>>54919949It was probably because it was massively popular back then and it was the only real thing that could be considered a "threat" towards Pokemon since, I dunno, Digimon? I assume the major difference is that Pokemon has a sort of timeless all-ages appeal where it has a balance of friendliness and seriousness without going into full edgelord territory while Yokai Watch was making pretty immature jokes and outright stupid things as the series went on, pic related. I also heard there was an edgy reboot so it also has the Digimon problem of "growing with the audience" by making more mature games in an attempt to interest older fans while abandoning the younger audience entirely, which is a bad move when kids are the majority of your playerbase. Also Pokemon is a monolith of a franchise built over two decades with dedicated autistic fans who are almost retardedly loyal while Yokai Watch's big appeal was that it was shiny and new and kids love shiny and new, until it isn't shiny and new anymore.
