#Digimon tamers meta

[alpaca-clouds]

Ruki Makino and the Tomboy thing

You know, while I am translating my old Digimon fics and looking through some old fandom content from way back then, I am reminded of the thing that I loathed so much - and sadly that the semi-canon (that is getting ignored by most people thank god) also just made... messy.

I hate stories where the characters are aged up, and Ruki is still a hardcore tomboy, doing the "cool, manly" stuff. (Hence the semi-canon from the 20th anniversary audio play, with Ruki doing motorcross, which is just sooooo random.)

Don't get me wrong, I am not arguign she is a girly girl. But I think that her entire god darn character arc is about why she is a tomboy and that in her specific case being a tomboy is actually not that good for her.

This is why I feel making her as an adult too manly kinda misses the point.

Ruki's character arc is very much defined through her relation with her mother. For those, who have not obsessively read the screenplays and such: Ruki's mother was a teenage mom (she had Ruki when she was just 18). Which is why technically speaking her grandmother is the one who has mostly raised Ruki, making Ruki's mother something like an older sister, mostly. And of course someone who also was not around a whole lot, because she was this big international model.

And this is what informs so much of Ruki's character, as she very much is rebelling against this mother, who is not really around. And because her mother likes all the girly things, Ruki hates those things just on principle. Because she rejects girlishness as a way to reject her mother. And her mother in turn obviously also fails as a mother. We see her gone with the job very often, and we obviously also see her fail to actually show interest in the stuff that Ruki likes.

And while Ruki's grandmother is around to take care of Ruki's immediate needs (food and such), she clearly also barely knows anything about what Ruki is doing the whole day.

Over the course of the series, though, Ruki and her mother start to connect. And as a result of this Ruki also starts to be less aggressive against all those girly things, while also being shown to just become a more caring person. This is symbolized in her and Renamon becoming Sakuyamon - a very feminine Digimon, that also mostly specializes in buffing, rather than offensive attacks.

And I feel a lot of both the fandom's aged-up stuff, as well as that very, very weird audio-drama kinda misses this.

Again, I do not think Ruki is ever gonna be a girly girl. But I think she will just mellow out as a teenager to neither be very tomboy, nor very girly. I ended up having her go into law as a career. Which is still a male dominated field, but also is not as super tomboy as motorcross.

[thekingofwinterblog]

thoughts on Digimon?

It peaked HARD in the first instalment, and despite some hickups in that first series, it became such a benchmark that none of its series never really managed to reach its greatest height as a story.

I can certainly validly critique Digimon Adventure on many fronts(terrible and cheap animation, Several of the characters(sora in particular) didnt get to really reach a good conclusion before the ending, and the final arc was rather rushed), but the fact is, its just a good, strong series with VERY good character work.

no the real problems started with the first sequel, Adventure 02.

It was... not very good to put it mildly.

The problem is... despite it's many, many shortcomings, 02 really WAS as good as it was gonna get for the original adventure continuity.

Some of the movies(ok, just Wargames) was good, but overall the many attempts to go back to adventure withouth really understanding what made it good to begin with, has soured the original massively.

And it just gets worse and worse with each attempt.

That said 02 is not good, not by any metric other than the fact it had some rather great ideas that it never really managed to work.

It had a setting where the main characters could retreat back home to safety at any time, but rather than take advantage of that by having them face massive losses to the new main villain Ken, it quickly settled into a twarted scheme of his every other week.

It had a great followup villain after Ken in the form of Yukio Oijkawa, but rather than giving him the main spotlight, we were bogged dowm by other villains who didnt work well. also the plots resumed to just being twarting one scheme a week.

It had some really out there ideas in the form of incorporating lovecraft elements, but it never went anywhere.

It had an awesome concept in the form of the idea of fusion evolving and never really managed to make it work in regards to character development.

it had a lot of nifty ideas, but it never managed to make them work, and so the show had to stand on it's own feet... which just laid bare how bad it really was.

The new main cast was almost all terrible, and the decision to scrap the old one rather than have their tale continue was a horrible decision.

Ken was the only good new lead, but after an amazing start, his redemption arc never really got to a highpoint.

