>>28719777Contestshipping took off in popularity in Japan and with females because it was basically a shoujo manga story. The sweet/cute/innocent/clueless girl falls for the bishounen pretty boy rival.
It only gets a bad rep in the west because of the way Pokeshippers clinged to it to keep May away from Ash, but I guess nowadays that doesn't matter. We didn't know there would be 5+ girls after.
