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psychedelic-ink · 2 years

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Watercolor Eyes ║ Santiago "Pope" Garcia

a/n: this fic is directly inspired by @prolix-yuy 's absolutely gorgeous series something new I can't recommend this series enough it was such a joy to read, and after reading her headcanons about the other sw! triple frontier boys I couldn't stop thinking of santi <33 thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this world and write for it! I hope you enjoy 💕

and special thank to my bby @inklore who supports me always and beta'd this fic for me, ilysm 💖

pairing: santiago "pope" garcia x fem!reader

genre: smut with little plot, minors dni

word count: 7k

summary: after another day of lack of customers and loneliness, you come across a flyer that might grant you a night of relief and pleasure.

warnings: sex worker!santi, oral (receiving & first time), dirty talking, bdsm dynamics, soft dom!santi, sub!reader, reader showing brat tendencies, brat tamer!santi, piv, use of a condom, squirting, the use of sir, swearing, orgasm denial/cumming on command, soft bondage, dry humping, teasing, begging, aftercare

Watercolor Eyes Masterlist

The neon letters shine loud and bright within the night: Cafe Watercolor. Seeing the pink sign used to make you smile, it was a sign that represented your dreams, your hopes, your future. Now it only symbolizes the harsh truth of reality. You’re a failure. Unable to get your small bakery cafe off the ground. You sit behind the counter, head propped up with your elbow as you look outside with a bored gaze. The air conditioning hisses, mixing with the coffee shop playlist you prepared the day before you opened up your little cafe. The tunes of a melancholic piano overlaps the sound of the air conditioner, the vocals of “The head and the heart” filling the small space.

Summers in Florida consist of humidity, rain and the burning sun. To you, it’s hell on heart. But as someone who always felt more focused with the pitter patters of raindrops, it wasn’t that bad. With a broken sigh, you watch a couple, hand in hand, soaked to the marrow, running to the bus stop. The pouring rain should’ve been any coffee shop owners bread and butter, people searched for shelter, the scent of coffee and sweets was always enticing enough to beckon them inside. Sadly, they either ran past the shop, much similarly to the couple from before, or took shelter at the coffee shop right across from you. It was brighter, bigger, and had all of those fancy new drinks. Right now your menu is limited, you focus on the baking aspect more, there lays your true passion, but you enjoyed a good cup of coffee as well so you threw that into the mix too.

And you know it’s good coffee. Those who bothered to enter would be astounded by the rich flavors and the free baked goods you threw in. You just need them to take one bite. After that they came again and again.

But a couple of regulars isn’t enough to keep your business afloat, not in this economy.

You could only hire two baristas, and since they were underpaid grad students, you didn’t blame them for not wanting to stick their neck out for the small shop. They were already juggling two other jobs.

Your family warned you; Don’t do it, they had said, You didn’t waste years of study just to open a coffee shop. Since you were a kid they wanted you to delve into the cruel world of academia. You studied archaeology, it was fun. Obviously. Who wouldn’t like to dig and unravel the remnants of a ruined civilization? But your heart always ached for something else. You didn’t want to waste your life competing with friends and others, you didn’t enjoy your classmates viewing you as a threat just because you got a good grade. You hated always having to look over your shoulder, worrying if the person that smiled at you genuinely meant it or not. It was chaotic, stress inducing. The job itself was fun, but the backstage wasn’t.

So you quit right after finishing grad school. Sure, maybe you should’ve stuck it to your parents and quit sooner, but you assumed if you actually finished studying they would finally let you go.

Of course they didn’t.

Shaking your head, you force yourself to stand up. You might as well close up shop. You don’t need your electricity bill to get even higher. Heart broken, you walk to the large window, the day's special baked goods written on the window. You almost cry when you wipe it off the board, you worked really hard on those croissants, you will have to take them home, again. At least your neighbors were happy about the free desserts.

The rain had stopped. Lonely water drops sliding down the glass, you see that the couple is still waiting for their bus. When the guy leaned in for a kiss, laughing and wet, your heart breaks a little. How long has it been since your last date? When has anyone ever looked at you like that? No one, that’s who. You had one lousy boyfriend and a couple of bad dates, after graduating your whole love and effort had gone into the shop. Needless to say you didn’t have much time to scroll the endless fuckboys of Tinder.

Tearing your gaze away from the couple’s private moment, you turn off the neon light, and push back the misplaced chairs. The silver lining is that you don’t have to do much in terms of cleaning. You’ll wipe the counter, pull out the plugs just in case, and that’ll be it. You already left the kitchen spotless after baking, which you’re glad for since now you can just go home.

Your chest heaves as you pick off the tray of croissants and package them to take to your neighbors. It's like this every night, your need to cry doubling tenfold whenever you take something you make home. You know they’re good. You just need people to give you a chance. You grab the last croissant for yourself and bite into it, dinner is settled. As you chew you moan at the taste of vanilla custard and the berry glaze, the flaky pastry crumbles, it gets on your clothes, sticks to the roof of your mouth. With the back of your hand you wipe your mouth and pat yourself down. Now you can leave.

Before leaving you take one last look, the passing cars casted their light inside, moving along and leaving the shop in darkness once more. Just like you. But it won’t last like this for long. It can’t. You won’t allow it.

Locking, and checking by rattling the door, you stuff the keys into your pockets and head home. The rain has faded but it’s still quite windy. The leaves of palm trees echoe and you see the remnants of flyers ghosting across the pavement. You see the silhouette of your bus, your steps pick up and when you realize you’re about to miss it, you run–

You’ve barely taken a couple of long strides before something sticks to your face, you collapse on the wet ground, mud and water seeping into your clothes as pain spreads across your chest.

Immediately upon getting up you see that the bus is gone, disappeared into the wind.

“Shit!” ignoring the state of your clothes you stomp your feet like a child throwing a tantrum. You viciously tear the piece of paper that led to your demise and glare at it. “Fucking– I’m going to curse the company who made this damn…flyer,”

Your eyebrows rise with curiosity. Looking down, you see a glossy flyer between your fingertips, or rather the remnants of it. The half bottom rips and falls to the concrete with a loud splat. However, the thing that piques your interest is that this particular flyer doesn’t belong to a company. It’s for a very specific service provided for lonely people like you. You drag your gaze across the men that decorate the poster, all of them looking very very handsome. It’s been a while since the color had faded from the flyer but you assume it’s from the sudden rain pour.

You should really just throw the poster away, walk your sweet ass to the bus stop and head home.

Instead, your eyes gaze at the number written in a bold font. Lucky you that the number was written on the top part of the flyer and not the bottom. Before the other bus arrives, you hurriedly pull out your phone, also soaked from the fall, and type the number, cursing every time your phone gets the number confused due to your wet fingers.

When you finally succeed in putting the numbers in, you shove the flyer into your bag to throw out for later and very carefully make your way to the bus stop.

You’ve been staring at your phone for about an hour.

You’d taken a brisk shower, gave the rest of the croissants to your neighbors, in which they thanked you, inviting you in and after dodging that bullet, you finally managed to relax on the couch.

However, what you’re doing isn’t really relaxing.

The black written numbers start to shake, your eyes stinging from staring at the screen for too long. Are you really going to do this? Are you really so lonely that you need to pay someone to spend time with you? Well yes actually, you are. It’s not like you’re shameful about asking for a service, a couple of your friends had done it, it’s just that you didn’t really know what to say when you called. Did you just say what you want? Do you need to ask for a specific man? Will it be safe? What if you get an STD among everything else?

With a loud groan, you throw your head back and let your hand fall to your lap. This is iditoic. You’re idiotic. It’s just a simple call. If whoever is on the other line sounds shady you can just hang up and pretend this never happened. Yeah. That’s it. It’s just a phone call. They can’t see you. Or force you to continue to talk. You have the power of the red button, you’ll be alright.

With a sudden surge of bravery, you raise your head and make the call. You quickly put it on speaker and anxiously listen to it ring. It feels like an eternity until someone finally picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

Oh shit. Shit shit shit– The voice that comes from the other line actually sounds good, honestly you were expecting it to be a pervert heavily breathing down the line but this is a very pleasant surprise.

When the honey-like voice speaks again, he sounds amused, as if you’re the funniest thing that happened to him all day.

“I can hear you breathing, you know? I won’t bite, promise,” he chuckles, breathy and airy. “I mean, unless that’s what you’re asking for,”

“Y-Yeah sorry,” you stumble with your words. Squeezing your eyes shut, you try to remember the name of the place. “Is…this Pope’s?”

“It is and I’m Santiago, but since you sound so sweet you can just call me Santi,”

Your body heats up at his words, this is probably the most flirtatious thing anyone has said to you in months, even if technically he’s just saying that because you’re a potential customer. Your thumb rubs the corner of the smooth surface of the phone, you don’t know what to say next.

“Sorry, I don’t really know what to say,”

“That’s alright, I have all the time in the world,”

You relax at the playful tint of his voice, a soft smile ghosts across your lips.

“Do you really?”

“Well no, but you can still take your time. I can also ask you some questions to ease you in?”

“Sure?”

You hate how unsure you sound of yourself, but also you don’t think you can hide it. You genuinely feel lost, mind wandering about how others acted during these calls, you bet they knew what they wanted. They most certainly aren’t like you, causing problems by being shy and calling without looking up what to say beforehand. Damn, you really should’ve googled it first. You’re positive you can find a wikihow article about this.

“Okay let’s start out easy then, why did you call Pope’s?”

“For…company,”

“Just for that?”

You can see his smile through his voice, you bet he has an amazing one. You suck in a breath, chest puffing up as you ponder over what your next sentence should be.

“No, I would like…you know,” closing your eyes, you swallow. “Sex,”

You half expect him to laugh but he doesn’t, a soft hum echoes and he follows up with another question.

“Alright, the follow up questions might be a bit awkward but I need to ask–”

“Awkward?”

Your panicked tone seeps through the line and reaches Santi’s ear drums.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be holding your hand through it all, cariño. They’re mostly questions about your medical history,”

You nod then remembering he can’t see you quickly add, “Of course, thank you, Santi,”

When the questions are done, you check your phone only to see that an hour has already passed, much to your surprise, it felt shorter than that. Santi had asked you everything. Even things you never would’ve thought about asking a partner. And honestly it relieved you that he was so detailed with the background checks, just by his voice you can tell that he cares about what he does and for both parties concerned. It was nice. It reminds you a bit about yourself and your own work ethics.

