That's because they try to just dip their toe into the weird ethics and can't square the circle and keep it kid friendly.
Would be cool to see Nintendo just dive right into the ethical implications headfirst in a new game. Straight up have a Pokemon revolt with Pokemon leaders pushing for freedom and killing humans and their comprador poketraitor pets and seizing Pokecenters. Have an all out conflict where both sides utilize conventional weaponry and pokemon in tactical and strategic ways. Allow the player to become Team Rocket and steal other people's pokemon or a revolutionary pokemon sympathizer that joins free pokemon in battle and helps free captives. Have a genius pokemon discover a type of Pokeball that captures humans. Reveal the outright moral depravity of a society that enslave and battles with sentient creatures in this way, have the "pokemon are our friends and we love them" creeps be sniveling centrist Libs who fail to stop the rise of Rocket Fascists who want to mass enslave Pokemon for hard labor, factory farming and extreme exploitation because they are cowards who kind of like using Pokemon at the end of the day
Sorta similar to the original anime ending that was planned. Pikachu was gonna revolt and there was some weird shit with the whole thing being an older Ash daydreaming then waking back up at the start of the first episode having learned to coexist with pokemon or something. It is vague and obviously never came close to happening.
The entire premise of the franchise is full of contradictions and any time they try to dissect it they just make it more apparent and worse.
That's because they try to just dip their toe into the weird ethics and can't square the circle and keep it kid friendly.
Would be cool to see Nintendo just dive right into the ethical implications headfirst in a new game. Straight up have a Pokemon revolt with Pokemon leaders pushing for freedom and killing humans and their comprador poketraitor pets and seizing Pokecenters. Have an all out conflict where both sides utilize conventional weaponry and pokemon in tactical and strategic ways. Allow the player to become Team Rocket and steal other people's pokemon or a revolutionary pokemon sympathizer that joins free pokemon in battle and helps free captives. Have a genius pokemon discover a type of Pokeball that captures humans. Reveal the outright moral depravity of a society that enslave and battles with sentient creatures in this way, have the "pokemon are our friends and we love them" creeps be sniveling centrist Libs who fail to stop the rise of Rocket Fascists who want to mass enslave Pokemon for hard labor, factory farming and extreme exploitation because they are cowards who kind of like using Pokemon at the end of the day
Sorta similar to the original anime ending that was planned. Pikachu was gonna revolt and there was some weird shit with the whole thing being an older Ash daydreaming then waking back up at the start of the first episode having learned to coexist with pokemon or something. It is vague and obviously never came close to happening.