>>43991618This. Gen 1 and arguably Gen 2 have a completely different aesthetic than the rest of the series, resembling a fictionalized, "soft science fiction" imagining of post-war Japan, very much like Creatures' earlier works like Mother/EarthBound (more resembling the former), probably because this was Tajiri's original vision for the series, drawing from his childhood and media that he consumed such as kaiju movies and shows, and maybe Creatures also had more influence back then. The Pokemon themselves are treated much more like real creatures or animals that live in a real, living breathing world and ecosystem, similar to the ones that live in our own world. Like you could imagine opening a book on "Pokemon taxonomy" and seeing all these Pokemon and their behaviors recorded, which is what the Pokedex was presumably based on.
Starting in Gen 3, it is no longer Tajiri's vision, but Masuda's, and while it does retain some elements of the original aesthetic for a few more gens, and opts for a new yet still interesting, more futuristic aesthetic in Gen 5, by now it has completely eroded into smth more akin to "Pokemon fantasy world" with no resemblance to a real world with ecosystems, culture, demographics, etc. Everything feels so hollow, and the Pokemon are now designed with merchandising and the anime in mind, so they are far less complex in terms of body structure and are treated more like characters than animals.
