It seems to have a lot going for it.
Early Gen
Legendary/Mythical
Cute
It has a few big cards, namely Crystal, Shining & Gold Star - and a few modern hits, but doesn’t feel to me like it’s as popular as it might be.
Any thoughts?
Probably because of the 1958 Onion Futures Act, which aimed to prohibit any future market manipulation and likely deters traders to this day.
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If we all work together, we can make it popular
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Kitten foetus > Fennel fairy
-The masses
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Pokemon 4 ever
I remember when I was a kid, I watched the first 3 Pokemon movies all the time. I thought they were so cool. But then idk what happened, but when Pokemon 4Ever came out I was so against it that it got me mad just thinking about it. Never saw it.
Even as a kid I remember thinking that having a 4th movie for something was a cash grab and could no way be good. That was true for Lethal Weapon (although I don’t remember it, but I remember thinking it), and I member my dad and I talking about how they don’t really ever need to make more than 3 movies.
And with Celebi being the face of Pokemon4Ever I just thought that Celebi was stupid because of that lol I’d like to watch it as an adult though and see how I like it
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Celebi is very popular but it was never given ample opportunity at building a strong recurring chase status like Mew. Even in the sets with Shining, Crystal and Gold Star like you mentioned, it is in the constant shadow of a Charizard
- Neo 4 Darkness, and to Light… - Shining Celebi, also has Shining Charizard
- E5 Mysterious Mountains - Crystal Celebi, also has Crystal Charizard
- Miracle Crystal - Gold Star Celebi, also has delta Charizard
In modern, TPC has almost completely forgone the idea of a Celebi-centric set let alone giving it more than an SR. Its best illustration is a V promo. They have much more confidence now in other Mythical Pokémon like Darkrai and Zeraora which, just recently, will appear in the upcoming set Pitch Black with new Mega designs
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If I had to choose between Celebi and Jirachi, I would choose Celebi. But both are pretty forgettable within the broader context of the more popular Gen 2 and 3 legendaries, but Celebi is cooler of the two. As movies go, Pokemon 4Ever is better than Pokemon Jirachi Wish Maker as well.
In my opinion, the real reason that Celebi is not more popular in the TCG is aesthetics. I hate to say it, but Celebi has some dogshit art. It’s the arms. Some artists have no clue how to draw Celebi’s arms.
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In Atsushi Furusawa’s interview about illustrating Arcanine, he remarked how detailed the corrections were for its body design. So it’s more likely, regardless of an artist’s style, that finalised Celebi illustrations on cards are exactly how Pokémon intended
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No no no, don’t do this, keep celebi under the radar! I do not want the cards I have left to get to become unattainable!!
Start by asking, why isn’t furret more popular?
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They must have come hungover to work on the days that they reviewed Celebi’s proportions then.
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It’s either that or Celebi’s whimsical fairy design wasn’t agreeable to begin with and the illustrations do their best to hide it
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Every time I see this card I have no idea what I’m looking at. Is the long appendage to the right a wing? Or is it an arm? And why is it longer than the entire body? Are the legs crossed? Is it flying? What exactly is happening here 
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Its arm colour continues through the chest, but it’s also floating up in front which partially obstructs its face. It’s hovering above the trees with its left leg kicking up
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No no no, don’t do this, keep furret under the radar! I do not want the cards I have left to get to become unattainable!!
Start by asking, why isn’t Croagunk more popular?
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Combination of a bunch of things really.
Given its status it was always going to be compared to Mew, and that’s just simply an unfair losing battle for any almost any mythical. Mew was mentioned in the games, had direct ties to by far the strongest Pokemon obtainable, and can learn any move. Celebi had no ties to anything, and my god that Gen 2 movepool is not one that’s going to make for popularity. The only “offensive” Grass or Psychic moves it learns naturally are Leech Seed and Future Sight, it gets Ancient Power but so do many things, and Heal Bell while cool from a competitive battling standpoint has little to no value to kids just doing whatever in the game. From TMs it can get Psychic and I guess Giga Drain, but it being Grass is doing very little for it.
In America Celebi was pretty close to unobtainable. A few events that gave away only 251, a couple days at Six Flags locations, and a few events at the New York Pokemon Center. Most were just shit out of luck, especially as the GS Ball event would remain Japan exclusive during Gen 2. Mew had notably more events, especially the Toys R Us distribution event that gave away 200 at every location and supposedly gave out around 140,000 Mew total (this is actually where I got my first Mew back in 99).
In addition to being poorly integrated into the games in the US, its integration into the franchise as a whole is just remarkably poor. Ash carried around that GS ball for a long time which everyone knew would have Celebi in it, and then he just leaves it with Kurt. This was done because they were going to make the 4th movie about Celebi. Speaking of the 4th movie, for Japan the movie comes out a year and half before Ruby and Sapphire released, but in America the film released a mere 1 month before the release of Ruby and Sapphire in Japan and only 5 months before the English release. Japan got the film still firmly in Gen 2 and had a far better chance of having Celebi, while in America the film was the first to not receive a wide release signaling that the big initial boom of Gens 1 and 2 was over.
So we’ve got a Pokemon that didn’t live up to its predecessor, was basically unobtainable, and even if you had one did not have anything really cool or unique going for it, and it had no visibility in the franchise until right before the next generation in a movie that you might not get to see due to limited distribution.
The last bit is more of an opinion, but it really seems like Celebi gets the short end of the stick on art in the TCG fairly constantly. Aside from those already mentioned for me its shining variant art in the Neo era is one of the weakest of the bunch, and the gold star variant is the worst of the gold stars.
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Welcome to the forum!
Also very thoughtful answer 
I love it
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Truly an unremarkable try hard creation.
An abomination against nature drawn badly and developed poorly, and if a forest guardian was needed then I’d be looking firstly at a Great Deku Tree similarity.
(my lawyers will respond to any hate mail) 
Lots of good thoughts and insight here people, thank you!
I have no personal attachment to Celebi at all really, just always struck me as a Pokémon that would have more of a following.
However
You have all convinced me that the little Onion-bastard is the worst.
Thanks!
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Oh to be clear I quite like Celebi, and the Celebi V art in Fusion Strike is among my modern favorites.
It’s just hard to think of a Pokemon that was more set up to make no impact, at least in the US. Even going into Gen 3 and 4 there was no easy widespread distributions for the US and there were just none in Gen 5.
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