A video put together a montage showcasing all the non-Pokemon animals featured across the Pokemon games, anime, and the TCG. The world of Pokemon is, in many ways, still a complete mystery. Despite dozens of Pokemon video games, over two decades of anime, and an astonishing amount of other media and merchandise, there's still so much that isn't known. Perhaps one of Pokemon's greatest mysteries remains the existence of animals from the real world.
Official lore indicates that there have always been Pokemon, odd animal-like creatures. In fact, the very universe was created by a Pokemon named Arceus, born from an egg that was created from nothingness. That's why Pokemon games, the anime, and other media show the world as full of Pokemon and almost entirely lacking in any other animals. Sometimes, however, a real animal makes an appearance with no explanation.
In a TikTok video from doggsta, the content creator tries to put together a list of every appearance and reference to a real-world animal found within the overall Pokemon franchise. It starts with many of the well-known animals found in the Pokemon anime. There's a mounted deer head in the Tower of Terror, Ash dressing up in a cow costume, a Pidgey eating worms, and Gastly transforming into a mongoose while battling Ekans. There are also various fish shown from time to time.
The video goes on to show birds, bees, and butterflies found in the Pokemon video games, elephants, chameleons, and dinosaurs mentioned in the official PokeDex, and several random animals found in official Pokemon TCG card art. In other words, real-life animals are widespread throughout the Pokemon franchise, though they're very much found only in situations where it could have only been done accidentally.
Despite all the evidence at hand, there's no overt clarification anywhere in the Pokemon franchise that real-life animals also populate the world of Pokemon. There's no clarification that real-life animals don't exist, either, of course. But the widespread presence of Pokemon and the near-entire absence of real-life animals implies they're not supposed to exist.
Pokemon fans will continue investigating and discussing what it would mean if real animals did or did not exist in the Pokemon world until they get an official answer. What people eat, how the environment doesn't collapse, and whether evolution exists are just some questions fans have about the Pokemon world. Perhaps some questions are better left unanswered if only to keep Pokemon lighthearted.
