In the American Pokemon games, once you’ve debilitated a Pokemon in a battle, it says something like “Wild effluvimon fainted.”
My question is: in the original Japanese version, do they say “fainted” or “died”?
(I’ve done Google searches trying to find this out, but it seems like Pokemon is second only to pornography on the number of related websites).
Based on the TV show, it looks like the Pokemon fights are to KOs, rather than to the death. This doesn’t mean that in the original japanese game, it wasn’t death, but it’s a little evidence.
I’m sure they only die in the same sense at other RPG heroes “die.” They’re just knocked out or wounded in such a way in which they can’t battle and only an item such as a “Revive” can heal them.