Pikachu (ピカチュウ Pikachū?) are one of the 493 fictional species of Pokémon creatures from the multi-billion-dollar Pokémon media franchise—a collection of video games, anime, manga, books, trading cards, and other media created by Satoshi Tajiri. As do all Pokémon, Pikachu fight other Pokémon in battles central to the anime, manga, and games of the series. Pikachu is among the most recognizable of Pokémon, due to the fact that a Pikachu is a central character in the Pokémon anime series.
The name Pikachu is a portmanteau of the Japanese words pikapika, an onomatopoeia for electric sparkling, and chū, which is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a mouse's squeak. It may also be based on the pika. The name Pikachu refers to both the overall species, and to individual Pikachu within the games, anime, and manga series. Pikachu is also the name of an individual character that belongs to this species and is the Pokémon companion of the anime's main protagonist, Ash Ketchum.
In the Pokémon franchise, Pikachu are often found in forests, plains, and occasionally near mountains, islands and electrical sources (such as power plants), on most continents throughout the world. Pikachu often travel in packs,citation needed] and are rarely territorial;citation needed] however, when threatened, a group can generate an intense electrical offensive, and the electro-magnetic forces exerted by the resulting field can even produce a short-lived, localized thunderstorm.