The Pokemon series has been around throughout eight different generations with each generation offering a completely unique experience to Pokemon trainers. Over the past 25 years, several features have remained consistent with each new generation, including a professor issuing new trainers a Pokedex, the introduction of a rival, and the choice between three different starters of the grass, fire, and water typing.
The designs of the starter Pokemon have changed drastically since the simplistic designs of Pokemon Red and Blue, whose final evolutions featured Blastoise, Charizard, and Venusaur, a tortoise, a lizard, and a frog respectively. While the original trio's final evolutions weren't exactly the creatures they were based on, the Pokemon Reddit community was quick to notice that over time, the final evolutions began to take a more humanoid approach, referring to the final evolutions of the Generation 8 Pokemon.
Discourse on the design changes of recent starter Pokemon from those based on monsters and animals to a more humanoid and anthropomorphic appearance began with a Redditor sharing a meme comparing evolutions in older Pokemon games to evolutions in modern titles. With the headline "Starters who are 'monsters' > Humanoid characters we've been getting recently," the post begins with the original evolution chain of Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, and Venusaur. The "modern" evolution comically begins with Bulbasaur once more but leads into the Digimon Lillymon and its Mega Digivolution, Rosemon, comparing to the dynamic humanoid digivolutions of Digimon.
Compared to the original Generation 1 starter evolutions, Pokemon Sword and Shield's final evolutions are "more human" in design with all three starters, Inteleon, Cinderace, and Rillaboom, having humanoid appearances ranging from the "secret agent sniper" to the "ace soccer player." Another Redditor followed suit, posting another meme similar to the original, using a green-colored Squirtle evolving into Franklin the Turtle from the children's book of the same name and Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles respectively.
As a third Redditor would point out, Pokemon's transition from monster-based final evolutions to humanoid evolutions began quite early in the series lifespan. Blaziken, for example, is one of the most popular final evolution starters from both a design aspect and from a competitive standpoint due to its fearsome Speed Boost ability. Released as one of the three starters during Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, the series third generation, Blaziken was notably humanoid in its appearance which was fleshed out during the transition to 3D, having the appearance of a martial artist.
The Fire/Fighting chicken would begin a series of martial artist Fire Pokemon starters over the course of the following generations, with Infernape, Emboar, and the Fire/Dark wrestler Incineroar respectively. As with most Pokemon designs over the course of the series' quarter-century reign, the starter evolutions have become more modern over time, leaving the appearances of more "humanoid"-based starter Pokemon a mere coincidence.