Are Pokémon people?
 

I've been thinking about this lately. You see, Pokémon are probably more than really funny-looking monsters that happen to look like some kind of real life animal or a mythological creature. Or some inanimate object that happens to be living (up to a certain degree).

Their behaviour these days are very human-like when you think about it, or in case of Mystery Dungeon, exactly. Hmm...

Makes me wonder if Pokémon qualify to be people.

In the Mstery Dungion world cearly since there's never any actual humans.

In the main games they seem to imply that pokemon are actually incredibly dependent on humans which is why they are always so excepting to take orders from there trainers and appear in the wild, see one of the Sinnoh legends.

The anime completely ruins this idea pokemon are way to dependent on there own and it makes it incredibly questionable wh they're willing to battle and wonder how many trainers took a pokemon against there will. These days every single capture in the anime is done without a battle Ash or friends just catches a pokemon if it wants to join him!

So for the Anime yes but for the games no.

First, allow me to get a couple definitions out of the way. A key difference here is the meaning of the word "human" compared to "person." Both words involve a varying amount of each philosophy, psychology, and the psyche (the sum of the human mind, consciousness, and unconsciousness). A human being is a creature comprising human flesh as well as common human traits, such as personality, awareness, and socialization, but it does not involve the psyche. A Pokémon most certainly cannot be a human being because of the first requirement. However, a person does not require human flesh; instead, a person is a social entity, one which can think for itself, possess its own characteristics, and exhibit its own self identity. (Just for quick reference, a people refers to a group of individuals, while persons refers to more than one person not to be taken as a group; in most cases they're interchangeable.)

I believe this question is something that the franchise has gradually adjusted as time has passed. In the first generation, it was rather clear that Pokémon were like animals. Apart from the anime, the various media showed Pokémon as subordinates to humans. However, I think with each generation, the Pokémon have been gradually personified--in the human sense--and given anthropomorphic characterizations. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is, of course, a different entity that stands on its own. In that universe, Pokémon effectively replace humans.

In the main series, they are treated as thinking, breathing, and acting individuals. They can perform many activities, from battling to socializing, on their own with minimal aid from their human trainers.

To conclude, yes, each Pokémon is most definitely a person.

I think I've used up my big-vocabulary quota for the week.