#(LIKE THEY EMPHASIZED THAT AT THE VERY END OF TRI SO ....................... AND THEN TAICHI GETS A DIGIVICE ............... BUT WHAT ABOUT)

[shihalyfie]

How would you describe the relationship between each respective goggleboy and 'rival'? Ive seen different interpretations but im curious what you think! Not to mention that the fans are sometimes arguing over who the 'rival' actually is, like with Daisuke where some people say its Ken and others say its Takeru. (I dont think there are actual rivals in the show, except for maybe Manga!Kiriha who outright says he will be just that with Taiki.)

One thing to keep in mind is that the word "rival" has kind of integrated itself into anime lingo as a full-on English loanword, so it comes from expectations of anime tropes more than anything. While even official staff has used that word in talking about Digimon, as you say, it never really fit to begin with, because not only has Digimon TV anime never been a particularly conventional shounen series in many ways, that term was also mostly coined in light of series where that term made a lot more sense. As in, they were more likely to be actually competing over something (in sports, or something tournament-based like card games); in that sense, a "rival" would be someone who might be antagonistic by being on the other side of the field, but would have a mutually positive relationship with the other person overall because the competitiveness would keep both of them on their toes and allow both of them to improve together. Digimon is not the first time this term has started getting overapplied to contexts where it doesn't really fit at all (it's been going on in Super Sentai for years), so people generally have a greater perception of it broadly meaning "two characters who have differing opinions on how something should be done due to their differing personalities, and sometimes fight over it", but in Digimon especially, it really does seem like trying to smash a square peg into a round hole.

The short answer: Xros Wars is probably the only one you can make a real argument for.

The long answer, in detail:

Adventure: I cannot emphasize enough that Adventure, being a series that was really big on that whole trope subversion thing, is a series that casts the trope of "rivalry" as "getting in a lot of fights" as a bad thing -- it's actually pretty unsubtle about it, because the word "rival" itself is explicitly used in Adventure episode 44, by Jureimon trying to manipulate Yamato. Or, in other words, "hey, if you saw someone who's supposed to be your supportive friend as someone you had to constantly compete against for no good reason, wouldn't that be really messed up?" Adventure does not even bother with or remotely believe in the idea that fighting somehow is a sign of how good friends you are, at least, not as long as that fighting is a sign of genuine hostility and refusal to communicate (which is why Yamato punching Taichi in 02 doesn't count). Every time Taichi and Yamato got in a fight back in Adventure, it was heated and ugly, and everyone in their presence was horrified, and once they sorted out their issues in Adventure, their appearances in 02 and Kizuna involved properly talking things out and making an active attempt to understand each other's feelings. There's a bit of bickering between them due to said opposing personalities, but it's never over anything serious (see the contrast in Kizuna between them having a bit of a minor row at the beginning, but high-fiving right after and spending the rest of the movie practically counseling each other).

02: Straight-up does not exist. Daisuke may have seen Takeru in that way due to the Hikari issue at first, but he was really running in circles getting absolutely nowhere about it, Takeru was mostly like "okay, you have fun with that," their only major argument about anything was the very serious issue in 02 episode 11, and it still resulted in Daisuke trying to understand Takeru's feelings. I think all of it boils down to Daisuke himself just not having that kind of personality to begin with, because he's friendly and supportive before anything else, and the whole thing with Takeru became a non-issue after a fashion (way before we even get into Kizuna, at that). Ken has the word "rival" sometimes applied to him in official franchise media, but nobody ever believes it. Sure, Daisuke and Ken have fairly complementary personalities, but they seem to both be aware of this fact and actively using it to help each other. It's very, very, very hard to imagine them ever getting into any kind of fight the way Taichi and Yamato used to in Adventure. It's just not happening! They're "best friends" who enjoy each other's company and actively hang out, and...yeah, that's it.

Tamers: Also does not exist! I know a lot of people really try to say it's Ruki because she's the one with the lone-wolf attitude and aggravated Takato at first, but my impression of Takato's attitude with her wasn't out of any competition but more that he'd like it if she didn't try to pick fights with him. Which she does actually stop after a while, mind you, and you could even make an argument that she's more of a foil to Jian than Takato, because Jian's the one who was completely pacifist at first, with Takato caught in the middle. In the end, Ruki never actually attains a particularly close relationship with Takato compared to Jian, nor does she really keep up a particular competitive streak with Takato; she kind of pops in and out at her leisure because of her more independent streak, and Jian ends up more of Takato's right-hand man (which is why the franchise presumably picks him as the secondary character to feature whenever they do "secondary characters"), but neither Takato nor Jian are prone to conflict and the entire trope is just fundamentally absent. The Tamers trio, is, ultimately, a trio.

Frontier: Takuya and Kouji are probably the first pair to really look like a proper execution of the trope, and at the very least they align pretty perfectly to how it's known in Sentai: a more hot-headed, aggressive lead with a more cool-headed and cynical right-hand man, where they end up often prone to conflict over dispute on how to best lead the team. However, while it's much more of a conventional execution than Adventure (since Adventure had Yamato actually be more prone to being an emotional fuse bomb whereas Taichi was often too chill more than anything), there being any conflict isn’t gone into that deeply beyond just "their personalities are complementary", and in that sense it's not far off from Adventure itself.

Savers: The series kind of baits you into thinking it might go this way when Nanami taunts Tohma about how he had to resort to a Masaru-esque tactic to beat her (it's one of its early red herrings about Tohma supposedly betraying the group), and it does have traces at the start because of how blatant of a foil Tohma is to Masaru, but one thing important to consider is that while the "rivalry" of what's being competed over is barely even relevant in most Digimon series to begin with, Masaru and Tohma don't even have a "group" to lead -- they're the employees under DATS who are being given orders from above, and are dealing with situations as they come. Masaru ends up leading the charge a bit, but he's not actually a leader in any shape or form, and Savers is more of a story of Masaru's coming-of-age than anything else, so while the series mostly has to do with his personal philosophy more than Tohma's, it ultimately lets the two of them pursue their lives their own ways. Masaru's worst bout of infamous anger is at being hurt over Tohma's apparent betrayal, not against him personally.

Xros Wars: I would say this is the only series to date where the term "rivals" properly applies, and it's because they're fighting over something concrete: the Code Crowns, and eventually Digital World territory. So in this case, for the first two parts, the answer is obviously Kiriha; Nene was a rival at first, but after various events happened she allied with Xros Heart early into Death Generals, and while Taiki and Kiriha had a relationship of mutual respect, Kiriha still considered him an opponent over what they were competing for until eventually the Xros Heart United Army fully came into formation. In the manga version, Kiriha does invoke the word "rival" in the above sense of competing to polish one's skills, but ironically, its version of the Death Generals arc involves them being much more in-tune with the same goals, so it might actually apply less because Taiki kind of responds with "uh, sure...?" since he's not nearly as interested in self-improvement. In Hunters, while it initially seems like it might be Yuu, the answer is really Ryouma, and note that Ryouma never really forms a particularly close relationship with Tagiru; it's just that he's the person most at the forefront for competing with Tagiru in the Hunt, to the point he's the first person chosen to wield the Brave Snatcher and turns out to be a bit of a foil for Tagiru in terms of actually having admired Taiki this whole time.

Appmon: Also does not exist. Rei tried to do the whole schtick in terms of competing for the Seven Code Appmon at first, but Haru was having none of that and immediately reached out to him emotionally, worrying about his welfare, and although Rei had a bit of a detached relationship with the other Appli Drivers thereafter, it really was friendly more than anything, just a bit awkward. Haru and Yuujin aren't even on the table, since their relationship is "best friends" akin to Daisuke and Ken.

Adventure: reboot: Also does not exist, considering that Taichi and Yamato bickering over the best way to approach things is limited to the very beginning of the series (and one of those times was with Yamato and Sora, not Yamato and Taichi, at that). In fact, I think most of these kids have been acting separately for most of the series anyway...?

[dutchforstrangers]

Digimon Astrology Journey - Independent women: Sora & Mimi

For references, more understanding and background, make sure to read my posts about basic Astrology 101! Part 1 | Part 2. 

A fire Sun/Moon placement combined with a strong Taurus placement... Look out for Femme Fatales! They have a natural beauty, are bold, sensual, strong and creative. Sora and Mimi both have all of that, even though they have very different personalities. Most likely because Sora’s Rising placement balances out her Sun and Moon with compassion and caring protectiveness while Mimi’s big three is here to be a princess and to live for the applause whenever she feels like. 

See it like this: Sora takes care with passion, Mimi wants to be passionately taken care for every once in a while. 

The important stuff

Sora Takenouchi, March 21st 1988 (around 11AM)

Sun: Aries (fire-cardinal) 

Moon: Taurus (earth-fixed)

Rising: Cancer (water-cardinal) 

Mimi Tachikawa, July 24th 1989 (around 11.30PM)

Sun: Leo (fire-fixed) 

Moon: Aries (fire-cardinal) 

Rising: Taurus (earth-fixed)

Charts and analyses under read more!

Beware!: I calculated their birthdays by assigning them a Sun and Moon placement. All of this is NOT CANON! It’s inspired by/based on the canon. I use these analyses and their headcanon birth charts as a reference/character sheet for -as an example- my own fanfiction. Of course be my guest to use these for your own, but remember it’s just someone else’s (in this case it being my) headcanon ;) Some credit, a reblog or a like when used is appreciated. 

Sora Takenouchi - March 21st 1988

We do know in Our War Game, Taichi gave her that hairpin for her birthday in the Spring break between 5th and 6th grade (for her 12th birthday). Conclusion: she probably has her birthday somewhere between March 20th and April 6th (even when it’s not canon? I once read that her birthday is not canon even though the movie implies her birthday is around that time…). Meaning two things: she is either an Aries Sun or a Pisces Sun. I went for the Aries Sun, because I feel like the Pisces is too ‘dreamy’ for her. Her Sun however is on the thin line between Pisces and Aries (even better: if she was born around midnight on the same day, she would have been a Pisces!). So she is an Aries, but her Aries Sun will probably be highly influenced by Pisces.

An Aries Sun is independent, determined and has a strong physical appearance. These Suns NEED sport or some kind of physical and practical activity to feel good, which in Adventure turns into Sora’s absolute and passionate love for soccer. The determination and independency can be seen in DA episode 26 when she stands up against her mother because of soccer even though her knee is hurt. However, that independency and determination is more often towards or for the sake of others, for example when Sora takes off on her own to secretely help her friends. This probably comes from her Sun placement close to Pisces, making her more compassionate and sensitive than any other Aries Suns. And it’s due to her Rising placement. 

Intermezzo: Reboot 2020 Sora is more of an Aries than her original counterpart. I know the character building in the Reboot isn’t that good -or even not existing at all-, but looking through the Astro-glasses, I do see some character. Reboot Sora fits perfectly in this chart!

Sora is a Cancer Rising. Cancer Risings are, even more than the Cancer Suns, protective of others. Cancer Risings tend to see everything or otherwise WANT to see everything. They’re not nosy, they just want to check on you and make sure you’re safe, healthy and happy. This is in fact Sora in a nutshell. 

Taking care of others is their priority number one and that’s exactly what Sora does all the time. Cancer is often called the mother of the Zodiac, a title she is given every once in a while. In Tri episode 10 (Confession pt 1) Meiko says “You’re just like a mom”, and Meiko is someone who doesn’t know Sora for that long. Even she sees, feels and experiences it, making Sora a natural mom-like protector. 

And even though that motherly role is not something what she wants to achieve, it comes natural to Sora. There are more DigiDestined with Cancer placements, but somehow it’s Sora who they call a mom all the time. Her Aries Sun makes her passionate and determined, while her Cancer Rising makes her care and protect. This Aries-Cancer dynamic gives her a mom-like character you can’t get around. 

Sora’s first reaction after Meiko calls her a mom is annoyance and a way of denying and is most likely her Aries-Cancer dynamic. Cancers have a hard shell and they like to keep it that way. Aries can say and feel things before thinking it through. Her face and reaction is a mix of that Cancer’s shell, not wanting to admit she is a mom, and Aries’ impulsiveness, an immediate and bold reaction. (However, it could also be her Moon speaking.)

Cancer Rising makes her sensitive, protective and caring. Place it next to her Aries Sun and she is a bold and independent person with a strong emotional touch. Put her Moon in Taurus next to all of that and she becomes a perceptive human being.

Taurus Moons are highly disciplined, can be somewhat stubborn and crave stability. They like to show others they have everything under control, all the while their bodies extremely react to stress, making Taurus Moons very emotional and (inwardly) reactive people. This could be the explanation why Sora is having such a hard time putting her feelings into words or even doesn’t want to talk about her emotions at all, even when she has these very strong, physical and intuitive feelings and emotions from time to time. So whenever she does have her words ready, she won’t say it, because she thinks about the other first. It’s likely for Sora to bottle everything up and when she can’t hold it any much longer, it will all come out at once. 

With her Mars placement in Capricorn -making her ambitious, feel responsible and act thoughtful- on top of it all, she might has the tendency to overwork herself and go into these downward spirals. Especially when she feels -in both her work and private live- like she can not mean anything to others. This is likely due to her MC = Midheaven (career and calling) in Pisces which makes Sora humble and very ambitious in helping others. And here it comes: preferably through sports or art! Maybe that’s why she is suddenly drawn into Ikebana. And I feel like she isn’t an ordinary fashion designer, but someone who wants to help others feel good through her designs. 

Also a Taurus Moon can make one very traditional, which is the case with Sora. In Adventure she caves more into standing up against her mother, which is more of the Aries-Taurus dynamic: stubborn and determined. Later on, especially in Kizuna, it turns into working with her mother which could be the Cancer-Taurus dynamic. And When she chooses for herself in Kizuna, she’s fully into her big three, using them all three equally. Well, if that isn’t growing up… No shit she was the first one to lose her partner (which I still think is so sad…).

Mimi Tachikawa - July 24th 1989

To me, Mimi is WITHOUT A DOUBT a Leo Sun. And also without a doubt a Taurus Rising! Making her a very very very fierce lady. With an extra emphasize on lady. Her Aries Moon makes her even more bold.

As you can see, her Leo Sun placement is on the thin line with Cancer, which means Cancer influences her Leo Sun and makes her more caring towards others whenever it’s needed. But: the Leo Sun is charismatic and can have a big ego. This is pointed out by Koushiro in Tri episode 6 (Determination pt 2). That ego could make Mimi chose for herself and the people that affect her directly in a certain situation first. Her Taurus Rising and Aries Moon will probably emphasize that even more. Let me be clear: that’s not a bad thing! It’s a good thing knowing what you want and need. And Mimi is a good at that! In comparison to Sora, Mimi is way better in letting others know what she really thinks and feels. In that same episode, just a view seconds before Koushiro puts her in her place, she says she is “sick of Palmon and the others being critisized”. Mimi is honest and sincere, of course she has the Crest of Sincerity/Purity! 

Leo Suns tend to be bossy, they like to boss around and delegate, something we see Mimi is very good at in the series. When she acts and dresses like a princess in Adventure episode 25, in the second arc of Tri (Determination) with her ‘Daters café’, even in the DA: 2020 reboot twice (episodes 6 and 37). She is a princess and a queen, but let’s not forget she can be an awefully good leader and Mimi is an amazing entrepreneur foremost! 

Whatever you think of Leo Suns, they are organized, can be very inspirational, work hard and are very creative. As an entrepreneur myself I can tell that those are the traits you have to possess if you want to make it into the business world. Mimi with her Leo Sun is all up for that! Seeing her starting up her own business in Kizuna is so suiting for her and with this amazing birth chart, it MUST be her calling. Even her Midheaven is in Capricorn, which makes her ambitious, hard working and possibly a tough business woman! She is very practical and needs to immediately act, do stuff. 

