>>40909470Greninja wasn't shilled from Day 1 because it took nearly 3 years for Gamefreak to actually start targetting the focus onto him. The pokemon that Gamefreak clearly wanted to push from Day 1 was Sylveon. Sylveon was to them the face of the New Gen and the face of the Brand New Type. It got an anime special dedicated to it and was heavily featured in all sort of merch at the time. Also, the fact that it was an Eeveelution made it easy to assume it would be a breakout hit. Greninja got comparatively nothing for the first 6 months of his existence, was not independently featured in any merchandise or gotten any sort of attention from Gamefreak. Despite this, he was clearly the Fan Favorite of the Generation only a couple of weeks into the game release
https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/26/the-best-worst-xy-pokemon-revealedhttp://www.dorkly.com/post/57168/toplist-results-the-15-greatest-generation-vi-pokemonGamefreak technically took over 2 years to notice Greninja's position in the community and then clearly began the shill overdrive. I don't mind them actually beginning the push because it was the one time they waited to see audience reaction BEFORE pushing a certain pokemon instead of planning what pokemon they'll push beforehand.
