Quoted By:
The feeling of modern Pokémon is a parody of how Pokémania felt. Even at its modern peak with Pokémon GO, and Switch's popularity. It will never be the same.
And I'm not talking about the natural difference in taste between a kid and a grown up adult; the franchise itself is what seems a parody.
That leads me to believe it was never GameFreak who was behind Pokémania's magic. They never knew how to sustain it or revive it. They were just the lucky guys with rights to an IP that was popularized by the effort of thousands of external companies who simultaneously collaborated making merchandise and products feeding the youngest child beast of global capitalism.
Pokémon was everywhere, companies not leeching from it were going to lose market so there was incentive for everyone to join. It went from being non existent in the west to being basically the only thing that existed in everyone's minds for a brief moment. Religious people warning of it, journalists writing about the fever, companies fighting to make money from it. It lasted from 1 to 2 years like that. Then TPCi was created to organize the craze, GameFreak did not adapt to their global potential and it deflated into just a videogame for nerds shortly after.
Now we have pikaclones every gen, gen 1 pandering, a repetitive formula in the games, an eternal character in the anime, Yokai Watch influence or monsters and mechanics designed with the style and ideas from rival franchises.. Their inspirations failed to maintain the magic, and they are a shadow, a parody, of Pokémania. It was a bird that flew too high and didn't even know how he did it. But while it did.