>>43188781Shortly after spaceworld 97.
The games were then put under "brand management". No longer "cool monsters made by nerds", the tone had to be consolidated to what the anime was evolving, becoming more rigid.
Monsters had to be classified as something more kid-friendly, strictly called Pokemon. During this time animals were removed from the lore of the games and the show and designs had to be re-reviewed with an eye to uniformity of tone/image, and make sure each creature was distinct enough from other pop media to be trademarked for mass, international use.
This time coincided with the creation of The Pokemon Company and more or less lead to a sterilization of sorts. They made the decision to have Pokemon say their names - a ploy to get kids to gain an encyclopedia-level knowledge of each individual creature and things like the poke-rap became prominent, all things to build the brand and distinct entities into the minds of children.
This triggered restarting gen2 from scratch and a change of view from creating a sequel to developing a very long-lasting franchise with no definitive end.
Go look at those above rougher, goofier, often meaner images on the cards and tell me those creatures say their names? No, they fucking roar.
