>>464915831998
Pokéboom starts in earnest in North America that year, with the launch of the anime broadcasted to all public TVs on Kids WB for even poorfags, ads in mags and TVs for Red and Blue and kiosks in stores, merch, TCG and toys being dumped, tons of spin offs and conservacuck parents and Christians causing striesand affect by boomering in confusion and horror at the fad, calling it the devil and satan worship. Then the movies followed suit. It was a concerted blitzkrieg effort all at once and it worked. Worked so well in fact that many people tried to copy it (Yugioh, Fzero, Kirby, Digimon, Shaman King, etc.).
This lasts for about 5 years from 1998 to 2002.
By late 2002 after the first 3 movies, near the end of Johto anime and after Stadium 2 had come out, the fad already dwindled down. 90s Kids who grew up with the boom at the peak age now were moving from grade school to middle school, or near 3rd and 4th grade by this time. The "rebel" phase kicked in where Pokemon and other shit was considered baby stuff, to look cooler and mature in front of others. This was also at the time when Gen 3 came out in Japan and was GETTING ready to release in 2003 here in murrica, but it was too late. Games came out, people thought the new Pokemon were shit, the anime was shit now, the region was shit full of water, no day night cycle, no older Pokemon available. It was a fucking disaster. Masuda actually remembers getting stomach flu from dealing with such a shittily dealt hand and sweating hardcore over the games release. Late 2002ish is when the Pokeboom definitively died. Gen 3 killed normie interest in Pokemon until 2010 briefly with HGSS / Pokewalkers and then again in 2016 with Go.
Also look at this fucking cringe commercial. You think middle schoolers wanted to still be into Pokemon with crap like this? No siree bob:
https://youtu.be/br0ErE0BGU0 