#Koji-haru’s story based.

[inubaki]

This is not cannon to @koji-haru’s story, I just had ALOT of time to stew in it. Applying that much like Lucifer’s unique markings that emerge with his demonic nature. That Adam own fall to Hell would be something uniquely. Namely, he burns. The heat and flames with no divine protection raves Adam’s human body in agony before the ‘fall’ begins to take affect. Hell’s burns becoming scared like tattoos across his body. A king of hell literal sculpted by fire. I like to think he gives the both the vibes of both a victim and a survivor. Someone to trust…

Anywho! I hope it looks okay! Thank you @koji-haru for all the amazing stories! Please check them out for you’re a fan of Michael and Adam.

[digitaldreams0801]

Digimon Frontier, Character Development, and Change

In my rewrite of Digimon Frontier, I’ve been very picky about giving each character a specific arc that can be identified if you’re looking closely enough. Digimon Frontier as a whole has a very unique philosophy when it comes to developing characters, and that’s exactly what I’m going to be talking about in this quirky little info dump from yours truly. 

How Frontier Develops Characters

Digimon Frontier takes a very mature first step by introducing the flaws of each character right off the bat. With other seasons, it takes some time to identify the negative traits of each of the children, and we get used to their strengths first. Digimon Frontier does something completely different by going the other way around and forcing us to fill in the gaps of what they can do in the future. Takuya begins as an incredibly confident young man who’s too stubborn and short-tempered to admit when he’s wrong. Tomoki is a crybaby who can’t handle what’s happening. Izumi is capable of being petty and stuck-up. Junpei is an awkward kid with no grip of how to read social situations. Koji hates interacting with the rest of the team and refuses to acknowledge strength in numbers. Even when Koichi shows up, he’s portrayed as having severe problems with bottling his emotions, stepping first with his flaws. 

Frontier has the characters unlearn these issues as the series goes on, but it’s proof of maturity for the franchise that it can trust its character writing enough to establish the cast as being incredibly flawed from a fundamental perspective. The audience has faith that the writers can shift everything by the end though, developing these characters into three-dimensional people who we can see believably existing. Digimon has always been about the characters, and Frontier takes a unique perspective for this development. 

This all comes to a head at the halfway point of the season. When Takuya returns to Earth via Dark Trailmon, he is confronted with the truth of the matter: the children have all changed significantly from the petty, short-tempered people they were before. He can’t simply undo that because of how much they’ve come to change already, and the change is incredibly noticeable when you look at it from this perspective. It’s a mature, subtle way to handle character development that I love a lot. 

So... Why the hell am I not doing that? 

Problems in Planning

I’ve always admired Frontier for the way that it starts off. You have to be patient in order to see the positive traits exhibited by each member of the cast, and I think that’s a special way to begin a character-driven series like this. However, when I sat down to go about the rewrite, I realized that this method of development simply would not work for the story that I wanted to tell. 

This problematic fact first presented itself when I got to planning the appearances of the Beast Spirits. In my rewrite of Frontier, the Beast Spirits are symbolic of the monster inside that can easily be unchained when one’s emotions spiral out of hand. At its heart, Spirit Evolution is about using one’s emotions effectively, and it was this fact that I based my character development off. 

The Beast Spirits act as a catalyst for development by forcing each of the characters to confront the darkest, ugliest parts of themselves. From the beginning, there’s a strange paradox within the cast of trusting each other with their lives and little else. The first deeply personal conversation about overcoming flaws and reaching out to one another happens in chapter seven, and even so, Tomoki’s issues regarding his consistent anxiety and trauma aren’t fully resolved until seven chapters later. In chapter eight, Izumi and Junpei discuss their envy of one another, and it’s only then that any two members of the cast actually begin to trust one another with more than simply backup on the battlefield. Before, they were sticking together out of obligation rather than friendship. 

In ‘Frontiers Unexplored’, the primary point of character development is overcoming one’s issues and using emotions in an effective, non-destructive way. If you look carefully, you can see that each season has its own way of developing characters, and it’s carefully selected for that given season. In Adventure, the kids overcome their personal flaws by exemplifying their best traits. 02 is all about relationships and connecting with others. Frontier, like I already said, focuses on starting with negative aspects and moving towards positivity. Appmon is concentrated on becoming the people each of them yearns to be (for example, Haru becoming the protagonist he always wanted to be but didn’t think he could accomplish). They’re all tailored for the story that they want to tell, and there’s only so much wiggle room you can have with a given season before that philosophy of development has to change. 

In order for ‘Frontiers Unexplored’ to work, I had to do quite a bit of changing regarding the plot and characters. Since I was going for something darker, the cast was aged up, and the arcs I planned out for them simply wouldn’t work as well if their flaws were presented first. Each character development method is incredibly specific to the story that the season is trying to tell, and as much as I love Frontier’s bold move of starting with a group of emotionally messy kids and turning them into underdog heroes, it simply wouldn’t work with the story I was trying to tell, so I didn’t try to make it fit. 

Instinct, Emotion, and Change

Instead, I shifted the point of the character arcs. Each of these characters suffer from unique problems that have shaped them into the people they are. They’re problems that many teenagers suffer from, hence why the characters have been aged up. Their past experiences have left behind damage and trauma that has been left to build into resentment and fear of being hurt once again. The character development in this rewrite is all about moving past those dark times and using the emotional aftermath in an effective way. 

The Beast Spirits are, in the beginning, incredibly destructive. Tomoki is the first to find his Beast Spirit, and it’s an awful experience for him. However, each of the group’s members grows to control their Beast Spirits when they reach out and stop bottling their emotions. Rather than allowing their feelings to drive them over the edge, they allow themselves to be helped, shifting their emotions into something that pushes them forward instead of holding them back. The Beast Spirits act as catalysts for each character for move past their issues by asking for help and using their emotions effectively. 

By nature, living creatures are driven by emotion and instinct. This is the fundamental truth Beast Spirit evolution is based around, and it remains true throughout the entire book. However, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. ‘Frontiers Unexplored’ is about taking dark, troubled parts of ourselves and turning them into something that helps rather than hinders. It’s about communication as the kids grow to trust each other more and more with their problems. Their flaws are shown, and all of them are rooted in emotions being released in the wrong way, but salvation is found by moving past those issues and using one’s feelings as effectively as possible. 

Conclusion

I love the way Digimon Frontier develops its characters, but that simply wouldn’t work for the story I was planning on telling. Each season of Digimon has its own philosophy for developing its characters, and rather than trying to make Frontier’s structure for a story where it doesn’t belong, I changed the point of the character arcs. ‘Frontiers Unexplored’ is about moving towards the future, overcoming trauma, and using emotions in a positive way rather than allowing them to destroy. The story was too different for Frontier’s idea of character development to remain, so this change was made, and I believe that it ultimately fits better for the tale I have been weaving since late May. 

I’m currently working on rewatching all of Digimon, and I’ve made considerable progress since March of this year. I’ve already gotten through Adventure, 02, Frontier, Tri, and Appmon. I’m currently a little over halfway through Data Squad/Savers, and after I’m finished with it, I’ll be starting to rewatch Tamers, and then it’ll be time for Xros Wars. After I get through them all, I may write a meta piece about each season’s philosophy for character development since I had so much fun working on this. Of course, it’ll probably be a while until I get around to that, so in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed reading this! Chapter nineteen of ‘Frontiers Unexplored’ is dropping this Sunday! Have a nice day, everyone!