>>53212674You know what I'll say this, its likely we don't have hard data to express how many people in the real world view Pokemon.
I just assume most people who play Pokemon and watch the cartoon shows look at these guys as just pets that you find, capture, train them, have them battle, and win leagues with, have fun stories to tell your friends about later on. Most people not thinking about if Pokemon are or are not sapient, its not what most people care about when playing Pokemon.
So you know what, maybe you're right, maybe that might be a more generalized outlook. But I can't confirm that nor can you. A single reddit thread doesn't really mean anything just as much as a twitter post or 4chan post doesn't mean much as its not a wide sample size of everyone playing Pokemon.
>>53212695"Wild Animals" in this context are like your wild birds, dogs, cats, apes, lions, tigers, etc Not necessarily dangerous or what have you, but they wouldn't be seen as exactly "Human Level". This is how I imagine most people who play Pokemon think about Pokemon. Cute/Cool/Badass/Funny little monsters that you train into crazy powerful beasts to beat the leagues and play around with. I really don't think most people who play these games care about if Pokemon are or are not sapiant or human level.
I will continue to repeat this: You shouldn't care about any of this. It doesn't matter what is or isn't official, it doesn't matter what the community thinks or doesn't think - what matters is what you believe.