Since it’s almost Halloween, I decided to give my female Pikachu a bunch of cute costumes to possibly wear! But a strange thing I notice is that she seem to get “too” into character and even learn a random move that she didn’t have originally. For example, she just suddenly learned flying press in her wrestling costume (and tries to get me into a sleeper hold but that besides the point) and in her rockstar outfit, she gets Metor Mash instead. Is this normal for female Pikachus or what?

Yes, and it’s an interesting phenomenon, really. My partner first observed it in the contest halls in Hoenn, but apparently, female pikachu adore performing so much that certain costumes allow them to adopt certain personas and unlock specific dormant abilities. She theorizes that it’s similar to how all pikachu can learn Fly or Surf but can only do so under very specific circumstances.

In any case, it only seems to happen with five specific costumes, typically available in contest halls under the Angelic Beauty label—or, well, knock-offs thereof. No other costume combination seems to trigger latent moves, I’m afraid, although most pikachu will enjoy dressing up all the same.