Summary
In the early episodes of Pokémon, real animals coexisted with Pokémon, leading to questions about their disappearance. Animals were gradually eliminated from the Pokémon world as the number of Pokémon increased. The removal of real animals in later episodes raises ethical concerns about food sources in the Pokémon world.
The Pokémon Anime has changed a lot over the years, but one of the biggest and strangest changes over the years has to do with something that's caused some real confusion in terms of the series' canon: the Include real animals. Animals appeared in Pokémon's first season with regularity, raising a lot of questions, especially when it came to what happened to them.
While there are now over a thousand Pokémon, that obviously wasn't always the case; When the anime first came out, there were “only” 151 different species. There is also an implication, although it is never outright stated, that the existence of Pokémon is a fairly new phenomenon. Instead of Pokémon existing in place of animals, early episodes depict Pokémon existing alongside animals. For example, in the first episode, Ash sees a Pidgey pulling a worm out of the ground and eating it.
So if animals existed in the Pokémon anime world from the beginning… what happened to them?
Pokémon's biggest retcon is animal removal
Are the animals that make Pokémon extinct?
While the animals mostly appear in the background or in small shots like the Pidgey mentioned above, they sometimes take on a larger role in the story. In the episode “The Ghost of Maiden's Peak”, Gastly transforms himself into a mongoose, as he sees mongooses as natural predators of snakes, like Ekans. Animals are also occasionally seen in food settings, with a cooked lobster appearing in the episode “Battle Aboard the St. Anne.” Fish are perhaps the most common animals seen early on, often in the background of underwater scenes or aquariums, often alongside Pokémon.
There are other moments that imply the existence of animals, such as the use of colloquial phrases referring to animals or the fact that the coat of arms of the Orange Islands is based on seashells, suggesting the existence of animals. of mussels and other molluscs. While it's rare for these moments to be central to the story, it's a consistent presence throughout the early seasons. Mentions of real animals became rarer as the number of Pokémon increased, but it never completely disappeared.; Up until Sun & Moon, the show still showed the existence of non-Pokémon creatures such as corals and starfish.
While one could excuse the sudden disappearance of animals altogether as a retcon or jump to continuity after the fact, the occasional constant reference to real animals becomes especially confusing. Could it be that in the Pokémon world, animals are gradually being out-competed by Pokémon and becoming extinct as a result? Could that be why animals appear less frequently in later series? The loss of animals also creates some real ethical issues with food in the Pokémon world, to the point where in Horizons the characters eat almost exclusively sweets.
Of course, the real reason is that as the number of Pokémon increases, there is less need to fill the background with real animals. Why show a cow when you can show Miltank? This is especially evident in underwater scenes, as there are now dozens of species of fish Pokémon, so there's no reason to show real fish anymore. Horizons has yet to directly mention any actual animals, so perhaps Pokémon eventually it reached a point where animals really weren't useful anymore.
