>>35930272Level-5 squandered their strong start by trying to jump into doing everything Pokemon already does, going from "its own unique thing that can stand on its own against Pokemon" to "blatant Pokemon clone". And then stacked up a whole bunch of merch and an anime on top of it. Then everyone just collectively got sick of it.
Compare it to franchises like Digimon or Yu-gi-oh, two franchises that never really got as big as Pokemon, but because they both honed in on what people liked about them and didn't sell itself short to become Pokemon clones, their fans have stuck by them for so long and they're still going steady.
