Ranking Pikachu Clones From Worst To Best

The Generation III Pikachu clones immediately fall to the bottom of our ranking because they have no ideas of their own. Minun and Plusle are just Pichus with colored ears and cheeks to represent positive and negative electric charges. They also mostly just exist as an extension of Ruby and Sapphire’s double battles gimmick, and have not been relevant since. They want to be the Pichu Brothers so bad. Keep dreaming, nerds.

The Pawmi line’s biggest problem is that it’s anticlimactic. Each stage of the Paldean Pikachu clone’s evolutionary line looks almost identical to the previous one. It develops some subtle changes to the color scheme and becomes bipedal, but god, what a letdown. Pokémon evolution is supposed to be this moment of great change for these little critters and Pawmi just gets to stand up and become a fighting type. But why would I ever want to catch these hands when I don’t want to catch one in the first place because it’s so bland?

I don’t love Togedemaru, but at the very least it doesn’t look like it’s a photoshop of Pikachu or one of its other forms. This round boy can learn Bounce, so that tells me it can substitute as a basketball, and I think versatility is super important in a Pokémon looking to build out its resume. Sure, I don’t want to put you on my team, but I can definitely recommend the local parks and recreation committee dribble you across a court.

Like Togedemaru before it, Dedenne doesn’t do much for me, but at least the little gerbil is trying to differentiate itself from the source material. It’s an electric/fairy-type, which makes it at least more interesting than a lot of the other Pika-clones, and it’s definitely a cutie patootie. But that’s all it is, really. A cute little guy who does cute little things.

Morpeko’s design does nothing for me, but at least it has ideas. The electric/dark-type rodent is based on how we all get a little grumpy when we’re hungry. It shifts between Full Belly Mode, in which it has a smile on its face and electricity in its heart, and Hangry Mode, where it becomes an angry purple dude who is full of nothing but rage and darkness. Morpeko is just like you, FR. It feels happy when it’s full of its favorite snacks and angry when it hasn’t eaten, and it manifests unbridled angst. We have to respect it.

Generation IV’s Pikachu clone Pachirisu is an icon not just because it’s adorable, but because it was at the center of one of the best moments of Pokémon competitive play history. In 2014, Korean player Se Jun Park won a tournament with the help of Pachirisu, who was able to use the move Follow Me to direct attacks away from the rest of the team, who were free to take out the opponent’s team unbothered. The play was so unexpected and legendary that The Pokémon Company ended up paying tribute to it almost a decade later during the 2022 World Championships. We have to give Pachirisu its flowers because it’s one of the only Pikachu clones to have any competitive accomplishments.

Emolga can fly. So it flies over almost everyone else on this list and soars to the #2 spot. It’s simple biology.

But all of these Pokémon that look like Pikachu through natural means cannot defeat the actual best Pikachu clone: the one who just wishes it looked like Pikachu. Mimikyu is a ghost/fairy-type who wants to be as loved as Pikachu is, so it fashions together a disguise out of an old rag in an attempt to look like the iconic mouse. All these other nerds are just born into looking like Pikachu, Mimikyu is putting in the work to be part of the Pikachu clone family. No one works harder to try and be Pikachu than Mimikyu, so naturally it would top this list of Pokémon trying to be Pikachu.

But even so, no one can beat the OG. The king reigns supreme. Even though the Alolan Raichu regional variant turns my vision red, the Pikachu line is just peak. There’s a reason he is the icon he is, and even though The Pokémon Company won’t respect Raichu, I respect him more than anyone else in the Pokémon world. That admiration manifests in a top spot above all the fakers, the imposters, and the pretenders. We didn’t need all these frauds because we’ve had the best electric rodent all along.