>>49828192Because the "eating dog-food" thing is something the anime and other media is very inconstant on, and even if they did, eating different food doesn't make you stupid.
Because Pokemon Mystery Dungeon exists.
Because the Anime often portrays them as intelligent as humans, the movies specifically. Mewouth is an exception in that he can talk, not in that he is intelligent. They don't just somehow understand human speech, they perfectly understand it, and each other (even though they are making different sounds), and can even communicate their wishes with a very limited vocabulary, which itself takes some decent intelligence when those wishes are more complex. They can understand enough to help build buildings and help run businesses.
Some, like Rotom, and the illusion fox to a lesser extinct, can just outright talk even in the main games, which are the most inconsistent on this point. They don't act like animals, and they don't act exactly like humans ether.
Because Xenophilia and Exophilia are things.
Because even the games have things that imply Pokemon GFs/BFs and Pokemon marriage as a historical thing. Even as a joke, it effects the zeitgeist of how the fandom as a whole thinks about Pokemon, meaning the great majority of fan works has them as human-level intelligent, which in turns gets fed back into the games a bit more each cycle.
Because it helps that it makes for a much more interesting story and world if the Pokemon are characters instead of mere battle puppets.
Because they are drawn as sapient and intelligent creature, with a mix of both animal (being on for legs, a dog-like look) and human (the faces, look at them, that is not a dog face, it doesn't have the protruding muzzle, it has expressions like a person, and look at the eyes, they are wide and expressive).
Because a lot of people find them sexy, but don't find animals sexy, so will never think of them as mere animals.
There are more reasons, but these are the most obvious.
