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It was one of the first vaguely humanoid Pokémon that didn’t look silly like Jynx who looks like the grimace in a dress and wig and kids were still young.
It’s Pokédex entry also plays a big part even if GameFreak kinda ignores it in favor of making Gardevoir a cutemon, seriously they omitted everything relating to being protective and the black hole in favor of making it a cute Pokémon that likes to play with other Pokémon in New Snap. Also the change in role from the 1st PMD to the 2nd. From gen IV on Gardevoir has been more in the cute side than being a knight or whatever people think it is. The fact that GameFreak themselves associate Gardevoir with Lopunny should be enough (PMD, Megas, the anime, also the area where bunneary was introduced in SWSH had ralts too).
Nowadays there’s more competition in the waifu market for Pokémon with other strong contenders like Lopunny and Braixen but for a lot of folk Gardevoir was one of the first.
