>>51602539I mean in fiction none of that is abnormal. No one is going to say Scooby-Doo is a monster for being able to speak, although in some iterations that has supernatural connections. In the case of Pokémon they're treated more like natural creatures rather than supernatural creatures, just look at how they treat ghost Pokémon. In Pokémon ghost Pokémon are disconnected from real ghosts and are a separate thing altogether. Like the Gengar poketoon, and the official descriptions used "haunted" as an ironic term, the 2nd generation episode where the team rocket grunts were scared that the tower was haunted by actual ghosts rather than ghost types, mimikins, Allister in the games and even Shudo being told ghost Pokémon have nothing to do with real ghosts.
Even Tajiri in his biography starts to see Pokémon as being closer to natural creatures rather than supernatural creatures, in fact he viewed Pokémon as being closer to cats and dogs more than anything else. We are told Ken Sugimori viewed Pokémon as friendly beasts and that's why originally the main inspirations for his designs were real life animals, and I would argue that's still mostly true today. Tajiri problem with Sugimori designs were that they weren't friendly looking rather than the inspiration. Takeshi Shudo described the relationship between humans as that of people and "animals living in the wild". Even the 2012 product guide is adamant enough to put the word replace when talking about the relationship between real animals and Pokémon in context.
And I think that's the big distinction. Pokémon treats Pokémon as being more like natural creatures more than otherworldly creatures which is why I don't think the monster label is really warranted for them. Where as Godzilla and the like aren't treated as natural creatures, or like cats and dogs, instead being supernatural beings.