Cody was the only other decent character of the bunch, but was so boring that having competent writing didnt matter at all except for his interaction with Oikawa.

Even the partner digimon were way blander than the original lot.

And of course there was its disasterous and terrible romance conclusions which i wont go over here.

Overall, 02 was a damn mess... And it's failure as a story was important, because it basically meant that if the followup eclipsed it, then THAT would set the tone for the franchise going forward.

Digimon tamers is a great series.

Arguably the best the franchise ever had a narrative work.

It has some flaws of its own, but while not as universally popular as the original Adventure, it's a much stronger work.

The problem with it... Is that while it's a great story... i would hesitate to call it a great "Digimon" story.

It is a digimon story of course... but before that it's a science fiction story.

That is to say it's a science fiction story set in a Digimon setting, which while it doesnt throw away it's original themes, very much does it's own thing, usually for the better.

The problem for the franchise as a whole, is that Tamers and 02 basically forms the two directions that all digimon projects would follow going forward.

either they would go the Adventure 02 path, and just be an attempt at repeating adventure but withouth the soul, and the risk taking the original did. wheter actually being set in the original adventure setting or not being optional.

Or they would go the Tamers route, and basically go in a completely new direction trying to carve a unique niche for that particular series. always with far lesser skill or ambition than Tamers, which means that they never actually managed to repeat that series success in being it's own thing.

Im not going to claim everything after this point is awfull, because it was not, but the series peaked with adventure and Tamers, and nothing the franchise ever did afterwards came even close to reaching the innitial heights despite many, many tries.

[kablamow]

digimon au matchstick has bombernanimon (low hanging fruit) and keramon (it leading into diaboromon is very funny)

[mikaguralab]

(I initially tried to type this up in the tags but it got too long.)

God. Being a Ruki Makino enjoyer is suffering. Entirely too many people have the barest surface understanding of her, and then try to talk meta and/or write fic of her, making the depths of their Not Getting It very obvious in the process.

She doesn't kill because she "doesn't think of digimon as people" or whatever. She kills because she exists in a Tsukihime world a world where not killing her enemies would immediately and brutally cost her and her partner their lives, and the tamers who don't kill eventually have to come to terms with this fact.

She isn't a cold asshole who doesn't care about her partner. In fact, they were both head-over-heels for each other from the moment we first saw them. Ruki just objectively sucks at communicating, and is self-aware enough about it for her fear of screwing up and unintentionally hurting her to kick in.

No matter when in the timeline you found her, if you compared her to Neo Saiba, she would immediately strangle you for having the gall to suggest that she'd even think of killing her own partner.

It's a unique type of frustration when you agree that a character is deeply flawed but other people keep missing what's actually wrong with them and assigning them new flaws that they don't even have it's like free my man he did none of that. He did a bunch of other shit tho.

[alpaca-clouds]

The Canonicity of the Digimon Wonderswan Games

I am right now a bit back into my old Digimon hyperfixation I am afraid. So let me nerd out a bit more about it, or in this case rant about another thing.

See, I am in a bit of a weird position in regards of this fandom. I am from Germany, where we got the dub names and stuff, but the Japanese cut of the anime. But also, I switched to watching the sub already by the time Digimon Tamers was starting to air in Japan, and had fairly easy access to most of the Japanese media for the franchise through the magic of the internet.

As such I grew up with the Japanese stuff for Digimon in the most part. Including the Wonderswan games, that are kinda legendary in the west. And man, let me tell you: I love those games. They are not really good games, I would argue. Like the game mechanics are just not very polished, and like in a lot of Japanese games at the time you needed to grind quite a lot. But I loved the story and the way it was portrayed. And I adore the game version of Ryou. He is my cute baby boy, who needs a serious hug.

However... Something that I have already been annoyed with was the fact that a lot of western fandom has always seen these games as canon. And I kinda get why - at least in regards to Adventure/02 - given that Ryou gets referenced in the canon a lot. It is canon that Ryou exists in this universe, as well as Millenniumon. And it is canon that Ken and Ryou travelled through the digital world. However... The game as it is, is in fact not canon and never was meant to be. This is because games very much contradict several aspects of the primary canon (the show). Let us go through those things, okay?