“Okay I think that’s everything,” he states. “Do you want to continue with this?”

The uncertainty you feel comes rushing back, an encore, if you will.

“Yeah, I do. I-If everything's good,”

“Everything’s perfect,” you hear the gentle tapping of a pen. “And I think I already have the perfect match for you. Where are you? An otel?”

“Uh…” you look around your apartment. “I’m actually at my apartment…will that be a problem?”

“If it’s not a problem for you it’s not a problem for us,” he answers, voice a bit more timid than before. “But I will need an address, but if that’s going to be an issue I can look up nearby motels if you tell me which part of the city you’re in?”

“N-No, it’s fine,”

As you give out your address the red alarms in your brain screeches at you. It’s loud and mind numbing. Rightfully so. Santi tells you that it’ll take about half an hour for them to arrive and he hangs up, when he does, what you’ve just done dawns on you. You gave your address… to a stranger on the phone. And not just any address, your home address. You really are fucking stupid.

You could’ve at least taken up Santi’s offer to find you a motel nearby, this is your fucking home.

“Okay, you’ll get through this. Just deep breaths, take deep breaths…”

Placing a hand on your chest, you inhale and exhale about five to ten times. Your chest rises under your palm, you can feel your heartbeat. Everything will be alright. You have a pan that’s perfect for smacking people, better yet you have rolling pins of all sizes. You’ll be fine. You’ll be okay.

You get up and head to the bedroom, it’s a mess, sadly your home didn’t get the same squeaky treatment as your shop.

Everything will be okay.

The doorbell rings and your heart nearly jumps out of your throat. After tidying up your room, and yourself; you shaved with hurry, then put on a bra and underwear that matched in color. It’s the little things. You had a couple of toys you enjoyed, if he failed the two of you could always use those. A single woman has needs after all, and after checking the batteries you placed them into the drawer of your bedside table.

Another ring follows and you hurry to the door. You might be wearing matching underwear but other than that you hadn’t put on anything fancy; your favorite oversize shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants.

Clearing your throat, you call out to the person waiting on the other side.

“Who is it?”

“Pope’s,”

This is actually happening. He’s actually here, and not a minute late, or early.

You open the door with trembling hands, the man on the other side doesn’t move an inch as you observe him, he only smiles, shooting you a quick nod and a playful wink. He stays there until you fully open the door, even then he doesn’t budge, he waits patiently while your curious gaze rakes his body. His eyes are as rich as the coffee you brew, lashes long, soft looking. You see a bit of gray mixed in his dark hair, the corners of his eyes creasing as he smiles at you, lips lush, made for kissing and pleasuring another. For a moment you want to reach out and drag your fingers across his jawline, you wonder if it can actually cut into your skin. His five o’clock shadow will definitely chafe between your thighs and the phantom of the feeling is enough to have your insides clench. The veins peeking above his skin meanders down into his black fitted shirt, you want to see more.

He clears his throat, smile widening into a grin.

“Can I come in?”

You know that voice, how could you not when you gave very detailed information about your sex life to that same smooth baritone.

“Santi?”

You might be imagining it, but you think his eyes sparkle when you recognize him. His excitement makes your lips break out into a smile.

“The one and only,”

Heart thrumming madly in your chest, you move out of the way. He continues to wait, an eyebrow raised as he chews on his bottom lip, he looks you up and down. What was he waiting for? Tilting your head, you answer his gleaming gaze with your confused one. As an answer, he raises both eyebrows, smiles and tilts his head to the other side.

Oh. OH.

He’s waiting for you to verbally invite him in.

“C-Come in,”

His smile never fading, he takes one long stride into your apartment. It’s elegant, graceful, and you can’t stop staring.

Santi quickly does a once over of your home as he toes off his shoes. Oddly enough, it feels like him being there completes a picture. Maybe it’s because you’ve been lonely for so long but it just seems like he belongs. You push the door as he turns to look at you, if he smiles at you any longer you might melt into a puddle.

“Should we…” your gaze falls to the floor, and with that see his socked feet; black with colorful polka dots. “Nice socks,”

“Thanks,” he grins. “It was a gift from a close friend,”

“You must really like socks then,”

“Among other things,”

His lashes flutter, eyes soft like clouds. It takes every ounce of your self control not to swoon, he feels like he ripped a whole out of your dreams and escaped.

“So, bedroom?”

Your voice gives away how nervous you are, you almost breathe out a sigh of relief when Santi shakes his head. You still have no idea what to do. And you already feel vulnerable as it is, you’d probably bust a vein if you also stripped in front of him.

“Loving the enthusiasm but maybe we should talk a bit first,” his eyes linger on the couch. “I still don’t know what you want yet,”

He sits and you follow his trail, sitting on the armchair across from the couch.

“I thought I already said it on the phone,” you whine, thoughts swirling. “Please don’t make me say it again, I’m already plenty embarrassed,”

“Don’t be,” his stern tone takes you by surprise, he leans, arms resting above his knees as he stares you directly in the eyes. “There’s no reason for you to be embarrassed, it’s completely normal,”

“Really?”

Santi grins, eyes sparkling.

“If it wasn’t Pope’s would be closed already,”

“I guess you’re right,” a faint chuckle falls from your lips and upon hearing the sound he leans back, getting more comfortable. “So what do you want to know?”

“Things you enjoy during intercourse,” he thoughtfully rubs his chin. “Kinks, fetishes, anything you can think of. If you want to roleplay or not, anything,”

“Anything?”

“Well, there are a couple of things I say no to but I don’t think you’re going to say any of them, but if you do I’ll let you know,”

He winks and your lungs nearly explode. You rapidly blink at him, lowering your gaze, you think about his question. In terms of kinks you actually hadn’t tried out many, you’re curious about a lot of things but never knew how to ask for them. Exhaling, you fiddle with your fingers and look up, your cheeks aflame.

“I always wanted to try…BDSM stuff but I don’t know if I’ll actually like it,”

This seems to spike his interest, the curve of his eyebrow reaches all the way to his hairline, lips curling mischievously.

“Have you tried anything before? Bondage, blindfold, or whatever?”

“Uh…not really,” you nervously chew your bottom lip, legs squeezing together. “I never really brought it up before and my ex, well, he didn’t seem to be that interested. He tried to finger me, well not really, just attempted to rub my clit from over…my underwear, it kinda hurt actually, hated it. It's fine when I do it but maybe I just don't like it when others do it. So I’m not sure if I’ll even like the things I think about,”

“Sounds like an asshole,”

Santi’s sudden change in demeanor takes you by surprise. He seems actually angry, but also, slightly surprised by your sudden burst of honesty. Maybe you shouldn’t have said anything. You didn’t want to overshare, or upset him. Before you can apologize he cuts you off.

“We can try the things you’re curious about, we’ll start slow, obviously, and establish a safeword,” he looks you up and down. “Do you know what a safeword is?”

“I do,”

“Good girl,”

Your heart skips a beat or two, a gasp parting your lips, you stare at him wide-eyed. He glows at your reaction, sucking in his bottom lip, he brings his perfect teeth on top of it.

“You like that?”

You nod.

“Alright, I’ll let you pick the safeword,”

“How about….” your eyes drag back to his feet. “Socks?”

He snorts, and you grin, “Socks? You’re unbelievable, how about the word for slowing down?”

“Curtain,”

Turning his head, he looks at the dark red curtains you own, then shrugs.

“Fine by me. Do you have any idea what you want to try?”

“Not really…sorry,”

“You don’t need to apologize,” his smile grows soft and it seems like he wants to reach out to you but decides against it at the last minute. “What is it that sparked your interest?”

You shrug, “I don’t know– I guess the idea of someone taking care of me, having control and knowing what’s best for me. I just, don’t really want to think, if that makes sense–”

“Loud and clear. I have a general idea of what you need, unless you have anything specific in mind?”

When he shoots you a questioning gaze, you shake your head and he nods.

“Okay then, we can get started, if you’re ready,”

When he gets up and extends a hand, you’re sweating buckets, beads of perspiration coating your skin. You look up to see his calm expression, a soft smile and adoring eyes, you take the offered limb and lead him to the bedroom.

Your stomach still churns with anxiety but as his fingers squeezes around yours, you know that he’s got you.

“Strip and lay on the bed,”

You didn’t expect the mood to change so suddenly. His harsh tone sends a shiver down your spine, wetness spreading between your legs. While he isn’t looking at you, Santi starts to unbutton his shirt, and when he notices you’re frozen with a slight tremor to your hands, he walks up to you and cups your cheeks. You lean into his touch, heart stammering as you close your eyes.

His lips find yours. It’s tender, soft and when he licks your mouth for permission, you greedily open wide for him. A moan seeps into the kiss, taking the opportunity your open mouth provides, he licks your tongue, teeth nipping at your bottom lip. Your heart swells. It’s been so long since you’ve been kissed, and it never felt like this. Santi pulls away, lips glistening and eyes full of understanding.

“Do you still want to do this?”

You breathe out, “Yes,”

“What’s your safe word?”

“Socks,”

He can’t help the way a giggle rattles his chest, the melody reaching your ears. Leaning in, Santi playfully rubs his nose against yours.

“Strip for me then,” he hums. “I need to rectify a wrong,”

You want to ask what he means by that, but deciding that you’ll find out soon enough, you head to the bed, leaving a trail of clothes in your wake. Still feeling a bit self conscious, you leave your underwear and bra on. You also have an ulterior motive, you secretly want him to be the one to remove the last articles of clothing. You seem to get your message across. He licks his lips, left only in his boxer shorts, he crawls between your legs.

You don’t know what to expect when he slides your underwear down your legs and throws it to the floor. You certainly don’t know what to expect when his mouth inches closer to your begging heat, wet and wanting.

You’ll never forget the moment his tongue languidly slides between your folds.

