Dawn's Piplup
| ||||||||||||||||||
| File:Dawn's Piplup.png Dawn's Piplup | ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Dawn's Piplup (Japanese: ヒカリのポッチャマ Hikari's Pochama) is Dawn's first Pokémon. She befriended it after saving it from an Ariados's attack, when Piplup and Chimchar had fled from Professor Rowan's lab. It is voiced by 小桜エツ子 Etsuko Kozakura in Japanese and Michele Knotz in English.
In the anime
Piplup initially would not accept food from Dawn—as described in the Pokédex, Piplup are very proud and dislike accepting food from people. However, it seems to have a large appetite for Pokémon food and does not like having any taken away from it. It shows signs of having a short temper, frequently getting into disagreements with other Pokémon and its Trainer.
Despite its prideful and fierce attitude, it was fairly weak at first. Jessie's Seviper easily defeated the starter Pokémon in its first battle. It has grown in strength since then, helping Dawn catch Buneary in Setting the World on its Buneary, as well as Dawn's Buizel in Buizel Your Way Out of This!.
Piplup is Dawn's main battling partner, used more than any of Dawn's other Pokémon and has helped Dawn win her first two ribbons in Sinnoh. Piplup seems to be very competitive; it will always try to overcome the odds and impress Dawn and get her fullest attention. It often wants to be the first one to start an event for Dawn, and also often tries to peacefully talk to enemies, rather than just attacking them, as seen for example in The Psyduck Stops Here!.
It has been shown that Dawn and Piplup have a close bond with each other. In Staging a Heroes' Welcome!, Piplup helped Dawn recover her confidence by shooting BubbleBeam at her face.
In Strategy With a Smile!, Piplup barely edged out May's Glaceon by only a half a point to help Dawn win the Wallace Cup Ribbon.
In A Breed Stampede!, it was shown to be quite adamant and overconfident. It even tried to stop Piloswine from charging. However, each attempt resulted in being launched into the sky and knocked out. It tried again when Piloswine had already evolved into Mamoswine, but the result was again the same.
In Stopped in the Name of Love, Piplup began the evolution process. However, it soon became clear that Piplup was unwilling to undergo the transformation to Prinplup. After an encounter with Team Rocket, Dawn gave Piplup her full support and acquired an Everstone to prevent its evolution.
In DP137, Piplup and an Elekid both fall in love with a Marill.
Moves used
| Using BubbleBeam | Move | First Used In |
|---|---|---|
| ||
| BubbleBeam | Following a Maiden's Voyage! | |
| Bide | Following a Maiden's Voyage! | |
| Peck | DP001 | |
| Whirlpool | Getting the Pre-Contest Titters | |
| Moves used recently are in bold unless all moves all fit this case. | ||
In the TCG
Dawn's Piplup is featured in the TCG as a Pokémon 
. The following is a list of cards named Piplup .
| Name | Type | Level | Rarity | Set | Set no. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Piplup M |  |
39 | - | Movie Commemoration Random Pack (no English release) | 007/022 |
Trivia
- For Wild in the Streets, Professor Oak's lecture is about Dawn's Piplup. He writes this Pokémon senryū about it: ポッチャマが みずにとびこむ ぽっちゃんと Pochama ga, mizu ni tobikomu, potchanto
- In Team Shocker!, Piplup, Pachirisu and Buneary are cheering for Dawn in cheerleader outfits. This may suggest Pachirisu, Piplup, and Buneary are female. It is also seen in a cheerleader's outfit again in A Triple Fighting Chance cheering for Ash. However, in Tanks for the Memories!, when Dawn and Ash's Pokémon are dressed as maids, Piplup, along with Ash's Turtwig and Pikachu, were all blushing in embarrassment. This could be hinting that it may be male instead.
- In The Psyduck Stops Here!, Dawn tried to understand what Piplup was telling her, saying 「僕にまかせろって？」 Boku ni makasero tte? meaning Are you trying to say "Leave it to me"?. Dawn uses the Japanese pronoun 僕 Boku (meaning I, mostly used by males) for Piplup. This may mean Piplup is male. Within the games as well, Piplup have a 7/8 chance of being male. However, Anabel also uses the pronoun to refer to herself, because while Boku can be used for males and usually is, it is not unheard of for females to use it.
- The opening sequence of Pokémon shows Dawn's Piplup coming out of its Poké Ball with a trail of stars behind it. However, Dawn has never used a star seal with Piplup's Poké Ball.
- Dawn has been keeping Piplup outside of its ball, instead of inside of it, much like Ash keeps his Pikachu, though Piplup never expressed distinctly that it did not like being inside of the ball.
- In addition, Piplup wasn't ready to obey Dawn when they first met. Eventually, they became fast friends after Pikachu and Piplup saved their respective trainers from an attacking group of Pokémon; Pikachu saved Ash from a flock of Spearow while Piplup saved Dawn from a swarm of Ariados.
- Also, it has expressed reluctance to evolve and chose to stay in its base form for the time being, and Dawn was given an Everstone to prevent Piplup from evolving.
- In addition, Piplup wasn't ready to obey Dawn when they first met. Eventually, they became fast friends after Pikachu and Piplup saved their respective trainers from an attacking group of Pokémon; Pikachu saved Ash from a flock of Spearow while Piplup saved Dawn from a swarm of Ariados.
- Piplup is Dawn's only Pokémon whose species is not based on a real-world mammal.
- Piplup has battled its two evolutions; a Prinplup in Settling a Not-So-Old Score!, and an Empoleon in The Rise of Darkrai.
- During an interview with former director and storyboard artist of the Pokémon anime, Masamitsu Hidaka, he revealed that Dawn's Piplup will probably not evolve very soon, referring to its evolutions as "ugly" or not good for contests.
- Of the current number of Diamond & Pearl series episodes, Piplup has only been completely absent from 17.
- Piplup is the second Pokémon in the anime to stop evolving while the process is happening, the first being Ash's Bulbasaur.
Related articles
For more information on this Pokémon's species, see Piplup.
External links
- Pochama's Profile on Pokeani (Japanese)
| Dawn's Pokémon | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On hand: | ||||||
| In training: | ||||||
| Traded away: | ||||||
| Released: | ||||||
| Temporary: | ||||||
