>>52147204His statement isn't from 30 years ago. It's from his own biography that he helped with along with Ken Sugimori and Junichi Masuda. It's from a biography in manga form released in 2018, so about 4 years ago, where he clearly reinforces that view point and even gives additional context.
The problem with your point of view is that you are failing to properly contextualize the Pokemon world and the Pokemon themselves. Death of an author would come into play if the series itself was ambiguous about it and it is not. Verily so the bar is set so low, in terms of fiction, that the simple act of talking is seen as some sort of fool-proof way to dispel that viewpoint but it's not. In fiction the act of talking is very common place, there's plenty of talking pets in fiction like Scooby-Doo yet despite that he's still very much presented as Shaggy's pet dog. Likewise the series does a lot of things to build up Pokemon that way, and it has to since given their fantastical nature it must be aggressive in order to sell this conceptualization. Remember that Tajiri main source of inspiration was his own dealings with the natural world and the critters that inhabit it and Pokemon turns this concept but with fantastical beings.
Indeed the reason people fight over it is because how effective Pokemon is in their construct of Pokemon. See for example tweets like these:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ShitpostGate/status/1592319612800364545Think for a second why tweets like these are made and why people fight, and support, these statements. As my fascination over the reception to Pokemon grows one must never forget how inane the concept of pokephilia is, it is after all the sexualization of what is essentially a magical pet like a dog which the series tries to construct via interactions and behaviors.
