The author's take on a pokemon world is a more gritty, realistic, and fleshed out version of what a human society would like in a pokemon world. That includes more complex family relationships, people who are down on their luck, and a bit of a peak behind the curtain that adults try to shelter the more naive children from while they are still young.

Regardless of the world's imperfection the MC still strives to push through to find joy in living, friends, and the will to move on and improve.

This story's take on aura, pokemon moves, and breeding are nuanced and complex and we get to explore it through the eyes of a native rather than a self insert character with out of context lore knowledge.

5 stars up until chapter 54-85, then 3 stars for everything that follows.

In there it's a pity party and non-stop trauma dumping, with half the text of chapters being 'woe is me' circular inner thoughts of the MC. Pokemon become an afterthought and I kept asking myself why I am even reading the story anymore, just hoping for it to get back onto the rails it spent so much time laying out in the earlier chapters that made it worth reading in the first place. Whatever metaphor the author is trying to make with poison = depression is anti-interesting.

Looks to pick back up a bit afterwards, but with a pretty heavy pall of pessimism over everything that makes it hard to connect this story with the optimism that is normally so intrinsically present in pokemon worlds.

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