#and the personalities are randomized so if you create or evolve the digimon and it doesn't have the right personality then lol rip

[tastycitrus]

was anyone going to tell me there was a postgame for ranking up to tamer legend where you fight against julia and glare from dawn/dusk or was i just supposed to find out a year after i beat the main game from someone else's screenshot and suffer through a whole lot of grinding and farm quests to get there

[analyzingadventure]

I know this is a dumb question with an obvious answer, but... Where did the digiegg come from? My only answer to it is data input. But I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Material like XW implies there's breeding/reproduction since Cutemon has parents. I think is like Chao (from Sonic Adventure/2) breeding? Idk, just a theory...

Like personally I absolutely despise the entire Cutemon family thing in Xros Wars because of how. Deeply Heterosexual it was (in such like, a mandatory way, like... Yeah I hated that) so like, honestly I kind of just want to ignore that ever happened. Like I don't want it to be a thing.

But to play devil's advocate, while I don't think Digimon have the ability to reproduce (unless stated otherwise), I do think it could be possible that if a Digimon or two came across a DigiEgg that's still developing, they could maybe like, transfer just a small bit of their own data into the DigiEgg. Just a tiny little bit, nothing important (so they don't like, clone themselves or anything), but just enough to maybe like, influence the newborn to starting out as a familiar Digimon (like the newborn could be the same Digimon the "parent" was at Baby I) and increase the likelyhood the baby will evolve to something familiar for at least its first few stages, before figuring out who they want to be.

But that aside, I don't want to believe in Digimon reproduction at all thank you. I will fight Bandai.

But as for where to DigiEggs come from... Like honestly my personal headcanon is that it's just the reverse of how Digimon die?

Like think about the visual of how Digimon die in Adventure, how they scatter to a million tiny specs of data and disappear. I like to think that DigiEggs form the same way-- random specs of data colliding and coming together until there's enough to form an Egg, where the random data then starts to like, put itself together, get organized, bring order into the chaos, etc. And once the data is properly structured, the Egg can hatch and boom ya got a baby Digi.

At least that's how I like to imagine DigiEggs forming "naturally". Some powerful entities (like your host computers like Yggdrasil and Homeros) could probably create not just random DigiEggs but specifically manufacture ones at will, and we do have some canon examples of humans creating Digimon so surely humans could also create DigiEggs (if they know like, coding)

[citrus-cactus]

Random, but any headcanons about the unchosen Frontier quartet?

I like to think that Chiaki is a bit of a tomboy and that Teruo has a crush on her, which is why he followed her to the Digital World. In the popular fanon idea/AU thing where they get the other spirits, she’s still ugly as Calmaramon but doesn’t care. “It’s not like I’m trying to score a date in this form!”

(The major drawback to that idea is that the canon antagonistic Warriors clearly have their own identities, so what happens to them in this scenario? But the idea is still sometimes fun to play with.)

You know, I don't think I have any specific headcanons about these kids. I think it's just because we don't get THAT much time with them, including many character traits/character development from anyone except Katsuharu and Teppei (though I will caveat this by saying as I've been skipping around the series to make posts for FrontierFest, I didn't actually watch their episodes, so my recollection is fuzzy at best!).

I'm not opposed to the idea of the four of them being the "unchosen" warriors of Water, Wood, Earth, and Steel, but it does create an interesting problem of having the "digimon" identities of these four potentially clashing/getting overshadowed by the "human" ones, like you said. I like your headcanons though; it would be neat if Chiaki and original Ranamon shared the same spunky personality, just manifesting it in different ways (and perhaps POLAR OPPOSITE ways regarding vanity and appearance!). I definitely like the idea of Chiaki not caring about how she looks as Calmarimon, because goodness knows Calmarimon is given a REALLY HARD time in the series for being "ugly."

