For me, it’s easily onix and Meowth!
Onix was likely the first “cool” Pokemon any of us saw in the games since it was Brocks ace. And before that all we had were starters and the likes of pidgey/Caterpie…
And Meowth in the anime may as well have been as main a character as Pikachu
I’m surprised they aren’t super big in the tcg
Ho-oh. Considering its significance in the anime’s first episode, as well as being the first box art legendary for the games, you’d think it’s just some random route 2 bird with how much people forget about it compared to Lugia.
Donphan.
I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but to me Donphan is a really iconic Pokémon - when Pokémon was at its zenith when the first movie released, Donphan dropped right at the start of the movie out of nowhere as this mystery, badass looking armoured elephant Pokémon that nobody knew about.
I looked through his TCG history the other day to see 1 holo, 1 prime and a bunch of non-holos. Homie has never had a 2 prize card.
On this note, I feel the same way about steelix. It’s such a cool pokemon that I rarely see as someone’s favorite pokemon.
Totally agree on this! I was always very confused about Meowth, which should be a really popular Pokemon on paper and a solid rival to Pikachu. The design is excellent imho, cats are generally fan favorites and the anime gave him a lot of exposure. Instead, Meowth is kinda sidelined, probably not “cute” enough for nowadays taste? I don’t have a decent explanation for it.
Thinking about other Pokemon, I have vivid memories of Tauros, Lapras, Pidgeot, Togetic, Scizor, Steelix and Heracross being extremely popular when I was a kid. Definitely they suffered competition from new generations, but some of those surprisingly faded into the background now
I’m surprised that more people don’t collect Raichu, I know that Pikachu is the mascot but Raichu has enough cards and is the evolved form of Raichu, Pokemon still makes raichu cards and some of them look great I don’t know why there aren’t more Raichu collectors here’s a couple artworks I like of Raichu
My only guess is that Meowth was annoying to some in the anime?
But like he was in damn near every episode. They put jiggly in smash and she was only relevant for the first couple seasons
I swear Donphan was the face of gen 2 in every Walmart and poster before it came out! Love this take!
I would argue that most of the anime’s secondary characters’ signature pokemon (plural) or prominent ones are not heavily tcg featured. Togepi and munchlax come to mind. Yes, there are a number of togepi cards, but not a ton of special treatment despite being a mainstay of the early show. Munchlax is criminally underrepresented in the tcg imo.
It could be this. Maybe it had a reputation of being a goofy loser Pokemon, because of team rocket, therefore “uncool”.
Anime Meowth, being a human-talking cat might also have pushed people to consider it more like a “character” than a proper Pokemon species. But honestly these are all speculative thoughts!
I always expected Lucario to be more popular because it’s a consistent top 10 Pokemon across polls, featured heavily in the mainline and crossover games and got it’s own movie.
There were rumors back in the days that Meowth was planned to be the second Pokemon rep in Smash 64.
Jigglypuff was one of those characters with no modern relevance (Captain Falcon, Fox) that got grandfathered in to future Smash installments because she was part of the original 12.
This is another extremely interesting case.
I totally remember people being overhyped about the Lucario leaks even before the DP official release. Kids were literally going crazy, ‘cause of the rumors of Lucario being “a secret Eevee evolution”.
An excellent, edgy, badass design with a touch of furriness, released just when Naruto and Ninja in general were at peak popularity. A star destined to shine, that frequently scores top positions in the polls but, somehow, doesn’t fully resonate with collectors.
I think all of the forced mascot characters strongly resonate with children, and then it just kinda wears off with time. They do what they’re supposed to; sell a buttload of merch for a generation, then retire for the next one. Lucario itself passed the torch to Zoroark, and so on, so forth…
Anyways, my answer to this thread is Ledian. So many nice cards!
I feel like Meowth was being pushed as a second mascot. It was chosen for a lot of promotions early on such as the Gold Boarder Meowth.
And outside of the TCG it seemed to be on every cereal and chip packet that happened to be promoting Pokemon. It was the “prize card” for the Pokemon Stadium Action 3D set of lenticular cards which was a very popular promo in Australia.
But then it’s popularity seemed to drop off. I guess as newer, “cooler” Pokemon released we were more interested in those as kids.
how old are gen 4 kiddos? 14?
maybe someday
Chikorita …
This Pokémon is well-known because of the anime. However, regarding TCG it might be one of the most forgotten Pokémon of all …
The most recent Chikorita card was not even released as a physical card … The last physical card was during SM era (we are about to end SV era and no new Chikorita cards …)
Pidgeot has always felt surprisingly under appreciated to me relative to other Kanto Pokemon. Cool design, regional bird, one of Ash’s original Pokemon. imo it’s one of the more ‘iconic’ Pokemon of gen 1 so I’m surprised it doesn’t have a following similar to beloved non-starters like Snorlax, Gengar, Dragonite etc
Jigglypuff. One of the most constant pokemon in the anime, appeared in smash bros games, and you barely hear anything about it.