Anode/Cathode Tamer

This game takes place on New Years Eve 1999, so about 4 (or really 5) months after Digimon Adventure. Millenniumon, a Digimon that has been formed when the data of the defeated Machinedramon fused with a Chimeramon, messed up the digital world and brought back the villains the Chosen Children had already defeated. Being brought back, they kidnap the Chosen children. Agumon turns to a human child - Ryou Akiyama - as he needs a human to evolve. So, Ryou on his own has to fight through the villains of Digimon Adventure to free the chosen children. He is not a Chosen Child himself, though, being made to borrow Taichi's Digivice.

Now, this game is clearly not canon - the villains being brought back is never mentioned again, and it is explicitly said that spring 2000 was the first time that the Chosen Children returned back to the Digital World after their original adventure.

Other than that... I kinda love how vile the villains are in this game. I really adore it. But yeah, definitely not canon.

Tag Tamers

Tag Tamers starts during the events of the second movie. Diaboromon is defeated and just as this happens, Ryou and Ken get contacted by V-mon and Piccolomon. Millenniumon is back, and it is up to Ryou to defeat it. This time he has to partner up with V-mon, who is already destined to be Daisuke's partner. So Ryou and Ken go visit the digital world together - only to find out, that it was all a trap set up by Millenniumon to lure Ryou back.

This game at once is the one most directly referenced in the Show (with Ken's flashback to getting infected with the Dark Spore) and also the more most directly contradicted by the show. Because while the game takes place in March 2000, the series explicitly names the time of Ken and hence Ryou travelling to the digital world as August 2000, exactly a year post-Adventure. More interestingly we do not see any partner with Ryou in the flashback either, and it is pretty clear that if V-mon ever met Ken or Ryou before, he does most certainly not remember.

It should also be noted that in this game Ken and Ryou both get D-3 Digivices, while in the primary canon Ken obviously received a normal Digivice at this point, that only later turned into the D-3 at the Dark Ocean.

D-1 Tamers

D-1 Tamers takes place not too long after Tag Tamers. While watching over Ken, who is sick from the Dark Spore, Ryou finds an online quiz about Digimon and upon answering it gets once more summoned to the Digital World. Here, he is made to participate in the D-1 Tournament against other Children and their Digimon partners, including both characters from the anime and some original characters. However, soon enough it turns out, that the tournament was just something created by the Holy Beasts to train Ryou up to once more fight against Millenniumon.

Basically, the same from before applies. The kids in this game all have D-3 Digivices, that did not yet exist in this universe. Nowhere in canon is it ever mentioned that Taichi and Co. have travelled back to the Digital World at this point - and mind you, the entire thing with the Holy Beasts also does not make a whole lot of sense considering the canon of the show (with the Holy Beasts just being brought back).

As someone who tends to latch onto minor characters very easily, I loved the original characters in this game, even though they have very few lines.

Mind you, if you have been in Digimon fandom spaces for a longer time, you might have come across the picture underneath before and thought to yourself: "Oh, this looks official." However... It is actually Fanart. To be exact this picture seems to originate with a fan-book on the games called Digimon Crusader. (I have been trying to get my hands on that one before. But I have only seen it two times up for auction and never could get manage to set up a proxy in time - as the sellers were never shipping to Europe.)

This is the book by the way:

Brave Tamer

Lastly there is Brave Tamer, a game that is rather hard to describe, because it involves a ton of time travel. Hurray, because this plot was not already convoluted enough. lol

Basically, it starts with Ryou at the very beginning of the Digital World, meeting Monodramon and then timehopping a whole lot to help both the Chosen Children and Tamers (who also show up here, because the game released by the time Tamers was out), and also get some closure. Please note, at this point in time the digital world has fucked up Ryou's mental health for good. lol

The game ends with Monodramon forcing a fusion between himself and Millenniumon, defeating the villain like this and leaving Ryou out of time with a single Digitama.

The plot of this game, due to the time travel, is a whole mess. I adore the game for the worldbuilding it does for the Adventure digital world, even though this, too, is doubtful in terms of canonicity. There is no real harm to take this as canon for the Adventure-world, though obviously the show itself contradicts this in terms of canon for the Tamers-world.

