How popular is Charizard in Japan compared to the west?

yes it doesn't count, retard
because if you asked a kid who just watched a movie about 1 specific movie he would excitingly say "OMG ZERAORA WAS SO EPIC AND BADASS XDDDD" but he will forgot about him in few days
that's why zera shit wasn't polled high in any official poll

Piplup in the anime was an absolute phenomenon.

I hate Charshitzard

Ask any millennial normie who Lizardon is and they'll know. Same as the west. It gets nudged out in popularity more often there because the culture favors cute mascots, and kids wouldn't be called faggots for liking Eevee or something.

>mogged by bulbasaur in merchs
>mogged by greninja in popularity polls
>mogged by blastoise in Blue sales in the west
oh no no no no no charizard xisters, what the fuck??

What was it about 2013 that just changed everything? In 2012, there was B2W2 and it felt like a celebration of all previous Pokémon titles. In 2013, the anime decided to reintroduce Ash's Charizard. It gave Iris a Dragonite. It did a movie about Mewtwo. The Origin comes out and it's about Red and his Charizard going through the FRLG story, with the climax being Mega Charizard X vs Mewtwo. Charizard and Mewtwo get two Mega Evolutions in X and Y, there's the sleeping Snorlax with the Poké Flute, getting the choice of a secondary set of Kanto starters, a guy gives you a Lapras, Santalune Forest is identical to Viridian Forest, the Unknown Dungeon with Mewtwo, the Legendary Birds, Kanto getting a disproportionate amount of Megas, etc. It never felt like that in previous games. Yeah, Charizard was always more special than the other Kanto starters, but it never felt overbearing. It was utterly absent in RSE, DPPt, BW, and B2W2 apart from the questionable Charizard Bridge. Even in GSC, it was portrayed more as a fearsome badass dragon that you can't even obtain in-game (but it appears in the intro, on Lance's and Red's teams, and gets a unique party sprite). HGSS removed it from the intro but allowed you to receive a Kanto starter after getting all 16 badges, though it's an equal choice. I think there was also a Charizard-themed boat in Platinum's Wi-Fi Plaza.

Gen5 selling worse than Gen4 made scamfreak to think that pokemon is dead and Charizard nostalgiafags are their only hope to stay relevant
it worked, sadly

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The west seethed about how Pokemon wasn't what they remembered from their Pokemania childhoods and, just like when Pokemon's overseas debut was conceived, Ishihara started seeing cash signs out of gullible western sheep again and quickly advised GF and OLM to start nostalgia pandering.

It's from the Pokémon Japan twitter account, I don't think they specified much.

pokemon-matome.net/articles/248636.html

It only sold a little bit less and that's because
>The DS was in its twilight years (that's a very specific joke by the way) in 2010, having been out for 6 years by that point
>Only two mainline releases (BW, B2W2) instead of three like in Gen IV (DP, Platinum, HGSS)
>Smartphones had started booming, and dedicated video game device sales dropped across the board as the desire for both to coexist as separate platforms just wasn't as strong since casuals wanted everything on one buttonless device
>Emulation and flashcards were totally rampant for the DS by this point. Pokémon games on DS emulators in 2008 were messy, and by 2010 on things had improved massively
>B2W2 were released in 2012, it was called the swan song of the DS, released over a YEAR after the 3DS was already on store shelves
>Gen V games had a shorter shelf life than Gen IV games

Sure, the DS had a bigger install base by 2010, but how much of the casual install base from 2006-2008 was still using it regularly?