“Oh fuck–”

Your back arches, mind and body confused, your fingers clutch the sheets. His lips close around your folds, tongue deep inside as his hands steady your thrashing. You barely hear him letting out a satisfied hum, the vibrations shooting a jolt of pleasure throughout your body. It’s mind numbing. Amazing. His tongue is pure sin, soft and velvety. You’re lowkey pissed this is the first time you’re feeling so good. Santi relentlessly mouths at your core, lapping up every ounce of slick that makes its way out of you. Your finger finds the back of his head, pulling at the soft curls. He parts for you and you whine, hips wiggling up as you beg for him to go on.

Disapproving, Santi clicks his tongue. He peels your hand away from his head, and sends you a warnful gaze.

“Behave,”

“Y-Yes–” between your lustful haze you gasp out a word you don’t expect. “–Sir,”

You have no idea where that came from but he doesn’t question it, instead, when you pull your hand back up to your hip, he breathes out a kiss into your inner thigh. He sucks in your clit and flicks his tongue, you let out a sharp exhale, eyes squeezing shut. It’s only been what, ten minutes? You’re about to cum all over him.

He looks up at you with half lidded eyes, you feel him smiling as he flattens the wet muscle, dragging it around the sensitive bundle of nerves. However, nothing prepares you for his fingers. Your whole body jolts when he traces your entrance with two thick digits, playfully pushing only the tip in. Before you know it, your hand is buried deep in his hair once again.

This time Santi yanks it away, and before you know it his face is hovering an inch above from yours, both your hands pinned above your head, his lips damp and swollen. You swallow upon seeing the annoyance lingering in his eyes, legs trembling with heat building between them.

“Didn’t I just say to behave?” he snarls, pupils dilated.

Something mischievous rolls in your gut, with a sudden surge of bravery, you challenge his angry gaze with your own.

“So? What are you going to do about it?”

It’s so minimal, the flare you see in his eyes, slightly widening. If you’d blinked, you would’ve missed it.

“Don’t tempt me, cariño,” he leans closer, breath ghosting across your burning skin. “Are you sure you want to play this game?”

A moment of pause. He’s giving you a moment to object, to use the safeword. You don’t. Instead, you wiggle your arms, trying to peel away from his iron grasp. His lips twist into a devious smirk, the tip of his tongue darting out to touch the edge of his teeth.

“Alright, let’s play then,”

The air is forcibly pushed out of your lungs when you find yourself flipped over to your stomach. His hands moving across your body, you find your knees tucked under your thighs, hands held behind your back. He shifts behind you, holding your wrists with one hand, he leans off of the bed and scoops something off the floor. You feel the soft fabric of his shirt wrapping around your wrists, keeping them completely in place.

Santi’s chest is flushed against your back when he whispers in your ear.

“Look at you, all nicely wrapped, the perfect present,”

You struggle against the binds, a groan rattling in your chest as you figure you won’t be getting out of them anytime soon. With a huff, you bury your face into the pillows.

“Not fair,” your voice comes muffled. “It’s not my fault if it feels good, it’s my first time,”

He coos, and rubs the small of your back, “I know, baby. I know. And that’s precisely why I need you to stay put,”

His sinful mouth finds you again. Slurps and groans fill the bedroom. You feel incredibly self conscious as he parts your cheeks but it all fades away with his tongue plunging deep into your core. With two fingers, he draws quick, small circles around your clit, making your body sing with pleasure. Turning your head, you attempt to breathe in a bit of oxygen, but all of it leaves you at the same time when you moan out his name, again and again and again.

“Fuck– Fuck, Santi…” you whine, pushing into him. A warning growl rips from his throat. “S-Sorry it just feels,” you gasp. “It feels so good, I-I think I’m gonna actually cum,”

Spit dribbles from the corners of your lips and wets the pillow underneath. You want to look at him, watch him eat you out like a starved man but you can’t. The fog lifts only for a moment when he stops, only to press his lips into you again, the bed begins to sway, only a bit, a rocking sensation if you will. You attempt to mouth out a question, but cry out instead.

“Not yet,” he rasps into you, the rocking of the bed picks up. “Wait for me a bit more baby, just a bit more,”

Wait for him? What– Wait–

“Are you–” you’re cut off by your own moan caused by an especially harsh pinch on your abused clit. The pain makes you tingle with pleasure, eyes rolling back, you forget your question. You start to beg. “Please, sir, please let me cum– I need to cum, please please please,”

“Hold it in,”

The melodic tone of his voice only electrifies you. Tears build up in your eyes as your cunt flutters around him, slick dripping down your thighs. The pleasure buzzes in your ears, body screaming for you to cum, you’re trying to hold it back, you’re trying to be good, his good girl. Fuck–

“Cum. Now.”

Before you can even process the words, your body obeys.

It’s blinding. Breath stopping. Your body tenses, cunt gushing around his tongue and fingers. Your arms forces against the binds made of his shirt, cloth digging into your skin as your body starts to spasm. Both of your moans mix together, composing the most beautiful melody you’ve ever heard. Santi’s eccentric pace becomes slow, sensual. Tongue lazily lapping up everything you have to offer, he eases you down from the high of your ecstasy. You take heavy breaths, head spinning, You breathe out a languid moan, muscles still throbbing with the buzz of pleasure.

Santi pulls away and you drop to the side, luckily you’re too gone to actually feel embarrassed from falling. You hear his low hum of a chuckle as he crawls closer to you, he unties his shirt from your wrists and gently kneads your biceps.

“Are you alright?”

“Y-Yeah,”

You know that this is just service he provides, but you can’t help but reach out to him, he obliges with a smile and nestles between your arms, kissing your neck gently. A broken sigh falls from your damp lips, he huddles closer, body snug against your own. Mimicking him, you come closer too, your bare thigh grazing against his clothed cock. You still and he looks up to you, brows knitted together. His confusion grows when a grin spreads across your face.

“Did you cum?” you ask, eyes bright and shiny.

He clears his throat, lips curling up into an amused smile. Leaning in, he teases your earlobe with his tongue.

“I might’ve,”

“Never would have pegged you as someone to be this quick,” you tease, hand sliding between your bodies, you cup his cock, a subtle moan leaving you as you feel how wet he is. “Not that I’m complaining. It’s hot as hell,”

“Don’t get cocky,”

He crashes your lips together, large hands cupping your chest and pulling you even closer against the firm frame of his body. His fingers tease your nipples, rolling and pulling them. Your skin tingles, and you whine into the kiss, hips grinding against him. Santi’s lips never leave your own as he lifts himself and pulls you underneath. Your palm still snug against his length, you feel him hardening again.

Surprised, you break the kiss, a heavy laughter trembling in your chest. With a wide smile, he grins.

“Told you,”

“You’re full of surprises,”

“I am,” he stops for a moment, looking to the side, he looks back at you, seemingly unsure. “Do you want to continue? We can stop if you want to, or if you feel worn out, ”

“Oh, I’m definitely good for round two,” you purr, brushing your lips against his. “Make me feel whole again,”

“Fuck, alright– Let me go get a condom really quick,”

Santi gets up and you realize that you haven’t had the time to properly observe his temple of a body. His back muscles flex as he dips down and grabs his pants, hurriedly searching the pockets for that colorful piece of packaging. The boxers he wears hugs his ass, leaving little imagination to the eye, you’re certain Santi would look good in everything, but right now you think he looks the best naked. He turns on his heel, his chest firm, a bit of fat around his belly but still defined. Eyes going lower, you see his fully erect cock, the darkened tip peeking out of his waistband. You bite the inside of your cheek as you inside clench around nothing, you can’t wait for him to fill you up.

Before you know it, Santi’s between your legs again, rolling the condom down his impressive length. He’s so thick, thicker than you imagined he would be. Santi notices your gaze, lips playfully pulling up.

“You think you can take me baby girl? Where’s that confidence from before?”

“O-Oh…it’s still there just a bit,” you clear your throat. “Shocked,”

“Word?”

“Socks,”

“Good girl,”

Purring like a cat, you part your arms, allowing him to bury his face into the crook of your neck as he slants himself between your thighs. You adore feeling him this close, his warmth making your heart stutter. He nudges your entrance, slowly pushing in. Your whimpers spiral into moans and he drowns out the noises by claiming your lips. The stretch is addictive, the tingle of being spread wide by someone who knows what he’s doing makes your eyes roll back. Santi inhales you as he pulls back, eyes searching your face. You flutter around him, with the mere sensation of his cock, you grind your hips.

“You good?”

“Yeah,”

“Can I move?”

“Please, sir,”

He growls into your skin, the vibration seeping into your body, it makes you tremble as well. When Santi starts to move, all you can do is hold on to him, nails biting into his skin as he slides in and out of you with precision. He breathes raggedly into your flesh, cock hitting your deepest parts with every thrust. You feel as if you can’t control your body, it arches, bends, curls but your brain is completely mush, only pleasure ringing inside. With your moans and whines growing in volume, Santi starts to slam his hips, the sound of skin slapping against skin spurs you on further. You scream his name, breathing and panting curse words without knowing. Your heart swells, he makes you feel so good. His thrusts, deep, lasting. You can’t breathe, eyes squeezed shut as the bed rocks into the wall. Your cunt clenched around him, the coil inside you tightens, ready to burst but he’s still going. It feels like he can go on like this for hours. Fuck–

You hug him tighter, if possible, teeth finding his shoulder, you bite into him. You don’t even know where you are anymore. All you can feel is him. His scent, his body, his sounds. Nothing else.

“Fuck fuck– Santi– ‘Love you–”

Your eyes shoot wide open, you see him staring at you, he doesn’t look mad, or weirded out. But still, the panic overwhelms the pleasure, you flail, tears quickly building in your eyes.

“You love me?” he mutters, one eyebrow elegantly raised.

“S-Sorry, I didn’t mean to– I didn’t–”

Santi doesn’t slow down, in fact his hips speed up. He sees your glossy eyes and leans to kiss them both, you feel the throb of his cock, and another moan quickly replaces your frantic apologies.

“It’s okay,” he reassures you, mouthing the words into your cheek. “It’s normal. Say whatever you want, it only means that I’m making you feel good. You’re not the only one,”

Your heart feels like it might stop at any moment, “I’m not?”

“No,” he leaves a trail of open mouthed kisses as he dips between your breasts. He mouths against them, tongue playfully licking the salt of your skin. “So just let go,”

And you do just that.

