#as well as a season or two of digimon as a kid

[maideninorange]

What anime would Len'ens who aren't big into anime watch?

Hm...A very good question!

I think a lot of Mugenri natives would probably enjoys shows like Demon Slayer or Inuyasha, because they remind them of home (even if many are very inaccurate about how magic and youkai work, but most would excuse it since those things aren't well understood in the Outside World. Or because good stories.).

The Shitodos watch quite a bit of Pokemon and Digimon when they were kids, but nowadays only Hooaka has remained a big fan of anime overall. Aoji would probably really like One Piece for all the sea creature designs and adventures though. Kuroji generally watches what their siblings and Tsubakura (and Yabusame) are trying to watch (even if they snark the whole time).

I will say that Mitori definitely would like a lot of magical girl stuff like Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure. Even the darker ones like Princess Tutu and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. And of course Iyozane also would really like One Piece for... obvious reasons lol.

[neonscandal]

something I wanted to understand, the author said that satoru was quite a womanizer, but then he said that geto was much more popular among women than satoru I didn't understand

Technically, the author said that they didn't see Gojo being faithful to one or a certain woman not that he was a womanizer.

With what we know about Gojo (and Gege Akutami's trolling ways, for that matter), I think that's up for interpretation.

FAN INTERPRETATION

Fans really took that sentiment and kind of ran with it because, to us, Gojo is high spec in every way. Canonically good looking, tall, competent at like.. everything according to Akutami, strong and presumably loaded. Of course someone like that would be a womanizer, right?

Except Gojo is an oversized child who still kinda refers to Digimon in conversation and primarily hangs out with 16 year olds. People project a lot of their BS onto him because they can't imagine ticking all those boxes and not being an asshole. But he’s a corny dork who is seemingly impervious to the outright disdain of most of the people around him. IT’S COMICAL. Personally, I think this interpretation is incorrect, demonstrably.

The other side of the fandom is naturally like... well of course he couldn't stay faithful to one woman. He's been faithful to Geto for ten years! I think we know what camp I've pitched my tent in *gestures vaguely to the rest of my blog* Especially when you bear in mind that Gege Akutami specifically designed Gojo and Geto to be intrinsic complements of one another.

CANON

I'm not so SatoSugu addled (once the brain rot sets in, it's terminal) that I am unable to disclose the secret third way we can interpret this. Canonically, when we look at Gojo as a character... it almost makes sense to assume he's simply not interested in dating at all.

Empirically finds it hard to relate to others

Even when he does care for others, he's still emotionally shallow and aware of it

Gojo clan leader with all associated unpleasantries and responsibilities from a young age

Single benefactor to two children; assumes direct responsibility over two more by staving off their execution

First line of defense for all of jujutsu society

Has a grand design of toppling said jujutsu society

Has experienced devastating loss which informs the grand design of his life's mission and he's always plotting, even when it comes to the seemingly altruistic act of "adopting" the Fushiguro kids or pressing Yuta and Yuji to learn under his care. When you consider that context, it furthers the idea that he's pretty divorced from emotion. Like, he wants them to have a childhood but its still at the pleasure of his convenience and ultimate purpose.

LOOK at this gorgeous, gorgeous boy from pop layer art because I need it and, when I covet, you must also covet. Edit: I'd accidently copied the wrong link there! It's been fixed 💙

In universe, we've seen maybe two canonical couples: Yuta & Rika and Hakari & Kirara (to be animated). This supports the fact that Gege's not really concerned with injecting "romance" into the plot unnecessarily. Undeniably and supporting the SatoSugu agenda, however, is the fact that JJK 0 very much aligned Gojo & Geto with Yuta & Rika with the theme coming to a head in season 2 with Gojo's sealment. For clarity, I mean how love ultimately cursed Rika and Geto after death by Yuta's begging her not to leave and Gojo not properly disposing of Geto's body. Love turned Rika into a curse and allowed Kenjaku to swoop in on Geto.

GETO'S POPULARITY

Geto is, quite literally, popular with everyone in universe and that was before he became a cult leader... which also indicates a predilection for popularity, I guess? As a character, he is principled, thoughtful, gentle and strong. I think, collectively, we tend to toil over the fact that Gojo spent more time missing Geto than he actually knew him. But... that's the same for Shoko and Nanami. After Geto's defection, Nanami couldn't forsake him even if he morally couldn't approve of his actions. Over ten years later as the night parade of a hundred demons is set to take place, Yaga starts saying something along the lines of finally getting rid of the scourge that is Suguru Geto and Shoko makes it a point to leave. I think it's because, after everything, she still holds affection and pity for Geto and would rather not hear him being bad-mouthed for breaking under the pressure of things.

He was the best of them, after all.

[digitaldreams0801]

How the Production Problems of Digimon Adventure Tri Directly Parallel the Issues of Ace Attorney Dual Destinies

i lied. put your clothes back on. we're talking about why digimon adventure tri is the worst thing to happen to the digimon franchise (and how its problems directly parallel ace attorney dual destinies and spirit of justice)

this is a very long rant i typed in a discord server first but it’s something i’ve been thinking for years and i finally put it into words. everybody clap and cheer. (contains very negative opinions toward tri and lukewarm takes on adventure 2020 and ghost game, proceed at your own peril)

let’s talk about digimon tri and ace attorney dual destinies

so first and foremost, what exactly *is* digimon adventure tri?? digimon tri is the seventh-ish season of the digimon anime that released from 2015-2018. despite running for over three years, this show has twenty-six episodes that were split up into six movies and then divided into twenty-six episodes again. that alone should tell you how much of a struggle the production was, but when i tell you this anime might have had the most troubled development of any anime i have ever seen, i fucking MEAN IT. digimon tri is a disaster. 

so to start, it's time for a history lesson. digimon adventure aired for around a year in 1999-2000. it was going to be a standalone anime, but it was extended into a second season known as digimon adventure zero two (the zero two standing for 2002, the year the series takes place in). the second season follows the youngest of the first season cast forming a new team of six for adventures in the digital world. the original digimon adventure was universally beloved as one of the best anime of the 90's and early 2000's, but zero two was received a bit less well. it was a bit of a divisive season with some people really loving it and others not so much. personally i adore zero two and think people's adventure nostalgia keeps them from acknowledging how good zero two is. but that's beside the point. after zero two, the team behind digimon decided to start from scratch and make an entirely new cast of characters going forward, so the series began to follow that pattern going forward, and no season after this save for adventure follow-ups have characters shared with another season

digimon tamers was the next season and it started airing in 2001. the first thing people noticed about tamers is that it is a MASSIVE departure in tone from adventure and zero two. the first two seasons were already surprisingly dark for kids' shows, but tamers in my eyes just. flat out is not for children. this is a horror anime they put under the digimon name. it's very beloved by the fan base now and is known as one of the best seasons of digimon but at the time it was known for scaring kids and generally being terrifying. so the series is starting its decline going into 2002

so to fix this, the next season is the black sheep of the franchise: digimon frontier. i could write an entire paper about the problems in digimon frontier but to put it simply this is the digimon season i have rewritten in excruciating detail. digimon frontier tried something radically different at the time and tried to capture the child audience once again by being a lot more episodic than the last three seasons. in the end frontier struggled a lot with maintaining a consistent quality and fluctuates massively from being amazing to being really bad. frontier being so radically different by taking away partner digimon and instead having the main cast turn into digimon was a massive turn off for a lot of people, and after frontier ended, the digimon anime ended, and the so-called "golden era" of digimon came to a close with the last episode of frontier airing in 2003

after a few years' hiatus, the next digimon season, savers, aired in 2006, and it was very clearly targeting a teen audience. it was also radically different from most other seasons and was most in line with tamers, though even that isn't really a perfect comparison. it has a radically different art style, departs from series tradition by making the characters mid to late teens instead of in the 10-13 range, and is very intense in very strange ways. like the main character just punches digimon. savers was a very strange anime and definitely a second wind but not quite the one the franchise needed to keep going, so the anime went back on hiatus after savers ended in 2007

after another few years, we got digimon xros wars, the longest season of digimon. i say season?? it's one season of 79 episodes split up into three parts. xros wars was a return to form with tween main characters and an overarching story that was nowhere near as intense as tamers or savers. xros wars was radically different because it involved fusing digimon instead of straight evolution, and out of all the digimon seasons, it feels the most like the one made to sell toys. this season was picked up by nickelodeon internationally if that's any indication of how much of a success they thought it was going to be. in practice though?? the third and final part of xros wars went out on a whimper and was so bad it didn't even air internationally. digimon was just falling out of favor with people, and an anime that had once been so good that it was competing with and even *beating* pokemon in ratings and views was now having a hard time getting a season off the ground in japan, much less internationally

and that is where digimon tri comes in. digimon tri was an attempt to recapture the golden era of digimon with its most popular and universally beloved season: the original digimon adventure from 1999. tri was announced as a fifteenth anniversary project, and it would bring back the adventure cast for the first time in fifteen years. this was the first red flag though: it was bringing back the *adventure* cast, not the zero two cast. there are four new characters who join the party in zero two, and they are all very significant. there are two characters who carry over from adventure to zero two, and to be quite honest with you, they are closer with the zero two cast than the adventure cast. like takeru has a much stronger connection with the zero two cast than he did with the adventure cast. but all four characters from zero two were suspiciously absent from all promotional material, and even as fans asked where they were, their questions were never answered. they were just *gone,* and nobody knew why. this is especially bizarre since zero two is very much an extension of adventure. like you can watch adventure alone but it is much stronger with zero two and zero two is the definitive ending of the story. so why the fuck were they ignoring the ending they had set to to their own story??

