I was listening to a podcast lately... Nintendo voice chat or cool games Inc or something... And they mentioned an internal style guide for Pokémon that had recently leaked, going over rules Nintendo / TPC employees had to follow when discussing the series in a public manner. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Google was no help at all - typing "Pokémon" and "leak" into any search bar before a new generation always returns nothing but garbage.
It's a thing that exists, I've seen it a couple of times but unfortunately can't dredge it up from my history. I think its more applicable to the anime, the game breaks it quite often.
There's a few interesting things that I can remember off the top of my head:
Pokémon stored in a pokéball or the PC are stored as energy, not data. (Probably because that would be those other guys).
Pokémon are not monsters and they are not animals. You can call them magical creatures.
The diets of people and pokémon are kept vague. Pokémon food should never be recognisable, and human food depicted avoids containing meat or eggs.
Edit: I remembered where I found it. Unfortunately I think it breaks the gaf no scans rule, so I'll paraphrase.
This is for merchandise tie ins, so the rules don't have to apply internally.
Avoid mentioning blood relations, especially mating and procreation, though existing examples from the anime are fine.
Even though Kangaskhan is the parent pokémon, it's ambiguous whether the pokémon in its pouch is related to it.
In general, death is never mentioned. Cemeteries have appeared in the games but the cause of death is not mentioned, and graves do not appear in the anime.
Pokémon is not set on earth, and "this planet" should be used instead.
Animals don't exist.
Pokémon are to be referred to as "it", never he or she.
There is no food chain.
If food is shown, it should not be an animal product.
Ambiguous foods such as rice balls and sandwiches are better.
Only Meowth can talk. Some others may appear to talk via telepathy.
Master Balls are never shown in large groups, outside of abstract patterns and wallpapers.
Pokémon trainers start at the age of 10 (not that the games have EVER cared)
Pokémon cannot command or give orders to each other in battle.
I don't think the images I saw were the entire thing.