>>43244281>Red/Blue had South America namedropped in the burnt out mansion IIRC, and regular animals were mentioned in some Pokemons' bio's up until sometime after.All the way up until Gen 7, actually. Gen 5's village bridge song mentions seagulls in its lyrics, Gen 6 Pokedex stuff still mentions "animals" for Pokemon like Victreebel in ORAS, and Gen 7 still has the Indian elephant thing in Sun's Pokedex for Raichu.
It wasn't until the series hit the Switch that I think they didn't have real world references, but even then, not mentioning something is not the same as retconning (as in they never say that there are only Pokemon and humans as lifeforms now). It's just not drawn attention to.
