#(GENNAI KNOWS WAY MorE THAN GENNAI LET ON)

[koushirouizumi]

mE, SITTING StrAIGHT UP: *GENNAI* GOT A TAMER CARD?!

[tobiasdrake]

Digimon Adventure 01x24 - Break Through! AtlurKabuterimon / No Questions, Please

Previously on Digimon Adventure: Yamato and Jou got jobs at a diner that was way more invested in torturing employees than profitability. So, y'know, corporate chain. Realizing that collective labor action is the greatest force in the world, Yamato and Jou made omelets and went on strike.

Half of the band has come back together now, but Sora, Mimi, and Koushiro are still out there somewhere. Following separate Digivice signals, Yamato and Takeru have gone one way while Taichi and Jou go the other.

We join Koushiro some time after his parting from the group. We already had a hunch about where he went; He brought it up back in Takeru's flashback. Koushiro quickly confirms it.

Tentomon: Koushiro-han! Let's take a little break! I'm exhausted! Koushiro: I want to meet Gennai-san no matter what! Tentomon: But it's already been two months! Koushiro: I don't care how many months it takes! Tentomon: (hangs head in defeat) Koushiro: I'm going on ahead. Tentomon: Ahh! Koushiro-han! Wait for me!

Koushiro remains dedicated to finding Gennai, and he left the others because they didn't agree. This is his new hyperfocus.

The two month timescale is interesting. It was a month and a half of searching for Taichi, followed by everyone breaking up over an ambiguous period. We don't know how long that took, but the implication to me here seems to be that Koushiro was already searching for Gennai when they were supposed to be searching for Taichi.

During the Big Argument, when he proposed searching for Gennai, he wasn't suggesting a new course of action but trying to bring everyone on the same page as the one he already decided on. And when they didn't agree, he left. Just like Sora.

The dub presents this argument straightforwardly, while inserting a couple laugh lines from poor put-upon Tentomon to lighten the tone.

Izzy: We've been trying to find Gennai for over two months! Got any ideas, Tentomon? We're walking in circles. Tentomon: We could walk in squares, but that's not likely to work either. Let's take a breather and wait for him to come to us! Izzy: I'd prefer to take a more scientific approach to this problem. Tentomon: Yes, but even scientists need to take a break! Izzy: There's no time to rest so stop asking! Tentomon: (hangs head in defeat) Eugh.... Izzy: I'm absolutely certain that he's around here somewhere! Tentomon: I hope so, for my feet's sake!

They also start the conversation sooner so they can give Izzy a chance to strike it up rather than Tentomon.

Izzy's a bit friendlier in this version, even soliciting Tentomon's opinion outright. But over the course of the conversation, he finds his way to the same stonewall that Koushiro starts at and conveys the same idea: He will not stop to let Tentomon rest because that would impede his search.

Izzy's also fairly certain that Gennai is here somewhere. Koushiro's passing through with no clear direction.

Ahead on the path, we find PicoDevimon pounding in a wooden sign. As he stops to worry, he gives us the Japanese name for our new villain, who DemiDevimon already name-dropped at the end of last episode.

PicoDevimon: (nervous and tearful) Vamdemon-sama... will scold me. Vamdemon-sama will scold me!

He flashes back on his last meeting with Vamdemon. Not the one from last episode, because these events are happening prior to Taichi's return, but the one that set him on course to meddle with the kids in the first place.

Vamdemon: PicoDevimon! PicoDevimon: Y-Yes, sir? Vamdemon: When are you going to steal the Crests from the Chosen Children? PicoDevimon: V-Very soon, sir! Vamdemon: Should I believe that? PicoDevimon: Do these look like the eyes of a liar!? Vamdemon-sama! (long pause) Vamdemon: I trust you. PicoDevimon: (exhale) Vamdemon: But if you don't steal the Crests, you'd better prepare for the consequences. PicoDevimon: If I don't steal the Crests.... (Back in the present, PicoDevimon pounds in the sign as he mutters.) PicoDevimon: ...this time, I'm dead! I'm dead! I'm--

Distracted by panic, PicoDevimon pounds in the sign so hard it breaks the post and sends him tumbling to the ground.

Learning a bit more about PicoDevimon's mission here. In previous episodes, he's taken strides to disrupt the attributes that the Crests embody in each child. In reporting his failures, he's described it as "the light returning to the Crests".

Now, it seems he's not only trying to corrupt the kids' traits but to steal the physical Crests themselves; Something he has not had much success at even in the present.

DemiDevimon: This better work! I hate it when Myotismon gets angry! (flashback) Myotismon: DemiDevimoooOOOOOON!!! DemiDevimon: (nervously) Hehe heh... Nice day, huh, boss? Myotismon: I'm still waiting for you to steal the Crests from those kids. DemiDevimon: I've got a surefire way to get 'em! Myotismon: I've heard THAT one before! DemiDevimon: Would this cute little face tell a fib, boss? After all, you're Myotismon! I'd be out of my head to make you mad! Myotismon: I'll give you one more chance. DemiDevimon: (exhale) Myotismon: But I won't be so benevolent next time! Do you understand!? DemiDevimon: Loud and clear! (back to the present) DemiDevimon: If I don't steal those Crests, he's gonna rake me over the coals!

I honestly can't decide if I love or hate this approach to Myotismon. They're doing the same thing they did with Devimon, amping him up like an overdramatic American supervillain. Appropriate, since the Japanese version is also doing the same thing as Devimon: Cold, reserved mastermind of wickedness.

But man, that line. "I've heard THAT one before." You can feel him folding his arms petulantly and eyerolling. It's hilarious. But unmenacing.

Worth noting that Vamdemon is, in fact, the Perfect-stage evolution of Devimon. He's what Devimon could become if he worked hard enough. So it makes sense that both versions play him similarly.

It's a small thing but I don't like the new final line. It messes with the gag of the sign breaking. In the original, he punctuates pounding in the sign with short repetitions, one for each stroke. This draws attention to the sign breaking when it disrupts his third repetition; His voice is hammering the sign as much as his talons are.

Here, he's able to complete his sentence, and then the sign breaks. The focus is on what he's saying, rather than his voice emphasizing the pounding motion, so his dialogue doesn't build to the snap. The two are divorced from one another.

PicoDevimon needs to pick himself up fast, however, as Koushiro and Tentomon are coming this way! He scurries out of the path before they see him.

Koushiro: I'm sure when I meet Gennai-san, he'll know the secret to these Crests.

Koushiro takes out his Crest to look at it. PicoDevimon seizes the opportunity to snap a photo with a small digital camera.

(Where has he been keeping that?)

Tentomon: You always want to know everything about everything, Koushiro-han. That's what I like about you. Koushiro: Oh, stop, you're embarrassing me. Tentomon: I don't mean anything weird by it. Koushiro: I know. Still, I wonder where Gennai is...?

This is just as sweet in the dub.

Izzy: I'm curious to know why Gennai is so secretive. I want to discuss the merits of the Crest with him! Tentomon: I like that about you, Izzy! You have a never-ending thirst for information. It's amazing your brain doesn't explode with all that knowledge. Izzy: There are a lot more things I can learn! Tentomon: How much room do you have left in your brain? Izzy: As much as I need! ...I wonder where Gennai could be? With all my knowledge, I still can't find him!

Though Izzy's more receptive to Tentomon's flattery than Koushiro is. Though they do drone on a bit, hammering in that knowledge is Izzy's thing.

Continuing ahead, the boys find PicoDevimon's sign.

Tentomon: Here's a signpost! Koushiro: You're right!

The dub sticks a laugh line here.

Tentomon: Look, Izzy! It's a sign! Izzy: (from offscreen) YOU MEAN FROM ABOVE!?!? Tentomon: (flatly) No, here on the ground. Izzy: How bizarre.

It's well timed to the animation; Izzy only joins Tentomon onscreen after delivering that first line, so he only sees the physical sign after making his wild assumption. It also follows pretty quickly after he expresses frustration about not being able to find Gennai, so that topic then flows into this reaction.

The sign reads "Beware of huge falling poops!"

The dub's been pretty inconsistent with how it handles onscreen Japanese lettering; Here, they take the Infinity Mountain approach and rewrite the sign in English to read "BEWARE OF FALLING SLUDGE".

The Monzaemon episode referred to poops as Nume Sludge, while the Kentarumon episode called it hair mousse. Here, we're back to sludge.

Not wanting to be buried under shit, the boys go a different way only to find another sign warning of a bottomless pit of shit. They turn around only to be confronted with a warning of ferocious poop.

Koushiro: This place is full of crap! Tentomon: What a nasty place!

Indecision of where they can even go keeps them in place until PicoDevimon's real trap activates. The ground beneath their feet gives out, plunging Tentomon and Koushiro down into a deep metal hole.

Upside-down, Tentomon and Koushiro plunge into the abyss. After the initial screaming is over, Koushiro tries to problem-solve.

Koushiro: Tentomon, can you fly? Tentomon: I can't! (tries to flutter his gossamer wings) Look! It's making me fall even faster! Koushiro: I wonder how far we're going to fall? Tentomon: How would I know!? Booming Voice: To Hell. Koushiro: Hell!?

That gets both of them. Koushiro and Tentomon start flailing in the air to try and flap their way back up.

Koushiro: Y-YOU'RE JOKING!!! Tentomon: REALLY!?!?

Tentomon rights himself and buzzes his gossamer wings but makes little progress. Koushiro grabs onto him, pulling them both down.

Tentomon: I DON'T WANT TO GO TO HELL!!!

Y'know, it makes sense that a form of Devimon would know where to find all the best gateways to Hell. This checks out.

Since religious references aren't allowed, the dub needed to do something about that Hell thing.

Izzy: There's no bottom to this pit! Tentomon: Well, that could work in our favor. (tries to flutter his gossamer wings) It's a lot easier on your head that way if you ask me. Izzy: Unfortunately, that's impossible. Tentomon: If we fall any farther, we'll be in-- Sassy Voice: A very unpleasant place! Tentomon: That's not good!

Then they shriek and yelp for the rest of their dialogue.

Koushiro and Tentomon plunge into the abyss, but are soon lifted up by temporary salvation while the voice explains their plight.

Voice: Grab onto these. (Koushiro and Tentomon rise slowly up from the depths) Voice: Anyone with an obsession will be dragged down into Hell. Koushiro: I don't think either of us is obsessed with something. Voice: No, you are. You are obsessed with knowing everything. Koushiro: Is it wrong to want to know everything? Voice: There! When you get offended and ask questions like that, the weight of your curiosity grows and drags you down to Hell. Koushiro: Why!? Voice: See, you asked 'why' again. Koushiro: But-- Voice: Your inquisitive heart is swelling and swelling!

Punctuating the voice's argument, Koushiro's duck floaty suddenly swells up until it plunging him back into Hell.

Voice: Does anybody need a lift? Izzy: Hey, what are these? Voice: I have temporarily given you a life raft! You see, all those that are greedy fall into the pit. Izzy: I'm not sure I comprehend what you're saying. What are you accusing us of being greedy for? Voice: Wanting to know too much, of course! You're sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong! Izzy: What could possibly be wrong with gaining knowledge and information? Voice: See! You're doing it again! You can't seem to stop yourself! You're headed straight for the pit if you don't learn to control yourself. Izzy: How come!? Voice: (agitated) You don't even know that you're doing it! Izzy: I don't? Voice: IT'S LIKE A DISEASE WITH YOU!!! Well, nice knowing you~! (pop)

Replacing Hell with "the pit" has some effects on the way this conversation breaks down. The voice in the original sounds as if he's speaking from authority. At least allegedly trying to explain to Koushiro the sin that condemns him to Hell, and walking him through what it means.

"The pit" sounds like this dude has a hang-up about being asked questions, especially as he becomes more and more irate. He's scolding Izzy for what honestly sounds like a personal problem, dude.

(I mean, this voice obviously isn't trustworthy, actually. But it's the pretense of the thing. Dub version is nakedly malevolent.)

Koushiro falls once more, but he's able to grab one of Tentomon's legs to keep from falling entirely - Though Tentomon's floaty can't support both of them, and slowly begins to descend back down towards Hell.

Voice: Do you want to go to Hell? Koushiro: NO, I DON'T!!! Tentomon: ME NEITHER!!! Voice: Then throw away your inquisitive heart! Tentomon: ...I like your inquisitive heart, Koushiro-han. Koushiro: But at this rate, the two of us will fall into Hell!

Suddenly, Tentomon's floaty pops too, sending them both falling into the abyss once more.

Koushiro: HOW DO I THROW IT AWAY!?!? Voice: Pray for it! Koushiro: (praying) I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!! I... don't want to know....

As Koushiro and Tentomon fall away into blackness, a strange bubble suddenly emerges from the darkness, rising upwards.

In the dub:

Voice: It's your decision. Do you want to fall in the pit!? Izzy: No way! Of course not! Tentomon: That makes two of us! Voice: Then give up your curiosity to me! Izzy: It appears I have no other choice! Tentomon: But it's your curiosity that I admire! Izzy: What procedure should I utilize to keep us from falling down this pit? (Tentomon's floaty pops) Voice: STOP ASKING QUESTIONS!!! Izzy: I WON'T I WON'T I DON'T WANNA KNOW!!! Voice: That's more like it. Izzy: I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!!

Once again, this is much more clearly extortion. Tonally, there's a difference between "Do the thing or your soul will be perforated on the needle mountain of Jigoku" vs "Do the thing or I will punch you." Even though they're kind of the same, the former carries the ambiguous weight of presumed guidance.

That said, I like how the dub handles the popping of Tentomon's floaty. In the original, it happens abruptly and without warning to add urgency and force Koushiro into making a snap decision. The dub gives the floaty a legitimate reason to pop.

Falling into what the voice claimed to be Hell despite doing what they were asked, Koushiro and Tentomon find themselves floating in a strange space vacuum. There, they're greeted by a strange creature.

Tentomon: Where are we? Voice: (manifesting from the void) In the Sacred Mysterious Universe.

Koushiro's eyelids are half-closed and he has a dull expression on his face. Upon seeing this creature manifest in a meditative pose, Koushiro folds his hands in a prayer gesture and bows his head to him.

Tentomon: Who are you? Voice: I am Vademon, the ruler of the Sacred Mysterious Universe.

The narrator chimes in here to give us our rundown. Vademon is a Perfect-stage Virus-type Alien Digimon. His name is derived from the word "invader", and he's the super-evolved form of last episode's Vegiemon.

There's a bit of confusion over whether it should be spelled "Vademon" or "Vadermon". The spelling of his name is of no help, as it's ベーダモン which is, in Katakana, "Be-e-da-mo-n". It's officially romanized on the rundown screen as "Vademon" while it's pronounced "Vay-der-mon".

Narrator: Vademon. A creepy Digimon through and through whose true nature is unknown. His special attack, Akuma no Nage Kiss, mortifies his enemies.

I love it when codex entries for monsters read "Fuck if I know."

Akuma no Nage Kiss stands out distinctively for the fact that attack names are almost always in English. The battle cries of Harpoon Vulcan and Fox Fire are shouted in English. But Akuma no Nage Kiss only uses English for the "Kiss" part. Odd.

Akuma no Nage means "thrown by a devil". So the attack name could fairly be translated as "Devil's Blown Kiss". Doesn't sound too impressive, but neither do Lovely Attack or Love Serenade and those moves can fuck people up.

Unsurprisingly, Tentomon handles the rundown over in the dub.

Tentomon: Well, we've finally made it out but where are we now!? Vademon: Welcome to my universe. I certainly hope you enjoy your stay here. Izzy: (prays towards Vademon) Tentomon: Izzy!? Vademon: I'm Vademon. I personally designed this universe. Pretty nice, don't you think? Tentomon: (rundown) Vademon was living proof you should always stay away from Digimon with unusually large heads. That big brain of his was scrambled if you ask me.

Your words make Togemon sad.

Again, the dub's Vademon foregoes all the mysticism and is like "Welcome to my pad, broski." Weirdly, they did not cut the shot of Koushiro praying. I totally expected they would.

Now that we're in the Sacred Mysterious Universe, there's one little thing we must attend to.

The little bubble from before floats up to Vademon.

Vademon: This is the inquisitive heart that you threw away. It must not dirty the sanctity of the Sacred Mysterious Universe. I will dispose of it.

Vademon takes out an alien blaster pistol and sucks the bubble up into it.

Vademon: Learning about Cosmic Power will be more valuable to you.

A textbook with the English word "COSMOS" in all caps floats down into Koushiro's hands. He opens it and begins reading, while speaking in a dull monotone.

Koushiro: A textbook on how to obtain Cosmic Power.... Vademon: That's the way to go. NYEH YEH YEH YEH YEH YEH!!!

Vademon suddenly unfolds from his meditative pose. He fades away back into the void from whence he came while flailing about and letting out ecstatic yelps.

In the dub:

Vademon: Your curiosity is in this sack. It's garbage. You don't need it! And I don't want it messing up my universe. I just hate having clutter. If it's not needed, I zap it. (Vademon's gun absorbs Izzy's curiosity) Vademon: Now that that's done, I want you to read my latest book. It's all you need to know! Izzy: (reading) All you need to know, whether you like it or not. Vademon: It happens to be a bestseller. WHOA HO OH HO HO HO!! (flails and vanishes)

I think Izzy's line is supposed to be the title of the book, but it doesn't gel because we can clearly see the title of the book is "COSMOS".

With Vademon gone, Koushiro opens the book and begins to read.

Koushiro: (reading) The basics of Cosmic Power lie in your breathing. Tentomon: Koushiro-han! Don't believe in that crazy stuff! Koushiro: (reading) The correct way to breathe is to release alpha rays from your right chest. Tentomon: Stop reading that!

Tentomon lunges for the book, but Koushiro slaps him away.

Koushiro: What are you doing!? (resumes reading) As a result, your blood flow will increase and energy will flow throughout your body. Therefore, your breathing is....

While Koushiro continues consuming this questionable literature, his Digivice begins flashing and beeping. He doesn't even notice it.

Let's have a look at what Dub Vadermon's book says.

Izzy: (reading) In order to be one with the universe, you must erase your thoughts. Tentomon: But your thoughts make up who you are! You mustn't erase them. Izzy: (reading) It is important to breathe into your thoughts until they disintegrate and slowly turn into mush. Tentomon: I've heard enough! (lunge) Izzy: (swat) KEEP AWAY FROM ME!!! (reading) The less you think about, the happier you'll be. (unintelligible because Tentomon's talking over it) Tentomon: Someone's trying to send us a transmission! Izzy: (reading) Soon your mind will shut down and you will have nothing left to worry about.

Oh, that's even more ominous. The Cosmic Power notebook is filled with general cult-sounding gobbledygook like managing your thetan levels and shit, while Vademon's Bestseller is outright advocating for turning off your brain and becoming a vegetable.

