Just Who is Detective Pikachu? A Fan Theory

[Crossroads Bulletin]

Detecive Pikachu – Birth of a New Duo has recently been announced for release in Japan. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about the game and the mysterious Detective Pikachu! Our very own Chakramaster is here to share his theories.
So it’s been years now since we first heard about the idea of a “Detective Pikachu” huh?


Looks completely different now from what we saw years ago. 2013 was around the time we first heard anything on it. One thing I love is a good mystery, and this is no different. Adding Pikachu to “Detective” is perfect to me. So these first images weren’t much, but it still made me think back then. The creepy one of Pikachu, specifically. Since the camera had a function where Pikachu mimics your facial reactions, I wonder if that’s a big feature. As nothing more was released after that, I gave up on boggling my mind for facts or little details.
Now, years later in 2016, we get an official trailer for Detective Pikachu called “Detective Pikachu: Birth of a New Duo.” Waking up to see this on my feed was kinda jolting. I never expected to randomly see any of this again. So I checked the trailer. Almost immediately, my mystery senses kicked in, looking for anything that could help me figure out what the game could be about or entail. It made me have a theory the minute I saw one thing: A talking Pikachu. Who would’ve though a Pikachu could ever talk? Much less in this deep of a tone (at least in the Japanese version, assuming there ever will be a release outside of Japan). The theory came up and re-watching the trailer….it all started to look like it fit the pieces of the puzzle. Of course this theory is nothing but a “theory” or conjecture. So take any of this with a grain of salt, if you will, and let me explain a bit more.

Detective Pikachu is said to be a cinematic adventure game with a “smug, talking, loveable, coffee loving, detective Pikachu.” My theory of this game is simple, yet complicated. The so-called “Detective Pikachu” is a detective, but not just any detective. A HUMAN detective turned into a Pikachu. Shocker? Well if you think about it, it really isn’t that farfetch’d. It’s a case of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon without the dungeon and more mystery to it and with humans, of course.
Let’s go through some facts. The Pikachu talks our language. That’s not proof enough. Meowth in the Pokemon anime can talk so there’s no hard proof enough there. So let’s delve deeper into the given information. You play as the human partner of the detective Pikachu, who’s name is Tim Goodman. There’s no hardcore proof of just WHO Tim is at this moment, so for now there’s still nothing, but theories and guesses as to who he is. Breaking down the trailer more. We see the Pikachu likes coffee. An electric rodent likes coffee. Black coffee to be more precise. Let’s not forget tea, as more information was leaked out revealing this Pikachu not only likes coffee and tea, but he has a thing for human women. Hm, odd for a Pikachu to like human girls in that sort of way. He gets really weak around them. Also in the trailer we can see him calling out to someone/people, but it looks as if he is being ignored? Who would listen to something coming from a talking Pikachu about case facts or questions? Sounds like how we would take things coming from a kid.
Ok, ok, so that itself can be debunked. Anime has those sort of things too where Pokemon don’t like too much affection towards them, just like any animal. But WAIT, there’s more! Break down the trailer EVEN further. We can see Pikachu running….running on…2 legs? A Pikachu, running at full sprint, on 2 legs is rather…weird for a Pikachu, right? The information we have says he’s slow and cannot use moves like Thunderbolt or even Thundershock, not even moves like Quick Attack. So that’s another thing that felt odd to me. He can even be seen running on 2 legs away from a Trevenant.


We can see here he can PRODUCE electricity, but it’s not a full fledged attack.
Well the facts are pretty much out there, but how does this prove a theory? Well imagine for a moment. A human turned into a Pikachu. Ignoring the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon way. A normal adult human male ranges anywhere from around 4 ft 10 to around near 6 ft. A person that tall suddenly changing into a 1 ft 4 inch tall “rodent” meaning a completely different anatomy as well. Would you be able to instantly walk around well, run at full speeds, or even produce an electric attack that a Pikachu could create? It takes us as children at least a year to learn to even walk. To go from years of your usual life to suddenly being a yellow rodent… It could suddenly make much more sense. Another thought that came to mind, but like I said. Not knowing anything about Tim makes it difficult to theorize on, but…what if this Chu is Tim’s father? That could be where Tim comes in rather than randomly stumbling upon this job as Detective Pikachu’s assistant. It’s not very strong, but has the possibility.
How does this work for the story. Well years ago in 2005 I started my journey into the world of “mystery” by an anime. An anime which actually I got the main idea for this theory from. Long story short, a high school detective is turned into a small child by a poison someone slipped to him after one knocked him out when he didn’t pay attention to some guys he was snooping on. Now he’s solving crimes with his girlfriend’s father (an actual detective) and staying with them (unbeknownst to them he’s that high school detective). It could be something very similar, just used in a more Pokemon fashion.
Well that’s about it for the theory. There’s more theories, but this one I personally feel is the strongest of them because of all the facts. Either that or they REALLY just want us to think of it that way. I dunno, I tried to think of it more in a psychological way. If you think these fact through how things would actually happen. It would have more effects on the body than you think. It’s way more difficult than the way Pokemon Mystery Dungeon makes it out to be. So until the game comes out, we can only share in theorizing more on the game and hope for a launch outside of Japan.
Feel free to discuss these ideas and share your own theories in the comments!
The post Just Who is Detective Pikachu? A Fan Theory appeared first on Pokémon Crossroads.


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[Neo Emolga]

Ah, silly humans. Always getting themselves turned into Pokémon. First it started with Bill and his silly teleporter machine and then all this started to happen.

[Noblejanobii]

OH MY GOSH YOU MENTIONED DETECTIVE CONAN AND CASE CLOSED!! *faints*

Anyway, it sounds like a pretty interesting theory. I'll be expecting to hear more soon.

[Chakramaster]

OH MY GOSH YOU MENTIONED DETECTIVE CONAN AND CASE CLOSED!! *faints*

Anyway, it sounds like a pretty interesting theory. I'll be expecting to hear more soon.

Haha, well funny story. I used to love waking up back in 2005 and waking up to watch Case Closed (as I once knew it). It's what started my journey into the "mystery" genre. Today, I love it! It gets my mind going and I love being able to catch things before the characters even mention certain things now. Today, I'm all caught up on Detective Conan (anime movies and all along with the manga) and watched all the Sherlock movies (and read some small parts of the actual books only so far). So things like this only get me really excited. Especially when it combines mystery/Detective(s) and my favorite Pokemon (seriously the facts I mentioned were too obvious for me lol).

Ah, silly humans. Always getting themselves turned into Pokémon. First it started with Bill and his silly teleporter machine and then all this started to happen.

Well there's theories on that as well. Such as how Bill has worked on a device to do that now. Even in X and Y we see dialogue where people mention a "device that can transform people into Pokemon." So the idea can't be that far off from things they have in the works.

I enjoyed reading this article, thanks @Chakramaster! I think your theories make sense! The fact that Pikachu likes so many human things definitely points to it having been human at one point. I hope this gets an international release!

I hope it does....I kinda threw this together (in no professional way at all lol) so if it at least makes sense that's good. Thanks for the offer to get this theory out there though! Whether it turns out to be true or not it's all part of the fun of speculation. There's too many things the Pikachu in this video shows as "humanistic" characteristics. Especially when you look at it more psychologically (like I mentioned a while back with a PMD fact).

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

I enjoyed reading this article, thanks @Chakramaster! I think your theories make sense! The fact that Pikachu likes so many human things definitely points to it having been human at one point. I hope this gets an international release!