>>44633444Star Wars started off with a nebulous target audience age. It's live action and featured (laser) guns, romantic/sexual elements (slave Leia), mafiosos and death from the get-go. No, it wasn't R rated, but it wasn't aimed exclusively at kids. Luke was there as a character for little kids growing up to like. Han was for older audiences.
Pokemon started with a setting that was really kid friendly. No one is ever seriously hurt. In the very rare instances that guns showed up, it was always in the hands of antagonists. In the rare cases that romantic/vaguely sexual things show up, it's innocent puppy love between pokemon or, again, entirely the realm of Bad Guys. The setting is so simple and utterly inoffensive that there's nothing for adults to latch on to in a narrative sense. Generally, adults want conflict with real stakes, and pokemon as it was originally conceived didn't have room for such things. They found their market there and are making plenty without muddying the brand.
