Sexism

Up until the current generation of Pokémon games, there has been no female “Pokémon league Champion” and even now, there have been twelve male “elite four” or Champions and only seven females. There have also been 14 female “Gym Leaders” and 22 male Gym Leaders.

Are the males inherently better “Pokémon trainers”? Why are the females always depicted at slaving at home, cooking while the males are off adventuring, or just sitting around.

Classism

Pokémon, while admittedly not using classism in the traditional, upper-class biased sense, is nevertheless tilted towards the working class.

All the adventures “heroes” come from small-town backgrounds. All the “Rich boys” are snobs.

Mr. Backlot, in the most recent game, whenever he accidentally makes upa lie about the Pokémon in his garden, gets his butler to catch the Pokémon and put it in.

Religious Intolerance

While there are graveyards in many of the games, they are all traditional Christian burial sites. There are no turbans, burqas or anything representative of any religion except Christianity, even if the mentions of Christianity or all minor.

Racism

All the previous issues mentioned are minor quibbles, compared to this one.

Now, I know that Pokémon is Japanese, so there are plenty of Japanese characters in it, but some people are just definitely western. So, here it comes.

Where are the African Americans? Where are the people from the Middle East? There’s a French Elite Four, there are two probably Polish people, but where are the Russians? There are Australians, but where are the Germans?

I hope you never look at a Pokémon game the same way again.