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/vp/, do you consider Pokemon more like animals, or more digital, similar to Digimon?
In some ways it feels like Pokemon are meant to be animals (live in the wild, in nature, eat honey and berries, kept as pets by some people) and in others like they're meant to be artificial/data/tools (can be stored in Pokeballs and in computers, healed by machines, automatically responds to a trainer once "processed").
Clearly game mechanics are game mechanics, but how do you think of your mons while playing the games? Are they inter-changeable stat machines or pets that you've bred/raised to fight by your side?
When I played Pokemon as a kid, I was deeply attached to my Pokemon the same way I was to my pet hamster. I was way more into imagining hiking through the mountains with my Pokes than competitive battling especially because my older brother always slaughtered me with his team.
Nowadays I play Pokemon for a little mindless escapism after work, and am into more strategic battling and training. But a part of me still wants to be attached to my mons like they're animal-like pets. I know that's autistic as fuck, but I'm seriously curious as to how other anons conceptualize what "pokemon" are supposed to be.
