>>33268688Pokédex entries are for YOU to read to understand the Pokémon. Wartortle is the Turtle Pokémon (かめポケモン). Actual animals are used as examples because you have no other way of understanding the Pokémon. Do Indian elephants exist in the Pokémon world? Probably not, it's just to give you an idea of what Raichu is capable of.
It should also be said that the Pokémon world initially started as just a fictionalized real world. It took place in the real life Kanto region, there was no attempt to hide it with a different name. References like Lt. Surge being American, Arcanine being a Pokémon spoken of in Chinese legend, and Raichu being capable of downing an Indian elephant made sense in the context of the game. After all, you were in fictionalized Kanto where everyone is speaking Japanese in the original unlocalized Red and Green, why wouldn't there be fictionalized America, China, and India? Lt. Surge even uses a lot of English words in his dialogue which only makes sense if you acknowledge the language everyone's speaking not as "human language", but a specific real life language.
But after Generation I and Pokémon first trying to be more appropriate for an international audience (temporarily replacing Brock in the anime, the reduction of actual on-screen Japanese in the anime and eventual replacement with made-up languages, etc.) and Johto wasn't named the "Kansai region" (カンサイ地方) in any language by release, though I can maybe see that as an early development idea.
