>>58153647
Black/White as characters or at least as a pairing seem popular to me. But the circumstances around them affected their optics. Gen 5 was the breaking point for Pokespe's worst decline in quality, on top of the gen 5 games themselves being such a departure from tradition. And shipfags really wanted Black/White to be Ruby/Sapphire 2.0 (as in undeniably canon, setting the bar quite high) but it didn't happen, causing alot of disappointment. Then the years long BW2 hiatus all culminated in an ending that wasn't worth the wait, and everyone realized their time was being wasted.

But at least people like Black and White, because people who give a shit about Blake (Pokespe Nate) and Whitley (Pokespe Rosa) are rarer than unicorns. Blake is genuinely the most hated Pokespe protagonist which doesn't help Unova's reputation. Meanwhile as controversial as Ruby is, he's more likely to be one of someone's favorites than one of their most hated but he's usually one of the 2, he's rarely just in the middle of the list. I've also never seen a Sapphire hater, at worst some might find her annoying and self righteous, but it's not like she ever gets to do anything extreme enough to warrant real controversy compared to other characters.