The crossover stuff between Tamers and Adventure verse is also very confusing to say the least. But yeah, given that none of the interactions here ever get referenced anywhere: This is also very certainly not canon. (Also, for some reason Ryou aged 2 years between D-1 Tamers and Brave Tamer, even though Brave Tamer starts up very shortly after D-1 Tamers ends.)

So, what is canon?

All of this might leave you wondering: What is canon for Ryou? Well, it is kinda hard to say. What we can assume is something like this:

In the universe of Digimon Adventure there is or was a boy named Akiyama Ryou. We do not know a whole lot about him, but based on his design he was probably 10 or 11 years old in August of 2000. When Ken first got called into the Digital World, he met Ryou there, and the two of them defeated Millenniumon, getting Ken infected with the Dark Spore. We do not know what happened to Ryou after this, but it seems unlikely that he and Ken stayed in contact, given Ken never brings him up. It is not impossible that he has died, though this is never confirmed, or contradicted by the canon.

In the universe of Digimon Tamers, there also exists a boy named Akiyama Ryou. Other than the boy from the games, he is not from Tokyo, but from a fishing village near Kitakyushu. We do not know whether he has a mother, but he has a father, as well as an uncle who lives in Tokyo. Whenever Ryou participated in the Digimon tournaments, he stayed with his uncle, apparently. In December 2000, Ryou meets Cyberdramon in Tokyo, and realized that Cyberdramon cannot stay in the real world because it is too aggressive. So he decides to travel to the Digital World together with it. Now, technically you can argue whether Cyberdramon is the Digimon resulting from the fusion of Monodramon and Millenniumon, but Ryou is very much a different character with a different backstory.

(And mind you: No, that US Comic that marries the Digimon Tamers story with some of the game story, is very much not canon, like all US-only material.)

[conventionalwisdomcomic]

Weekly Digimon Comic: Digimon Tamers - page 15.25

Oh gee, I wonder if this comic is going to result in a rambling, unsolicited rant about how bad the cartoonist's time living in Washington DC was? Well no, I won't do that... THIS TIME. After all, I don't have to because whatever you just imagined after reading my self-effacing meta-reference to it is good enough already! I WIN!

Credit where credit is due, though, I do like all the little tricks this episode pulls to suggest that the stakes are starting to rise. Everything about Sandiramon's rampage feels a bit more chaotic and serious than anything we'd seen in the preceding episodes, especially when directly contrasted to Takato & co just playing in the park. Gosh, it's almost like this show is GOOD or something!

Conventional Wisdom / Patreon

[mikaguralab]

WAIT THIS IS RENAMON AND RUKI ACTUALLY

[otakween]

Digimon Tamers - Volume 1

Another one of these lazy manhua adaptations. I can't say they're not fun, fast reads, but they're very eye roll worthy and shoddily put together. This one is four volumes long.

Ch. 1

As usual, it's nice to get a refresh of the story in a condensed format, even if it is super dumbed down.

Lots of cheesy meta references to goggles making you the leader and a sneaky Pokemon gag too. I wonder if Digimon got compared to Pokemon a bunch in Japan or if that's just a western perspective...

Ch. 2

Two sex jokes in this chapter. Culumon makes a reference to "petting" and Takato says something about "digimon mating season." Kinda squicked me out considering the audience, like wut.

Jian calling Terriermon's "moumantai" catchphrase "lame" felt kind of out of character. Also, I feel like Terriermon is less sassy than he was in the anime.

Ch. 3

I feel like we never really get a satisfying answer for why Terriermon snaps in Gargomon form. I guess having guns for arms just does that to you? Terriermon barely mentions anything about it.

Ch. 4

The panel showing that lady from Hypnos (the one in the chair that they show like 50 million times in the anime) was so show-accurate that I'm suspicious it was traced.

Ch. 5-6

Apparently Renamon attacks with "diamonds" instead of leaves in the English version of Tamers, I had to look that up cuz I was confused.

I gotta admit I laughed at the random old dude on the street being like "those darn kids and their rap music!" when Rika brushed by him.

When Guilmon de-digivolves after being stuck as Growlmon, Jian says that Takato "saved his digimon with his tears!" What...? Since when was that a thing? What is this, the Pokemon movie?