While Koushiro's reading, Tentomon opens up his backpack and takes his laptop out of it.

Once it's open, Koushiro stops reading and floats over to talk to Taichi.

Taichi: Koushiro! Koushiro: T-Taichi-san? Where are you right now? Taichi: At home. I'm back in the real world. Koromon is with me! (screen begins to go static, disrupting connection) Koushiro: I see. Then that means you're not coming back here. But please contact me once in a while. (screen goes blank) Tentomon: It looks like Taichi-san is having his share of troubles too-- KOUSHIRO-HAN!!! Koushiro: (returning to reading without paying any further mind) With Cosmic Power, you will acquire tranquility with all things....

Here, we see Koushiro's side of the ominous transmission to Taichi. What Taichi took as a warning of "Do not come back!" was actually the statement, "You're not coming back here."

There was never any danger he needed to rush back to confront. Except. You know. The tremendous danger everyone's in right now. So. Uh. Task failed successfully, I guess.

The dub's got a bigger problem on their hands, because they missed the fact back then that Koushiro is speaking in a dull monotone and being misinterpreted. They had him screaming a much more explicit warning at Tai. It's going to hard to connect that to this scene.

Tai: IZZY!!! Izzy: Look, it's Tai. Where are you? Tai: I'm home but I got your message that you're in danger! I'm trying to find you! Izzy: Tell me about it. I'm trying to find myself. Don't bother coming back to the Digi-World, Tai. You'll just clutter up the universe. Tai: IZZY!!! (screen goes blank) Tentomon: Tai's risking his life to save you, Izzy! Izzy: Oh well. Tentomon: He's your FRIEND!!! Izzy: (reading) Indifference is the key to success. Practice it. Tentomon: The Izzy I knew is no more....

So they just... don't. The danger message was another one he sent at some point while he was wandering around looking for Gennai. When he was screaming "Digi-Monsters everywhere" and "Don't come back here", he didn't mean anything by it. Whatever that was, they got over it. It's fine now.

(He stubbed his toe on a Gennai-shaped rock and was being overdramatic about it.)

Now this is a separate follow-up message Tai sent at... Some point before leaving the real world and returning to Digi-World.

Meanwhile, Vademon reveals how exactly he intends to dispose of Koushiro's inquisitive heart. Securing it in his... vault? Warehouse? Incinerator? Uh. Not exactly.

Vademon: Ehehehe, the inquisitive heart can go right next to the ignorant heart! (Vademon places Koushiro's purple bubble next to an orange bubble on a store shelf) Vademon: If there are people willing to throw away their hearts, there are people willing to buy them. I am the shopkeeper of the Universe of Hearts, Vademon! Hee hee hee!

Yeah, he's a grifter. Selling people on ideological nonsense so he can pick their pockets. No shortage of people like him in both religious and secular spaces.

Honestly, with the modern state of internet punditry, the Digital World of 2024's probably overflowing with Vademon.

In the dub:

Vademon: Oho ohohoho!!! I've got a warehouse full of curiosities and other castaway items, and all of them are for sale! (Vademon places Koushiro's purple bubble next to an orange bubble on the store shelf) Vademon: There's always someone who wants to buy junk and I know the salesman who can give them a bargain: Vademon, Curiosity Salesman Extraordinaire! A penny for your thoughts and a nickel for your fears!

So, downside, he's so busy expositing about what a good salesman he is that he forgets to tell us about the ignorant heart clearly visible next to Koushiro's inquisitive heart.

What we gain, however, is fantastic wordplay around the "curiosity" pun. That last line from him is perfect, too. They did not have to go so hard but they did and it's glorious.

Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Eager to do business, Vademon emerges from his realm with, let's call it, gusto.

Vademon: YES YES, WELCOME!!! PicoDevimon: AHHHHH!!!

PicoDevimon falls to the ground visibly having a heart attack. But a second later, he gets back up and tries to recompose himself.

PicoDevimon: Umm-- Vademon: My store has everything you need to suit your tastes-- Huh?

PicoDevimon interrupts Vademon by holding out a photograph of Koushiro and Tentomon arguing with one another earlier.

PicoDevimon: Did this kid and Digimon fall in this area? Vademon: Oh? They did! They did! PicoDevimon: And? Vademon: Ahhh, I understand. Please wait here a moment!

Vademon returns to his hole. He emerges a moment later, startling PicoDevimon a second time, with the inquisitive heart in hand.

Vademon: Thank you for waiting! Here is that boy's inquisitive heart. PicoDevimon: I don't want that! Vademon: (upset) Sir, did you come here just to play around?

PicoDevimon shows Vademon the photo of Koushiro's Crest he took earlier.

PicoDevimon: I want this thing that the boy was holding. Vademon: Hmph! I only sell hearts! You won't find that for sale here! PicoDevimon: But I have such a tremendous pile of poop waiting to be spent! Vademon: (fantasizing about a thirty foot crystallized poop) POOP POOP POOP!!! PicoDevimon: I don't mind bartering for it.... Vademon: (snatches the photo away and sends PicoDevimon tumbling to the ground for a third time) I'LL DO IT!!! I'll get a hold of it and trade it for your huge pile of poop!

We're seeing a bit of a difference here between Vamdemon and Etemon. As King of DIgimon, Etemon had reach all across the continent of Server through his Dark Network, as well as Digimon working for him ready to throw hands with the kids at his command.

Vamdemon, by contrast, doesn't seem to have that level of sway and authority over the Digimon of Server. PicoDevimon is forced to manipulate and barter, striking deals with the locals to get force he can turn against the children.

(Nobody tell Jou about the system of currency on this mountain. If he thought USD was bad....)

The dub changed Digitamamon to a mercenary who does regular jobs for DemiDevimon, but they keep Vademon as a free agent.

Vademon: Well! DemiDevimon: AHHHHHH!!!! (falls) Vademon: Have I got the bargain for you! DemiDevimon: (gets up) I hope so! Vademon: I'm running a sale right now! Dreams and curiosities are at bottom-line prices! I'm telling you, it's a steal-- Huh? DemiDevimon: (shows first photo) Did anyone in this picture happen to tumble into your universe? Vademon: Why, yes! They did! DemiDevimon: Perfect! Vademon: You must be in the market for their curiosities! I'll fetch them for you! (Vademon returns below, then comes back up with Izzy's curiosity, startling DemiDevimon) Vademon: They're very fresh! If you're looking for brain garbage, this is the place. DemiDevimon: I'm looking for something else! Vademon: (upset) Don't try to give me a hard time or I'll get mad! DemiDevimon: (shows second photo) I want this. Vademon: (scowls) Hrmm.... DemiDevimon: The kid in the picture was carrying a Tag and a Crest with him. Vademon: Well, that's not something I ordinarily carry! It's a very expensive item! DemiDevimon: Huh? Hmm... How about I trade 'em for some of my curiosity? Vademon: (fantasizing about a thirty foot crystallized "curiosity") He must have a mountain of curious thoughts! DemiDevimon: So what do you say, Vademon? Is it a deal or not? Vademon: It certainly is! (snatches photo, sending DemiDevimon tumbling) I can tell from looking at you that you're a Digimon with enough wacky thoughts to make me a fortune!

For some reason, the dub pluralizes Izzy's curiosity as if it's Tentomon's too.

It's no surprise that they had to censor out the giant crystal poop, though they do still show it onscreen. Turning it into "DemiDevimon's curiosity" is probably their best attempt at covering up a poop yet, however; The crystal poop is pink, the same color as Koushiro's inquisitive heart, so it connects really well.

Even though it's still obviously a poop.

Making Vademon's business into a general-purpose pawn shop instead of a used heart retailer works against the dub here, however. It's harder to grasp why he'd get upset at DemiDevimon wanting to buy the Tag and Crest if he sells just about anything that comes into his clutches.

Meanwhile, down in the Sacred Mysterious Universe, Curiosity-free Koushiro is forming his body into the English alphabet.

Tentomon: Koushiro-han! Koushiro: I'm training to attain Cosmic Power, so quit bothering me!

He resumes forming his letter-shapes. At N, Vademon returns with new instructions for him.

Vademon: I forgot to tell you something. Koushiro: Vademon-sama. Vademon: To attain Cosmic Power, you must first discard everything. Koushiro: Everything? Vademon: Throw away everything that you have. Koushiro: Yes, sir.

Koushiro reaches into his pockets and casts away various pieces of paper. (Yen notes? Hard to tell.)

In the dub:

Tentomon: Izzy, what are you doing!? Izzy: I'm preparing my brainwaves by focusing on some basic fundamentals, so I would rather you did not disturb me. Vademon: (appears) There's something that I forgot to mention to you. Izzy: Oh, yes? What? Vademon: In order to fully improve yourself, you must throw away possessions that are considered excess baggage. Izzy: Such as...? Vademon: Just about everything except your clothes. Izzy: Of course.

Here, Dub Vademon's more verbose lines do a more thorough job of sounding genuine. The original just says "Something something Cosmic Power, gimme your stuff." But it occurs to me that it doesn't really matter how well he bothers selling this. With his inquisitiveness gone, Koushiro's incapable of properly scrutinizing what he's being told.

Koushiro empties his pockets and discards everything. Then he comes to his Crest.

Koushiro: I don't need this. Vademon: Yee hee hee hee hee!!! Koushiro: (tosses away the Crest) Tentomon: AUGH!!! You can't do that! Vademon: Mmm! (catches the Crest) I'll be taking this! Tentomon: (air-swims through space towards Vademon) Give back the Crest! Vademon: Be quiet! (Vademon takes out his laser pistol and shoots Tentomon, sending him hurtling through space) Tentomon: AUGH!!! Vademon: (to Koushiro) Continue your training. Koushiro: Yes.

Tentomon's efforts to break Koushiro free from this spell remain ineffectual.

In the dub:

Izzy: This is expendable. Vademon: Hahahahahaha!!! Izzy: (tosses away the Crest) Tentomon: Have you gone bananas!? You can't throw those away! Vademon: Hm! (catches the Crest) What a nice looking trinket! Tentomon: (air-swims through space towards Vademon) Give back that Tag and Crest, you poor excuse for a Digimon! Vademon: Back off, bug! (Vademon takes out his laser pistol and shoots Tentomon, sending him hurtling through space) Tentomon: IZZY!!! Vademon: (to Izzy) Forget about him. Now get back to your training. Izzy: Yes.

I like Tentomon crying out for Izzy to come to his senses rather than just screaming. Of course, he did just get shot by a Perfect-stage attack so being in a lot of pain makes sense. Both of these work.

With the goods in hand, Vademon returns topside to make the sale.

Appearing from the ground so quickly he startles PicoDevimon and knocks him over yet again, Vademon shows off the Crest.

Vademon: Thank you for waiting! (holds out the Crest) PicoDevimon: AHH!!! This! This! Hurry up and gimme! Vademon: Not so fast! This is a trade. Where's your huge pile of poop? PicoDevimon: W-Wait a minute! I'll have it out right now!

PicoDevimon drops to the ground and aggressively tries to evacuate his bowels onscreen, accompanied by incredibly obnoxious farting noises.

It does not go well.

Over in the dub, Devimon has an even greater hurdle in front of him.

Vademon: YOO-HOO!!! So sorry to make you wait! (holds out the Crest) DemiDevimon: Yeah! Alright, come on! Gimme the goods! Vademon: Wait. Don't you recall the deal that we made? I want a piece of your brain! DemiDevimon: I'm going to crank out some of my thoughts! Vademon: Huh!?

The frames of PicoDevimon attempting to poop are thus replaced by DemiDevimon trying to think so hard that his thoughts will materialize externally from his body. That. Doesn't sound like a thing, but it is how Koushiro/Izzy sold his inquisitive heart so there's no reason this couldn't work.

Nonetheless, both versions of his attempt fail. Vademon gets impatient waiting and gives PicoDevimon a kick in the ass, canceling the sale.

Down in the Sacred Mysterious Universe, Tentomon watches helplessly as his Partner repeats the alphabet motions again. There is nothing left of the boy he knew in there.

Tentomon: (defeated, quiet) Koushiro-han....

Then he degenerates into his Baby-stage, Mochimon. The degeneration catches Koushiro's attention, and he stops going through his motions to stare blankly at Mochimon. After a few seconds, Mochimon degenerates further to his Baby I stage, Babumon.

Babumon's name comes from the word "Bubble". The dub, however, mistranslated it as Pabumon, which means nothing.

Koushiro: Babumon.... Babumon: Babu! Babu! Babu.... Koushiro: Shut up! Why do I have to keep telling you to stop getting in the way of my training! Babu: (crying) Babu! Babuuuu....

The dub plays this precisely, even letting the quiet moments sit and not trying to destroy them with dialogue - with the exception of Tentomon's first line, which is made a bit longer.

Tentomon: I've lost him! I... I have no energy... left....

But once he degenerates into Motimon and Pabumon, they follow the script and keep him only repeating his name.

Pabumon weeps for Koushiro. His tears form into bubbles, floating into the air. Koushiro watches the bubbles and, inside of them, something takes shape.

Memory of Koushiro: (exploring the hillside) I'm sure when I meet Gennai-san, he'll know the secret to these Crests. Memory of Tentomon: (suspended in the floaty with Koushiro hanging from his leg) You always want to know everything about everything, Koushiro-han. That's what I like about you.

Then another set of memories plays out in the bubbles. Koushiro sees their visit to the inside of the giant battery at Andromon's factory, when he discovered the coding script of Digimon World.

But when he tries to take a closer look, it pops. All of the bubbles pop at once, startling Koushiro.

This scene, the dub does add silence-destroying dialogue too.

Pabumon: Pabu pabu! Have you forgotten who I am already, Izzy? Have you forgotten who you are? Try to remember. Try! Memory of Izzy: (exploring the hillside) I just want to figure out what the Digi-World really is! Memory of Tentomon: (suspended in the floaty with Koushiro hanging from his leg) Hold on, Izzy! And don't let go of your curiosity! It's your curiosity I admire! Memory of Izzy: This is merely scientific speculation, but I believe I've stumbled onto something more than just a simple computer key!

Tonal shift. In the original Tentomon degenerated to Pabumon because he'd given up on being able to reach Koushiro. He's reached the event horizon of total despair, and his tears are a sincere expression of his grief and hopelessness.

In the dub, he just ran out of juice. He's still trying to get through to Izzy, and creating memory bubbles on purpose as a new tactic.

Also, the memory quotes in the dub version aren't things they ever actually said. In the original, they're direct quotes from the earlier exchange up on the hillside.

When the bubbles pop, something seems to snap in Koushiro. As if waking up from a dream, the listless expression fades from his face and he truly sees Babumon.

Koushiro runs to Babumon, picking him up and embracing him.

Koushiro: Babumon! Babumon: Babu! Babu! Babu! Koushiro: I'm sorry for making you degenerate! Babumon: Babu! Babu! Babu! Vademon: (overheard) Stop messing around! PicoDevimon: Vademon-san, calm down! Vademon: Sir! You are being too persistent!

The door to Vademon's shop appears in the void. Koushiro and Babumon move closer to listen in. PicoDevimon and Vademon are having it out in his store.

PicoDevimon: W-Wait a minute! Vademon: I will not! Leave! Right now! PicoDevimon: I can't! Vademon: Why not!? PicoDevimon: If I don't take that Crest with me, who knows what Vamdemon-sama will do to me! Vademon: Ha! That's got nothing to do with me! PicoDevimon: Please! Vademon: (slaps PicoDevimon, lobbing him into the shelves) Go away!

Over in the dub, Pabumon's stopped speaking normally and returned to the Pabu Pabu lines.

Pabumon: Pabu! Pabu! Izzy: Please don't cry, Pabumon! Ohhh, sorry. Pabumon: Pabu! Izzy: I didn't mean to make you de-Digivolve. Pabumon: Pabu! Pabu pabu! Vademon: (overheard) YOU LIE!!! Izzy: Huh? Vademon: You're nothing but a weaselmon! DemiDevimon: Don't get bent all out of shape! Vademon: I always change shape when I'm mad! (Izzy and Pabumon move closer to listen in) DemiDevimon: Give me a break! I'm gonna get in big trouble! Vademon: That's not my concern, you pesky pipsqueak! Now beat it, pal! DemiDevimon: Oh, please! Myotismon will pull my feathers out if I don't bring him that Tag and Crest! Vademon: You got yourself into this; Now you can get yourself out. DemiDevimon: Please, I'm beggin' ya! He's a big brute! Vademon: BACK OFF! (slaps DemiDevimon, lobbing him into the shelves)

"I always change shape when I'm mad" got me. XD

Watching this all unfold, Koushiro comes to a realization about his Cosmic Power training.

Koushiro: He has the Crest I threw away. Babumon: Babu! Koushiro: Since I don't have my inquisitive heart, I don't really understand, but... I think I've been tricked. Babumon: (nodding) Babu! Babu! Koushiro: Let's take back my Crest and my inquisitive heart. Babumon: (determined) Babu!

Koushiro opens the door to the shop, letting in Pabumon. Without a word or an ounce or hesitation, Pabumon executes his own plan for retrieving Koushiro's Crest.

A reckless smash-and-grab, snatching it straight out of the hands of a Perfect-stage Digimon that could erase him with a whisper. Taichi would be so proud.

(Mimi too. Babumon's demonstrating the value of taking action instead of sitting around overthinking.)

Pabumon flees back into Koushiro's arms. Vademon and PicoDevimon race for the door, trying to grab the Crest. Koushiro sidesteps them both and lets their momentum carry them out into the void, then slips inside and slams the door shut.

He then bars it shut with a large wooden beam, buying himself time.

Koushiro returns his Crest to its proper place around his neck, then follows Babumon to the other thing he's missing.

Koushiro: Ah! My inquisitive heart! An incurious me isn't me! Wanting to know everything is part of who I am! Babumon: (nodnod) Babu! Babu! Koushiro: My inquisitive heart... I'm sorry for throwing you away....

Vademon and PicoDevimon break down the door, right as Koushiro places his heart to his forehead and prays for it.

Koushiro: I want to know. I want to know!

The pair come around the corner just in time to see Koushiro's inquisitive heart disappear into his chest and return to him.

Vademon: AUGH!!! He selfishly took back the inquisitive heart!

The dub makes this scene about the value of curiosity in general, instead of to Izzy personally.

Izzy: Prodigious! You found my curiosity! It was a mistake to give it up; I'm sorry I just tossed it away. Curiosity is essential! Pabumon: (nodnod) Pabu pabu! Izzy: I'm going to have to concentrate. I hope it transfers. (places the curiosity against his forehead) Come back in my heart. Come back in my heart! (Izzy reabsorbs his curiosity right as Vademon rounds the corner) Vademon: Ha! Now you're going to pay for this! Stop!

Dub Vademon doesn't care at all that he's been robbed. He's still mad about the door thing.

