I read this site frequently and actually set up an account just to reply to the board.
Both inside and outside of video games and in the popular media, there is no question that Pikachu is way more popular than Sonic, but for those people saying Pikachu rivals Mario, that assumption is just as ridiculous as the idea that a comparison between the latter stands (well, not quite, but you get where I'm going).
Google Mario, you get 867,000,000 results, Super Mario nets 213,000,000 and Super Mario Bros 89,000,000. Pikachu fetches an impressive, albeit much lower, 26,700,000. Its searched a third of the times Mario's least popular and most narrow search option (of the three listed) is!
Also, google Most Famous Character and Mario is on the first page of images (I don't know how they load, but I'd surmise it has to do with search popularity for the images as well). A few more of his pop up before you see Pikachu on the sixth page. Similar image searches like Most Famous Icon, Popular Character and its variants all show multiple images of Mario before Pikachu is represented. That's not including obvious searches like video games or Nintendo which are pretty much covered in Mario images.
People here are overstating Pokemon's pop culture impact just because he's the face of the brand that has been in all these anime movies, card games and merchandising. Though all that is mighty powerful and has influenced it, Mario can't be touched. He's like Batman and Superman, or Michael Jordan...he's the face of the entire industry he hails from. Even if you don't watch sports, you know Michael Jordan and the same goes with video games and Mario.
Sorry for that derailing rant (especially as a first post), but I had to get that off my chest lol.
