Try! Let's have a fight!

 Hey how about some pointless trivia about Pokémon? Yes, again. Shh.

The actual phrase used in the games for when a wild Pokémon encounter starts is "A wild [Pokémon name] appeared!" (emphasis mine), or simply "Wild [Pokémon name] appeared!" in the Gen 1 games. On the internet, it's often misquoted in jokes and memes as "A wild X appears" or "A wild X has appeared". With the exception of "It's super effective!" and "It's not very effective...", battle messages in the series have always been written in past tense (so it would say "Pikachu used Thundershock!" rather than "Pikachu uses Thundershock!", or in the early games it would be written as "PIKACHU used THUNDERSHOCK!").

Similarly, jokes and memes often misuse the phrases "It's super effective!" and "It's not very effective..." In the games, these messages indicate when a move does more or less damage thanks to a type advantage. It doesn't apply to moves that don't inflict any damage to begin with, such as Hypnosis (which simply has a chance of causing the target to fall asleep, or become drowsy in Pokémon Legends Arceus).

Detractors of the anime or of Satoshi/Ash Ketchum will often claim that Ash didn't really win his first two Gym Badges, and that he only got them out of pity. The fact the show itself has made this joke does not help matters, but the reality is far from the case. Ash lost his first match with Brock, but during the second match he still struggled until Pikachu's electricity accidentally set off the sprinklers, weakening Brock's Onix (due to Onix being a Rock/Ground type making it doubly weak to Water) and allowing Ash to turn the tide. However, before he could order Pikachu to deal the finishing move, Brock's siblings stopped Ash and guilted him into forfeiting. It was Ash who felt sorry for Brock, not the other way round. As for Misty, she blatantly cheated in her match by coddling Pikachu before the fight, making him refuse to battle her - in other words, tampering with the opponent's Pokémon, which is considered a foul in many official battles and tournaments. And even then, the match was interrupted by Team Rocket attacking the Gym, after which Misty's sisters awarded Ash the Cascade Badge as thanks for saving their Gym., even saying that Ash would have won if the battle had continued. So while Ash technically didn't win either of his matches against them, to say he got their Badges due to pity is both incorrect and rather unfair.

A common misconception is that Rock is immune to Electric. It actually takes neutral damage. The reason many people think this is that the most common Rock types in Gen 1 - that is, the Geodude line, the Rhyhorn line, and Onix - are all part Ground, which is immune to Electric. Note that the other two Rock types in Gen 1, namely the two Fossil Pokémon, are not immune to Electric, and in fact are weak to it due to both being part Water type. The writers of the anime made this same mistake, with one episode showing a Kabutops shrugging off Pikachu's electric attacks like it was nothing, when it should have been weak to them.The series got its first pure Rock-type Pokémon when Sudowoodo debuted in Gen 2.
On a similar note, Ghost is not weak to Psychic. Again, the reason people think this is that in Gen 1, the only Ghost types are the Gastly line, which are also part Poison, and Poison is weak to Psychic. The series wouldn't get a pure Ghost type until Misdreavus debuted in Gen 2.

It's often claimed that if a Charmander (or its evolutions) has its tail flame extinguished, the Pokémon will die. This is a misconception that arises from an episode of the anime in which Brock mentions that if a Charmander's tail flame goes out, it dies, while the episode in question had a sick and dying Charmander in heavy rain whose tail flame was about to go out. It's actually the opposite - the tail flame is an indicator of the Charmander's health and life, not the source of it. What Brock meant (and what is actually the case) is that when a Charmander dies, its tail flame goes out - as in, its tail flame goes out because it dies, not the other way round. The Charmander in the episode was merely sick from being in the rain (as well as starving and weak), it wasn't dying due to the rain almost putting out its tail flame. In fact, we've seen Charmander and its evolutions being completely submerged in water many times in the series, with their tail flames continuing to burn brightly even so. Pokédex entries in the games state that being in the rain simply causes their tail flames to give off steam.

