#also something something

This game might have me by the balls a little bit.

A pig, a rabbit, and a god walk into a bar.

You've mentioned that while you think an overprotective Mom is worse, you also wonder if Johanna being detached has negatively impacted her daughter.

Is hard to say as we get very few information on the mothers or the chara's past as a whole.

One thing about the pokeani novel that stuck out to me about their relationship there was the description of Delia feeling more like an older sister to Ash than his mother. And I feel that shows up plenty of times in the anime proper. With the way she will look out for him but make him embarassed at the same time ("don't forget to change your underwear") or how she will easily "steal" his pokemon like a sibling triyng to share toys.

Johanna on the other hand feels much more like... A distant aunt if I could call her that? She doesn't seem to have the same level of worry as Delia (or Caroline or Grace for that matter) for Dawn. Sure she absolutely cares for Dawn and her progress as a coordinator, but almost everytime we get Dawn and Johanna talking/checking up it was Dawn that took the first step to reach to her.

A stark contrats of Ash and Delia, who has the later very often putting effort into meeting or even accompanying Ash to other places (Unova, Alola, all the league cameos).

And how this affects them both. Well, Ash is (up till alola/journeys. he tries to change in jns with goh and im still bitter that wasn't extended towards brock and misty :T) as distant from his friends as he is with his mom. I love my boy but he rarely talks about older friends or revisits them out of his own accord and he has a very big issue of sharing his most personal feelings. Idk if this is because of Delia's raising (where they both would showcase affection in a jokely manor and perhaps neither really embracing the "true" dynamics of their relationship) or just other issues (like missing dad-yo or Gary or bullying or all combined).

"I'm sorry." "There's nothing to be sorry for."

~

The V in Lovely stands for Vibrant, Vital, Valor.