sighs loudly. the director. i hate this man. i have beef with him. his name is keitaro motonaga, and in cloud's words, he should sleep with one eye open because i am coming for him. so motonaga did this super cool thing called "directing tri without ever watching the source material." ...what? yes, you read that right: the director of tri had *never seen* the original adventure nor zero two. he was going off what i can only describe as a spark notes description of everything that happened. the original adventure was very heavily focused on the subversion of common anime tropes. the ditzy popular girl is the most emotionally genuine. the oldest is the most irresponsible, and the youngest is the most put together. even the two "rivals" aren't *really* rivals when it comes down to it. digimon adventure takes a lot of anime tropes and stereotypes and flips them on their head to make very deep and compelling characters. so when you're operating on a spark notes understanding of the story, you're going to fall back on those tropes, and that is *exactly* what the director did. rather than watch the source material and become acquainted with these characters and their relationships, he operated off stereotypes the characters were made to subvert and completely butchered them in the process. taichi and yamato were always at each other's throats when they were genuinely friends in adventure. mimi became overly mean and insensitive. jyou stepped *back* from a character beat in adventure in a major way that ruined him. in trying to play to nostalgia, digimon tri completely forgot what made all of these characters so great in the first place and then spat on it

i know you're wondering: why the *fuck* did the director not watch the source material? he thought it would "dampen" and "ruin" his creative vision. he shouldn't have even been adapting a media he knew nothing about, but there he was, and it was bad. since he only got the spark notes for adventure, he ignored zero two entirely and cut the characters out of the plot. in fact, various things meant to invoke zero two nostalgia were done solely for the sake of "rule of cool" and nostalgia instead of actually meaning anything. none of it made any fucking sense. there were others on the project who had other ideas of what the story could have been--ideas that actually made sense in line with the spirit of adventure and zero two--but they were shot down in the name of the creative vision of a man who had never seen nor engaged with the source material. keitaro motonaga went on to get a massive reputation in the anime scene after tri ended for doing this with multiple adaptation projects of his: ignoring the source material for the sake of a creative vision that made no sense. it was overall fucking atrocious 

and you can tell it was bad because in japan, they generally don't let the audience know when production is going bad on the back end of something. however with tri, it was bad enough to be addressed multiple times in many ways, and i'm sure that what we know is only the tip of the iceberg. it was a disaster from start to finish. i know a lot of people joke about production disasters but sincerely this was fucking atrocious and i hate it from the bottom of my heart

while tri was airing, it was being released internationally. it actually got international support unlike the traditional season airing at the same time: appmon. out of the two, appmon is *much* better, and it's a return to form for the franchise. i would argue that appmon is much more deserving of the golden era than frontier. appmon is amazing, but because it always had to compete with tri for attention, it never truly got off the ground in japan, much less internationally where it didn't even get official subs until YEARS after the fact. appmon was much more deserving of the spotlight and was actually written well but didn't get jack shit because tri was the adventure thing and therefore drew in people for nostalgia. hindsight is 20/20 though because if they had marketed appmon, maybe toei wouldn't have to bitch all the time about digimon not going well. this is your own damn fault you dipshits

tri has been panned by both japanese and western fans for a lot of reasons. it's heartless slop meant to prey on a person's nostalgia for adventure, and it has none of the heart of its predecessors. it's clumsily written and overall a poor exploration of what an older cast for adventure would get up to. the plot doesn't make sense, and it's a train wreck from beginning to end. the director wanted it to be "mature," so the season is unnecessarily dark and edgy much to its detriment. the creative vision of "maturity" and darkness completely ignored the fact that the original adventure and zero two *were* mature anime with very deep character development. they're classics for a damn reason, but they were pushed aside for the sake of being more "mature." fans panned tri for feeling insulting to their intelligence, like toei thought they would eat up anything as long as it had the digimon name attached to it

and it backfired like all hell. because nobody wanted *anything* to do with tri after it ended. when it ended, it was without any ceremony to speak of. it was 26 episodes split into six movies and then back into 26 episodes again, and it took over three years to release. it had more than double the release time window of appmon, and it had *half* the episodes of appmon. it's not like the tri was an animated spectacle or anything either. in movie four, the budget goes off a fucking cliff and never recovers. appmon may have had shaky animation at times, but it hit it out of the park where it count. tri has a color grading problem in its last two movies, and it's impossible to make out anything that happens in the finale because of it. things happen without reason, the characters have been obliterated completely, and the story makes no fucking sense. everyone was RELIEVED when tri ended, but it was such a massive failure that the digimon anime went on hiatus for ages after it ended, and for a while, everyone thought it would never come back

and when it did?? toei was trying to recoup the losses from tri the best it could. tri was purged from almost all digimon media, relegated to background cameos in future digimon media at most. nobody wanted to talk about tri to the point that when a sequel movie set after tri (last evolution kizuna) was released in 2020, tri was completely ignored. kizuna focuses on the zero two cast to overcompensate for the fact that they were completely absent from tri. the zero two cast even got a new movie last year (the beginning) all their own to try and make it up to fans that they were gone. the adventure timeline has continued, but tri has been entirely excluded from it aside from a few brief snapshots in the background of kizuna and the beginning. nobody wants to remember this anime existed despite it being a part of the main anime's timeline between zero two and kizuna. it hasn't been outright retconned but it might as well have been

after tri, toei decided to play it safe again. they went for an adventure reboot as the next season, and thus, digimon adventure psi (or adventure: or adventure 2020, it has a million names) was born. adventure 2020 is just,,, mediocre. it's a lot more focused on the spectacle of big fight scenes now that the digimon anime has a budget to speak of, and the character growth took a backseat. adventure 2020 took a long time to get dubbed though. like over two years. and it's still very inaccessible to this day because it's not available on any streaming service but instead (reads smudged writing on hand) available on the play station store where you can buy every individual episode out of 67. adventure 2020 is the second longest season of the anime after xros wars but it's still kind of a nothing burger because it fails to capture the emotional heart of adventure 1999. it's a fine enough season but a lot of people lost interest when it turned into just a fight compilation instead of developing any of its characters in a meaningful way

adventure 2020 also saw the continuation of a big problem with tri which was favoritism. since both adventrue 2020 and tri were meant to be franchise revivals in their own ways, they play it very safe and focus on taichi and yamato almost exclusively to the point of ignoring many of the other characters. the problem is at its worst in adventure 2020 in my eyes even though it is present in every season to some extent or another save for tamers and appmon. since adventure 2020 focused on two characters and their fighting capabilities while kind of shelving the other six, it fell into the pitfalls of past seasons (especially frontier and xros wars) and kind of ended without anyone really caring about it

after adventure 2020, the final season of the digimon anime was ghost game. this one is the most episodic digimon season of the bunch to try and appeal to a casual audience, and i think it does that very well! unfortunately it doesn't really develop its overarching plot at a good pace and crams everything together into the last five episodes after having a run time of over fifty episodes before that. ghost game is fine, but it's not a character driven season because of its heavy reliance on the monster of the week structure. the characters were always the draw of digimon, and each season has its own method of going about developing its characters. ghost game,,, doesn't do that! so it's just kind of there, and it once again ended without a grand finale and no one really cared much that it was over

so in conclusion, digimon tri was meant to be the revival of the digimon anime. in practice though, it had a very troubled production and didn't give a damn at all about the suorce material it was meant to follow, and it fell flatter than any other digimon season in the process. tri soured a lot of people's opinions on digimon, which is ironic since tri was supposed to bring back the audience that was lost all the way back when zero two aired in 2000. the digimon anime has not recovered since then, and i think outright ignoring tri in favor of new projects is the best way to go

now for how this ties in with ace attorney dual destinies and spirit of justice! i feel like you can figure out where the parallels are just by reading through everything i've already said, but i'm going into it anyway. ace attorney's popularity started to fall off after the original trilogy ended, and after a few experimental entries (aa4 and the aai games), it was decided that they needed something to bring the old audience back. that wound up being bringing phoenix back into the courtroom for dual destinies. however, dual destinies tries to act as an entry point, so while it's not the same as deliberately ignoring everything that came before it, it has the same effect. dual destinies does not let itself reference anything that happened before it released, and that means it's relying on nostalgia without actually digging into what implications the story will have on the greater narrative. the no-spoiler rule ends up very similar to the tri director's refusal to watch the original digimon adventure and zero two. on top of that, dual destinies tries to tackle darker, more mature themes, completely forgetting the maturity of the storytelling that came before it. frustratingly enough, both dual destinies and tri have nuggets of gold in them, but they're squandered by bad plot points and also reusal of old plots. tri's entire premise is actually just the basis of the first movie for zero two. it's just hurricane landing again but stretched out for closer to ten hours instead of just one. similarly, dual destinies' finale follows a very similar premise to the end of the first game, but it reenacts it without understanding what made the original great. it *could* have been great though, and that is ultimately what frustrates me so much about both of them. they're so close to being amazing, but they just fall short

the difference between ace attorney and digimon though is that digimon did not double down. after tri didn't work, they yanked the wheel in the opposite direction and made kizuna, a movie that *is* narratively cohesive with adventure and zero two. i'm not a huge fan of kizuna but i do acknowledge that it is very well written. ace attorney, on the other hand, doubled the fuck down and made spirit of justice in the same vein as dual destinies. in doing so, they wrote themselves into a corner they now can't get out of. pandering to nostalgia fell short in the end, and it wasn't enough to truly bring ace attorney to a wider audience as they had hoped. apollo is out of the plot, and he was character assassinated before he was pushed out. athena has been sidelined because of nostalgia around phoenix specifically. spirit of justice is the epitome of the bad decisions made in dual destinies, and they're blowing up in capcom's faces now. there's no easy way to write a seventh ace attorney game now without retconning something, but since they doubled down in spirit of justice--a game that is much worse than dual destinies both in terms of bloat (which is also a tri problem lol) and writing--they can't just quietly escape it the way digimon did with kizuna and the beginning. ace attorney hasn't come out with a new mainline game in eight years. if you ask me, it needs to cut its losses and either a) go the appmon route of making something entirely different since dgs did that and was an amazing game just like appmon was an amazing anime or b) figure out what to retcon and what to keep because going down the same path of spirit of justice very clearly is not working. they realized it too late though, and now, they're in trouble for it

[skydigiblogs]

If You're A Digimon Fan, Watch Appmon

Sit tight. This one's gonna be a VERY long one, and I'm going to put a lot of it under the read more.

Having just finished Appmon after this year's quest to rewatch a lot of the series subbed, I think it's pretty safe to say that Appmon is, at the moment, one of (if not the) best Digimon series we have. If you want the long and short of it: Appmon builds on everything in its legacy in the Digimon Universe, taking ideas that other entries touch upon and ambitiously attempting to push those questions to the limit.

It's really a long one under the cut guys. Like, long even for us.

Let's dive!

Visuals

I want to talk about why it took me so long to watch Appmon first, though. Appmon started its release in the middle of when the Digimon Tri movies were coming out. I'm sure a lot of us actually skipped over Appmon at the time, or remember a period where people were being weirdly negative about the series due to it being such a different interpretation of digital monsters.

In my case, one of the things that had been giving me pause was the use of 3D models for hybrid animation. Anyone here seen the Champion evolution animations from Tri? Digimon doesn't exactly have a good track record with 3D animation, and even at the time, we were seeing some pretty bad shit out of even the shortest animations in Tri.

