#i mean im no expert on the franchise or the characterization

[meanderfall]

Ky Kiske really is all about hope, huh. Just, constantly fighting for a better future, shouldering the hopes and dreams for the people who just can't anymore, pushing forward even though he might not see it himself one day.

And, eventually, that hope gets expanded, develops, so it's not just what he can do for others, but for himself too. Smaller, maybe, but just as important.

[hypermascbishounen]

Also, Pokemon is a Japanese franchise, from Japan, and it references Japanese myth constantly. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure Shintoism has animism as a characteristic. Tons of youkai and other folkloric beings from Japan, are animals that lived for a long enough time. And tons of Pokemon are based on youkai.

For example, if I understand correctly, the word "kitsune" doesn't just mean "supernatural fox spirit" like we often use it in English, it is also just the Japanese word for fox in general. And many kitsune myths are about disguising themselves as humans or possessing human vessels, and then having children with humans. They're far from the only animal spirits or otherwise that do this.

And Japan is also not the only place on earth with similar folklore. A lot of fairy myth familiar to a lot of white people, is similarly full of nature spirits and animals that transcend their forms, and have relations with humans.

And this isn't even new news in Pokemon's lore, either. The way I understood it, N was always implied to be related to a pokemon, which was widely speculated to be a Gardevoir.

Pokemon's creation myth was introduced in gen 4, and Sinnoh is based on Hokkaido. Hokkaido is where the Ainu people are from, and has a deep cultural history of folklore passed down through their oral traditions, in languages that have been rendered almost extinct. It similarly has animism in common with shintoism, and they're thought to be related through the neolithic religions of ancient Japan's Jomon period.

Being based on Hokkaido, is also why Sinnoh is so characterized by snow and mountains and lakes. For example, Send-off Spring where Giratina is found, is based on a real volcanic crater lake in Japan - lake Mashu/Kamuy-to, that has associated folklore as a portal to the underworld. The uncreatively named Crater Lake in the usa, also is a portal to the underworld in the nearby indigenous folklore's oral traditions too! It's even haunted by an undead draconic crayfish god.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm dissapointed but not surprised at the level of ignorance and racism coming from the western pokemon fandom about this. It's unfortunately common that east asian works, like the works of many cultures "The West" considers outside their constructed literary and cultural canon, gets judged harshly and assumed evil, whenever it has themes considered taboo - even if it's literally the same themes also present in western works generally familar to white people.

The English-speaking pokemon fanbase also has had a history for as long as I can remember, of people complaining about things they didn't have cultural context for - like pokemon based on or in the form of inanimate objects, instead of animals. A lot of those pokemon specifically are folklore inspired, and ime have tended to get characterized as "lazy" "running out of ideas" or otherwise "stupid" automatically, just because they're unfamiliar.

Also, honestly? The sexual stuff was not really left out of my history of greek mythology as a kid, lol. Especially not all the animal forms or incest, those tended to make it in even when rape was obliquely referred to as kidnapping(and tbh not all greek myths involving rape are the only version of the myth). Did you miss how the Minotaur happened? That was just actual bestiality, and wasn't hidden from me in the slightest. Here it is in a schoolastic book that's first printing was in 2000:

Maybe you weren't that interested in mythology as a kid, or your parents and teachers really went out of their way to censor that for you. But these days, many kids with an interest have access to Wikipedia, and can read all that in one poorly supervised Sunday afternoon anyways, even with aggressive helicopter parents.

Pearl clutching about how pokemon has had something you personally find icky, but only when asians write it, that wasn't even the textual canon, doesn't make your Please Think Of The Children shtick read as sincere. You're just being conservative bigoted hypocrites. I am so sick of this bullshit gaining traction in fandom spaces. It's not meaningful progressive criticism, you're ignorant, and at best want other people to coddle you on that.

The saddest thing about the Pokémon leaks is the evident ignorance of folklore among fans. Sorry to tell you this western gamers, but your ancestors married seal women, were seduced by swans, and fucked half-divine giants. You just don’t remember.