Gender confirmation... well, when is it?

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TTEchidna

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Okay, we got Ambipom confirmed in the Japanese anime twice and the English once, so we say it's a for sure girl. Happiny can only be female in the games, so it is, too. But what of other Pokémon? Ash's Charizard, for example, is still being argued about. Sure, it fell in love with Charla, who is certainly female, but couldn't Charizard be female?

What's the point at which we say that all evidence confirms a Pokémon's gender? Will we wait for Ash to say "Charizard's awesome; he always is there for me" in the raw, or will we wait for there to be a Charmander egg for Dawn? At what point is anime evidence that Piplup is female or male relevant to its gender?

What do the gender differences carried over from the games prove? May's Venusaur has a seeded flower, that means she's a girl, but what of Pikachu, who lacks an indented tail? I know stuff like Gligar's stinger is up to debate, but Pikachu's tail wouldn't be that hard to animate or make an excuse for, would it? Are we waiting for a female Pikachu to appear in the anime to put this to rest once and for all?

And why is it all because of that Pikachu? Why, why, why, why did they have to give the series mascot a gender difference...
 
Genders could be argued about for all eternity, and pretty much nothing short of a direct gender-specific reference in the raw will convince most people. I will add, though, that to ignore the presence of gender differences in the anime is foolish; however, the way I see it, no pokemon that has been carried over from before DP will be subject to gender differences unless it evolves to a new form that has gender differences. This is evident by the fact that Jessie's Dustox did not have shorter antennae in its last ep, and Aipom certainly still looked the same. (I can't prove Ambipom has longer hair, though, but May's Venusaur could still be an indication)
 
Pikachu needs delt with the most.

If Pikachu was female, the females in the game wouldn't have dents in their tail. You can't have members in the fandom argue about it because they want Pikachu to be female or whatever. He's male.
 
Sketch said:
Pikachu needs delt with the most.

If Pikachu was female, the females in the game wouldn't have dents in their tail. You can't have members in the fandom argue about it because they want Pikachu to be female or whatever. He's male.
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He's either male or Buneary's a lesbian, I find the latter much more interesting. (but is buneary one of the Pokemon being debated?)
 
Despite wearing a dress on multiple occasions, they still won't say "it is female"?

Well, this is much more interesting.

A male Cross-dressing Buneary....
A female Pikachu....
Love destined never to be fulfilled....
 
Sketch said:
Pikachu needs delt with the most.

If Pikachu was female, the females in the game wouldn't have dents in their tail. You can't have members in the fandom argue about it because they want Pikachu to be female or whatever. He's male.
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Unless the gender differences for Pikachu (among other Pokemon) are Sinnoh-only. Stranger things have happened in nature.
 
The problem with the Japanese language and this situation is they don't really use the words "he" and "she," they just say the name of whoever they are talking about. So it's not like they are deliberately hiding genders, it's just not always appropriate to announce things like, as with Aipom, "Aipom's really a girl, isn't she?"

Mimirol's affection for Pikachu, combined with her dresses and other girly behavior, are in my opinion partially meant to confirm Pikachu's gender as male. Personally, I see Mimirol as Pikachu's girlfriend. Let's face it, we probably aren't going to see gay Pokémon unless they're exaggerations like Harley.

Some Pokémon, they make it pretty obvious as to the genders. Mimirol, Lizardon, Jukain, etc. It's when we get into ones like Pachirisu and Pochama that it gets frustrating, because their behavior is gender-neutral, and we haven't seen any romantic interests for them.
 
Argy said:
Let's face it, we probably aren't going to see gay Pokémon unless they're exaggerations like Harley.
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Harley isn't a pokemon though.

Meowth has attraction to males (even discounting James because he was under the influence there), and then there's a certain Squirtle from MPJ (not the anime but still).
 
Wasn't there a time somewhere in the Pokémon world where his Pikachu is referred to as a "he", or some other male word?
 