As for her Taurus Rising, funny thing with this placement is they can have these explosive tantrums, something we could see with Sora too. However, Sora gets angry and passionate after she bottled things up for too long. Mimi on the other hand just passionately rants when she thinks and feels is the right thing to do. Again I refere to the specific moment in Tri, but there are probably a lot more of these moments. Mimi is such a sweet girl, but in the end, she wants it her way and she will get it. She is stubborn, not to listen to any bullshit you have to say. She can be easily bored due to the Leo-Aries dynamic. Though to be clear, she isn’t shallow. Mimi just has a filter for bullshit and won’t budge easily, due to her Mercury in Leo too. However, when you do say something that moves her in whatever kind of way, she will act on that and makes sure it will work for her. This could partially be her Venus in Virgo, making her have the ability to be more critical to and reflective on her own values.   

Back to Mimi’s Taurus Rising which wants security just like Sora’s Moon placement, but in case of the Rising placements Mimi finds that security more in materialistic comfort. Mimi likes to possess stuff and things. Clothes, accessories, plants, designer furniture, cute home decoration and more. Flying business class? Definitely her Taurus Rising in combination with her Leo Sun. Her Aries Moon makes her impulsive and that Moon in combination with all of the above makes her buy new things and stuff on impulse. Good thing the girl is rich!  

Mimi’s Aries Moon was a placement I had to put some thought in, but I knew she had a fire Moon. In the end, Aries fits the bill. Aries Moons make act quick and impulsive which lead them straight into action. They have a need for independency, which makes Mimi’s Leo Sun more bold and independent. The Leo-Aries dynamic makes Mimi a natural leader, her Taurus-Leo dynamic makes her a sensual leader and her Aries-Taurus dynamic a inspirational leader. She is a leader, she just needs to make sure she doesn’t become too bossy. And she has to pay attention to not let her emotions rule her actions, which is very common with Aries Moons. 

Mimi is a badass woman, but let’s not forget she has a soft side too. Again, Mimi’s Leo Sun will likely be influenced by Cancer, making her Leo Sun more protective towards others. Her Moon in her 12th House could imply she needs more alone time than others -and herself included- think. Her Venus in Virgo in her 5th House makes her more devoted and dedicated towards relationships, making her a caring and devoted friend (and lover). We see her devotion towards her own value and others in the Dark Masters arc in Adventure, when she makes a decision based on her own values and what she thinks is important to do. Mimi is not afraid to act and therefore she is beautiful and very strong! 

Her Venus in Virgo love-wise could also mean she is held back when it comes to love and relationships. Not because she’s insecure, but because she is picky and very critical when it comes to her partners! Hahaha, can you imagine Mimi breaking things of with someone, because he or she or they doesn’t meet up to her standards? Because I definitely can.

For an end note on both girls: People with a Taurus placement (mainly a Taurus Sun, but I’m using the freedom of intepretation rn) in the Big three are often called ‘natural beauties’. I think that’s very accurate with these two gorgeous anime ladies, don’t you agree??

Also bonus: strong, very caring and loving friendship between these two that can go the distance <3

[ahiddenpath]

Post Major Arcana Thoughts

I had a few “aha” moments about the Chosen while selecting and writing up the Major Arcana cards.  Of course, tarot cards are amazing for helping Seekers notice patterns and new ways of connecting ideas- that’s why we use them!  So I shouldn’t be surprised, but I still kind of am!  And I wanna share those thoughts beneath the cut.

When I say stuff like “outer strength” vs “inner strength,” I’m speaking in terms of my understanding of the tarot.  I’m sure there are many definitions for these ideas, in general.

Outer Strength (strength expressed as action) vs Inner Strength (strength expressed as resilience/maturity)

I assigned The Chariot to Yamato and Strength to Hikari.  The Chariot is about taking action, reaching goals through effort, and persevering in the face of obstacles.  The other half of the coin is Strength, a card about keeping calm and composed in difficult times, persevering through strength of character.  

You may think that The Chariot is ruled by fire (suit of passion) and Strength is ruled by water (suit of emotions), but in fact- it’s the opposite!  Isn’t that an interesting reversal!  

But I think The Chariot is ultimately about control: the Seeker must control their emotions, efforts, and energy on the task to see it through.  Self-control, self-mastery, self-assertion, which all point back to regulating emotions (water).  And, of course, emotional control is something Yamato struggles with- which is why this card is both who he is, and a goal he reaches towards (and something I personally really want to see him achieve- I’d love to read a fic dedicated to this journey). 

In contrast, the battle of compassion over force is ruled by fire- meaning that it’s very much active and passionate, even though the card itself is about gentleness!  Being kind and mastering the Self requires courage and conscious effort.  Even at 8 years of age, Hikari is almost eerily mature.  But while she’s a natural at compassion and composure, we see her struggle to assert herself and allocate some of that compassion towards herself and her needs.  So again, Strength is both who she is and a goal- and, of course, that’s ideal fic material.

But assigning them as opposite sides of the same coin makes me wonder- how do Yamato and Hikari get on, interpersonally?  They’re both intense characters, in their way- Yamato is loudly intense, Hikari quietly so.  And The Chariot is yin energy, while Strength is yang energy!  Oh, I need to know more about these two as... foils isn’t quite the right word, but it’s not exactly wrong?  

Taichi and Koushiro as Action Takers

Taichi and Koushiro are the do-ers of the Chosen, I like to think.  Which isn’t to argue that the others don’t do stuff- of course they do (for example, I gave Yamato The Chariot, so he’s no slacker)!  But Taichi and Koushiro are on their own level, here.

During the Dark Masters arc, Taichi is the one who pushes the team forward, even though everyone is exhausted and emotionally beaten- because he assesses that they will be caught and defeated if they stay in one place.  At the end of Tri, it’s Taichi who says- well guys, we have to do this, we have to stop Meicoomon.  Even though it’s understood that the Chosen are working together, Taichi is the one who takes on the burden of the decisions by making them, speaking them, and accepting responsibility for them.  This is, of course, a key part of why Taichi is a great leader- he takes the necessary steps to allow his team to continue functioning, even if they come at a high personal price.  And if there are moments where the team, er, isn’t functioning so well, he puts himself at risk to hold the line.

I don’t have to explain Koushiro as a proactive do-er, that’s pretty much his whole life, doing stuff/manifesting/creating/discovering.  And I think that, out of the Chosen, he best understands and accepts the difficult choices Taichi makes.  Obviously, Taichi makes mistakes and isn’t always logical (and definitely not always tactful, lol!), but in the clutch, he does what has to be done.  And Koushiro- he’s always trying to do what has to be done.

Something about assigning them as The Emperor and The Magician really drove that home, although it’s not a new thought for me.  Geez, no wonder these two get on so swimmingly!  They’re very different, but they’re both so driven to move forward and figure things out however they can.  Yamato, too- he’s sort a step behind them (he has the ability, and will step up if needed, but it’s not his natural urge).  Emperor, Magician, Chariot.  LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Miyako is a really cool character you guys

Okay, so tarot works by tapping into ancient archetypes, concepts/characterizations that have been around ever since humans have told stories.  I’m sure you’ve read a zillion metas about how the Adventure cast turns archetypes on their heads, and I’m not arguing- but to do that, you do need to evoke the archetype enough to subvert.  I personally think that I was able to find a fitting Major Arcana card for everyone...

Except Miyako.  

I was originally planning to give her Strength, but the card emphasizes calm, composure, quiet strength.  Every other card seemed to have a better fit for someone or something else.  In the end, I made her The Wheel of Fortune, owing to how dynamic she is, how optimistic, how ready to handle things- and, of course, by how she can overextend herself trying to be all those things.

But it got me thinking about how unique Miyako really is.  She’s smart and capable, she’s loud and confident, she’s direct and maybe a little too blunt, she’s mischievous and snarky and sweet and kind, but is allowed to make mistakes and have days where she isn’t running at 100%.  She’s allowed to have crushes (on boys and girls, at that!) and do kid stuff and also be mature!  She can make friends easily with anyone, boy, girl, her age, younger, older!  

Miyako really breaks the mold.  I respect the hell out of that.

Iori supports justice by defending the wrongfully accused

We all know Iori grows into a defense attorney after watching people change after making mistakes, after seeing the various ways people struggle.  We talk a lot about how 02 is basically the Ken show, and Ken has the single most loving character arc in Adventure- but give some props to Iori, my dudes!  The kid shifted some intense black-and-white thinking into compassion.  That’s amazing.

So yeah!  Using tarot to notice stuff = cool and fun and a good time!  Makes me wish I had a digimon deck D:

[o-w-quinlan]

Digimon Adventure 2020, episode 23 reaction (and over-analysis)

It’s... weird. Half of it is a battle scene that is clearly just marking time for the actual relevant one next episode, and the other half is emphasizing the importance of the B-Team, except it’s just “I must save my friends”, instead of anything more revealing about their characterization. All in all, it’s episode 17, but not as good.

Let’s start with the battle with Devimon/NeoDevimon, since that’s basically most of the episode. It starts with Devimon surprising them by being capable of attacking at a distance without them noticing where the attacks are coming from. It’s appropiately menacing, although it starts to feel too static very fast. After 2 episodes of high-octane action with great tactics from the digimon, this fell a bit flat. After that, he evolves, and the dynamics of the fight are almost exactly the same, except instead of the interesting “action at a distance because of miasma” attack, it’s just NeoDevimon moving fast enough that he looks like he is teleporting (shown in the episode by having NeoDevimon be in one place in a shot and then in another place in the next one). All in all, it was sort of forgettable, which would be understandable because obviously they can’t maintain the high level of the previous 3 ones due to budget constraints and other things, but it still felt weird that they would choose to have their less frenetic episode be a full-episode fight scene.

Devimon himself was interesting, though. He once again refers to Poyomon as “his old friend” and states he wants to share his pain with them. While I don’t expect this to be explored for him, I do think it’ll be expanded upon by future villains. The ominous crystal (that, confirming a theory I had discarded as wishful thinking, turned out to be MOON MILLENNIUMMON OF ALL DIGIMON!) ends up seemingly controlling Devimon, distorting his voice, making him go through a painful looking evolution (and Taichi notes something has changed, something apart from just evolving). When DarkKnightmon later shows up (he’s alive!) and recovers the crystal before making NeoDevimon evolve again, you realize the villain dynamics may be far different from what we had expected until now. Devimon was not the big bad, or even the boss of the previous digimon, but just another pawn of MoonMillenniummon, no more relevant than SkullKnightmon.

The A-Team... wasn’t quite as interesting this episode. We get some more dynamics between Yamato and Takeru: Yamato tells Takeru to hide, Takeru obeys until he realizes his brother is in serious danger, he tries to do something, when miraculously he succeeds Yamato congratulates him with no explicit lingering worry. Since this time around Takeru was not as suicidal as last episode, it’s a nice enough dynamic. What fell flat was Poyomon evolving to Tokomon and dissolving the miasma. Takeru screaming for the villain to stop before a miracle happens was already done, and much better, on episode 20. We never got to see much of Poyomon, so his evolution didn’t really ellicit any reaction (not even shock, since we’ve already seen a lot of miraculous stuff surrounding the Holy Digimon this season). About the only interesting things with Tokomon this episode were his smile when seeing NeoDevimon slowly vanish (”that’s for torturing me, you big meanie!��), and him being blown away from Takeru’s arms (the best bit of comedy in the episode). Taichi got.. er... observational skills, athletic skills and a burst of determination that felt vastly underwhelming compared to what he did 2 episodes ago.

As far as the B-Team goes, we saw Mimi be the first one to take action when being told what Calamaramon’s plan may be, Koushiro getting an internal monologue about how he believes he is helping his friends, and Jou and Ikkakumon getting humiliated for comedy (Kabuterimon was similarly defeated while attempting a rescue, but it wasn’t as focused on). All in all, functional stuff. Honestly, I was more drawn to the brief scenes with the ship crew trying to remain calm while realizing they were about to crash into the city (which was Singapore, not Tokyo as I thought last week). The tension there felt thicker than in the rest of the episode.

Other notes for this episode:

I was very weirded out when Devimon’s mouth didn’t move whenever he spoke, specially since he did move his lips at other points. Made him feel off, alien, which is great for this series.

Someone as big as MetalGreymon trying to hide behind the ruins of the castle was a bit silly.

We saw intereference in the communications between the Chosen Children through the digivice. Perhaps this is because of the massive ammount of data moving from the human world to the digital world?

We got the consecutive evolution sequences back. Can’t say I’ve missed them. Can’t say I’ll miss them if they never appear again after this episode.

Whoever is piloting that boat must be the GOAT to be capable of steering it that fast.

Sagittarious Mode appeared for only a second, just for one attack, after a massive burst of the Power of Feelings with a Holy Digimon at his side. It’s a great justification for why Alteros Mode didn’t appear last episode.

DarkKnightmon does not attack the Chosen Children, even though we know he is perfectly capable of fighting a fresh MetalGreymon and WereGarurumon without any issue, let alone exhausted ones. The Holy Digimon, even when in Baby form, are dangerous enough even one of the most powerful and skilled villains yet would rather run away.

No, Koushiro, I beg of you, please don’t enable the belief that “natural lines” are the norm in Digimon. Please.

All in all, a functional episode that raises a couple interesting questions. Next week we are going to see a new Ultimate form for Devimon (which looks very silly to me), Taichi getting corrupted by Darkness, MetalGreymon maybe evolving to Mugendramon, Tokomon most likely evolving to Patamon and perhaps even WarGreymon as a cliffhanger. Exciting stuff.

[shazzeaslightnovels]

July 2021

(Series: Maou 2099 | Illustrator: Kureta)

No. of Reviews: 3

Still keeping up with Digimon Adventure: because at this point the sunken cost fallacy has fully come into effect and I might as well finish it. Seriously every episode now, I’m either completely disengaged from the start because it’s yet another Taichi episode or I’m engaged for the first half and then get pissed off when Taichi shows up at the half-way point. It’s so annoying. Hamefura X is a mixed bag so far and it’s pretty much what I expected. I enjoyed the first two episodes a lot but found episodes 3 & 4 to be pretty boring and noticed some pretty stiff animation at times. Again, I expected this because this was pretty much the reaction I had to volume 3 of the light novels and I didn’t enjoy volume 4 much either so I’m not expecting to enjoy this season nearly as much as the first one but I at least hope to get the occasional fun moment out of it, which is what episodes 1 & 2 delivered in abundance so I’m happy. I watched the first three episodes of Kageki Shoujo but it hasn’t really appealed to me so far so I’ll be putting it on hold for the moment and will pick it up again once the series has ended. Love Live Superstar is off to a very enjoyable start. I’m so glad they went with just 5 core characters for this one since in the other other series, it always felt like one or two characters didn’t receive nearly enough character focus so 5 should be a far more manageable number. Also all of the voice actors have really nice singing voices and the animation is super gorgeous so I look forward to watching more.

