#but I'm for sure gonna miss the motw stuff.

[fakekojimo]

Digimon Hunters #70 was a great piece of children's horror. Directed by the frequently overlooked master of that genre! Seeing how this was the only episode Yukio Kaizawa directed outside of the pilot and the finale, I was real excited to get to it and it sure as hell didn't disappoint.

I wrote about Kaizawa quite a bit on my last post about Digimon Hunters. He excels at crafting Urban Fantasy settings for kids with just a dash of horror. While he only directed a handful of episodes, his touch can still be felt throughout. With the most telling being the yokai-like rebranding the Digimon take on this season. Contrasting with the bold and in your face nature of Xros Wars-- the Digimon are always lurking in the background; adding into an underlying tension that I always adore. Love it when you feel danger just lurking around every corner. The Sagomon encounter in #56 one of my favorite moments. Just straight up good build-up and suspense.

Still, nothing on the level of Kaizawa's pilot, which is straight up one of my favorite Digimon pilots of all time! And for #70 he starts to deliver straight out to the gate.

We get a delightfully wicked cold open of two kids fucking around and finding out. The found footage framing hits all the right notes for me, it's a fun, unique and engaging way to open things up. No other previous Hunters ep got this up-front with the horror before! Love how involved the camera manipulation is too, it rapidly shaking when the kid holding it gets and the random cuts to static breaking up the flow. Fun and freaky!

The entire episode places an emphasis on digital tools much like the first person camera emulation in the cold open. Ever since Toei went digital in the 90s, Kaizawa's approach started to rely more exploiting those tools in unique ways. And while the execution can be seen as dated and a little janky now, he's got the skills to still make striking imagery from it. Dude's a legend at Toei for a good reason!

If the cold open wasn't enough, the episode starts off with Tagiru and Yuu. No Taiki! Immediately clueing the viewer in on this episode being cut from a different cloth, since the trio has always been front and center in every ep in some capacity (Though #68 is a slight exception. It's another great ep that has it's own feel too!) Along with the more procedural slant with trying to uncover the mystery behind the "haunted phonebooth" with the new rando kid of the week, this ep feels like an episode of Ghost Game that aired a decade early. And I mean it in the best way.

Even outside of the intro, Kaizawa gets real involved with the camera and digital tools in ways most episodes usually don't. This simple pan up of the phone booth is enhanced by the fisheye effect. Letting the viewer know of it's "haunted nature."

Or the sudden jerk back right in the middle of what was assumed to be a smooth pan out. A small enough jolt to keep the viewers on their toes right where the spook factor ramps up.

Kaizawa really starts to get into his element once they're inside with his sinister staging. Distorted layouts abound, small cracks of light peering out into the pitch black darkness, striking shadows, characters desperately clawing at the walls to get out... Definitely the highlight for me!

Fortunately we have Airu to break up the tension. Look how happy she is to be here.

Anyways, another cool thing about this ep is the visual recontextualization of established elements. The camera emulation from the cold open is reused; showing that the tables have turned. Now it's a Digimon watching us like we're the ghosts. The camera lingers uninterrupted for much longer, adding to that feeling of invasiveness.

But also that recontextualization is used in lighter ways as well. The ominous silhouetted feature that appears throughout the episode is revealed to be... just a trapped Patamon.

And the framing surrounding the telephone booth is less ominous. Compare to the use of dark gradients at the start to the lack of them by the end.

Of course the call from the phone being changed from a meek "Help.." to a kind "Thank you.." being the icing on the cake. An extremely cute note to close out on things.

Toei shows are economical by design. Even the most crazy ass One Piece cuts that go viral on Twitter every other week are still apart of episodes that haven't strayed far from that initial model. Digimon's no different (In some cases it even gets the shorter end of the stick) but it's nice to be reminded that you can still craft memorable and engaging episodes of anime without having to turn into a full-on sakugafest. Alot of big episodes of anime feel compromised on some level, whether it's a young animator getting the chance to direct for the first time, or someone more experienced letting things grow wildly out of scope... It leads to a fractured final product that leaves me wondering what could've been. As the industry continues to become more and more fractured due to a near endless amount of issues, there's fun in appreciating the small scope stuff. I don't need 50000 drawings to blow my mind. Sometimes, I just want a good ghost story.