>>43260618Why do you keep insisting to be a brainlet?
Do you realize Charizard was shilled more than Greninja in Gen6?
>Pokemon Origins>Pokemon Adventures X/Y arc>Pokemon Megas Special OVA>Pokemon XY/Z defeating Greninjaand yet Charizard was #6 while Greninja who was only shilled in the anime got #1
Shilling doesn't affect popularity much because if the base pokemon doesn't have the characteristics to be the most popular, it will never be the most popular.
So yes, Greninja's popularity was organic and TPC desperately tried to force Charizard into everything for 8 generations and yet it can't surpass Greninja because people genuinely liked Greninja, and Charizard became a cheap meme forced into everything so it quickly lost its value and charm.