>>36336003Popularity that GameFreak themselves set up by making her Japan's ideal waifubait (white, blonde with blue/green eyes, can't do shit without you but still manages to be the center of attention and have the story revolve around her, romantic implications if you're playing as a boy, etc.) and shilling the fuck out of her in basically every part of the franchise as well as making her, for the first time in the anime's history, be a clearly labeled deuteragonist with colored closed captioned text, and she's basically never allowed to get too off-model or be shown in a negative light that isn't related to character development like with her fear of touching Pokemon, even in the fucking Lowbrow Gag Manga she's an untainted entity compared to everyone around her.
