FACT: Charizard is not a "Shillmon" and the people calling him that are just fans suffering from sour grapes and wished their favorite Pokémon had won the cultural lottery.Charizard’s popularity is overwhelmingly organic, and pretending otherwise ignores both history and basic marketing reality. 1. You don’t accidentally design an uncool fire dragon. Charizard is a flying, fire-breathing dragon in a franchise aimed at kids. That’s not artificial popularity, that’s inevitable popularity. Dragons are a cheat code. Fire types are flashy. Wings + flames + attitude = instant favorite. If this were “manufactured,” then every fire starter would dominate the same way.2. It wasn’t even the most pushed Gen 1 Pokémon at first. Pikachu was the mascot. Mewtwo was the hype legend. Charizard didn’t get special treatment early on. Ni unique storyline, no mascot status, no anime focus until after fans latched onto it. The anime didn’t create Charizard’s appeal; it amplified what was already there. A true Shillmon is someone like Poliwhirl who apoeared everywhere at the height of Pokémania and was even center stage on the cover of Time Magazine.3. Kids chose it first. Nintendo followed later. This is the part Charizard haters always reverse. Charizard was already insanely popular before it became Game Freak’s golden boy. Nintendo didn’t shove Charizard down people’s throats and hope it would work, they noticed fans obsessing over it and leaned in. That’s reactive marketing, not planting.4. If popularity were artificial, it wouldn’t last 25+ years. Artificial hype burns out fast (see Cinderace). Charizard has survived multiple generations, competitive metas, redesigns, gimmicks (Megas, Gigantamax), and still sells merch like crazy. You don’t maintain that level of relevance unless people genuinely love the thing.
>>58832151I see we’re really bored waiting for Pokemon Day
>>58832151>cover mascot of red>only one of ash's kanto starters to fully evolve>was present in the gold and silver intro>was ash's way of steamrolling through johto until he had to give it up to make the series more interesting, still saves ash just in time in the third movie>cover mascot for fire red>promoted from a pokeball summon to playable character in smash bros brawl>could get a free charmander in hgss>was the only returning pokemon (pikachu aside) in ash's team in the black and white anime>could get a free charmander in xy>charizard was the only kanto starter to get two megas in xy>charizard was the only pokemon trainer pokemon to return in smash 4, gets flare blitz as well>charizard serves as alola's fly replacement>charizard is leon's ace and as a result gets a gigantamax before venusaur and blastoise got theirs>hell, charizard was the only kanto starter you could get in swsh without dlc or transferring from home>charizard was the only kanto starter in sv at launch, being the first mightiest mark event>friede's tera dark charizard in horizons, which was later an event pokemon>charizard ex being a one hit ko for basically every pokemon in tcg pocket when the game first launched, same thing with mega charizard y ex adjusted for powercreep>could get a free charmander in legends za>phantasmal flames focusing entirely on mega charizard x>grifters selling their charizards for overinflated prices is the reason why the tcg is so shit right now>the entire charizard's charge shill campaignFuck off. Charizard was designed to be shilled since day one.
>>58832151not readng all that
>>58832151>cHaRiZard iz kNoT a ShiLmOn sure thing, shlomostien https://files.catbox.moe/opztpk.jpg
>>58832218spbp/thread
>>58832151FACT: Family Woke is shit.
>>58832151The term shillmon does get overused, but the issue is that Gamefreak used to kind of ignore the popularity of specific Pokemon when it came to designing the games, but starting with gen6 it felt like they reacted directly to the popularity of different Pokemon even if it doesn't make sense in term of world-building.Here's an example: In generations 2, 3 and 4, they added new pre-evolutions and evolutions of existing Pokemon. The Pokemon they did this to were chosen kind of at random, or whatever the devs felt like doing. Why was Gloom given a second third evolution? It's not a particularly popular Pokemon. Why was Seadra of all Pokemon given a DRAGON evolution? Why did gen4 give Misdreavus an evolution? None of them were done because of popularity. This makes the world feel organic, like real species being discovered.Starting with gen6, a lot of decisions were made based on popularity, which makes the world feel less organic, because if you ask why something is the way it is, you don't get an in-universe answer. Instead you get an out-of-universe answer of "Because it's popular." Popular Pokemon in general tend to get special treatments. So most of the Megas were given to Pokemon that were already popular. And Charizard is even more popular so he gets two of them! It doesn't feel organic. You can see that they course-corrected a bit in since SWSH so it's not like people complaining about it didn't reach them.
>>58832218>>cover mascot of redAll three starters were cover mascots. So either all three are Shillmons which is just silly or being on a cover =/= artificial popularity. An actual Shillmon is Poliwhirl who was genuinely pushed early on by TPC>Appeared everywhere during early Pokémania>Time Magazine cover>Merch saturation>Tajiri favoritism>Red's Starter in PokeSpeAnd what happened? It didn’t stick. That’s what actual artificial push without organic demand looks like. Charizard outlasted it dozens of “pushed” Pokémon>>only one of ash's kanto starters to fully evolveAnd Charizard fully evolving caused obedience issues causing Ash to lose the Indigo League. If this were shilling, Charizard would’ve been obedient and flawless. Instead, it was a liability for entire arcs>>was present in the gold and silver introThat was after the fact that Charizard blew up in popularity>>was ash's way of steamrolling through johtoThat was also after Charizard was already a fan favorite and it was still removed for long stretches. A real industry plant wouldn’t be sidelined, it would dominate constantlyAll of your other points come years after Pokémania. By the time FireRed released, Smash launched and Megas/Gmax existed, Charizard was already one of Pokémon’s top 3 most recognizable non-mascots globally. It's like accusing Mario of being shilled because Nintendo keeps putting him in games
Even if Charizard's popularity is organic and earned that doesn't deny he's well beyond overdone and overused at this point.