Letting your head fall back, you revel at the way he draws a stiff nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling around. Your chest heaves with his every shattering thrust, his hand slides between your wet bodies and finds your clit. He rolls the sensitive nub between his fingers. Hallowing his cheeks, he grazes his teeth around your nipple, you chant his name, a string of curses following right after. You have no idea what else you might be saying, you might’ve asked his hand in marriage at this point but you don’t care. You let go. You forget the shop, the insecurities, the loneliness and you just feel.

It doesn’t take Santi long to wind you up, dangling you off the edge, the heat builds and builds, so much so that it feels like it’s burning. Something besides pleasure swells inside you, something’s coming, you bite back your moans, and slap his back.

“What is it?” he pants, voice dripping with lust but still full of concern. “Do you want to use the safeword?”

You furiously shake your head, your lips part with a gasp.

“It’s– I’m going to cum but– It’s too much, I’m–”

He presses his lips into your ear, you listen to his breathing, steady and slow, the slide of his cock and move of his fingers rips another groan from you.

“Let go,”

Your cunt gushes around him like it never has before, it’s more intense than the first time, it makes you cry, beg. The squelching becomes louder, you’re still coming. He sings a moan into your skin, your cunt throbs at the sound of his voice, it reminds you of the caramel you make. Santi’s movements slow, fast thrust shifting into soft rolls of his hips. Your breath hitches every time his pelvis grazes against your sensitive clit. He pulls you from your dazed state with a soft kiss, both hands coming to lay on each side of your face, thumbs stroking lovingly.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you inhale a deep breath. “Did…did you?”

A soft chuckle vibrates across your lips, he nuzzles your nose. “I did,”

You fight the urge to call him back when he pulls away, you haven’t realized how secure you felt under his weight. However, you really need to initiate a war against your inner demons when he lifts himself off of the bed. Carefully removing the condom, he ties the end into a knot and turns to you.

“Bathroom?”

“First door on the left,”

You lay back down as he leaves, hands and arms sprawled above the sheets. Your mind begins to clear, kind of, closing your eyes you can still feel how he felt plowing into you. The fact this is a service is both a pro and a con. A con, because he can’t stay. A pro, because you can call him and ask him over anytime you want to. Well, not really. Maybe once a month, all your money goes to the shop and rent, you wouldn’t be able to hire him.

You’re surprised at his return, his right hand holding a wet washcloth and the other holding a glass of water. The bed dips under his weight and he grins at your confusion, the towel gently cleaning the mess between your legs.

“What? Did you think I just left?”

“I didn’t,” he gives you a look of disbelief and you giggle. “I didn’t really!”

“Good,” his eyes scan your body, observing every patch of skin. “Does anywhere particularly hurt? Aches?”

“No,”

“How do you feel? Mentally?”

“That’s good too, feel very light,”

You don’t miss the way he hisses out a breath of relief, “Great,” he checks the watch you hadn’t realized he’s been wearing. “We still have ten minutes,”

Suddenly you can hear the imaginary clock ticking, maybe you weren’t alright after all.

“Cuddle?”

His smile is wide, kind, soft. You swear you melt into the sheets. Letting the used towel fall to the floor, he lays next to you and pulls you into his chest. You listen to his heartbeat, steady, safe.

“And you thought that you wouldn’t like it when others did it,” he chimes gleefully, quoting you when you opened up about your bad experience with your ex. “It looked like you enjoyed my fingers just fine,”

The soft baritone of his voice soothes you, your eyes flutter close, a pleased hum parting from your lips.

“I did,” you smile into his chest. “Thank you, this was just what I needed,”

“It was my pleasure, cariño. Literally.”

The last thing you feel is his hand slowly dragging across your body, fingers rubbing your worn out wrists.

Best money you’ve ever spent.

a/n: to be notified of future work follow @psychedeliclibrary and turn on notifs 💕

#santiago garcia x reader #santiago garcia x you #santiago pope gracia x you #santi x reader frankie #santiago garcia #sw!pope #triple frontier fic #triple frontier fanfiction #santiago garcia fanfiction #santiago garcis x fem!reader #triple frontier x reader #triple frontier fanfic #oscar isaac characters

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tillythemagpie · 2 years

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“The Moon has kissed you.”: An analysis into the relationship of Renamon and Impmon from Digimon Tamers, why it possibly has sound basis in the canon, and why they could possibly be one the most layered relationships in all of the Digimon franchise. [PART 1]

PART 2 HERE

PART 3 HERE

Well, this project sounds ambitious, but I’m ready for it!

I’ve been a fan of Digimon for years, since I was small, if I’m allowed to speak with honesty, I’ve done it all. Seen the fandom, seen the ships, all good and well. However one couple has always intrigued me, and yet I’ve felt the fandom has either not appreciated them well enough or mischaracterized them. I’ve always been intrigued about their relationship, and I feel they have a little more in common than what sees the eye at first. I saw there wasn’t much written about them out there in the internet, but I’ve been part of the fandom, noticed our passion, and thought “why not? This pairing is ripe for a good analysis”.

So that’s the project: An essay series about the characters of Renamon and Impmon from Digimon Tamers, their relationship, and why I think they have the potential to possibly be one of the most iconic couples in the series. (Yes those are some big bold statements right there, and I’ve got the receipts for them)

Before we start, a disclaimer to make my points get across and for you all have more context where I’m coming from with this analysis: I’m only familiar with Digimon till Frontier, I haven’t watched later seasons (besides Tri and Kizuna, but again, that won’t add to my analysis), but I’m only taking the Tamers season canon into account, since the writing staff and production can vary so much from season to season (and it can even vary with movies; see the Taiora mixup between Hosoda and Kakudou from Our War Game). I know about the popular couples (Taiora, Takari) in the fandom and so, but I won’t comment on them save for a small preface as to how I see that romance is portrayed in the Digimon franchise. I won’t compare RenaImp to other couples in the series; but I will compare them to common imagery for couples in other media, since their relationship is quite unique in the world of the Digimon franchise. I’m basing my analysis and interpretation off the original Japanese dub, since the form of dialogue can also add a lot to characterization that can get lost in translation. I’m not Japanese, tho, and watched the series with subtitles so forgive me if some points of information or analysis I’ve got are incorrect. While I’m taking into consideration Konaka’s online notes and some trivia I’ve read of the series, I’ll mostly add to my analysis what is presented in the finished product, because production and initial thoughts can vary a lot when creating a piece of media. Lastly, I’m only taken for hints in the original series, since hints in further media might discourage or contradict what is played out in the original series, since outside influences or new writing teams might sway the writing into another direction. Also, when I mention the main characters / mons, I’ll mainly speak of the main 3, their Mons, Culumon, and Impmon; since they have the most parallels and character development in common for the analysis to work. And while I’ll mention some bits of analysis about some other characters here and there (Ruki, Juri, Guilmon, Ai and Makoto etc), since their storylines are so interconnected, I’ll mainly focus on Renamon and Impmon, or how the other characters parallel them, cause otherwise I’ll write a whole bible I feel.

Also, I’ll be using their Japanese terms/names, to further avoid confusion.

Also, my favorite seasons are Adventure / Tamers (like most basics lol), and my favorite characters are Renamon, Impmon (naturally), Jyou, Koushiro, Ken, Daisuke, Sora, Takato, Jen, Gomamon, Guilmon, Terriermon and Tailmon. While I find some other ships cute, RenaImp is the one I’m fully and totally dedicated to.

With all that said, on with the show!

· Basic ideas about the two of them / Introduction

So if you’re reading about this meta I assume you’re familiar with Digimon Tamers (and if not…then darling this meta ain’t for you hehe), the third season of the Digimon franchise that’s beloved by the community at large for taking bold chances by experimenting with the writing. Characters dying, an introspection into trauma and family issues, the conception of the Digimon, can artificiality grow a human conscience, yes yes. We all know the show, we all praised the show, we’ve all done metas about the show. On with our main players, whom I feel have a lot of untapped potential to write meta about.

Renamon and Impmon are Digital Monsters that are part of the main cast of Digimon Tamers. They are distinguished from the rest by being the two Digimon that go through character development the most this season, something unusual by the standards of the franchise, where the character development is usually reserved for the human characters. While all the main Digimon are given a personality, only Renamon and Impmon are given arcs; so to say, to give them conflict and showcase them to display a complex world and a complex viewpoint of their relationships and of the world.

Renamon is the partner Digimon to Ruki, the only girl of the main cast (Juri’s importance comes along much later). Reading behind the scenes, the writers were asked by the producers to design a different type of female character, since sales pointed out that the “girlier” previous female leads of Digimon didn’t sell so well (I know, it’s not good, but that’s how it went, and I cannot ignore history), so the writers attempted to change the model in a way that would seem more appealing to “stereotypical” boys watching the series. Ruki was based on Trinity from the Matrix, and given a more assertive and cold personality as well, to contrast against the motherly Sora or the perky Mimi of Adventure fame. Similarly, Renamon is also contrasted greatly against the other female-coded Digimon. Whereas most female Digimon beforehand were written to be very affectionate and feminine-coded, Renamon is much more aloof and…agender, so to say (Konaka wrote that idea in his character notes, and she notes it in dialogue as well in the series- Still, the characters use she/her pronouns in the show to refer to her, so I’ll do that here to make the writing easier). At first glance you wouldn’t tell her gender, unlike the previous Digimon, who were written with certain characteristics that would make it easier for audiences to know/assume their intended gender: the very pink Piyomon or Palmon, who carries a flower in her head (flowers often associated with femininity).

Renamon at first is presented as this great warrior, cold and intimidating, utterly devoted to fighting and nothing else. Follows Ruki’s commands without hesitation, even despite the fact that initially, both of them form their comradery based on purely selfish interests. Add to the fact that she barely talks, and she’s rather bizarre when compared to almost all other main partner Digimon we’re used to; who are much chipper, friendlier and cuter. For first-time audiences, she seems rather scary.

However she is not just a destructive killer machine; she’s shown she cares, even before developing into a softer figure. In the third episode, before attacking Guilmon, she hesitates once Takato gets near the newborn creature. If she was just wild and bloodthirsty she wouldn’t hesitate about collateral victims. Just at the end of the episode, she does the same once Terriermon interrupts the fight with Guilmon, urging for him to get out of the way.

