I don't remember if this came up before, but I just love the image that Ash's Pikachu's daughter either mugged or robbed people enough to make a nice pile of dosh.
Finally, a reason why a random encounter with wild animals out in the middle of nowhere nets your character a bunch of cash upon victory!
I also like just how wide-reaching consequences there were to our actions. A friend of mine once commented on the carefully cultivated nature of the safety you have in the Pokemon world with its Routes and messing that up can easily cascade into trouble.
Yeah, this basically came from the observation that in a lot of places, especially historically, humans are not outside forces oppressing the "natural state" of the world; their influence is
part of the natural state of the world; they are
integral parts of the ecosystem. Trainers in Viridian Forest - not the big hotshots, but the kind of local, low-level, "owns a Paras, a Ledian and a low-level Scyther" mook Bug trainers you get as a random encounter along a forest path - keep the game trails and side-routes open for both humans
and larger Pokemon to get into and through the forest, allowing grassland Pokemon like Venasaurs to get deep into the safety of the trees to lay their eggs. They tend to Beedrill hives to stop parasites getting inside them and cull Bug colonies before they hit critical mass and start migrating in giant swarms. They dig firebreaks and dredge clogged streams and nurture wetlands so that floods and fires can be better absorbed by the forest as a whole. They
manage the Forest, intelligently, with careful planning and an eye to the long-term, in a way that purely natural unthinking balance mechanisms can't because a causal effect can't react to a sudden perturbation before it's even finished happening.
Humans are
good for the environment, if they manage and nurture it properly. And in the world of Electric Tail, for the most part, they do - plus or minus the odd environmental-aesop movie villain who gets taken down by
professional League trainers who are responsible for Indigo regional security a plucky young kid and his team of animal friends.
Or at least, they do until a cunning little Pikachu with a grudge decides she doesn't want them in her Forest anymore.