>>58832151>You don’t accidentally design an uncool fire dragon
>words words wordshowever I do agree with you OP, just lay down the essays
>>58832480>So either all three are Shillmons Always have been
>>58832556>proceeds to post one of the coolest dragonmons of all time.
>>58832151>FACT>proceeds to lie
>>58833097You can always tell someone is lying by how strongly they insist they're telling the truth.
>>58832151It wasn’t organic at all.It got to be the only starter to get any real spotlight and focused evolution in the anime, the biggest vector towards Pokémon’s popularity during the initial pokemania.Blue sold more than Red.The fans demanded blastoise but the company shoved a faggot dragon down everyone’s throats instead.Charizard is THE shillmon.Cope you insufferable Charifag.
>>58833296>It got to be the only starter to get any real spotlight and focused evolution in the animeCharizard’s arc was not spotlight = power fantasy though, it was spotlight = problem. When it evolved, it became disobedient and Ash was punished for rushing its evolution. It's not like it was his ace anyway, it became became unusable and was a liability for long stretchesBulbasaur refused to evolve cause it was scared it'd end up just like Charizard, got an entire episode about leadership and restraint. Squirtle led the Squirtle Squad, got recurring spotlight and character arcs>the biggest vector towards Pokémon’s popularity during the initial pokemania.The anime mattered, but Charizard was already one of the most talked about cards in the TCG in 1998 and the most popular traded rumor Pokémon ("my cousin has one") before Charizard even peaked in the anime. The anime didn’t create Charizard’s popularity, it responded to it, then built a story around the consequences>Blue sold more than Red.Red and Blue sales varied by region and timing. The versions were nearly identical. Kids didn’t buy Red for just Charizard. They bought whichever version was available, recommended, or owned by friends>The fans demanded blastoise but the company shoved a faggot dragon down everyone’s throats instead.If fans had demanded Blastoise then Blastoise merch would have dominated and it would top fan polls consistently. Blastoise is very popular and a fan favorite, Charizard was just obsessively popular
>>58832151Finally someone put it into words. You're alright OP. Charizard is the GOAT
Beyond the ridiculous levels of shilling, what made me dislike Charizard was learning it's actually a fat manlet of a lizard and not some big imposing monster. It is barely the size of a 10yo boy. It's a fucking fraud.
Charizard has always been my favorite.The fact it makes people seethe is just a bonus.
We need a new term for organically popular pokemon. Mons that were never made to be marketed like crazy, with the expectation that they're going to be big sellers. Just mons that out of sheer luck became popular because fans actually liked it.
>>58832151>FACT: Charizard is not a "Shillmon"stopped reading here, charizard is a shillmon. He's shilled.
>>58832151>A true Shillmon is someone like Poliwhirl who apoeared everywhere at the height of PokémaniaFACTthe polis should have stayed dark blue and look gay as shit with the lighter color palette
>>58832151it's bothobviously a fire breathing dragon is gonna be cool to kids naturally especially when it's your first and likely main mon in the partybut gamefreak sees this popularity and shills it harder than anything else in the franchise. we wouldn't have the CHARIZAAAAAARD from KANTOOOOOOO memes if they weren't true
>>58832151I'm a diehard Charizard fan, and I agree that its popularity is largely organic, but I wouldn't deny the shilling either. I don't think those are mutually exclusive things. It's the company supplying to a natural demand.That being said, Charizard haters are mostly contrarians who are not worth giving attention to.
>>58832951See rule 2 and leave
It was the only starter designed to be a starter Pokemon, was designed at the ass end of development by the person brought on to basically make more marketable designs, and was the cover Pokemon of the first games both in Japan and internationally. It's one of the very few things that could be considered a shillmon alongside Pikachu and the redesigned Clefairy.
>>58832151Why was Zard on the cover of all games globally then? Japan got Red/Green, but English countries got Red/Blue. Surely someone had to decide that Zard should be the more heavily pushed of the three starters before the games even released.
>>58832151Like 99% of 4chan posters don't actually know what the word shill means or how to identify one. It's just a buzzword to these retards.
>>58832151Charizard WASN'T a shillmon, but then became one when GF realized it was organically popular, much like Poliwhirl WAS a shillmon, but then GF stopped shilling it when they realized no one cared about it.
>>58834383Yeah see case in point. "Became a shillmon when they realized it was popular", "stopped shilling it when they realized no one cared", you just have literally no idea what the word shill means. It's only shilling if it's unpopular but they sell it as if it is popular anyways.
>>58832151>fire dragonit is a fat-potbellied fire lizard, not a dragon.Lizards ≠ dragons, you fucking retarded faggot.
Terrible attempt. No (You)s for you.
>>58834464>It's only shilling if it's unpopular but they sell it as if it is popular anyways.Exactly.Zoroark is shillmon. They tried to drum up hype with it, like Lucario but if flopped
>>58834737Finally someone gets it.
>>58834737They didn't do enough with Zoroark, if anything. Lucario was EVERYWHERE before Gen 4. It was even in PMD as the highest rank. They made sure that you remembered it compare to Zoroark, who only just got a movie.
>>58834823>only just got a movie.I feel like a movie is quite a lot, to be fair.
>>58832556unova having only badly designed dragons dosent make charizard a shillmon kid
>>58832951yeah bro. I fucking love beta-mega feraligatr too
>>58835050You really thought you cooked with that one huh
>Zeroara became popular with minimal effortI'm confused about shillmons desu
>>58832333that's exactly why zoomers worship it.
