Ask who Pokémon’s lead character is and the answer depends on who is asked. The public knows Pikachu: 67% of Britons can name it from a picture. Collectors pay for Charizard, whose first-edition card sold for 6.9× the price of its set-mate Blastoise at the same auction. Fans, given a vote, pick someone newer, and in the 2020 worldwide poll the winner took 2.1% of the votes while Pikachu came 19th. Nothing The Pokémon Company publishes ranks the cast. Even the anime’s hero of 25 seasons was retired in 2023 with everything around him left in place.
The public knows Pikachu
Pikachu is the one creature a general public has been shown to recognise. In a YouGov survey reported in February 2026, two-thirds of Britons identified it from a picture, about nine in ten of the two youngest adult generations and 33% of Baby Boomers, as Fig. 1 shows. That fits how The Pokémon Company uses it. Every programme on its brand sheets that it runs itself and attaches to a named creature, from the Pikachu Jet to its J.League matches, names Pikachu.
Japan gives a benchmark for how far that fame goes. In a national survey of October 2018, 80% of people aged 15 to 79 knew the name Pokémon, more than any other game, yet it ranked 27th of 89 characters and trailed Doraemon’s 96%.
Two-thirds of Britons can name Pikachu from a picture, and one-third of Baby Boomers
Share of the British public who identify Pikachu from a picture, by generation, per cent, survey reported February 2026.
Show the numbers
| Group | Britons who identify Pikachu from a picture, % | Source |
|---|---|---|
| All Britons | ||
| Gen Z and Millennials | ||
| Generation X | ||
| Baby Boomers |
Britons who identify Pikachu from a picture. A YouGov survey of the British public reported in February 2026. Sample size and fieldwork dates were not stated, so treat the figures as estimates. No other Pokémon was shown, so the survey does not rank Pikachu against other creatures.
Collectors pay for Charizard
By count, collectors treat the two best-known creatures alike. About 2.5m Pikachu cards and 2.3m Charizard cards have been graded by PSA, on one vendor’s estimate. By price they do not. At a single auction in February 2026, three first-edition cards from the same set, in the same perfect grade, were sold. Charizard fetched 6.9× Blastoise and 12.6× Venusaur, the comparison Fig. 2 draws. In a newer set the premium went to another creature. In Prismatic Evolutions, the Eevee-family set, Umbreon’s best card was valued in March 2026 at about 7× the average of four peers of the same rarity, on a vendor’s figures.
Fans vote for a later creature and spread their votes thinly
Pikachu won neither of the two large official votes on record. In the worldwide vote of 2020 the winner, Greninja, took barely two votes in a hundred, the top ten together took 12%, and Pikachu sits far down the list in Fig. 3. The smaller Japanese vote of 2016 had the same winner, on 6.4%, with Pikachu 4th. Greninja belongs to a later generation than the original cast.
Card buyers follow the newest set. In one resale marketplace’s monthly lists of its best-selling higher-priced cards, no Pikachu card appeared in any of the 15 places from June to August 2026. In September, two Pikachu cards from the new 30th Celebration set took first and second. The games supply the novelty on a schedule, since each new region brings its own creatures and trainers; the launch record is on Video games.
In the 2020 worldwide fan vote the winner took 2% and Pikachu came 19th
Share of all votes for the top ten creatures and for Pikachu, Pokémon of the Year 2020, per cent.
- Top ten
- Pikachu
Show the numbers
| Rank | Top ten, % of votes | Pikachu, % of votes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Greninja | – | ||
| 2. Lucario | – | ||
| 3. Mimikyu | – | ||
| 4. Charizard | – | ||
| 5. Umbreon | – | ||
| 6. Sylveon | – | ||
| 7. Garchomp | – | ||
| 8. Rayquaza | – | ||
| 9. Gardevoir | – | ||
| 10. Gengar | – | ||
| 19. Pikachu | – |
Top ten. Votes for each Pokémon divided by the 6,608,215 votes cast in the Google-run worldwide vote, 5–14 February 2020. The top ten together took 12.3%. Ranks 11 to 18 are not shown.
Pikachu. Pikachu finished 19th. The 2016 vote in Japan had a different electorate and is not comparable.
