#I fucking LOVED Digimon for soooo long

[vennilavee]

ive been putting off Digimon tri for nearly TEN FUCKING YEARS bc I just cant bring myself to reunite with this show

[fizzingwizard]

I wanted to do the Kizuna countdown these guys made but I uh forgot. And I’m gonna forget again before friday because I tend to pass out after work and dinner. Sooo... I’m just gonna do it all right here right now, since it’s the last weekend before Kizuna!

First thoughts when Kizuna was announced:

“Holy shit they’re making another one!? How long will they try to squeeze every drop of nostalgia out of us? Because as for me I’m pretty sure that well is bottomless soooo can they just go on making new Adventure movies forever and ever?”

Expectations for Kizuna:

Based on what I’ve heard it kind of seems like the Digimon sequel we would have expected... but got Tri instead. I really enjoyed Tri, though it was far from perfect, so I’m not sure how to feel about Kizuna! But I’m really excited to see the kids as adults trying to balance adulting, their dreams, and the things they care about in their daily lives.

A headcanon/theory you’d like Kizuna to make canon:

Can’t think of anything, sorry.

Expectations for the new characters:

New girl has a butterfly in her hair. She’s probably a harmless guide/informant type. New guy looks strict and apparently is rather blunt. But my guess is he’s not the big bad either... maybe distrusting of the digital world though. There’s probably more to both of these guys but Idc as usual, I only care about my children.

First Digimon memory:

Was a 10 year old Pokemon fan. All 10 year old Pokemon fans thought Digimon was a rip-off (how were we to know it was actually the older of the two, and already part of an established monster tradition in Japan!). We were also obsessed with Pogs and had fights over Pogs on the playground, which I think says a lot about our mental state.

My bro rented some Digimon VHS from Blockbuster (fuck yeah 1999!) and it was the whole Devimon saga. I scoffed and then sat down and watched with him. Then I was freaking HOOKED. I turned on the TV to see the new eps, but actually the show was starting back at reruns before moving on to the Myotismon saga at the time, so I got to watch the whole thing from start to finish in chronological order. I cried buckets when the final episode aired and mourned for weeks.

Favorite Adventure series:

does this mean Adventure or 02? or including Tri? Anyway the answer will always be Adventure. That’s nostalgia central for me. A lot of it was pretty straightforward storytelling, other seasons did more creative stuff, but I think that’s to be expected - this series built the foundation for all that. And it’s great in its own way. What I particularly liked was always the whole “kids trying to figure shit out on their own” bit. For a kids’ show, they actually did it pretty well. Usually kids in that situation act just like really competent adults and don’t really struggle. Digimon certainly had that too, but it let the kids be crybabies, be selfish, be ignorant... it was really about their personal growth and that’s why they got to be kids as well.

Favorite Adventure Chosen Child (older 6):

Taichi!! Do I even need to explain myself? I will anyway. I didn’t care about him much when I was ten. For a long time I didn’t have a favorite character. It was Yamato for about thirty seconds, and then it was Takeru for about two years. After 02, I rewatched both seasons, and suddenly realized Taichi was Everything to me. I never really went for leader characters, never liked brash, brainless, bring-the-brawn types, or stern, distant ones, cold except when showing their passion for their mission.

But Taichi isn’t like either of those. He has bits of both - he can be brainless, and he’s pretty brash, but he’s calculating too. I liked that mix, but mainly I liked that he just seemed like a regular kid who the others were naturally drawn to as a leader because he was Mr. Get-shit-done. The older I get, the more I appreciate that proactive factor in people. Sometimes you just need someone to say the thing that’s on everyone’s minds. It can be scary. So I feel gratitude when someone takes the lead when I can’t. I think that’s how the other kids felt towards Taichi - for all his flaws, he kept them going, he didn’t let them waffle and miss their chances. I like him for a ton of other reasons too but I’ll end there for today!

