Had an anime series that ran for 1 or 2 seasons, maybe a handful of merch, and then was just quietly forgotten by the general public.
Considered cult classics by hardcore gamers, that decades later make hours-long video essays with titles like “Pokémon: A Forgotten Classic” and “Why Didn’t Pokémon Take Off?”.
A small but dedicated fanbase that regularly discuss what a “Pokémon 2” could’ve looked like had there been a sequel.
Funnily enough digimon came to the west a little before pokemon so when I was a kid I did actually treat pokemon as a digimon knockoff