>>53905109The Japanese word, あく, does usually get translated as "evil", but I don't think that's quite right. It's a word that can be used for ultimate demonic evil, but it can also be used in the context of things like telling children not to misbehave ("naughty" is probably how it would be translated in that context). And pretty much anything in between. It's one of those words that doesn't really have a perfect 1:1 English equivalent, so you have to translate it something like "evil", "naughty", "bad", or whatever based on how intensely it's used in context.
The way it's used in Pokemon is closer to something like "mean" or "bad", not outright evil. "Dark" is a pretty good localization, since it can be fairly mild ("its thoughts are pretty dark...") to outright evil ("the forces of darkness"). The fact that the word can also mean "an absence of light" is also a bonus that coincidentally worked out well, since there are a couple of dark moves that are associated with things like black holes or nighttime.