Koushiro and Babumon flee through the aisles, looping back and escaping out the door back into the Sacred Mysterious Universe. Vademon gives chase, firing on them with his handheld blaster.

Fortunately, now that Izzy's back up to full speed, it doesn't take long for Babumon to recover too. Evolving back into Mochimon, and then into Tentomon, before going one step beyond.

Kabuterimon buzzes PicoDevimon and Vademon, easily beating Vademon's little blaster. But then Vademon gets serious and unleashes his Akuma no Nage Kiss.

It's surprisingly straightforward. The kiss turns into giant rocks that brutally tenderize Kabuterimon.

Koushiro: Kabuterimon! Vademon: You'll only get hurt if you underestimate me. EEE HEE HEE HEE!!! Koushiro: Kabuterimon! Get up!

In the dub:

Izzy: Kabuterimon! Vademon: Sorry, but I've never been very partial to vermin Digimon. Bahahaha! Izzy: Get up! You've gotta Digivolve!

Vademon, can you really say that with a straight face when you've spent half this episode trying to do business with a sky rodent?

Ignited by this battle for Koushiro's curiosity, his Crest activates. Kabuterimon CHOU-SHINKAAAAAA!!!

AtlurKabuterimon pierces through Vademon's debris field with his horn while the narrator gives the rundown.

AtlurKabuterimon is a Perfect-stage Vaccine-type Insect Digimon. The Atlur for his name is a Romanization of the letters アトラー A-to-ra-a, or "Atlas". Kabuterimon was the rhinoceros beetle Digimon; AtlurKabuterimon is the Atlas beetle Digimon.

Though, like MetalGreymon, AtlurKabuterimon's color scheme is off-palette. He's blue in the V-Pet, though still Vaccine-type. Red and Blue AtlurKabuterimon are now recognized as separate species in the video games, though Blue doesn't see nearly as much action.

Narrator: AtlurKabuterimon. A giant insect Digimon that evolves from Kabuterimon. Using his large horn, he stabs through the enemy with his Horn Buster!

The dub calls him MegaKabuterimon. MegaKabuterimon is an Ultimate-stage Digimon, not to be confused with Ultimate-stage, which in the dub is called Mega-stage. Make sense?

Izzy: Kabuterimon was successful! He Digivolved to Ultimate MegaKabuterimon! Let's see if you can take him on, Vademon!

Realizing he needs more firepower, Vademon lets off another Akuma no Nage Kiss. This time, he conjures up a ringed planet to slam into AtlurKabuterimon.

AtlurKabuterimon breaks through the planet with so much force that it destroys the entire Sacred Mysterious Universe in an eruption of blinding light.

The dub calls this attack as Horn Buster, but it's given no name in the original. It's not super clear what exactly he did to make this happen.

This scene also lays bare how awkward Hey Digimon is as a theme. Show Me Your Brave Heart is able to cover everything from the start of AtlurKabuterimon's evolution. Hey Digimon is so short that it has to start in here, at the moment the winning blow is struck.

From there, AtlurKabuterimon grabs up a screaming and tumbling Koushiro and departs for the surface - Emerging not far from where some familiar faces have arrived to search for him.

Koushiro wakes up to find AtlurKabuterimon degenerated into Mochimon.

Mochimon: Koushiro-han! Koushiro-han... Are you okay? Koushiro: Mochimon? Mochimon: I used up too much of my energy. Koushiro: (embraces Mochimon) Mochimon, thank you. Mochimon: Koushiro-han, that hurts....

Suddenly, Yamato and Takeru come running with their Partners. Koushiro stands up, lifting Mochimon in his arms.

Yamato: KOUSHIRO!!! Tsunomon: MOCHIMON!!! Takeru: KOUSHIRO-SAN!!! Koushiro: Yamato-san! Takeru-kun! Mochimon: Tsunomon! Patamon! Yamato: Are you in one piece!? Koushiro: Yes. Takeru: I'm glad we found you! Tsunomon: Mochimon, you look like a baby when you're held like that. Mochimon: Koushiro-han! Put me down! Koushiro: It's okay. You're tired.

Yamato snapping straight into big brother mode after seeing Koushiro emerge in a beam of energy from the earth.

In the dub, Matt's group inexplicably seems to know a lot of details about Izzy's plight, rather than just reacting to his sudden emergence.

Matt: Izzy! Awesome! You made it back! Izzy: That's right! We're back! Motimon: Yeah! We're back! Matt: How's it going? T.K.: Yeah! Izzy: Better now. T.K.: Tell us what happened! Tsunomon: Yeah, how did you get here? We thought you were a Digi-goner! Motimon: Izzy was taking a self-improvement class. Izzy: I improved so much, I flunked right out!

I wonder if the censors will let me use the 'm' word if I call it Digi-murder? Food for thought.

Suddenly, Gennai (!!!) appears in the sky with gifts.

Gennai: Chosen Children. Koushiro: Gennai-san! Gennai: The distortions in this world haven't been corrected yet. Group: EH!?!? Gennai: Use the information on this world, available in the Digimon Analyzer I've sent, as a reference from now on! (fades away)

Yeah, he seriously just shows up like "Hey I heard you like knowledge so I bought you a database GENNAI OUT!"

Koushiro pulls up the Digimon Analyzer. As a fun note, the screens of the Digimon Analyzer, shown here, are different from the typical rundown screen. However, each Ultimate-stage Partner Digimon that evolved up to this point has used the Digimon Analyzer screen instead of the typical rundown screen.

Koushiro: This is the Digimon Analyzer. (pulls up AtlurKabuterimon) Here it is. AtlurKabuterimon. An Insect Digimon. Mochimon: Hee hee, that's me!

In the dub, they rename the Digimon Analyzer.

Gennai: Hello, kids! It's been a while! Izzy: It's Gennai! Gennai: The connection between the worlds is still damaged. You'll have to stay longer. I've collected some information about the Digital World that you'll be able to use. Be sure to take a look at the Digimon File; It will tell you all you need to know! (fades away) Izzy: I wonder if there's anyone we know in here? (pulls up MegaKabuterimon) I've just downloaded my favorite: MegaKabuterimon! Motimon: Yeah! I'm a cool dude!

That was a weird decision because it literally says "DIGIMON ANALYZER" in English script repeatedly across the analyzer screen.

While the kids are enjoying their new tool, PicoDevimon has the unpleasant task of reporting in to Vamdemon.

PicoDevimon: Vamdemon-sama.... Vamdemon: Where is the Crest? PicoDevimon: Please, forgive me-- Vamdemon: No! Take your punishment! (bat swarm) PicoDevimon: AHHHHH!!! SAVE ME!!! VAMDEMON-SAMA!!! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!

We close on PicoDevimon's agonized cries.

The dub tries so hard to make it not look like he's being attacked by the bats, it's hilarious.

DemiDevimon: Hehe, a funny thing happened to me on the way to Vademon's-- Myotismon: Prepare to face the consequences. DemiDevimon: I hate this part! Myotismon: Quiet! You had your chance! DemiDevimon: Don't make me sit in this tree all night! AHHHHHH!!! I'm afraid of heights! Can I at least have some milk and cookies!?

Definitely not being bit and clawed by angry bats, nope nope!

(Why was the bat assault okay last episode but not this one? Weird.)

Assessment: Man, this episode has some shit to say about religions that weaponize fear of the afterlife to coerce their followers into obedience.

It makes for an excellent companion piece to the Andromon and Kentarumon episode. Yes, Koushiro is obsessive in his desire to learn and that's bad... when it comes at the expense of other people around him. But on its own, there is nothing wrong with a ravenous curiosity.

Koushiro needs to learn to temper his hunger for knowledge so that it doesn't hurt his relationships with other people, but he shouldn't have to give it up outright.

What really makes Vademon's trap interesting is that he accuses Koushiro of obsessive curiosity, then liberates him from curiosity... but not obsession. He simply gives Koushiro something new to mindlessly obsess over, rather than his usual mindful obsessing.

The actual problem behavior, shutting people out, is still there. Because this isn't actually a self-help program; He's being grifted.

There is, however, an extensive amount of shit in this episode. By which I mean literal shit, not bad storytelling.

The dub, meanwhile, had to take a black pen to so much in the course of removing religious references and literal shit. But I think they did a pretty good job of making it work nonetheless.

[seventeenlovesthree]

Ever since I saw this lovely little post floating around, I felt the need to compile one of my favourite suffer plotpoints when it comes to Taichi’s character: His tendency to “shrivel” when he cannot get the band together. Or: Taichi Yagami’s love language is “quality time” and he suffers the most when he (unintentionally or intentionally) isolates himself from the others - and yet, he also has a tendency to fight the need to be with the others for their sake, displaying a sense of selflessness, even if it bothers him.

Let’s break this down, shall we:

Episode 21 is the third time* we see Taichi struggle with his sense of “want” vs. “need” in regards to his “responsibilities” for the whole group, which is also a big indication towards his role as leader of the group later on. (*Prior to this, his arc of understanding the difference between courage and recklessness as well as him overcoming his fears/cowardice to save Sora have been more about his general development, even if these moments help to understand his sense of leadership better. Up to this point, he had a tendency to rush forward head first without much consideration and got called out for that continuously by several other characters - but he had also already burdened himself with the idea of “being the only one with a crest”, so he HAD to be the first to fight and protect everyone there).

He’s happy to be back home, finally back in the real world and at first, that means that there is no need to fight anymore. But on the other hand, he knows that something is off - the others are still “on the other side” and his sense of duty is bugging him greatly. Taichi Yagami, as much as he’d like to, cannot consciously be selfish if he knows others are suffering because of it - and when the stakes are that high. When he receives Koushirou’s cryptic message, he panics first, then is visibly overcome by helplessness - but also weakly tries to justify why staying in the real world could be a good thing after all. Both Koromon and Hikari can tell that he’s pulling himself together, but he cannot get the others out of his head (indicated by his immediate instinct telling him that Yamato may have called him back once the telephone rings). He HAS to go back to the Digital World, he HAS to help the others, he could never leave them on their own devices.

And he’s right with that - because the others, even if they kept looking for him for more than two months, fell apart one by one, with one part of the group already having given up on Taichi, whereas the other part still believed in finding him; Sora was the first who left, still hoping to find Taichi, not believing that he could already have died. Koushirou was next, trying to find Gennai in order to get answers about their whereabouts (and, in my opinion, also because he had no reason to stay in the group, as Taichi and Sora had been the people he had been most attached to up to this point). Jyou and Mimi followed, leaving Yamato and Takeru by themselves. And when Taichi gets back, the group reunites bit by bit - as indicated by both Jyou and Yamato, even if Taichi himself denies that it was really HIS doing. However, this is the moment Taichi gets called the group’s “leader” for the first time - and even if he struggles with that title at first, it’s something he will fall back to for the rest of the season, if not the entire series. Feeling that sense of responsibility (and pressure) as well as learning to deal with the consequences.

And even if 02 already indicates that the kids are slowly but steadily growing up, comfortably learning to do “their own things”, Taichi is ALWAYS portrayed as the one (besides Koushirou) ditching real world obligations more easily to join and help the 02 group. However, it’s Tri where it becomes most apparent that the leader struggles when he has nobody left to “lead” anymore (which is quite an exaggeration in this case, but if you want to interpret it this way, it makes sense why Taichi appeared to be as gloomy as he did). 

Let’s look at the order of priority here: Taichi’s football match is coming up and, obviously, he’s keen to invite his friends to watch him play. It seems to be that he intends to ask Sora first, which would make sense, since she used to be his football club companion - just to witness Yamato doing the exact same thing, asking Sora to come to his concert, which takes place on the same day. And thus - Taichi hesitates and backs off. At this point, it is implied that Sora and Yamato actually aren’t dating (anymore/for the time being), yet Taichi is still hesitant to get in between them. 02 showed us that there are no animosities between these three in ANY capacity, quite the contrary, Taichi had always been supportive of his friends’ relationship. Which would also explain WHY he may feel like he shouldn’t get in the way right now; while it is not outright stated, we may interpret it as him trying to take a step back to give them time for themselves. Whatever may have happened before, they might need the time to reconcile. Taichi isn’t always able to find the right words, may be a bit too blunt or doesn’t appear empathetic due to his rashness - however, he IS observant of his friends.

Which is also shown by the fact that he doesn’t try to push Koushirou into coming to his match either once he hears that it takes place on the same day as his parents’ anniversary. He does seem a bit detached and disappointed, but tries his best to not let it show, roughly explaining that he cannot ask Jyou because of his exams, that he did want to ask Takeru and Hikari, but doesn’t expect them to come either. Koushirou voices his empathy towards them having a hard time spending time together anymore - and Taichi deflects immediately. You can tell by the fact that he averts his gaze here, pretending not to care too much, casually claiming that he “figured you might be free”. However, the fact that he cannot even look Koushirou in the eyes anymore really just shows that he is actually hurt.

... Which is also deducted by Hikari once she tells him that she doesn’t have time either. Once again, Taichi downplays it, but his grumpy tone and the way he looks away again are way too easy to read. Hikari is a highly empathetic person and she ALWAYS knows when something is wrong with Taichi - even or ESPECIALLY when he denies it. 

She’s uncomfortable with the situation, the viewer can tell that she’s THIS close to cancel her own plans in order to put Taichi at ease - but he keeps deflecting.  As Taichi has always been particularly protective of Hikari and probably still has to deal with the aftermath of how his good intentions may almost resulted in her dying as a kid. Thus, it’s not surprising that he is not intending to put that pressure on her here. And it can be argued that the same applied to Koushirou earlier - one could interpret his deflection as him not wanting to dwell on it for Koushirou’s sake, as he probably did not want him to feel guilty.

Shortly before his match starts, the urge to have the others around takes over one last time - Taichi’s just about to ride his bike, but sends a quick text to Sora regardless, asking if she goes to Yamato’s concert or not. She responds within not even 5 seconds, asking why he asks. So he just generally tells her about the time and place of his match - and starts to type “Come if you have time...”, but then, after a short moment of contemplation, decides to delete that last line again.

It is very easy to take that scene as symbol for his inner struggle of not wanting to be alone - yet also not wanting to be a bother to the others either. The fact that his fight with Yamato about whether or not they should fight and cause harm (to lives and environment as well as emotionally) in all iterations is dealing with the exact same thing on a higher scale - and is really telling: Taichi’s entire arc will always be about making (uncomfortable) decisions, whether it’s about killing a friend or in regards to choosing to become a diplomat/ambassador in the end. Which is indicated by the last screenshot from above, showing him talking to Yamato about their career choices, how difficult it is to see everyone else thrive, yet having to accept that everyone is drifting apart.

He had to learn to become more considerate, empathetic and less impulsive throughout Adventure - but once he did, he also learned how difficult it is to find a good balance in order not to hurt others. That’s why Stageplay!Taichi also mourns the loss of his younger self, thinking that he has regressed, because he cannot just move forward anymore. Which is also why we see him isolating himself throughout Tri, not really confiding in anyone, keeping away from the likes of Sora and Koushirou (the ones he wanted to ask about coming to his football match first), suffering from his dysfunctional bond to Yamato - and only choosing to talk about his emotions to Agumon and Meiko, who ALSO struggles with her sense of self and the idea of having to kill her own partner. Stageplay!Agumon tells him that he’s only struggling so much because he has realized that there are way more things he’d like to protect, but that he shouldn’t deal with all of that by himself. That’s what everyone in the stageplay is trying to tell him as well; whether it’s Sora telling him to stop pretending to be "tough”, Hikari telling him that he does not have to "play” a role when he doesn’t want to be or Koushirou telling him that he’s pushing himself and that he thought he could be honest with him.

That’s why everything always feels less disrupted, less dysfunctional when Taichi is on good terms with himself - and the others as well, as he is (mostly figuratively, but also kinda literally) what “keeps the band together”. Just because he is who he is, with all the charisma and his own sense of courage.

Kizuna shows us that he hasn’t really learned that lesson yet - he does know what’s going on in the lives of Jyou, Mimi, Koushirou, Hikari and Daisuke, but has no idea about Takeru and Sora and only meets with Yamato to really (superficially) mope about how hard adulting is. That also explains why he’s seen thriving when he gets to ditch real life responsibilities to fight alongside the others again - even if he chooses to close himself off from them emotionally (as indicated by Hikari stating that their mom tells him to come home more often), he can still shine as a leader to fight for the greater good. He has come to the conclusion that fighting IS in fact necessary - that’s already one step forward in comparison to Tri. But due to the fact that he could not make up his mind yet, rather playing the role of a stagnating adult, he starts to lose the bond to Agumon (at this point in time at least). He may use the fighting as escapism, but doesn’t see his partner as an active part of his life (unlike every other Chosen Child besides Yamato and Sora, who suffer the same fate). Furthermore - the fact that he’s denying himself emotional support time and time again fundamentally contradicts who he really is. 

He IS a people person - obviously he’s not the most extroverted extrovert, as he has always had his more contemplative, quiet moments, overthinking to find the right solution if he cannot trust in his guts (and courage!). But as much as the role of the leader was externally assigned to him once, he genuinely has that sense of responsibility - and likes the company of the people close to him, which is why he cannot (fully) grow without them. Stepping up is hard, you have to know when the right time is to take the lead and when to cut yourself some slack - and we see Taichi being on a good way by the end of Kizuna, having decided on his final thesis and taking a step closer to becoming Digital World Ambassador.

The 02 movie already implies that he has stepped up in that regard, doing PR work alongside Koushirou, which means that he has at least embraced that “you can get the kid out of the Digital World, but never the Digital World out of the kid - who is also learning to become an adult alongside that attitude”.

Hence my hope for the future is that we will actually see him thrive again, without isolating himself (or getting isolated) from his friends, fully embracing who he is and what he wants.

[detectiveichijouji]

[OG post]

Here's some highlights of this whole canon compliant thingy!!

Ken and his friends have a website where they receive cases from people around Tokyo. Besides that, they gather cases from their own schools too.

Besides Ken looking smart, he’s a walking mess. When he’s not in a case, he’s just enjoying his obsessions and explaining everything about them to whoever asks him about them. Daisuke sometimes feels his technical knowledge of things is too much for his (Dai’s) brain so he completely starts feeling a little overwhelmed by the info.

Everyone has a favorite type of case, yeah. Daisuke likes simple and easy tasks. Takeru and Hikari like supernatural-like cases, Miyako likes most of the stuff she can be helpful in, Iori likes to observe and learn more about people/digi and their reasons for such actions, and Ken… He likes everything, and he cannot turn his back on anyone in trouble (he might have absorbed that behavior from Daisuke)

Daisuke is canonically afraid of ghosts. So he’s the kind to be nope-ing outta there whenever he learns the case involves ghosts or supernatural. Of course they manage to drag him over, especially using Hikari as an excuse (“Hikari is going too~”) or Hikari herself pushing his right buttons (“Oh I’d like someone strong and brave to protect me in case something terrible happens!”)