Ch. 7

Terriermon says that if he doesn't digivolve than he'll lose his powers...which sounds like fake lore that they just made up on the spot. Does he just mean he'll lost the window of opportunity to digivolve?

Rolled my eyes at Culumon saying "I'm a living plot device!" I mean...it's true, but can we leave abridged series-like lines out of the official release?

[seventeenlovesthree]

I know you wrote, you have a ton of projects till the end of the year, but! I saw Ruki/Jeri in your poll and would you care share your two cents about them girls? Only if you have time. I loved them since Ruki was teaching Jeri to play the digimon card game 🥺 I think they are my fave f/f ship in digimon

First things first: You can ALWAYS drop messages in my ask box, I'm always happy and up to discuss and share my own meta about ships and characters!

While my personal favourite f/f ship in Digimon overall will always be Sora/Mimi, I can actually draw some parallels between their dynamics, particularly when it comes to the similarities between Sora and Ruki - I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but the main aspect here is: Both Sora and Ruki have incredible soft spots for Mimi and Juri respectively and thus break through the initial trope(s) you associate with them. You would not expect the more introverted tomboy (who start off actively rejecting typical femininity) to care so much, be so protective of and overall get along so well with the supposed girly-girl at first glance, would you? While Sora is having more of a big sister vibe going on towards the other/younger characters, it's less likely for someone like Ruki, who used to push everyone away and wasn't even seen interacting with girls prior to meeting Juri.

You would expect her to look down on "card game newbies" the same way she used to ridicule Takato and Jenrya for being "too soft" - luckily for Juri, Ruki had already started contemplating her approaches and view points and, probably for the first time ever, seemed to feel some kind of pride in being able to teach someone. It's interesting how she just... Immediately feels drawn to Juri, how softly she talks to and smiles at her and has all the patience in the world for her. Sometimes I feel like some scenes/moments didn't make it into the final product, because Ruki's softness increases a lot faster during the midpoint of the series (and it's really a shame because the more the cast grows, the less you see individual interactions between certain characters). Either way, looking at how she treats Juri, it's no surprise that, aside from mimicking Takato's card slash pose, Juri also copies Ruki's initial card holding pose. Juri is admiring Ruki greatly and through the course of the series, whenever possible, she does cling to her - whereas Ruki is there to protect and comfort her, but without EVER belittling her. She knows Juri isn't weak, but worries for her for very understandable reasons after the loss of Leomon.

Tamers overall has a very interesting framing theme when it comes to Ruki, her reltionship to her family (mostly influenced by female figures) and to Renamon - as mentioned, she is initially rejecting feminity due to a difficult relationship with her mother. Not only does she not want to be "like her" (a model obsessed with beauty and not having time for family anyway), but she's also obviously rebelling, lashing out due a sense of having to prove herself and displaying strength. We know she longs for the attention of her father and can assume that there is underlying trauma of feeling rejected as a daughter that causes her to bottle up. She appears incredibly detached and/or lashes out when others show her affection, which is why she is initially still tough towards all the boys around her. But she improves almost all her relationships upon accepting Renamon more and more as an equal partner and friend, culminating in their Matrix evolution to Sakuyamon, which definitely represents the beginning of Ruki being able to embrace her own sense of femininity. One might argue that there are also potentially romantic undertones in how her behaviour changes towards Takato and Ryo (which, as we know, is a typical trope in media to portray boyish girls becoming more feminine). But I'd really like to add that the first human character that brought out her gentle side was Juri. And thus, my verdict is - Ruki wouldn't even have gotten that far if it hadn't been for Juri contributing to her soft side coming to the surface. (Renamon still has the biggest impact here and despite being proof of Digimon having no gender, Renamon is still associated with the female gender and thus being another female influence.)

There is... A lot of wlw subtext here in my opinion (the RenaRuki subtext in particular is INSANE, if you think about it), but unfortunately, Digimon has never dared to cross that line officially. I do see the appeal in people shipping Ruki with the aforementioned Ryo and Takato (though I personally feel like the former is a little forced, disruptive of the group dynamics and also a bit too stereotypical - the latter is somewhat difficult when you see Juri as semi-official love interest for Takato, it makes the whole thing a little messy). But in my opinion, it would have been nice to at least show the girls being important to each other. Because they absolutely are, even if my memory on the final Tamers episodes is a bit rusty.