Rather than those four kids becoming Chosen during the series though, I think I would rather have seen the four "original" digimon identities come back in a more significant way once they were purified, because they just left that much of an impression (I appreciated their late-season cameos though!) ^_^ I almost think that the addition of four more spirit-evolving kids would mean the relationship with those spirits would manifest as more of a "traditional" digimon partnership, where both parties have to learn to work together (and sometimes disagree!) instead of the situation the main six have, where distinct spirit personalities are mostly non-entities/conveniently complementary to their partnered humans. Also a factor is that by the time those four kids show up, you have the problem of there just not being enough screentime to show four greenhorns developing into warriors on par with the original six.

(That doesn't stop me from wondering about all the parallel adventures those four were having, though I have to imagine they were quite tame! On the other hand, I would think they would still have to solve a fair number of conflicts arising from them being humans in a semi-hostile digital world. The most interesting situation I can picture is them learning to solve these conflicts with words, diplomacy, and friendship rather than just getting Angemon to punch unruly monsters for them... much like Tomoki did with Warumonzaemon!)

[o-w-quinlan]

Game Journal: Tag Tamers - Entry #02

Previously on the journey: Ken and Ryo got separated into two mirror worlds due to Milleniummon space-time shenanigans.

Now: Ken takes a detour through some tropical islands to beat up a dinosaur except various babies try to ambush him for some reason (or maybe Ken is ambushing them), then Gennai bends the laws of space-time to tell Ryo to do the same. Ryo then climbs up a mountain and faces the same dinosar (now extra shiny), who’s taking this oddly personal.

After the events of the prologue, two portals have opened in the village. One leads me to the prologue forest, while the other one leads me to a small archipielago. Each island has a dungeon in them, and the way to the next one is blocked until we beat it. For this area, all three dungeon is only populated by Baby I and Baby II level digimon, with the exception of the boss fight.

Digimon of the same level have the same health, and each member of my team has different abilities. Patamon here (who evolved from Tokomon after beating the first dungeon) also has an additional “Pegasusmon” ability, by virtue of having the Digimental of Hope equipped. Enemies can inflict status effects, nerf my digimon or buff themselves. I can also buff my offense or defense by pressing the A button before an attack connects.

Following each fight, there’s a small rest area where various things can be located. So far I’ve found random items (including several Digimental parts), a HolyAngemon that heals me, a Tyranomon that ambushes me into a fight, the shop and the foundry for digimentals, and two paths instead of one, where I think the wrong one makes you fight more battles. This helps make the gameplay somewhat less monotonous than in Anode/Cathode Tamer. On the way, Ken collects parts of the Courage and Love Digimentals.

Clearing each dungeon sends me back to Gennai’s home, healing me. Then, a strong tremor is felt and a new structure appears in one of the areas. All of them so far seem to be aimed for multiplayer or conectivity with the V-Pets/Digivice, though, so I can’t use them.

Anyway, we soon arrive at the third and final dungeon of the islands, the Dark Ship. This one is slightly longer than the previous two, having a Betamon appear after a fight and telling us that there’s a savage digimon up ahead. The Betamon is a liar, though.

It’s 3 savage Adult digimon, when previously I’ve only ever fought Baby digimon. Fortunately, Patamon’s “Pegasusmon” ability is healing, which is better balanced this time around but still a huge advantage. Coupled with how much more powerful my digimon seem from normal ones, I quite easily defeat them.

Of course, not before the Greymon, apparently the leader of the gang, makes a menacing promise to appear later on.

Back with Gennai, the old man has been hard at work and managed to create a “Reload Machine”, a device which allows him to merge the worlds back. Ken is excited to finally be over this adventure, but Gennai tells him it’s just for a moment. When Wormmon questions how this is of any use, Gennai answers that we can now send a message, items and digimon to Ryo. He also complains about the young generation, bringing forth his inner grumpy old man.

Anyway, Ryo has been with Piccolomon in his noticeably less modern house. Gennai and Ken appear, throw a letter and disappear. They learn what the Reload Machine is, and that they must clear a dungeon in both worlds... for some reason. I go through every dungeon again, this time with only Veemon by my side (who is admittedly much more powerful than Wormmon).