Besides that, Daisuke thinks his crush on Hikari is a secret to everyone else, except everyone – Hikari included – is aware of it.

Somewhere between 02 and Kizuna, Ken started to like Miyako a little more than a friend, but he does not let it be known. No one knows that. (yes, this is canon compliant here.)

Most of the cases they get are some misunderstanding between human and digimon, or digimon and digimon, quite like CS/HM’s cases. 

Since the digimon are known by the public and the number of digimon partnered to people are increasing quickly, this little group activities are important.

If they can’t solve something by themselves, they ask for Koushiro’s help, or the Chosen Children network on the web, or even Gennai (or a Gennai clone).

Their nemesis is Arsenemon, a digimon who steals stuff stolen from the Digital World by the selfish humans/”renegade” Chosen Children. He’s classy and sassy, which makes Daisuke lose his patience with him all the time.  Ken is also determined to stop Arsenemon, but not on a deep level as Daisuke.

Arsenemon can disguise as anyone, and since they don’t know what he looks like, they are clueless. One day someone claimed to have seen Yamato leaving a museum at night and then the kids had to clean Yamato’s name. Turns out Arsenemon’s hair is sorta like Yamato’s…

That said, Yamato hates the idea of some digimon having his haircut or uh… having his face…

Hikari works for her (and Daisuke-Takeru’s) school journal, so this digimon intrigues her as her editor keeps asking about him. She takes photos for Ken-and-the-group’s website.

Miyako helped Ken to build the website and the chatroom to gather cases. The entire group was kinda into it at this point. Students and children from their schools could come ask them for favors and even give them rewards for their assistance and counselor, but they don’t accept doing it for money or gifts. They do it because they want to help humans and digimons to get along now!

Arsenemon does have a point and they accept it, once it is revealed to them his real motives to steal stuff. And yeah, they kinda… side with him later.

By the way, Arsenemon has a human form, but since he can transform into anyone… Well, I’d post his design later (might be a bit of a spoiler for another thing I’m working on but… whatever? )

The 02 group only started doing this because someone was having free time after school and decided to watch Dekaranger and fell in love with it, and since the series kinda felt very close to their reality… The idea was pitched to the rest of the group, which thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea. After all, they were already doing something like this for a while, right? 

When it comes to Arsenemon, the 02 group starts trying to guess who they are… By checking each person outside their circle of friends who’s close to them, especially because of the mysterious Calling Cards they receive. From the suspects they led to two Chosen Children in Daisuke-Hikari-Takeru’s school: Youta and Mizuki.

Youta is suspicious BECAUSE he tends to be all smug and a little aggressive on Daisuke, by making poor Daisuke have a new rival. Youta is also called “Soleil” around the school, and is smart. Partner digimon: Coronamon

Mizuki is suspicious because she’s strangely involved in some with one or two people related to the heists. She’s the pacifist and most calm person in the school – enough to be called “Lune” by the students. She’s also part of the school’s journal staff. Partner digimon: Lunamon.

Noel/Étoile is a kid involved with those two too, so he became another suspect. Besides that, he’s a shy boy who recently started attending the same school as Youta and Mizuki.

The digimon are permitted at the schools, but not at classes. The digimon spends most of the school hours outside the school, in the yard. Some school staff members make sure to feed them and keep watching their behavior, in order for none of them start picking fights against the others or damage the buildings.

Now about the digimon: Soleil’s Coronamon is a more noble and serious digimon with a better sense of justice than his partner, but he’s so loyal to Youta that he won’t argue with the boy. Meanwhile Lune’s Lunamon is a very sweet and gentle one, except she’s very very overprotective of Mizuki to the point this can become a nuisance. 

No one knows who Étoile’s partner digimon is, or if he has one. He tends to not talk about that at all. However he seems to get along with the digimon quite well?

Since Arsenemon can be anyone, and the 02 kids have no idea how to stop him, they lean into suspecting of everyone – except themselves Because… Well, you know, they know each other quite well to not be fooled that easily.

Soleil serves as Daisuke’s nemesis, Lune as Hikari’s rival, and no one has a beef with Étoile because he’s a good kid.

Étoile seems a little clueless about certain stuff, or being kinda weird when making food combos.

Arsenemon has many ways to send a calling card to the 02 group. Some are very creative and some are a little intrusive.

For the calling cards, Arsenemon likes to sometimes pick just one favorite victim because of their reactions. Yes, it is Daisuke. (Angry) Daisuke noises are his pleasure.

[shihalyfie]

The difference between the Adventure group’s and the 02 group’s respective relationships with their Digimon

Kizuna very prominently depicts a difference between the older six Adventure group members (Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Koushirou, Mimi, Jou) and the younger six 02 group members (Takeru, Hikari, Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, Iori) in terms of how they interact with their partners, and part of it is because of the strange relationship between Kizuna and 02′s themes, but, in fact, there had always been a rather subtle difference between said dynamics even since all the way back in 02, just exacerbated by the 02 group being the only ones to be able to open Digital Gates via their D-3s and the fact that the circumstances of the plot were a bit engineered to make the 02 group a bit more functional during its duration.

The image of “every human-Digimon partner pair hanging together all of the time even through mundane daily life events” is certainly romantic, but, in fact, the older Adventure group is not portrayed as a group that necessarily longs for such an arrangement, and the 02 group doing so is something they specifically do because of their own personalities. This is something very tied to the distinction between the Adventure and 02 groups’ respective ways of life and internal dynamics, and what it says about each individual group’s preferences of independence vs. mutual support.

Once Adventure’s finale hit and the Adventure group had their first bout of “separation” from their partners, thus began the “two-and-a-half year break”, in which the Adventure group had to suddenly accept separation from their partners after (what had been to them) months of being together all of the time. It’s an understandable feeling of loss! You “took something for granted” when it’d been with you all of the time, you made an incredible, important friend and suddenly had to part. That said, there are some nuances to this that need to be taken into account here:

Takeru and Hikari (who turn out to later become involved with the 02 group and take on their mentality) are the two most confident about their parting on the note of “we’ll definitely meet again, don’t worry about it, it’ll be okay,” which is a pretty obvious meta hint at 02 airing one week later, but also does say a bit that they’re the ones most hung up on the possible reunion.

The two-and-a-half year break is characterized not so much by a permanent and unbroken separation as much as the lack of ability for Taichi and his friends to meet up with Agumon and the other partners on a regular, controlled basis. They weren’t completely cut off from contact -- Taichi receiving a message from Agumon in the above-linked drama CD, Koushirou keeping in contact with Gennai regularly, the entire events of Our War Game!, the Adventure mini dramas (yes, those are canon), the 15th anniversary drama CD, and the reunion depicted in 02 episode 27′s flashback. Moreover, the way Koushirou approaches the Digital Gates in the early episodes of 02, along with Two-and-a-Half Break itself, makes it clear that the gates still did open sporadically, it’s just that, since there was no real rhyme or reason to them opening, meetups with partners weren’t something that could be coordinated smoothly. Given that, it’s not that surprising that Taichi met up with Agumon without altogether too much fanfare in 02 episode 1 -- it certainly wasn’t something he could have done often, but the two had met up a handful of times during the last two and a half years, so it’s understandable that it doesn’t necessarily merit a massively dramatic reunion, especially when there’s a crisis going on at the exact moment.

Once the events of 02 kicked off, the Adventure kids started having some touching reunions with their respective partners now that the 02 kids’ D-3s could provide reliable standbys for going in and out of the Digital World, and, of course, it’s natural that they’d be a bit emotional after their contact had been so disjointed (even though, as with Taichi, it’s not actually nearly as dramatic as one might expect), but once that’s out of the way...

Practicality suggests that the Adventure kids’ Digimon partners would choose to spend most of their time in the Digital World for the duration of 02...but, in fact, even that considered, the older Adventure kids really don’t seem that bothered to not get to see their partners every day of their lives. Granted, they of course presumably don’t want to constantly bother their juniors all of the time to open the gate for them, but Sora demonstrates in 02 episode 12 that she will grab them and go in if it’s urgent, so there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t recruit the kids to open the gate for them if they wanted or needed it that badly. Moreover, the juniors being able to consistently open and close the gate means that constant communication and occasional meetups with their Digimon partners are more than possible -- recruiting one of their partners to do something on the other end isn't too hard anymore, given the events of 02 episode 32 or such -- and so, the “inconsistent, fleeting contact” that spanned the “two-and-a-half year break” is no longer a problem.

All things considered, if the older kids really wanted to create some kind of pipeline or arrangement so they could hang out with their partners on the daily like the 02 kids do, you’d think they (especially Koushirou) would try a little harder, but they don’t actually seem to treat it with much more urgency than having a really good friend who might be a bit of a slightly inconvenient bus ride away. The fact that they actually have reasonably consistent methods of access to see each other if they really want to is comfort in itself. Of course, when Christmas comes and the juniors arrange a situation for all of their seniors to see their partners again, it really is a Christmas gift, because of course there’s the joy of getting to see an incredibly treasured friend you don’t normally get to see in a while!...but even then, Taichi says that Agumon should at least stay for the holiday, with a completely casual tone that suggests he has absolutely no qualms or emotional hangups about the idea that Agumon’s going to have to return to the Digital World soon and they won’t have day-to-day contact anymore (it’ll just be nice if Agumon can stay for the rice cake soup).

In the end, this is actually...probably a pretty normal thing to expect. Digimon partners are “best friends” in ways that are a bit unusually beyond your average so-called “best friend”, in that they’re somewhat psychologically linked to their human partners and thus “get” them in ways an average human friend wouldn’t, but nevertheless, it’s not like everyone constantly wants to have their best friend with them every single moment of every single day; boundaries and independence are a thing, and even Miyako felt that it was appropriate to leave Poromon with Koushirou for the duration of her Kyoto trip in 02 episode 33. (In fact, if you squint carefully, there are times when even the 02 kids’ Digimon occasionally don’t accompany their partners; Patamon and Tailmon didn’t attend the soccer game in 02 episode 8.) Or, if you want to take this all the way back to Adventure, “needing space” from one’s own partner once in a while was lightly addressed when Tentomon deliberately recused himself from Koushirou having a heart-to-heart with his parents, because he understood Koushirou needed catharsis on his own terms (and we see Hawkmon and Tailmon even do the same for Miyako and Hikari in 02 episode 31). So when those best friends were placed in dubious places of contact and it became difficult to tell when they’d ever meet again, it was emotionally difficult in the same way being forcibly cut off from a treasured friend and not being allowed to see them regularly would hurt -- but once some degree of regular, guaranteed contact was established, and it was understood that they could meet up when they needed to, they could schedule that easily (and in fact there’s no evidence that the older Adventure group never made use of that during days in the year that weren’t depicted in 02 proper).

Not only that, the Digital World is also treated as having its own “will” and letting Chosen in as needed in 02 episode 22, thus implying that, even without the 02 kids’ D-3s as a fail-safe, it was getting more receptive to open gates in general; Koushirou had been keeping track of them and alerting other Chosen to whenever they opened naturally (including Mimi in 02 episode 14), allowing contact to continue on a more regular basis.

So why are the 02 kids and their Digimon so different? Since the incidents depicted in 02 didn’t impact the real world itself until late in the series, why didn’t they make an arrangement like their seniors where the kids would meet up with their partners in the Digital World after school, thus avoiding the trouble of having to hide them in school and pass them off as plushies everywhere? Well, the thing is, they almost had that kind of arrangement...and it lasted only one episode. It was made a prominent point in 02 episode 2 that even after meeting V-mon and barely getting to know him, Daisuke couldn’t get him out of his mind. Then, Miyako and Iori met their own partners, and when they all emerged, the 02 group’s partners themselves came out with them, with Tentomon and Piyomon being the ones to say that they’d rather stay behind for the time being. In other words, it wasn’t a question of practicality surrounding the territory war with the Kaiser -- the 02 group’s Digimon and humans themselves actually wanted to stick to each other this badly, even if it meant that the Digimon would be staying in in an unfamiliar world long-term (after all, the Digital World is still every Digimon’s natural home, so it’s possible that the older kids’ Digimon aren’t too enthused about the idea of staying in the real world for so long themselves).

In the end, the real reason the 02 group and their Digimon stick to each other so constantly through any and all situations has to do with their mentality. In the case of the Adventure group, while being trapped in another world gave them a sense of necessity in sticking together all of the time and thus created a bit of extra shock when sudden separation occurred, either way, said older group was a bit more independent-minded and was ultimately able to mentally adjust to returning to a status quo where they couldn’t expect to see their partners all of the time, and managed to build proper lives around that assumption. Even when their partners were regularly accessible, they were able to live their lives somewhat independently from each other (especially due to the difficulty of integrating Digimon into the real world at this stage), with the understanding that they still could meet each other whenever necessary for anything ranging from a dangerous incident to simply just wanting to get together and have a nice heart-to-heart. The 02 group, on the other hand, consisted of a group of slight misfits with some degree of socialization problems prior to the start of the series, who have mentalities based on “their relationship with others” moreso than independence; their group dynamic was based on a slight amount of dependence on mutual support rather than necessarily being able to sustain themselves on their own, and it thus follows that they and their like-minded partners would be a bit clingier as a result, because they’re more in need of that emotional support and company on a day-to-day basis.

Look at Daisuke, whose entire character has a lot to do with his need for validation and support from others; it’s very easy to imagine that prolonged separation from V-mon might outright cause them separation anxiety before long (remember Daisuke’s reaction to getting briefly separated from V-mon after only knowing him for less than a day in 02 episode 2!). Or Takeru and Hikari, who still are parsing a lot of really unresolved issues that weren’t actually properly addressed in Adventure (remember: they’re the ones who were only able to accept the idea of parting if they had certainty that they’d meet again, and Tailmon especially associates Hikari specifically with a life she couldn’t initially have). These kids dislike being separated from each other for too long, so it stands to reason that they’re going to dislike separation from their respective partners even less. 02 being a story about relationships means it’s a series about how people who have difficulty finding their answers by themselves find it through the support of others, and so, more latently, it’s only natural that it’ll extend to their partners, and that their partners, being somewhat like-minded, would reflect that by willingly choosing to leave the Digital World to cling to their partners, even in an unfamiliar world.

Of course, you could potentially chalk this up to sheer practicality, in that the 02 group had access to D-3s and were simply making use of their time together, or that the nature of the Digital World territory war eventually getting brought out into the real world guided their actions this way...but, in fact, Kizuna continues to double down on there being a distinct difference between these two.

Because Kizuna only gives us very “limited context” by showing us limited snippets of a few days instead of the whole eight months 02 spanned over, we’re forced to extract from only a very small “sample size” of interactions, but one thing the movie does make clear is that the Adventure and 02 groups are both roughly in the same boat in regards to what they can and can’t do regarding their partners and the Digital World. The “advantage” the 02 group had over their seniors in that they could easily open gates is no longer in play, because travel can happen at leisure even with the older group thanks to the smartphone terminals Koushirou’s made (the deluxe Blu-ray booklet confirms that it’s the smartphones doing it, so it’s not like Yamato’s referring to the ability to grab one of the 02 group members here). On top of that, Digimon have some degree of recognition in society, so it’s not too much of a big deal to have them in real life, and all of the Digimon partners are probably much more used to going back and forth and being familiar with both parts of society. And yet, despite that, there is a difference.

The main reason I so often urge people not to take the question of “who has partners present in the credits and who doesn’t” as a definitive statement of who’s lost their partners like Taichi, Yamato, and Sora have is that the opening does the same thing -- none of the Adventure group’s partners are depicted in the respective characters’ vicinity, even though we know at this point that none of them have full-on disappeared yet. Rather, when you think about it, it’s more that the point being made is that their partners aren’t with them all of the time -- just because the gates are easily opened by anyone in this cast now doesn’t mean that the Adventure characters decided to bring them home to live with them the way the 02 group did. Tentomon is not shown to be in the proximity of Koushirou in the movie’s initial scenes, nor in the opening, nor during his company negotiations, and it’s only during later events when he’s seen in the office. Palmon not being on the plane with Mimi may well mean that she’s not actually with her all of the time, mainly just working alongside her every so often, and Jou’s memorial short indicates that there’s a certain degree of partners acting independently now (especially now that they can operate in the real world without too much issue). Obviously, said Digimon partners are still hanging around and reasonably well-involved in their lives, but they’re not always next to them, and may be hanging around elsewhere in the real world or killing time in the Digital World -- but meanwhile, the number of times any of the 02 group is physically seen in the movie or To Sora without their partner totals at zero.

In the end, the distinction between the older Adventure group’s and the 02 group’s respective behavior may have been somewhat exacerbated by the gate-opening issue at first, but even when that was taken away, the 02 group’s tendency to cling to their partners and vice versa was just something endemic to themselves.

Again, since Kizuna gives us a very limited frame of reference, it’s not to say that the 02 group is always stuck to their partners for every breathing moment of their lives; remember, even all the way back in 02 episode 33, Miyako was willing to leave Poromon with Koushirou for the duration of her Kyoto trip, and the memorial shorts also depict V-mon hanging out with Gabumon in a setting that we assume doesn’t involve Daisuke in the vicinity, and photos of Takeru and Hikari without their partners are seen on Imura’s board, and there certainly must be instances of need for privacy or busy moments of adulthood that couldn’t be depicted in the limited range of the movie -- but the point is made, and there is a massive contrast between the Adventure group living independent lives, and the 02 group playing around and doing mundane things and actively involving their partners in their conversations and interactions in ways far beyond that of their seniors. And, by extension, the fact that the drama CD depicts them going out of their way to meet up with each other in a setting where their seniors aren’t doing anything of the sort; the 02 group’s mentality, shaped by the events of their series, involves treasuring their personal relationships and gaining emotional support from each other as a bigger priority over individual ambition, and it’s applying even to eight years later in Kizuna to the point where it takes very little to recreate the aura of yet another average 02 episode.

Fundamentally speaking, neither group is in the wrong, and the “difference in mentality” between the two groups is reflected all the way into the 02 epilogue, so this is not a narrative that praises or condemns people for aligning more with being independent-minded and ambitious and not necessarily needing company most of the time, versus being the kind who needs company and emotional support from others and excelling better at giving that kind of support in return. Kizuna’s narrative doesn’t cast the more ostensibly distant (less so “distant” and more “more capable of independent action”) relationship the Adventure group has with their partners in a particularly negative light. I’m sure many reading this post will probably identify more with one group or the other here in terms of their way of living life and maintaining relationships. However, it does cast the concept of “abandoning one’s partner” as the reason for partnership dissolution -- not physical abandonment, but rather, emotional abandonment.