No published rule names a lead, and partners cast by fit
We read 7 licensing pages and brand sheets from The Pokémon Company and its Western arm, including both editions of the Tokyo company’s brand sheet. None names a lead character, a tier or a creature that must appear. Partners’ deals are mixed. Of 13 partner deals we read, 7 name a particular creature, and all of those name Pikachu. The other six show many creatures or name none. LEGO’s August 2026 wave puts Pikachu in 1 of its 15 sets. Where one creature is chosen, the reason given is fit. The company’s licensing staff picked Ditto for a stretchy silicone cup, and Toyota’s engineers chose Miraidon.
Trainers go unregistered, and one trainer’s card premium stops at Japan’s border
The human characters are treated as a different kind of asset. On the US register Nintendo holds 27 records for three creature names, 18 of them for Pikachu, and no Pokémon company holds any of the 13 human names we searched, Ash Ketchum included (Fig. 4; who holds the marks is on Brand). The August 2026 brand sheet builds its flagship licences on creatures and names no human.
One trainer does sell inside the company’s own card game, in Japan. The top card of Nanjamo, a gym leader whose set launched in April 2023, sells for 5.0–8.1× two creature cards of the same rarity in her Japanese set, on shop estimates. The English printing of the same card, where she is called Iono, sells for about the same as those two creatures.
Pikachu’s name has 18 US trademark records and 13 trainer names have none held by a Pokémon company
US trademark records for each name held by Nintendo or another Pokémon company, searched 1 November 2026.
- Creature names, records held by Nintendo
- Trainer names, records held by any Pokémon company
Show the numbers
| Name | Creature names, records held by Nintendo, records | Trainer names, records held by any Pokémon company, records | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pikachu | – | ||
| Eevee | – | ||
| Charizard | – | ||
| 13 trainer names | – |
Creature names, records held by Nintendo. US Patent and Trademark Office search, 1 November 2026: 27 records for the three names in all.
Trainer names, records held by any Pokémon company. Ash Ketchum, Ketchum, Liko, Iono, Roy, Oak, Team Rocket, Lillie, Marnie, Cynthia, Nanjamo, Friede and Satoshi, each searched against Nintendo, Pokémon, Creatures and Game Freak as owner. Other owners hold records for some of the same words (Lillie 93, Cynthia 234), so the zero is for Pokémon-group owners only. US only; Japan is unresolved.
The story is left unruled, and Ash could be retired without disturbing the rest
No company ruling on what is canon is on record. Nine interview questions on the subject drew no answer, the one ruling by a Game Freak writer was later deleted, and asked whether a partner’s creation counted, The Pokémon Company replied “No Comment”. Publishing shows the same line in numbers. In Japan’s national library catalogue, 108 of the 113 comics made from the anime credit Tsunekazu Ishihara, the company’s president, as supervisor. The two long-running manga that follow the games, 93 and 38 volumes, credit no supervisor at all, as Fig. 5 shows. Game Freak’s Ohmori said in 2017 what the freedom is for. When games have to meet the series’ media schedule, the fix “may be changing the setting or changing the character”.
Comics of the anime almost always name a supervisor; 131 volumes of game-based manga never do
Pokémon comic volumes in Japan’s national library catalogue, 1997 to 2026, and how many credit a supervisor.
- Volumes in Japan’s national library catalogue, 1997 to 2026
- Of which, volumes that credit a supervisor
Show the numbers
| Manga line | Volumes in Japan’s national library catalogue, 1997 to 2026, volumes | Of which, volumes that credit a supervisor, volumes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comics of the anime | |||
| Pokémon Special (follows the games) | |||
| Anakubo’s Pokémon manga (follows the games) |
Of which, volumes that credit a supervisor. The supervisor credited is Tsunekazu Ishihara, president of The Pokémon Company. Credits are as the catalogue transcribes the title page; the books’ colophons were not read. A further 44 game-based and spin-off comics, not drawn, also carry no supervisor credit.
Ash was the test. His last Japanese episode aired in March 2023, after 25 seasons, and a series with two new leads began 21 days later. Pikachu stayed as Captain Pikachu, with the same voice actor and the same companies behind the show. In TV Tokyo’s ranking of its anime titles by sales, years to March, Pokémon was fourth and then fifth in the two years before the change and has been fourth in each of the three years since. In a 2025 panel of Tokyo-area children, answered by their parents, Captain Pikachu was the 3rd most liked of 177 characters. The show’s own economics are on Anime.