Evolving Raichu

Miscellaneous glitches of Pokémon Red and Blue and Pokémon Yellow

Amazing Man (Red and Blue only) | Cable Club escape glitch | Celadon looping map trick | Champion Blue music muting glitch | Coastal Flooding | Confusion and Substitute glitch | Cooltrainer move | Cycling based glitch maps | Escape sprite handling glitch | Evolve without an evolutionary stone (Red and Blue only) | Evolving Raichu (Red and Blue only) | Expanded item pack | Expanded Pokédex | Focus Energy glitch | Get stuck in a wall | Ghost Bicycle glitch | Glitch encounter system | Glitch City RAM Manipulation | Infinite Blaine Door | Introduction Nidorino glitch (Red and Blue only) | Invisible PCs (Red and Blue only) | Invisible tree glitch | Item stack duplication glitch | Mute the music in the Pokémon League | Partial trapping move link battle glitch | Pokémon Tower Pokédex glitch | PP underflow glitches | Recovery move glitch | Rival's effect | See a Ghost without a Silph Scope | Selfdestruct and Substitute glitch | Silph Co. PC Glitch | Slot machine glitch | Stand on a tree | Statue behavior glitch (Red and Blue only) | Super effective move AI flaw (Red and Blue only) | Super Glitch | Surf down glitch | Swift miss glitch | Transform assumption glitch | Transform Empty Move Glitch | Trick Zone | Vending machine purchase glitch | Walk around with only fainted Pokémon (Red and Blue only) | Walking lag glitch | Walk on water through Surf | Walking Pikachu happiness glitch (Yellow only) | Wild appeared! | ZZAZZ Glitch

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The Evolving Raichu glitch is simply when a man in Cinnabar Island's Pokémon Laboratory requests a Raichu in exchange for Electrode, but claims that Raichu evolved after the trade.

Procedure

1. Walk to this man in Cinnabar Island's Lab. that wants to trade a Raichu for an Electrode. Select Yes and initiate the trade.
2. After that, speak to him again, and he will tell you the Raichu evolved.

Why it happens

This is a translation error on the part of Nintendo and Game Freak. Meowth346 posted this explanation on the Azure Heights forum:

"Also, the guy who says that "Raichu" went and evolved, I figured out that (though I don't know if anyone mentioned this earlier) the text was based on Japanese Blue, where you trade a Kadabra. In the Red version, you trade a Raichu... It was basically something like this:

Japanese Red:

Trade Raichu for Electrode. Guy responds about his Raichu.

Japanese Green:

Trade Raichu for Electrode. Guy responds about his Raichu.

Japanese Blue

Trade Kadabra for whoever. Guy responds that his Kadabra evolved!

For the English version, they took the Pokémon from Red/Green, seeing as how the dialogue came from Blue. The man says that the Raichu evolved, since you traded him a Raichu instead of a Kadabra on the other games."