Favorite 02 Chosen Child (younger 6):

Takeru. He was my original fav and I really really wanted to see him be awesome in 02. Unfortunately, he and Hikari didn’t really get much development. (They still made out better than all Frontier kids not named Kouji, though.) But I loved his anger issues and his facing his trauma. They should have done so much more. I really wanted him to bond with Ken over the fact that they’d both lost partners... I loved seeing older Takeru in Tri, the trauma issue came up again when he was the first one to realize his partner was infected. I’ve never been so moved by a crying plush doll lmao. Also his fashion sense, woot.

The runner-up is worth a mention since she wasn’t part of the original Adventure group and therefore could be considered my true 02 fav - Miyako. I loved the nerdy glasses girl because I was a nerdy glasses girl. I wasn’t as outspoken as Miyako, but I could go on and on about things I liked. I loved how pure and flawed she was and I loved her inner sense of right and wrong and her frankness. It’s refreshing when so many characters hide their true feelings. And I loved her and Hikari. Hikari and Miyako are the true girl friendship in those series. Sora and Mimi are nice but didn’t get the same level of development. Of course, I headcanon they were all awesome girlfriends.

Favorite Digimon partner:

This is an IMPOSSIBLE question, I love ALL OF THEM. I can’t pick one.

Gabumon: the way he and Yamato don’t need words, he just understands him, and when he doesn’t, always assume the best and gives him space. Their connection through music. And the way Gabumon will tease him especially over Taichi XD Gabumon keeps Yamato in line.

Gomamon: the way he is just what Jou needs, someone to keep him positive. I’m anxiety-prone myself and one reason I love my job working with young children is they make me see the bright things that I used to be able to see all the time when I was a child. I never really wanted to grow up. I think Gomamon is that for Jou, the child in him he doesn’t want to let go of, and doesn’t actually have to, because we take that part of us into our future.

Tentomon: because was he not MVP of the YEAR in Kokuhaku!?!?!?!?! That was amaaaaazing. Also he is easily the funniest Digimon and I love how he brings out the affectionate side of Koushirou. Again he’s exactly what Koushirou needs.

Patamon: Because he’s cuuuuute!!! and gives Takeru something to nurture and protect while also protecting him. Takeru, the youngest, who needed to be protected but also needed to grow, got a Digimon with those exact same qualities. PERFECT MATCH.

Hawkmon: I always loved him paired with Miyako. He was my favorite 02 partner. He was grumpy and irritable yet caring with Miyako, basically the compass she needed when she felt panicky. And he was COOL. Like he had the best evolutions lol. And as the only male/female partner set (I know Digimon don’t have true genders but this isn’t a made up thing either), there was a slightly different dynamic, like Miyako needed someone a bit more her opposite than other Chosen, to help push her in new directions.

Agumon: He gets honorable mention in particular because of Tri! But also because of 02. In Adventure, Taichi didn’t have a strong grasp of what it meant to raise his partner. He and Agumon saw each other as equals - which they are - but you do see a shift in that balance as Taichi gets older. Agumon is very powerful, but very child-like and thoughtless. In 02 and Tri, we see Taichi taking care of him much more like a big brother with a young brother. In Adventure, they just played together and wound each other up. What this means is Taichi’s grown up to be quite the caretaker, out of necessity - his partner is a bit high maintenance compared to the others! And caretaker isn’t usually the quality that jumps to mind when you think of “anime protagonist” or even leader. So I LOVE it. Also, Agumon struggles to express big concepts. But he can express really important things in simple ways, and Taichi needs that simplicity when his head gets all muddled with complexity. We definitely saw that in Tri. Agumon is kinda the Doraemon of Digimon, lol.

And I love literally all of the others and could go on about them for ages. But I’ll stop here. Will continue the countdown (er, I guess I can’t call it that when I’m doing it like this) later.

