>>56019712This was always the case in the west. This is what people hardly understand about the franchise's current state of affairs. Japanese culture traditionally loves monsters and little critters, there have always been many weird and whimsical creatures present in both their old ancient myth and modern pop culture.
When Game Freak staff made the original idea for Pokémon, they paid attention to the connection between trainer and mon, not just the critters themselves. But the main market, which were japanese kids, paid more obvious attention to the monsters when the game released. That reaction made sense since it was something cultural. But in the case of the US, instead of Pokémania starting from the games, it began when the anime started airing.
Kids felt attracted to Ash's character because they wanted to be like him. Not just watch Pokémon exist in a vacuum, but have a relationship themselves with the creature and characters.
Throughout the years, this situation actually inversed. Because over in Japan, Pokémon had actually fallen out of favor in the mainstream and kids grew up paying attention to other monster franchises. Then Pokémon GO happened, and then COVID quite some time after, and everyone was playing Pokémon again but this time relating to the characters because they got pushed really hard over there, along with the fact that the returning fandom grew up.
Over here, since the series never truly waned out of mainstream attention or discussion, Pokémon themselves became novelty characters, treated shiny new shiny mascots that people can attach to, clean slates instead of the human characters that people were used to pay attention to, like Bugs Bunny or Mickey. While in Japan, oldheads began appreciating the humans more while the kids had the little critter mascots.
