Is Pokemon animal cruelty?

My short answer would be no.

My long answer is this:
Animal cruelty is a horrible act of not caring for an animal, specifically pets. Especially intentionally doing something to harm these animals. I have seen cases whether on the news or via other sources of animals nearly starved to death or chains so tight around their neck that its digging into their skin - ripping apart their fur and meat. I've seen cases of animals with sores covering their bodies. Cases where their ribs were showing due to starvation.

Comparing Pokemon to cases like this is not only ludicrous, but down right insulting and undermining the very REAL cases of people not caring for their pets or viciously harming animals. Pokemon is a fun, fictional game where the Pokemon are meant to be trained and battled. Trainers can do this any way they please, but there really is not a way to intentionally harm these pokemon.

If a person does not want a Pokemon, they can trade it or even release it into the wild. Pokemon are not necessarily tamed creatures: they're wild animals. They can get released into the wild and pretty much take care of theirselves. (what super powered dog, cat, or other realistic animal do you see shooting fire or calling down lightning?)

My training method does seem a bit harsh. I will take my lead Pokemon and train him until the PP of all his/her moves are out or until he/she faints. Then I switch to the next. I continue until my last Pokemon before going to the Pokemon Center.

But this is the game. This is the gameplay. This is how you train and get better. If you don't then the game does not progress. So how can it be compared to animal cruelty? It's quite ridiculous.

I never really agree when people have one Pokemon as an HM slave, however.

I honestly and genuinely love some of my Pokemon. I really miss my former Articuno, Dialga, and Jirachi. And its not some virtual love loss either. It's the loss of having cultivated these Pokemon to be what they were and having actually grown close to them over the course of the respective games they were in. I wish I still had each of those games (im really bad at keeping up with my Gameboy and DS games...) so I could visit those former Pokemon for awhile. I'm very excited about forming bonds with my new Pokemon in Black/White and really wish I hadn't lost my copy of SoulSilver so I can trade them over. I am also playing Platinum right now and can not wait to watch the pokemon in this game grow as well.

As a Pokemon trainer (yep, I totally call myself that), I know that training my Pokemon is what I must do in order to watch them grow and that its not cruel for me to do this.

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