While cold and stoic; it’s shown even at the beginning that Renamon has a soft, empathetic side, even if it doesn’t show at first. For one, she’s fiercely devoted to Ruki from the start, even when their relationship is far from ideal. Once Ruki accepts to see her as an equal, she starts blooming into more of the “big sister” role in the group: the cool, mature one to Terriermon’s jokester and Guilmon’s newborn. Even so, she still manages to often be by herself most of the time, not fully ever integrating herself properly into the group. When you finish watching the show, you get the sense that Renamon, aside from fighting, is rather an introverted figure, to the point that even making friendships seems a little hard for her. The narrative implies she’s programmed to have a “servant”-like role originally with Ruki, and even though they mended their bond, there are still parts where it feels like she doesn’t feel an equal to her partner- see in the final episodes, how she eats by herself while Guilmon and Terriermon happily bond over food with the Tamers’ parents.

Incidentally, a lot of her more empathetic moments are displayed when she shows concerns over Impmon’s wellbeing, and manages to listen to his advice, more often than not. Aside from Ruki, he’s the one character she shows the most concern over the course of the series. She gets along fine with Guilmon and Terriermon, eventually, but there isn’t this level of awkward intrigue and fascination like the script implies with Impmon.

Amidst the formidable warrior lies a caring soul, hence why she evolves into Sakuyamon, a Digimon that focuses more on Defense than Attack. Some people think it’s a character regression for Ruki; but seeing how Renamon was also developed in this arc, I think her evolution further showcases her character as well. The elegance and grace and caring nature she always withheld has finally evolved into a comfortable goddess role, where she can defeat the monsters and defend her beloveds as much as her heart desires. It’s a very nice contrast, when she initially started the show in a “subservient” role, to end up basically embodying a Queen/Goddess (Perhaps a subtle nod that her Tamer is the “Digimon Queen”…Heh). Hard and soft power in the same hand; for a queen must know when to fight, and when to care for her people. She cares, she always cared, even if she might struggle to show it at first. That does not mean she must lose her agency, or anything of the like. She still participates in the many battles and defeats the villains alongside her friends.

Now, on to Impmon.

Impmon, Impmon, Impmon. The rogue Digimon. The wild card. The prankster turned hero turned reborn hero. Definitely the break-out star of the series, and the riskiest character as well in my opinion. A Digimon without a tamer, with his own character development? A Digimon that turns basically into one of the main villains at one point in the series? A lot of the series’ success depended on if Impmon ended up being an engaging character for audiences, because otherwise I feel he would’ve come off as too bratty or monstrous for us to root for. Remember, he has his own arc, he doesn’t depend on Ai and Makoto for his character to work. He’s not an “accessory” Digimon, so to say. Audiences wouldn’t have cared too much for him if there wasn’t a human partner for him to bounce off from. For the writing to depend entirely on his shoulders, without relying too much on his partners (they appear pretty much only 3-4 times in the whole series), the writers had to be confident in the character they were writing, knew he had to be engaging on his own. And it worked! How?

Well Impmon goes through an archetypical redemption arc, where he’s conscious of the decisions he makes and tries to make amends for it. But he’s not cruel, or viscous; unlike a lot of typical villains. The best way to explain Impmon’s character arc is seeing it through the eyes of a child learning what true power and responsibility is like, and turning into a man due to it. He’s more selfish and irresponsible than a true villain, which is what makes him stand out against another villain in a similar situation to him. It’s interesting to point out in Tamers that outside of the D-Reaper, none of the villains are evil for evil’s sake; they’re acting for their own preservation and self-benefit. Selfish, yes, but it’s understandable, and the Tamers get to understand Yamaki’s and the Deva’s position once they start openly talking with them.

In episode 8, we have a microcosm of one of Impmon’s main flaw: he can bite more than he can chew. He doesn’t understand that power needs responsibility to work well; otherwise it’s a hose without control. He’s proud and doesn’t admit neither his flaws, nor his true strengths. He picks and teases Devidramon until the Digimon is freed upon the city and unleashes chaos. It’s like a micro of what his actions as Beelzebumon basically amount to in episode 34 onwards. Same thing in episode 19, as well, where not wanting to accept an unfavorable aspect of himself (his weakness) almost has him die by Indiramon’s hand. Only that when he teased Devidramon he ran away, and Indiramon as well. Part of his development is well, accepting his strengths and limits, and working from that point on. Instead of running away or hiding behind pride, he finally accepts how things are, how he is, and works from the ground up. That’s part of his development, accepting what true power is, like an adult would, and using it responsibly.

Of course, tho, one thing to note is that he envies power, he craves power, he admires power. That was his goal at the start, his initial “wants”. Hence why he awed at Devidramon plummeting Guilmon in episode 8, and initially why he was drawn to Renamon first, I believe - she was at the start of the show the most powerful of the main Digimon; no wonder he felt an initial admiration towards her. But it’s a very shallow reading of power- the way a child would admire power, basically. Less about using it to help others and more for the self-benefit. Part of his arc is trying to understand what the true power is and where it lies on (he shares this arc with Renamon, basically; whereas she amended her relationship with Ruki, he got worse to the point that he almost lost himself to the Devil-figure of the show).

So, we know get a good idea of our two characters. Let’s see what their hidden meaning is.

· Preface: Love in the Digimon franchise

This entry will be short, but I’ll try to explain about how love and romance are often portrayed in the Digimon franchise for us to get a better understanding of how the possible development between Renamon and Impmon could work. I know in the Disclaimer I said I wouldn’t touch upon this, but it’s important to keep in mind to understand the analysis.

(I’m also basing this on the amazing Sorato analysis @jippy-kandi does. Seriously, go check them out, their stuff is great)

Usually, in children’s anime, unless the genre is a romance or the show is explicit in its context, the couples usually portrayed in it will have hints, symbolism and elements of foreshadowing, rather than the typical Westernized form of “open interactions and development”. Of course, some anime couples do, as well, but often times, if the romance isn’t a strong focus of the series, it’ll just have little hints and that would be enough to leave viewers pondering.

Case in point? The “main” Digimon couples, in Adventure and 02, follow this structure. Sure, we have many scenes of the couples interacting, but most of their development comes from imagery, hints, symbolism, pictures where they’re standing, etc.

Look at Yamato and Sora, for example. True, they do not share many scenes together, but you look at imagery surrounding them, and you see a connected pattern. Takeru considers Sora “family”; after Jyou, they’re the most caring towards the group, taking on a parental role towards the others; both tend to care for the others to the extent that they end up ignoring their personal needs; and in real life, often the feelings of Love and Friendship are interconnected.

Then, there’s Takeru and Hikari, who are not canon but they are hotly debated about to this day, and even if so, I do find their parallels noteworthy. They are connected not only due to shared interactions, but because of the imagery that surrounds them; their Digimon are the only Holy Beasts of the groups, Hope and Light are often associated in religious texts, Pegasus and Sphinxes are mythological creatures that originated from the same culture (Greek; though Sphinxes also have Egyptian roots), In their 02 outfits they both share yellow in their designs…

We see this as well with Takato and Juri, who are explicitly stated to have a crush on one another. Juri is the first of Takato’s friends who accepts Guilmon as he is and adores him (ea, accepting Takato’s true self), they share a Psychic Link, a Mental Connection, which in the Tamers universe, it’s only seen to exist between a Digimon and their Tamers (and later on, with another example); and later on as the story develops Takato plays the role of Gallant Knight to Juri’s Princess in the Tower-inspired arc.

There’s even a lot of suggestive imagery with other couples who are not as canon. Take Koushiro and Mimi, for instance. Before Digimon Adventure Tri, not many thought to link them together (yet they were very popular in Japanese fanzones), but the imagery of bugs and flowers is strong with them. Even Tailmon, who had little time with Wizarmon, manages to have a symbolic image associated with him; as she mourns the anniversary of his death, in 02, we see her carrying a bouquet of red roses while she’s tearfully remembering him. Red roses are often associated with love, so add to that plus her grieving = she mourns the loss of her best friend / possible first love. (This is rather incidental, but the imagery is quite strong. Plus the association Tailmon and Wizarmon have with wizards and their cat familiars was certainly done on purpose, I think…)

And well, then we see little things like characters holding on to each other and posters and the like. It’s small, but it says a lot.

So, how does this work with Renamon and Impmon? Easy. If the other characters had limited scenes but a lot of imagery, symbolism and foreshadowing, and that eventually lead to them turning into a couple/having romantic imagery, it could be easily applied to Renamon and Impmon’s relationship as well, since they also carry a lot of interactions with a lot of imagery on the side.

· Interactions

Here is where we point out both the scenes they share together and what they could mean on a larger scale.

I think it’s fascinating to point out that early on, the Renamon focused episodes also tended to feature Impmon prominently as well. It’s something that’s more prominent in the first twelve episodes, but it’s still noticeable that in each Renamon-focused episode of the first arc, Impmon also had a prominent scene in it. Of course, he did appear in other episodes with the other Digimon, but it is interesting how he serves as a sort of “guide” for Renamon early on, where she’s doubting of her strength and her relationship with Ruki.

Their first scene where they meet is in Impmon’s introductory episode, episode 6, which is also the first Renamon-focused episode. What is interesting to note is that while Impmon appears early on in the episode, to the first Digimon he introduces himself to properly is to Renamon, precisely. And instead of being teasing or cruel towards her, like he’d be with Terriermon or Guilmon; at first he seems to try to attempt to start a conversation with her. It’s almost unlike him…At first. But you start to see what he’s trying to do here- he’s attempting to make her understand his world-view; the narrative later on suggests that just recently he ran away from Ai and Makoto, so he’s probably experiencing first time relief in a long while, and he doesn’t want to get rid of this sensation. So he sees her, doubting, and would try to reason with her about why he made the best choice. In a way, it’s misguided compassion, but it’s not outright malice at first. He sees her in in similar doubts and pain, and was probably counseling based on what he thought was the best choice.

At the end of the episode it’s also implied he was witness to her evolution into Kyuubimon, which, while he sees with initial sneer, it can be read as disappointment that she followed Ruki instead of his advice. Maybe also a little hidden envy, since she achieved evolution before he did? Who knows.

