>>55839040People were far too quick to misinterpret what the Pallet Town "Technology is incredible!" guy was saying about storage systems. Yes, there IS a point where Pokemon and items are considered "data", but it's never a permanent state outside of Porygon, a manmade digital Pokemon, the data-fication exists solely and temporarily to achieve that near-instant transportation.
Adding onto your Poke Ball examples, even the anime actually bothered to interpret this a few times despite relying on its budget-saving tactics of stock animation and cheap red beams of light, picrel in OS and Iris' Dragonite in BW are key examples that the west took as "silly cartoons being nonsensical" rather than understanding that this is literally how Poke Balls work.
