>>47108361Gen 2 was an afterthought. Taijiri just quickly hammered out some glorified DLC expansion packs for Kanto and called it a day, forever retreating into his hermit hideout to buy tons of expensive exotic bugs. That's where Masuda got his bug anus fetish from, because he learned it from him.
Pokeboom already died in late 2000 after Pokemon the Movie 2000, so Game Freak were scrambling to compete with Hello Kitty, Tamagotchi and other girly franchises starting to pick up pace, so they decided to make the Johto dex filled with pastel colored shitmons with smiley faces. Balancing was not a concern; it just had to be cute enough to sell for plusnies. I don't really think there is overlap between kids who grew up with Gen 1 and kids who grew up with Gen 3; Gen 2 was always seen as a flaccid finale, a reminder that this franchise's days in the limelight were over. When you hear about Johtoddlers praising their broken aborted mess of a region, thats when you realize they are a peculiar " lost gen" of children born in the late 90s, who arrived at gen 2 thinking it was just the norm, and not a sign of decay. They seriously think the Johto anime and stuff like Stadium 2 were gnarly.
Its interesting looking back at the dichotomy of Gen 2 and all other gens surrounding it, because for far too long its been lumped together with the "true golden age" of Pokemon which is 1996 to 2000? It was just a stopgap, and a weak one at that.
