wfz on 16 April 2009
I'm actually going to say that I think Mario is way more popular in Japan than Pokemon. I went to Japan a few summers ago with my Japanese class (mainly just a bunch of guys goofing off the whole time) and almost no one in Japan knew what Pokemon was. They knew Mario really well, but didn't recognize Pokemon at all. Not even when a bunch of us (adult males) started singing the Pokemon theme song. It was really sad, but in hindsight, it was really fun making fools of ourselves.
The only thing they seem to care about over there is some "Pocket Monster" stuff. Sounds like crap.