The common explanation for why Psychic is weak to Bug, Dark and Ghost is that those types represent common fears, and fear can affect the mind.

The name of the Dark type is a bit of a misnomer in English, with most Dark moves actually being based more around trickery, deceit, or just plain not playing fair, as opposed to actual darkness-based attacks, which often tend to be Ghost-type moves instead. The explanation for this is that in Japanese, Dark type is known as Aku type, which literally means Evil type, hence why Dark-type attacks are less focussed on darkness and more on just being mean and unfair. However, the Dark-type Z-Move, Black Hole Eclipse, is a darkness-based attack, as is the Dark-type Max Move, Max Darkness (Dai Dark in Japanese). Gigantamax Grimmsnarl also has a unique Dark-type G-Max Move, G-Max Snooze (Kyodai Suima, literally Giganta Sleepiness), which is also a darkness-based move with a 50% chance of causing the target to become drowsy, similar to Yawn. On the other hand, Gigantamax Single Strike Urshifu's G-Max Move, G-Max One Blow (Kyodai Ichigeki), leans more towards the trickery aspect, as it always hits even if the target is protected by a protection move.

The only two characters in the anime dub to have a confirmed surname are Ash Ketchum and Tracey Sketchit. Misty is often referred to as Misty Waterflower (a result of people confusing her sisters' title for their surname) or Misty Williams (which is just purely made up by the fans). Brock's English voice actor, Eric Stuart, has given Brock's full name as Brock Harrison, but that's just something he made up and not actually canon. Sabrina is occasionally given the full name Sabrina d'Avalon, but again, that's something that was made up by the fans and not canon.

Misty is often believed to be 12 years old in the anime, but her actual canon age is 10, same as Ash. However, she is canonically 12 in the manga Pocket Monster: Dengeki Pikachu (released in English as The Electric Tale of Pikachu), which loosely adapts the events of the anime.

It's often said that the Kanto region in the games is based on the real-life Kantō region of Japan. In fact, it's not a one-to-one depiction - the Kanto of the games is both based on real-life Kantō and the east side of Chūbu, which neighbours it. Similarly, Johto is based on both the Kansai region and the west side of Chūbu.

On a similar note, people often claim that Unova is based on the United States of America in general, when it's actually specifically based on the New York metropolitan area, as well as Long Island and New Jersey. Several locations in Unova are directly based on locations in New York, including Castelia City (Hiun City in Japan, heavily based on Lower Manhattan and having its own equivalents of Brooklyn Bridge (Skyarrow Bridge) and Times Square) and Nimbasa City (Raimon City in Japan, host of the Pokémon Musical which is clearly inspired by Broadway theatre and with locations based on Madison Square Garden and Grand Central Terminal). The Pokémon native to Unova take inspiration from things all around the world, reflecting the "melting pot" nature of New York, rather than being based on stereotypically American things like cowboys, baseball, etc. (though a few are, such as Braviary). People also often claim that Virbank City (Tachiwaki City) is based on Los Angeles because its name is similar to Burbank and it's close to the Pokéstar Studios (which is called Pokéwood in Japan), when its heavy pollution, "tough" aesthetic, oil refineries and location relative to the rest of Unova make it clear it's actually based on New Jersey.

A few Pokémon names are commonly misspelled. For instance, Phanpy is very commonly misspelled and mispronounced as Phanphy. Gastly is often misspelled as Ghastly, and Ninetales often gets misspelled as Ninetails. Bonsly's name was mispronounced in the English dub of the anime as Bon-slee, when the intended pronunciation was Bons-lie, being a combination of bonsai, sly, and lie. The pronunciation of Arceus's name was deliberately changed in the English dub of the anime from Ar-say-oos (the Japanese pronunciation) to Ark-ee-us, because the translators thought the original name sounded too much like "arse" (the British equivalent of "ass").