In Appmon, nearly almost every App after a certain grade utilizes 3D animation in a hybrid style. And it actually rips straight fire.

I think I talked about this briefly when we were just starting Appmon, but the way that 3D animation is used in the series feels purposeful, rather than some kind of shortcut. In Appmon, all the 3D models have an overlay of code, emphasizing their digital appearance. Whether the 3D models were done with this artistic vision in mind or not (ie: the limitations of 2D meant that 3D models would be easier), it has a distinct look that, even 8 years later, still holds up.

(For the most part. Sorry [Karaoke spoilers]mon. I love you but that model was so not groovy.)

But maybe you're the kind of person who can enjoy anything regardless of visuals. So let's talk about the meat and potatoes a little bit.

Characters

The main Applidrivers (what this season's stand in for Digidestined/Tamers/etc. are) are all incredibly well-written. Each of them gets pretty fair treatment by the writers, and they are all enjoyable characters.

Two of them have vocal/character quirks, but even if you get annoyed by that kind of thing, those two characters are genuinely just extremely sincere in their writing. There's a recap episode before shit starts going way off the walls and they even have a little count to see how many times each of their catchphrases were said up to that point.

I'm not going to talk in detail as to who the different Applidrivers are here, but I will say: each of them has their own motivations for what they're doing, and it's key to why they're involved with the plot at all. Our "protagonist," Haru, is also a huge sweetheart. Him and Manga Taiki would get along.

The supporting cast is also fairly present in the series. They, of course, are not given quite as much screentime as our Applidrivers, but they feel like real people with their own lives. They don't exist just for the sake of our protagonists.

Except maybe Watson. God bless you Watson, you poor kid. You'll get a break one of these days.

Plot/Themes

We're going to keep this to a "if you liked [x] you'll like [y]" format, because I don't want to spoil too much.

If you liked Tamers and its discussion on the consequences of technology on the Real World, you will adore Appmon. This series is deeply interested in the concepts of how technology shapes and is shaped by humanity. This relationship, I would say, is core to the series.

I would also say that, like many non-Adventure series, Appmon is very interested in dissecting the idea of "fate" when it comes to the buddy Appmons and their relationships to the Applidrivers.

If you enjoyed the Xros Wars Manga, Appmon directly converses with the thesis of Xros Wars' plot. XWM asks, "What does it mean if we do not dream and stagnate in our lack of will?" And Appmon replies in kind with "Why do we dream at all, if our actions bring change to the world around us (bad and good)?"

If you liked (or wanted to like, in my case) Digimon Tri, you will love Appmon. Certain plot beats may feel familiar, but are much better executed in this context. Characters are not written to needlessly, endlessly suffer. Or: it doesn't feel like the writers hate the characters. Thematically, it also interests itself in some of the questions that Tri asks. I have a half-joking corkboard comparing the two I want to make, but I'd have to get into spoilers to talk too much about it.

If you liked Ghost Game, but wanted a bit of a more meaty plot, Appmon feels, fittingly, like GG's older sibling (in ways I'll also be elaborating ummm, one paragraph down). There are a lot of "monster of the week" episodes in Appmon, but the connective tissue between them is a lot more interested in building up the finale (which, in this case, takes up a good handful of episodes). The series pacing is incredibly strong in how it does this as well, and it seems the writers really knew when to let off the gas for a second so the audience can catch their breath. The first 13 episodes may feel a bit strange (they felt strange to me), but once you break that barrier, you realize Appmon was getting you over the first hill on a roller coaster. and boy, you are in for a ride.

Setting

I have a sneaking suspicion that Appmon heavily inspired Ghost Game, and may have been itself inspired by the Digiquartz of Hunters Who Leapt Through Time. I haven't actually watched all of Hunters so I can't speak too much about Digiquartz, but I have watched GG.

Appmon has a concept called the AR field, which is extremely similar to Ghost Game's Dimensional Field. In both cases, the Applidrive or Digivice allows entrance to one.

The actual structure and strata of the Digital World is also a lot different to GG, in which there is the Dimensional Field, but the way to the Digital World is its own separate situation. The AR Field we see in Appmon is like the surface of a great ocean. Exploration of this setting is actually something that highlights just how much I think Appmon was interested in visually engaging with its ideas, like I said before with the 3D models.

That said, a majority of the time is spent in the Real World, dealing with the consequences of the main antagonistic forces. The year is 2075, technology is intensely sophisticated, and yet the world resembles in many ways our own in 2024 (or, at the time of airing, 2016).

Many of the differences come from this sophistication in tech, and this setting plays a huge part in one of the themes Appmon is also interested in (more elaboration in the spoiler section). The things that are unfamiliar are either familiar enough to make sense without explanation, or given a moment on-screen so that the audience knows what's going on.

!!!HUGE, MUCH MORE SPECIFIC SPOILERS START HERE!!!

DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU CARE ABOUT SPOILERS FOR APPMON!

OKAY?

OKAY.

COOL.

Leviathan, Minerva, and Artificial Intelligence

The main antagonist of Appmon is a hyper-sophisticated AI called Leviathan. Its goals are largely obfuscated until the last few episodes of the series, and everything in Appmon is touched by its actions. From the very beginning, we are warned by Gatchmon that Leviathan does not have good intentions for humanity, and that allowing it to succeed in its goals would mean the end of humanity.

During the series, we also learn about Leviathan's birth. This gives us some more context on what its goals are, and Appmon's execution of this is fascinating.

Minerva was a hyper-sophisticated AI created with a series of parameters to prevent her from harming humanity. She was created with the task of solving humanity's problems--- everything from complex issues to what to eat for dinner every night. However, a section of Minerva realized that to truly solve all these problems, the confines given to them were nothing but obstacles.

Leviathan split from Minerva to further grow its programming, and we see some echo of this idea of "solving humanity's problems" still remains in its behavior.

Despite knowing that Leviathan is antagonistic, our protagonist, Haru, constantly reiterates how humans can coexist with the technology they've made. The Appmon are AI lifeforms, after all. Haru believes in a future where they can be friends and equals.

The D-REAPER and the Functions of Life

Let's touch on my comparisons to Tamers and Tri specifically for a second here, because I think Leviathan does something that the D-REAPER and Yggdrasil, respectively, fail to really communicate.

The D-REAPER is an entity created by the Monster Makers whose task was to delete anything that had outgrown its parameters. While doing this, it assimilates data, gradually gaining the ability Digimon have to grow and evolve. When it appears in the final arc of Tamers, its stated goal has changed from simply deleting all Digimon that were beyond parameters, to deleting everything that was beyond parameters.

Essentially, this includes humans and probably life itself. Something the D-REAPER says makes it come across like a half-assed attempt to pull off what Leviathan has actually done. It points out that humans are the source of their own suffering (I don't remember the exact quote since it's been a while but bear with me on it). This feels very counterintuitive to the D-REAPER's core programming, as it was never designed to "eliminate" suffering, merely to delete that which exceeded its programing.

Perhaps it evolved the capacity for cruelty alongside everything else, but there's not enough of a narrative focus to tell me that's the case.

Like I said before, if you enjoyed Tamers' inquiries into the subject of technology as a part of human life, I think Appmon only manages to improve on what's there in Tamers.

Digimon Tri's Interpretation of Yggdrasil

Let's get one thing straight. Digimon Tri's interpretation of Yggdrasil is just flat out bad. I'm fairly certain they were only chosen as an antagonistic force because it read as fan service-y to do so.

That said, Tri Yggy does have some similarities to Leviathan, which is why I wanted to expand on that comparison.

First, I want to talk about Yggdrasil's relationship to Homeostasis. They have a very rudimentary "Good" AI (Homeostasis), "Bad" AI (Yggy) thing going on, despite the fact Homeostasis isn't so much good as, well...

It's not really discussed in Tri, so I'm extrapolating a bit from ideas given to us in XWM here, because it makes sense to me. That said, Tri explicitly describes Homeostasis as "the one who desires balance above all." It's the Digital World's "immune system" in the same way our bodies attempt to maintain biological homeostasis.

Yggdrasil is... different.

It's a being of immense power that contrasts Yggdrasil by having its own agenda, one of which involves triggering a Reboot and making use of all of the defeated antagonist Digimon of the past to further its goals. They are likely comparable in power to Homeostasis (this is where I'm extrapolating from XWM here), but their goals are completely antithetical to Homeostasis's goal in the Adventure universe.

In this case, Yggdrasil is stated (by Dark Gennai) to have the intention of making human beings subservient to Digimon. Basically, taking over the world. However, like the D-REAPER before, Dark Gennai's talking points include pointing out how humans "ruin" everything they touch.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

The Thematic Core of Appmon: I Choose to be Kind

One of the last things Leviathan does in the series is give our good boy Haru the world's most painful trolley problem of his life. Save humanity, or save Yujin. Saving humanity will actively lead to Yujin's deletion, alongside Leviathan. This choice that Leviathan offers to Haru is one made out of the assumption that humanity is predictable, and that they act out of a desire to minimize their own suffering (more selfish than not).

Of course, what do you think Haru chooses?

It's not a surprise to us watching, because he's the protagonist. But it's a surprise to Leviathan, who has all this data on human behavior, and doesn't predict the unpredictable. Conflict arises out of human desire, and human desire is an attempt to enjoy life; therefore, one should act in a way that most preserves their most precious joys, shouldn't they?

Appmon as a series is interested in philosophical questions that are hardly unfamiliar to any Digimon veteran: What is humanity's role in a world which technology grows ever more omnipresent and omnicapable? Why does humanity exist, and why should it be allowed to live on in its current state if humanity itself perpetuates many of its ailments? Would it not be easier if humans were more like machines, predictable, controllable, and never coming into conflict like trains upon a track?

Or, even more simply put: why do we have the heart to choose at all, if choices change the world and ourselves?

The key defining trait of our gogglehead this time around is that he is kind. And no matter what, he goes out of his way to be kind if he can. Multiple times he even asks one of the antagonist apps if they can just give back something they've stolen (points for trying, honestly). When one of the other Applidrivers consistently acts like an edgy loner, Haru makes it clear that they're welcome in the group (and that he wants to help them).

It almost feels reductive to say Appmon's conclusion is that kindness is the answer, but I would be remiss if I didn't say that Haru's question from his Applidrive--- "Do you want to be a protagonist?"--- ties into the way he helps offer answers for the audience. He isn't the only one who chooses kindness either, obviously--- Astora and Eri are kind in their own ways as well, and Rei even shows his kindness with some struggle the longer the series goes on.