[veedramon-beanie]

Ignore the empty shelf at the bottom left and the (long since disassembled and now partial) Digimon collection on the top right shelf, but here’s the result of my late night sorting yesterday!  It’s so cool to see all my Pokemon plush set up together like this, aaa....!  I’ll go through them shelf by shelf so you guys can get a better look at everything!  I’m not gonna bother naming everything, though, like I normally do with my Digimon - because that’s too much work!  I’ll mention notable things, though.  Also assume most of my non-jakks pacific plush are bootlegs lmao, I know some that probably aren’t (bought on ebay, purposefully avoided bootlegs bc the officials/a certain style of official looked nicer, or bought off of a probably reputable site) and some that 100% aren’t (bought from the store, ie english-released Tomys and Pokedolls I bought straight from a Pokemon Center in Washington)

First shelf!  Just a shelf for special plush, or more accurately, plush I didn’t have room for anywhere else by the time I remembered to put them in.  Mimikyu is probably real since I was avoiding the bootlegs (so many cheap bootlegs...!  They looked soft, but I just loved the accessories on the official one too much to go with a bootleg...because the bootleg’s look so poorly made in comparison) and the Substitute plushie is.  Well.  I honestly don’t know.  I’ll be putting all my future plush up here too even if they have a place to go because haha, whoops, those shelves are p a c k e d in case you can’t tell.

Second shelf!  Here I have my normal types and electric types.  Fun fact: that Jakks Pacific Pikachu is my first ever Pokemon plush ever!  Cliche, I know.  But I picked him out from the only other option (bonsly) and he was the only non-bonsly plush in the store.  Also I like Pikachu, he’s cute.

Water type and Ice type shelf!  Aka best starter type shelf, even if my preferences vary over the generations.  That Keldeo secret sword form (at least I think it’s that form?) was bought from an irl Pokemon Center!  I go there every time we go on vacation to Washington (my dad has work up there every so often and we used to have family up there, but we haven’t gone for a few years...)  I wish I got that Amaura, Greninja, and Popplio from the Pokemon Center, tho, haha.  Also fun fact - the glaceon behind the popplio is probably a bootleg (it came with the same kind of tag as the vaporeon) but I actually bought it from a real store.  I felt like it had to be real if a real store was selling it for $10 and it had an alarm on it and everything, right?  I feel jipped.  Give me back my money, Universal Studios, I bought it in that Hollywood walk or w/e the fuck near your park.  Nah I’m kidding; I like getting plushies as souvenirs from places when I go on trips, and it was cool to get a Pokemon one!

Fire, fighting, rock, and ground type shelf!  That Tyrunt was also bought from the same Pokemon center (at a later date, though).  Also, that Jakks Pacific monferno in the back is the second ever Pokemon plush I bought!

Sorry for the light change on the next two, but:

Grass types and (er, some) dragon and flying types~!  The black thing in the back is a mega shiny rayquaza, but he’s actually way more massive than he appears in the picture!  Also, the smaller snivy is something I got from the Pokemon Center as well!  I actually didn’t mean to buy it, but I got it for free with one (that’s in the next picture - meloetta) and hey, I can’t complain if the machine gives me a free Pokemon!  The bigger snivy I got wayyy back when Black and White hadn’t released over here in the US yet (ah, the dark days when you had to wait for english translations of Pokemon games...) and I actually recently found his long-since-detached tag that I for some reason kept...cool!  (God I want the shiny version of this plush soooo badly though, shiny snivy was the first legit/non-event/ect shiny I ever got in the games and not to mention I have an emotional attachment to that specific plush anyways...totally a holy grail of mine!  Maybe some day I can get it....[unlikely, lmao, especially since I have cheaper holy grails I want like the porygon2 pokedoll and any Digimon beanie ever- but I can still dream...])

And the last shelf - my dark, ghost, psychic, fairy, and dragon types that I accidentally forgot to account for when doing the other shelves and then was like “well, shit” so I had to stick them here!  Yes I know tyrunt is on another shelf and noibat and noivern are flying/dragon and 100% should be on other shelves but by the time I remembered to put them + the shiny tyrantrum anywhere, I didn’t have enough room...all three of the plush are pretty big (especially noivern and tyrantrum tho) and as you can see, the flying Pokemon (and dragon too, but it’s harder to tell) and Tyrunt are some of the closest to the front and thus some of the last ones to be put on the shelf - and given that the bigger ones need to go to the back, I didn’t have a lot of options here.  PS - there’s a shadow lugia (99% likely to be a bootleg) pokedoll between umbreon and togekiss/next to the bigger shadow lugia and the purloin/absol and a Jakks Pacific lugia (100% legit, bought it from target at the same time I bought pichu a few pictures back) behind the meloetta (also 100% legit, got from the Pokemon center with the snivy) and the shiny Tyrantrum (100% fake, but it’s fuckin fantastically well-made)

