I think where Masuda fucked up with the whole PETA angle is not making it more apparent that BW was meant to be a reboot of the franchises lore. The first four generations were meant to represent a utopic society, where humans and pokemon do live in harmony and there is no poverty or fighting over resources. Gen 5 onwards Masuda wanted to make a new more grounded continuity that actually explores the feasibility of a society like the one we see in pokemon. We see themes of this in later entries like gen 6 and 7 where not just villains, but entire societies run by and for civilians benefit off of the exploitation of pokemon. The Devon corporation, the international police, macro cosmos, etc. are all guilty of using pokemon as a resource instead of acknowledging them as sentient living creatures. These organizations that the general public support and benefit from provide context to N's argument.