Next time, in episode 10, they meet in a Shinto temple (foreshadowing to Sakuyamon, I might add), and he seems excited to meet her at first. But then it turns into nothing once Impmon starts urging Renamon to fight with Terriermon. It leads to nothing, of course, except for Impmon to think to get a reaction out of Terriermon, but it does suggest that he looks forward to seeing her again.

Again, their next scene together is in a Renamon focus episode, ep. 12, again; where we’re also subject to Impmon’s past for the first time. She’s absolutely curious about his point of view regarding evolution and strength, since, again, she’s at odds with Ruki. And while we’re witness to his past, she isn’t, since it’s shown in a flashback, but I think she’s perceptive enough to have linked his shuddering with the crying children in the window below. Still, she follows him, not to judge or criticize, but to further gets answers; Impmon seems the most knowledgeable about the subject matter, so maybe he can give her answers.

A subtle one occurs in the episode where the Snake deva attacks in the subway (ep. 15). Beforehand, Renamon finds Impmon staring with jealousy at Guilmon playing with the kids in the park, and although he shows disdain, Renamon carefully points out that he seems too “heavily involved” to just despise them. He got mad, of course, but that’s typical of him, he tries too hard to deny and his true feelings, of how jealous and envious he is of the other Digimon just getting along with the kids so well…But at this moment he’s too proud to ever admit he probably committed a mistake by running, or even admit help from the other Digimon.

And of course, I must remember that this episode, a hint was shown coming from him (often it’s Renamon who displays a lot of their most affectionate actions); when Kyuubimon and Galgomon are beaten hard by the Deva in the subway, Impmon notices and immediately goes to alert Takato and Guilmon, who were completely unaware by having fun in the park. He might try to act like he doesn’t care or is too cool, but again, if he was truly wicked or cruel he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to alert the others to come save the day, I think. Actions speak louder than words.

Of course a big source of their interactions comes in ep. 19, where it’s the first time Impmon gets a fully character-focused episode. In it we see him endangering himself in front of Indramon and later on with the police, and it’s up to Renamon to save him (this is a recurring pattern; she’s always saving him when he does something reckless or stupid); in it Renamon gets the closest of all the characters to understand his psyche properly, to get there’s more to him than just the pathetic Imp harassing the playground. That yes, all the prankster bully persona is an act, and he’s very vulnerable and pitiful without a partner and without the means to evolve. Yet even as she knows it’s desperate to fight Indramon, he pleads her to let him fight; without any scorn or mockery in his voice. Renamon, unused to that side, respected his wishes that time, even if she knew it was suicidal. Yet it still that at this episode, Renamon has gotten to understand Impmon’s character much much more than the rest of the cast, and like I stated before; she’s an observant person; I reckon she probably already how initially she felt hunting for data with Ruki and can see parallels with Impmon- he’s obsessed with power but due to his circumstances he’s pathetically weak. I think she sees a side of herself in him, hence why she wants to help him so much.

Later on, in episode 20, amidst the chaos of the Deva, the kids also try to look around for Impmon. Even Renamon searches for him on her own in the abandoned place she took him in ep. 19; it’s a small scene but it says leagues about them, that she can find him and connect with him without getting the rest of the kids into their dilemma. Shows she’s mature enough to understand he would prefer having his own space, too.

After their incursion in the Digital World they don’t have many prominent scenes together for a long while…Until they meet again in ep. 30. This is important, since while they do not interact for a while, their characters follow similar scenes and patterns later on (and I’ll discuss this later on).

And I do love how in ep. 30, their scenes are followed by one another. Just after a Renamon scene ends, Beelzebumon’s first true scene is immediately showcased. And fascinatingly, in the same episode where it’s established Cyberdramon has need for fighting and gaining power to control, it’s also the episode where we have a first display of Beelzebumon’s power, completely unleashed and unrestrained. Yes, he’s happier than he’s ever been, but we know that power comes with red strings.

Aaand and and…Kyuubimon is the one that recognizes Beelzebumon, not the others. She doesn’t even need to be lead on by a witty remark, she senses his presence enough (either that, or the bandana was a clue), but again, this is recalled later on, where two times later, she can hear him or notice him when nobody else can.

Later on, here comes the big one; ep. 34. Impmon has absolutely fully engulfed himself into his power and completely believed the Devas’ crap about killing the children, so he goes as planned. It’s fascinating because he’s not even acting out like how when he previously killed other Digimon, in a careless manner, again, similar to a child playing with a dangerous objetc. He’s clearly seething and throwing his bile at the Tamers here, all the hurt, all the resentment, the feeling of “betrayal” since he never properly bonded with them (they tried to be friendly but heee…uuh…he’s also not good at making friends) and how he felt humiliated after Indramon beat him (but again, he forgets that the others were ready to save him, too). And of course, it’s interesting to point out how he’s insisting on killing Kyuubimon first, once the whole gang is reunited. He beats the crap out of Rapidmon and Growlmon when they jump at him, but he even points out he’ll “guard them for later”. No, it’s Kyuubimon whom he’s interested in killing first, even though she’s injured and unwilling at the moment to fight back. And frankly, even Kyuubimon is willing to talk first, even when Rapidmon and Growlmon have already given up. She pleads for him, in all dubs, to open his eyes, even while she’s bleeding on the floor. Why is this? Maybe he felt if he killed her first it’d be easier, since he would never kill her if she was kept for last, or maybe just his conscience just asking him to retain a little bit- remember, he’s at his Ultimate/Mega level, and a very powerful form at that; and he could easily kill all of them without pause. However, the fact that Growlmon and Kyuubimon keep him at bay a little while makes me think that he’s still subconsciously holding back (babe, no, you’ve started caring, no, babe, leave your friends alone, hahahah…)

It’s only in the next episode, ep. 35, after he’s killed Leomon that Kyuubimon accepts, resigned, admitting that he’s turned into a demon. It kinda really shows that she still held back, still believed in his inherent, internal goodness and potential (and as I mentioned in ep. 15, he had it there), but after how brutal he murdered Leomon and beat the others, she has come to accept that her odd friend has basically turned into the monster they must defeat. (The show LOOOVes the whole “give in to the monster” narrative so I’ll talk about it later)

And episode 40! Once again, it’s Renamon who notes Beelzebumon’s in distress, she hears his cry from afar, and she’s the one willing to give him a chance once again, even after all the horrible things he’s done, when the rest of the gang has given up on him. And they’re running out of time, they know it, if they miss the Arc they can’t go back home, and anyone less forgiving would be in favor of leaving him behind (Hirokazu even points out to Ruki how it’s crazy to bring him “after all the evil he’s done”)…But she can’t. Again, her gentle nature resurfaces. And considering this is the episode after Renamon evolved into Sakuyamon, I think the Mega is starting to influence her. (“A good Queen puts her people first”).

Also…Ruki and Renamon find Impmon, abandoned and worn in the desert…it’s the first time he calls her by her name instead of a demeaning nickname or “you”…And this is IN ALL THE DUBS. Japanese, German, Engl, Both Spanish, etc etc etc. And Renamon always always always, no matter the dub, sounds very concerned when she reaches for him and asks him if he can stand. There’s only 3 times she ever sounds super worried throughout the whole series, and two times concerned Impmon/Beelzebumon’s being. She was worried, y’all.

I just noticed how the pattern kinda breaks mid show but then forms a new pattern; while in the first Renamon focused episodes impmon played a prominent part, once we get to Taomon’s and Sakuyamon’s evolutions he doesn’t feature in at all…YEEEET the episodes afterwards do feature him prominently, and Renamon worried for his well-being. Probably just a coincidence, but again, to me it shows how the two of them really are interconnected and really, their influence has rubbed on each other.

Ep. 41, nothing really big happens, but Renamon carries him in the Ark on the way back home while he’s sleeping. Again, nothing really big, but it’s a cute moment (even Jen smiles at it ;)) -It’s even stated by dialogue (from Jen, no less) that it was Renamon’s wish through and through to see him safe, while the other kids are going on about Ruki’s crazy fantasies instead- Jen was always the “big brother” of the group, and he has bonded with Rena earlier, so I like to imagine he can sorta infer there’s something bigger there, without having Rena or Ruki openly telling him it. And uff, she’s the one that sees him vanish amidst the crowd once they return to the real world…! Ruki manages to raise her eyes to see him but Renamon, Renamon never left her sight from Impmon…!

Ep. 43 is a big one for Impmon, for he reconciles with his Tamers and starts aiding the older Kids with defeating the D-Reaper. Note how initially, the only one who doesn’t reject him is Taomon; she’s surprised at his sight, while Rapidmon and Wargrowlmon are just skeptical. And once his attacks makes an effect on the Reaper, SHE is the one who supports his attack, making the others follow suit. (Incidentally, it’s also the episode where he admits he feels Blast Mode is his true form after all…JP language only, but it seems to suggest that really, being Beelze feels more true to Impmon than being stuck in his Child form).

In ep. 48, it’s Renamon who recognizes his figure, tied inside the Reaper. It’s also interesting cause it’s the climax of Impmon’s whole character development, where he has accepted the crimes he has committed, and instead of asking forgiveness, he will just right the wrongs, even if it costs him his life.

And episode 49! Goodness it has so many moments. After Beelzemon falls, Sakuyamon is the first to rush to his rescue (see? She’s always saving him); and gosh darn she sounds desperate, this is nuts to hear because Renamon/her evos, no matter the dub, always keeps her cool, so to again; hear her voice just scream and tremble urging him to fly and get up… And then once Grani saves Impmon, he lends Impmon for Sakuyamon to carry. Rather it’s the most practical choice, since she’s the only one who can carry him, since SaintGalgomon is too big and Dukemon is kept busy with his shield and lance, but still…She sounds so relieved when she urges to rest in her arms, as they keep battling the Reaper…

And of course, like almost every other plot point, their relationship is also resolved in ep. 51. When the whole team is relaxing at the park, relieved after they defeated the D-Reaper, Impmon appears, and once again, who notices him first? That’s right, our favorite fox. And again, her usual monotone breaks just to show relief to see him safe and sound. Even he, before he addresses Juri, seems to reassure her over the rest. I like how it’s a little moment, but I love that in the last episode, the writers managed to give a wink to their little relationship that carried on throughout the whole show. The writers knew they had to tell their story (his story), and they knew how important it was to see it to a satisfying conclusion.

