>>52797930The divisiveness mainly stems from Gen 1 being an absolute phenomenon with massive saturation via the games, anime, the TCG, the movie, all of the tie-ins (remember those Burger King toys that killed a kid?), which not only leads to a massive shitpile of nostalgia but also a huge preference in pop culture's memory - by the time the third gen was released the craze was long over, most of the fanbase had moved on to other trends and the people left invested were the diehards and the next wave of kids who got a Gameboy Advance for Christmas.
So you have three major groups: People who started with Gen 1 and stuck with the franchise, people who were there for Gen I for the year or so Pokemon ruled the world (possibly dipping into Gen 2) and then left the franchise behind, and people who never played Gen 1. Those groups all have completely different perspectives, and because anyone who was ever into Pokemon (especially in the late 90s) was fucking SUPER into it, there's a lot of passion.
Hence, we have the GENWUNNERS who think Charizard is the GOAT, because they remember his card was super valuable and they haven't cared to keep up at all with how the franchise has grown. And on the flipside you have Zoomers who have no idea what the big deal is about a boring dragon that isn't even a dragon. And these people especially get pissed because GF/Nintendo will always pander to the first group, because they are by far the biggest audience Pokemon ever had and nostalgia is a very marketable asset. And a lot of the frustration with that comes from other eras being disregarded/ignored completely.
