>>52675463>No one watched the Orange IslandsFalse. Absolutely everyone online always knows about the Pink Island so people definitely watched the Orange archipelago. While they rarely know about Misty getting her bike.
It was mid way through Johto when people started dropping the anime in mass. Pokémania was extended beyond Kanto by the idea of new pokémon being discovered and the hype behind pikablu/Togepi/Ho-Oh/etc so it lived through the first half of gen 2 but it was already on life support and it definitely died by the middle of the generation.
The anime was getting divided and dilated into too many seasons, the episodes were all too similar, the Neo Genesis TCG cards had no hype at all, and several rival franchises beyond Digimon had just appeared to share the monster catching genre. Yu Gi Oh, Beyblade, Medabots, Monster Rancher, were growing strong and the market began to feel saturated, all while the original Pokémon players were beginning puberty and diversifying their consumption even more. Gen 3 had no option but to present a soft reboot.