· Similarities / opposites

Ok, so we’ve gone over why their scenes together matter. Big deal, what else is there?

Well, it’s not only the fact that they share many scenes together, is the fact that their characters are written to be eerily similar in many aspects.

They both initially look up to power, believe in the ideal that Digimon are only made for fighting. Later on we discover that is pretty much the law in the Digital World, but for us, the audience, they’re the two that bring up this idea the most when we first start seeing properly the series.

She’s stated at first to be the strongest Digimon in the main cast, while he’s the weakest. That’s a parallel, keep that up in mind.

They’re also the two Digimon to have a proper arc and character development, something that the others really don’t. And incidentally, they carry a similar arc- both initially are mistreated by their Tamers which makes their relationship and views of humanspoor; but while Renamon manages to get better with Ruki, and therefore stronger; Impmon just denies himself and goes on a self-destructive path.

Also, his proper introduction in the series is in the same first episode where Renamon gets focus. I know I said it before, but it bears repeating. And he presents himself to her first of the whole group! It’s also implied he witnessed the whole battle and Renamon’s first evolution into Kyuubimon, too… I tell you, it’s there. These stories aren’t written by bots, it’s a bunch of people that decide what element is added here and there to make certain things work.

When the series called Impmon a child…They were not far-off, for, as I wrote before, he’s written to act similar to a teenage kid- bratty, irresponsible, selfish…But not cruel, not truly, just undisciplined. Funny enough, it contrasts nicely with Renamon, for as “mature” as she seems, she lacks a lot of knowledge in things, but due to her nature, she’s not to go around asking as much. (See, in comparison, Guilmon and Terriermon, who are much more confident in their placement in the world and their relationship with their Tamers; and Guilmon is written to be seen as a baby /little dog for most of the series). If she was as “grown-up” as we imagined, she wouldn’t have initial hang-ups and doubts about her placement as Ruki’s partner.

The episode with Vajramon is also fascinating to consider because, much Like Impmon, he first appears to Renamon with a similar vocabulary: to abandon the humans to create their own destiny. Vajramon’s crush on Renamon is much more openly displayed, and yet he seems to try to impress her with the same talking points as Impmon did earlier. Remember that Impmon only tried to suggest Renamon to join his side, yet with Terriermon and Guilmon he was just tricky and antagonistic. Also remember the Devas at this point are just cruel and menacing to the Digimon, but Vajramon…Well, he takes a liking to Renamon, and it’s pretty obvious (calling her “beautiful” many times and such).- We’ll get to Vajramon’s crush later, but I wanna pinpoint this as a parallel to Impmon’s development with Rena.

Vajramon: We weren’t meant to serve humans. Come with us, to serve our god, and you’ll discover your true purpose! (paraphrasing but that’s what his dialogue basically amounts to)

So, if the villain who openly crushes on Renamon has the same talking points as Impmon, then...

Similarly, episode 24 is the one where both allude to their deaths. It’s the episode where the children decide to go to the Digital World to find Culumon, and each of them prepare in their own way to say their goodbyes. Ruki is about to tell her grandmother as she discovers It by her own by finding Renamon, and isn’t surprised at all at the giant furry fox. She even confides in Ruki that she thought Renamon was a spirit sent to protect her granddaughter.

(Sidenote, but that makes Renamon’s design make so much sense, since I have this theory that each Digimon/their evo were chosen to reflect the development of their Trainer; hear me out. Takato was originally written to be a self-insert for kids in the audience, so he gets the Digimon that evolves into stereotypically things that little boys like: dinosaurs, robots and superheroic figures (Dukemon has a red cape probably as an allusion to Superman). Jen is the most tech-savy of the three and his father aided in the creation of the Digimon in this verse, so it makes sense for Terriermon to mechanize more and more with each evolution. Finally, Ruki is Japanese ethnically, of course, yet her behavior and style of dress seems more…uhm, Western, so to say; until you see what type of house she lives – a fancy old Japanese style mansion; in comparison to Takato and Jen who live in humbler flats. Considering that Ruki’s arc was meant to discourage her loneliness and bring her closer to friends and family, it makes sense that Renamon -her humanity, her heart, her character development- is the Digimon with most Japanese callbacks in her design: she’s linking Ruki back to her family. Something similar happens in Adventure; Piyomon is pink to call back to Sora’s love, motherly nature, and connection to her mother).

So, we were where Ruki is planning to say goodbye to her family, like the other kids, since they’re determined to go to the Digital World to rescue Culumon. Grandma seems untroubled, and finds Renamon charming as well (even says she’s “beautiful”); but just asks our foxy to protect her grandchild.

Renamon declares that she’ll protect Ruki no matter what, even if it comes to her death. Ruki is seen openly touched at hearing that.

Meanwhile, Impmon has pretty much given up at this point. Defeated and humiliated by Indramon, he’s hidden in the sewers and expects nothing to come at this point. He feels hurt, betrayed, lost, without anyone at his side (but that’s mostly due to his actions; since he left his kids on his own accord, and the Tamers were ready to welcome him with open arms, as long as he behaved, yet he just didn’t know how to make a stable friendship with them) The Digital World calls to him, but he reacts less like an adventure, and more like a release. He sees no point in going forward, in going back…He’s given up on everything. And once Catsuramon calls to him, in the little portal to the Digital World, he goes there less because of adventure, and more because well…What else is there?

So while the other Digimon look forward to the Digital World as an adventure, Renamon and Impmon are the only ones that allude to it in a deadly manner…

And there’s also the matter of which when they both evolve to Mega…Which I’ll further address in other points in the meta, but I’ll comment that they’re dark parallels / opposites between them. While he evolves to Mega for selfish gains, for purely his self-interests, even if means he’ll have to kill innocent children for it; Renamon obtains her Mega after sacrificing herself to the D-Reaper, saving Culumon and giving time for the other kids to flee. Selfish desire vs selfless action. It’s at the apex of their character: his darkest hour vs her brightest time. While he goes to the point of no return, this is the climax of her character development.

The two of them tend to be loners by nature, and while they both do crave friends, they’re kinda awkward about gaining friends. Impmon initially doesn’t know how to make friendships outside of pranking and teasing; and the last episodes, while the whole team is together, Renamon maintains her distance from the others more often than not. Even if she’s at her most compassionate self, she still feels a little off, never fully a part of them. No wonder they connected, tbh, if even at a subconscious level.

Before I forget, it’s good I talk about the Psychic Link, because otherwise I would’ve forgotten about it. In the Digimon canon, it’s often established that Digimon have really strong bonds with their humans, so it’s natural for them in a way to share their minds and thoughts together. Ruki and Renamon at times early on had psychic conversations together. So, nothing wrong with that, of course, makes sense for the canon of the series and strengthens the bond between human and tamer.

So, it’s interesting to consider that Renamon and Impmon also have a slight connection; so to say. Renamon recognizes him before anyone else does, Renamon hears Beelzebumon’s cries of despair from afar; and she’s always aware of wherever he is or whether he’s in trouble.

You could say it’s a simple connection between the Digimon, since in Tamers it’s established the Digimon can sense each other by instinct, since the Tamer Mons can notice whenever a rogue Digimon is nearby by scent or instinct…Yet neither Guilmon nor Terriermon show this attitude when it comes to Impmon.

And of course, note, nobody else in the series has this connection, aside from the tamers and their respective mons...It would be an anomaly, maybe just a Digimon thing…BUT…A couple also does:

Takato and Juri, who are the main “couple” in the series. From the first episodes it’s stated Takato has a crush on Juri, which seems to be reciprocated from her side. And in the final episodes, as the whole team attempts to save Juri from the Reaper’s center; Juri is able to hear Takato’s voice, even when the others technically couldn’t since he’s fused into Dukemon (clarification for the Eng Dub only viewers: in the original JP and other dubs, the Mega Digimon have their own voices instead of the “Two-voice” thing the Eng. Dub attempted. So we hear Dukemon/Guilmon, SaintGalgomon/Terriermon, Renamon/Sakuyamon speaking when they’re talking in public (ea their usual voices, except Dukemon who got a different voice actor, since Guilmon’s childish voice wouldn’t fit the heroic knight character Dukemon represents). We only hear Takato, Jen and Ruki when we’re privy to their insides (inside the Digimonn basically)- so ea, Hirokazu or Kenta can’t hear Takato if they’re talking to Dukemon directly.

Yet Juri can listen to him, even if the others can’t, even if they’re far away. So, to reiterate- the humans and their Digimons’ bond is so strong that they can feel each other’s thoughts and pain. This is what allows them to fuse in the first place, and it’s something special that no other characters have. Except for the main romantic couple of the series, Takato and Juri…And Renamon and Impmon, naturally. Which...Means a lot more than one thinks.

More on Part 2! Then stuff gets juicy...

#Digimon tamers #Digimon meta #Digimon tamers meta #RenaImp #Imprena #Beelzemon #digimon #Digimon couples #Sakubeel #beelsaku #Sakuyamon #my meta #RenaImp meta

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uniarycode · 3 years

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Ghost Game Pre-game

Hello Digifandom, unless you've been living under a rock (or just sick for a week) You've probably heard about Digimon Ghost Game, the new anime set to start airing in October.

This is pretty big news for the brand. The last time we had a new season airing immediately after another season it has no relation to is back in 2002 with frontier.

The last time we got Not-adventure was back with Appmon, which started airing October 2016, five years before Ghost Game will make its debut.

The Vital Bracelet is so successful Bandai expanded it to two other IPs, the current anime is likely airing about 12-15th in weekly viewership (hard to tell where precisely because they only post top 10), and seems to clock in above more recognizable brands like Pokemon or Boruto.

By all indications Ghost Game is keeping its current timeslot, which is kinda insane to begin with, since airing right before One Piece on the one morning a week kids don't have school has to be premium real-estate.

But I didn't make this post to highlight how well the franchise is doing. But more because my experience in this is, whenever Digimon gets a new IP, the fandom tends to be very self-defeating, and I'd like to get ahead of that.

Yes, it is Digimon

I'm not sure if this is the best place to say this; perhaps I'm preaching to the choir. But when a new series is announced, the loudest chorus is people dismissing it out of hand. Digimon is no stranger to experimenting with themes and the general response?:

Frontier wasn't Digimon, it was a power rangers knockoff.

