>>27613021>But as I said the franchise in the west WAS the anime. Everything else gravitated around it and when the anime faltered, so did Pokemania.Whoops misread that. You are correct, the anime was the nucleus of the franchise in the West....unfortunately.
>I would also like to add to people touting Crystal's low sales that game was barely promoted at all. To be fair, it came out wayyyyy too late in the life cycle of the Gameboy Color. Gameboy Advance came out a month prior to Crystal and at that time the attention went towards that in terms of sales. On top of the fact that Suicine was a bizarre choice as the mascot, nothing made it stand out. Compare that to Pokemon Yellow which did a lot to stand out by itself. The Gameboy Color years were a very rough transition primarily because they lasted only 2 1/2 years worth of time and I didn't get a GBA myself until around 2003. On top of that, the GBA only lasted 3 1/2 years. It was just a rocky road in general and it wasn't until around the time the DS came out that I believe people started to come back into Pokemon. I know I did, I stopped with Pokemon Silver and only came back into Pokemon around 2009 with Pokemon Platinum.
