He said: "When my son was younger we used to play the Pokémon card game a lot but I never really used Pikachu, so I don't remember if he had a stripe on his tail or not. I found a lot of clips ...

The lightning bolt-shaped tail of Pikachu, famous for its early promotion work and near-constant presence on-screen, has thrown fans for a loop with a recently noticed detail.

The Japanese Pokémon Center Online merch store just put this Pikachu tail-pillow up for pre-order at 8,500 yen ($75.50), and it’ll only be available until January 16th, 2018.

Yet, early designs of Pikachu in Gen 1 games did have black on the bottom end of the tail, likely to create a shading effect - though this was not present in colored images of the Pokemon.