>>49085340I blame the Anime for this.
They never had a fully evolved water starter on the cast until Greninja.
Then all of a sudden they decided to evolve water starters to their final stage ever since Gen 6.
>Ash's Squirtle never evolved >Ash's Totodile never evolved >Brock's Mudkip only reached Marshstomp and then fucked off >Dawn's Piplup never evolved >Ash's Oshawott never evolved >Ash's Froakie went all to way to Greninja only because they were heavily pushing jobber frog as the shillmon of that Gen >Lana's Popplio practically jumped to Primarina >Goh's Sobble practically jumped to Inteleon Fucking OLM is afraid of bulky starters. Notice how all of the bulky starters get fucked over while the more slender ones get all the limelight? They're practically conditioning the Japanese to favor twinks
The one exception I can think of is Incineroar