Remember how I said the enemy could buff themselves? I wasted time defeating the other two, more powerful enemies during this battle and let this Zurumon bufff its defenses to insane degrees. I was doing a single point of damage per turn, and since V-mon also automatically buffs his defense after being hurt, Zurumon was also only doing 1 point of damage. This battle lasted 43 turns, nearly 40 of which was just slowly taking out a Baby 1 level enemy.

Anyway I get to Greymon here (who, according to a Tanemon right before the boss room, is somehow capable of travelling between worlds). He warns me that the old tricks won’t work on him. Given I’m not using the old digimon, it’s a moot warning, but his team of 3 Adults still overwhelm me with numbers. Time to see if I unlocked more digimon.

I get Poromon and Upamon, who I promptly name after their partners in 02 (I hadn’t thought of doing that before, so my Patamon is just called Tom). They are not quite as useful as Patamon (even after evolving), but it’s more than enough to utterly defeat Greymon. As a consequence, a new portal opens in the village, which leads me to a different continent, a mountain area.

Here, the “normal” enemies go up to Child-level. It’s not particularly harder in individual battles, but over time the damage adds up to be worrisome. Otherwise, the level is pretty much the same thing as the ocean level, with two minor dungeons and a major one. Ryo collects parts of the “Sincerity” and “Purity” Digimentals here.

In the end, I come face to face with a MetalGreymon, the evolved form of the past enemy. As before, it takes me two tries to defeat him. Once I do, he threatens me again, revealing himself as an agent of Millenniummon. Piccolomon comes to the conclusion that he may be setting up a trap for Ken in the mirror world, so we contact him through the Reload Machine. Now in control of the blue-haired boy, I set out to clear the Mountain Area and face MetalGreymon once again.

This is it for today’s entry. Quite a lot happened, though mostly I wanted to make clear how this game plays, so I don’t have to explain this in future entries. It’s interesting that they’re trying to built up another enemy before facing Millenniummon. Before the closest thing to a recurring one was PicoDevimon, but this Greymon is a much more active fighter. See you next time!

[recentanimenews]

REVIEW: Digimon: Cyber Sleuth Is A Fantastic Way To Become A Digi-Destined

  I love Digimon. I love it. It's the anime series that I've stuck with the most consistently, predating my ride-or-die One Piece by about eight years. And I think, at it's best, it tells great stories about loss, growing up, and monsters that are covered in cannons. That's why it pains me to find that, sometimes, the world of Digimon video games is a mixed bag, ranging from addictive (Digimon World Dawn) to fun and mindless (Digimon Rumble Arena) to clunky and inept (Digimon World 4.) So when I find a Digimon game that satisfies me, one that truly lives up to the franchise's potential, I tend to latch onto it. And y'all, I have latched onto Digimon: Cyber Sleuth. 

  The recent re-release for the Nintendo Switch doesn't overhaul the Digimon game formula. You're still a plucky protagonist leading around an army of laser dragons against an unending army of other laser dragons, and you still have to navigate through the "Digivolution trees" in which achieving different stat objectives will allow you to transform your beast into different forms. This isn't a diss on the franchise's staples, by the way. It's inevitable that the team of magical computer demons would be more entertaining than the goggles-wearing dude that tells them what to do. And "Digivolution" is such a fun element to play with, as it often requires a certain level of obsession to obtain the Ultimate and Mega Level destroyers of worlds that you want. 

    I'm just saying that if you're the kind of person who wants a Digimon game that flips the series on its head, you won't find it here. Instead, you'll discover that Cyber Sleuth (and its sister game Hacker's Memory, which is also available in this set) is the most accessible Digimon game to date. In it, you play an "assistant" detective, charged with solving cyber crimes and delving into hacking cases. In a world where EDEN, a cyberspace network, is, like everyone's favorite thing, these crimes are constant and so your boss, the coffee-loving Kyoko Kuremi tasks you to run around in the real world and the digital one and save 'em both. 