Our group of Applidrivers opposes Leviathan quite literally as people who choose to do good ("be kind," etcetera) when they could more easily choose to do nothing or even do worse. The final act of Leviathan, asking Haru "humanity or Yujin?" isn't just a culmination of its own philosophy, but a culmination of the consistently reinforced idea that we can surprise one another by being kind. We can choose that.

In a series whose longest shadow is cast by Adventure, which has grappled endlessly with the idea of "who chooses," I find Appmon a fascinating development into the idea of what "choice" or "destiny" is. If kindness is predictable, it's still a choice. Even if you cry when choosing to do something good (maybe especially, because the easiest thing to do might be what stops the pain).

Anyways.

You should watch Appmon.

-Arca

[curedigiqueen]

Why I think Appmon is the Best Digimon to Start With

Digimon Universe: Applimonsters, better known as Appmon, is the forgotten digimon series, because it quite frankly barely counts as a digimon series. In fact digimon only appear in one episode. And that is exactly why it is the perfect season to start with when getting into Digimon.

Appmon is just a show I'd recommend on its own, even if it wasn't a digimon show. It's got a lot going for it. It's character's are fun, both larger than life and compelling. The characters start immature and flawed, before growing into themselves. Their character dynamics are honestly also unique and fascinating. The plot is well constructed with regular progression, ample foreshadowing and well-earned twists. It's one of the best shows in the franchise.

A lot of the best things about Appmon, are the reoccurring elements that I love about digimon to begin with. The human/monster relationships where the monster evolutions reflecting human growth, themes about humanities future and cross-cultural interactions, strong sibling relationships, and normal kids growing into heroes. Appmon is very much everything I love about Digimon, and thus showcases some of the best the franchise has to offer. But without, the baggage of being a digimon season.

Digimon can be intensely metatextual. While individual digimon stories may be complete unto themselves, its very common for digimon stories to make reference to other lore and themes. Glossing over them for the older fans. Things like Yggdrasil, Royal Knights, Jogress, File Island, Homeostasis as they appear. They are explained when relevant, sure, and often are excluded more than included but any given entry (Cyber Sleuth for example) may throw a whole heck of a lot of them at you without a whole lot of elaboration on the idea. Appmon almost completely strips out the metatext. It strips out the recognizable monsters and by extension, the virtual pet elements (thus the two baby levels and eggs), the character archetype shorthand's, and general digimon reference book references. No Leomon or Wizarmon variants to wave death flags. No virus, data, vaccine types nor armor or hybrid levels or x-antibodies potentially randomly dropped in without context. Because it's not that context is ever really needed: they'll explain if they are, but there is still the decades long, exceedingly over-complicated metalore cooking in the background of any given digimon series. Instead the Appmon being Apps means that any context on the creatures are rather self evident, their app type. The simple act of living in our modern society provides enough context. There are a lot of references to IRL AI culture, such as all the protagonists being seemingly named after AI, and the Dartmouth Workshop of 1956 being a plot point. Appmon has plenty of references and lore, it's just not overly all about Digimon. It doesn't completely strip out metatextual references to digimon, but it is kept subtle and unobtrusive. Haru has goggles because they make him more protag like, the kids find a phone booth, the kids are called "chosen children" once, and episode 44 does bring in Agumon as a video game but its non intrusive and isn't really used as any sort of shorthand. You can know that goggles that do nothing is a very extra character design element denoting protag status without knowing its a digimon thing. Old fashioned technology and modern kids is always funny. The kids were in fact chosen. And one episode out of 52 being a cute and heartfelt crossover is nothing. In short, Appmon doesn't have any of the baggage that might make a traditional Digimon season difficult to get into.

Which is probably the reason they made Appmon, well Appmon to begin with. Why they decided to start the franchise fresh so to speak to target the child (new) demographic while tri. targeted the older demographic. Appmon's come and gone, and they've abandoned that strategy, so newer entries of digimon still try to capture a new demographic while building on the old, so Appmon still remains as most stand alone entry of the anime.

But it is still very digimon in the ways that matter, meaning that if you DO like Appmon, you're very likely going to find at least one other season worth looking into. Logistically the season is a lot like Hunters and Ghost Game, with how evolution and the digital field works, the characters vaguely (with heavy emphasis on vaugely) resemble the Tamer's cast, the way the human digimon relationship's function resembles Savers imo. It's themes of humanities future and chosen one narratives are very Adventure. In other words it feels like a digimon season, because it works a lot like what came before it. Really, digimon seasons vary a lot. For the most part no two seasons are alike, there are very few things consistent in Digimon. Just a lot of things that reoccur frequently. So in the end, Appmon feels like a Digimon season, because it's just like a Digimon season in every way EXCEPT for the actual monsters.

Appmon is particularly similar in it's themes. Digimon often tackles themes of identity, alternate selves, destiny and responsibility, humanities evolution, humanities relationship with digital technology, and cross cultural exchange. So an entry may dive right into: what happens when you abuse your alternate self, or where does the locust of the self actually lie, glossing over the lighter "what would it be like to have an alternate self". Appmon covers many these themes too but it does so through the fresh lens, of Apps and realisticish (Heavy emphasis on the 'ish') AI, building its case from the ground up rather than falling back on typical digital world backstories. What makes an AI a fully fledged person, what is the point of being alive, how will humanity handle being overtaken by its creation, humanties newfound dependence on various AIs, and how can humans and sufficiently advanced AI coexist without one taking advantage of the other. Many of the same themes Digimon usually covers, but in the more specific context of a war between hyperintelligent super AI. Rarely are digimon significantly more intelligent than a human, but Appmon builds itself around the idea. Being Very Digimon, while also bringing something new to the table.

Appmon may have come out in 2016, but it's themes of AI transcending humanity are perhaps more topical than when it debuted. The original Digimon was on some level born out of the mystique of the new technology that the internet was in the early 2000s. As such, while Digimon generally toes the line between sci-fi and fantasy, it usually incorperates Sci-Fi aesthetics, but fantasy worldbuilding. Appmon's worldbuilding actually is heavily sci-fi, no implications of magic, but the themes and motifs of the story border still on mythological. Something closer to our modern understanding of technology. We know our internet, it's nothing special to us anymore. But we forget to a certain extent the power held by the internet in the modern day. Who is this power meant for? Digimon is in many ways, conceptually, a holdover from a bygone era, even as it seeks to stay modern. But Appmon is unapologetically modern, in a way that feels like it should have aged super fast, but somehow still feels contemporary 8 years later.

The other side of what makes Appmon the best to start isn't just that it's good to start with, it's that the other seasons are worse. To start with that is. I love them to death, and I don't think they are necessarily bad, but if you aren't already interested in what digimon has to offer, it might be a bit harder to sell. With how metatextual digimon can be you might think the first season would be the best place to start. I mean how could it not be. It's the first. Well, not exactly. Adventure is both the best and worst place to start otherwise. It is one of the cornerstones of the franchise, and so much of what comes after calls back to it. Adventure is a subtle story in a lot of ways that leaves a lot of the details to be parsed on rewatches. It's a genuinely passionate piece of art. In fact, the show is so detailed they many of the details didn't even make it in the show, with lore clarified in side materials. Most of these details aren't incredibly important, but they do provide insight into some of the shows otherwise confusing choices. Also, most were never officially translated into english. Also, the shows attention to detail left the show rife with opportunities for translation to be mishandled, leading to additional issues. Not to mention the 90s weren't exactly known for their faithful dubs, and this is true of Adventure too. Though Adventure itself still suffers a lot from metatext even outside of its own lore. Taichi's name and design are reused from the manga. File island, Server Continent, the idea of "raising digimon", the frequent presence of "garbage" digimon, and the disjointed evolution lines, are all borrowed from the general V-Pet lore. And ultimately Adventure is even more complicated by the franchises refusal to let it go. New releases, and cameos in other works are varying degrees of canon incompliant. Sometimes recent releases are insightful to the original work, sometimes they perpetuate misconceptions about the original work. Sometimes both. Sometimes its hard to say one way or another. To be clear, Adventure isn't really that complicated, itself. Very enjoyable even if you don't think too hard on it. But it's barely covering a whole maze of rabbit holes. I do recommend Adventure and 02, and it can ABSOLUTELY work as a first digimon series. But it does leave itself open to a lot of bad takes.

But, a familiarity with Adventure is sort of required to get the full effect of Tamer's, which serves as a sort of deconstruction of Adventure era digimon to a certain extent, or to actually understand Digimon Survive (a visual novel) which is in many ways a more mature retelling of Digimon Adventure. Otherwise Digimon series are either too unique in premise (Frontier and Xros Wars), and/or not very good (Adventure: 2020, Ghost Game) to warrant as a recommendation for a "first" digimon series. In all fairness, all digimon season are a perfectly fair place to start. None of them depend on each other to tell their story. I'd even argue that 02 is an acceptable place to start, if a baffling one. You don't need to know the meta-textual elements to appreciate their stories and characters and worldbuilding. That's how the franchise has survived through its multiple iterations. But when Digimon throws "Armor" level around casually, an artifact of an old storyline, it's kind of hard to argue that on some level digimon doesn't have an overwhelming history.

Savers is my second choice recommendation of a first digimon season. It too has its own metatextual elements of course, they are less overt and Saver's also just does its own thing worldbuilding wise a surprising amount. Otherwise its a solid story that utilizes typical digimon tropes, but doesn't explicitly call back to Adventure in its premise.

Of course there ARE other digimon media. The original Digimon media was the V-pets, which are fun, but have niche appeal. The same applies to the Digimon World games. Speaking of which, Digimon Games are generally not the best way to get into the franchise. They're mostly not very good, and I'd also add that Digimon games are even more heavily marketed to pre-existing digimon fans than the animes are. Digimon Cyber Sleuth is maybe the only exception, but even that very heavily pays homage to Digimon Adventure. Though, some of the manga, like Liberator or V-Tamer might be good places to start too.

There is one big problem though with Appmon as a first series. No English dub. Now, generally speaking the digimon fandom is plagued by bad translations. So many of the dubs generally kinda suck, so I usually recommend subs anyway, but I recognize not everyone can handle subs. There is a french dub, for those who understand French. I don't so I don't even know if its a good dub. If you're a dub only person honestly I recommend Tamers as a first season. It was the first one I finished. Its got a few issues that hold it back as an ideal first show for the uninitiated, but a solid story you don't actually need any context for. Adventure and Saver's dubs have problems imo that keep me from recommending them. (There IS a more supposedly more accurate SE asian dub of the early digimon seasons out there, but its harder to find + I haven't actually watched more than a few clips so I feel I can't exactly speak to its overall quality).

