>>50918187I think people don't understand what people mean by that. This is why I often refer to Shudo's blog because he was the headwriter of the anime and is better versed in writing than I'll ever be.
Note that in his blog he knows Pokémon have superpowers and fantastical abilities since he talks about it, he also knows that Pokémon exhibit anthropomorphic qualities because it's a episodic drama and a drama requires a base level of humanness from non-human actors. But it needs to be repeated, Pokémon aren't real, they are fiction and it's a fictional universe. Even knowing that Pokémon posses fantastical and supernatural qualities Shudo opts to refer to Pokémon as animal characters, not even using the term monster and, this is important, making the distinction between *real* animals and Pokémon, again, between critters from the *real* world and Pokémon, not between the concept of what an animal is vs what a Pokémon is. In simple terms Pokémon imagines a fantastical world where instead of having fauna from the real world, that is things like squirrels or elephants, instead there's fantastical creatures like Magnemite, Blissey, Pikachu, etc. This is also what the Product Approval Guide states, it makes a distinction between REAL animals, that is the fauna from the real wolrd, and Pokémon, the fauna from the Pokeverse and essentially tells us that Pokémon replace the creatures from the real world essentially taking their place.
However Pokémon pushes this concept by drawing from the imagery and actions of real animals, in particular domesticated animals in order to sell this concept and in order to make Pokémon become much more familiar to us in the real world. This is essentially what I mean, and is backed up by few sources like the product guide and Shudo. Pokémon retools the fantastical and unfamiliar into a much more familiar and digestible image. It's fantasy that takes advantage of a familiar and well liked concept.