Catching up a bit on some shows I missed last season, I ended up really enjoying Shadows House. It took a while to get into but it was the debut arc that really hooked me in and ended up being more than worth the watch. For the shadow characters, a lot of their charm is reliant on the voice actors ability to convey their emotions, since they don’t have a face. Body language does do a bit of legwork but it’s the voice acting that really helps to create those characters and, given that, I think they all did an amazing job, especially Sakura Ayane whose distinct voice range always stands out. Definitely interested in reading the manga someday. Also enjoyed Backflip!!. It’s definitely an effective sports anime that had me rooting for the team. The gymnastics sequences are a mixed bag where I think the cgi doesn’t do much to emphasize the amount of stress the sport puts on the body nor do I think it did much to show the difference in skill levels. Like, every time it was emphasized how good Mashiro was, I couldn’t really tell that he was any different from the rest of his teammates. That being said, it’s definitely harder to keep track of six athletes instead of just one and I think they used the space really well and maybe if I rewatched those scenes I could see little tricks that were used that I didn’t notice. Also, I’m always grateful to see a sports series that doesn’t have a needlessly dramatic and drawn-out jealousy plotline (*cough* Sk8 the Infinity *cough*). I liked it a lot overall and I can’t wait for the movie. As a side note, I think I still like Sk8 the Infinity slightly more for sports anime this year due to it’s aesthetic and just how enjoyable the first half of it was for me but I think Blackflip has a much tighter story and more satisfying character development on the whole. I tried reading The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent last year but didn’t even get halfway through it because of how bored I was. I faired better with the anime but still found it mostly boring. The main characters are just so dull. Every once in a while, the series would hit upon an interesting enough idea that I kept going but there were so many mindnumblingly boring scenes and while I thought the romance was sweet at first it too became boring by the end due to neither of the characters having any flaws or interesting personality traits. I can see why some people liked it but it didn’t do anything for me. Things I did like though: Elizabeth (should have had more screen-time), Yui Ishikawa’s voice, and I thought the direction the story went with Aira and Kyle was a little bit surprising, though again I wish Aira was a more flawed and interesting character.

List of Reviews:

Overwrite 3: London Invasion

Maou 2099

Sword Oratoria 11

New volumes of Shoukei Shoujo no Virgin Road, Hamefura, Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou and Kami wa Game ni Ueteiru next month!

[izzyizumi]

Taishiro Fic Notes: REPEAT? [06]

Pt./Chapter 6 under the cut! [previous parts’ notes]

Ch. 6 - “Cliche”

OK so this chapter was written about halfway through everything as I was thinking of some shorter interlude bits and also trying to relate a bit more of KageDaze inspiration and Taichi’s feelings, for a change (also some of these weren’t included in the outline due to being written about halfway through everything and after said outline was finished)

In KageDaze yes, there is a line of the song: “in this kind of cliched story, there can only be one ending” ... which continues into: “beyond that repeating summer day, it has to exist” in this bit it’s mainly just the “cliche” quote that’s paralleled but the second quote is basically, (in the original KageDaze music video and this parody) right before the switching of the timelines yup right when the boy protagonist makes the decision to change the timelines yup ok so Taichi here is essentially. yeah. becoming aware this part also kind of, as mentioned in the notes, briefly started as an AU version with the archaeology AU (I was thinking maybe they eventually had the park scene somewhere, too - maybe they still do in an AU of the AU... maybe not...) but kind of blended into the younger Taichi’s frustrations a lot more so it kind of changed to Adventures Taishiros along the way?? basically, this may or may not be the “park” setting where Taichi and Koushiro have various heart to hearts before they up and leave and (yeah. BAM TIMELINE OVER) but I had some other ideas for that too (as you can tell) so basically anything concerning the park scene is like... various interpretations/timelines y u p a lot of this bit was explained in the chapters’ end notes too yeah basically, Taichi hasn’t had his most major character developments here, yet Vamdemon arc hasn’t yet happened Mugendramon arc hasn’t yet happened this part takes place not long after they return to the Real World so yes?? - speaking of that. Timeloops probably starts to become even worse around this point, yes. (will explain in further detail later) (it’s kind of related in the outline but I’ll elaborate more towards the end) basically, also, Taichi is feeling hopeless. What exactly can he say? Anymore?? “It’ll be ok”, “I’ll protect you”, common phrases like that won’t help. (... ?) Words like simple “...yeah��s won’t (really) help. (... ??) So, what even can Taichi do about all of this? How can he help Koushiro stop this thing when it’s so pointless?? (He’s supposed to be the ‘leader’ but...??) (in a situation like this ... ??) It relates to him a bit personally outside of timeloop AUs maybe, too. (basically see the chapters’ end notes, yeah.) (There’s also lots of vaguely related imagery from Koushiro’s songs, here) [specific dialogue notes] - ‘ Like how he sometimes feels like he -- wishes -- he could -- melt -- into the computer screen. ‘ Version Up (Adventure character song): [verse 1] Start by clicking to a dream Let's swim, jump to the future We'll go on a journey To find the window that reflects truth [chorus] And then We'll be reborn anew And be able to forgive So Let's jump together To the other side of the image [- verse 2] When I don't know what do to, I access And type a message on the keyboard To freeze my cowardly self Until I can fly away - ‘ Like how he's felt like that ever since he overheard his parents, that very first night. ‘ TIMELOOPS AWARENESS but also novels Koushiro (yeah) and Koushiro in general outside of timeloops AU - ‘ Like how he feels like a 'm i s t a k e'. ‘ Kioku no Kakera / Shards of Memory (Tri character song): Even if I scream ‘I don’t know anything’ An erased fragment of memory will produce A closed wall to encourage you with the words [“Right” “I want to know” “Mistake”] written all over - ‘  ...Like how he isn't really as smart as he sounds. ‘ basically, his insecurities (maybe he isn’t really as smart as thought) like he gives himself credit for it in ways too but when it seems like everything at every turn is trying to kill you/outsmarting you, yeah..... (hello Mugendramon arc) - ‘ "You are! You're -- you're cool ‘ again with Taichi emphasizing the cool (relates to pt. 1/ch. 1) ("You thought it was 'cool'? That's... probably the first time I heard that.") (or, ’ no one’s ever called [my work/me] cool, before ‘) - ‘ ("...I'm just. Repeating what I've read -- memorized -- in books... online...") ‘ basically. being the smart one isn’t always fun especially not when you’re second-guessing if you’re really ‘smart’ or if you just have. a crazy good memory (but what’s the use of a crazy good memory if you can’t use it in the way you’d like to the most?) - ‘ "How does someone even come up with 'original' things, anyway?" ‘ MTE TAICHI HOW DO PEOPLE DO IT (like I know I know ‘thinking outside the box’ j u s t) (yes I love critical thinking too j u s t) ( ... well, the overall theme is still ‘Cliche’) - ‘ On one hand, he feels a bit... (Fluttery...?) But on the other... ("I'm really not that amazing.") ...He wonders what Taichi-san sees in him. ‘ ‘ Fluttery’ because... well, it’s Taichi. Praising him. But then his doubts start creeping in, again... (also note the original line above was, ‘I’m not really that amazing’) (which changes to emphasized ‘I’m really not that amazing’) (it doesn’t help that Koushiro feels even more helpless, himself) - ‘ (Hey, Koushiro?) (What did Koushiro see in him, anyway?) ‘ yeahhhh parallels (Taichi’s fear of Koushiro seeing too much in him and putting too much faith in him when Taichi’s only going to [Taichi assumes] let him down later??) aaand eventually they’re going to be forced to get up and leave and um (BAD END) (..... unless) (TAICHI STOP) (”beyond this repeating summer day, it has to exist”) [to be continued]

[50cyg]

Yin & Yang: The Unity of Opposites and the Omegamon Foreshadowing in Our War Game

This entire film (and I’d argue the whole of Digimon Adventure) was leading up to this moment. The unifying of Taichi and Yamato, two sides of the same coin, Yin & Yang, as one almighty force.

(Please make note of what side of Omegamon each boy is standing on, as it will be relevant throughout this post)

Throughout Adventure, the references to Taichi and Yamato being Yin & Yang and the foreshadowing to them being meant to come together as a unit are definitely present. However, in Our War Game I feel it gets turned up to 11.

Taichi and Yamato’s outfits

Many people in the fandom have already pointed out how Taichi and Yamato’s outfits in 02 as well as Tri hint at thei Yin and Yang nature, but in case you are not familiar I will reiterate here:

First, it starts with Taichi and Yamato wearing their Digivices on opposite sides of their waist in 01 (and presumably this continues on throughout the rest of the series). This information comes from one of the CD Dramas.

Then you have their 02 outfits

Taichi has his jacket undone while Yamato does not, Taichi has all of his button done up while Yamato has the top button undone, Taichi is wearing his shirt out while Yamato has his shirt tucked in.

Then we have their Tri outfits

Once again, Taichi has his shirt out while Yamato has his tucked in. You can’t tell in this picture but if you watch Tri you’ll notice that Taichi is wearing the shirt with short sleeves while Yamato is wearing the one with long sleeves. Taichi also wears the vest underneath his Jacket while Yamato does not. 

(completely irrelevant side note, but while doing this I noticed that Taichi, Yamato and Mimi are the only ones who wear their jackets unbuttoned in Tri and this pleases my OT3 senses :P)

So now back to Our War Game

(Sorry, I know that image looks dumb but I wanted to try to put two decent shots of their whole outfits next to each other for reference and my skills in this area are seriously lacking)

While Taichi’s outfit is pretty much the same as in Adventure (with a few minor changes), Yamato’s top has changed completely. I believe that this was done in order to have Yamato and Taichi’s outfits contrast each other to the max. 

Okay so, first off I want to point out the colors. Now Yamato’s pants look more grey in this shot but there are shots where they look more blue:

So, I’m convinced they are blue jeans. So in regards to color, Taichi is wearing brown on the bottom and blue on top, and Yamato is wearing brown on top and blue on the bottom.

Also, Yamato is wearing pants, while Taichi is wearing shorts, and Yamato’s top is a button up one while Taichi’s tops are pullovers. Furthermore Yamato is only wearing one shirt (or at least we can assume) while Taichi is wearing at least two (possibly 3, he’s wearing a yellow top under his blue one and I can’t tell if the long sleeved shirt is part of the yellow top or a separate top). Also, Yamato has shoes and Taichi doesn’t :P

The framing of Taichi and Yamato

Moving on from their character designs, I’d like to talk about the choices Hosoda made in terms of Yamato and Taichi’s placements within the frame when they are on screen. (This post is about to get very very very picture heavy).

Okay so here we have the first interaction between Taichi’s party and Yamato’s party. Notice how Taichi and Yamato are on opposite sides of the screen in their shots. Furthermore they are on the correct sides that they will be on when Omegamon first appears, with Taichi on the Right (just like how he is on the right shoulder of Omegamon) and Yamato on the left (just like how he is on the left shoulder).

And it continues.

Again they are on opposite sides of the screen on their “skype” chat (I know it’s not skype :P). (Also, side note, notice Taichi and Yamato’s names at the bottom and their emoji’s are wearing shades lol)

Again, just them on the right and left of the screen (don’t worry it get’s more interesting in a sec). 

Okay so this is MY FAVOURITE SHOT RIGHT HERE!! Taichi and Yamato are literally over lapping each other with Wargreymon on the right (just as the Grey Sword will be on the right when Omegamon is formed) and MetalGarurumon on the left (just as the Garuru Canon will be on the left). It’s just so PERFECT!!

East and West

So, there is an interesting scene in this movie just before the final battle with Diablomon where Koushiro is reading out mail from around the world. He reads two different emails and states where they are coming from. 

One is to Wargreymon and is from Costa Rica, the other is for MetalGarurumon and is from the Philippines. 

This is interesting because these location are on opposite sides of the North Pacific Ocean, with the Philippines in the East (GPS coordinates NE) (left) and Costa Rica in the West (GPS coordinates NW) (Right). This is even more interesting because the East is often associated with Yin while the West is associated with Yang. So where the mail is coming from and who it is addressed to lines up with Yamato and Taichi’s respective sides of Yin & Yang. 

I don’t know if this was intended or not but it’s really interesting anyway. So, many people probably know about the whole  East–West dichotomy which discusses the differences and divisions between the Eastern and Western worlds. But since the invention of the internet we have seen the divisions breaking down, the whole world is coming together in ways that was never previously possible, to do things we previously couldn’t (that’s not to say divisions don’t still exist but huge strides have been made in creating a unified earth). 

I think it’s cool to think that that was part of Hosoda’s intention when he made all of the kids from around the world come together to form the body of Omegamon.

And since I’m talking East and West and have pointed out how they correspond to Taichi and Yamato I’d like to take a moment to point out the similarities between Taiyama and the two men in a famous poem titled  "The ballad of East and West" (I have no idea if Hosoda knew about this poem, I doubt he did, but it would be kind of amazing if he did).

So first, the most famous lines from this poem (also the opening and closing verses):

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

(I’ll be quoting GradeSaver for this part cause I’m too lazy to write a whole thing about this and honestly it just speaks for itself. You can find more info and my sources here ).

“The story concerns two equally-matched warriors, and their rivalry that turns into great mutual respect and admiration. The theme of the poem is that men of each territory can put aside their differences and appreciate each other’s universal qualities of bravery, nobility, and rectitude. 

The line regarding East and West is derived from Psalm 103:12: “Look how wide also is the east from the west: so far hath he set our sins from us”. (Look more biblical references, I looked briefly into the meaning of these lines and it’s really just talking about how vast the love of God is so I don’t think there is anything to dissect about it, but I may come back to it later if I think of something). Another important element in the poem is the ritual of gifting, which comes after the two men begin to realize how much they have in common and how much they value the other's courage and might. A final significant element is the presence, as many critics and readers have noted, of an element of homoeroticism in the men's encounter. This is not easily dismissed”

So, yeah, lot’s of similarities here to Taichi and Yamato.

The forming of Omegamon

Taichi and Yamato talking about how they won’t give up just before the final fight.

And all of these creative choices, from their outfits, to the references to East and West, were all here to foreshadow and emphasize this beautiful moment! 

The unity of opposites

Omegamon!!

[flyonmylovee]

[ Here are some of my coherent thoughts on Shoushitsu + Tri overall, hopefully more organized than the string of upper-case letters I splattered across everyone’s dashboards a few days ago. This is INCREDIBLY long and all based on my personal speculation and the limited knowledge of mythology + themes outside of the adventure-verse, so I hope that dividing it into sections is helpful if anyone actually wants to read this and everything should be taken with a grain of salt. ]

So before I go any farther, I feel like I should say that I loved Shoushitsu. I’m becoming quite the apologist for it but I mean, I’ve been waiting my entire life for Sora to not be written out of a movie. While her character development leaves much to be desired, I have a ton of faith in the next two movies. I’d like to wait for those to come out before I make any definite judgments about whether Tri did Sora justice or not. I remember reading interviews with the Tri crew before Saikai came out, and the way they spoke about the characters really made me believe that they understand how important they are to us. I have faith that this is still well-planned. Little parts of Shoushitsu actually reaffirmed that for me. Now, if the next two movies don’t pull through I will totally eat my words, but as of now, I’m genuinely pretty happy. 

On Sora’s Arc: I don’t think it’s complete. To be honest, I don’t think any of the kid’s arcs are complete, so I’m 100% setting myself up for disappointment with the last movie, but once again I’m keeping the faith that something’s planned. Anyways, I think we all saw Sora’s problem coming from a mile away. She’s an introvert who tries to get her energy from others. If she can’t be motherly she feels like she has no purpose. Everyone grows up except for digimon. What would she do if Piyomon wasn’t around? Apparently, totally crash and burn and turn invisible to her friends. 