Tbh though, I’d really recommend those bigger bootlegs, esp for Pokemon that are near impossible if not 100% impossible (like shiny mons that dont have actual shiny plush, or legitimately un-plushified mons) to get your hands on.  They have Digimon ones too (one of which I own - a Dracomon!) that are equally as varied and that’s pretty fantastic considering how selective Digimon is with its merchandise compared to Pokemon.  I know bootlegs are bad but they’re soooo nice, plus you can’t claim they’re stealing nintendo’s profits when nintendo (or bandai) hasn’t even made plush of those characters yet and likely has no plans to...so especially if you’re buying second-hand I’d go for it!  But of course, that’s really a matter of personal preference; you do what you’re most comfortable with ^^ but if you feel lowkey bad but still wanna buy one, just buy ones that don’t have legit counterparts, or something like that.  Or buy legitimate ones alongside the fake ones; that way you have a giant cuddle buddy that isn’t worth much collecting-wise AND a rarer, legit plush that you can put on display!

Anyways feel free to let me know if you would like to see any plushies more closely!  Always happy to do that~

[ahiddenpath]

Hidden’s Unnecessarily Long and Image Heavy Reaction to Digimon Tri: Soushitsu

HERE BE SPOILERS, FRIENDS.  Also a boatload of images.

(Seriously I’m hitting a lot of highlights, don’t spoil yourself!!!!)

Short version: I liked the silly character moments, I wasn’t into the plot/Yggdrasil stuff.  

Long Version:

LET US BEGIN.

Okay so I was like, “Aww, cute, Mochimon likes oolong tea.  This will please Kou.”  

Yaaaay, Kou is pleased!

BUT THEN-

Haha, silly Kou, you so silly and precious.  We’re having fun.

*TEN MINUTES LATER*

OMG SON STOP WTH???  Ohhhh man.  Ohhhh man???  I don’t even know how to react to this any more...  We’re veering back into that territory where Tri really wants to make Kou into really awkward comic relief, lol?  Ah well, no harm done, I guess...  I like how even Mochimon knew his lesson was too much.  Why does your newly rebooted partner have a better sense of this than you, Kou?  XD XD XD

Okay, we’re 15 minutes in and Yama is already rage-quitting over nothing.  Bless him XD

Anyway then Kou is all focused and working really hard.

Taichi notices and is like,

YOU’RE LATE TO THE PARTY, BOY.  THAT WAS THE LAST FLICK OMG WHERE EVEN WERE YOU?!?!  Sigh.

Anyway, then campfire shenanigans ensued, and I nearly choked when Takeru said:

AND THEN THIS LITTLE SHIT-  HE GOT ME, THIS PRINCE OF TROLLS-

Curse my Takari heart for leading me astray!  XD XD XD  I totally fell for it.

Then it was bed time, and I KNEW IT I KNEW IT OMG I KNEW IT KNEW IT KNEWITKNEWITKNEWIT.

HE SLEEPS WITH HIS LAPTOP oh my god.  All he needs now is a bottle of oolong in his other hand, amirite?  XD XD XD

Okay, so Sora was struggling a lot in this film, poor gal.  I’m so glad she got her own independent arc, but it felt really... contrived to me?  

I’m really unclear on why no one understood Sora’s pain.  Everyone else had their partners nearby; Piyomon was conspicuously absent.  It wasn’t hard to see the problem.  I think the point is supposed to be that everyone is so used to Sora watching out for them that they don’t pay her much mind, which is so sad.  I know everyone was absorbed in their pain over the Reboot, but they had a whole pep rally over helping Meiko when an old comrade was literally suffering right in front of them.  I kept expecting Mimi, Jyou, or Hikari to notice, but Sora was on her own.

Sora has a precedence for suffering alone and saying nothing.  It’s totally in character for her.  But I’m confused as to why no one could solve such a simple puzzle.  I mean, the baka patrol pictured above generally isn’t very helpful in these situations (I say this with affection and amusement), but we have other, more cognizant members in this club.