[digitalgate02]

Y’know, one of the things this fandom seemed to be divided into two parts is about Frontier and Takuya’s “Dark Evolution” in the story. Some pointed it was “Vritramon rampaging phase” in the story, and some would consider “Takuya reverting into Flamon” as the dark evolution of this series.

First, what are the characteristics of Dark Evolution, according to the older three series + Savers? Mixing strong negative emotions and forcing your digimon to evolve. All cases of Dark Evolution before and after Frontier were like this. (I know, the OG Taichi was mostly by being a reckless idiot, but i like to think the novel version explained something a little more about this event)

Character has strong negative feelings and then forces their or someone else’s digimon to dark evolve into a mindless beast. – That’s how things worked in Adv’99, 02, Tamers and Savers.

(you may notice that instead of Daisuke dark evolving his partner, it’s Ken who forces a dark evolution on Taichi’s partner. Which implies yeah anyone could do that. Funny enough, Ken also fits the criteria established in those series: He is a self-absorbed and arrogant kid, so those emotions are mixed in the mix and this is why he evolves Agumon into SkullGreymon first. He only manages to get MetalGreymon virus after he cheats with his Evil/Dark Spiral. Meanwhile Daisuke lacks malice, lacks negative feelings. So he’s just a dumbass in ep 22 getting into trouble in the process.)

However, Ghost Game brought a new view of this concept by introducing GulusGammamon. As you can see, Gulus is a dark evolution (somehow) and it differs from every mindless-beast-on-rampage case we watched until now. But before going into GG take on it, I’d like to talk about the peculiar case in Adventure’s reboot series (aka Psi, or Adv:2020) first:

So, one of the things we saw in the episode from the reboot is that Taichi was getting consumed by the dark miasma around the place. We never had something like this before as well – this series was trying to “corrupt” Taichi too. The last time we saw a “tamer” corruption was on a Drama CD which was more a very weird and for fun story (this was done before the Drama CDs for digimon started to get serious stories) than something to take seriously. Anyway, the reboot was trying to corrupt Taichi first. Second is… Taichi dies for a moment which triggers Agumon’s dark evolution based on Agumon’s strong feelings (and the dark miasma, probably). This is going to be reused in Ghost Game, actually.

Now, back to Ghost Game!! Fun facts for you: Gulus is the only Gamma-form to not have a ring on his wrist/paw. Also, Gulus does not need Hiro to evolve either! But it was triggered by Gammamon’s strong feelings at first – when Bokomon died in front of him. Other cases were probably for survival in a life-or-death scenario for him or any of the trio. Gulus’ has another speech pattern from the other Gammamon forms, and the most important detail is he’s totally sentient. Gulus is more like another personality to Gammamon than being a feral beast in rampage.

But what can Ghost Game help us to decide which “dark evolution” scenario counts for Takuya/Frontier?

First of all, if we ignore Takuya for a moment, Frontier already has a “dark evolution” character – Kimura Kouichi. Duskmon and Velgmon are evil forms, and they’re purified into Loweemon and KaiserLeomon later. And heck, Kouichi himself is the “Warrior of Darkness” c’mon guys!!

BUT, Kouichi’s role is most suitable for the “redeemed villain” category. So yeah, which of Takuya’s cases suit the dark evolution criteria?

I’d like to reveal that, maybe, Frontier was ahead of its time. Because now that we got Ghost Game to break the norm and show us a new approach from this concept, it can help us here to notice Flamon was sort of a dark evolution for Takuya.

Frontier already makes clear that the Beast spirit forms cannot be controlled that easily, and I’ll shamelessly plug Shiha’s meta about everyone’s cases here in case we start the discussion about Izumi again.

So if we consider Vritramon the “dark evolution case”, you could say most of the kids in Frontier had it too. Which is odd, right?

