Pokemon may be one of the biggest video game franchises ever, but there once was a time when Nintendo wasn't even sure that it would be successful outside of Japan. Nintendo of America in particular thought the Pokemon creature designs were "too cute" for American audiences, and believed that they needed to be redesigned for gamers in the US. Luckily, these Pokemon redesigns were rejected, because Nintendo of America had some weird ideas.
As covered in a recent episode of Did You Know Gaming?, Nintendo of America wanted to redesign Pokemon's mascot Pikachu in a rather bizarre way. Apparently, the team presented The Pokemon Company's Tsunekazu Ishihara with a new Pikachu design that gave him "huge breasts." As explained by Ishihara, "The staff in America submitted their ideas for replacement designs, but we just couldn't believe the kind of stuff they were proposing. They turned Pikachu into something like a tiger with huge breasts. It looked like a character from the musical Cats." Ultimately, the Pokemon creature designs were not changed when the original Pokemon games were localized outside of Japan.
However, there were some changes made, mainly in regards to some of the in-game text and the names of the Pokemon. Even so, the general experience remained intact regardless of which version of Pokemon fans ended up playing.
The Did You Know Gaming? episode should prove to be plenty fascinating for fans of the franchise, particularly in its discussion of Nob Ogasawara. Ogasawara translated Pokemon Red and Blue for English audiences, slipping in plenty of pop culture references, including nods to his favorite movies and TV shows. Nob is also the one who edited out some of Pokemon Red and Blue's references to drugs, alcohol, and religion. Apparently those changes weren't actually mandated by Nintendo.
Not everything Nob wanted to change in Pokemon Red and Blue stuck in the final translation, however. For example, Nob originally wanted to give an NPC's Spearow the nickname "Britney" in reference to pop singer Britney Spears (so its name would be Britney Spearow). Nintendo rejected the idea.
It's definitely interesting to see how drastically Pokemon could have changed had some of the proposed changes made it to the English-language version of the games. It seems Game Freak and The Pokemon Company definitely made the right call by not allowing Nintendo of America to give Pikachu "huge breasts" and drastically change its design.