And yeesh, why was Piyomon so intense?  I assume her distrust of Sora’s motives was supposed to echo Sora’s distrust towards her mother’s motives in Adventure.  But Piyomon has always been the sweetest, warmest digimon.  It was jarring to see her behave with such antagonism.  

In my opinion, they wrote Sora perfectly, but they placed her in a situation that felt artificial and forced and tried to justify it by echoing Sora’s Adventure struggles.  It was so close to being awesome, but...  Well, really I should just be happy that she received so much attention, screen time, and effort, and that the love triangle angle didn’t come up.  

You know what?  I’ll take it.  Sora did an amazing job of hanging in there and expressing her love, even though it wasn’t returned, even though everything seemed lost.  That takes incredible inner strength.

Okay, moving on!

I’m sorry, guys.  He’s the best digi now.  The end.

SPEAKING OF THE NEW BEST-  JYOU.  JYOU!  JYOUUUUUUUU!!!!  THIS WAS LITERALLY THE BEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.  SON.  *ugly sobbing*

Don’t get me started on Yggdrasil and weird ass creeper Gennai (Wtf was with that lick?  Euughhhh?!?!).  I hate to say it, but...  I’m having trouble caring about this new organization, or whatever they are.  Even the movie doesn’t seem to care?  “I’m Gennai, but I’m not the Gennai you know...  Eh, fuck it, I’m the villain now, deal with it.”  I just...  We’re halfway through this ride and they plunk someone in front of us and have him introduce himself like that?  

I suspect his over-the-top behavior might have been an attempt to compensate for his random appearance.  The sudden exposition dump didn’t help.  After three movies of telling us nothing, they’re just throwing info at us with very little background.  It didn’t feel like, “Oh, I see!  That previous stuff makes sense now!”  It felt like, “Er...  Okay, if you say so, I guess...”  Basically, given our previous lack of info on Kind-of-Gennai and Yggdrasil, he had to really amp up the bad guy factor to create interest and investment.

The exception to this is the Himekawa stuff.  Her flashback scenes were awesome, and we finally understand her motivations.  Unfortunately for her, things blew up in her face...  I’m genuinely interested to see what happens with her.    

Oh, by the way?  The real reason Yama and Sora aren’t dating in Tri?  It’s not to allow for a Taiorama triangle.  It’s to allow for these two idiots to hook up:

STOP THAT.  STOP YOUR SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING NONSENSE.  GET A ROOM?!?!  XD XD XD  Ohhhhh man, I love you dorks.

Oh, and further proof that Jyou is best:

That was one hell of a catch.  Wouldn’t that still result in grievous injury to both parties?  XD XD XD

Let’s see...  I really loved that we saw Elecmon in this film, and that some of the kids warped to areas significant to their Adventure experiences.  I loved that Hikari said, “Let’s love the digimon as they are now” and “Plotmon is happier now.”  Such wisdom.  Annnnd I also appreciated Kind-of-Gennai directly mentioning that digimon who died in the real world can’t be reborn...  Not without the Reboot.

Soooo, Wizarmon?  Huh?  HUH?!?!?!

I hope Meiko will be alright (although frankly I think being choked was less dangerous than being slammed into an ice wall by Mugendramon).  Sadly, this film still didn’t give us much reason to care about her as a person.  In fact, the team rallying to help her while Sora’s heart bled in front of them kind of pushed me from my previous stance of, “Hopefully she’ll be given interesting material soon,” to, “ARE YOU SERIOUS?  Sigh...”  (Of course, it’s great that they want to help her, but c’mon guys.  You know who else is on your team?  Sora and the 02 gang).  Even worse, I sense that she STILL hasn’t told the group everything.  

Also, there was a LOT of long, awkward evolving in this flick, but I guess I can’t say that has no precedence in Digimon Adventure, lol!!!!

I have no clue what will happen next.  I’m not impressed with the plot, except when Himekawa is involved.  But they are mostly handling the characters with love and respect, and I appreciate that.