  Along the way, you'll dive into multiple plotlines, like dealing with your pal Nokia and the Digimon that she's befriended, trying to figure out how to help the comatose victims of the EDEN Syndrome, and many others. Overall while dealing with hackers, cracking codes, and jumping between worlds can get a tad monotonous due to the level design (as former United State Senator Ted Stevens once said "The internet is a series of tubes that are filled to the brim with Koromon,") it does a lot to differentiate the experience from Pokémon, in which you usually just kinda leave your house and go explorin'. And that's just Cyber Sleuth, as Hacker's Memory tells a different story, but is set in many of the same locations.

But, to be perfectly honest, the reason you're probably playing this is to assemble a team of Digimon based on your favorites from the anime. I know that it's that way with me (Who cares about type effectiveness? I gotta get those Dark Masters like Machinedramon, Puppetmon and MetalSeadramon all in one place,) and luckily, Digimon: Cyber Sleuth doesn't make it hard to compile a team of fan favorites, Digimon deep cuts, or just a random selection of critters.

  In fact, I'd say that it's easier here than in any other game, thanks to both the ease of the game (the difficulty ramps up later, but you'll find many of the early chapters to probably be a breeze), and by the game making it super easy to go back and forth from your Digimon Lab (where you convert and evolve the Digimon) to the world you have to run around in. For example, one of my favorite Digimon is Etemon, who you may remember as the Elvis-sounding monkey villain from Digimon Adventure. I know. I know. He's great. Well, I wanted one here, and within about a day of playing, I got one. Same goes for the MetalGreymon I adored and Myotismon. But don't worry. I'll start grabbing monsters from later seasons of the anime, too. Just lemme run through the classics really quick. 

    Battling with them is pretty simple, as it basically comes down to a paper-rock-scissors type scenario where Vaccine beats Virus, Virus beats Data, and Data beats Vaccine. And your team usually comes with a mix of offensive skills and support skills. So if you've got a Data and a Vaccine Digimon and you're facing a Virus type, Data isn't gonna be much help. So you use the support skills of the Data 'mon to super charge your Vaccine creature as it blasts the Virus type to smithereens. It never becomes anything too radically intricate, but seeing each Digimon perform their attacks (in the best looking Digimon game to display those attacks yet) is a treat. I had a Numemon on my team for a bit (in my quest to get Etemon,) and it was a joy to use the Poop Toss attack each and every time.

  For Digimon fans, it's a must-have, but what about new fans or people that think "Digi-destined" is some kind of dating app? Well, I'd say that if you're curious about what Digimon are like with you behind the wheel (the metaphorical one, not the one found in Digimon Racing for the Game Boy Advance which I swear is a real game), I think this is the best way yet. And with two different games in the same package, you get dozens and dozens of hours of Digimon content for a pretty solid price.

      Overall, Digimon Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory are the smoothest Digimon games around, shaving off some of the series' more obtuse elements and creating a fairly involved system that even the uninitiated can enjoy. And for older fans like me, those who have "latched" onto the series, it provides a rewarding way to collect all of the Digimon that we've loved in the anime for years. These games are the champions, y'all. 

  Review Round-Up:

  + Huge number of Digimon to raise and evolve (over 300 in Hacker's Memory)

+ Battle system is easy to master and the battle animations look great

+ Difficulty curve is good for beginners and veterans alike 

+ Soundtrack, while not too varied, is solid

+/- Characters are a mixed bag between fun and forgettable

- Level design is fairly uninspired

  Digimon: Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory are available from Bandai Namco Entertainment. 

  Are you a Digimon fan? Are you planning to get Cyber Sleuth? Which Digimon do you want to raise? Let us know in the comments!

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

Daniel Dockery is a writer and editor for Crunchyroll. You should follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[eliselowingwrites]

Fairy Tail 545: My Final Thoughts

Well, “Fairy Tail” has officially come to an end.

For those who don’t know, I’ve followed this series since Episode 1.  And I can proudly say that I am a Fairy Tail fan.  Heck, I’ve got about four fan fictions about it on my fanfiction.net account.  So yeah, I can say I greatly enjoyed this series.