But, if you consider Flamon an unusual dark evolution case, one like Gulus is now, it makes some sense. Dark evolution in the Digimon franchise is sort of “punishment” for not raising your digimon correctly – It’s a challenge, and you have to beat this obstacle to gain the new power/form to proceed. Dark evolution does not always mean “evil form” as well, just, as Gennai puts it in the end of Adventure, “a form not suitable for certain occasions” – So this concludes my thesis that Frontier started the unusual dark evolution forms instead.

Thank y’all for reading~

[mikaguralab]

> Be me, Fate fan becoming obsessed with Digimon Tamers

> Planning a roleswap fanfic that ultimately never materialized

> "You know, the main character of this WIP is turning out to be Ruki's natural enemy. I already decided that she became a huge Fate/Grand Order fan during her hospital stay, so it would be very funny if the girl who hates her guts is also the only person she can talk to about her blorbo madness."

> Slowly accumulate elaborate headcanons about Ruki's preference of the Tsukihime routes, her favorite Servants, etc.

> Flash forward a few months

> Talking about how Tamers is one of the few Digimon anime where people actually die when they're killed, and how that affects the storytelling

> The early parts of the anime set up a neat contrast between Takato, who's genre-aware for the wrong genre, and Ruki, who's genre-aware for the right genre but is herself out of place in it

> Takato's character arc is about accepting that he's in a genre where he has to kill people, but he still tries to maintain a shred of normalcy through his relationship with Ciel-senpai until she tries to kill him in the final act and the illusions come crashing down--

> ...Wait, "Ciel-senpai"...???

> HOLD ON A GODDAMN SECOND

> Realize that Digimon Tamers is actually an adaptation of Tsukihime (specifically the Near Side; you can tell they wanted to do some Far Side stuff, and had they gotten a second season instead of Frontier, they probably would have, but the anime we actually got is mostly based on Ciel's route)

> Realize that Takato is, in fact, actually the Tamers staff's interpretation of Shiki Tohno

> Realize that Ruki's genre-aware status, if translated into more specific terms, means that she has read Tsukihime

> mfw my meme headcanon was literally spot-on

> mfw Ruki's favorite route is Arcueid's

what ive learned from making joke headcanons is that within an hour theyre usually no longer a joke

[into-september]

HTTYD (+fangirling about the dub)

Generally the film does only one thing I can fault it for: the "oh no he's dead and everyone grieves his heroic sacrifice and regrets they never appreciated him before it - j/k, of course we didn't kill of the main character in a children's film". The only time someone actually stuck to that it was when the Digimon really went away at the end of Tamers, and even that one had the its very last fram promise a reunion

Except for that: it's not a revolutionary tale but it is profoundly good at what it is doing. There's never a second of dropped tension, the story beats flow naturally, the characters are all instantly believable. Hell, even that moment where Astrid rounds up the gang and they're all "who cares if Hiccup disgraced himself and his father by publicly embracing ideas going against the very core of everything we've been raised into, we're ready to follow him without question" worked when it has no right to

Kudos of course for the guts to maybe not kill its hero but leave him dismembered and dependent on mobility aids. Of course not in a way that will vitally affect his life (see: Blacksmith Man With Two Prosthetics whose English name almost certainly wasn't "Gugge"), but oh man that subtle frame of him leaving the hut leaning on Toothless with Toothless' maimed tail unfolding behind them

I may or may not have been listening so much to the soundtrack that there were occasions where I recognised the track names on screen

It is very relevant context that the obligatory celebrity voice talent was this:

Hiccup's go-to cussing being "oh fiddle" thus has two possible explanations: either a dub-specific meta joke or its presence in English was the only reason they cast Rybak

He does a really good job for someone to my knowledge not a trained actor and nailed the Helge Jordal parody and that takes some real dialect talent

of course nobody reading this would know that Helge Jordal is an icon of a magnitude where he a living parody of himself but nobody else could've been cast as Hiccup's dad and by god this crew knew how to use him

[insert obligatory complaint about the adults speaking various western dialects despite allegedly having been here for seven generations while The Kids all speak Standard Urban Eastern, though IIRC the original did the same except with Scottish and GA]

There were references to iconic national music appearing so naturally in these lines you wouldn't believe it

[alpaca-clouds]

Digimon Tamers: The Card Game Thing Was Genius

Yes, I am still feeling like rambling about Digimon, because my hyperfixation on this has opened up again, and hey, what do I have encyclopedic knowledge of this franchise for, if not to ramble on hours about it?

