Pokemon is an RPG? Says who?

I used to like pokemon, i saw the movies, shows, bought tthe cards and the games, but now i just feel like it was a waste of time. now that im older i see pokemon sounds as stupid as teenage mutant ninja turtles. anyway, my frend is obsessed with pokemon diamond and pearl and he even wanted 2 borow my old games to get "ready" for platinum. hes been trying to convice me to get back into the franchize by telling me its an rpg, but thats so far fetched (no pun intended) that i turned to the good ppl of yahoo ansers. is pokemon an rpg or a completky different genre?