>>52282542There's no outdated info. The best evidence we have only recently came out in 2018 with Satoshi Tajiri's own biography which he makes it very clear he sees Pokémon as pets akin to cats and dogs. Verily indeed in Scarlet and Violet Pokémon behave very pet like. Some of the houses you see even have little pet beds for Pokémon, Pokémon randomly sleep on the floor just as domestic animals do when let out of their glorified pet carriers, Pokémon even run circles around you just as dogs do when they're excited with the musical note emoji over their heads. One look at their behavior during the picnics say it all and Indeed you even clean your Pokémon the same way people clean their pets, apparently Pokémon can't clean themselves and require their owners to do it for them.
People here fail to conceptualize what the series is really about. Satoshi Tajiri biography makes it very clear that his own dealings in exploring nature and capture and taking care of animals, he caught more than bugs, was the number one inspiration for Pokémon. Tajiri didn't envision these perverted inanity, and neither does the series, but a fantastical world that mirrors an idealized version of his own childhood. It imagines a world with friendly and cute critters that are friendly and make good pets, it envisions a sense of having an adventure out in nature and interacting with all these wonderful magical animals. This is what Satoshi Tajiri created Pokémon for, it's a love letter to his own childhood which was spent out in nature and taking care and studying a variety of animals.
When viewed through these lens things like the 2012 product guide telling others that not only real animals don't exist in Pokémon but that Pokémon *replace* them. Takeshi Shudo, who wrote the original anime, told us via his blog that it was a decision to make Pokémon mirror animals from the real world in terms of relationships. Note that Tajiri was actively involved with production of the anime.