Back when Digimon Tamers released, a lot of people were butthurt about it. While the fandom in general seems to have come around to the season by now, back in the day a lot of folks hated that it was no longer based in the Digimon Adventure timeline, and more so that Digimon was in fact a fictional franchise in this new world.

And while Digimon Adventure back in the day was welcomed by western fandom as "is this a copy-cat of Pokémon?" (no, it is not, it is just that back at the time Japanese companies had somehow decided that "it is now the time of monster stuff" - given that monster franchises were already a thing before this in terms of games), Digimon Tamers with the Card Game mechanic was welcomed with by: "This is like Yu-Gi-Oh!"

Even though Digimon Tamers is nothing like Yu-Gi-Oh!, given that the characters generally do not really play the card game much on screen, let alone having tournaments as a core aspect of the show.

I think that even today, some people still feel a bit weird about the inclusion of the Card Game, because it was just very obviously merchandising included in the show.

However... I will very much argue that this was a genius move - and is mainly responsible for Digimon Tamers getting the kind of quality writing that it has.

While a lot of western fan got introduced to Digimon as the anime first and foremost, it very much was always a merchandise advertisement in form of an anime. Sure, the stories were always super fun, but the main reason that Bandai financed an anime of this scale was to use it as advertisement for the Digimon merchandise they were releasing.

If you go through interviews (or talk to some of the writers yourself), you will however learn that this lead to a lot of issues. This is a general thing with several Bandai/Toei merchandise franchises (like Ojamajo Doremi or PreCure). Basically the writers were always pushed to give more focus onto the merchandise, bring in new forms for Digimon (to have as merchandise) and new mechanics (for merchandise). As I said, same happened with a lot of the Magical Girls stuff, where basically the same was true.

And ironically... This is very much why the idea to include the Card Game was so genius. Because no, this idea did not come from Bandai or the producers, but from Konaka. And he was very much able to play this out as a trump card (badum-tss) whenever producers tried to get him to adjust the rather dark direction. Because he was like: "Oh, but we have so much direct merchandise tie-ins!" And it worked rather well, from what we can see.

It also protected the season from having additional stuff forced into it for merchandise purposes. And yeah. I am rather glad that this decision was made. Not only because I love card games.

[hesitationss]

what are your top anime of all time? i am assuming bleach and naruto? :o

if im being for real ... no, they just have a huge grip on me because they are so long and have big casts so engaging with meta is super fun! of the big three and for shonen in general, BLEACH is def number 1 for me!

my favourite anime ever is eureka 7 and digimon! digimon adventure is a classic, but tamers has a special place in my heart because of impon and terriermon ( ๑ ˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و ♡

[angstandhappiness]

DUDE

“How Well Did You Handle Losing Your Partner?” a collage showcasing the emotional processing of grief in children. Thanks Digimon!!

[magpiejay1234]

Episode 27.

The cast is stuck in Masaru's home, and Satsuma comes in.

Their mysterious help is Ikuto's biological dad, but they take all of Ikuto's biological family.

Kurata's followers, Kouki, Nanami, and Ivan stop the cast in the interdimensional route.

They transform into Digimon.

Satsuma protects the cast, allowing them to go back to the Digital World.

****

The Kurata gang's evolution is called Hyper Bio Evolution, which is a pastiche of Hyper Spirit Evolution from Frontier.

Their initial forms are all Armor Digimon, and they Evolve further into Ultimates. Much like the previous episodes, Armor Digimon are used as Perfect-analogues here.

As we discussed before, Armor Digimon were under Saber Leomon, and the Lynxmon that attacked Kurata is an Armor Digimon, so this further showcases Kurata's pettiness.

The Bio forms actually have different colours, and capsules behind their necks, so they are technically different Digimon.

Mid-series antagonists being Human-Digimon hybrids is obviously a meta commentary on Frontier's poor reception initially, and Matrix Evolution in Tamers, as Savers, using V-Pet lines like Adventure, is trying to be Adventure, but edgier (which makes this also an indirect shade at 02).