The timing of the partnership dissolution is the key, because the movie puts a huge spotlight on it not happening to Koushirou and Takeru for the time being, which means we’re obligated to look at Taichi and Yamato to see why it’s happening to them and them specifically, and what they have in common. Well, one day prior, they’d dumped their partners on their siblings with very few words, and then, over dinner, had outright scoffed at the idea of bringing their partners to school with them. Again, it’s not the issue of bringing them or not when even Koushirou doesn’t seem to be hanging out with Tentomon all of the time, but rather that they have such a condescending and cold attitude about it, as if their partners are “in the way” of their adult lives. Taichi doesn’t necessarily have to have Agumon live with him as a roommate, but he’s portrayed as horribly lonely and yet hadn’t even let Agumon visit once because he was so willing to shut him out. In other words, Taichi and Yamato had taken their partners so much for granted that they were basically yanking them out once in a while whenever they needed them for Digimon battles, and then tossing them aside flippantly to get back to whatever their lives were, rather than working on maintaining their relationships or allowing for emotional support. For the early duration of the movie, their conversations are not quite there, and are a bit stilted. Partner or not, it’s a cold way to treat a friend who just really wants to be there to support you.

And when you look at Sora, or Menoa (who’s revealed in the novel to have also been emotionally drifting from Morphomon for the sake of her studies), their abandonment of their partners was hardly physical -- Piyomon was there to watch Sora’s flower arrangement work, it’s just that Sora was coldly turning her away and snapping at her for the sake of her work, and Menoa was most likely still living in the same house as Morphomon back when she was studying in Colorado, but nevertheless, she hadn’t been talking to her anymore. Meanwhile, on the other hand, while Koushirou doesn’t seem to be with Tentomon all of the time, he still has a proper heart-to-heart with him in a way that wouldn’t be completely out of place in Adventure, so you can see why he’s not nearly in trouble as Taichi, Yamato, and Sora are at the time of the movie.

So, the take-home is that it’s not necessarily a requirement to be with your partner every single breathing moment of the day like the 02 group is; of course, them being more on the clingy (for lack of a better way to put it) side means that being emotionally in-tune with them is just a fact of life, but Koushirou, Mimi, and Jou all seem to have figured out comfortable ways of interaction and boundaries with their own partners even despite occasional distance, and that’s why they’re not in danger of losing their partners at the time of the movie, despite all of them technically being adults and Jou being a year older. (Well, there’s also the secondary metaphorical meaning of a partner meaning one’s own personal dreams and aspirations and how that factors into Taichi, Yamato, Sora, and Menoa’s actions, but we’ll leave that as a separate topic for the time being.)

One interesting thing about the epilogue is that, because the meeting depicted takes place in the Digital World and we have a very limited amount of information, we don’t really have evidence that most of the adult Chosen actually live with their Digimon partners on a day-to-day basis -- the only thing concrete we have is a strong implication that Hawkmon lives at home with Miyako’s family, which is reasonably par for the course with Miyako and Hawkmon’s respective characterizations (and although it’s not shown, you can also imagine that the very clingy Wormmon would likely prefer living with “Ken-chan” and his family). Otherwise, the only other “home” scene we get to see is that of Takeru and his son, but their partners aren’t shown in the real world.

The Character Complete File does add some implications depending on how you want to read certain ones, and Armadimon’s lack of presence in Iori’s attorney scene could conversely mean that he’s more likely to be a presence in Iori’s home life than he is in his work (which is also reasonably consistent with their characters), but either way, the take-home is that the nature of each Digimon partner’s involvement in each adult’s day-to-day life is ambiguous. So you can really make any kind of extrapolation about whose partners are involved in their lives to what degree; it’s been 17 years since Kizuna, relationships and day-to-day life needs have changed, and things like “career partner” and “family member” (or both) don’t necessarily have to entail a Digimon partner constantly clinging to their head and witnessing every moment of their life, as long as the understanding is still there that everyone still has a clear amount of emotional involvement and connection in each other’s lives to some degree.

It’s also interesting to note that the epilogue actually picks a slightly unusual way of phrasing the Digimon partnership phenomenon spreading globally: “a Digimon partner exists for everyone in the world.” In terms of sheer technical meaning, it’s not altogether that different from “everyone has a Digimon partner,” but such oblique wording brings more to mind the idea that, even now, not everyone may have met their Digimon partner yet, or may be living separately from them between worlds, or, with retroactive Kizuna context, being in a bit of an existential crisis or loss of self and having your partner not currently manifested for the time being -- but that doesn’t preclude you from having a partner, as long as you’re capable of maintaining some kind of relationship with them.

[otakween]

Digimon Adventure (Blind Watch) - Episode 18

Holy limited animation, Batman! This was a rough watch. They used every trick in the book to squeeze out this episode. Extreme close ups with hidden mouths, tons of panning of still frames, and action obscured in the distance or entirely off screen. Unfortunately, that's just what you sign up for with these old shows with tons of episodes. The writing was pretty rushed too. It's like suddenly they're desperate to end this arc as soon as possible. The nicest thing I can say, is that there was some cool imagery here and there.

Digimon introduced: Tyrannomon, Piccolomon

Notes:

-This episode reminded me of the Teen Titans episode where Robin goes off to be trained by a martial arts master. Piccolomon's training grounds had that dojo vibe to it.

-Hard for me to hear "Piccolo" without thinking of DBZ. Apparently it's referencing the Italian word for "small," not the instrument (although I guess piccolos are called that because they're small lol). They changed his name to Piximon in the dub, because American kids are too dumb to handle Italian references I guess.

-This episode started off kinda strong with Kuwagamon jump scaring everyone, but then it went downhill from there. It's been awhile since we got a fight right at the beginning of an episode like that.

-Piccolomon randomly shows up to whip the kids into shape because they're "slacking off." How did he know that? Does he just watch the kids from behind his barrier? Did Gennai tell him?

-I'm not sure what the point of the river Styx imagery was? In fact, that whole scene was kind of weird, why does Piccolomon have the ability to send Taichi visions of his past? ~I guess it's just magic so whatever~

-The riding a bike metaphor was so poorly done lol. Taichi sees a younger version of himself fall off a bike and both him and Agumon instantly go "Ah yes, we can't let mistakes hold us back. I feel better now." Like I knew it was headed that way, but it would have been more effective if they thought about the issue for more than a millisecond. Speed running character development this episode.

-Both surprised and relieved to see Koushiro and Yamato get their crests simultaneously. It did feel kind of cheap and rushed, but I don't think we need to draw out this crest thing any longer. Not sure why Koushiro and Yamato were paired up in this instance. You'd think they would pair up the brothers...

-Tyrannomon is just a lazy reskin of Agumon. Like, they didn't even try. Plus we just saw Greymon fight Greymon a few episodes ago so the dino fighting felt redundant.

-There was some contrived explanation for why the other digimon (aside from Agumon) couldn't evolve this episode, something to do with Etemon's music. I don't remember that being a thing before? It felt very made up on the spot.

-I guess they've completed their training with Piccolomon because Agumon evolved? Doesn't really feel like they did much lol. Oh well.

[jippy-kandi]

Digimon Adventure: 2020 – Episode 64: The Angels’ Determination (Review)

Thoughts on the sixty-fourth episode of the Digimon Adventure reboot series.

I think this was a decent opener to the climax?

The episode opens up with Algomon instead of a recap - this is how you know shit is getting serious! :D

Welcome back, Devimon! Even if only in Takeru’s dream. He had so much potential . . . and I actually kinda still dig him as a villain, lol.

omg seeing Hikari ride some childish tram thing was both adorable and funny, lol . . . because she’s usually so creepy. :P

Tailmon being an info dump again. This series needed someone like Gennai to do this - instead of relying on convenient past lives’ knowledge.

Wisemon: “I see. Its effects on Machine Digimon are strong! This brings joy to my knowledge.” LOL. I wish he was in this series more - he could’ve been Gennai’s replacement!

And, of course, the kids reuniting just . . . happens. Just a convenience. No one acts like they haven’t seen each other in a while, lol. Takaishida bros are just chillin’. But it’s super nice to hear all the kids’ voices again . . . especially Yamato. Get your one line, bae. ;_;

OK . . . Deathmon looks funny, ngl. XD; He is known as the King of Darkness? HE HAS ONE EYE! . . . It’s just funny to see this one eye emote. XD;

It was nice seeing all the Digimon we met along the way in this series. Refreshed my memory a bit too, lol. A few of them had good episodes as well . . . which honestly should’ve been given to the actual cast of kids, lol. Some of these Digimon had more of a personality than them. ;_;

Wisemon: “I see! In this Digital World . . . the children’s reliability and sincerity have allowed them to form a friendship with the Digimon. The Chosen Children saved us with knowledge and nurtured us with courage and love. And they have kindled hope. The answer to the crests’ mystery is . . . in other words, their entire adventure.” . . . Meh. It was nice of Toei to try and use all the names of the Crests in that explanation (although Angewomon had to come in with “light”, lmao) - and it would’ve been pretty neat . . . if their entire adventure was in fact actually good and worthwhile. But alas. His words feel empty. :P

Seraphimon and Ophanimon’s Mega evolutions were pretty damn cool. They had almost no build up though . . . lol. Just threat appears, so let’s go!!! But whatever. I really dig their designs. They look great!

But . . . uh, just like Angemon’s voice, Seraphimon’s voice is so bad, lmao. :c

The battle against Deathmon was super quick as well, but it looked cool, so eh. Whatever. Good enough, I guess. It felt epic for those few seconds there. :P

I get that this episode was about Takeru and Hikari (the angels), but why did Taichi seem to have a starring role when he was just . . . there . . . but did absolutely nothing? XD; Like, Yamato can do that too! Just be there, doing nothing, but seeming “important”. But . . .

Does Yamato not exist to Toei anymore? Is he just Taichi’s sperm donor for Omegamon? lmao. I swear, if Omegamon happens next episode, Yamato better feel like a feature role and not a cameo like he did here. :P

And the Great Catastrophe is Negamon! Whoever that is. He looks like a cross between a jellyfish and sperm. :D

Overall, I guess this was a pretty good start to the climax . . .? I guess. :P

And it’s official! This series will have a total of 67 episodes (just one more than the forever rumoured 66). That means only three episodes to go! YAY!!! \o/

I really hope all the kids are involved in these last three episodes - and it’s not just Taichi feat. Takari. :c

[scrubf1re]

Digimon Rant:

Digimon fans: God! Why were the chosen children/digidestined so friendly towards Meiko and willing to help her out when they first met her in tri? They didn’t even know she had a partner digimon at the time. This is totally out of character for them.

Me: D...did you even watch adventure and 02? Especially the scenes where they were friendly towards the international chosen children/digidestined in 02 and willing to help them out when they first met them? And the scene that basically confirms that Mimi was friends with people who don’t have partner digimon before they even went to the digital world which would also confirm she (and by extension the others) is willing to make friends with people regardless of whether or not they have digimon. Why would they not act the same way towards Meiko? It’s completely in character for them.

Seriously this complaint was always incredibly stupid, hypocritical and poorly thought out and always will be and it also reminds me of that stupid megazord/giant robot complaint people throw towards xros wars/fusion (another incredibly stupid, hypocritical and poorly thought out complaint considering Omegamon/Omnimon is one of the most popular and recognisable digimon of all time). And no bringing up Wallace/Willis is not the well thought out rebuttal to this post that you might think it is since they met him before they met the international kids especially since tri takes place years after 02. And neither is bringing up the fact they were hesitant to let Ken join after he stopped being the digimon kaiser/emperor since Meiko doesn’t have a history of being a power hungry sociopath that abuses digimon like Ken. And speaking of the 02 kids that leads to another dumb reason to complain about Meiko.

And don’t even bother bringing up the 02 kids disappearance in tri as a gotcha card since it’s technically established that the reason they weren’t worried about them in tri was because they didn’t even know they were missing due to Maki lying to them and withholding information regarding their wellbeing as another stupid reason to bash Meiko and say it’s out of character for them to help her out. It should also be noted that they were suspicious of the Mysterious Man/Dark Gennai was actually Ken to begin with, as shown by Yamato/Matt asking about Ken’s whereabouts (which makes sense considering the fact that it’s been years since Ken was the digimon kaiser/emperor and that they know Ken can’t form Imperialdramon all by himself and how it wouldn’t make sense for them to not be able to differentiate said Imperialdramon in tri from the one in 02 since Mimi recognised Orgemon/Ogremon earlier in tri and Hikari/Kari recognised Andromon in 02 when he was controlled by a dark spiral alongside the fact that said Imperialdramon is never confirmed to be the same as the one in 02, why else would they not hesitate to kick it’s ass given all the facts I brought up?). As well as the fact that it’s established early on in tri that the main characters have mostly part drifted apart from each other which would include the 02 kids who aren’t even confirmed to still go to the same school as Takeru/Tk and Hikari/Kari (why else would part 1 of tri be called reunion).

And if your response to this post is to go on a rant about how I’m stupid for defending tri and/or Meiko or how I’m not being “objective” because my opinion doesn’t align with some random stupid youtuber/content creator in the digimon fandom despite how I brought up multiple facts to support my claims and explain why I think the way I do then I think that says a lot more about you as a person than it does the tri and Meiko as a character. Do I sound like I’m making this post because I unironically like tri and by extension Meiko? Well... yes and I’ll even admit I might even come across as over defensive in this situation but that shouldn’t mean I’m not allowed to explain why I disagree with certain criticisms, especially when the people who make those criticisms always act like they’re the “objective” ones. Anyways I apologise for getting off topic with this rant and if this post seems out of character for someone like me considering the dumb stuff I’ve made in the past I just needed to get this off my chest.

[iwatoobies]

pspsps any spare digimon au headcanons pspsps 🤌

i might have a lot of thoughts but let's start with the most important part! partner digimon! some of these evolution lines aren't actually possible but who cares about game mechanics i want them to be thematically impactful

now i could talk about the crests and the reasons behind them all day, but basically, their greatest weakness can become their greatest strength once they overcome it and vice versa. for some of them that might come more heavily into play a bit later in life, but also the lessons you learn about emotional maturity as a kid might not always stick with you. miracles and destiny are now promoted to full-time crests because inherited crests don't work with the timeline, and because i like them a lot! also i really really love the partners i gave them aaah

the au practically writes itself because the character conflicts and story beats go together really well. also the characters are almost the same age throughout all the different points in canon, there's a relatively large ensemble cast, both stories are about connecting with others and finding value in yourself, dealing with frustrations and growing pains, chronicling a group of friends growing up... obviously, it’s not just copy-paste but i think it’s fun to loosely follow the timeline of both canons, idk at least i love au’s that can do that!

high speed! as adventure 01, so they’re about 12 and younger

i wanted to be more original but going to summer camp is the easiest way to get them all together, especially since there’s going to be more of them than just the ISC team

it's a swim camp! though kou doesn't end up learning how to swim that summer

we’re starting with haru, makoto, rin, kou, ssk, nagisa, momo and ai

rei joins them later in hikari-esque style

goro HAS TO BE the gennai here

the premise can easily be very similar to free! canon i.e rin following in his in fathers footsteps, makoto and haru already knowing nagisa from the ISC and all that, but the story is decisively not about bonding through swimming. they do become a team tho, just a bigger one!

rin's the goggle head ok i'm giving haru a reprieve from the agony of being the main character for a little bit

i love the idea that nagisa gets to be the one to go home and realize it’s still the same day in the real world, or his birthday, that they left for camp. idk that’s such a powerful image to me, like he didn’t even tell any of the others it was his birthday because they were dealing with bigger things…

he ends up meeting rei somehow but they don't find out he’s a chosen child just yet

once he’s back in the digital world and everyone is mad at each other and on their own doing their soul-searching, he has to be the one to bring everyone together! you’re doing amazing sweetie!!

some of the best parts about digimon is how supportive the kid’s families are once they find out about everything, so queue getting to know more about rin and kou’s grandma and rei’s brother and nagisa’s sisters and haru’s parents etc etc

tachibana family is the MVP though

so technically you only need 8 chosen children to seal apocalymon in the naughty box but having an extra one can’t hurt and rei does have the crest of destiny here… sounds like pretty important main character behavior

it’s also just very funny to me that these world-altering events happen in a small town like yes the veil between the real world and the digital world is the thinnest right here in iwatobi. but anyway!

——

starting days as a first half of adventure 02 and hurricane touchdown mashup

saving the world together and making friends with everyone was really meaningful to haru. but now rin’s in australia and everybody else goes to different schools, even makoto’s in a different class… when this new guy asahi gets a digivice in the computer lab and whisks them back in to the digital world it’s a bit too much for haru to handle. they already saved the world last summer!!!

kids here will be haru, makoto, asahi, ikuya, nagisa and rei

so the basic setup is: they go to school and to swim practice like normal and fight the shitty little human kid that tries to take over the digital world in the afternoons, which is awkward because he turns out to be ikuya, their new closed off classmate

yeah ikuya’s a full-on villain with the dark seed and everything ok it’s just more fun that way

natsuya isn’t dead but him being a bad brother will be ikuya’s villain origin story for real this time

ikuya if you hurt lopmon’s feelings i swear– (he will)

now, i have a lot of thoughts about the actual plot for this one, so that might need its own post. but basically, ikuya pushes lopmon so far away he ends up getting infected with a mysterious virus, goes berserk and starts some world-ending calamities

everybody treating ikuya with empathy and kindness despite his mistakes and that making him reject the dark seed has me feeling things-

also the fact it's still not enough to completely save lopmon from the corruption i-

making ikuya wait till the s3 timeline for conomon’s egg to hatch is SO sad, yes, but also fits really well with his character arc (spoilers for digimon i guess but both in main 02 and hurricane touchdown a digimon dies and their partner has to find them again T-T)

oh natsuya, nao, akane and kisumi are very important, like i said previously the chosen children need support characters outside of the fold!!! it's especially important here, because they spend most of their time outside the digital world

so don't worry nao can still be giving existential crises’ to people just fine here

——

tri but only the parts i like as s1 and 2 at the same time, so skipping straight into 3rd year of high school

asahi and ikuya moved away and everyone is as bad at keeping in touch as in free! canon

transferring ryuji and mikhail here from s3. they’re part of the original chosen children because that’s such a cool parallel!

dark free! show me the corrupted goro!gennai

so things i really like in tri: the original chosen children working with a shady organization to study digimon, one of them secretly wanting to find their lost partner at all cost (ryuji), the other one being a teacher at samezuka (mikhail), the digimon getting infected, the REBOOT

ryuji coming in strong pushing his past trauma and problems onto even younger teenagers this time :)

momo is the resident digimon expert!! (also can i gush about how cute is it that crest of knowledge fits him so well AND that he likes beetles ah my heart) they need someone to understand what's going on with the infections

also, the thing that infected lopmon a few years back might have come from coronamon and is happening again now just on a larger scale and well that is really unfortunate naming right there i swear i didn't pick him for rin because of this-

so some of them are still swimmers (mainly rin and ssk) and can have all the interpersonal drama they want around that. now there’s just this added pressure of having to work as a bigger team while working through their issues. so instead of swimming therapy, it’s the physical manifestations of their souls helping them realize things

imagine s1 rin s2 ssk and s2 haru in a sort of three-way drama while also trying to solve a world-ending mystery and figuring out their lives

haru just emotionally noping out of these chosen children responsibilities is pretty funny ok

also haru already being a mess and aloof because of all the pressure he's under and then the digimon reboot and forget them... feels like some highly charged emotional confrontation with his best friend is about to happen

rin's despair together with whatever the fuck is going on with coronamon accumulating to be the end of the world kind

coronamon will not die! no! they'll find a way to save him and rin ok i promise

remember how ssk couldn’t bear to see rin so broken in s1? what if he has to now? both of them are broken because of their dreams, finding their light and hope again in each other and in their friends

——

s3 as kizuna so they’re about 19 and younger

this is harder to plot out because kizuna and tri are a bit similar and i don't want to repeat the same plot twice- oh. free! did that too huh nvm

ikuya is just a normal teenager now but the guilt and loss of lopmon has been really weighing him down these past 6 years :(

now i love hiyori i really do but i might have to evaporate his digimon partner and make him the villain for this one besties

sad about your partner disappearing due to you growing up? just hatch a plan to literally make every chosen child comatose and emotionally growing up is not a problem anymore (literally the plot to kizuna)

half of them being in iwatobi is such a good parallel too, they can get up to some detective work about hiyori's past

hiyori fully knowing that ikuya is a chosen child and having been one himself, but never disclosing any of this information to him aaah!!

really go ham here on the hiyori-ikuya-haru dynamic. just really marinate in that drama

the juxtaposition of haru having been someone who doesn't like change to the point of literally running away from it, but having learned to embrace it vs. hiyori who is stuck in the past and can't let go of it or come clean about it... is just s3 BUT it works really well here too with the grander scale and actual final confrontation between them

ikuya reconnecting with the others and conomon's egg finally hatching i’m in TEARS

anyway POINT is they're the same show thank you for coming to my ted talk

[canisblack]

Fanfic Idea: Crest Swap

Crest Swap

Following the defeat of BelialVamdemon, Gennai contacts the original eight Chosen Children from Odaiba and arranges a meeting. At this meeting he speaks to them about their crests and their true meanings explaining that each crest encompasses far more than a single word, but that they were given names indicating a simplified concept that was core to the true meaning of each crest.

