Most of us have only heard Pikachu, the lovable mascot of the all-ages multimedia franchise Pokémon, say his name when he speaks through the anime. Although, there was that time he spoke real human words to his trainer Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon: I Choose You movie, and when Ryan Reynolds gave him a new, English-speaking voice in Detective Pikachu. But most of the time, all he ever says is variations on his name. Well, today, he got to say “motherfucking,” in an officially published TikTok from the Japanese branch of The Pokémon Company. You heard it here, folks: Pikachu is a potty mouth like the rest of us.
The video, which has since been deleted from the Japanese Pokémon TikTok account, was set to an audio by user Andy Arthur Smith in which he sings an embellished version of “If You’re Happy And You Know It”. The new lyrics to the children’s song, as performed by Smith, go a little something like, “If you’re fucking happy and you motherfucking know it clap your motherfucking hands.” As a Japanese brand account, it stands to reason the people running it might not be native English speakers and didn’t know the explicit nature of the song until it was pointed out to them, and that once it was, the video was promptly removed from the account.
However, no delete button can stop the internet, which never forgets, so Pikachu singing “if you’re fucking happy and you motherfucking know it, clap your motherfucking hands” in official marketing material is still floating around social media.
All jokes aside, this isn’t the first time Pikachu has cussed in an official capacity. In the Detective Pikachu movie, the electric mouse said “hell” and “damn” in the voice of Ryan Reynolds. Sure, on a list ranking the severity of different profanity, those are much lower on the list, but perhaps when we heard Pikachu saying his name, he has always been swearing at people.