I noticed a lot of references to Meiko throughout Sora’s ordeal. Meiko’s a newcomer and arguably the source of all their problems. Sora spent a considerable amount of time worrying about her and trying to include her in the group. The moment Pyocomon rejects Sora, you can literally see the darkness in her eyes and the entire first episode I was yelling at my screen about how nobody noticed her obvious depression. I really like the way sad Sora was animated. It was resonating. Someone should have felt it, and I think Sora knew that too. Instead, we see everyone consistently worrying about Meiko. Taichi declares that she’s part of the group and that they have a responsibility to reunite her with Meicoomon. So where does that leave Sora, who’s also very separated from her partner? I think this speaks a lot to the scene around the campfire later that night. They’re discussing how Meiko’s just a normal girl and pondering whether she’d make it in the digital world. Someone says that she probably wouldn’t. Sora has a strikingly out of character moment when she agrees with them. “Probably.”

I think that was Sora’s true low point. She threw someone under the bus for morally questionable reasons. It seems like Sora felt excluded not just by Piyomon, but replaced by her entire group of friends that she’d spent years emotionally investing in. “I just wanted to be recognized” is such a meaningful line. She’s not one to try and profit off someone else’s misfortune, so if Sora felt any true darkness, I’d say this was the moment.

To make matters worse, another scene that stuck with me is when the kids first realize that Meicoomon’s memory is still intact. Sora’s the first one to really question it and ponder about whether the reboot was really worth it. When Koushiro confirms that it likely wasn’t, I think Sora sort of cracked. The comparisons to Meiko are still relevant here. 

In the end, Sora ultimately solves her own problem and is able to reconnect with Piyomon. She’s persistent and Piyomon realizes that she’s “a big softie”. I question how much of this is due to Sora evolving as a character and Piyomon just deciding to not be such an asshole, but still. No one held her hand through any of it. Even if she wanted someone to, she didn’t let anyone. I can easily make the case here that nothing about Sora really changed- she just hit rock bottom and was able to bounce back. My instinct is that if Piyomon were to change her mind and reject Sora again, she’d fall right back into the same depression. There’s still the potential for Sora to see that darkness and like so many of the chosen’s problems, they remanifest in different ways. Sora will continue to struggle with feelings of self-worth, which is disappointing, but when it’s so deeply embedded it’s also unrealistic to see it solved in a single movie. 

I think what matters most about the conclusion is the affirmation of one of Sora’s core beliefs. They and their digimon partners are exceptional. They’ll always be connected, no matter what happens. This is the thought Sora uses to cheer Meiko up and Meiko repeats it right back to her. I think the Tri crew was trying to emphasize it’s importance. More than anything, I think what matters here is that Sora’s darkness caused her to question that belief. Who is she if the value she always relied on isn’t true? What’s the use of her words if they’re just cliches? If they and their partners aren’t exceptional, how can she not consistently be anxious about the future? 

I did appreciate the end of Sora’s arc. You see the “taiorato” triangle reversed. (And, in fact, you see the taiorato crew in different triangle formations at many points during Shoushitsu. For me it highlighted changing dynamics.) In the first movie, Taichi and Yamato stood in front of her and we see Sora in the background worrying between them. At the end of Shoutshitsu, it’s Sora front and center with Pyocomon held close. Taichi and Yamato are standing behind her, probably wondering how it’s possible to suppress so many negative emotions, but Sora could care less. It highlights the importance of her friendship with Piyomon over everyone else. Everything fell back into place (thankfully) and she can move forward. As long as Piyomon understands her, they can regrow. 

And this is good. A scene I particularly enjoyed in Adventure is the one where they finally encounter Sora after she’s realized she has the crest of love. The only reason Sora got any emotional closure from that is because she opened up. Why did she open up? Piyomon told her she should. Piyomon helped her explain her feelings. Piyomon asked everyone to understand. I think Piyomon acts as Sora’s translator. No one really understands her and I question whether Sora actually wants them to. When it comes down to it I think she just wants to love and be loved in return. The only thing is that Sora still hasn’t learned to truly love herself. She’ll have to one day, but I’m not sure if we’ll see it.

I’d like to take a moment to discuss whether Sora was “shafted” or not. On the surface it definitely does. However, when you look closely, it seems like the writers really took the time to look at her major arcs in Adventure. There are many parallels that are meaningful if you know where to look, which echoes the way that Sora’s friends really need to treat her. Just like Takeru continued to evolve in this film (which he did, it wasn’t just Patamon ‘stealing the spotlight’), I think Sora has the potential to continue growing in the next two installments. Should she? Yes. Will she? ...Probably not. Am I still hopeful? Yeah, absolutely. 

On Taichi & Yamato: Their interactions in this film took years off my life. There’s a scene involving Machinedramon where Tentomon’s buzzing around mumbling “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!” and there isn’t a more accurate comparison to me watching Shoushitsu for the first time. I loved every minute of it. 

Let’s start with Taichi. We know that he doesn’t understand Sora. I’m always brought back to Sora’s CD drama when she first tells Taichi she’s quitting football to play tennis. Taichi’s totally dumbfounded. He thinks that Sora’s losing herself and he questions her decision. Sora becomes flustered, and if I’m remembering correctly, doesn’t even offer Taichi an explanation. She just gives up. It’s like she already knows it would be no use to try and tell him that her starting tennis is a result of her allowing herself to truthfully grow. I think that Taichi was spot on throughout this entire movie in terms of his interactions with Sora. No complaints from me. The entire movie could have been Taichi following Sora around in the woods like a lost puppy and I would’ve been happy. There are a few key moments that stuck out to me, though.

First, there’s Taichi saying “I could never understand you, Sora” before echoing something Piyomon said to Sora before. She takes care of her own problems and never tells anyone else. (Does she really take care of her own problems though??) Anyways, in Adventure, Taichi tries to cheer Sora up by telling her that she cares for everyone else. He thinks that’s good. Sora instantly shoots back at him and says he doesn’t know her and he should stop speaking like he does. To me, Taichi’s reaction here made it seem like he never forgot that conversation. He doesn’t understand her. If he made that implication in the future he’d probably get chewed out again. In Taichi’s very literal head, his comment probably sounded completely rational and that sort of makes me laugh. Interactions like this with Sora just seem to never go in his favor and it’s like he’s started to just accept it. 

Still, it’s easy for the viewers to see how much he cares for her. Taichi struggles to maintain a necessary level of consideration in order to make Sora feel better. He laughs with Agumon in the river as Sora walks away, he calls her a big pain, he tells her to chill out, and basically repetitively word vomits into her hat and wonders why she won’t put it on... all things that remind me of their friendship in adventure. It highlights the youthfulness of their friendship. His teasing her is incredibly thoughtless and poorly timed, but we’ve seen this a million times before and we don’t question whether he cares for her. 

One of my favorite scenes in all of Shoushitsu is Meiko and Sora’s encounter with not-Gennai (as I’m gonna start referring to him because he’s creepy af, but more on that later). Sora, who clearly hasn’t planned beyond the next couple of seconds, starts throwing rocks around and finds herself in a physical tussle with the enemy. This is the second or third scene of many in which Sora should have probably died, but the other cool thing about Shoushitsu is that we learned Sora’s bones are made of metal. Anyways, as Sora’s digging herself into this hole, about to hit six feet under, portals open up to all the other chosen children. We don’t really see anyone’s reaction, but we know they can see everything. The one person that we do zone in on is Taichi. He’s staring up at the scene, wide-eyed with worry, and he mutters Sora’s name in disbelief. I really enjoyed two small details about this scene: the timing and the portal’s location. Just before Sora’s fight, we see Taichi talking to Gabumon about whether being chosen matters anymore. He had faith that he could have Agumon digivolve if he needed to, but that obviously didn’t happen. I started to wonder if Taichi was reminded of SkullGreymon, etc. I think a big misconception about Taichi is that he’s always ready to charge. In Tri he’s clearly not, but he wasn’t always that way in Adventure either. It’s actually pretty common for Taichi to freeze and to question himself, and that scene sets him up to be in that mindset. And just, HIS EYES. When he sees Sora it’s like he freezes again. He’s already feeling useless, he couldn’t help Sora before, she’s about to get totally obliterated by Machinedramon’s cannon, and the portal that appears in his area is up the side of a cliff that looks like it’s at least 100 feet tall. 

That animation probably didn’t mean anything, but it was neat to think about how quickly Taichi probably had to scramble up there to rescue his friend. I imagine him instantly side-lining his doubts and stereo-typically jumping into action, which he hasn’t been able to do all season. If that happened then Sora was the cause. I like to imagine that Taichi was thinking he couldn’t let her down again. His face made it seem like his life was flashing before his eyes, and perhaps he was remembering all the times he’d froze to Sora’s detriment. Nanomon’s the best example. Sora almost died and whether it was actually Taichi’s fault or not (ok it 80% is), he knows what it’s like to live with the guilt of losing her. Now, I also believe scenes like Nanomon’s treated Sora as kinda disposable for Taichi’s character development (another post for another day), and Shoutshitsu towed a fine line with this, so I’m glad that they didn’t show him scrambling up the cliff. Still, it’s an interesting thought. I only rewound the scene a handful of times. 

Now moving on to Yamato, I have some... complaints. But don’t we all with him? Anyways, in the broader scheme of things I also appreciated his interactions with Sora. It’s obvious that he cares and that he’s more attune with her feelings. He has a better sense of what’s inappropriate and what isn’t. Still, he’s struggling, and I don’t know whether I totally buy it. When Yamato went right along with Taichi in calling Sora a big pain (just before I yelled that Sora could kill the two of them in the digital world and no one would ever know) I asked myself a pretty good question. What the fuck is Yamato’s deal? I actually don’t think we really know. We’ve gotten a good picture of the way he’s grown, but most of his issues have revolved around Taichi. I hope we circle back around to him later and see him work through some crisis that explains this. I think he should understand Sora better than this, whether they’re together or not. My only logical explanation for the way he acts is that Taichi’s around. I wonder if Yamato would have acted differently had he approached Sora alone. 

I’ve also heard a lot of mixed reactions to the lack of Sorato in Shoushitsu. I’m kind of glad that their (non) relationship wasn’t emphasized. It would have detracted from Sora solving her own problems. I’m starting to think that Sora and Yamato really aren’t together, otherwise I don’t know if Taichi would’ve tagged along for the conversation. He’s always been pretty thoughtful about giving them their space, it seems. Remember the first time we see the three of them in Saikai? Anyways, as someone who ships Sorato, Taiora, and Taiorato, my hopes of seeing some new information are dwindling. However, I really do think that we’ll get a small scene in the last movie. If the Tri crew is serious about connecting things to the epilogue I think they’d tack something in about them making up, or something reinforcing the fact that they’re together. Maybe they’re saving it till last to capitalize on those $$profits$$ but I think there’ll be something. 

On Gennai: There’s been a lot of contention about the scene. I’ll be the first to admit that it made me hella uncomfortable. It’s long and drawn out and I was uncomfortable enough watching him search for her digivice, and then that other thing did me in. I acknowledge that Tri’s goal with this was to make people uncomfortable. The kids are grown up. Things are dark. This show isn’t for kids. Mission accomplished. I particularly like the way not-Gennai speaks. Excellent job by the voice actor TBH. Everything about him is creepy. I also couldn’t shake the thought that as Sora was fighting with him, her friends saw the whole thing. Digimon’s never been a show for processing but I do maybe wish they’d done a little more here. Taichi & Yamato should have been angrier and I feel like this was the second time when something majorly traumatic happened to Sora and we just assume she doesn’t need to process it. Not that there’s... really time. I don’t really know what I’m asking for here but I don’t think many of us expected that sorta scene, so.

On the flip side, a lot of folks have really valid criticisms of this scene. There was no warning for it and I’m so sorry that so many people had to sit thought it unexpectedly. I think those that watched it first could have put out some sort of warning while still being spoiler free, and I’m gonna personally keep that in mind for the future movies because not-Gennai continues to be creepy af. I don’t really have anything valuable to add to the Gennai discussion beyond this, so this is where I’ll leave it. I just hope we all know that it is 100% ok and normal to wish this scene wasn’t in the movie and it has nothing to do with not accepting that Tri is for adults. 

On the plot overall: I feel like I’m being pulled in twenty different directions and I don’t know how Tri could possible wrap this all up with a nice, nostalgic bow. I wonder if they’re planning on some sort of Tri 02 which... wow. That would be incredible, wouldn’t it? But my hopes are not high, they actually don’t exist at all, so... moving on. Er, I made a post about it, but wtf are those planetary objects that are floating around? Why did they show up after the battle between Alphamon and Omegamon? Is it representative of the infection? Of that strange, inter-dimensional world? Was it just an addition to the animation? If not, why are they still present during the evolution scenes in the fourth movie? They’re all over the place. I personally think the digimon are still infected and that the true reboot hasn’t really happened yet. I think a true reboot will come when Meicrackmon causes enough damage to get Yggdrasil’s attention and reset the entire world. I think that reset already happened in the very beginning scene. It reminded me of “the end of the world” event from Norse mythology. I think it will happen again and I think we’re in the specific “pre-apocalyptic” period that’s mentioned. Maki obviously believes the reboot already happened but I think she got played. I don’t think the digimon needed to lose their memories, I don’t think the kids needed to go to the digital world... I just think that different actors were trying to make Meicrackmon well... crack. It happened, but it could have happened in a number of different ways. 

I’m noticing an “X” theme and I can’t help but think about the x-antibody. There’s always this focus on Meicoomon’s eyes. I don’t know much about the x-antibody or Yggdrasil’s reset in previous seasons/games, but I would love to talk to someone who does? The first time Meicoomon changes modes (not evolving), we see that DNA-X appear on Meiko’s digivice. I wonder if it’s symbolic of the X factor altering her partner? To me, this helps me rationalize why Alphamon’s involved. Additionally, to me, the orb that appeared on Maki’s digivice sort of looks like Yggdrasil’s orb form...? 

Random note, here, but there’s also a lot of talk of falling into darkness, or hands plunging into darkness. I thought it was interested that Meiko (who also didn’t deny that Meicoomon was “bad”) says “I thought you were finally out of my hands, but...” 

I also like Meicoomon’s nickname of “The Libra”. So Meicoomon’s meant to act as some scale, and not-Gennai wants her to tip into chaos due to Yggdrasil’s will? Why was Meicoomon “never meant to be born”? Why can Meicrackmon evolve into Ophanimon and Mastemon (literally a balance of darkness and light, normally angewomon and ladydevimon jogressed) in one of the games? Is Meicoomon meant to be a scale on her own or is there someone else keeping the balance? Why did a Tri writer say that Meiko felt the need to alter her behavior after she noticed Meicoomon acting strangely? Why did they say Meicrackmon’s “physical appearance” is important? Why is her digiegg being similar to Tailmon’s important (especially when Hikari’s trait is light)??? Plotmon is known (sometimes?) as a digimon that was created by human researchers. I totally believe that Meicoomon was created. Perhaps by Meiko’s dad? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS. WHERE ARE THE 2′s IN THE DIGITAL CODE. WHY WAS IT PURPOSEFUL FOR ONLY PALMON AND GOMAMON AND LEOMON TO BREAK THROUGH INTO THE WEIRD INTER-DIMENSION? WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE NAME ‘TRI’ BESIDES INDICATING THE THIRD SEASON? Yggdrasil has three roots that carry it’s worlds, right? Three “norns” that cater to it? For some reason this makes me think of everyone else jogress digivolving. I don’t know why don’t look at me this is unfounded and I shouldn’t be posting it. In like, every Tri interview though there’s at least one person telling us to watch the evolution sequences carefully, so I feel like that holds the key to something. 

Anyways, I’m so deep into Norse mythology and I need to stop so those are some of my under-developed thoughts. I don’t know much outside of Adventure seasons, so. 

