>>11856773
it's right in the name, "pocket monsters", pokemon were conceived to be monsters, so yes ET, supernatural, or unnatural in origin. Yes, the Japanese idea of "monster" tends to often lean more into strange animals or "kaiju" rather than the Wests more fantastic ideas but that's a cultural thing because Japanese people are animalphobic/view animals with contempt much more than the West, who tend to base monsters more on humanoid entities or simply "threatening" animals like bugs, large predators, and snakes.

in either case, they were meant to be monsters of some kind or more aptly kaiju, not naturally occurring Earth animals