He further explains how each crest is associated with a particular type of energy born from the human spirit and that each of them were chosen for how strongly they resonated with each crest. That they each, naturally resonated with all of the crests, but that for each of them there was one crest with which their spirits resonated most strongly and that that crest was the one they were chosen to wield. He also reveals that there were dozens of candidates discovered the night they witnessed the battle between Greymon and Parrotmon but that out of all those candidates the eight of them possessed the strongest resonances.

He then amends his statement to say that six of the eight were chosen to wield the crest they most strongly resonated with. But two of them were discovered to have much stronger resonances than the others by an order of magnitude. Strong enough that the leadership of The Order he had once belonged to were worried was too strong. That allowing them to wield the crests they most strongly resonated with would make them too strong, too fast.

That they would become a threat to The Order and its vision for the future of the Digital World.

Though, Gennai admits, that last bit was never stated. Only something he would later infer from their actions years after The Order had fallen to Piemon.

Koushiro: Gennai in what way would they be too powerful?

Gennai: Well Koushiro, depending on who was running the simulations and what variables were being tested? There was an estimated 60 to 80 percent chance that the first time either of those two activated their Crests their partner would skip Ultimate and evolve straight to Mega.

Gennai: All the tests and simulations also agreed that they would activate their crests immediately after receiving them.

In order to try and curb this potential disaster The Order looked at several options, including replacing the two outright. However, outright replacement was deemed to be too resource intensive to be a first resort and was shelved until other options had been examined. Several methods of artificially restraining the power of the Crests were proposed and examined, but none of them were deemed likely to work as anything but a stop-gap. Then one of the members of The Order working on the project noticed that the two’s resonance with each other’s crests were roughly on par with the resonances the other six had with their crests and the decision was made to swap the crests the two would wield.

Gennai was against this idea as he felt that the nature of the artifacts they were using could cause undue harm to the children over and above what making them Chosen was already guaranteed to do and The Order’s duty to the Digital World would not be well served by acting so recklessly with the lives of those it was conscripting to do its work. He was overruled.

Gennai: I was also right. Much to my own sadness and dismay I watched as those two were slowly warped by the crests they were made to carry and wield. A warping that continued even after they were sent home and accelerated after the eight of you poured your energies into creating the Crest Barrier. And thanks to the oaths I had sworn long before you were chosen I have not been able to act to correct this grave wrong. Until now.

Gennai: With the awakening of Qinglongmon, the imminent unsealing of the other three Harmonious ones and Oikawa and Black War Greymon’s sacrifices, the Crest Barrier is no longer needed. After today you will gradually recover your energies and regain your ability to evolve your partners to their Ultimate forms. And eventually, should the need arise, you may even gain – or regain as the case may be – the ability to evolve them to Mega.

Taichi: And what about the two of us that have been…warped.

Gennai: Sadly there is little I can do. Though I do intend to do that. I have recreated the physical crests and tags for all eight of you though for most of you they will be little more than keepsakes. For the two who have been harmed though…I will use them to link you to the crest you should have carried. From there…I do not know. The only thing I can think of is to advise you to try and activate your crests once again. To make them glow.

Gennai then dops the bombshell that the two he has been talking about are Taichi and Sora. That Taichi should have had the Crest of Love and Sora the Crest of Courage. It shocks everyone, but then Hikari speaks up and says that for the two people who left for summer camp that day so long ago the crests fit. Koushiro, after reflecting a bit agrees. The others are not so sure, but Sora and Taichi had known Hikari and Koushiro for much longer than the others. Their insights are sharper, their knowledge greater.

So the two agree to allow Gennai to make this switch, and then they go on their way.

The changes that come as a result of this are not instantaneous. It takes weeks for them to begin to truly manifest. Yet they also show signs as soon as the next day. The two become somewhat more thoughtful. A bit more introspective, as their crests begin to draw their energies back into their natural balance. It’s not a pleasant experience for either one.

Sora begins to see where she’s allowed herself to go astray as she blindly pursued an ideal of “love” that ignored the self and its needs and desires. A self-destructive, warped vision of what it meant to love others, constantly changing oneself to fit an ideal of what one should be to obtain love. To be deserving of love. Instead of having the courage to be oneself and reach accommodation born of respect and mutual understanding. To be loved for oneself instead of what one appears to be.

Taichi likewise begins to see where he’s learned to wrong lessons about courage. That he has, all too often, pushed aside his own feelings to do what he believed was correct. To make the choices that he believed he should without regard to his own feelings. Sometimes, perhaps, he was correct. But others, he was clearly not, and has damaged or strained a number of relationships with those around him by his actions. Most notably his friendship with Sora. He’s seen the way she was changing herself, but rather than reach out to her to find out why. Rather than express his concerns, he’d held his tongue and waited believing that she would reach out to him if anything was wrong and that it wasn’t his place to intrude. Even though his own feelings said otherwise.

…and this is about where I run out of steam on this idea for now. Not sure how to move it forward from this though I do intend for it to become a Taiora story. If anyone wants to pick up the idea and run with it, or even just use the base idea of a crest swap feel free. Just let me know so I can watch the fireworks.

[imaginedigimon]

this makes no sense but sounds cool none the less miraculous cat noir!sora and shes a like might as well help our digimon fight

Okay, but can we all just take a moment to consider and appreciate Sora as Cat Noir.

[One moment later]

Thank you.

Do you mean she's got a bit of All Might from My Hero in there as well? (If not, I apologize, that's what that sounded like.)

Cat Noir!Sora

(with some All Might thrown in)

I'm pretty sure it all started because Gennai saw that in Adventure (2020) Sora had a knife

I'm not sure why that meant he gave her the Miraculous of DESTRUCTION and is ENCOURAGING the knife behavior, but oh well

The others just kind of accepted this because Sora is Mom and you don't mess with Mom

(Kari said something about wanting to be just like her when she grew up)

Let's pretend she can use Cataclysm more than once and it comes in the form of an All Might -smash move (that's the only way I could think to work it in)

Biyomon keeps thinking this is some sort of betrayal that her partner is a cat when she's a bird

"I taught I taw a putty tat"

Part of this new role also entails that she sweeps in and carries everyone to safety so that the children don't get injured in the firefight

I think I almost don't want to know who Gennai gave the Ladybug one to a;sldkjf;asldja

----

I think we've created a whole new brand of chaos, Anon.

[ae0nx]

SUPERPOST: DIGIMON ADVENTURE: LAST EVOLUTION (KIZUNA) RECAP/REVIEW SPOILERSSSSSS

SPOILER ALERT I WILL BE GOING INTO DETAIL. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER.

I’m not gonna do a blacktober/drawtober today, but I willlll rant about Digimon, because nothing ever really changes. Ok, I’m tipsy and I feel like everyone and their mum has watched Kizuna now so I wanna finally express my feelfeels on it. Let’s goooo

-------------------------------------------------------

Ok, so I love how this movie opens especially as an old school fan.

It’s perfect. I love the solid feeling of ‘finality’ to the series that we never got to see in Tri... (I’ll try not talk shit about Tri in this recap but it’s gonna be difficult, I’m sorry)

- We got that call back to the original soundtrack! The only time in life I will tear up at hearing Bolero.

- I adoreee the animation and designs in this movie. It feels so much more diverse (in terms of facial features) than Tri did without even trying really. The facial expressions are so much characteristic and there’s less awkward spacey moments. It’s nice! (Ooops, mentioned Tri: Count 2 haha)

- While I was a bit disappointed with the digidestined outfits when they were first released as still images, they do look a lot better in action and they fit in well with the world that is built. But Taichi swapping sneakers for sandals? Seems false lol

Taichi’s anxiety about the destruction. Nice to see continuation and character development. We love him~~~

- The Parrotmon vs Greymon + Angemon + Angewomon fight looked dope and was a nice call back/development. The electricity and fire looked amazing and honestly had me hyped. A lot of fight scenes in this movie did.

Haha, of course Yamato had to come in looking unnecessarily cool on his fancy new bike only to talk shit about Taichi. We love him too, goddammit lol

- It totally makes sense that the two pairs of siblings and Koushirou would be the most actively involved out of all of the digidestined tbh

The movie opening theme being set to the original ‘Butterfly’ was great, and in a weird way reminded me a little of the Cowboy Bebop Movie opening theme - except very much in the style and world of Digimon Adventure

- The digidestined are public superheroes now? Makes sense, I don’t hate it~~~

- I love the montage of Taichi and Yamato going about their lives as people in their early 20s. Taichi mostly dealing with the pressures of adulthood. Yamato feeling nostalgic about the things he left behind in childhood (playing harmonica, being in a band)

Ahhh, they can drink now! So weird, yet so fun haha

- It’s also really nice for my shipper heart to see Taichi and Yamato sit down and have a meal together without totally biting each other’s heads off. Shows how much they’ve matured!

- Yolei straight up was like ‘I don’t have time for this shit, Koushirou you deal with it’ 😂Mimi has taught you well, young padawan

I was really hoping these two would be a better addition than Maki and Daigo (RIP) and they were! It’s almost like the writers saw Tri and was like... let’s do better. (Ooops mentioned Tri: Count 3)

- I reallyyyyy really sadistically like the concept of the Digimon and Digidestined’s connection to each other dying slowly the older they get and with the less necessary the Digimon become in the human partner’s life. Yeahhhhh, it doesn’t match up with the 02 ending but I’m personally not too attached to that ending so I don’t mind. A) it’s actually a plot point that makes me give a shit and B) it’s very much a reflection of life which Digimon Adventure has always been and C) it makes sense of the reason as to why Digimon gravitate to children

DAISUKE! We stan a kinggg, with his dope sunglasses. I’m so happy the 02 kids are involved in this, even if it is kinda minimal.

- I love that they included the fact that the digital gates are basically like a free airplane ticket to anywhere in the world with a computer. It’s such a useful and cool concept

- ‘Burger Queen’ ahaha

AHHHHHHHHH HAHAAHHAHA I can’t. It feel so wrong yet so... correct? Hahaha

I’m sorry, my love for Gennai died with Tri. If it was old Gennai from Adventure maybe I would’ve felt a bit more nostalgic and loving. (Oops mentioned Tri: Count 4)

- I love the 02 kids basically being a smaller detective team that Chief Detective Yamato sent forth to do some investigating. It makes so much sense and we shoulda got this in triiiiii (I just wish we got this movie instead of Tri, I’m sorry Oops mentioned Tri: Count 5)

Spy movie? I don’t hate it~~~~

OK, DETECTIVE ISHIDA! (enter theme music which is most likely very dark and edgy and gothic with a hint of pop punk)

- Sora staying at home when Mimi is in the hospital seems... off... very off... but ok... ... ... I hate how they sidelined Sora in this movie. Why does every Digimon writer since Adventure hate Sora?!?!

- The act of Taichi literally shunning his future by switching off his phone to once again reach for his old goggles and old digivice is... poetic cinema

Saw the switch coming but whoa 😳

- You know the whole concept of her creating an eternal Digital world was a cool concept until she called it Neverland

- While I really like Menoa and her being the villain, this isn’t exactly a new motivation. How many times have we seen human partners turn into villains after losing their Digimon, man?!?! Just more motivation into making me think this film is just fixing the mistakes of Tri (Oops mentioned Tri: Count 6)

I really like this design! It might make my top 3 Digimon designs.

- You know... only in the Digimon fandom would a goddamn whistle make us all emotional 😭😂

This movie is so pretty!!!!

- Wait... did Biyomon vanish and that’s why Sora wasn’t involved? 😢

Wow. WOW. That goodbye... between Taichi and Agumon... and Yamato and Gabumon... was... ALL I WANTED/DIDN’T WANT. Seriously. As I said before, I really like the fact that this movie feels... final. Honestly, I don’t want grown up adventures with the Digimon - regardless of how mean that sounds. What’s unique about Digimon is how childlike it is and the separation between the Digimon’s childlike nature and the Digidestined was growing the older the humans got and it wouldn’t make full sense for the relationship between the two to go from friends and almost equals to parent and child. 

I guess I would’ve been more accepting of the Digimon staying a constant in the Digidestined lives if the writers touched on the theme of the Digimon being adult or baby whenever they like (or whenever they eat) and relating it to humans still looking after their inner child of curiosity and creativity as they get older. But that’s a pretty difficult concept, I’m still working my head around that haha

Also, Digimon has always specifically been a metaphor/real example for the joys and hardships of childhood. While it’s super sad, I’m glad we got such a nice send off!

[joekabox]

I just watched Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna

I’m writing this while my thoughts are fresh, so I just want to say these may not be my final thoughts on the film. Sometimes a film takes a little while to fully hit me, and this is just my thoughts immediately after watching said film.

Spoilers below, and a lot of text. I had a lot to say, sorry. I also apologize if its a little rambley, that’s kind of just how my brain works. Anyway...

Going into the film, I heard mixed reviews from various sources. From some, I heard the film was bad, from others, that it was good, but from most, that it was just okay. Nothing horrible, nothing great, but an okay film. 

I’m not sure where I sit, presently, but perhaps I’ll come to an idea by the end of this review.

The film is very well put together. Unlike Tri, and arguably the last bit of Adventure and a good portion of Adventure 02, Last Evolution felt like a cohesive plot, beginning to end. It knew what it wanted to be, and it did it. There wasn’t a point where I felt confused about what was happening, and unlike Tri, it didn’t throw in random elements that went unexplained from 02 and proceed to leave them unexplained. I think the closest we get is a shot of Sora, alone, with her Digivice turned to stone with little explanation as to what happened, but honestly, I think we can all agree we know what was happening, just putting together the scenes the film showed us earlier of her and Piyomon together. She was hit first, and while the film didn’t hold our hand on her journey, her journey acted as a vehicle to drive us towards the ending of this film, and I appreciate it.

Every emotional scene hits, every action scene is well executed. The animation is fresh and new, but evokes the original style in a way that isn’t exact but certainly close enough. I think that was maybe a good choice, given the theme of the film itself. 

In tone, it isn’t just a sad waterworks of a story the entire way through like Tri tried to be, but instead one loaded with emotional weight but enough pep and action to keep it feeling upbeat most of the time.

Overall, I liked watching this movie. I felt compelled to keep watching, and the opening scene of the film is just a love letter to Adventure as a whole. I honestly forgot it was only an hour and a half long as I got engaged with the story, as it never feels slow but every scene has weight and depth to it.

This film seems to care far more about the characters and drive of the story than Tri did, and by that I mean it didn’t try fixing all the flaws of the original, but simply let them rest. I think that might have been intentional, as this movie really felt like a ‘good bye’ to the series. The entire plot was about putting Adventure to rest, after all.

Now for the bad stuff.

This film really missed the chance to introduce Biomerging to the Adventure mythos via Taichi and Yamato, and while it gave that honor to the antagonist of the film, it didn’t seem to bother with the protagonists, probably because people seem to cringe when some fans even mention the concept of humans turning into Digimon.

Tamers gave us the concept of Biomerging to drive home the idea that a tamer and their Digimon partner had a bond beyond just friendship, and while perhaps ham-fisted, was a great visual metaphor. Last Evolution seemed to have a subtle buildup to this same core idea, but when push came to shove, we have Agumon and Gabumon becoming very humanoid versions of their Greymon and Garurumon forms respectively, meanwhile Taichi and Yamato just sit on their shoulders and pantomime their actions. I’m deeply curious if the initial idea was to biomerge them, but they bailed last second, but I digress.

This film also seems to continue the trend of just not caring about 02, but less so. While I will 100% give this film credit for not only including the 02 cast but also giving them a plot within the film, they didn’t really feel connected to the rest of the characters, not even towards Hikari or Takeru, who they spent the entire length of a show with. They just sort of feel like sidekicks to the Adventure cast, and not their own characters. We never even get Imperialdramon, despite Imperialdramon being shown to be at least on par with Omegamon in abilities, if not slightly surpassing them.

And, my biggest complaint, and one that probably isn’t a surprise: the time limit on having a Digimon partner makes little sense when looking at the rest of the mythos. In 02, we are shown the character of Oikawa, who’s entire narrative is a lifelong goal to go to the Digital World like him and his late best friend always dreamed of, and relies on children to aide him because he’s a grown man (if I recall correctly). From that alone, it seems like the ‘adults can’t have Digimon partners’ angle makes sense...except it doesn’t, because in the last bit of the show, Oikawa finally does make it to the Digital World, and what awaits him on the other side? His chosen Digimon partner, who waited this entire time to meet them, having dreamed of the day Oikawa would one day visit the Digital World.

