>>55525114Pokemon peaked for those first few weeks in Japan when the only thing it had were a pair of games, Red and Green.
No cashgrab TCG, no plushies, no glorified commercial anime, nothing. Just a kid, his Gameboy, his version of choice, a link cable, his friends, and everything that came with their setups.
Quite fucking literally, Pokemon didn't even last a year before it became a cashgrab money printing franchise. Red and Green released in February '96, and the TCG released in October '96.