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- Dec 3, 2018
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While I acknowledge that he didn’t fully look into the games’ story, it sounds to me like you didn’t even bother to read the rest of it, which is actually pretty insightful, if I may say so. Before you disavow it and sarcastically call it “wonderful,” I recommend reading it to the end.
I actually did read the rest of the article. I just decided not to talk about it since I spent most of the day cooped up in university, it was late and I was starting to get really tired, so I decided to get some sleep instead of spending more time talking about the other problems I have with the article.
I chose to focus on his misconception of Lusamine's motivation in the games (or, more accurately, his misconception that there is no motivation behind Lusamine's actions), since he brings that up for a good portion of his article (especially when comparing her to the anime's version of her). Now, as is said in my response, I agree that the games' writers could have done a better job by integrating an explanation for Lusamine's behavior into the main story (as well as maybe foreshadow her redemption a little). That I won't argue. But here's the thing: Kaito never makes this point. Instead he talks about how the writers trying to make us feel empathetic towards her is terrible because there's no reason for us to feel that way because we're not given anything about her besides being crazy. Every time he compares game Lusamine to anime Lusamine, he makes sure to remind you that the anime version is better because the anime offers a better explanation for her actions, unlike the games, where (according to him) there's no justification beyond her being crazy. He even takes to official, canon explanation of Lusamine's character, motives and actions and brushes it off as nothing more than an unsatisfactory fan theory. I get it: he love the anime's interpretation of Lusamine and he wants to convince other that it's good. But to ignore some important details for the sake of making anime Lusamine look like she's better written than her game counterpart is just stupid. And this is something that could have easily been rectified by either reading some of the articles on Bulbapedia or just doing a quick Google search of the "why is lusamine crazy" phrase.
He even has a segment explaining why Lillie confronting Lusamine in the Ultra Deep Sea during the Aether arc's climax is so powerful and amazing and whatnot. Yet, all of the things he brings up about that scene can be made about the games' climax. One could say that these scenes are powerful and amazing because they show us that Lillie, the child that lived with Lusamine for longer than Gladion and has been subject to her grief and madness for longer than him, is finally strong enough, brave enough to confront her. Explaining exactly why and how she’s negatively impacted her life. Chastising her mother for treating her and Nebby as nothing more than possessions that she can do whatever she pleases with. One could even go as far as to say that this, as well as the player and Nebby's more direct actions and the intensity of the defeat she has suffered are what led to Lusamine "waking up" and realizing what she's been doing was awful and that her child, Lillie, is beautiful because of the way she is and no the way she wants her to be (also, Fun Fact: during this scene, Lusamine brings up the fact that when she was little, Lillie used to adore her mother, hinting at the fact that she wasn't always crazy and was, at one point, a loving mother that Lillie looked up to).
There's also the fact that he has moments where he compliments the dynamic between Lusamine and Lillie, but most of that dynamic (namely Lillie's animosity toward her mother) is made in order to mimic the one from games. Which actually hurt Lillie's character and makes her look like an egotistical twerp that acts like everything owned by her mother belongs to her (including her Pokémon) and that she's the center of attention. I'm not going to talk more about this, since I'm saving most of it for a review of the entire Sun & Moon series that I'm planning, but there are a lot of problems when it comes to the Aether arc.
In short, something that really grinds my gears about Kaito's article is the fact that he seems to be ignoring some of the flaws within the anime's adaptation of the games' plot and that he can't be bothered to do a small amount of research about games Lusamine's motivation (which, at bare minimum, takes the form of a 10 seconds Google search of the "why is lusamine crazy" phrase, which leads to a surprisingly detailed reddit post explaining why the games Lusamine is the most tragic character in the games).