While I suppose the ‘grown ups don’t have Digimon’ bit isn’t necessarily unsupported, it feels like an unnecessary plot device. The only saving grace I think it has, beyond making for an engaging and emotionally impactful film, is that several points of the film suggest this may not be the final say. Gennai makes an off handed comment about the possibility of delaying it, and there’s a constant message of “well see each other again.” While that may be just a hopeful thing to say in the face of sadness, much as one often says such things to a dying loved one, a producer of Last Evolution has stated that the film does, in fact, line up with the established Adventure canon, including the ending of 02, which specifically states that not only do Taichi and Yamato have their Digimon partners, but that everyone gets a Digimon partner. 

If this film really is intended to be canon with the finale of 02, and that Agumon and Gabumon will one day return, then I feel this film simply cared more about its narrative of growing up and moving on than anything, and honestly...I don’t think that’s horrible, in retrospect. This film, as mentioned, had a very cohesive plot, and a very strong story it was trying to tell, and it did it well. At no point did I feel anything was done to punish the audience or throw a kink in the hose, if you will.

The worst aspects of Tri (which I keep comparing this film to, sorry), were its insistence to cut away from 02, correct things done wrong in the lore of Adventures past, and tell an ultimately disheartening and sad message of “sometimes bad things happen and it sucks and there’s no good side about it, but we must move on.” Last Evolution has a similar message of “sometimes bad things happen and it sucks,” but it goes on to say “but that doesn’t really matter, given all the good times we had, does it?” It doesn’t make you feel bad for having invested time into people and things you care about.

While Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna was not perfect, and not the sendoff I wanted, it was okay. It was a love letter to the series, and it had a great deal of depth to it I’ve not seen in an Adventure story since my childhood, and at no point did it make me wish it hadn’t happened...and honestly I think that’s exactly perfect. That is exactly the message it was trying to convey.

At the end of the day, perhaps Agumon and Gabumon are gone, for now, but just because they left, it doesn’t mean they took their memory with them.

To quote the translated lyrics of Butterfly, by the late Koji Wada, which began each episode of the original Adventure:

“After an endless dream, in this miserable world That's right, maybe not using common sense isn't so bad after all Even with these awkward wings, dyed with images that seem to stay I'm sure we can fly, on my love”

[o-w-quinlan]

Game Journal: Tag Tamers - Entry #03

Previously: Following Millenniummon dividing the world into two and separating Ryo and Ken, Gennai manages to build a machine to establish communication between the two mirror worlds, starting a plan with both boys to free each area of the digital world on both sides of the divide. A Greymon, agent of Millenniummon, opposes them, having somehow gained the ability to travel between the two worlds, and evolving into MetalGreymon later on.

Now: I learn how many areas I must clear, explore the jogress mechanics of the game and face up against an old favorite of the Adventure 02 fanbase.

Special thanks to NikcDC and Ajora Fravashi from Romhacking net for translating this game!

Last time around, I cleared a Tropical Islands area and half of a Mountain area (on Ryo’s side of the divide). By returning to talk with Gennai before clearing the Mountain area as Ken, I learn how many areas there are in this game. They are as follows: File Island (cleared during Ryo’s part of the prologue), Remote Forest (cleared during Ken’s part of the prologue), Sea Islands (cleared during the previous entry), Mountains (Ryo’s side already cleared), Machine area and Millenniummon’s continent.

Going by the above, I’m two and a half areas away from facing the final boss. Lore-wise, it’s strange for there to not be a desert area, considering how long the Chosen Children spent in such areas during the anime. Perhaps this is Millenniummon’s continent? I’ll see when I get there.

Anyway, before going to face MetalGreymon’s forces, I check if I can pick up new digimon. I have 3 options: Gabumon, Botamon and YukimiBotamon. I initially pick the Child-level, thinking it’ll be more powerful, only to find it has just one attack, which consumes its energy points and would eventually leave him useless in a long-term mission. I decide to instead pick up the YukimiBotamon and train it, hoping to see it evolve into Tailmon. After all, I already have the Digimental of Light, so might as well use it.

The enemies in the mountain area of this world are much the same as in the other: primarily teams of 2 Baby II level digimon with 1 Child level digimon as the main threat. While Wormmon and Patamon can easily handle that, YukimiBotamon is very vulnerable, so I end up having to revive it mid-battle.

It’s worth it, though, because fighting such relatively high-levelled opponents means my Baby level digimon very soon evolves into the Child stage. Plotmon is adorable here, and will be very useful for this area.

Clearing the first dungeon of the mountains opens up the DigiCave, where a sign can be read, bearing the above inscription. This is digimoji, and translating it (with the handy guide provided by NikcDC in the patch), it turns out to be a particular jogress evolution: LadyDevimon + MarineDevimon -> SkullSatamon.

While exploring the final dungeon of the area, the Death Chasm, I come across a piece of the Digimental of Darkness. Given how much focus there is in the Adventure series to darkness as a corrupting force, I was expecting this to be handled differently from the others. It is a bit interesting, though, that it is Ken and not Ryo the one who finds the pieces.

Anyway, the dungeon is pretty long, but manageable for my team, and soon enough I’m face to face with MetalGreymon again. As before, he boast of having stolen my skills, but given I don’t normally use tricky moves against him (I prefer straight-forward offense unless I can’t help it, you see), it doesn’t really mean much. Defeating MetalGreymon for a second time opens up a portal in the village, though, this time leading to the “Machine Continent”. Gennai tells us that this continent has been corrupted by a great evil, and that we must go face the source.

With my Wormmon-Patamon-Plotmon team, I go face the first dungeon. It’s harder, the teams now consisting of either 2 Childs/1 Adult, 1 Child/2 Adults or even 3 Adults. I manage to defeat them, but it’s clear I won’t be progressing much with my current team, which shows no sign of evolving anytime soon. I remember the message regarding jogress, though.

There’s a particular building in the village that is centered around fusion, as well as a “fusion counter” in the digimon information when you look up your team. Assuming that jogress is the way to new evolution, as it often was during this era of the franchise, I decide to use it on my team, namely on Patamon and Plotmon.

I did not expect to receive a Baby I level again, but that just means I can train it. Going back to earlier dungeons, I start to clear them with my inappropiately powerful Wormmon by my side, and these efforts pay off very fast.

Soon enough, I repeat this process with the Gabumon I mentioned at the start and an Elecmon I trained from a Punimon, gaining another Punimon that evolves into Centalmon. With a team of 2 Adults and Wormmon, I go face the dungeons.

While still harder than the previous areas, it’s much more manageable this time around. The Digimental of Light means Tailmon gains access to a Nefertimon move, which heals me much like the Pegasusmon one did. Still, I end up having to restock my healing items in the ocassional mid-battle shop frequently enough. Finally, after what frankly felt like much, much more fights than in any of the previous dungeons, I come accross MetalGreymon.

Can’t see him clearly? Don’t worry, I have a zoomed-in view for you.

Don’t let anyone tell you the Adventure 02 writers didn’t know what they wanted to include in their series.

Still, this BlackWarGreymon is much different from the anime one, being a willful servant of evil rather than a lost soul looking for answers to his existance. He implies Ken is quite scared during this battle, which is a bit of a change from Ryo, for whom this has never been implied.

I manage to defeat him, after which the perspective once again changes to Ryo. Piccolomon confirms that BlackWarGreymon is the powerful digimon controlling the Machine Continent, so he’s not just coasting on his master’s power here, but exerting his own. Coupled with a plan, one to test the power I can get from the jogress facility before facing up against Millenniummon’s agent, I leave Piccolomon’s house.

But that’s a story for next time. See you soon for what I assume is the conclusion of our conflict with BlackWarGreymon, as well as our arrival to Millenniummon’s Continent.

[shihalyfie]

“Digimon partner”

We all know this term. “Digimon partner” or “partner Digimon” (depending on your preferred language), a concept so well-established within franchise meta that any proper categorization system for Digimon human characters needs to involve it. Even in Digimon franchise works where characters work with more than one Digimon, generally fans understand that there’s probably still one that is their "partner”. Recently, Kizuna came around and decided to be a whole movie analyzing what a partner even is in the first place.

But one really interesting thing about this is that this term was never actually used very much within Adventure or 02, despite said series being integral to defining the concept of one as utilized by the rest of the franchise.

Why? Well, let’s talk about it.

Adventure

(All translations are by Ryuu-Rogue unless otherwise stated.)

One really important thing that needs to be put on the table is that, within the Japanese version of the franchise, the term “partner” (usually phrased as “Partner Digimon”) is in English, written in kana as パートナー. It is used as wasei eigo to refer to the general concept of a partner outside Digimon context, but the point is that it’s not really a “native” Japanese word you’d pull out often unless it’s an established position.

When you consider the circumstances of Adventure, it becomes understandable why the term never came up as a result. During the first half of Adventure, nobody was really explaining this whole thing well to them, and then it became increasingly clear that Gennai wasn’t really sure about the whole thing either, culminating in the reveal in episode 45 that even the one who chose them in the first place was still pretty new to it themself! (And if you believe Gennai and Koushirou’s testimony, plus director Kakudou’s notes, there were only 16 Chosen Children at the time of 1999 -- not a lot of precedent to work with.)

In other words...this simply wasn’t A Thing, and the fact that the concept of a “Digimon partner” even existed was one the kids and their Digimon had to come up with independently. So it’s understandable that everyone involved would start using their own words to describe the phenomenon going on. Naturally, everyone starts to intuitively understand that each kid is paired up to a specific partner, but this is not something that’s concretely referred to as A Thing for quite a while. In fact, while I wasn’t taking notes with a notepad or anything during my last rewatch of Adventure, I’m actually tentatively tempted to say that they never even brought up the word “partner” at all.

The concept of Digimon and human partnership is referred to in the following ways in Adventure:

In episode 13, Leomon mentions the legend of Chosen Children arriving to save the Digital World, and provides as proof the fact that they have “the power to enable Digimon to evolve”. The concept of explicit one-to-one human-to-Digimon partnership is not brought up at all.

When Tailmon reaffirms her identity as Hikari’s partner in episode 34, she’s referred to as “Hikari’s Digimon” (and, in fact, the entire eighth child arc is considered as involving “the eighth child’s Digimon” or “the eighth Digimon” and not “the eighth child’s partner”).

When Koushirou explains the difference between enemy and ally Digimon to Hiroaki in episode 37, he also doesn’t use the term “partner” at all -- simply saying that the ones with Yamato are on their side.

Gabumon does not bring up the concept of partnership when declaring his loyalty to Yamato in episode 44, only saying that he’ll be with him even if it makes the others into his enemy, nor in episode 51, when he agonizes that he’d waited for so long for Yamato only for this to happen.

When explaining the origin of how the Chosen Children were chosen in episode 45, “the one who wishes for stability” (Homeostasis) never refers to the concept of partnership as anything concrete, simply pointing out the identity of the Digimon’s eggs, and the ability for humans to help Digimon spontaneously evolve (which is not even exclusive to partnerships, since the example given is the Greymon from the Hikarigaoka incident, and we also see Leomon in episode 47).

So why does this term never really come up?

The answer is, simply, that Digimon partnership as a “specialized concept” doesn’t really have much of a place in Adventure’s story, and, in fact, leaning too much on the concept of a “Digimon partner” as A Thing would damage emotional resonance during such an important series that’s one of the first in demonstrating what a partnership even is. Digimon partners didn’t bond with the kids just because they were “partners”, and most certainly not because Homestosasis decreed it so! It’s like the difference between “because I love you” and “because it’s our job to love each other”; the latter really just doesn’t hit right at all, and moreover misses the point. (See below in the 02 section for further demonstration on how this distinction was actually made use of in a story context.)

In fact, the one major Adventure canon-related material that actually drops the mention of “partners” is Two-and-a-Half Year Break -- which is a drama CD from 2003 that’s explicitly made to help retroactively connect Adventure to 02 (again, see below on more elaboration). Every mention of a “partner”, with the English word, within the drama CD monologues comes from either Koushirou’s or Mimi’s tracks -- and they all have to do with a practically observable phenomenon. Or in other words, “partner” was used as shorthand to say “oh, these kids around the world seem to be experiencing something similar to what we are, and this is something that’s starting to happen to more and more people now,” and it’s part of building up background lore more than it’s meant to define a partner in itself.

But in terms of the emotional meaning of a Digimon partner, and what it actually means to someone, and why a partner is so important to one’s life...well, the best example comes from Taichi’s track:

The truth is… I thought of always keeping it at hand. But that actually made me feel even lonelier. I didn’t want to face the truth that Agumon wasn’t with me anymore. Because… we’d always been together. Even now, I’ve never spent such a long time with another person like I did with him. That was… Being in the Digital World only took three days in the human world. But… since the flow of time in the Digital World was much faster back then… the time I spent together with Agumon was… half a year? …a year? And… it’s already 3 months since I’ve been separated from him…  (...) After all, I can’t lose to him! To Agumon. To the other me.

Taichi never uses the word “partner”, because that by itself doesn’t describe the reason it hurts so much to lose Agumon, and instead describes it in ways more relevant to what he means to him as a person -- that the two were “always together” in a way no other friend was with him before, that spending time with him integrated him into his life in ways that made the loss suddenly leave a hole...and that Agumon is, in his words, “the other [him]”. Even if it is true that the nature of a partner allows a human and their Digimon to have that kind of relationship, whether they’re partners or not isn’t really the substantial point, and being “partners” by itself isn’t really enough if the relationship isn’t that in practice.

And this is especially driven home further when 02 comes into play...

02

(All translations are by PositronCannon unless otherwise stated.)

If you happen to follow Kakudou’s theory of Digimon partners doubling every year since 1995, 2002 had something around 128 Digimon partners, which is a lot -- so it stands to reason that Digimon partnerships would become something “practically observable”. After all, if upwards of a hundred kids are starting to have contact with Digimon and forming relationships that seem to fall under a particular pattern, you might as well give that pattern a name. This of course leads to the natural conclusion in the epilogue, where they do, in fact, say concretely that everyone in the world has a “Digimon partner”.

Yet despite that, the word “partner” still shows up very rarely in the series -- even in settings where a practical application would be perfectly expected (see episode 14, where referring to Betamon as Michael’s partner to indicate his status as a fellow Chosen Child would have been expected, but instead is introduced as “[Palmon’s] friend”). And in fact, the first time the term actually has some pretty prominent usage in a serious context, in episode 10...it’s not actually pretty.

Wormmon: Forget about him! Use me for your experiments on evolution! I'll evolve, evolve and fight for you, Ken-chan! So use me... Ken: It was you who let him escape!? Wormmon: Well, I'm your partner! I should be able to evolve! So if you're going to do your tests, do your tests on me! Ken: (laughs) Wormmon: Ken-chan! Ken: What kind of splendid Digimon would you evolve into? And you're my partner? Heh. No chance. How could the Digimon Kaiser have a partner like you?

We, as the audience, know from a meta perspective that Wormmon is indeed Ken’s “true” partner, and that Ken is ignoring something very, very important...but from Ken’s perspective, deluded as he is, it is true that “well, I’m your partner!” actually means absolutely nothing. Observe that Wormmon is invoking the word “partner” not in an emotional sense, but a practical one -- he’s desperately trying to get Ken to acknowledge him as a loyal fighting machine, not to actually love him back. Even if Wormmon got what he ostensibly wanted in this scene and Ken somehow decided to entertain the idea of using him as a partner, it would just result in a lot of painful experimentation and torture on Wormmon’s part -- definitely not what the audience expects from how these relationships usually go.

And by the end of the episode, Ken does successfully evolve MetalGreymon using his own D-3! From his perspective, he did exactly what any other Chosen Child could do with their own partners (just a bit more forcefully). This is especially reinforced in episode 19, when the Kaiser finishes his work on Chimeramon and (seemingly) has it under control, and has this to say to Wormmon:

This is the perfect Digimon partner I was looking for...Unlike you.

As far as he’s concerned, the position of “partner” is one that can be swapped out like an internship or a salaried job. It means nothing by itself.

In fact, when it comes to scenes that actually go into partner relationships and what they mean emotionally to each other, similar language is used to that of Adventure:

In episode 11, when Daisuke agonizes over the idea of possibly killing Agumon in the process of saving him from the Kaiser’s clutches, he calls him “Taichi-san’s Digimon” (in a similar way to how Tailmon was referred to as “Hikari’s Digimon” in Adventure). (Recall that Daisuke is actually not all that familiar with Agumon at this point in the series, so it makes sense that he knows Agumon mainly by his relation to Taichi rather than via him personally.)

In Hurricane Touchdown, when identifying Chocomon as one of Wallace’s partners and having a bit of a breakdown at the idea of having to fight him, Daisuke never uses the word “partner” in relation to their relationship (nor is the word used at all in the course of the movie) -- he initially identifies Chocomon as “[Wallace’s] Digimon”, and then, when putting together why this hurts Wallace so much, recoils at the idea of fighting “[Wallace’s] most important friend”. This is after Wallace (who probably doesn’t have a very good concept of Digimon partnership as an established phenomenon, having only met any other Chosen Children earlier that same day) had described his relationship to Chocomon in terms of their childhood spent together, and how much his inability to forget him had impacted him throughout the years.

When Wormmon finally decides to “betray” the Kaiser in a bid to save him from himself in episodes 20-21, him being Ken’s “partner” is not brought into play, with Wormmon mainly saying that he believes in getting the “kind Ken-chan” back.

Once we reach episode 23 and Ken making amends with Wormmon, their partnership is once again not brought into play, with Ken describing Wormmon in significantly more detail -- as someone who could easily have been the only person in the world who would be sad if he’d died (not exactly true, but the sentiment is there), and yet someone Ken had lost to his own destructive ways. The concept is also not brought up again in explicit words in regards to Ken and Wormmon’s relationship thereafter through the rest of the series -- a symbol of Ken having learned better in that he learned to see Wormmon as the friend he actually is.

Even in episode 50, when a large number of Chosen Children end up newly partnered to Digimon, when the concept of partnership could have completely been permissible to bring up in a practical manner, it’s not -- the Dark Seed children initially complain that “you have the Digimon” (i.e. “you have something we don’t”), and the response is simply “if you want the Digimon to exist, they will, just like our feelings”, more directly correlating the Digimon’s existence to part of the heart.

At the end of said episode, Pipimon refers to himself as “Yukio’s Digimon partner”, but Oikawa himself still refers to him as “my Digimon”.

Spring 2003 also brings it up very rarely, and only in reference to the practically observable phenomenon, especially in terms of the growing number of Chosen Children (it mainly shows up in Hikari’s informational recording). Takeru’s track even alludes to how complicated the relationship actually is in practice: “the relationship between us and our partner Digimon is unique and other people probably wouldn’t understand that.“

The Door to Summer does drop the word quite a bit, mainly because it spends a bit of time examining what a partnership even is (much like Kizuna; see below), and it’s primarily used in reference to who gets to be Nat-chan’s partner, or the discussion of partnership itself. But when it really comes down to it, even when Daisuke’s relationship with Chibimon momentarily gets strained, what he eventually has to say is “ …But when I think about it, we’ve always been together,” and “you always fight to the teeth to save me,” describing what Chibimon means to him in more concrete sentiment.

