>>41474068Miyazaki talked about how anime a couple decades ago was the result of artists being inspired by reality, and how anime today isn't inspired so much by reality but rather the anime that came before it, so they end up feeling very hollow and artificial, and I think that applies to Pokemon.
The first couple of gens definitely took inspirations from other media (mainly Ultraman and Dragon Quest) but you can definitely tell that the developers wanted to relate the games heavily to the real world. Many Pokemon designs are merely animals + element. Several real-life locations are mentioned, the region is firmly rooted in Japan, and the villains essentially just want to make money instead of any fantastical motivations like "I wanna remove humanity's spirit" or "I want to become an alien". Your rivals are snotty brats like how most outgoing kids are at that age. After all, Pokemon's root concept came from Satoshi Tajiri collecting bugs.
Then Tajiri left, Masuda took over, and that's when Pokemon started moving towards repetitiveness and full-on escapist fantasy. There's actually some things about the post-Gen 2 era that I quite like, but the franchise hasn't been the same since. The only real improvements have on the mechanical side of things.