Many player characters and rivals of the games did not have canon names for a long time, despite what many fans think - they were unnamed in-game, with their names being chosen by the player. The game Pokémon Masters EX canonised a lot of the names, including canonising the Johto rival's name as Silver, which was his most common fan nickname. Most other names came from the characters' anime counterparts, though a few, such as Gen III's Brendan and May and Gen VI's Calem and Serena, were given in the games (as whichever character you don't choose to play as functions as your rival, and in that case their name is revealed). The names Red and Blue (or Red and Green in Japan) for the player character and rival respectively of the Gen I games were canonised in Gen II, where Red appears as the final challenge of the game and Blue appears as the Viridian City Gym Leader. Before this, their "canon" names were Satoshi/Ash and Shigeru/Gary, the names of their counterparts in the anime.

It's often claimed that Pikachu is based on a type of lagomorph called a pika. The name "Pikachu" comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia "pikapika" meaning sparkling, and "chuchu" being the sound of a mouse squeaking. Pikachu is known as the Mouse Pokémon, and the designers of Pokémon have confirmed that its design is based on squirrels, though its resemblance to any real-life animal is loose at best.

In the early days of the series, both games and anime, real-world (non-Pokémon) animals seemed to exist in the Pokémon world. Raichu's Pokédex entry in FireRed infamously mentions it having enough electric power to cause "an Indian elephant" to faint (which is also mentioned in its Sun Pokédex entry), and real-life birds and fish were occasionally seen in early episodes of the anime. These seem to have been phased out as the series continued, with Pokémon now being the only type of creature in the world.

It's a common misconception that the player was originally going to be able to choose between a male and female protagonist in the original Gen 1 games, due to official promotional artwork depicting main character Red, his rival Green/Blue, and an unnamed girl facing off against each other. In reality, there were never any such plans, and the unnamed girl in the artwork was created specifically for the picture, in order to depict the whole starter trio. (This girl may or may not have inspired the character Leaf, the female protagonist in the remakes FireRed and LeafGreen).

People often quote Professor Oak as asking "Are you a boy or a girl?" in jokes and memes, but as said above, there were no gender options in the Gen 1 games. He does ask the player their gender in the remakes, but what he actually says is "Are you a boy? Or are you a girl?"

People will often (usually as part of a joke about the series) refer to the protagonists of the games in general as ten-year-olds. In fact, not a single one of the game protagonists is canonically ten. Of the ones who have confirmed ages, Red is 11 at the time of his game, and the Black/White protagonists are 14 at the time of their game. The Alola protagonists' exact age is never confirmed, but they must be at least 11, given that 11 is the minimum age to be allowed to do the Island Trials. The Legends: Arceus protagonists are assumed in-universe to be "15 or so", though their exact age is never stated. On a related note, there is no rule in the games that you have to be ten years old to be a Trainer, or that all Trainers start at age ten. In fact, you can disprove this just by playing the games - there are many Youngster and Preschooler Trainers in the games who are obviously much younger than ten. What you do have to be a certain age for is to travel - most young/child Trainers don't venture too far from their home towns and cities, and as mentioned, in Alola it's explicitly forbidden for anyone under 11 to take the Island Trials. And even then, it's shown that Trainers younger than 10 can become top-level Trainers - case in point being Poppy in Scarlet/Violet, who's nine years old and a member of the Paldea Elite Four.

Not everyone gets their starter Pokémon from a lab in the games or in the anime. The protagonists usually do, but many NPCs in the games mention getting their first Pokémon from a friend or a family member.

Not everyone in the Pokémon game universe has a Pokédex. The protagonists are a special case, along with a select few other Trainers. The confusion here is understandable, since in the anime Pokédexes appear to be much more common.

It's often believed that in the anime, Gary's starter was Eevee, given that it was the only Pokémon he ever used against Ash for a while, and the rival's starter in the anime-based Pokémon Yellow Version is an Eevee. The Johto League tournament reveals that Gary's starter was actually Squirtle, which he uses as a Blastoise in his match against Ash.