Random Points: 1. I still can’t get over the art. There’s so much thought put into some of these scenes. I also LOVE the tri version of keep on. oh my god. 2. I like the parallel of insults Piyomon was throwing at Sora. “You’re weak” “You’re only human” and then the insults of Meiko that Sora jumped in on “she’s just a normal girl” and then how not-Gennai taunted Sora “without this you’re just a normal kid.” There’s so much under the surface here which is Sora in a nutshell.  3. We were brought through that strange inter-dimension before we see the kids in the digital world. It’s when the Tri logo is on the screen and the background is dark. You see those strange planetary objects floating around. Are we even in the digital world we know? I’m reminded of the way Taichi says “I encountered you” in the first PV.  4. Still convinced that if the reboot happened Plotmon shouldn’t have Hikari’s whistle. Isn’t Hikari holding the whistle string in her poster? We also heard the whistle at the end of the first PV. I hope they use it to call Ophanimon FM back to reality or something.  5. Hikari is the only one who seemingly is okay with the reboot. Plotmon has none of her bad memories. Still though, something is off. If the kids figure out how to reverse everything I think Hikari will try to stop them. 6. I liked that when Taichi + Yamato were failing miserably at cheering Sora up, Yamato would also twist his head to glare at Taichi when they made it worse. It’s like he always assumes Taichi’s a fool ahaha. 7. I’m also laughing because what if, ok what if... going back and looking at my linked post above, there’s an interview with the Tri crew and they talk about how Omegamon splits apart too early due to Taichi’s emotions. Yamato calls him out on this. The interview asks us how that will affect things now. I remember reading somewhere that a digimon’s digicore can be altered if jogress evolution is interrupted, or something like that. I cackle every time I think about all of this somehow being Taichi + Yamato’s fault. It obviously isn’t but just... what if they made it worse ahah. Get wrecked, Yamato. Anyways, digicores coming into play here would have many implications. Everyone’s last little bit of data would remain, right? I don’t know anything about digicores so I’ll leave it at that. 

Ok, I think that’s mostly everything! Wow this is a novel and a half, so if anyone’s still reading this... than..k.s? I want to add screenshots so I’m at work so maybe later. I may add more thoughts too. All subject to change, but I wanna keep it all here so I’m not spamming everyone with smaller, more frequent posts. 

[royalnovels-blog]

The Strongest System 89

Chapter 89: Redeeming Myself, Cheapness Doesn't Change Translator: Kaos Editor: AntiGod In the deserted unnamed mountain, Lin Fan sighed as he sat down on a rock. Then, he started to stare into the distance, thinking about life and the meaning of the world. A gust of wind blew, blowing away some leaves, emphasizing the desolation that seemed to exist there. This place looked deserted, compared to the prosperous sect not far away. He was alone, and had no one to rely on in this unfamiliar place. What should he do? Lin Fan missed the life from before, but it was gone now. Amidst these thoughts, Lin Fan’s body became one with the environment, and the depressed feeling spread everywhere. One day passed. Two days passed. Lin Fan sat on the rock without moving, like a stone. Glory Sect’s grand master gave the unnamed mountain to a new disciple. The news was heard by many people. The news attracted a huge attention immediately. The news was unbelievable, they just could not believe the grand master would give the mountain to others just like that. Some elders disagreed, but it was of no use. It was a direct order from the grand master. Could they say no? Other disciples were very interested in the man who ended up getting the unnamed mountain from the grand master. Therefore, they came to see what kind of a man could build a division at the unnamed mountain. When they arrived there, they looked at the deserted place and shook their head. Old and uncivilized, weeds growing everywhere, trees growing out of order, it was too hard to build a division here. Then, they saw the man on the rock, which sparked their curiosity. Some disciples checked him out and left. The second day, more disciples came, and that man was still there. The third day, another wave of disciples come, and he was exactly there. .... After several days… A rumor started to go around within the Glory Sect. The man who received the unnamed mountain was a dumb guy, who kept sitting on the rock without moving. Senior elder Wuya and Yan were both paying close attention to Lin Fan. They knew Lin Fan was mediating. The destruction of the sect was an unbearable business for anyone. Some would go crazy. Some would go numb. Some would get lost in vengeance. And some rare ones would step out of the nightmare and recover. They just did not know which category Lin Fan would fall into. Ten days later, laughter spread across the unnamed mountain. "I need to wake up, work hard, and take revenge after I get stronger." Lin Fan woke up with his mind feeling as if it was being caressed by a fresh breeze. What could he do by worrying every day? What was lost could not be recovered. His power could not increase without any effort. Recovering himself and keeping working hard was what he needed to do. When his power level overwhelmed that of his enemies, it would be the time for revenge. In the Glory Sect far away from Lin Fan, a man stood there, seeming to be able to see the unnamed mountain as if it was just right in front of me. He smiled gently, his eyes full of care and appreciation. "It is good to wake up." ... Lin Fan thought for a while about his current situation. To be frank, he was poor and had nothing. No man to use, poorer than a homeless man. In order to continue the Saint Devil Sect, he could not just think about it. As a grand master of a sect, he needed to have a house first, then some servants and disciples. Ah, he lacked basically everything. Lin Fan sighed. It was really troublesome to start from the bottom. The good thing was that he was in the Glory Sect. If he used his brain, problems like these could be solved. Lin Fan checked out the thing that Senior elder Wuya gave him. An old book Lin Fan checked it carefully and found out that it had records of secrets about Dongling Continent. Sect’s divisions’ locations on Dongling Continent, divisions in secret places, divisions in forbidden areas, and all others thing which needed to be remembered were all in the book. Training style in Dongling Continent was not too different from that in Cangling Continent. However, it was not as complicated as the one in Cangling Continent. Here, they divided the levels into four parts, beginning, medium, high, and ultimate, instead of numbers. Lin Fan closed the book, finally gaining some knowledge about this continent. This continent was not worse than Cangling Continent, and actually was even more advanced. Also, this continent was much bigger than Cangling Continent. There were also many powers in this place, far more complicated than one could imagine. However, this had nothing to do with him. Lin Fan put the book away, not caring about what the book said. The first thing to do was to recover, and continue the legacy of the Saint Devil Sect. Although he was the only one left, he carried the high hope of his grand master and senior brothers. He could not let them down. Lin Fan scanned the unnamed mountain and checked the terrain. He finally decided to build the house on a flat ground. He picked some large trees and cut them down. Then, he sliced them into pillars and used them as four holding pillars. Subsequently, he started to make wooden floors. ... When everything was done, Lin Fan was finally relived. His two-floor wooden house was ready. Although it was not something amazing, at least he had a now. It was dark outside at the moment, so Lin Fan went inside his wooden house and tried to train. Faceless Sky Demon and Jianyi were the best martial skills Lin Fan knew. Now that the system had changed, he was not sure if training was any different. Lin Fan had reached level two for Faceless Sky Demon, but he was still at level one for Jianyi. "Wennn..." After Lin Fan started to train, the space behind him shook, like a stone thrown into a lake. Lin Fan was running both the skills at the same time. Like Yinyang Taichi, half the area was black mist while the other half was the will of the sword, which turned into an unnamed powerful sword with a blinding white light. At this time, Lin Fan opened his eyes in shock. When he went into training mode, he did not hear the notification sound from the system, but he felt a certain power going inside his body comfortably. Lin Fan had never felt like that, and the speed of exercising those two skills even seemed to be faster now. This was the effect of the system fusion. He was just not sure whether there were more functions for him to explore. Lin Fan calmed down and returned to training. Next day, the sun rose, and Lin Fan opened his eyes while taking a deep breath. After an all-night training, both of his skills advanced quickly. Especially Jianyi, it was at the gate way of leveling up. Lin Fan believed that it would level up soon. Lin Fan wanted to check this sect out now that he had been here for a while. Finding a chance to get some resources or trick someone to be his servant should be a good idea. The most important thing was that he had not eaten for ten days. He was starving, and if he still had nothing to eat, his body would not be able to hold on anymore. Lin Fan was grateful to the Glory Sect grand master. He not only gave Lin Fan the mountain, but also granted him all the privileges a disciple could have. This was unbelievable. Lin Fan stepped out of his door and realized something was missing. He furrowed his brows and immediately came to a realization. So, he brought a giant stone and put it at the entrance. Using his finger as a pen, he wrote the three words, "Saint Devil Sect." After he was done with this, Lin Fan nodded with satisfaction. That was more like it.   Previous         Main menu           Next Click to Post

[shihalyfie]

“Dependable senior” Kido Jou

Continuing my thread of analyzing the Adventure characters in detail, today we’ll be talking about Jou, Adventure’s most famous disaster character whom most of us have probably started feeling may actually be the most relatable character in this cast. It’s hard not to love him, honestly, given how earnestly he works so hard at everything and yet has an unfortunate tendency to dig himself into a hole.

Let’s just cut to the chase and talk about Jou!

Jou’s family background

Adventure is of course known for its overall focus on family backgrounds, but Jou’s is fairly different from the others’ for a lot of different reasons. We never meet Jou’s parents in the series itself, only in a drama CD, but we do meet his brother, Kido Shin -- and in fact, Jou’s the only Adventure kid to have siblings outside of the group (two, in fact, although we don’t meet Shuu until 02).

Jou’s family is what’s often called an “elite” family -- one that pushes for its kids and family members to have a certain degree of “high status” through their career. Even those in non-Asian countries will probably recognize that academic achievement measurement pressure is endemic to the culture in general -- especially since Japan has standard entrance exams go all the way down to high school level -- but it is especially prominent in the case of the Kido family, and Jou’s father has been pushing all three of his sons to become doctors, largely because he wants one of them to inherit his clinic. (While it’s not as extreme as Sora’s problem with iemoto position inheritance, Jou’s position of being in inheritance pressure is not entirely dissimilar.) It also means that just being any kind of doctor isn’t enough for him -- it’s got to be one of the “dignified and prominent” kinds of doctors (heavily implied to involve surgery, given the mention of blood).

In addition, while it’s not strictly said within the series itself, it’s implied that Jou is feeling a lot of pressure in terms of being the youngest of three sons, when the older two have a huge age gap with him. Jou is only in elementary school, while his second oldest brother is in high school and his oldest brother already a medical student! (By the time Adventure is over, both brothers are in national university, which is a really tough achievement.) Within his family, Jou really is The Baby compared to two high-achieving brothers who are already “well on their way to great things”.

In order to be on the path of becoming a doctor, Jou starts off the series, only in elementary school, in the “prep school track” -- or, what’s basically a constant cycle of getting into a good school so that he can get into another good school so that he can get into another good school (et cetera). Again, Japanese schools have entrance exams as early as high school, so this is something he’ll be setting on very early. I also cannot emphasize enough that for anyone who has to go through this process, it is absolute hell. I have never met anyone who actually enjoys doing this; it’s a means to an end. It’s very hard to have your heart into this unless you want the final goal that badly -- vague promises of status alone don’t do it -- and even those who do want it often end up demotivated and going through the motions with their will broken partway into it.

And, unfortunately for Jou, he’d already had a good reason to not want to do this from day one.

Jou has severe blood phobia. (Formally called “hemophobia”, although I tend to avoid that term given that it’s one letter off from something else.) Shin even makes it clear in this scene from Adventure episode 38 that any doubts about Jou’s ability to become a doctor don’t have anything to do with his personality or abilities, but the fact is that this is, indeed, a very serious and concrete problem for someone who intends to become a doctor (or at least, again, the kind of doctor that his father wants him to be). It’s possible that Jou outright fainting at the sight of blood might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s definitely enough of a deterrent that he’s not feeling this whole thing at all, and convincing him to actually care about becoming a doctor is going to require a huge uphill battle. By default, the answer was already a huge, capital NO in giant letters before anything ever began. And yet, Jou continued to force himself to go through the motions.

It should also be made clear that while Jou’s father was pressuring him to become a doctor, he was also not trying to force Jou to become one. The drama CD where he appears had him actually outwardly encourage Jou to do whatever he wanted instead of forcing himself -- but it was also extremely clear that he was still personally very unhappy and dissatisfied with the idea of all three brothers not taking over his clinic. As much as the Kido brothers do seem to be concerned about their father’s disapproval, it’s less so out of fear of retribution and more that they just really worry about disappointing him. Hence, this is why Jou continues to follow the path even when he’s not really feeling it, and it’s important to understanding Jou as a character for the rest of this post: Jou has no personal interest in status or honor, but is motivated by his sense of duty towards other people. 

Even so, “because my father really wants me to” isn’t exactly very motivating in itself, and, all in all, Jou starts off Adventure very jaded about his future prospects, and rather demotivated and uninterested in them. But come the events of Adventure, Jou, the aforementioned “baby of the family”, gets recasted as the oldest in the group -- which becomes a huge factor in how he ends up changing his view of himself and his personal goals.

Jou in Adventure

Jou starts off the series assigned as Mimi’s camp group leader, but even Mimi senses an aura from him that he doesn’t seem very “reliable”. In this case, the word “reliable” doesn’t refer to his Crest name (which did get a dub name of “Reliability”) but rather various words that effectively mean “able to be counted on”. Which, at this early point of the story, Jou is decidedly not. Once the adventure gets off the ground, Jou easily succumbs to stress, and especially the stress and burden placed on him from being the oldest in the group.

If you’re wondering if that one-year difference between Jou and Taichi/Yamato/Sora really is that big of a deal, culturally speaking: yes, it is (especially when everyone’s at this young age), and Jou isn’t just being stickler about it. You can actually see an example of how this comes into play once they return to regular society in Adventure episode 29, when the kids are allowed to go to Hikarigaoka purely because “a sixth-grader” (Jou) is with them. This is the kind of responsibility that society normally imposes on him, and this is what he carries even into another world.

In fact, Jou’s aware even from the get-go that he’s not exactly cut out for that kind of role. From the Adventure novels:

Jou thought about it. He, too, felt sorry for the younger boy… but it would be over for his leadership if he went back on what he’d already decided. Give them an opening and they’ll soon be walking all over him. He just couldn’t have that. Jou was all too aware of his own often indecisive personality. ... When they heard what had transpired between her and Jou, Yamato and the others glared coldly in Jou’s direction. What was this, a dictatorship?

As a result, he initially rubs everyone the wrong way because, in their view, he’s trying to impose his will on everyone like some control freak, but as it turns out, being a control freak is actually part of Jou’s stress response.

Said control freakishness manifests in Jou constantly spending the early part of the series by leaning back on “the rules of society” -- including the early series running gag of him insisting that there must be “adults” there, when this is clearly not the case to everyone else present -- because, for someone like him who easily gives into stress and anxiety and has a nasty tendency to become incredibly irrational, leaning on those “rules” is some degree of comfort to him. Now that he’s been dragged into another world, he’s desperately clawing at anything that can bring his sense of “reality” back -- hence why he keeps relying on the concept of “adults”, because the truth is that he himself isn’t actually that capable of handling the situation on his own, and he’s trying to convince himself that there’s Some More Reliable Thing Out There that they can fall back on.

The infamous “egg scene” in Adventure episode 7 is certainly comedic when Jou overreacts to everyone harmlessly listing off things they like on their eggs, but things quickly take a turn for the dramatic when Jou practically has a mental breakdown over it. In the end, Jou so easily succumbs to anxiety that even little things like “being a little out of order” stress him out to no end. The world is easy to understand and explain when everything is in the right place, and chaos has a tendency to completely disorient him.

But on the other hand, it’s also in Adventure episode 7 where we learn that Jou’s control freak behavior isn’t because he actually cares about any kind of status or honor for being the oldest, but because he truly, truly feels responsible for everyone’s welfare.

