Does Marill count as a Pikachu Clone?

It is clearly the legendary Pikablu. Forgot to check the Silph Co. fountain, I see.

@AceTrainerBasil In the early days of the commercial internet most people in the west couldn't read Japanese or access machine translation, so the obscure runes マリル next to images of the round blue mouse went unheeded, and rumours ran rampant with no way to confirm them.

Adding to the confusion was the fact that a lot of GS content was released in Japan by the time the rest of the world got RB, so bizarre rumours about new Pokémon turned out to actually be true at the time.

Someone must have decided it looked like a Pikachu, showed pictures from Japanese magazines and primative websites without context, and the idea must have spread from there.

I miss the 90s. There's no mystery or fun anymore. Now everything in games is released, leaked and fact checked months before you can even play it.