>>40278078This joke would have been a non-issue (who am I kidding, this would be a joke even with the alternative) if Game Freak simply said "yeah, animals exist, but they're just not important to the story". No, they don't need to address any additional concerns pertaining to the ecosystem being shared between animals and pokemon. And it handily also does away with the whole ethical conundrum of "does this mean people eat, and by-implication mass-harvest for food, beings that are potentially sentient (given how they interact in the shows and games, being much more cognizant than how trained animals react to commands)". But noooooooo
