>>30407267True, but digimon is just a bad example all around.
Just look at some of the longest running anime/manga franchises. Barring straight up comedy series, almost all of them have their main character grow older, utilize timeskips, switch out protagonists, or just flat out create alternate universes and timelines.
Do you Dragonball would be a popular world-wide series still producing content across multiple mediums if Goku never stopped being a child and the entire supporting cast kept switching out after every arc except for Goku and Bulma?
Would Jojo be so damn popular if it had been 30 straight years of Dio Brando kicking dogs in the face and drinking people while Jonathan and Speedwagon chase him around the globe instead of introducing a new Joestar ever arc?
Do you think Gundam would have survived this long without the occasional AU story to break up the usual Federation crap?
The Pokemon anime can only survive because the games are popular. That said, the games are so damn popular that not taking any risks at all is silly. With the current state of the anime, they have nowhere to go but up. Otherwise it's just going to continually stagnate.