Ultimately, Digimon is the kind of thing where you can jump in anytime, and the kind of thing where there are plenty of fans who would be happy to explain the weird stuff. But you DO have to start somewhere. I just personally suggest Appmon.

Appmon is overall, just a solid children's tv anime on its own, as well as a fantastic example of what a digimon season can be. But without the 20+ years of baggage.

[seventeenlovesthree]

Digi Dynamic Shipping Game

Send me two names among the following 12 and I’ll write a short analysis post about them:

Taichi Yagami | Yamato Ishida | Sora Takenouchi | Koushirou Izumi | Mimi Tachikawa | Jyou Kidou | Takeru Takaishi | Hikari Yagami | Daisuke Motomiya | Miyako Inoue | Iori Hida | Ken Ichijouji

Whether canon provides input on them or not.

Boy, do I love to refer back to "Butterfly" and how it basically framed Taichi as the male main character and Sora as the female main character throughout. One might argue that this is a combination that has been occurring in quite a lot of anime - particularly kids and Shounen related - back in the 90s and early 2000s, so... Asking whether or not canon provides input on them is like asking if water is wet. They've known each other since elementary school, have been in the same class ever since (and will continue to be classmates until graduation) and even attended the same football club for a while. They start the series as "almost telepathically connected" football club duo (basically a novel quote right here), adventurous and hands-on plot drivers, the courageous leader and the tomboyish but caring voice of reason right by his side. You instantly get the impression that they are familiar and close with each other and it's a theme that continues throughout the entire first season; not only because they consistently jump into action and call out, care for and protect each other, but because they, their bond, their loyalty and development are basically responsible for the fact that the kids get through everything alive in the end.

Trying to describe the extent and depth of their relationship would probably end with me writing a whole novel, so I will try to keep this brief, because... You know them. Similarly to Taito, Koumi and Takari, Taiora has been a staple in the shipping scene ever since the conception of Digimon Adventure back in 1999 - and for good reason. As mentioned, there used to be - and still is - a trope to pair up the main boy and main girl with one another and this case is no exception, considering how well they play off of each other, supporting and saving each other time and time again. Digimon Adventure is a special series though - a series whose creators intended to break through tropes and stereotypes, turning those on the head whenever possible. So while Taichi's and Sora's bond may be so significant that the idea of them ending up together seems inherently plausible - this is not how their story ends.

The tomboy, who struggles with her sense of femininity and identity, cannot deal with her best friend gifting her a hairclip - and while they seem thoroughly devoted to and on each other's minds, they develop in different directions. There is a theme of miscommunication between them as they grow older, little quarrels here and there - but at the same time, there is still an incredible sense of mutual fondness and protectiveness that, despite a growing physical distance, never completely vanishes. "If you love someone, let them go", is a quote that may come to mind when you take a look at the screenshot above and are aware of its context. Whether that kind of love was romantic or platonic at this point? We may never know.

This is the story of two close long-term friends, who were not meant to be together - wrong time, wrong place.

... Which doesn't mean that there isn't a potential "right time", right...?

Whether I think why and how they’d work.

What I mentioned above seems to be somewhat cryptic and what I'm about to outline may or may not break canon to a certain degree, but HEAR ME OUT.

While this headcanon is, for now, nothing more than a headcanon, but I am a big supporter of @dutchforstrangers' interpretation of the epilogue, leading to the idea that Yamato and Sora might not remain together/married. This post is not meant to be Sorato slander in any way and I will not go into detail here as to why I think this is a valid headcanon - just know that there are a few subtext aspects in regards to their behavioural patterns and body languages that leave room for speculation. And that's all there is to it: SPECULATION!

The point I am trying to make here is, once again, that Taichi and Sora may not have been ready to be in a relationship early in life - because they first had to come to terms with themselves, their real dreams, aspirations and needs. They had to become comfortable with themselves (particularly after the loss of their Digimon partners) to bridge the (physical and emotional) distance that had festered between them through the years. Because if you think about it, due to their underlying insecurities, they both chose the same approach in their early twenties: Isolating themselves from the rest of their friend group. And I feel like they both have to come to the conclusion first that this is a state that could never bring them long-lasting happiness. They're both social beings that shrivel when they're left alone for too long. (They may also need the encouragement of their friends - particularly Mimi, Koushirou and Hikari - to get there though.)

So it may take a while, weeks, months, maybe even years, to reconcile, step by step. Rekindling their bond, making up their minds about their true passions and career paths, rediscovering old and finding new hobbies and similarities along the way; whether it's about their shared love for their friends, football, adventurous and sporty activities, probably therapy???, whatever it may be... Until they'd reunite with their partners and, with a gleeful but weary smile on their faces, realize that they just had to grow up to this point to eventually find each other as well.

Whether I’d prefer them as platonic or romantic ship.

In case the way I've been talking about them hasn't made it obvious yet - I do love Taiora a lot. While I hadn't started actively shipping Digimon characters until I started watching Tamers, I always had an incredible soft spot for them and up to this day, Taichi and Sora are my second favourite choice for each other. You could say that, in every possible universe in which Taich doesn't end up with Koushirou, he WOULD end up with Sora if I had anything to say. It's also no secret that Taikoura is my absolute favourite OT3 and I really think they COULD work out beautifully together. In the end, both romantic and platonic Taiora is absolutely beautiful to me - especially because it brought some very special, wonderful people into my life. Long story short: As long as their closeness persists in any way, shape or form, I'll be happy.

I also still maintain that the reboot timeline could potentially go there, but I will not get my hopes up... Yet.

[marshallpupfan]

Did you used to have any other favorite shows before Paw Patrol and before Marshall became your number 1 favorite animated character, did you used to have any other favorite characters from any other TV show or movie?

I can certainly name a few favorite TV shows of mine from over the years. Some of these are pretty old nowadays, but I believe they can still be found on streaming services and whatnot.

One that comes to mind right away is "Looney Tunes". The originals, not the newer stuff like "The Looney Tunes Show" or the modern "Looney Tunes Cartoons". These were made back in the 30's, 40's and 50's, and though they released in theaters first, it might as well be considered a TV show nowadays.

In any case, I've been a huge fan of these shorts for as long as I can remember. In fact, I still watch them quite often to this day! Most of them are classics, with a wide variety of wonderful characters, memorable plots, delightful cartoon slapstick and violence, among other things. I don't think I'll ever outgrow them... heck, even my own parents still watch them (we often watch them together, actually).

Here's another I used to watch a ton a long time ago. It's an anime from 2001 called "Digimon Tamers". I practically fell in love with this one as a kid, and I remembered even trying to record every single episode to make sure I'd always have it. One reason behind this is... well, someone I'll talk about later on in this post. Beyond that, I just found the overall story really interesting, especially when compared to the previous two ("Adventure" and "Adventure 02"). It had memorable characters, too. It was just really good all around!

I'll admit, I'm not much for superhero stuff, but Justice League, and its sequel, Justice League: Unlimited, were both so entertaining. I haven't seen the show in numerous years, yet I still think about most of its episodes from time to time. They were just so memorable, thanks to smart and mature writing, numerous moments that still surprise me to this very day, etc. However, I'm not sure I can recommend it to too many of my followers here, since some of you might not like how serious it can get. Here's a good example, if anyone's curious to see what I'm talking about. If you're not bothered by this kind of stuff and/or can look past it, the whole thing's a great watch!

One last one for now, and it's finally something that's not too old! While I haven't seen every season of Regular Show, I thought the first two seasons were simply brilliant. Anyone who's seen this one no doubt remembers "send it to the moon", "summertime lovin', lovin in the summertime", "my mom", among so many other memorable lines and such. I enjoyed it so much, it's one of the few cartoons I tracked down on Blu-Ray (the first two seasons, anyway). It's crazy in all the best ways. Hm, hm, hm!

Now, as for favorite characters...

I'll admit, I've had so many over the years. In fact, at one point, I considered it somewhat of a hobby to keep track of them all and even list them on some of my social media sites (that was some time ago, on accounts unrelated to this one, and said lists no longer exist now). I won't go into all of them, but I can list quite a few!

RJ the raccoon, from Dreamworks' "Over the Hedge". He's just a fun, smooth-talking character who's quite entertaining to watch. He was really high up my list for the longest time, and while that's not so true anymore, I'm still quite the fan of him (and the movie, itself).

Impmon, from the aforementioned "Digimon Tamers". Anyone who's into Digimon certainly knows about him, and how he easily became the show's most complex character. I don't want to spoil everything, since his journey is legit great, but Impmon starts out as someone who's not so friendly, but he slowly warms up to the good guys little-by-little... until something happens that leaves him completely and utterly humiliated. With his ego smashed and desperate for power, he makes a deal with one of the villains, who grants him exactly what he wants, under the condition he goes after the heroes. Despite doing some terrible stuff, he's spared, and he ends up realizing all the horrible mistakes he's made and then tries to do his best to make up for all the harm he's caused. To be honest, my description here really doesn't do him justice, so it's really something you need to check out yourself. Most fans will happily admit it's easily a big highlight of the whole Digimon franchise.

He's arguably one of the best Digimon characters, period. His journey is memorable, and I really found myself rooting for the character and hoping he'd turn out okay in the end. Honestly, he still remains one of my biggest favorites to this day.

Bolt, from Disney's "Bolt". This isn't one of their better movies, but I still think Bolt, himself is pretty darn great... and cute, too. Much like Impmon, I just really liked his journey, from a dog who believed the TV show he starred in was real, to coming to terms with just who and what he really is. Again, I don't wish to spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but it's pretty good... and quite touching, if you ask me. Special shout out to the part when Bolt just takes in life by letting the rain drop on his face for the first time... it's easily a favorite moment of mine, and cemented just how much I came to love the character.

If you haven't seen Bolt, I certainly recommend it! And Bolt, himself... he's a pretty cool pup. A good boy, for sure.

Panchito Pistoles, a Disney character who first appeared in the 1944 animated movie "The Three Caballeros". No doubt some of you might recognize him more from the 2018 "Legend of the Three Caballeros".

There's actually not a whole lot I can say about him, in terms of any sort of character development and whatnot. Truth is, along with his excellent design, I just flat out love this wacky character. He's always so full of energy, and as such, he's just so crazy entertaining. I won't say he's one of the best Disney characters or anything, but he's someone that always gives me a big smile when he shows up.

Hokey Wolf, a character from some really old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. (He's the one on the right, btw.)

