Not going to lie it's not as if the OG games were particularly Japanese in style.
Like seriously aside from obvious Japanese names for locations its pretty neutral.
You're a 10 year old throwing monsters at people to make money and capture other monsters to become the world champion monster person.
Even when the OG games were released Japan had a pretty obvious theme going on, giant robots firing missiles everywhere, ninjas and other shit like that. Pokemon was surprisingly non-Japanese for a Japanese product.
It's as if there was something special that attracted westerners to it in the first place.
Not going to lie it's not as if the OG games were particularly Japanese in style.
Like seriously aside from obvious Japanese names for locations its pretty neutral.
You're a 10 year old throwing monsters at people to make money and capture other monsters to become the world champion monster person.
Even when the OG games were released Japan had a pretty obvious theme going on, giant robots firing missiles everywhere, ninjas and other shit like that. Pokemon was surprisingly non-Japanese for a Japanese product.