The Gen 1 rival Blue has a reputation for being a huge jerk, to the point it's common for players to give him an insulting name when prompted by the game to name him. In fact, while he is very cocky and arrogant, he's also very helpful - his dialogue often contains hints on what to do or where to go next, albeit delivered in a rather condescending manner, and later on in the game he actually becomes downright complimentary, if still very arrogant. People who think this are most likely confusing him with Silver, the Gen II rival, who is a lot more dickish and hostile to the player character, though even he eventually mellows out somewhat. Blue also has a reputation for popping out of nowhere after a big fight or other event and challenging you to a battle while your Pokémon are tired. In fact, he only does this once, in Silph Co. Every other battle with him is optional, has enough forewarning for you to prepare, or happens after you should have already visited the local Pokémon Center. Again, this is another conflation with Silver, who does do this kind of thing very often.

It's a common belief that the anime started the trend of Pokémon communicating by saying their names, but this is false. Pokémon have been saying their names to communicate right from the very beginning. People often forget that the Gen 1 games were hampered by the limitations of technology at the time, and even then, you can hear that many Pokémon cries sound very similar to their names (their Japanese names, in particular - one example being Clefairy, whose cry sounds a lot like its Japanese name, Pippi). As well, there are Pokémon NPCs in the Gen 1 games, and if you talk to them, they do say their names. The problem is a lot of them weren't translated, so for example, if you talked to a Jigglypuff NPC, it would say "Pu-pu-ri!" because its Japanese name is Purin. And then there's Mewtwo, who exclaims "Mew!" when talked to and challenged.
On the other side of the coin, not all Pokémon say their names even in the anime. Many more do in the English dub than in the Japanese, but in many cases, the Japanese cry was retained in both versions. The rule seems to be that smaller and cuter or more humanoid Pokémon say their names or parts of their names, while more animalistic or bestial Pokémon make more animal-like growls, chirps, roars, etc. which often do still subtly incorporate their (usually Japanese) names - for example, Charizard's roar sounds vaguely like its Japanese name, Lizardon, while Onix has a deep, guttural roar similar to its Japanese name, Iwark.
And then there are some Pokémon that just make random sounds. Krabby and Kingler both say what sounds like "cookie cookie", Staryu makes a deep "HYAAH" sound, Surskit (or at least Viola's Surskit in X&Y) speaks entirely in a short "a" syllable, Lapras has a high-pitched "whine" that sounds nothing like its name, etc. Occasionally it even changes - Electabuzz started out making a comical gurgling babble that sounded like it was being electrocuted (in both Japanese and English) but switched to using its name from Advanced Generation onwards, while the first time Akuziking/Guzzlord appeared in the anime, it started out speaking normally (using "ki" and "ji/zi" syllables), but in its second appearance, it simply screams "AAAAAAAAAA" with an amusingly human-sounding voice.

Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town and Pokémon Mansion on Cinnabar Island are often erroneously referred to as Lavender Tower and Cinnabar Mansion respectively. Also, the Lavender Town theme doesn't play inside Pokémon Tower (a common mistake in creepypastas) - it has its own theme.

It's often claimed that in the Japanese version of the first movie, Mew's speech near the end of the movie is a lot harsher, with it saying that clones are inferior and should perish. This is most likely the result of mistranslations - while Mew's speech is slightly different in Japanese, it's not that much different. All it says is that, whenever clones and originals fight, the originals will always win.

Viewers of the anime sometimes bring up Brock's "disappearing Tauros", referring to the time Brock caught a Tauros which seemed to never show up again. However, he caught it with one of Ash's Poké Balls, meaning it's actually Ash who owns it - it's most likely part of Ash's herd of Tauros back at Professor Oak's laboratory.

Due to the episode revolving around Porygon, people often think that Porygon was responsible for the seizure-inducing effects in the infamous banned episode "Dennō Senshi Porygon". The flashes were actually triggered as a result of some missiles being destroyed by Pikachu (and the flashes were specifically from the missiles exploding, not from Pikachu's electric attacks).