“Because I’m the oldest” is a statement that Jou means in the context of him having a duty to protect everyone -- beyond everything, the one thing that does make Jou passionate is how much he truly, truly cares about other people’s welfare, to the point he impulsively throws himself onto the Black Gear-controlled Unimon and tries to yank the gear out with his bare hands. In fact, said episode demonstrates that Jou can be recklessly self-sacrificial when he wants to be, because his failed attempts at dispute resolution lead him to conclude that he should be the one to take one for the team. For all it’s worth, Jou has the right idea when it comes to trying to take leadership, because he’s very much doing this for the welfare of others more than he ever cares about himself or the glory of the position -- it’s just that, being rather reckless, rather paranoid, and not very good at actually thinking straight, his way of going about it doesn’t tend to always land right.

But it’s undeniable that he cares, and he’s trying, and this leads to a shift in how the rest of the team comes to perceive him for the rest of the series now that they understand that his intentions really are for their sake, not because he’s trying to be a jerk about it.

And that comes out to be the one most prominent trait about Jou for the rest of the series, especially in Adventure episodes 23 and 36 -- as much as an unpredictable loose cannon as he can be, he’s so loyal to his friends and determined to protect them that he would even recklessly throw himself into the line of fire for them. That’s the basis of his Crest, which is something that’s been translated half a dozen different ways, but all boil down to the same principle: he has a strong sense of duty and responsibility to other people, and will always make do on his promises to others or his desire to provide for them.

After a few of their initial bad starts, the Adventure kids never treat him badly -- in fact, both Sora and Mimi respectfully call him “Jou-senpai” as if to acknowledge his position over them in school, something that’s stuck very well with the actual fanbase (more on this later). Of course, everyone tends to get exasperated at him or worry about whether he’ll actually pull through on anything he attempts, but the majority of the humor revolving around Jou in Adventure has very little to do with anyone insulting or tormenting him, and more that he tends to be so dramatic and high-strung that he kind of digs himself into a hole. (Like how he tries to angrily chastise everyone for spending their money on food in Adventure episode 30, only for the revelation that he’s starving himself to kick in and for him to sink into the exact opposite extreme.) Ultimately, everyone comes to understand that Jou’s working really hard for their sake, so they cut him a bit of slack.

In fact, while Taichi initially complains about Jou sitting out of their trip to Shibaura to find the eighth child for the sake of entrance exam studies in Adventure episode 32, the kids strike a compromise by dumping all of their phone call work on him. Of course, this is a bit of “revenge” for him not accompanying them, but it is effectively the other kids respecting his right to sit out and not have to completely give up on his real life obligations even in the middle of the eighth child search, by allowing him to participate in the search in a way that’s more convenient for him.

But despite diligently sticking to the motions, Jou doesn’t actually emotionally care about all of this. We even get a hint of this in Adventure episode 35 -- Jou gets what he calls “the worst grade in his life,” presumably due to all of the stress he’d been going through lately, having just gotten back from the Digital World and all. He also bounces back incredibly quickly, saying that he’ll have to call and inform his parents he’ll be back late.

In the end, Jou doesn’t really care about his grades or performance when it comes to cram school, even despite insisting on sticking to it, because he’s just not feeling it. He doesn’t even want to be a doctor all that much; he has no true motivation and no reason to care. (The only time Jou is ever portrayed as actually liking doing any kind of studying at all rather than doing it as obligation is when everyone’s listing off what they miss doing in Adventure episode 6, but it’s in a context where everyone’s talking about missing home, so it’s more of him missing his daily routine and what’s “familiar” to him than anything else.) He went through the motions, and was slightly disappointed about the grade, but the “ultimate goal” of becoming a doctor had no personal meaning to him, and so he shrugs it all off.

Jumping in physical danger to save someone’s life? That’s a no-brainer -- Jou would easily throw himself into the line of fire to do so, because he’s so passionate about protecting other people and taking responsibility for them that he’ll gladly sacrifice himself for anyone else in a heartbeat. But this whole thing about becoming a doctor and his future career is such a vague thing that he doesn’t even want that it’s arguably more of his “required daily routine” than it’s actually something he cares about all that much.

And so, we finally meet Kido Shin, in Adventure episode 38 -- he’s the oldest of the Kido brothers, already a medical student, and, ostensibly, the one closest to their father’s goal of having doctor sons. Yet his first appearance indicates that even he doesn’t have it all together, either -- he sleeps in the closet (Jou didn’t even know about this!), and somehow just slept through all of his surroundings being kidnapped. So even one of Jou’s apparent models is a bit of a disaster himself -- and, more importantly, Shin leaves some advice with Jou that sticks with him for the rest of the series.

Shin does not intend to be a doctor in the way their father wants him to be (remember, he specifically wants them to take over his clinic). This is Jou’s first time hearing about this, which is important because it means it’s the first time Jou is having such a major shakeup to his likely perception of Shin as a “prior example” -- and Shin knows this, because he promptly uses himself as an example of why Jou should also be free to choose his own path. Jou being the Kido family’s “baby” especially comes out in the novel, because Shin implies that he thinks Shuu would feel independent enough to not need any advice about this, whereas Jou definitely needs it.

We don’t get follow-up on this until after they return to the Digital World, and Mimi witnessing a handful of deaths and eventually Taichi and Yamato falling out brings her to her emotional limit; Jou decides to take responsibility for her, and while part of it is presumably because he’s had charge of her as her camp group leader since the beginning, it’s also clear that the recent events in the Digital World are weighing on him in their own way, as are Shin’s words about finding his own path.

What he wanted to tell her was this: that he didn’t see any likelihood of co-existing with the Dark Masters, and that they had no other choice but to fight them. Even a neutral country like Switzerland had a military. They would be invaded by enemy countries without one. It would be nice and ideal if they used the nonviolent resistance approach as Ghandi did. But that didn’t mean it was okay to just be killed without lifting a finger… But not even he could find a good answer.

QUESTION: Under what circumstances is it okay to battle?

That sort of question would never appear on a school test, and he’d never once thought about it before…

But on their way, Jou and Mimi encounter Ogremon and Leomon, and for the first time, Jou’s peripheral knowledge of medicine from his father starts having a practical use -- up until then, “becoming a doctor” had only been something that he’d been following for a vague sense of status that he didn’t even want, but here, Jou starts to see the connection between that goal and what it would mean for what he wants: to be able to help people right in front of him. Shortly after, when Leomon’s death turns out to involve injuries beyond that a sixth-grader can take care of with his limited supplies (”toilet paper won’t fix this!”), Jou is suddenly hit with a certain sense of reality: if Jou wants to truly help others, there is much more of a skillset he’s going to need to gather in order to do so.

So by the time of Adventure episode 50, Shin’s words now weigh so much on Jou that he’s even dreaming about them, and he finally internalizes those words of “everyone taking their own path”. In short, this is Jou acknowledging that fighting isn’t the only way to meaningfully contribute -- after all, Mimi has a severe aversion to fighting or seeing more casualties and thus can better meaningfully contribute by gathering allies to work together, while Taichi and Koushirou are directly in the front lines.

Jou, ostensibly, decides to go off and find Yamato, but there’s another layer under this: Jou admits that he’s not very strong, so much to the point that he doesn’t think Gomamon will reach Ultimate, and feels like there should be “something only he can do”. The full answer to what Jou started touching on here, and what he ends up doing thereafter, is stated in explicit words in Two-and-a-Half Year Break:

When we were in the Digital World last summer, many of the Digimon got injured and died. I couldn’t do anything for them, even though I was a doctor’s son. I don’t want to ever feel useless again! Not when someone is hurt in front of me. The Digital World doesn’t have a doctor. They need someone who’ll be able to heal them. Even now, I carry around a simple first-aid kit just in case the Gate opens again. Because of it, my bag is always crammed. And my arms are becoming muscular. [laughs] Really! By the way, I have a problem. Of course, I’ll be doing regular doctor studies, but I’ll be treating Digimon, you know? Don’t you think I’ll need to study veterinary medicine too in order to heal them? 

And thus, Jou finds the all-important link that actually motivates him to want to become a doctor -- the one thing that had always been a constant about Kido Jou was that he could not leave people behind when they needed help right in front of him. Or in other words, he has a marvelous case of Good Samaritan syndrome (a whole eleven years before Kudou Taiki, at that!). “Feeling useless” is pretty much on the very, very top of the list of things he hates the most. And, by his own admission, “fighting” is not really his specialty, and he doesn’t even particularly like it himself.

But he wants to meaningfully contribute in some way, and now, here’s an option that isn’t fighting: he has the roots in a talent for treating the wounded and preventing casualties that way. All he has to do is hone it. And just like how Shin decided that he specifically wanted to be a doctor in a place where a doctor would be needed most, Jou also decides he specifically wants to be a doctor for the Digital World, because that is something he can meaningfully provide for instead of becoming a doctor for the status.

He’s still going to disappoint his father this way, but never mind that: he’s found something that he wants, and it’s his own path, like Shin told him to follow. And yes, that means even if he has to fight his own blood phobia to do so.

And this becomes very important to how he’s able to confidently help bring Sora out of her darkness-induced spiel in Adventure episode 51, where she -- who has a problem with a compulsive tendency to burn herself out in helping others -- starts falling into despair because she caves to the pressure of having to save everyone. Yamato and Jou, together, simply re-shift her frame of mindset: it’s not that being a Chosen Child is about trying and failing to fulfill a particular duty, it’s that there’s a situation happening and they are actively making the choice to do everything they can. Because, really, Jou himself understands it best -- he’s never been someone good at doing things because other people tell him to, he’s someone who’s gotten this far because of his own personal sense of responsibility and priorities being so strong, and that’s why he’s capable of pushing on with his own path and what he wants.

02 and beyond

Jou was, unfortunately, forced to sit out the events of Our War Game!, but as far as blaming him for it goes, it’s really hard to; he had no idea this was going on at all, and by the time the incident had hit climax, he was already in the test room and impossible to be contacted. (You can imagine he was probably quite upset about not having been able to help out afterwards.) As for why nobody tries to pull him out the way they do end up pulling him aside a few times in 02, it’s because this isn’t just a practice exam for prep school -- this is THE exam. Remember, this kind of lifestyle involves a chain of needing to get into a good school to get into a good school to get into a good school, and Jou is aiming for a national university like his brothers; this actually could impact the rest of his career, and given that the other kids respect how important this is to him, it’s also understandable that they’d be a bit hesitant to pull him aside from this.

We’re first properly reintroduced to Jou in 02 episode 5. Unlike Taichi, Yamato, Sora, and Koushirou, Jou does not attend Odaiba Middle School, which means that, assuming that the Adventure universe Odaiba is like the real-life one in which Odaiba (Koyo) Elementary and Middle are the only schools on the island, Jou regularly spends his school and prep school days off the island and quite separated from the others. Instead, Jou attends a private middle school (hence why he had to take an exam to get in), presumably one that’s intended to help him on the medical school track.

But despite that, his first major scene in the series is to ditch prep school to go help Gomamon. For someone who doesn’t know Jou very well, this probably would seem appalling -- that someone so studious would be so willing to ditch at the drop of a hat -- but anyone who does know him well would probably not be surprised; after all, “being a doctor” is still a far-off dream, whereas Gomamon needs help now, and the number one thing Jou can’t stand is to leave people in need behind.

Unlike with Taichi, Yamato, Sora, and Koushirou, who all have some degree of connection to the 02 juniors in some way (Taichi and Yamato being Hikari and Takeru’s brothers, Taichi and Sora having known Daisuke from the soccer club, and Koushirou having known Miyako from the soccer club), Jou is a complete stranger when he’s introduced to Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori, with Digimon-related work being the only connection they have to him at all. Despite that, the new 02 kids, being well-behaved juniors who really look up to their elders, immediately endear themselves well to him -- in fact (you can thank @takerusfedora​ for this observation), Miyako squishing Poromon in delight upon seeing him, and the context she usually does this in, hints that she might even see him as attractive. (Considering that he’s a prospective medical student from an elite family, this probably shouldn’t be too surprising.)

While the fact he’s medical school bound isn’t explicitly brought up in the series itself, the fact he’s well on that path is already pretty evident by his actions, given that he comes stocked with heating pads and other medical supplies, just in case. Takeru comments on him always being prepared -- because he’s constantly thinking of other people and how he can be useful to them.

This episode also marks the beginning of a particular relationship between Jou and Iori, which is quite an interesting one considering that we’re talking about the oldest and the youngest of the group of eleven (not quite twelve yet) Tokyo Chosen Children at this point. As many point out even within this episode, Jou and Iori have a lot in common, and it’s likely Jou sees a bit of himself in Iori -- someone who has a firm insistence on principles (even beyond the point of practicality), but also is protective of others and hates to see them hurt. Not only that, Iori had even gotten a similar lesson from his grandfather earlier in the episode about the importance of “making one’s own decisions” -- and so, the two share common ground in Iori having ditched his “duty” to practice kendo with his grandfather that day in order to help Gomamon, and Jou having done likewise via ditching his prep school classes. Because Iori will always have more kendo lessons, and this certainly won’t be the last prep school class Jou has, but these are effectively two kindred spirits who care so much about friends in need that prioritizing them over all else is non-negotiable.

Jou compliments Iori by calling him “dependable”, which is a huge compliment coming from someone who, at this point of the story, regularly attracts comments like “dependable senior”. 02-era Jou gets this kind of reference a lot in press materials and fan descriptions of him, because now that he’s matured a bit and isn’t as prone to making ridiculous, reckless decisions or being as emotionally high-strung, his on-point aspects like being very on-task and always keeping his word are much more visible.

Well, that said, he still kind of starts screaming loudly as soon as he hears his dad is supposedly in trouble in the middle of his exam in 02 episode 16, so he’s still a little emotionally high-strung. But never mind that!

As usual (especially since this is most likely a practice exam, one of many Jou will be taking for the next year), Jou doesn’t mind being interrupted all that much; it’s not like exams are any fun anyway, so of course Jou doesn’t really care about being pulled from it, especially when Daisuke and the others are literally suffocating to death at that exact moment.

Unfortunately, for Iori, this entire incident is a convergence of things totally eating away at his psyche; he’s still blaming himself for everyone being trapped down there, he’s just placed a burden on Jou, and his grandfather had just said that lying is the worst thing that one could ever do, so now Iori thinks of himself a horrible, undeserving person. But Jou is someone who empathizes with being so stuck on “principles” that you forget the big picture, and reframes it in a way Iori can understand: lies are bad when they hurt people, but in this case, not lying would have led to much, much worse happening, and both Iori and Jou share that common ground of absolutely hating the feeling of standing by and doing nothing while others are in trouble.

We also finally meet the third (or, technically, second) Kido brother in 02 episode 33, Kido Shuu -- and while we don’t see him interact directly with Jou (at least, not until the drama CD), what we learn about him contextualizes Jou’s situation even further: Shuu not only decided to leave the path of inheriting his father’s clinic, he’d also decided to ditch the medical school path entirely, switching to humanities because he was so fascinated by Professor Takenouchi’s work. That’s a pretty drastic shift, but, as Shin had said in the novel, Shuu is the type to be independent enough to do whatever he wants without Shin even having to advise him of this, and given that he made this decision less than a year after the events of Adventure, it was likely a huge motivator in Jou deciding that their prior “example” of being medical students wasn’t necessarily something he needed to follow when both of his own brothers weren’t even following that standard anymore to begin with.

