>>52213137The thing is that the series conceptualizes them as pets and animals. This is something that's been admitted by various sources including Satoshi Tajiri. The man who wrote the anime back in 1996 said in his blog that it was a decision by the staff, which also likely included Satoshi Tajiri, that Pokémon would mirror animals from the real world, in his blog he even describes Pokémon as a group of animals arranged from familiar objects, think Pokémon like magnemite, and creatures. The Pokémon Company outright said this in their 2012 product guide and Tajiri in his biography pretty much says Pokémon are like cats and dogs.
We have to remember that Satoshi Tajiri main inspiration for Pokémon came from his childhood which he spent exploring nature and interacting with animals. In his biography it starts with Satoshi dreaming of being a child again and exploring nature but with Pokémon instead of real animals and the manga ends with a child thinking of a sparrow as a Pokémon. The event of losing the connection he had to the natural world clearly impacted him to the point that it was his passion to transplant that feeling unto Pokémon.
And that's a feeling you get when playing the games, a feeling of exploring nature, which scarlet and violet take note of how vast nature is in Paldae, and while the Pokémon are fantasy creatures they feel natural. Another big point Tajiri wanted to make was Pokémon being pets, or as he told Ken Sugimori, being like cats and dogs which is true for all Pokémon.
Because of this some people don't like some of the designs Pokémon makes due to the context they're used for. For some it breaks the immersion Pokémon is going for, as for me the variety of designs just adds more to the fantastical nature of Pokémon natural world. If you think about it our natural wolrd is pretty weird too.