People often like to blame 4Kids for the infamous "Arbok evolves into Seviper" mistake (for a time in the dub, there would be a "Trainer's Choice" feature, where a question would be asked before the commercial break, and the answer would be revealed after the break. One of these questions was "Which one of these Pokémon evolves into Seviper?" The correct answer is none, as Seviper is a single-evolution Pokémon (it doesn't evolve from or into anything), but the episode claimed that the correct answer was Arbok), but 4Kids had already stopped dubbing the show by that point. It was actually The Pokémon Company International themselves who made the mistake - presumably, someone didn't pay close enough attention to the episode in which Jessie released her Arbok and then caught a Seviper.

Contrary to popular belief, there aren't only eight Gyms per region, and it's not a rule in-universe that Gyms need to be challenged in a certain order. While the games have you challenge Gyms in a certain order for gameplay purposes, the anime has shown that Gyms can be challenged in any order you like. In the main series anime, Ash occasionally meets other Trainers who have Gym Badges, and most have the same badges he has, but displayed in a completely different order than him (most Trainers line up their Badges in the order they get them). Pokémon: The Origin enhances this by explicitly showing Brock choosing two Pokémon out of six shown to fight Red with when Red challenges the Pewter Gym, showing that he does have more and most likely stronger Pokémon, he's just using those two specifically because he knows this is Red's first Gym and he wants to give him a fair challenge. If you think about it, having a required order for the Gyms would make it really difficult for Trainers starting their journey in places really far from the "first" Gym of a region. Also, the actual number of Gyms per region is always increasing, you just only need a minimum of eight of their Badges to qualify for the League (and even then, there's nothing stopping you from getting more - one infamous scene in the anime showed that Gary had ten Badges from the Kanto region, and wanted another). 

Nurses in the games do not look any more identical than nurses in real life do. They simply share one sprite (originally due to memory limitations, but now it just seems to be kept because of tradition). Nurse Joy in the anime is based on this as a joke, but that's only in the anime. Also, the Pokémon Center nurses in the games are never referred to as Nurse Joy (or by any name, for that matter).

A lot of people believe that Pokémon X and Y was where the tradition of having two rivals, one of whom gets the starter with a type advantage over yours and the other of whom gets the type disadvantage, started. That tradition actually started in Pokémon Black and White, with Cheren getting the stronger starter and Bianca getting the weaker starter. (Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were the first to introduce the "two rivals" tradition, but in those games, only Brendan/May gets another starter (with a type advantage over yours), while the other rival, Wally, instead starts with a Ralts, which your character helps him catch.)

Contrary to popular belief, series creator Satoshi Tajiri is not autistic. This misconception came from an unsourced claim from an unlicensed biography of him written in 2009, which the author of said biography claimed came from a MySpace page. The only official statement on the matter is a message from Game Freak's Information Coordinator to a UK site about Asperger Syndrome (an outdated and now deprecated term for a specific form of autism), stating that Satoshi does not have the named disorder.

Despite what many people think, Pokémon Live! did not say that Giovanni was Ash's father. It only said that Delia (Ash's mother) and Giovanni dated, but that they broke up years before Ash was born. While the writer did admit to leaving in some subtext that Giovanni was Ash's father, it's never explicitly confirmed, and it's up to fans whether they believe the subtext or not.

On a related note, as for who Ash's father actually is, all official sources have revealed is that he is alive and would have appeared if he ever became important to the story. Since Ash's story has now officially ended, it's very unlikely he'll ever make an appearance.

A common fan theory is that the (child) protagonists of the games write the Pokédex entries, which (they claim) is the reason for the often scientifically impossible or plain ludicrous facts about some of the Pokémon (such as Magcargo being hotter than the surface of the sun). Actually, the games explicitly say that the Pokédex itself writes the entries, and the more ridiculous stuff can just be chalked up to the fact that the games are fantasy.

On the subject, not every Trainer in the games gets a Pokédex. You're always a special case, along with a select few others. This confusion most likely derives from the anime, where Pokédexes appear to be much more common.

