<p>I guess I wouldn't mind listening to some songs in Arabic one of these days...People pronounce words differently when they sing...(I don't exactly know how singing would affect the pronounciation of words in a tonal language like Chinese...) Maybe listening to songs in a foreign language sounds good sometimes because you're focused on listening instead of scrutinizing the meaning.</p>
<p>Now back to the serious matter at hand...Yes Sauron, each Pokemon represents a different shinto god. That's why you find some in the rivers, forests, some in boulders, and some in the foot-hills of the mountains. Now when a pokemon lives long enough on Earth it asends to a higher plane called 'evolution.' I'm not exactly sure how this relates to Shinto mythology, but if you recal the various astrological stories about women faling in love with people on Earth but then asending to the constellations/moon for various reasons, you'll realize that some connection (even a tenacious one) must exist.</p>
<p>Farthermore, at the Pokemon Towers trainers gather to mourn for dead pokemon, because without these prayers (according to Shinto religion) the pokemons'' souls will not find peace, and will become evil vengeful spirits (the Marobone ghost-pokemon) that haunt the Earth doing bad deeds like attacking passing trainers. </p>
<p>Another connection with the Shinto religon is the huge emphasis on harmony with nature in the pokemon games. Usually natual trails sharply contrast with a booming high-tech city in every pokemon game, and there is usually some ethical point raised about controlling nature (Mewtwo, the Red Gyrados, Kyrougue, the 2nd Red Gyrados in Diamond), in every pokemon game and movie. Bad people who mistreat nature (manifested as the tiny pokemon spirits) are badly punished. (Especially in the anime episodes where giant pokemon like tentacruels attack villages that encroach on their territory.)</p>
<p>Pokemon also have shrines, usually referred to as "Gyms" spaced out in every significant town. There young children gather to practice rituals to improve mental training while doing menail preservation work on the shrine. At the front of every shrine is an idol of the shrine's shinto god, and beneath it is written the name of the god. After enough time passes, the community reduces the names enscribed in the statues. This symbolizes a movement away from traditional belifes in many heros, and a prophecises future conversions to Christianity. </p>
<p>Thereafter the number of worshiped gods in the universe reduces down to two: a good god who watches out for his underlings, and an aggressive rival god who doesn't care for his familly and abbandoned his mom without any consideration in order to fulfill his ambition to become the most renowned god in the universe. At the very end of the game only one god is recognized-the benovant god, signifying the triumpth of good over evil and the triumpth of the God Almighty.</p>
<p>Let me know if you see any other meaning that I missed. Meanwhile I'll repost this post on the pokemon-fan website of serebii...I'll post the link in a while when I manage to log-in. (The site's been getting heavy traffic the last week or so since the new games came out, and most of the time the forums don't even load-up.)</p>