As someone with a narcissistic and emotionally abusive mother, it meant so much to me when GameFreak tackled that theme in the Sun and Moon games. When I realized that the anime was clearly going to cower out of showing off Lusamine's abusive side, I was done. That was the perfect opportunity for the writers to touch on some heavier themes, especially when considering that children are the main victims of this form of abuse. No, the show didn't have to be pure darkness and depression, but it would be so nice if they had the courage to show some of the harder parts of being a child. A lack of autonomy for example, especially for someone like Lillie who lacks the strength and independence of a trainer. Instead, the SM anime chose for Lusamine to be a workaholic, Lillie to be afraid of Pokemon, and for Gladion to be edgy for *reasons*.
I genuinely enjoyed this 8 minute short more than the entirety of the Sun and Moon anime. My only gripes are how short it is and that they did not do the OG Lusamine/Nihilego battle, although I understand that would be harder when considering the time constraints. I would kill for 20 minute episodes of these, even if they came out once a month or every two weeks. In fact, I'd prefer if the anime did that format. 2 high quality episodes every month instead of wasting time and energy on fillers every other week or so, but we all know that ain't gonna happen anytime soon. I know that my opinion on this subject won't be well received here but there aren't too many places to voice my thoughts. I was just so disappointed with how the anime did Lillie's character, that I just dropped SM until the league and went back and watched the Necrozma arc. It felt like GameFreak represented me, but the anime would rather go through the "rainbows and sunshine" route. Seeing the sudden tone shift from and XY to SM was jarring.
