>>51065583Its popularity doesn't translate to final stage popularity. rowlet was #1 in the Dream poll, Mimikyu #2 Primarina #3.
Decidueye scrapped into the top 15 and got beaten for places by Pyukumuku.
It makes perfect sense, especially when the anime had Primarina and Incineroar show up semi-regularly while Decidueye made two apps - one as a who fighter in an Incineroar hype episode and once again when Ash beat Hau like a red-headed step-child (which included reversing a defeat to let the base stage win to boost merch sales further).
See unlike you, they understand if one part of the line is popular, that doesn't make the rest popular. Pikachu's a great example - Pichu's well received, Raichu less so, Pikachu, from day one, has sold merch like hotcakes because kids and adults alike decided it was the best of the bunch in Gen 1. Sure enough, they ended up Regionalising Raichu along with other forgotten, underperforming designs and continued to give nothing but the less popular ones the re-tool. Evidence speaks for itself and until they actually regionalise something as popular as any the grandaddy shillmons or even the shit like noivern or Hawlucha or other reasonably popular, more newly-added designs it's not telling anything different from what I'm saying.
I reiterate, Decidueye is the youngest pokémon design to officially get a redesign. You can understand growlithe getting pinged for one, it's an "it just gets bigger" monotype Gen I effort and they tarted up Vulpix already, I expected Growlithe to get its Regional as a counterpart, like they were version exclusives in Gen 1 back in Gen 7. Can even expect anything going back to before the current era of kid players were born. But something that was chosen as a starter getting one, when it's only 6 years old and no other Regional was a confirmed shillmon (ie adpoted by the fans and pushed by the brand) shouldn't have gotten one, especially if it was popular.