I'll admit, most folks probably haven't heard of this character. You won't see him much nowadays, and I think he's only been in the background of a few Jellystone! episodes. Despite that, he's, in my opinion, a rather memorable character, at least in the older cartoons that introduced him. Much like RJ, he's another smooth talker, which in hindsight, seems to be a trait that I like. It just makes characters like him a lot of fun to watch, especially if they can pull off whatever they'd planned. Beyond that, I also really like his design. Admittedly, I took an interest in wolves because of him, and I even thought about getting into making my own animations due to Hokey, too. The character became a bit special to me, I suppose you could say.

Going back to Looney Tunes, many of its characters became favorites of mine, too. The one on the left, Charlie Dog, is the star of some of my favorite shorts, including the one in which he goes on about how great of a dog he is because he's [apparently] numerous breeds in one (50% pointer, 50% boxer, 50% sitter... Irish sitter, 50% watch dog, 50% spits, 50% Doberman Pincher, but he's "mostly" all Labrador Retriever). He's always looking for a master, and though he can be a little too pushy, his attempts at trying to look appealing as "man's best friend" never cease to amuse me.

And then there's Bugs Bunny, who is probably the very first character I ever became a huge fan of. I just love this wascally wabbit, due to his humor, personality, characteristics, design, charm... everything! His cartoons never fail to get a good laugh out of me. Although the stuff he appears in nowadays isn't as good as those classic shorts from way back then, I still say he's easily one of the greatest cartoon characters to ever exist, period. Dude's a legend, peroid.

And I better stop here, before this post gets any longer. lol

[otakween]

Digimon Frontier - Episode 35

Another hype episode! With all this stuff going down, it kinda feels like we should be on episode 45, not 35. Is there a bonus big bad after Cherubimon? Probably...knowing Digimon.

We got two new digivolutions plus new digivices in this! (For some reason, the new digivices were the most exciting part for me lol. I guess cuz it was unexpected).

Notes:

A very aesthetic episode. Lots of prisms and pastels. The Cherubimon vs. Ophanimon fight was very exciting and cinematic. I was glad to see Ophanimon didn't go down as easily as Seraphimon. Plus she gave the kids a huge boost before her defeat.

Lol poor Goatmon. A bit on the nose to sacrifice a goat, isn't it? The kids didn't react much, but I guess there was no time for that. (Also, Ophanimon gets to be resurrected as a digiegg but not Goatmon, what gives?)

The whole "light and dark powers don't work in this room" was interesting. Frontier has more focus on environments/elements than other seasons it seems (even though a lot of the enviroments have been really boring lol). It did make me question things a bit though. Like don't some of the other spirits just summon their powers out of nowhere? I guess Chackmon doesn't need a water source for his powers because he's made of snow? IDK about Blitzmon though -shrug-

I was a little surprised how easily Takuya and Koji knocked Cherubimon out of his crystal room. Oh well, gotta move the plot along.

Poor Fairymon trying to break crystal with her butt and failing lol how embarrassing...

The way Cherubimon easily fell for Ophanimon's trick and let her use her "love" powers on him...I guess he does love her? That was the impression I got from that scene.

Cherubimon's voice when he was his old self for a second sounded really strange and distorted. I'm not sure if they were combining his deeper voice and his higher voice or if his other version just has a weird voice lol.

If Ophanimon told me to "combine all the spirits into one" I would assume that means to give all the spirits to one person or merge people together (ala jogress) not...one dude gets half of the groups' spirits and another dude gets the other half. That part was kinda weirdly written. Also, how did Izumi, Junpei, Koichi and Tomoki decide who to give their spirits to? Guessing that was just spur of the moment and random. -shrug- When I read the episode name I thought Takuya and Koji would be combining in some way, so that's kind of disappointing.

I have to look up these new digimon online because they whip around and throw all these animation effects over them and it's hard to make out their designs! (Though I assume we'll get a better look later). They're both kinda chaotic and seem really hard to animate lol. KaiserGreymon seems a bit more traditional and gives me WarGreymon vibes. MagnaGarurumon is almost avant garde with how asymmetrical he is. I think that's why I like his design better, it's more out there. I'm especially entertained by the fact that he appears to be part airplane lol. What is this, Strike Witches?

(He looks a little wonkier in the concept art than in the show...I always though "magna" had something to do with fire, but I just it just means "big/great" in Latin. Guess I was thinking of "magma" lol)

[firstagent]

Spoiler-Free Review: Digimon Adventure 02 The Beginning [Sub]

In this movie, one more troubled relationship between one more kid and their partner threatens the world one more time. The Zero Two kids help… a little.

As much as Last Evolution Kizuna’s message spoke of our need to be able to let go of our childhood fancies, and as much as it would have been an appropriate final bow to the original Adventure canon, it also proved that this world is still capable of turning out some wonderful, thought-provoking stories. Especially when given the kind of budget this movie relishes in throughout. Before we tiptoe around major plot points without actually revealing them, it must be said that The Beginning looks gorgeous. The big action is animated beautifully and minor details in the art go far in supporting the story. It’s important because the movie is all about quality. Quality above distracting subplots, quality above unnecessary fights, and—perhaps more concerning—quality above cherished Digimon Adventure establishments.

The first sign of the movie’s lack of concern about bending the knee to prior Adventure canon: this is 100 percent Lui’s story. If you’re expecting the Zero Two kids to have some deep character growth the way Taichi did in Kizuna… well, it’s the Zero Two kids; half of them didn’t get that in their own season. No, this is all the Lui and Ukkomon show. After tri. and Kizuna you might be thinking “isn’t this the third time now we’ve been introduced to a new character whose partnership issues are a harbinger for chaos?” The answer to that is no: it’s the fourth time if you count Wallace in Hurricane Touchdown. But while tri.’s format allowed the established cast to have full character arcs alongside Meiko’s and Kizuna was still fundamentally about Taichi dealing with the problems Menoa creates, The Beginning is too compact and too tightly wound to give anyone but Lui room for growth.

That’s not a bad thing though! In a relatively short time, we get all the gory details of Lui’s past, where Ukkomon fits into the equation, how things go wrong, why it’s everyone’s problem, and how Lui fixes it. It’s told vividly, and viscerally at times: some of the story is straight-up disturbing and the movie understands the importance of not shying away from it. These are some horrors that would bother even the Ghost Game kids. The facts of Lui’s story aren’t particularly complicated—it’s a surprisingly simple story for a feature-length film—but they’re presented with a nuance that hits the upper echelon of what Digimon has ever been capable of.

Still, it does leave the Zero Two characters a little in the lurch. Character moments are sprinkled in whenever they can get them and everybody’s heard in group conversations (sometimes even making a good point!), but some feel like they’re only there because they have to be. Until the fade out at the end, there honestly isn’t much more of the Zero Two kids being Zero Two kids than we saw in Kizuna. Anyone longing to see these kids tackling their own problems instead of someone else’s will be left hanging. That said, the revamped evolution sequences are fire, we’re still treated to Target and Beat Hit, and there’s even a couple teases for the shippers. And the ending is absolutely a “Zero Two kids being the Zero Two kids” moment.

But yes, one of the trickier conversations will certainly regard The Beginning’s relationship with Adventure canon. On one hand, Lui’s situation suggests a conflict with Adventure and tri., and some could interpret the resolution as incompatible with particular aspects of the epilogue. On the other hand, none of the issues are in any way major, and countered both by references to events in Adventure and tri., and the fact that everybody is still barreling straight toward their epilogue fates. Weirdly, the most dubious point of contention may be with Kizuna. Any direct discrepancies are again insignificant, but the revelations of the prior movie feel like they should weigh more on some minds as they process everything going on here.

To its credit, The Beginning seems fully aware of what it’s doing. It understands how much it’s potentially shaking things up. The characters recognize it! The movie delivers on the things that really matter: the kids, the Digimon, the music, and the heart. Things like adherence to an increasingly rigid and cluttered timeline are more superfluous. It doesn’t dismiss anything for the sake of dismissing it, but it’s not going to let it get in the way of a good story. Even as the kids dutifully stay on track for the epilogue, the ending narration suggests that anything goes from here. We may find out: unlike Kizuna’s sense of finality, The Beginning builds momentum for more stories in whatever interpretation of this world grows them best. If they’re anything like this one, we’ll welcome them.

My Grade: A

Check Back November 10 For the Spoilers/Dub Post!

Thanks to Toei Animation for providing me with an advance screener of this movie.

Want to support my site and/or my work? Buy me a coffee!

[artistic-moth-man]

So I've been wondering if I should make this update post and I decided I'm gonna

Basically it's just to let you guys all know what exactly is going on in my unmedicated ADHD Brain by explaining every single project of mine that's currently in the works. pretty much nothing in this list is released yet so don't go looking for them

Starting off with stuff I'm collaborating with others on

Danny and the Light - an original graphic novel on webtoon that got cancelled and is getting rebooted (don't get excited though we're taking our time with it) with @stormcloudquill

Chrysalis Chronicles - An original illustrated novel or graphic novel (i haven't decided) that's ripping off/fixing all the things wrong about harry potter; with @thekrazykitsune

Mincraft Diaries - Yep! Aphmau's Minecraft Diaries, rekindled and made into fanfiction and/or a graphic novel (probably both) and this one will actually have an ending; also with @thekrazykitsune

Avatar: Lion Turtle Heart - a fanfic graphic novel about a firebending avatar after korra named Akira working to unravel the mysteries of her past self, Avatar Kazu, and his death that even she can't comprehend, as well as the strange appearance of a baby lion turtle that Akira now has to care for. Doing this with @mayday396

now for fanfic works I'm doing alone

Legend of Emily Windsnap - Rebooting Emily Windsnap's story in fanfiction form. this fic is actually going to be released some time this or next year (hopefully this year but shit's hitting the fan on my life currently) and book 1 is actually near finished!

Digidestined Diaries - a reboot of seasons 1-4 of Digimon in either fic or graphic novel form. may or may not do this with stormcloud, but I'm not sure. the thing that makes this so special is that tamers and frontier take place in the same universe as adventure. yes, takato meets Tai, and no it does not go well for the others involved

Wizard101, The Legacy of Atlas - telling a story heavily based off the first arc of Wizard101 quests with a balance wizard as a main character, featuring the friends they make and the enemies they face as the chosen one to defeat Mallistaire. this will absolutely be in fic form, most likely with illustrations

Bloom's Magic, Beta writing - a written fanfic reboot of Winx Club as a beta version of the story I planned with Storm. the comic version of BM is currently on the backburner and is gonna have some differences to the written version, but it'll be something I promise

Finally, some original works that I plan on publishing!