Now, I did have my own gripes about the series, such as what I like to call the “over-use-and-misuse” of fan service, some random power escalation (or get-out-of-plot-free cards as I call them), and plot twists that seemed like a desperate attempt to shock the viewer.  And some ideas that I think just fell...flat.  Mostly because of the fan service, but also because the story got bloated in some areas where I feel like it didn’t need to.  And the parts near the end when plot lines didn’t really go anywhere was very disappointing.

However, despite all my gripes and criticism, this is a series that is and will be special to me for many reasons.

1. It was the first long-running series that I had actually followed from beginning to end.  Most long-running series, I drop later on because they become drawn out and I lose interest.  For Fairy Tail, while it could get on my nerves sometimes, it somehow managed to keep me invested in the story, and I was never once bored while reading it.

2. I love most of the character, particularly the five core characters: Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Erza, and Happy.  I also liked characters like Gajeel, Wendy, Carla, Yukino, Sting, Rogue, Mirajane, Elfman, Lisanna, and Makarov (there are many others, but I can’t list them all here because it would take too long).  When their character was focused on, I did enjoy their presence.

I’d have to say that Natsu is my favorite character overall.  For one, I loved his character design, particularly in his face.  I especially enjoyed his energy, his tenacity, and he shared a lot of core beliefs that I also believe myself such as standing up for the ones you care about the most, and always trying to do the right thing no matter how hard it might be.  I also tend to be little impulsive like him, so I could relate to his character more than the others. In fact, he was the main reason I kept following the series.

Not to mention, he’s one of the few guys in anime that can make pink hair look badass! XD

(Pardon my language.)

3. I loved the concept of the world.  A world where wizards are rather commonplace, and have unique powers of their own.  And Dragon Slayer Magic, just the name sounds cool.  Heck, I would’ve loved to be a Dragon Slayer, too. :)

4. I loved the relationship between Natsu and Lucy.  This is by far my top ship in anything.  What makes it resonate so much with me is the foundation the relationship is established.  It’s built upon trust and mutual love for each other.  Natsu and Lucy have a deep sense of trust with each other, and that led to them forming a friendship, and what is clearly now love.  And that love progressed over time.  While I do feel like it fermented longer than it should’ve, I feel that this was a good way to make a relationship that evolves over time into something more.  And this is something I would like to see return in another shonen series, with just a bit of tweaking and perfecting.  Because this does have potential, and it is what made me care about Natsu and Lucy as a couple more than any other ship in any other series, anime or otherwise.

But most of all, Fairy Tail did something personal for me, and something I have to share.

There was a time, during my sophomore year of college, when I fell away from drawing for a time because another series (which shall remain nameless) had let me down so much that I stopped drawing.  I had drawn fan fictions and fan art for it, and it got to a point where it let me down so much that I lost my drive to draw anything anymore.  I kept writing because I found another series that filled that void a little, but my drive to draw was gone.  When I did draw, it was for art class assignments.  But I didn’t get a lot of joy out of it.

That’s when I discovered Fairy Tail on Netflix.  I binged watched the first twenty episodes, and my spark was rekindled.  I picked up the pencil and started drawing again, and I was enjoying it.  The more I watched Fairy Tail, and read the manga, the more I wanted to draw.  It just had this beautiful simplicity that captured my attention, and made me want to strive to be the best I could be.

Especially in the setting details.  Man, I gotta admit, Hiro Mashima can draw setting really well.  I absolutely loved the setting and background details throughout the series.

What’s more, a dream that I had a long time ago, but had gotten lost somewhere in time, was found again.

That dream was to one day create a fantasy shonen manga/anime.

It was because of Fairy Tail that I found my joy for drawing again.  What’s more, I found another goal to strive for, and it inspired me to write other kinds of fan fiction.  And it got me back into anime and manga again.  Because there was a time when I enjoyed watching anime and reading manga, particularly shonen series like Naruto and Digimon.  And in some way, Fairy Tail reminded me of why that was.  And I can’t give it any higher praise than that.