And, much like with Jou, Shuu’s new chosen profession also brings him closer to the Digimon, except in an “understanding more about them” sense rather than Jou’s medical sense. So, just like Shin wanted, all three brothers found their own paths.

In Diablomon Strikes Back, Jou is thankfully blessed with being much more available to deal with the conflict; he starts off stuck in a long line to register for high school in the midst of scrambled records, but comes to assist Daisuke and Ken with a bike as soon as he’s able. This movie being quite the comedic one, you get to see a bit of his disaster tendencies slip back in as he scrambles to help everyone -- but, as always, he’s doing his best.

A lot of people have also pointed out that the movie spends an awful amount of scenes depicting him in the company of the girl he borrowed the bike from, which has led to a few amusing extrapolations, but at the base level implies that he at the very least wanted to make absolute sure that her bike was safely returned to her once everything is over -- after all, Jou would hate to be responsible for someone losing a bike, or in debt to someone. He’s someone who fulfills his obligations, after all.

By the time Jou actually is in medical school in Kizuna, he truly has become among the crowd too busy to participate regularly in Digimon incident tackling (similar to Sora and Mimi), but To Sora indicates that he’s still keeping tabs on everyone through their group chat and emotionally supporting them, and it’s made clear in both the short and the overall movie that the rest of the group is sympathetic to and understanding of how difficult life is to juggle with all of this. Not only that, much like how Jou stated back in Adventure that he was looking for a way to meaningfully contribute and help out besides just fighting, Jou plays an important role in using his position to tend to all of the Eosmon kidnapping victims.

At least, until he ends up becoming a victim himself and is actually dragged into the fight -- and, now that he’s actually on the spot and the conflict is right in front of him, he approaches it with enthusiastic gusto, indicating that he’s still able to be as emotionally high-strung as ever.

We get more info on Jou in his Memorial Story short, “Kido Jou: Medical Student” (which takes place at some unspecified point before the movie), where we learn that Gomamon is still worried about how much that blood phobia thing might impact Jou’s career, and “tests” him by having himself and Agumon pose as mock victims. Jou, very tired and not in a mood to play, snaps at him (rather understandably, given that Gomamon is kind of being a bit insensitive here), but when Gomamon is injured, Jou immediately puts everything aside to help him, even through -- yep -- blood.

Again, it’s not entirely clear how severe Jou’s blood phobia was back when he was a kid, but it’s at least put on the table that Jou’s figured out a way to push past that in order to fulfill his dream, and especially when it involves a loved one being hurt in front of him. Jou tires himself out pretty badly with the work, but hey -- he used to jump recklessly into physical line of fire for his friends, so of course that kind of thing is nothing to him. (But he still apparently is a bit lacking in the confidence department.)

Because Jou was lucky enough to be able to concretely decide on what he wanted to do as early as elementary school, Jou’s epilogue career is naturally the single most straightforward, and really just amounts to “you know that thing he wanted to do? He did it.” And indeed, he becomes the Digital World’s first doctor -- presumably not inheriting his father’s clinic, nor following a high-status expected path, but choosing to become a pioneer in a place he has a deep emotional stake in, in a place where he’s needed because there are no alternatives. And, of course, he’s depicted treating Ogremon, who was effectively Jou’s first “patient” all the way in Adventure, the first step in him realizing that this was his path, and his alone.

Meta

Jou occupies an interesting position in the Digimon fanbase in terms of memes, considering that there’s a fanbase meme of over a decade where anything relevant to him gets people spamming “JOOOOOOOOOOOOO” (with varying levels of Os). Being a comedic but lovable character who tries his hardest but repeatedly runs himself into a corner, he also happens to resonate much harder with the adults in the audience rewatching the series, because all of us as disaster adults can just so easily look at him and go “oh, that’s me.” He also seems to be inexorably tied to the word “senpai”, given that so many characters call him that (including the 02 kids, who never went to school with him); after a certain point it’s hard to dispute that he (especially in 02) exudes this kind of “dependable senior” aura, and, like with “Ken-chan”, the Japanese fanbase has a tendency to constantly use “Jou-senpai” all of the time to refer to him affectionately.

His Japanese voice actor, Kikuchi Masami, also holds the distinction of having been in nearly every Digimon TV series to date (the only exception, as of this writing, being Appmon), with him having been Jou (and Jou’s entire family of two brothers, his mother, and his father) in Adventure and 02, Dolphin and Grani in Tamers, Neemon in Frontier and Adventure:, Kurata in Savers, and Damemon in Xros Wars. (Him being the absolutely despicable Kurata in contrast to the endearing and lovable Jou has been cited as quite a shock to many.) There’s been many a joke about Kikuchi’s constant presence, but Jou is undeniably his most iconic role for the franchise, and you can also imagine it’s conversely gotten a lot of people to fondly think of him every time Kikuchi reappears.

[izzyizumi]

Taishiro Fic Notes: REPEAT?_

Ch. 4, pt. 1 under the cut! (skipping pts./chapters 2+3 for now, will get back to them later!) (beginning fic notes: here) (original fic outline: here)

- This chapter was super embarrassing omg Taichi WHY ARE YOU EMBARRASSING - Taichi voice “IT’S NOT MY FAULT” - ok but it actually isn’t maybe you’re ok Taichi [specific dialogue notes] - ‘wait you do THAT with him and you're just gonna LEAVE, that's even worse maybe?!’ tbh I agree with rambly Taichi here like (ok but jk jk but [Taichi avoided the BAD END?? ?]) (lbr if he had left and didn’t get to join on the dig eventually, well.....) (thinking about it I didn’t plan it this exact way but maybe subconsciously kind of had them stay together during the whole time because if they did separate who knows what could have happened to them) (basically them being around each other also can maybe help stop the loop?) - ‘but his skin is giving off a surprising amount of shine’ yeah Koushiro’s inner glow is REALLY going off here (lbr Koushiro is. pleased. yeah) (.... I didn’t plan this exactly this way either but legit now that I think about it this could parallel things too .....) - ‘ "shin-ji-te-ru" ("shinjiteru", "believe")’ this bit was explained in the notes for this part but also thinking about it (YEAH) (... ok this bit was planned but unplanned is) (maybe Koushiro subconsciously was getting some hope back from all of this yeah .....) (I was kinda thinking the new meeting with Taichi in this timeline kind of helps him subconsciously start believing in things [himself] again??) - ‘ I believe in you ‘ (that too) (re: Taichi) (lbr though he never stops believing in Taichi though) - ‘  He seems to not quite know what to do with himself still, when he looks up suddenly, as if sensing, and his black eyes stare right at Taichi. ’ ok this bit was planned a bit. Basically Koushiro was going about in a sort of mental daze earlier (because of the previous nights’ events too but also because of his dreams, the name in the back of his mind.... etc. etc.) but for once it was a more... pleasant one? anyhow, their subconscious both probably ping whenever the other’s around (naturally too) but probably extra so for Koushiro, yup. it doesn’t help that Koushiro’s hyper aware in canon too at many points like that comes with the Knowledge thing and having a sharp mind and noticing the little details yup - ‘ "...Your tie...?" ('I FORGOT MY TIE--') ‘ ok this part was NOT super intended but... “Tai” puns.... (a-ahahaha) (look, dubverse probably does exist in background timelines somewhere too, ok) (even though I don’t typically write in it anymore) (and I disliked a lot of the script changes/etc. even re: some important Taishiros) (..... negl the overly 90s vibe of the dub and their overall personalities/voice actors there still give me feelings too though yeah ;;) (so take this as a sort of mini tribute aha) (... oh also. still. maybe. “Ta-i-”--) - ‘ Koushiro interrupts him this time. "...! Your name -- I, um, didn't..." He suddenly seems like he's about to think hard, like a thought came to mind all of a sudden, and he wants to think about it but he's trying to keep his gaze focused on Taichi too, his mouth pursed but a bit uneven as he tries to keep ...steady. ‘ Again, relating to him trying to subconsciously remember Taichi’s name from the last part. (Koushiro’s trying to subconsciously keep him from leaving too, maybe) (they weren’t as in danger here this time since Taichi would have stayed in most instances but yeah, if either of them leaves...) (and um. no comment on ‘steady’) - "...I-It's Taichi. Yagami Taichi." There's a fraction of a section of silence. Koushiro keeps staring. (SUBCONSCIOUSLY REMEMBERING ALERT SUBCONSCIOUSLY REMEMBERING ALERT) (Koushiro’s probably like “.........” mentally right there) (even if it takes a fraction of a second for him to actually react yup) - ‘ "...Taichi-san, then." ‘ dun dun dunnnnn (SUBCONSCIOUSLY REMEMBERS THE “-SAN”) (AND THAT IT’S “TAICHI-SAN”) - "Normally, I'd call you Yagami-san." Taichi freezes. Koushiro's mouth quirks -- just slightly. "...But I think we've become too acquainted for that." (THAT TOO) (Koushiro in this verse is overall quite professional, so he WOULD have used Taichi’s last name with -san, not his first name, which indicates just a bit more closeness normally - while still being formal enough) (not in a professional/work setting, though, maybe) (basically Koushiro’s mind pinging him with ‘it’s Taichi-san’ ‘only Taichi-san’) (... Koushiro is stubborn like that ??) - ‘ "I... look, Koushiro? (He really deserves an honorific from Taichi's idiotic self, for once, but then again Taichi literally already used his name since...) ‘ (...since the night before, yes, Taichi) same thing here (Taichi subconsciously remembers to use ‘Koushiro’ sans honorific) (he does that normally with most people anyway, but Koushiro’s special yup) (because Koushiro doesn’t take offense to him using only ‘Koushiro’ when he normally might with someone he doesn’t know well or like, and that maybe makes Taichi feel kind of nice too) - ‘ I swear I don't want to hurt you or anything, I really really--" "You haven't hurt me." ‘ Taichi seriously did not want to hurt Koushiro ok Koushiro SERIOUSLY is not hurt by it ok (ok but this was also to emphasize yes it was consensual and yes they both very much enjoyed it) (... also Koushiro puts a freaking huge amount of trust in Taichi yup) -’  "Even during that," Koushiro adds, almost maddeningly. "...Taichi-san." Koushiro pauses, blinks a bit, suddenly. "...That wasn't where my train of thought was originally going, but it was..." Koushiro corrects himself. "What you... we... did..... it was nice. Taichi-san." ('Uh?!') "Very nice. ... You really haven't hurt me." ‘ (again, emphasized) ‘That wasn’t where my train of thought was originally going’ - it actually wasn’t, p-pfft. but yeah, Koushiro’s maybe uh. remembering the night before and realizing yeah, he should emphasize this and stop Taichi from freaking out further - ‘ ('"Nice?'"... "Very"? - Or? But-' 'Wait, what else can you really expect--?! Your sorry ass should be GRATEFUL he even called it 'nice' after that, he should be DROPKICKING YOU INTO THE STRATOSPHERE RIGHT ABOUT NOW--!!') ‘ (I’M SORRY TAICHI PICKING ON YOU IS FUN) (but yeah lbr Taichi you’re seriously lucky Koushiro is seriously too kind for his [and your] own good) - ‘ "N-No, I meant-" Taichi feels about ready to fall right where he's standing. "Not like that, but like - I don't want to hurt you. Koushiro. I really don't want to hurt you, I messed up, you don't deserve--" "You really haven't hurt me." Koushiro is insisting now, driving his gaze into Taichi, and Taichi's words falter and fall. He stares back at Koushiro. "I... you..." "It was... enjoyable." Koushiro is looking away again, and Taichi isn't sure if he should feel worse or not? Koushiro's eyes flicker back to Taichi. "What I'm trying to say, Taichi-san, is... I don't mind." "...But I'd like to know more about you, too." Taichi's mind freezes to a complete halt. Again. ‘ /DUN DUN DUNNNNN aaaand Koushiro drives the point home (also, when Koushiro looks away - Koushiro’s tendency to look away when he’s nervous or closed off, yeah?) (Taichi notices and he really hates seeing Koushiro worried/upset even moreso if it’s because of him so yeah) (this relates to a bit in pt. 2 as well... towards the end yeah .....) (but it’s ok Taichi, Koushiro was nervous because of all of this ok) (.... also Koushiro was maybe a bit calculated here too like he often is when he’s trying to make a point, especially a serious point) ... ok thinking about it too I should probably mention this now, but. So in this universe, it’s a ‘nevermet’ AU, right? in the original fic outline, I mention how the timelines become so messed up even nevermet AUs form? well, I imagine in quite a number of them, they might subconsciously be trying to stay away from each other (or not interfere with each other) - this later kind of relates to Taichi speaking with the younger Koushiro in his dream towards the end. Each of the two eventually blames themselves, subconsciously, and they don’t want the other to keep dying because of them. They know it’s pointless to keep trying, but... (ok but they seriously need to stop blaming themselves they were kids they were kids they didn’t ask for this ok. ok.) Well, so, in some nevermet AUs, depending, they’re maybe subconsciously putting themselves far away from the other, as if maybe that’d also help keep the loop stable or something, somehow. Because if they never meet, maybe the other won’t die, right? The other of them will be safe, right? It’s better this way, right? (..... hahahaha) So in the above section - Koushiro’s basically subconsciously making a decision. To pursue this timeline with Taichi further, yes. Maybe this time, they can... - ‘ Koushiro looks down. "....I'm not very good with feelings, though." ‘ .... he really isn’t (especially not in this verse) (I’M SORRY KOUSHIRO)

(but in canon too) - ‘ "K-Koushiro..." Taichi's voice is a bit weak. "N-no, you... you deserve so much better than this kind of - one night stand, or one night stands, or - I'm really bad at this, too--" "I'd be fine with just one night stands." Taichi is about to open his mouth to protest again (something like 'don't be fine with that!!') ‘ ... yeahhhhh so if it wasn’t obvious enough in fic basically, Koushiro is ... struggling ..... a lot in this timeline, yeah. (also indirectly paralleled by the original Koushiro/our Koushiro struggling) he’s probably been through Depression Hell and back multiple times even (... it’s probably chronic by this point, to be honest?) (I think canon Koushiro probably deals with it a bit easier, but still... it has a tendency to resurface down the road, and especially with this timeline) (not helped by the adoption reveal still not having happened) and tbh (he probably would be fine with just one night stands.) (but Koushiro that’s the wrong way to go about it here, maybe) ok but Taichi’s thinking right here yeah (’don’t be fine with that!!’) - ‘ but Koushiro shuts him up with his next line -- "...But I really wouldn't mind more than that, too." "When I said I want to get to know Taichi-san, I .... meant it." Taichi feels himself physically drain. ('M-maybe it's ok?? Maybe I haven't royally screwed up completely yet??') ('Maybe....') ‘ ok so here (dun dun dunnn) Taichi’s giving in yeah ok but also he was probably mentally freaking out thinking like -- Our War Game kind of, you know?? like the Taiora wasn’t canon intended yeah (it was due to staff not knowing about Sorato endgame) and I don’t intend it here either (Taiora’s actually kind of like... close to the very bottom of my ship preferences I’m sorry [even moreso than Koumi tbh there I said it I’d still take Koumi in more certain ways/fanworks I’m just extremely picky with it] and I very much prefer it [too] portrayed only in very specific ways though [same goes for Taiorato though I’m more open to that] like. again. I’m a multishipper I don’t mind fanworks and very much enjoy alternative portrayals too ok please leave me be. it’s just not in here though) but still, a similar feeling - he doesn’t want to screw this up, and definitely not with Koushiro (and this .....) (also, this kind of relates to mentioned Sorato in this universe a bit too, yeah.) (he’s not jealous over Sora, but he is maybe scared of losing more friends and being alone -- because this Taichi only had them for so long) (because he didn’t have Koushiro) [this chapter was kind of long so for longer ones I may revise these later!] [to be continued]

[50cyg]

Taiyama Week 2017, Day 8: Freebie! Rant about whatever you like.

