>>52160768Funny you mention those two, because Charizard's popularity worsened due to the Ash-Greninja craze thanks to the colossal fuckup in the anime where they made that over-the-top setup with its arc only to lose at the end.
That's that point when the Charizard shilling became intolerable and people started to actively dislike it.
They retired Greninja because its job as seasonal shillmon was over, gave us a random Charizard in SM nobody absolutely gave a damn about because it belongs to the nigger character nobody cares about and let Ash win the kiddie league as an apology.
Still people like Greninja more than Charizard, so they cut the frog from SS and shill zard even more in both games and anime.
So to make us forget about Greninja completely they remove the Ash form and give us a very obvious Grass starter that is suspiciously similar competitively, probably as an attempt to kill its popularity once and for all.
The point is, if something stops being shilled, its popularity eventually decreases and I don't think Pikachu is immune from this effect. Removing it from the anime will have an impact on a larger scale.