Even when the series had me face-palming at times, or made me cringe because of ridiculous absurdity, I’ll still look back on it fondly.  Because at the end of the day, it was and still is, the series that helped me find my inspiration again.

And if a series can do that to even just a few people, then I say that’s a high achievement in of itself.  There’s merit to that, and I can say that Fairy Tail did have some merit.  If you asked me if Fairy Tail was worth it, I can say with full confidence that:

“For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while.”

Anyway, thank you for reading this.  I hope your enjoyed it.

I’ll just leave with this song that sums up the whole Fairy Tail experience for me.

Have a Good Day! :D

[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.

[translationandbetrayals]

Digimon Tamers: Best season of the franchise (Part 1)

I hope you all watched Digimon or at least the first season and I also hope that you loved it 'cause it's a really good anime for a children. So getting on the topic, Digimon Tamers is my favorite season of the Digimon series of wich I'm a huge fan and I like it the most because of several things but is mainly thanks to the work of one person:

Chiaki Konaka is a writer and scenarist that was noticed for his work in Serial Experiments Lain (If you haven't seen it yet, do it. In Lain explores themes such as identity, the idea of reality and is very dark being set in a cyberpunk kind of world) and then get to work in Digimon Adventure 02 but he left the project, leaving the arc of the black ocean midways (If you don't remember is the really sad/nihilistic/creepy part of Hikari being taunted by a mysterious voice to go to a different dimension that was neither the digital world nor the human world) and then got the offer to work in Digimon Tamers as chief writer. So you get the idea that a darker tone was being set from the beginning for this season, making it far more mature than the previous two.

The first thing we need to focus on is the characters background and development through the series. There are 3 main characters at the beginning: Matsuda Takato, Lee Jianliang and Makino Ruki. For these 3 (and for the rest of the tamers) he did a background story that would help develop their final concept, not only the characters design but also their psychology and traits, thus making their personalities an important part of the anime. There is a lot of development in the characters personalities; maturing or growing up is a concept that is very important setting up the plot and making it advance. There are a lot of examples of this last idea; Takato growing from being the childish, immature, coward boy to becoming a proper leader to the bunch, winning against his fears and learning how to actually do something to help the people he cared for or the really good development of Ruki from the cold, selfish and aggressive girl with serious trauma from her father leaving her and low self-esteem to the caring, compassionate, strong and confident girl eager to lend a hand to others.

The second thing I would like to point out is a little bit more of a Digimon weebfan-based argument. With this season the lore/creation and functioning of the Digimon World was explained more precisely and it has a lot to do with the later part of the history. In Tamers the digital world began to exist when human telecommunication started to develop and expanded alongside it, then the digimon were created by a group of investigators researching artificial intelligence and one of them, Shibumi, gave them the ability to evolve letting 4 of them evolve into especially powerful beings, the 4 digimon sovereign the guardians and rulers of the digital world. I personally enjoy a lot when the anime cares to explain the functioning of the world that it is set into and when it presents a well-constructed lore to support all the action happening and that’s why is something that makes this season shine more than the others.

The last thing that I will talk about in the first part of this post has to do with the idea of the tamer and the digimon companion. In this season there was some sort of “the chosen one” idea that was a big part of the first two seasons, but it wasn’t just that. The tamers differentiate from the chosen children in Adventure 01 and 02 not only by the way they get their digimon companions (mostly luck and a series of random events) but also by the idea of taming something. Digimon are feral creatures that must fight to empower themselves and survive in a hard world so it’s not easy to befriend them, this conflict happened a lot during the series being the critical example the incident with galgomon in chapter 3 (in this chapter galgomon almost shoots Ruki, another example on how this season was far more mature in content than the others). Also, the card system used to improve the battle capabilities of the digimon companion was really cool to me. The other thing that is different and very appealing to me is the idea of tamers merging with their digimon, this type of evolution can only be achieved through getting a deep bond with your digimon companion, plus the transformations were so good in the visual aspect.

And that's all for today's post, in the next one I will talk about some more things that makes this season the best one for me. See you all next month!

Diego Heredia S.