People only associate certain terms to things they want to.  And at this time, the term 'JRPG' is becoming a negative.  Like the terms 'innovative', 'casual' and even 'fun'.

So when one person chastises Final Fantasy, Persona or even Dragon Quest for being a 'bland generic JRPG', they have to be careful.  Because Pokemon is a JRPG as well.  And more often than not, many of those people who rail on one or another JRPG series for 'lacking creativity' or 'being bland' also like yet another JRPG game or series, such as Pokemon.  This is why generalizations and terms always come back to bite you in the butt.

....You by all means should know that your pokemon do, not you. That was a lame attempt....

The monster you fight don't level up, they don't have stats, and you kill them not capture them. Nor do you make monster fight eachother. You don't earn experience points, the closest thing that comes to it is Hunter points which is akin to Guild Level in White Knight Chronicles.

It's an action game..... Everything is based on skill and weapons.

If monster hunter is a RPG why don't we call God of War an RPG?  You gain experience there and level up your weapon?

This has been discussed a million times.  The definition of an 'RPG' is as loose as a politicians ethics.  And has been attributed to games from Castlevania to The Legend of Zelda.

The only way you can truly classify a game in this day in age as being an 'RPG' is simply if the developer intended it to be an RPG or appeal to that market.  Because a game can have a completely action based combat engine and hardly any item customization to be had, yet the developer will bill it as an 'RPG'.  However, while Monster Hunter has a very action based combat engine, that doesn't deny its JRPG roots and ideals.  Such as questing, item collection, talking to NPCs for information and story progression.  Not to mention the way the actual characters interact and in the game itself (anime styled emoticons and dancing anyone?)  In all ways, that sounds like a JRPG to me.  You might as well not count Dragon Quest as an RPG.  Or the Phantasy Star Online series.

Regardless, Capcom defines the series as an 'action role playing game'.

It means Final Fantasy right?  I guess the letters just come from the Japanese spelling...

Pokemon probably isn't half as popular as when Red and Blue came out. Everyone in the schoolyard had a gameboy and the trading cards.

There's no stats as you "level up" with a complex armor system, which is based on hides you reap from monsters you've killed.  MoHun's basically a loot 'em up at it's core, like Diablo, PSO or the FFCC games, only much more skill based in the actual gameplay and directed in the mission structure.   

In both MoHun and Pokemon you "level up" indirectly via other components, but both are directly based on battle result.

And according to Capcom USA, they're "action RPGs".  I'd consider the game's publisher to be the most legitimate source here...