Pikachu to Sonic - Meet the video game characters inspired by animals (2024)

FAQs

What animals are the Sonic characters based off of? ›

The speedy blue hero Sonic takes his inspiration from the humble hedgehog. There are seventeen different species of hedgehog around the world - but as far as we know, none of them can run as fast as Sonic! Sonic's pals are also inspired by animals - Knuckles is an echidna, and Tails is a fox.

Nishida additionally stated that she was fond of squirrels at the time, and so designed several elements of Pikachu to resemble squirrels. She stated that its tail was chosen because she liked squirrel tails, with the tail being shaped like a lightning bolt due to wanting a lightning motif.

Drowzee and Malayan Tapir

The tapir is a large mammal with a short trunk. It uses its snout to pick up things or as a snorkel when in water. Aside from both having a short snout, Drowzee seems to have been inspired by the tapir's two-toned coloring. What other Pokémon/real-life animal resemblances have you noticed?

Amy Rose. Amy Rose is a pink hedgehog and Sonic's self-proclaimed girlfriend, who is an energetic tomboy.

Shadow is an anthropomorphic black hedgehog appearing in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series of platform games and its various spin-offs. He first appeared in the 2001 installment Sonic Adventure 2, the final Sonic game released for a Sega video game console.

P.S. It's a common myth that the popular Pokémon Pikachu was based on the pika. Pikachu is actually inspired by squirrels – but that doesn't make pikas any less electrifying!

Pikachu the Pokemon is classified as an "Electric Mouse," so its design was loosely based on a member of the rodent family. Possums are similarly rodents, so all it takes is a little coloring and a cute complexion to bear some similarity.

Based on the Pokémon franchise, the film is a loose adaptation of the 2016 video game of the same name. It was written by Rob Letterman, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, and Derek Connolly, from a story by Hernandez, Samit, and Nicole Perlman, and produced by Legendary Pictures and Toho.

Despite their English names, Ken Sugimori confirmed that the design of Bulbasaur and its evolutions are based on frogs. In the Pokémon franchise, Bulbasaur are small, amphibian and plant Pokémon that move on all four legs. They have blue-green bodies with darker blue-green spots.

What animal is Charmander based off of? ›

Charmander, as its name suggests, owes much of its origin to the salamander. However, it does not share many traits with the real salamanders you can find in the local forests and vernal pools.

In the 2018 artbook, "EVs", Motofumi Fujiwara revealed that Eevee was inspired by vague childhood memories of an unknown creature he encountered in the forest. Though it wasn't based on any distinct animal, Fujiwara mentioned that Eevee reminded him of a fluffy cat or dog-like creature.

A jigglypuff (Somnulepus pokevus) is a species of rabbit that originally did not exist, but has since been created by SciiFii due to the demand for Pokémon-like animals as pets.

For a while now, I'm suspected that chansey might be a (really fat) leucistic axolotl. The colours match perfectly, and it seems to have appendages on its head that resemble axolotl gills.

Caterpie/Eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillar (Papilio glaucus) The animal that this Pokémon is based on is particularly fascinating. This is because it displays some striking examples of mimicry. On its thorax it has two coloured spots that very closely resemble eyes.

Amelia Rose the Hedgehog, commonly known as Amy, and formerly known as Rosy the Rascal, is one of the main characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. She is a mobian hedgehog with a major crush on Sonic the Hedgehog.

In the 1993 animated series, Sally is an anthropomorphic chipmunk with brown fur and tan fur around the front of her abdomen, muzzle and eyes. She also has blue eyes and voluminous auburn hair.

The protagonist was initially a rabbit able to grasp objects with prehensile ears, but the concept proved too complex for the hardware. The team moved on to animals that could roll into a ball, and eventually settled on Sonic, a teal hedgehog created by Ohshima.

Sonic's design was influenced by a variety of sources, including Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, Michael Jackson, and Santa Claus; his pigmentation was chosen to match Sega's cobalt blue logo.