Does it bug you when people associate anime only elements (like Pokemon speak or the player characters being ten) with the games/manga?
In a word, no. The way I see it, the games don’t do a huge amount of world-building. They’re getting better, of course, but it’s still not a task to which their format is terribly well-suited. The anime is just better at that. Obviously different writers are responsible for the two, but they ostensibly have in mind versions of the same world, and every detail is a useful one. And there’s room to fudge things too – like, maybe there isn’t a strict age limit of 10 years that applies everywhere, but pretty clearly the point is that kids can become Pokémon trainers at a fairly young age, though not without some restrictions or oversight. If something directly contradicts, sure, that’s something you have to resolve, one way or another, but there’s lots of ways you can do that, depending on exactly what the problem is. I have very little patience for the word “canon,” or any argument that surrounds it.
Pokémaniacal 