>>47882453Personally i was one of those that hated on it during the leaks, but i still picked him in X/Y and grew to like him inmensely when i actually saw him in-game and in Pokemon Amie. I expected him to be a kind of a niche pick because i was originally filtered by the tonguescarf (though it became my favorite pokemon design quirk ever after a while) and i assumed it would filter the majority of people too. Unexpectedly, everyone i knew also picked Froakie simply because they loved Greninja, so from what i saw, he was an instant hit. I personally think Gen 6 had a ton of great designs, but it also helps that the other 2 starters were not among those great designs, so even more people gravitated towards Greninja. I'd say his popularity was definitely big and organic from the start, but of course, he became a more established name when he was announced for Smash Bros and a few years later when he debuted in the anime during a season that was seemingly good enough to bring it back to the public attention. So Great Early Reception + Smash Reputation + Anime Favorite = Legendary status.
>>47882612Greninja was probably the most instantly popular pokemon of the past 12 years, but just the beggining was organic. The rest were other factors like Smash in the anime. I'm not gonna say Cinderace is just as organically popular, but it's definitely not completely artificial. It's more of a 50/50. They definitely bet all their cards on it from the start, and they started featuring it in many sort of merch and media way quicker than they did Greninja. Even its design gimmick was tailormade for its region. But at least it payed off. Cinder did pretty good in early polls and i'm sure it shot up tremendously after the heavy push it's gotten, but at least it was actually pretty popular from the start.