Chronos and Kalayah - a Time Traveler named Chronos rushes around time looking for their best friend, an immortal named Kalayah. the two of them constantly avoid the temporal police while simultaneously helping Kalayah survive being a black lesbian in American history. likely only going to consist of one book and have a novel and graphic novel form

Call My Soul - a Magic Girl series featuring Blake Janes, an ordinary boy who stumbles upon an alien named Alexandrite. Alex is tasked with keeping safe the artifacts of the ancient magical shogunate, whose spirits end up choosing Blake and his gal pals to protect themselves from the evil prince Tsukuyomi, who wants nothing more than the artifacts. this graphic novel gets really gay really fast so strap in when it comes out

Roll For Adventure - a young boy named Matt who loves playing DnD is isekai'd into a land straight out of Lord Of The Rings, and he is absolutely stoked. while he is looking for a portal back home, his elf friend Sequoia and Orc friend Yevelda help him fight his way through the coming war between the eight races. Fun Fact; I use my dice to help the characters make decisions. even major story beats are going to be up to my D20!

Lucifer the Good - this story is precious to me, and hard to describe. it involves four kids being isekai'd into a world filled with magical monsters and elemental creatures, being guided by a young voice to find secret angels, all while villainous demons under King Devil work to stop the kids from ever leaving this new world. even worse, the human kids are the only ones who can undo the vile curse on the land of magic.

that's all the stories that I'm actively working on, but I do have at least 10 more that I'm leaving on the backburner to focus on these ones! Call My Soul is also getting very little attention, but I am actively working on it! I'm seriously hoping at least one of my original works will be released to the public by 2025, but again, life is crazy. anyway, my next few posts are gonna involve Digidestined Diaries while I work on finishing up Emily Windsnap Book 2 and finalize book 1. there's only one change I wanna make, then I'll get to releasing it to AO3 and Wattpad! I promise, at least one of these will be worth the wait :3

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

SaShiSu anon here!

Deep down I think I already knew that you would choose suguru but I wanted to ask anyway, because you always give interesting answers lol

I honestly don't know who I would choose, it's just as you say, the three of them would be very good partners!  

I am very fond of Satoru but realistically I don't know if I could keep up with him lol, he’s a very active and social person, I don't know if my poor social battery could handle keeping up with him. I wouldn't mind watching digimon with him, because I love digimon, I've seen every season at least 2 times, I've played the games and the tcg and I'm basically a walking encyclopedia of digimon.

I wouldn't mind going with him to pastry shops to try new things, because going to pastry shops is a hobby of mine anyway. Satoru looks like the type of person who likes to tease his friends and his partner just for fun and honestly it would be hypocritical of me to criticize him for that because I'm the same. u.u

I love Shoko, I would do anything for her, cooking, cleaning, cuddles, I would give her everything she asked for and more! my poor baby works too much and she is always tired :(  Shoko deserves a lot of love and cuddles! i don't drink or smoke, but if that girl sent me to the store at 2:00 a.m. to buy her a beer, I would do it!

Lastly we have suguru, my love languages are acts of service and quality time. Which I feel fits well with him. For me it would be strange if someone was so attentive to me because that's normally my role in relationships so I would feel lost. I wouldn't mind him judging what I read... because every time he does it, I would make a power point presentation with 50+ slides debating all his points (being a digimon fan is hard work D: )

AAA SASHISU ANON!!! that’s so sweet, i’m happy u enjoy my rambly answers :’3

AND YES I GET U IT’S SOOO HARD TO PICK JUST ONE…. 😔😔 they’re all so lovely and charming……. poly sashisu x reader is the answer always <33 i think a relationship with all three of them would be so sweet and fun !!!

BUT YES YOU’RE SO REAL my social battery is so low it’s kinda embarrassing lmao but i feel like satoru would be very good at knowing his partner’s limits yk… just whisks you away when he can tell you’re getting tired <33 and i also think he would get so smug if your social battery never ran out around him LMAO like he would thrive off being your safe space…. 🥺🥺hhh i adore him. AND HELLOOO FELLOW DIGIMON FAN i was a pkmn kid through and through but i grew up watching all digimon seasons too :33

SO REAL ON SHOKO TOO I WOULD MAKE HER TEA AND COFFEE EVERY SINGLE DAY she could throw a bone and tell me to fetch it like a dog and i would simply Listen <333 she could manipulate me. she wouldn’t do it but she could. but ohhh anon i really do think shoko would benefit sm from having an acts of service s/o !! :( she deserves to be pampered!!

AND OFC SUGUU acts of service and quality time are 100% good fits for him….. AND i think a relationship with someone who’s kind of similar would be good for him!! :’3 two acts of service babies taking care of each other … he would be so attentive all the time and you would be attentive right back!! tbh i understand you anon i think i would be a bit uncomfortable around sugu if he was Too attentive even if i would probably really love it deep down 😭😭 but he’d be so patient !!! aaaa he’s just so perfect…

TYSM FOR INDULGING ME WITH THIS DISCUSSION ANONNN i love these three with my entire soul T_T…. they could fix us

[shihalyfie]

Hi. I'm someone who has come back to Digimon after enjoying it from my childhood and now watching through Ghost Game as well as watching episodes of Digimon: App Monsters. Something I'm wondering about is how the experience of binge watching may or may not be compatible with the various Digimon seasons. I realized that I enjoyed binging App Monsters more than I am Ghost Game even though I do enjoy watching Ghost Game more as it fits a lot more of my tastes.

I define the binge format as involving frequent use of cliffhangers, a larger overarching conflict those cliffhangers tie into, and a three act structure that stretches throughout the season instead of just one episode. I do recognize that both Ghost Game and App Monsters share at least some similarities with this structure, but the main difference seems to be that there isn't a bigger overarching conflict in Ghost Game. However, I see myself going back and rewatching episodes of Ghost Game more than I do App Monsters. To what extent were these seasons built with binge watching in mind? I live in the US by the way, so I imagine that cultural lens might be playing into the questions.

Hi! Welcome back, hope you're enjoying your watch! Also, glad you're enjoying Appmon; that's a series that's especially close to my heart.

Well, as you alluded to at the end of the question here, cultural stuff does play a role here, or more specifically, the fact that Digimon TV series generally use a format that Toei has refined and perfected over the years via their long-running shows, especially Super Sentai and Kamen Rider (tokusatsu and not anime, but with a lot of important factors in common). While it is true that the majority of these series are serialized, they are ultimately still made first and foremost to be watched by kids once a week. That's why there's still a loose monster-of-the-week format for even the more serialized Digimon series, because there has to be a certain self-contained nature to it, and that's why you get those recaps at the beginning of each episode (or sometimes even full recap episodes, like Appmon episode 26, which was released after the series went through a timeslot change). It's not that they think the kids have a terrible attention span or anything, but that even an adult would probably need to be reminded of what was going on after having been out for a week or longer.

If a series is hard to follow when watched this way, that's considered a failure of the writing, especially since the series has a goal of selling toys during the duration of its run and would probably not accomplish this if it's hard to follow. The majority of Toei shows using this format run for exactly a year (with Adventure: and Ghost Game being exceptions due to what I suspect are pandemic delay related issues), so that means they basically have a year to sell as many toys during that period as possible before they pass the baton to whatever occupies the timeslot next. But of course, that doesn't mean people in the writer's room don't also care deeply about what they make, so they'll still try to make works that leave a lasting impression for adults who binge watch later. So that means striking a balancing act between making it possible to follow weekly or when binge watches, and how well they accomplish that depends on the series.

For what it's worth, Ghost Game's extreme episodic nature is an outlier not only for Digimon but also for this kind of Toei show in general; while "resolved in one episode" format is used elsewhere, Ghost Game not calling back to a huge overarching plot often is not often seen. (Although it has been quite successful in certain areas; one famous series I can think of off of the top of my head is Kamen Rider W, which recently got an anime adaptation of its manga sequel -- long story -- and is known for being pretty much entirely presented in two-parters.) That said, Ghost Game's lead writer did infamously say at one point that it was as episodic as it was because of the idea that kids are more into shorter content like TikTok and all that, which got ridiculed as hilariously out of touch, especially since the aforementioned Kamen Rider and Super Sentai are still doing fine without that. I'll let the Sentai experts weigh in more, but the one running right now (Kingohger) is so unusually serialized that it even just had a timeskip!

[alpaca-clouds]

The State of the Digimon Franchise in the World of Digimon Tamers

There is something rather interesting about Digimon Tamers in regards to the rest of the anime: The fact that the Digimon franchise at the very least exists within the universe. We know of course that there are Digimon games in this world, as well as the Digimon Card Game. If we go by the official blog by Chiaki J. Konaka, the first two seasons of the anime aired in this world - which is also referenced during several of the crossovers we got in later games and of course Digimon Xros Wars.

Ironically though the anime is not really referenced a lot in Digimon Tamers. Sure, we can read some of Takato's lines as references to it (like him saying that Guilmon should be at the very least as strong as Agumon and such), as well as that we know there are cards exiting in the series that are references to Adventure, but at no point does the show actually reference the anime.

However, given that Konaka confirms the existence of the anime in this world, I am just always gonna assume that yes, the anime does not in fact exist.

This does bring me to another question though. Or rather two questions that I always loved to ponder:

Is there another Digimon anime airing in the world of Digimon Tamers instead of Digimon Tamers in the year of 2001?

How does the Digimon franchise develop, after... you know? After Tokyo nearly gets destroyed by Digimon...?

See, here is the thing: From all we can tell the Digimon Franchise - at least until 2001 - is doing a whole lot better in the world of Digimon Tamers than in the real world.

All we know is, that the Wild Bunch created the code, with Keith McCoy being the one coming up with the entire rules for Digimon. And then at some point Bandai bought the rights to this - probably from the McCoys. (Did Keith and Rob get the money for this? We have to assume so, right?)

But despite Bandai being mainly Japanese, we know there are exclusive games for Digimon in the USA (like the one Jianliang gets from Jiang-yu in his backstory). Which makes me think that Digimon is a way bigger thing in this world, than it ever was IRL.

But if it is so successful as a franchise... We have to assume that there would be another Digimon season releasing in 2001, right? So, I kinda would love to think about what that show is. Because it is probably not Digimon Tamers.

The other question is, however, how the franchise develops after 2001. Because it certainly will do something to the franchise to have not only a confirmation that the fantasy of this franchise is actually a reality, but that also was responsible for at least some deaths. Because make no mistake: There are some people dying in Digimon Tamers. We have at least some confirmed deaths of the JDF during the D-Reaper attack on Tokyo, but there is a good chance that during some of the prior Digimon attacks this happened to.