It's often claimed that Team Rocket being referred to/portrayed as the mafia is a cultural translation and that they were actually based on the yakuza in the Japanese version. Actually, they're based on the mafia in both versions, with one character in the Japanese version of the Gen 1 games explicitly referring to them as the "Pokémon mafia" (in katakana). The name change from Sakaki to Giovanni (as in Don Giovanni) was just one of the many, many name changes in the localisation.

Pokemon Channel ~Pikachu to Issho!~ is often derided as a pointless game where all you do is watch Pikachu watch TV. While that is one aspect of the game, it's far from the only one - you can play games and do activities with Pikachu as well, and you can even leave the house to explore the city and talk to other NPCs if you want.

Nuzlocke challenges are often misunderstood nowadays. It will be commonly given as fact that one of the rules of Nuzlocke is that you must nickname your Pokémon, but that wasn't actually one of the original rules. The original rules, as given in the comic that invented the challenge, are simply "Release a Pokémon if it faints" and "Have to catch the 1st Pokémon in each area and nothing else". Note that, again contrary to popular belief, this does not strictly speaking forbid Legendaries from being caught - it just makes it very unlikely, since you have to catch the first Pokémon you encounter in an area, and Legendaries are usually found fairly deep into the area they reside in. Also, the comic that spawned the challenge was simply called Pokémon: Hard-Mode - "Nuzlocke" comes from one of the characters in the comic, a Nuzleaf that resembles John Locke (from the show Lost). The "no legendaries" rule is most likely from people misunderstanding a line in the comic, where Groudon tells Ruby to catch it, and Ruby replies "That would be breaking the rules" - he meant breaking the "only catch the first Pokémon in an area" rule, not that there was any rule against catching Legendaries specifically. In fact, Ruby actually does catch a Legendary later on, specifically Victini in Pokémon White, which many readers of the comic complained was against the rules, despite the "no Legendaries" rule not actually being a thing originally.

The Dragon type was originally meant to be a unique type, exclusive to the Dratini line, which explains why other Pokémon who are clearly based on Western or Eastern dragons, such as Charizard and Gyarados, are not Dragon-type. Later games only got even more confusing, with Pokémon that seemingly have nothing to do with dragons being Dragon-type, such as Goomy (a slug), Applin (a worm that lives in an apple) and Altaria (a bird). The games' official explanation, as given by Lance in Pokémon Masters EX, is that there is a difference between "dragon" and "Dragon-type", with not all Dragon-types being dragons, and not all dragons being Dragon-type.

There are some interesting translation quirks with some of the move names. A few moves' names in Japanese have double meanings that were difficult to translate in a way that preserved the double meaning. People were confused about Buneary being able to learn Splash (originally the signature move of the fish Pokémon Magikarp), despite Buneary not being a fish and having nothing to do with water. In Japanese, the move is called Haneru, which can mean either "splash" or "hop".
The move Curse has two effects - if a Ghost-type uses it, it causes the user to lose half its maximum HP (rounded down) and put a curse on the target, which will cause the target to lose a quarter of its maximum HP at the end of every turn. If a non-Ghost-type uses the move, it will instead cause the user's Speed to drop by one stage and its Attack and Defense to rise by one stage each. The Japanese name of the move is Noroi, which can be translated as either "curse" or "slow", and the joke originally was that it's both, with Ghost-types interpreting it as "curse" and non-Ghost-types interpreting it as "slow".
There's an Ability called Iron Fist (Tetsu no Kobushi), which increases the power of punching moves. However, there are some "punch" abilities that it doesn't work on, due to those moves not having "punch" in their names in the Japanese version. For example, Sucker Punch is unaffected despite having "punch" in its name, as the Japanese name is Fuiuchi, which literally just means Surprise Attack. Same deal with Poison Jab, despite the "jab" in its name implying a punch, as the Japanese name is Dokuzuki, which means Poison Stab. Meteor Mash, however, does get a boost, as its name in Japan is Comet Punch - which had already been used in the localisation for a different move, which was called Renzoku Punch, or Consecutive Punch, in Japan.

