>>32358329As weird as it is, you're considering "Icon" too much as a westerner thing.
You see, Greninja and Lucario among others are ABSOLUTELY Pokemon icons. But being a normie icon is different than being a Pokemon icon.
Back in the late 90's, Pokemon was the biggest, most normie thing imaginable, up to the point where the main Reps were on nearly all merchandise imaginable and even made it to the cover of the damn TIME Magazine. It was inescapable and omnipresent whether you were into the series or not.
Nowadays, Pokemon itself is definitely not omnipresent. Instead it is contained within an admittedly huge fandom, but hardly ever crosses over to your average Joe's life in any meaningful way. This means that pokemon that weren't present during the series' peak simply won't have as much of an effect, so it's useless to compare it in that regard.
Now if we're talking about people who at the very least are acquainted with pokemon, at least enough to know about the existance of Generations beyond the first, then you will find that Greninja and Lucario are instantly recognizable, even with some normie overlap. Therefore, yes, they actually are pokemon icons.
