Legendary and mythical Pokemon being able to talk is one thing, but Meowth learning to speak really upends the whole Pokemon universe. People joke about battles being like cock-fighting but Meowth shows that Pokemon are people. Not all of them necessarily, but a sizable portion could be taught to walk, talk and think like a human being, but nobody in the Pokemon world is at all curious about this. Digimon can speak, and are treated like people. Pokemon can also speak if they’re taught, but are treated like animals. It’s really weird. They could have said that Meowth was a human who got transformed or a Meowth who was exposed to something that gave him human intelligence but nope, he just taught himself. It also makes you wonder why Jessie and James would care so much about stealing Pikachu when they have a far more incredible and rare Pokemon already. Meowth can literally speak human and Pokemon, he could completely change the way humans snd Pokemon communicate and interact. The entire story of the show could have revolved around that concept, but the writers didn’t think beyond “wouldn’t it be funny if the bad guys had a silly talking cat?”
I know I’m being autistic about this, but if I were world-building even something for kids and there were an element that completely changed everything I’d established, I’d probably add in a reason why it doesn’t actually turn the world upside-down.