What does this all mean?

When taken with Adventure, one latent sentiment that’s consistent in both Adventure and 02 is that, as fancy as the “Chosen Child” title is, it actually doesn’t mean that much in terms of being some prophecy-foretold hero like it is in most fantasy series. “The one who wishes for stability” even says straight-out in Adventure episode 45 that, despite being the one who chose them, they’re not necessarily sure of what the right thing is to do next, and left it in the hands of the children -- which thus led to the conclusion in Adventure episode 51 that they were never doing this because they had to, but because they wanted to, or, in other words, that they were doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and that doing the best they could do was all that could be asked for. There may have been some degree of higher-powering in this, but Homeostasis isn’t omnipotent, and by the time of 02 they’re not even the only entity picking children -- Koushirou even says in Two-and-a-Half Year Break that “having a partner” and “being a Chosen Child given a Digimon to help the Digital World” aren’t necessarily synonymous. And the Kaiser even demonstrates that himself in 02 episode 3 -- he’s exactly the kind of person the series warns against, claiming himself to be a “Chosen Child” as if it’s some kind of divinely imbued title.

So in effect, 02 is basically taking that sentiment and applying it similarly to the concept of Digimon partnership. “Having a partner” by itself is not that special, and while the general expectation is that a partner, as something connected to your inner self, should be something that important to you, your own will could easily ruin that -- again, see the Kaiser, who very nearly drove his own partnership into the ground via his own actions. They’re all concepts that are set up for you, but ultimately, what you make out of it is what’s most important, especially since there isn’t any divine force stopping you from making it all go south.

Thus, “we’re partners!” is pretty abysmally bad justification by itself -- the Kaiser being basically the extreme proof of how much you can abuse that concept.

Appmon

(All translations are by L Subs unless otherwise stated.)

Before we get into Kizuna, let’s take a bit of a short detour into Appmon!

I don’t want to dwell too much on non-Adventureverse series because other Digimon series either have a very different concept anyway (Frontier, Xros Wars), or involve a lot more conscious choice in selecting partners (Tamers, Savers), so there’s not as much to discuss. (Tamers makes it clear that Digimon may seek out Tamers when they believe that partnership will make them stronger, like in Ruki’s case, and Savers delineates them as literal work partners.) But, interestingly, despite being a lot more sci-fi than fantasy -- especially when its major background powers aren’t fantasy powered entities at all, but rather explicitly AIs -- Appmon has generally been commented to have a concept of partnership closest to the Adventure/02 portrayal since Adventure/02 itself, especially with the “something else assigned you your partner” aspect.

Appmon fundamentally has a very different writing style from Adventure, and leaning on quirky terminology and acting a bit more stereotypically “over-the-top” is part of its schtick (which of course helps it hit harder as the actual content gets heavier and heavier, but that’s a digression). Phrases that involve “my Buddy” do actually show up with quite a lot of frequency in Appmon, and unlike in Adventure/02, it does often get used as justification for why the Appmon take certain actions. But there are still some interesting things to note -- firstly, the majority of these use cases come from the Appmon themselves, usually endearingly (in a “hey, that’s my human, get away from them!” sense), or as a reaffirmation of the “it’s my job to protect you and I’m not going to let you down!” sense. This is also very in line with the nature of Appmon as portrayed in the series -- every Appmon has a certain function they’re skilled at and take pride in fulfilling their skill and function well, so the context is that failing to protect their Buddy is not too far off from failing at their literal job. (Effectively, it’s a bit bodyguard-esque.)

But Appmon still remembers not to forget the substance when it counts. Episode 32 has Yuujin express insecurity over whether Offmon's rampage -- and Offmon not trusting him as a result -- has to do with his own inadequacy as a Buddy, and confronting his own insecurities with the help of Haru before going on to face Shutmon, as if to prove himself worthy of it. Episode 48 has a series of scenes dedicated to what actual bond and loyalty each pair of Buddies has in practice. And of course, there’s Gatchmon’s famous speech in episode 49, which serves as the ultimate definition of why Buddies are matched together, for reasons besides just “Minerva said so”:

Gatchmon: I'm the search engine Appmon, Gatchmon! I'm an Appmon who looks up the definition of words and things that are desired to be known! You think I'd be paired with a guy with no desire to find something?! If I was, I wouldn't be able to continue existing...You were looking for something. That's why we met. But we still haven't found any of the answers, have we?! That's why the two of us are here right now! That's why I'm your Buddy! Haru! All I can do is look things up. But the one with the power to look up what future there is, and to type in the search words is you! What is it you want to look for, Haru? What is it that you want?

In other words, that’s the relationship between a human and their Buddy, besides just being friends -- certainly a Buddy Appmon is there to execute the kind of job their human Buddy needs, but conversely, it’s the human who has the power to give them that purpose to begin with. Appmon is a series about “the relationship between humans and technology”, so this depiction is quite fitting in the grand scheme of things.

Kizuna

(All translations are by L Subs unless otherwise stated. Be warned that the following spoils Kizuna.)

Okay, now we’re at Kizuna!

Kizuna is, once again, about a practically observable phenomenon. In fact, it’s so about the practically observable phenomenon that it’d be kind of stupid to not drop the word at all. Menoa even says that it’s part of her research, so, naturally, a scientist like her would have a term for it. Thus, when discussing the concept of disappearing partners, the concept is formally referred to as “partnership dissolution” (partner kaishou), or, more informally, something along the lines of “separation from one’s partner” (partner to no wakare). The “dissolution” part is especially interesting considering that the phrase was first used by Menoa, who by all means had no idea that the 02 epilogue exists and that the disappearance phenomenon isn’t permanent (and is altogether kind of an unreliable source anyway), so all of this terminology is arguably not even accurate.

Kizuna being a movie that’s basically supposed to unpack “what even is a partner anyway?”, and the Adventureverse entry that is most unsubtle about the “partner as part of the inner self” theme, plus the fact that there are more than 30,000 people with Digimon partners by the time of Kizuna (a far cry from 02′s 128!), it’s natural that they’re more liable to talk about a partner using the actual word than with oblique references.

But even then, Kizuna follows 02′s trend of only really using the word when dealing in practical matters (in this case, the dissolution phenomenon), because when it comes to dealing with the emotional impact of why losing a partner sucks? Menoa doesn’t hold back. Firstly, when it comes to describing why losing Morphomon left such a huge impact on her:

I met her when I was nine, and we'd been together ever since. I took her with me to school, even when we went traveling. No matter where I went or what I did, we were always together.

This is accompanied by a set of pictures that really do drive home the point that Morphomon was integrated into nearly every part of Menoa’s daily life, from her birthdays to her traveling to her happy and sad times, and is driven even further by the flashbacks later in the movie that depict Menoa as spilling all of her innermost feelings and worries to Morphomon as her closest confidant. It’s similar to Taichi’s statement in Two-and-a-Half Year Break that he’d been together with and closer to Agumon than any other friend he’d had in his life, or Wallace’s description and flashbacks of Chocomon having always been with him before he was taken away. When someone meshes with you in your life to that degree to the point even your day-to-day emotions entangle with them, then that loss is naturally going to be traumatic.

As if that weren’t enough, once Menoa drops her cheerful facade and reveals her true colors, her justifications for trapping everyone in Neverland start taking a turn for the emotional. Her arguments often refer to Digimon partners as one’s “very best friend”, and when she finally falls apart, she gives a pretty intimate description:

As long as you're here, you won't have to feel as if you've lost a part of yourself...

This is elaborated in the Shueisha Mirai novel as literal phantom pain -- because really, Morphomon is effectively like another part of herself, and losing a partner is like losing that part to the point it almost feels like it affects your own body.

And don’t forget Taichi’s thesis proposal at the end, where he does start off by introducing Agumon as his partner, but only in the sense of establishing that fact from the get-go, and quickly goes into detail into what Agumon actually is to him and what their relationship has given him, much akin to Two-and-a-Half Year Break:

...In coming closer to humans, [Digimon] are beings that can become bridges that connect people. I myself had a partner, Agumon, who could be said to be my other self, and the days I spent with him helped me grow into what I am now, and built upon my friendships with those around me.

So in other words, while Kizuna is much more forceful about the concept of a “Digimon partner” as a very concrete, defined thing (especially since it explicitly exists as an epilogue lead-up, one that very definitively had that concept set in stone for everyone on the planet), it still dedicates a lot of time to describing the emotional core behind what a partner is, saving the term generally for more practical observation-related matters.

What does all of this mean when put together? While the word “partner” is very useful for defining the concept as it applies practically, the truth is that it’s easy to imagine that the kids probably wouldn’t really find it sufficient of a term to describe what’s effectively their Best Friend Ever. It’s easy for us, as the audience, to default to “partner” as shorthand, but within the context of the series, when thinking about how the kids would approach their own partners and the complicated nature of how they bonded with them, a term that amounts to “what destiny handed to me” just doesn’t feel like the right thing to call what should probably be something like “my most important friend”. Even the most blunt and clinical alternative, “my/their Digimon”, has a bit of an affectionate bonding sentiment.

Ultimately, it’s honestly such a tiny thing to pick apart. But I do think that, especially when approaching things from an angle of meta analysis, or even fanwork like fanfic, it’s important to take into account how different our perception of things as an audience may differ from how the kids in the series themselves interact emotionally with what’s around them. And it also goes for writing in general, and why something like the concept of a Digimon partner managed to resonate with so many people so much despite often not having concrete words for it -- you can easily just say it’s the usual show-not-tell principle at play, being sure to elaborate on emotional nuance instead of just putting words down and calling it a day, but I also do feel that the series’s strengths best show because it was willing to be intimate about thoughts, relationships, and feelings even when it arguably didn’t need to.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Secrets of Ears:  Chapter 4

Daisuke tried to wrap his brain around what Gennai said. He’d been created? It had felt kind of funny when he’d first heard it from Koushiro but to hear all the details like this – it wasn’t all that funny anymore.

His stomach churned a little bit as he stared down at his hands, then looked up at the others.

“So what does all this mean?” He wanted to know. “I mean – I’m not going to start wanting to tear apart reality or something, am I?”

“Unlikely. Gennai shook his head. “As I said, while you weren’t intended to develop a mind or personality of your own, you did. Which means you make your own choices, just like any other human or Digimon. But you will have to be wary of your dark side.”

“Dark side?” Miyako asked, eyes narrowing a trifle. “What’s that?”

“Just what he said,” Yamato answered. “All of us who have Viral blood have a dark side. The part of us that’s pure viral and takes after our Viral parent.” He twisted his lips for a heartbeat. “All of us have Digimon names. Mine is Chiguumon. But my dark side is Anbumon. They’re – not quite different people, not quite us.”

Jou nodded. “My name is Jitsumon. Dark side is Fuseiimon.” He made a face as annoyed as Yamato’s. “He drinks a lot more blood than I do. I do it because I need to. He does it because he likes to.”

“Aikoumon,” Sora quasi-introduced herself. “And my other side is Akuenmon. She’s not really someone you want to meet.”

Ken’s ears were naturally paler than the rest of him. Right now, Daisuke thought that the rest of him wanted to catch up to his ears in paleness. He swallowed.

“So what about us? Or the others?” His eyes flicked between Miyako and Koushiro.

“We don’t have dark sides. I’m Vaccine and Data, Miyako is Vaccine,” Koushiro told him. “As for the two of you, I can’t honestly be sure. You’ll have to encounter those sides to know their names. As for your own names – you’ll learn them. They’re written into your data.”

Daisuke wasn’t that worried about it. Gennai had just said that he could make his own decisions, so he wasn’t going to fret about a so-called dark side. What he worried about was Ken and what Ken was probably thinking. Ken had mostly accepted his past and moved on from it. But to hear that there was a dark side in him just waiting to get out…

Nope. Daisuke wasn’t going to let Ken worry about that. He’d not done all that work to get him to feel good about himself to let it all go to waste now.

So he stood up. “Well, thanks for letting us know. Come on, Ken. I want some ramen. You want ramen?”

Ken was on his feet a moment later. “Yes. I would like ramen.”

“Before you go,” Koushiro spoke quickly. “You need to be aware of this. Your powers are linked to the Digital World. The more time you spend there, the easier they will come to you. But now that you’re aware of them, they could manifest at any point. The key seems to be strong emotion. Watch yourselves.”

Daisuke didn’t waste another moment. He wrapped one hand around Ken’s, and wasn’t even remotely surprised that Ken’s hand shook in his grip.

He squeezed Ken’s fingers and smiled at him. This was weird, yeah. But it wasn’t anything that they couldn’t all get through together, just like they did everything else.

They settled back onto the train, neither of them saying anything about what they’d found out. Ken stared up at the train’s roof, his eyes half-closed, his hand still firmly in Daisuke’s. Daisuke’s fingers itched to bury themselves into Ken’s hair and do everything he could to soothe Ken.

He held back, though. He wasn’t going to bother Ken’s hair or even get close to his ears in public. He’d made a promise.

They stayed quiet all the way until they were in the ramen shop that Daisuke had wanted to go to today. Their partners stayed with them, just as quiet, Wormmon snuggling around Ken’s shoulders, V-mon leaning a little against Daisuke’s side.

It was V-mon who broke the silence. “I always kind of thought you smelled like a Digimon,” he said. “But I thought that it was because of me.”

Daisuke blinked before a laugh broke out of him. “Guess not.” He playfully tapped at V-mon’s nose. “Guess you need to get your nose checked.”

V-mon pouted, playfully whacking back at him. Ken chuckled a bit, but it sounded strained. Still, the ice had been broken.

“I don’t care who your sire was,” Wormmon said, squirming around so he could stare soulfully up into Ken’ eyes. “You’re my Ken-chan no matter what.”

Ken’s cheeks reddened and he stared down into his ramen bowl. “I don’t want to be like that again,” he murmured, hands clenching together. He swallowed for a second. “Do we know – do we know anymore if it was the Spore or if it was – me?”

“Does it matter?” Daisuke asked, shrugging. “You’re not like that now and you’re not going to be ever again. You know better. You’re not going to hurt anyone innocent ever again.”

He wasn’t surprised that Ken was worked up over it. He’d probably stayed worked up over it for a while. Even with Daisuke and Wormmon and all of the others telling him over and over that he’d grown and didn’t need to be worried about it. Ken worried. It was what he did.

“Hey!” A vaguely familiar voice declared and someone dropped himself down on Ken’s other side. Daisuke glanced over to see Tachibana Noriaki sitting there, flashing that brilliant white-toothed smile. Daisuke wondered if he should ask which toothpaste company sponsored him. “Didn’t think I’d see you guys here.”

Ken tensed at once, shifting to be closer to Daisuke. “Why not?”

“I thought you were gong on a date,” Tachibana teased. “You are dating, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” Daisuke wasn’t going to deny that they were an item. “And we are on a date.”

Tachibana tilted his head. “You’re going out for ramen as a date? I took my girlfriend to the gardens. Saw some really awesome flowers there.” His eyes glowed warmly. “You should do something like that. Or to a concert.” He stopped, eyes suddenly focused on Ken’s ears. “Or would that be too much for those poor sensitive ears of yours?”

One hand flashed out and dug into Ken’s hair, squeezing his ears. He didn’t let go, even as Ken squealed and started to bat at him.

“Aw, it’s not that bad! You’re not a little kid anymore, are you? You should be used to people playing with your ears, especially if you’ve got a boyfriend!” Tachibana grinned, light glinting off of his teeth.

Daisuke was on his feet already. He didn’t normally get too angry; he’d never really felt the need. It had to be something horrible to really trip his temper. Seeing this jerk fondle Ken’s ears like that, when Ken so very clearly wanted to be anywhere but here, did it.

“Let him go!” Daisuke snapped, and he wondered oddly why his voice sounded different, deeper, darker. Not for a moment did he think about what he’d been told earlier.

At least, not until a gleam of something caught his eye and he saw a long, sharp sword resting in Ken’s hand. Ken’s grip tightened and when he turned towards Daisuke, Daisuke could see red flames dancing in the back of them.

They’d been told the process would take time. It seemed that time wasn’t very long at all.

Part of him – a part that he’d never been aware of before – stirred. Those rage-spawned flames were so pretty. Not that anything about Ak – Ken – was ever not pretty, but there was something special about them regardless. He wanted to curl up in those flames and bask there forever.

Instead, he rested one hand on top of Ken’s, where the sword waited. He shook his head. “No.”

Tachibana either hadn’t ‘heard or wasn’t paying attention. He rubbed harder. “Hey, can you hear really well with these things? They look so weird, you should get some kind of benefit from them, right?”

As fast as Daisuke was, Ken had always been faster. He leaped to his feet, knocking Tachibana away with one hand, and brought his sword around to point at the other’s throat.

“Touch me again,” he growled, voice sounding far too much like the Kaiser, “and I won’t hesitate.” The tip of his sword rested on Tachibana’s throat. “And I won’t care.”

Daisuke strolled to stand beside Ken. “And I’ll give him an alibi. Anything he does, you pushed him to it. We told you to stop. You’re not listening. Either leave us alone or pay the price.”

Tachibana looked, to tell the truth, as if he were about to wet himself on the spot. Daisuke wouldn’t have been surprised. In point of fact, he thought it would have been hilarious.

Wormmon hadn’t moved from around Ken’s shoulders. He rested one pod on Ken carefully. “You don’t want to hurt him, Ken-chan,” he murmured. “He’s not worth it.”

“No, he’s not.” Ken replied. “But if he doesn’t leave me alone, I will.”

Tachibana turned paler even than Ken’s ears. He stumbled back, eyes flicking all over. “You’re insane!” He spat the words out before ducking away and fleeing for the door as fast as he could.

They were the only ones there at the time – they’d stayed long enough at Koushiro's that most of the usual crowd had gone home. The ramen chef had stepped into the back. The timing really couldn’t have been better.

Daisuke closed his hand once more on Ken’s. “He’s gone,” he murmured. “You can relax now. It’s all right.”

Ken stared at him,, the bright ruby flames still burning. Then he swallowed, staring down at the sword as if he’d never seen it before in his life. Daisuke guessed that he really hadn’t.

“What did I do?” Ken whispered brokenly. “What did I do, Daisuke?”

To Be Continued

Notes: One chapter left to go! Sunday wraps it all up. I rather enjoyed writing the confrontation between Ken and Tachibana. Tachibana will probably run screaming if he so much as spies Ken across the street now. He’s lucky Akogimon didn’t fully awaken. Akogimon would have skewered him and laughed about. Think Kaiser, but worse. Much, much worse.