKACHU’S BLACK TAIL
Pikachu, what kind of Pokémon is he?
It’s been 25 years and yet no other Pokémon was able to dethrone Pikachu. He is a legendary Pokémon, the most famous creature of the series. Anime fan or not, everyone around the world knows his name. He is Ash’s, the MC, very first partner, and today, he is still his main sidekick.
He is an Electric-type Pokémon who loves cuddles and pets. Well, that’s only true when he is in a good mood. I highly recommend not angering him, he can be quite aggressive and might turn you into barbecue by a so-called accident.
And be careful to never, EVER, mistakenly step on his tail, I guarantee you will end up in the hospital. Yup, as cute as this Pokémon is, he is very difficult to handle.
You will start off your adventure with a Pichu. When you max out happiness Pichu will evolve into Pikachu.
After using enough Thunder Stones, you can evolve your little mouse into Raichu and finally, by gathering some more Thunder Stones from the Alola region you can make him even stronger by turning him into Alolan Raichu.
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Pikachu’s appearance
Normally, any fan worthy of the name should be able to draw Pikachu with his eyes closed. But since we are giving a 101 Pikachu crash course, let’s do this right and give you a small refresher anyways.
Pikachu is technically a mouse. They are covered from head to two by fluffy yellow fur. Their ears are super long, and the tips are always black. On their backs, you can see two brown stripes.
The most distinctive trait of the Pikachu’s is its tail. It is quite big but most importantly it’s shaped like a thunderbolt and the tip has a bit of brown on it.
There are two red circles on their cheeks, however, they aren’t for design, this is where Pikachu stores electricity. When the beast is about to launch an attack, they turn yellow and start glowing.
The female Pikachus look exactly like their male counterparts. The only difference is that their tail has a V-shaped cut at the end making it resemble a heart.
Something is not right here… did we mention a black tail? No, we did not because a black-tailed Pikachu is actually unheard of.
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Was Pikachu ever seen in a black tail?
Let me make this quick for you, the answer is a categorical, huge, NO! Might it be in the anime, the manga, the game, the many movies, Pikachu was never seen with a black tail.
There was one little exception, Cosplay Pikachu. She was a Generation VI character that came from a video game. She appeared in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire games.
Cosplay Pikachu was a female, she was dressed in a cute waitress outfit and the end of her tail was shaped like a black heart. Wait, let me rephrase that, not like, it was a black heart.
Was she the reason for all the commotion? I don’t think so, especially since the question about black-tailed Pikachu came out way before the game was ever released.
What is The Mandela Effect?
Maybe some of you thought that the Mandela Effect was some anime term or some Pokémon reference, however, it turned out to be a real thing.
The Mandela Effect is a case of false memory. What do I mean by that? It’s a situation where many different people are absolutely sure that a specific event occurred when it actually never happened.
They are headstrong about the facts and remember the scene as if it was yesterday and yet their statements are still false.
One real-life example of that phenomenon is that one time a huge crowd believed that Nelson Mandela perished in the 1980s when he was in prison while the man died 33 years later in 2013.
Is Pikachu Black Tail a result of the Mandela Effect?
I would say that the answer would be yes, it’s definitely a high possibility that this is actually all it is, a false statement, a misconception.
There is a guy somewhere in the world that believed he had a black tail. Maybe confused brown with black, or maybe he mistook it for Pichu, Pichu has a full black tail. Or maybe there was fan art of a black-tailed Pikachu and I thought that it was real.
who knows there are actually a lot of possibilities why someone would think the mouse had a back tail. The thing is it would absolutely suit him.
In the end, that erroneous memory developed in the mind of one of the fans and it started spreading suddenly there are a hundredpeople believing the same thing, although that thing is completely false, and tried convincing all of them that they are all wrong now.
What is the famous sentence of the queen in Snow White: “Mirror, mirror on the wall”, right? Wrong, it’s actually: “Magic mirror on the wall”.
Let’s jump to Star Wars, the most iconic line is of course “Luke, I am your father” said by Darth Vader, however, the line was always “No, I am your father”.
Mind-blowing, isn’t it? Isn’t that proof enough that the Mandela Effect exists? If it does then the theory that black-tailed Pikachu is its result is perfectly plausible.
In fact, I have no other way of explaining why so many people are sure of that fact while it is confirmed that the Pokémon never had a balk tail. If you have any ideas, please enlighten us!
Conclusion
We all concur now, right? The Mandela Effect is a real thing, a fascinating thing really, and we have no other way of explaining what happened with the myth of black-tailed Pikachu. So, by a pure, simple, and logical elimination process we can make that a fact.
As much as I would have loved to track down the source of the rumor, I think that would be an impossible feat to achieve considering that question has been asked by Pokémon fans for years now. And also, I’m no detective.
I hope you enjoyed the read, I certainly enjoyed writing it. Got shocked more than once as well, I believe you did too. The Snow White reveal was just unbelievable, kind of destroying my childhood a bit.
Anyway, now that everything is clear now, I will bid you farewell my loyal Otaku readers, let’s meet again in another blog.
If there is something specific you would like to discuss, don’t hesitate to share, we will make it come true for sure!
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