I’m… pretty sure I’ve talked about this because it was important to one of the points I was making in the ‘If I Were In Charge’ series but I can’t really remember how much detail I went into or how explicit I was about it, so…
Basically, I have difficulty with PC boxes because I normally prefer trying to reconcile the games and anime, but the differences in how Pokémon are stored seem to be just too stark. It seems to me that the two different systems – the PC boxes we use in the games, and Ash’s set-up with Professor Oak in the anime – are best seen as responses to the demands of the different media. The games need something simple that doesn’t require too much complicated and tedious interaction on the part of the player (whether you like it or not, it has to be admitted that my alternative would be a lot of work for both designers and players). The anime isn’t comfortable portraying trainers as storing their Pokémon in this comparatively unsettling way, and so produces the narrative of Professor Oak’s huge Pokémon habitats. I’m inclined to favour the anime as a portrayal of what the creators ‘really think’ and take the games’ version as an abstraction that keeps us from having to think about it too much, but the alternative – that the games represent ‘reality’ (whatever that even means here) and the anime is just a story concocted to make it seem more pleasant – really has equal support here.
You could suggest that both systems are actually in use and that PC boxes are used when the Professors run out of space, or by trainers who just don’t have the special relationship with a Professor that Ash does, but then the question just becomes ‘why wouldn’t the Professors just keep the extras in Pokéballs most of the time’? Perhaps Pokémon in Pokéballs need to be let out more often for food and exercise than Pokémon in PC storage (which is more of a deeper hibernation)?
Pokémaniacal 