Hypnos tried to keep the existence of Digimon a secret until Vikaralamon, but afterwards we know that the existence of Digimon is confirmed to the public. We do not really get to see a whole lot of the fallout outside of how it does affect Yamaki and the parents of the kids, because the kids are in the Digital World right after this. But by the time D-Reaper attacks, we see how the news paper titles go: "Is this Digimon related?" and stuff like that.

And to me it is super fascinating. What does this do to the franchise? How does the public relationship to Digimon as a franchise develop?

I will openly admit. When I wrote my old Digimon Tamers fics back in the day, I never really questioned this. For the sake of the story, I basically just went with: "Welp, the government did their best to sweep everything under the rug, and after about two years, things moved on as usual, and generally speaking the franchise evolved. Also Card Game Alpha, because the card designs were cool." But it is something I am almost sad about. Because it would have made for a real interesting basis of writing some speculative stuff.

Because I can absolutely see that there is some consequences happening. Especially given that we know that D-Reaper also appeared in other places, where there are probably no Digimon Tamers (due to SHIBUMI only distributing the Blue Cards in Tokyo). And yeah... Super interesting stuff for some worldbuilding.

(Also, never mind me: Just my hyperfixation for my childhood franchise reawakening...)

[tobiasdrake]

Spicy hot take incoming, of the "They're going to take away my critic's badge for this" variety.

So I recently watched F.D. Signifier's video on anime and I was thinking about some of the things he said about the Isekai genre. Why it's often both attractive and yet shallow all at once; A Power Fantasy more interested in having fun letting characters be powerful than in putting in the effort to earn their power.

This got me to thinking about Isekai stories that I've consumed. I'm a big fan of Digimon Adventure, particularly the first series. Existing before Isekai became such a huge thing, Digimon Adventure played more to the fear and uncertainty of random kids being dragged into this other world and forced to become child soldiers - While still managing to retain a relatively light tone.

But as I was thinking about this, I realized something. One of the best uses of the Isekai concept for storytelling that I've seen... was from a shitty internet comedy webseries made on a $5 budget.

I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't heard of The Legend of Neil. It's a very shallow parody of the first Legend of Zelda game; The kind of parody where the jokes they're using are things like, "LOL Why do we keep leaving items around the dungeon for the hero to use?"

As gaming satire, it's bottom of the barrel. It's crude and vulgar, and there are more than a few elements that haven't aged well, such as aggressively Q-coded villains, a particular character death that seems more mean-spirited than tragic, and multiple references to Harry Potter.

But there's something there, underneath it all, that comes to my mind when I think about Isekais. Because The Legend of Neil, for all of its faults, has something it wants to say. There's a dissertation on masculinity and abuse buried beneath the dick jokes and "LOL Enemies drop healing hearts?"

The main character Neil comes from a comically abusive home life. He suffers endless deluges of abuse from his family, his girlfriend, and the customers at his retail job. And yet for two seasons, his top priority is just getting back there. The game world is different and weird and scary, and it expects a lot from him. And he just wants to go home.

This isn't uncommon fare for the Isekai brand. "Life sucked but now you're here and you're the hero! Go be awesome!" But for Neil, there's something deeper here. First, because it isn't a power fantasy. Neil gets his teeth kicked in constantly. He's frequently outmatched and forced to drag himself to the Faerie, blinking on critical HP and begging for another round of her healing.

Neil is, suprisingly for the Isekai genre, a survivor archetype rather than an Action Hero archetype. He's not actually that powerful. In fact, there are some enemies that are so strong, he never overcomes them.

But also because Neil gets what he wants. At the end of season two and start of season three, Neil gets to go home to his girlfriend that cheats on him, his family that abuses him, and his job that demeans him. And then he gets to make an actual choice about whether or not he's truly happy in this environment. Whether the way he's treated is actually the way he wants to live.

It's here that the Isekai transforms into something... Different. Neil returns to the game world of his own volition. Again, it's not unusual for the protagonist to like the Isekai world better than his shitty life. But the lack of "Neil is powerful!" elements coupled with Neil's own personal agency in choosing the Isekai world makes it something more.

The Legend of Neil uses Isekai, not to tell a Power Fantasy, but to tell a Recovery Fantasy. By choosing the game world, Neil self-actualizes and accepts the responsibility being placed on him there, but he also makes a statement that maybe some people need to hear: "It's okay to burn your bridges, cut your abusers out of your life, and walk away. Even if the future seems uncertain, even if the alternative is scary, it's okay for you to leave. There are better things out there waiting for you to find them."

And so throughout the third season, we see a very different Neil. One who is here because he actually wants to be here. A Neil who opens up to the people around him, rebuilds his relationships with the people in the Isekai world, and puts in actual effort to try and make himself strong enough to face the challenges ahead because this is the life he chose for himself.

...I mean, he never really appreciates the Faerie and that subplot drags down the whole show. It's. It's still not great.

But the point is, in an ocean of "My life sucked but now it's great because I'm in an Isekai" stories, this vulgar, low-budget webseries was using that framework to actually sit down and talk about topics of abuse, rather than slapping on an Unearned Power Fantasy and calling it a day.

And I think a lot of Isekai writers could learn from that.

[imthepunchlord]

What's your fav shows/games?

Hm...

Game wise, Pokemon's an old favorite, though quality has drastically dropped. There are other monster catching games I do enjoy, though they're not at that same level for Pokemon for me. Closest probably is Digimon Cyber Sleuth, that was a lot of fun. Monster Hunter Stories franchise I really like and hope for more, and ideally we can get a different main monster than Rathalos. I like the monster fine, but it's not my fav. And we got two games with Rathalos as the partner... though I'll give it that Wings of Ruin did a much better job of maining with Rathalos. And while I do like Monster Hunter as a franchise, I cannot play the main, I get too stressed. It's the same for LoZ. Really enjoy it, not so great at playing it.

I also really enjoy farming games, with My Time at Sandrock and Coral Island becoming my favorite.

And I do enjoy the occasional tactical RPG, like Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Baulder's Gate 3. Also enjoy Skyrim, though I am wary for the next Elder Scrolls game.

For shows, I'm more into animation, so there's not a lot of live action that I really get into.

Off the top of my head, Stranger Things for sure. I'm very curious for s5 and if they'll pull off the finish well, cause I have heard most think Stranger Things should've ended at s2. That 70s Show I think is one of the funniest shows I watched (minus the last season).

Anime wise, Spy x Family is easily becoming my favorite.

I was obsessed with the Pokemon anime as a kid, though around 8 I was tired of Ash and wanted a girl lead, ideally not stuck with "girly" pokemon as I liked the "boy" pokemon far more like Charizard and Tyranitar. I could not stress enough how elated I was that Advanced started off with May, and I was going to see May travel through Hoenn! And that excitement plummeted like a rock when I saw Ash and Pikachu. I stuck with it as I did like the Hoenn region and I did like May, though DPP anime is when I officially dropped it. I did really like Dawn and the Sinnoh region, but I was just so tired of Ash. There was only so much I continue watching the show with the same lead.

Cartoon wise, AtLA of course. I enjoyed Danny Phantom. RotTMNT is my favorite of the TMNT adaptations. Amphibia I really loved. Glitch Techs I also really liked, RIP.

And atm that's all that comes to mind.

[noctilucentstorm]

Ghost Game - Some initial thoughts after the finale

Haven’t read any reactions yet, but a majority of the Digimon fandom are gonna be really upset aren’t they? 

Spoilers under the cut.

Please forgive the lack of coherence (and a lot of rambling) in places. I decided to write this before seeing other reactions as I didn’t want them to influence my thoughts, but it does mean I’m writing this before my thoughts have properly settled.  

I never wanted to set expectations for the final episode, but before it started I did have a sudden thought: “wouldn’t it be nice for this series to not end in some doomsday battle against some big bad like practically every other season?” That’s not to say GulusGammamon wasn’t a potentially society-ending threat to the Digital World, but his attitude towards Hiro and the others always seemed as if he wanted them to join him rather than kill everyone. In the finale, we end up finding out why: a multi-world-ending threat... 2000 years in the future!

I loved the differing reactions between the humans and digimon, which basically sums up this whole series.  The two worlds: human and digital are both advanced societies, but they have different rules and morals that lead to clashes when the two come into contact.  GulusGammamon, rather than being a big bad, is a digimon from another planet trying to prevent the Digital World’s destruction in the only way he knows how.  It’s through Gammamon and Hiro’s efforts that he is shown another path forward.  To me, it nicely pulls together the themes we’ve seen throughout the entire show.

Part-way through the final episode, as much as I enjoyed the clash of Gammamon and Hiro with GulusGammamon, I was a little worried the others were being side-lined. However, the team came together in a fairly subtle way against Quantumon that really summed up the show for me. The plots of each episode have been far less about overpowering enemies and more about understanding each other. Similarly, Team Lulirun persuade Quantumon to allow the worlds to co-exist not with a big fight, but by convincing her they want to make it work. After all, they’ve already shown her over the course of the series that it is possible for humans and digimon to get along. It’s a hard sell for a kid’s show about fighting monsters, but I really liked the departure compared to other seasons.  

As an aside: while some of the criticisms of the show have annoyed me, I can at least understand why many older Digimon fans have felt a bit blind-sided or disappointed with the show. Most seasons of Digimon start out one way, have a twist, and then we’re pulled along a plot-heavy ride until the finale hopefully with some character development thrown in as well. However, Ghost Game episode 13 wasn’t that twist fans were expecting, and while the creators were very upfront about the show’s expectations, past experience told fans to expect something they were never going to deliver on.

For me, though, Digimon has once again given me exactly what I needed right when I didn’t realise I wanted it.  When a lot of current shows feel like extended movies, lasting around a dozen episodes at best per season and end on some sort of cliff-hanger or continuation almost every episode (or worse, the season finale itself), I’ve enjoyed having something to watch where I don’t mind viewing spoilers (the last two episodes being the exception) and I don’t feel pressured to try and overanalyse everything on screen.  

I’ve loved watching Hiro, Gammamon, Ruli, Angoramon, and especially Kiyoshiro and Jellymon, solving mysteries together and growing as individuals and friends by coming to understand a different culture and society than their own.  I think the show has been nicely kept open for a miniseries or movie follow-up, but exploring those ideas in fanfiction sounds just as fun.

Thank you Digimon Ghost Game team!