CharmedontheWB on 17 June 2014
I am pretty sure that it was a combination of the anime series and Pikachu. The television series drove sales of the games in the West. The popularity of Pikachu is what spawned Pokemon Yellow. Pokemon was out in Japan for two years in 1996 and it did not really get much traction until the animated series debuted here in the US that the brand really took off. Couple that with how awesome Pikachu is, there was no way for it to fail. If Mr. Mime had been the original Pokemon, I hardly think it would have taken off...I think a lot of the credit goes to Pikachu.
