WI: The Pokémon franchise never existed?

[dokidokiboy]

So this is a revisit of my old thread on the subject, which I made a year ago.

If you should know one thing about Pokémon, it's a very successful media franchise. According to the old Wikipedia, since its inception in 1996, the Pocket Monsters have raked in a whopping $88 billion US dollars in revenue. That beats out the Mickey Mouse & Friends franchise in second place by around $35 billion.

And yet at the very beginning, during the development of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green in Japan, there was a genuine chance that all of that could have never seen the light of day. According to Bulbapedia:

"The project nearly drove Game Freak to bankruptcy. Five employees quit due to the financial conditions, and Tajiri worked many unpaid hours."

So what would have happened if, in an alternate universe, that bankruptcy HAD happened, and the entire Pokémon franchise - the games, anime, movies, trading card game and so on - was strangled in the crib?

Some effects I took from the original thread:

• This would damage the concept of a handheld video game console.
• Nintendo would be hurt with one less exclusive title.
• This would probably affect or butterfly away several other franchises (e.g. Digimon, Palworld).

Discuss?

 

[Changundramon]

I would have had far less options to escape reality.

As for global effects - the anime and manga world is smaller and attracts less people.

 

[Caravels of Portugal]

There would be no merchandise-driven anime for younger kids.
The Pokemon anime was a trendsetter in the anime industry. After the success of Pokemon anime, anime studios and toy companies in Japan started working together to produce anime aimed at children in order to sell toys and merchandise at the target audience. Digimon, Beyblade, Bakugan, Hello Kitty, and Battle B-Daman along others only existed because these anime took the lessons from the Pokemon anime - youthful protagonists, bright and colorful artstyle, designs (creature/items/vehicles) used as the basis for merchandise, and a setting designed to churn out sequels or spinoffs.

 

[Lord High Executioner]

There would be no merchandise-driven anime for younger kids.
The Pokemon anime was a trendsetter in the anime industry. After the success of Pokemon anime, anime studios and toy companies in Japan started working together to produce anime aimed at children in order to sell toys and merchandise at the target audience. Digimon, Beyblade, Bakugan, Hello Kitty, and Battle B-Daman along others only existed because these anime took the lessons from the Pokemon anime - youthful protagonists, bright and colorful artstyle, designs (creature/items/vehicles) used as the basis for merchandise, and a setting designed to churn out sequels or spinoffs.

While it is a bit unclear with Sanrio/Hello Kitty products showed up when, Hello Kitty was created in 1974 and had her first anime series in 1989...
And that, in turn, was not the first anime (or Japanese TV show) that was aimed at children or, to some degree, selling toys and merchandise.
Not to mention youthful protagonists, bright and colourful artstyle, designs used as the basis for merchandise and sequels and spinoffs.

ETA correction: the first nitpicky anime was 1989. The 1987 show appears to have been a Japanese-American co-production written by Americans for the US market.