>>11430404
tl;dr for these articles, by the way:
>Tamagotchi Corner Shop was having its 20th year anniversary, so new merchandise like the Ichibankuji lottery items and the new game was designed with adults in mind since they've now grown up and felt nostalgic for the product.
>loose references to the franchise's Japanese meme popularity are a thing, calling Marutchi "everybody's favorite" and social media presence
>Y2K/Heisei retro trends are what keeps people coming back to Tamagotchi, with the current target demographic being people aged 25-35, primarily women
>because adults are the primary fans, collaborations with popular Japanese brands and IPs have become important too (like Sanrio, Nano collabs, exclusive shell designs and merch, etc.)
>the Western love for Connection era is why we got the rerelease, and why it's based mostly on V3 with elements of Keitama rather than the other way around. The Keitama/V3 is seen as the "legendary" Tamagotchi version due to all of the advancements it made in the formula that have become standard.
>the streamer/fan in particular getting interviewed for the official fanbook is Dokomusu, whose streams of Corner Shop put the series and Plus-era Tamagotchi back into the public eye in Japan and started the Marutchi "I'll never come back" meme. Notably, before streaming, he had zero attachment to everything beyond the original P1/P2 roster and worries about Memetchi fans getting pissed about Marutchi "stealing her spot" after the latter being soft-replaced and consistently cut from rosters due to meme fan demand.
It's kind of interesting to see Bandai acknowledge Tamagotchi's mainly adult fanbase in its current state, especially since English-speaking fans tend to use "it's a kids franchise" as a talking point a lot of the time.