Update/Rewrite in progress

About

"Pikaman" is the name given to Pikachu whenever its default moveset is replaced by Ganondorf's in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Doing this will result in errors and glitching within the game.

Origin

A user on the Brawl Central Forums figured out how to hack the game, and by playing around the settings, he discovered that he could change the movesets of the characters. When a player plays as Pikachu using Ganondorf's moveset, it gives Pikachu Ganondorf's animations, thus altering its appearance.

Spread

On March 4, 2008, injured2day uploaded a video to YouTube, which was the first appearance of Longchu on the internet. Since then, many other users have uploaded videos showing their pictures and clips of Longchu, along with other some other moveswaps made with different characters.

"Longchu" was a name given to Pikaman by the Ustream.tv user tecnic22 in MeleeKirby's webcast. The meme eventually spread to 4chan's /v/, where it was given the name "Pikaman".

From Urban Dictionary:
Longchu is the result of swapping the moveset of Ganondorf with that of Pikachu in the Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This can only be done by a haxxor.

In the months before the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl in the US, MeleeKirby had a podcast in which people could watch him play his Japanese copy of the game. One day he started to screw around with his disc and was able to switch the movesets of certain characters. Because the game could not handle this level of haxs, abominations of these characters were born. When pikachu was given the moveset of ganondorf, the result bore a striking resemblance to longcat, as was pointed out by tecnic22 in the chatbox next to the podcast. It is most commonly used in exclamations when referring to said character.

Popularity

This meme can still be seen today, and is still mentioned on videogame forums and imageboards, but is most popular on YouTube.

Many people claimed to have nightmares for the first few weeks of Longchu's appearance. It is unknown as to why this is, although many say that it is because Longchu is just plain creepy.

There are many spin-offs of Pikaman, such as Manly-Man (Snake as Captain Falcon), Mariolimar (Mario as Olimar), Roadkill (Sonic as Fox), Wolvereach (Peach as Sonic), and Meta Link (Link as Metaknight). These spin-offs were never as popular as Pikaman, although they are worth noting.

Derivatives

Search Interest

External References

MeleeKirby's deviantArt page
MeleeKirby's Ustream.tv page
Longchu and Pikaman's Urban Dictionary pages