Greninja Voted As ‘Pokémon of the Year,’ Fans React

Don’t you just love democracy? As the company that produces Pokémon turned 35 years old on February 27, the yearly competition to decide the #1 Pokémon is just as intense as ever. Unfortunately, Snorlax did not take home first place, as I was expecting it to. After weeks of tallying up votes, the ultimate winner of the competition is Greninja

Greninja came to fans in generation IV in 2006, under the Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl title. The blue frog-like Pokémon is capable of learning water and dark moves. Along with winning the 2020 fan-voted Pokémon prize, Greninja can be seen in other Pokémon games like Super Smash Bros., or in the movie Detective Pikachu.

Pokémon were sorted into their voting blocks by the regions the creatures first appeared in. Since the original Pokémon game is the title most players are familiar with, the Kanto region has the most votes when compared to any other region. One Twitter user created beautiful charts and reported data analyses that helps describe the voting results just a bit better than most can.

The Twitter user–with a very interesting name– even compiled data to help discover the reason why certain pokémon are more popular than the others.

While some users on Twitter were happy for Greninja taking home the gold, many were still fairly emotional about their favorite Pokémon’s final position in the voting.