It's often thought that Giovanni's status as Viridian City Gym Leader is his civilian disguise to hide the fact that he's the leader of Team Rocket. In fact, it's the other way around - everyone in Kanto knows that Giovanni is the leader of Team Rocket, while no one, not even the Gym guide, knows who the Viridian City Gym Leader is.

People love to meme about merely entering a nondescript villa in Undella Town in Pokémon Black and White automatically triggering one of the most difficult battles in the entire series. In truth, you do have the option to decline the battle if you want. Also, it's not actually Cynthia's villa, despite what the jokes often claim - it's Caitlin's.

It's not a misconception now, but for a time it was believed that the Pokémon anime would end altogether after Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series (known in Japan as simply Pocket Monster). However, this was never the case, and was based on misunderstandings - what was actually announced was that Ash's story was ending, with the series continuing with two new protagonists, Liko and Roy, in Pokémon Horizons: The Series (called Pocket Monster: Liko to Roy no Tabidachi, or Liko and Roy's Departure, in Japan).

Before the series aired, it was commonly theorised that Liko was Ash's daughter. However, Pokémon Horizons: The Series itself disproved this, revealing that Liko's parents are actually named Alex and Lucca.

Several theories have been put forth as to why Ash remains eternally ten years old throughout the entire anime despite multiple years passing in-universe. The reality, however, is simply that... he's a cartoon character, so his situation is no different to, say, Bart Simpson (also confirmed to be ten years old) or Mickey Mouse. This also ignores the fact that no one in the Pokémon anime ages, it's not just Ash - Misty and Brock are still 10 and 15 respectively, no other characters appear to have aged at all, etc. with the one exception to this being Kukui and Burnet's son Lei. Kunihiko Yuyama, the anime's director, revealed in an interview that the reason for this choice was so the anime world would feel like an eternal summer vacation.

People often make fun of the fact that Trainers regularly command their Pokémon to dodge in the anime, wishing that they could do that in the games. In fact, the games have had the dodge move Detect since Gen II, and most Pokémon can learn the functionally-identical move Protect. Besides, ever since the friendship system was introduced in Gen VI, Pokémon with high friendship have a random chance to dodge attacks, which is portrayed by the game as you commanding them to dodge, just like in the anime.

The villain team in Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Yami no Senpū Dark Lugia (known as Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness outside Japan) is often referred to as Team Cipher. Their name is actually just Cipher (or Shadow in Japan), without the "Team".

Many people think Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! and Pokémon Legends: Arceus are side games or spin-offs, but according to the development team, they are officially considered core series games despite their differences from the other main series games. This is why Rei and Akari from Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Elaine and Chase from Let's Go appear in Pokémon Masters EX, which only features characters from the core series games and not spin-offs.

On that note, the protagonists of Pokémon Legends: Arceus are not Lucas and Dawn, the Gen IV protagonists, sent back in time. Though they look similar, they are officially separate characters, named Teru and Shō in Japanese and Rei and Akari in English.

It's often claimed that in the Japanese version of the climax of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, Ghetsis orders Kyurem to kill the player character, and the English version changed it to having him order Kyurem to freeze them instead. In fact, he tells Kyurem to freeze them in both languages.

Fans, especially Western fans, often draw parallels between Arceus and Giratina and God and Satan respectively, with some even going as far as to say that the Distortion World is an allegory for Hell. However, Arceus and the myths surrounding it are based on Japanese creation myths, which differ from Western Abrahamic religions in many different ways. Giratina is actually meant to be the personification of antimatter, and it and the Distortion World exist in order to keep the stability of the universe in check.

Mythical Pokémon are often referred to as a subset of Legendary Pokémon, but officially they're separate categories. The difference is that Legendary Pokémon are obtainable in-game, while Mythical Pokémon are usually only obtainable through special real-world events.