I'm a gewunner and Pokemon has one of the strangest fanbases of any anime. I say this after 15 years hanging out in threads, forums, IRC and Discords for different mega franchises (Naruto, Fate, Touhou, etc.) and sports (handegg, hoop, baseball). I've been a Pokemon fan for 18 years and have seen it all.
The overwhelming number are former Pokemania casuals. Another side is hyper autismo hardcores, and both sides hate each other. No other anime fanbase is like this. It's close to the traditionalist vs analytic crowd in sports, but much more directly antagonistic.
Among the hardcores, you have hyper autismo in all colors of the rainbow. Leaguefags, shipperfags, trannies, pedophiles, furries, shinyhunters, emokids, Smogonites, shitposters. Pokemon's hardcore fans embody all the crudest internet stereotypes under on umbrella, which no other anime fanbase has.
It's a real pain in the ass to deal with. Imagine a Smash topic on /v/ endlessly devolving into how Red is the ideal portrayal of Pokemon and Ash is a cuck, or trying to talk competitive and having it break down into /pol/ bullshit.
I don't really want to go in to why this is the case, just that Pokemon is a fat beast of a franchise and it can be tough finding common ground on a single topic, because people bring their whole lives to the table, all the time.