Anime Romance Tropes, DATri and Taiyama

So, we have all noticed by now that Digimon Adventure Tri is using a lot of popular Anime Tropes in its films. So, I thought it would be really fun to point out the popular Anime Romance Tropes which Taichi and Yamato have partaken in thus far, and in addition, make some predictions as to what Anime Romance Tropes we are likely to see these two partake in during the last two movies.

So far there have been two really major ones that just about every Japanese review of the films noticed, as well as most westerners.

The first is the classic "Ferris Wheel Date" and it's even been lampshaded in Saikai. That's why Mimi looked so excited and started taking pictures of them (Shipper on Deck Trope). Basically, a ferris wheel ride is supposed to give the couple privacy to talk about their feelings. In romantic shows, this may lead to a first kiss situation. 

here is a link to the classic trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FerrisWheelDateMoment

The second one, which really caused a whole lot of buzz, is the Kabe-don in Ketsui. Kabe-don translates to wall slam (kabe-wall, don- the sound that hitting a wall makes). You’ve likely seen this happening in many Yaoi/shoujo mangas for a while, but it only really gained major popularity around 2014. It's considered a possessive gesture. During a Kabe-don, the bad-ass hero/ more dominant figure will slam his hand (or both hands) against the wall to block the heroine/ submissive figure and prevent her/him from moving away, effectively cornering her/him in place. Then he will lean in closer and the proximity between the two of them creates a sense of intimacy. It can be done flirtatiously, but more often it is done out of intense feelings or anger/frustration/jealousy on the hero's part and he will usually confront the heroine/submissive figure about the relationship between them in some form. There are two common outcomes to a kabe-don: either there can be a tender exchange in which the two will become an official couple/kiss/ anything on that line or the heroine/ submissive figure will slap the hero's arm and run away. 

examples:

http://www.heartofmanga.com/kabe-don-common-shoujo-manga-tropes/

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A3%81%E3%83%89%E3%83%B3

http://kotaku.com/manga-trope-appears-in-noodle-commercial-confuses-some-1600201827

and the wikipedia anime glossary defines it as such:

Kabe-don (壁ドン?)

In Japanese, kabe is wall, and don is the sound of slapping against a wall. Literally, kabe-don describes the act of fiercely slapping a wall. One meaning is slapping a wall as a protest which occurs in collective housing like a condominium when the next room makes noise.[24] Another meaning is when a man forces a woman against a wall with one hand or a man leans against a wall and makes a slapping sound, leaving the woman nowhere to go. This has become popular nowadays as a "clever move of confession"

In other words, Yamato and Taichi played that trope so straight, it was just about the straightest thing in Digimon so far. You will even notice that the camera play in that scene makes Yamato appear much taller compared to Taichi than he actually is. Usually, Yamato is only a couple of cm taller than Taichi, but during that scene, even though Yamato was leaning down, Taichi was looking up at him and the angling during that scene made him look like he was at least one head taller than Taichi. The camera work on the close up shots of their faces is meant to emphasize that Taichi is looking up at him by angling the shot of Taichi’s face upwards and angling Yamato’s shot downwards - probably to maintain the classically ideal height difference between male/female or seme/uke in Japan (the One Head Taller Trope). 

I’d now like to take a moment to point out that this effectively makes Toei look like a Yamachi shipper, since they play Taichi out to be the uke during this scene and this amuses me to no end. However, I will also argue that they play Yamato out almost as if he wants to be the uke in the relationship, since he obviously wants Taichi to take charge of situations and is also very quick to obey orders from him in Tri, like when he immediately goes to check on the Digimon when Taichi asks him to. So, in short, I think Tri could very well be playing their relationship out to be exactly what many of us headcanon it to be, a relationship where neither is truly dominant

So, the Kabe-don and the Ferris-Wheel Date are the two most recognizable Anime Romance Tropes these two play out, (they are the biggest and most recognizable anime romance tropes of recent years) but there have also been others, that are slightly less obvious and played slightly less straight but still present.

The first is Yamato's Tsundere behavior, which the Wikipedia glossary defines as:

Tsundere (ツンデレ?)

A character personality which is usually stern, cold or hostile to the person they like, while occasionally letting slip the warm and loving feelings hidden inside due to being shy, nervous, insecure or simply unable to help acting badly in front of the person they like. It is an portmanteau of the Japanese terms tsuntsun (ツンツン?), meaning to be stern or hostile, and deredere (デレデレ?), meaning to be "lovey dovey".[7]

It's lightly implied that Yamato is a Tsundere in Boku ni Totte with the line “Even if my method is wrong, I’m still concerned about you - I just can’t help it” and in Loss, during his conversation with Agumon when he tells him he acts the way he does because he expects too much of Taichi. In other words, his violent behaviour stems from warm, caring feelings that he simply isn't good with expressing which is very tsundere. Then you also have the fact that he is called out by Mimi for being a Tsundere twice, that’s basically the writers slapping us across the face. Sometimes, actually pretty often, his tsundere-ness even plays straight around Taichi: Yamato gets angry, starts fights, storms out with rage, calls Taichi bastard out of frustration (in Saiaki, during the harmonica scene, Yamato says "Taichi no Yatsu" which can I think be translated to either "Taichi, that guy" or "Taichi, that bastard". Yatsu is a slightly/not slightly rude - sometimes vulgar - way to say guy and can also mean bastard) and looks grumpy when Koushiro shows agumon pictures of Taichi. But then, he smiles at Taichi every time Taichi isn't looking (Honorable mention to the Longing Look Trope we likely got during the airport scene) and sometimes when Taichi is looking and they want to make up, gives him a ride on the Vespa (twice?) and the crown jewel: his mad blush during Confessions when he was clearly upset, but wanted to support Taichi. Of course, Taichi isn't the only one Yamato displays Tsundere behaviour towards, for example, he was stern with reprimanding Meiko, but it was because he was worried for her. He is also like that with Gabumon and Takeru to a degree, like when he tells Gabumon to shut up (which is a slightly violent way to phrase yourself). However, this sort of behavior definitely takes a few levels up when Taichi is involved.

Speaking of Yamato giving Taichi rides on his Vespa, there is also the trope where you give your lover a ride on your bicycle (I don’t think it has an official name), except in this case the bicycle is a Vespa 😝

Finally, we have my personal favourite, the classic “Person A is potentially severely injured due to sudden danger (in this case falling debris) and Person B calls out their name with great amounts of concern” Trope (I do not know if this Trope has a name). I love that scene in Confession, I can't believe I forgot to include it in my favourite moments post.

So those are the Tropes we’ve gotten so far, let me know if I missed any 😊

Now moving on to the Anime Romance Tropes we might see, or that I’d like to see, in future instalments (most of these I don’t think have official names).

“Getting locked in a closed space together” Trope - although the ferris wheel kinda covers this one already I could see us getting it again. For example, if Taichi and Yamato get trapped somewhere due to events (like in a building surrounded by enemies, or a ton of debris falls and blocks their path, etc).

“Characters aren't entirely sure if they are in a relationship or not and it takes some kind of catalyst for them both to acknowledge it” Trope – this may very well be exactly what is playing out in Tri right now

“Person A gets injured saving Person B” Trope - I want to see this one play out so badly and I'm honestly not sure which character I'd rather see get injured and I could see them doing either or. On the one hand if Taichi gets injured we could have an homage to episode 51 where Yamato cradles him in his arms 😃 on the other hand it could be Yamato getting injured that gets Taichi to get 100% proactive again.

“Person A is injured and Person B has to patch them up” Trope – I don’t personally want to see this one play out between Taichi and Yamato (because I’d much rather see it play out between Jyou and Taichi) but if Yamato and Taichi get separated from the rest of the group and one of them gets injured it could happen

Headbutt of Love - I love the idea of seeing these two press their foreheads together as a sign of affection, maybe this could happen after they’ve defeated the enemy and they are just sitting next to each other all relieved and then suddenly they lean in close to each other and press their foreheads together all the while smiling cause they know the battle is over and they succeeded by working together ^^

Hand Holding Trope – we better see this trope again or I will be very sour

The Power of Love Trope – I want to see this play out so badly, I want to see a confession trigger their new evolutions

No Romantic Resolution Trope – this is the trope I think we are most likely to get in the final movie between these two

What Tropes do you guys want to see these two partake in next?

I also want to point out I think these two could fit the Battle Couple Trope, but I’m still debating it http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BattleCouple

[50cyg]

Digimon Confession: I don’t like Takeru and Sora

This is in response to someone asking me why I don’t like Sora and also just for me to get my thoughts out into the open because I am curious about the feedback that will come of it. This post will be more Sora related than Takeru related.

Please no hate, I know many people love Sora and Takeru and that’s totally okay. I still sometimes like Sora… but only when I see her through the eyes of a Taiorato fan.  

First off I want to preface this by saying that I do not hate Sora or Takeru. It’s not like everytime they are on screen I get annoyed and want them gone, I just don’t care about them. If I could, I’d just eliminate them from the series.

When it comes to the 8 original Chosen Children (or Digidestined), I only like 6 as some people may have already noticed. Those 6 are Taichi, Yamato, Mimi, Joe, Hikari and Koushiro. I like Mimi, Taichi, Yamato, Joe and Koushiro about equally (if I have to choose a favourite it would be Taichi at the moment but it changes all the time). Hikari I like aspects of but I do think she is a little too perfect, I absolutely love the Yagami siblings together though. Actually, my favourite moments with Hikari are in the two movies directed by Momoru Hosoda, I find she has more personality in those movies than she does in the series and she is honestly just adorable. This is sooooo off topic…

Getting back on track… this wasn’t always the case. Actually, as a child, Takeru and Yamato were tied for my favourite characters (one of my fondest memories as a child was drawing Takeru at the kitchen table while trying to explain to my Grandmother what the show was about). And the characters I related to most were Sora and Takeru. Takeru because he was the same age as I was while watching the show and so he acted very similarly to how I might react in the same situation (or how I’d perceive I’d react cause let’s face it pretty sure we’d all be dead if we went through what the chosen kids went through). And Sora I related to because she was a Tomboy like me. I was that girl who would get a new pair of pants and have them grass stained by the end of the day. You could not keep my feet on the ground, I was always climbing everything from trees to the side of my house onto the roof, and I enjoyed being dirty and adventurous. Also, as a child I shipped her with Taichi to a certain extent. Not to the extent of many fans who were horribly disappointed they didn’t get together. Honestly, I didn’t care very much and soon forgot about the ending entirely (02 as a whole didn’t leave any kind of impact on me until years later when I re-watched it).

Although, there were always subtle changes in how I viewed characters as a re-watched the series throughout my adolescence and as I watched the Japanese version (the Japanese version made me fall in love with Mimi), I’m going to just jump ahead to when things really changed. Things really started to change when I re-watched the series in preparation for Tri and then began to watch Tri.

First off I started relating less to both Takeru and Sora.

Takeru for obvious reasons, I was no longer a child and started finding him to be a bit annoying or just boring… I didn’t find him to be interesting because compared to the others his character was pretty one dimensional, just your classic small child character. However, I did still find his relationship with his brother compelling enough but nothing to write home about. I was more interested in Yamato’s struggle than Takeru, mainly I think because more emphases was placed on Yamato’s struggles. Actually, sometimes I think Takeru was just created by the writers partially to have a young character and partially to round out Yamato’s character, rather than with plans to really give him his own development. In 02 I just found him really boring… I found him boring in this season as a child too.

Sora, I related less too not because I stopped being tomboyish, in fact I’d say I’m more tomboyish than ever. I stopped relating to her because as an adult I was able to notice more of her character than just the tomboy part and realized we have nothing else in common.  I’m not motherly, I love children but in the sense that I love playing with them, not that I am very good at taking care of them. I don’t bottle my emotions because I’m too worried about everyone else or because I don’t understand them. I’m not afraid of hurting other people’s feelings and I am the last person you want to come to when you need comforting…

In addition, I do not like Takeru in Tri. I don’t find his flirting funny. I don’t like playboy characters, they are just annoying to me, I actually think it makes him kinda one dimensional. I don’t find his relationship with Yamato very interesting (except when he points out that Yamato fights with everyone). There isn’t the struggle between them that there used to be, they seem to have adjusted very well to their circumstances. I didn’t find his struggle with Patamon interesting (I was far more interested in Koushiro’s struggle), I actually love the concept of the Digimon becoming infected and how the children respond but Takeru and Patamon did nothing for me… I think it’s because I had already lost interest in them at that point and I’m beyond the recovery line.

That’s about all I have to say about Takeru, on to Sora... lots to say about Sora...

So it really comes down to me feeling like she is pointless because every role her character has can be filled by someone else.

Basically, her primary roles are as follows:

Mediator: this role has been filled by other character’s in the series like Mimi and Joe, so could have been filled by them at other points as well or in some cases even by the Digimon.

Mother: It’s established that Joe is the Paternal one of the group, I don’t understand why we needed two parent figures in this rag tag team.

Person who is always making sure everyone else is okay: First off, Yamato fills this role a lot of the time, this aspect of him plays into his rivalry with Taichi who is more mission oriented than feeling oriented. Secondly, the digimon are meant to fill this role. They are the creature’s that always know when you are upset and will try their best to make you feel better again, it’s one of their primary roles next to beating the crap out of things.

Love interest: So much BS! First off, I feel like this is starting to become her primary role especially within the fan base and it’s annoying as hell.  I will get to how I feel about her relationships with the two boys later. 

I could literally take you through every line of her dialogue and tell you who I would have given the line to instead or why I would just get rid of it altogether.

Final thoughts on Sora is that ultimately, next to Takeru, I find her to be the least compelling character. I think Joe is more of a badass than Sora when he fills the Paternal role (like when he jumps on top of Unimon, or when he is attacking Gennai). I also prefer Joe’s way of mediating, Sora basically tells the boys to stop being stupid while Joe actually tried to solve the conflict and although it doesn’t always work, when it does it’s a more permanent solution. Examples of this are in the 3rd episode when he tells both Taichi and Yamato they would make great guards and suggests they share the burden, which not only makes sense but also satisfies both Taichi and Yamato’s need to be alphas. Example of it not working is him trying to decide in episode 7 who has the better plan regarding the mountain and although Sora is the one who ends the fight by telling them all to sleep on it, it is a temporary fix and Joe is the one who continues to try to permanently fix the problem. I also find her problem in season 1 pretty boring by comparison to the other chosen children problems, it also doesn’t offer anything new to the cliché of child and parent not understanding one another. As an adult, I find her relationship with Taichi boring unless they are fighting, when they are fighting I love it, I feel like it’s a really good representation of female on male relationships. I know a lot of people disagree with me on this but I love that she gets pissed at him over a hairclip in the movie, I think that argument is real AF. I’ve totally done that to my boyfriends and have also been the one mediating arguments like that between friends of mine who are a couple. Actually, their arguments are the one thing I don’t think could be filled by anyone else, even Mimi. However if they became a couple I feel like those arguments would be the dominant component of their relationship and then it would become cliche and boring as well. I don’t like her relationship with Yamato, I never have. I wasn’t angry when they got together I just thought it was dumb. I get why they could make a good couple but I don’t find it at all compelling, it actually feels like it would be too perfect… they are almost too perfect for each other.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now. This could get interesting depending on the response I get.