Argy said:
Mimirol's affection for Pikachu, combined with her dresses and other girly behavior, are in my opinion partially meant to confirm Pikachu's gender as male. Personally, I see Mimirol as Pikachu's girlfriend. Let's face it, we probably aren't going to see gay Pokémon unless they're exaggerations like Harley.
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Perhaps not, but what about a straight cross-dressing bunny? Why if Dawn just likes dressing her Pokemon in dresses and Buneary, the nudists they naturally are, can't tell what guy clothes and girl clothes are.

...is what I would say if I thought she was a guy.
 
Sketch said:
If Pikachu was female, the females in the game wouldn't have dents in their tail.
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You can't say that. The game developers are primarily concerned about the game and Pikachu is an obvious candidate for whatever feature they come up with. The anime just adapts what it chooses.

It's pretty clear that Pikachu is intended as a male but the gender differences are, and always will be, the weakest argument towards that. It assumes that - if it was female - the writers would have been willing to change Pikachu's character design despite it being the mascot of the show and having been in every episode for ten years.

There are two ways Pikachu's gender could be confirmed:
1) Pikachu evolves and, like with Venusaur, its design as Raichu features either the male or female tail. But we all know that would never happen so...
2) We get an episode with female Pikachu and the tail difference is pointed out. Unfortunately, the writers seem to be avoiding this option too.

So where does that leave us? The real question we need to come up with a definitive answer for is "do romantic attractions confirm genders?"
 
I think behavior and preferences are a factor, too. It seems to me that if the writers of the show have gone out of their way to dress a Pokémon in female/male clothing, and it's obviously not for comedic effect (like crossdressing), then the Pokémon's gender matches its appearance. Personally, I think dressing Mimirol in a pink cheerleader dress while Pikachu's wearing a blue/green men's kimono is the writers' way of indicating to the audience the Pokémons' genders, mostly because gender isn't always represented in Japanese speech. The dub translation is going to follow the Japanese script in that aspect, and in Japanese the Pokémon don't get called "he," "she," or "it" all that much, so they're just going to go with their regular convention of using "it." I bet they keep calling Aipom an "it" in the dub after they confirmed she's female (do they?). So these stereotypical male/female behaviors and outfits are the writers' way of indicating a Pokémon's gender to the audience.

For some characters, their Pokémon are pretty easy to assume by pattern. Satoshi has very few obviously female Pokémon, as does Brock. There are more hints for their Pokémon being males than females. Hikari and Haruka, on the other hand, have Pokémon that behave ambiguously (with the exception of Fushigibana and Mimirol), but they aren't showing any male traits, either. I am very frustrated trying to determine Pochama's gender.

I realize that when I say that a Pokémon's gender will match its stereotypical appearance or behavior, I sound pretty closed-minded. I just think I am being realistic about the writers and planners for this anime, how simple their premises and character development are, and I don't think they would add confusion in this form. Some of you are really over-thinking it.
 
Bibarr-"L" said:
Pikachu's wearing a blue/green men's kimono is the writers' way of indicating to the audience the Pokémon's gender
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Am I the only one that remembers Pikachu wearing a dress back in Kanto? IIRC Misty was imagining it for whatever reason but it still somewhat counts, right?
 
It seemed to me that was obviously a joke. Pikachu seemed pretty confused at the suggestion.

Kojiro doesn't crossdress anymore. I see that as another sign that they wanted to reduce confusion about the characters, because the big rumor was that he was gay. Nobody really talks about that anymore.
 
Yeah, this becomes a problem when Dawn dresses all of her pokes in cheerleading outfits, and none of them seem to mind. I noticed at least in the Maid Cafe episode, Piplup seems to be the only one of Dawn's pokes embarrassed to be wearing a dress, the same as Pika and Turtwig. This would seem to be contradictive.

I will agree that pokemon behavior should be straightforward, but we live in a PC world where saying any trait is specific to one gender will earn you an instant removal of your e-genitals, even if it may be true.
 
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