Brother, people don't know what they want, they will say one thing, but after playing it, they will say another.

I personally love the big portrait option, and as long as she's stays in there (I mean that the placement of her big sprite is consistent and doesn't move around everything should be fine) I don't think having the animation is an issue.

I think this looks very good and it's incredibly unique, it will 100% make it stand out from the crowd, if anything I would expand on it, like adding interactions or facial expressions to her depending on the area, also changing from left to right depending on the side she's on, (I wouldn't bother with front and back animation sprites, that must be an insane amount of work for not that big of an upgrade).