Savers wasn't Digimon, Marcus had no goggles.

Xros Wars wasn't Digimon, there are no levels and's it's just a mecha series.

Appmon isn't Digimon, it's Appmon, in the name.

Of course, Frontier is now generally one of the more warmly remembered series, Savers pretty much didn't use gimmicks. Xrossing is just an extreme of jogressing which iirc predates the anime. and Appmon is just Digimon with a fresh coat of paint.

I don't know how this season is going to go. All we really know about it is that it seems to be based on the VB, but do keep in mind it seems almost anything could be seen as a reason something 'isn't Digimon’.

I state this mostly because I've been duped by this myself. The first time I watched Xros Wars I dropped it like 15 episodes in. While preparing for Digiweek last month I rewatched portions and remembered how much I loved Yuu, who doesn't even appear until more than halfway through.

Dismissing things out of hand is a great way to narrow your worldview.

It's For Kids

Well duh, they're all for kids (other than tri/Kizuna I guess). Just because you aren't a kid anymore doesn't mean that changed.

I've seen a few bizarre takes that this is attempting to knock off Yokai Watch. Bizarre because by all accounts I can tell the franchise is currently going stronger than YW. YW's Anime has been plodding along for a while now, but I believe its ratings have been lower than the Adventure reboots, and the franchise as a whole has been struggling outside of japan. And finally, Bandai owns Yokai watch (at least the toys I think?), so there's no reason they'd compete against themselves.

But even if it's not knocking off YW, it's still for kids of some sort. As was Adventure and tamers and well, everything. That's not inherently bad, just because an item is targeted towards kids doesn't mean they are the only ones who can enjoy it.

That said, it might start slow. Think about your favorite Digimon moments, the ones that really stuck with you. I'm guessing they did not occur in the first 10 episodes.

I'm generalizing a bit, but it feels like the moments people really enjoy don't seem to start coming until about episode 20+

That said:

You Don't Have to Watch it

I'm not here to gatekeep. I'm not going to call you less of a Digimon fan if you haven't watched every season.

A standard 50 episode season is ~17h long, assuming you trim opening/last time/next time/ending to make each episode roughly 20 minutes. That's a lot of time.

If you aren't enjoying yourself, you can do other things.

I personally think in fandom we need to accept "I just don't like it" as a general answer. Don't ask people to assign logic to an emotional response, you won't be able to argue them out of it.

On top of which, we have no idea if this will be legally available outside of Japan on launch. Appmon wasn't. The reboot is, but we don't know why Hulu dropped it.

Anyway, "don't like, don't watch" is probably preferable at this point to hate-watching. Since you won't give it a chance once you get hate-watching.

TLDR

New anime is good for the brand, no it won't be exactly like the others, yes it's still Digimon, yes it's for kids.

Maybe now we can all go into this with open minds and reasonable expectations.

#Digimon #Digimon ghost game

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merry-kuroo · 4 years

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Top 10 2020 Anime

Hello everyone! Its the last day of 2020, and like with every year, here is my top 10 anime list. This list covers anime that aired this year only :) Hopefully you can use this list as a recommendation for something to watch. But tbh this list is for me to remember which wonderful anime made my year a little brighter :D I apologize for any typos lol.

1.) Tower of God

AHHH! I love Tower of God so much!! So, I almost dropped it at episode 1 because I was really confused. But I stuck with it and I’m glad I did. Tower of God gave me HxH vibes, but it was still different enough where I didn’t need to compare the two. The opening and ending by Stray Kids was amazing too.

Because I loved Tower of God so much, I made a Webtoon account and ever since then I’ve been hooked on Webtoons. I’m really glad they partnered with Crunchyroll to bring us this anime!

I read the TOG Webtoon and it explained things a lot better. I highly recommend going to read it after watching the anime!

I hope there is a season 2, but I won’t get my hopes up :( I’m sure this anime was just advertisement for the comic.

So, yeah, go check out Tower of God <3

2.) Great Pretender

WIT Studio has done it again. First with Attack on Titan, then Seraph of the End. They keep bringing me my favorite animes.

I love animes that feature a found family, and cons. Great Pretender brought all of that and more. Great characters, jokes, missions, and music. The music in Great Pretender is fantastic (I mean the ending song is a Queen song!)

I still stand by my opinion that Part 1 was better. I wasn’t a huge fan of season 2 and the ending as well. I think they dropped the ball. But I still won’t let that stop me from recommending it to you! It was still fun to watch :D

I’m going to miss Team Confidence <3

3.) Weathering With You

So, I have been a fan of Makoto Shinkai’s movies for a long time (5 Centimeters Per Second will always have a special place in my heart). So, when I saw that Weathering With You was coming to the movie theater, I immediately purchased a ticket. It was such a surreal experience watching in the theaters.

This was the last movie I saw in theaters before...you know >.> I’m glad this movie was my last too. It makes it even more special.

Everyone, please go see this movie. It’s beautiful. It will make you laugh and cry. I left the theater with tears in my eyes. It was such a amazing experience. I’m patiently waiting for his next movie!

4.) Kaguya Sama: Love is War Season 2

My favorite rom-com returned with a season 2. The opening is still stuck in my head. It always will be lol.

Anyway, this season was not only hilarious, but there was development between Kaguya and Miyuki <3

Miko IIno was also a interesting character. She is so different from everyone else, so I’m excited to see how being on the student council will change her. Maybe she and Ishigami will start to get long lol.

Another thing that made this season special was Ishigami’s backstory, and how Miyuki saved him. I just really love their bromance, okay?

Please go check out Kaguya Sama: Love is War if you haven’t! It’s funny and heart warming <3

5.) Jujutsu Kaisen

I’ve been hyped for this anime for like a year! When it was announced last November, I was like AFJAIOFJAOGLJMAPOGJ

I love the manga, and the adaption is doing a fantastic job so far. I definitely ended up loving Sukuna more due to the anime adaption though lmaooo.

Not a lot to say here except, go watch Jujutsu Kaisen <3 and read the manga!

6.) Moriarty the Patriot

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this anime or not. I only started watching it because people said Sebastian Moran was Daddy! Kuroo lmaooo

But I have to say...I do like that Albert was like “Oh yes lets bring William and Albert into our home” then William was like “Haha hey Albert do you hate the upper class and nobility too? You wanna murder your brother and parents, burn down the house, and reform society?” And Albert is like “DON’T MIND IF I DO!” (The Moriarty brothers are wild af, my God.)

I liked each individual case, and it got even more intense when Sherlock and John were introduced. Super excited for season 2!

The opening and ending songs are also fantastic. Go give them a listen!

7.) Digimon Adventure 2020/Digimon Adventure Tri/Last Evolution Kizuna

Tfw you go to buy tickets Digimon Last Evolution Kizuna, but all the movie theaters shut down :(

ANYWAY

I was super hyped when Last Evolution Kizuna was announced, and then the reboot of the 1999 anime. I finished up Digimon Adventure Tri...which could’ve been better tbh. I only liked the first three movies, so at least I got some good content out of them lol.

I like the new spin on the new Digimon anime, and I’m excited to see what they’ll do next. I kinda want a reboot of 02 Digimon...and Digimon Tamers and Frontier, but that may be pushing it lmao.

Last Evolution Kizuna was absolutely phenomenal. It was the perfect 20th anniversary movie :)

8.) Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun

Another show I started at the beginning of the year! I read the manga in 2019, and I was happy to hear it was getting a anime adaption! I enjoyed this series a lot, and I really want there to be a second season. I feel like some stuff was left out. But the anime might have been created just to promote the manga.

The opening song, the different wonders of the school, and the art style quickly made this one of my favorites!

9.) Idolish7 Second Beat

Idolish7 is vastly underrated. It’s more than just pretty guys singing and dancing. Every character in the show has gone through their own hardships, and all the characters are fleshed out well.

The second season did not disappoint. It still served me with a good dose of angst, drama, and comedy.

And season 3 was announced!!! I wasn’t expecting that, so that surprise made me really happy <3.

I was really sad when Idolish7 stopped airing back in the spring, but I’m glad they were able to finish up the season this year :D

10.) Haikyuu!! To the Top

Alright, so my excitement deflated when Part 1 aired back in January. I hated the new art style and while Part 1 did have some good character development moments, I was really bored :/

The OVAs were really good though >.> I love Nekoma and Fukrodani so those were fun to watch.

Part 2 was a 100 times better. I accepted the fact that the art style wasn’t going to change and we wouldn’t have those cute breaks where the volleyball players would serve the ball and hit the water bottle. Once I got over that, I found myself enjoying part 2.

The two Nekoma episodes,the episodes focusing on the Miya Twins and Kita were my personal favorites. But overall, Karasuno vs. Inarizaki was fantastic and I enjoyed it a lot!

I need season 5 to be announced already!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!

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digitalgate02 · 3 years

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The funniest thing to happen in a Digimon Brazilian dub.

Children of all ages, sit down. I’d like to tell the very very surreal experience what was Digimon Data Squad Brazilian dub’s Citramon case.

Like I said on twitter, I will never get tired of telling this tale especially because no I wasn’t watching some JP RAW with the dub audio on it. The logo of the TV Station was there, implying this was actually a TV rip.

Anyway... When you think about Data Squad BR dub... You might think this was dubbed from the US dub, right? Since the name is not “Savers” but “Data Squad”...

... No, it’s just Savers with dub names for everything.

This shocked me because before learning anything about this dub, I thought it was the first case of a BR dub using US material as source for a TV series, but it wasn’t. The first and only TV Series to be dubbed from the US dub is Fusion. Which means, Fusion and Digimon: The Movie are the only stuff dubbed from the US, while Adventure to Savers were dubbed directly from JP.

Which leads us to this peculiar case for Data Squad episode 7. Yes, the one everyone makes fun about it because the US dub censored a digimon and turned it into the legendary Citramon.

You may be curious about the BR dub about this episode right? Well, I was ages ago and I found somewhere, a TV rip of this episode. Yes, a TV rip. It had the logo of TV Globo (a most known Brazilian TV Station) right in the corner of the screen, to make sure i wasn’t watching some edit which used the JP RAW footage with the BR dub audio on it.

So, Citramon is... Not like you think it is. It was kept everything unedited and untouched. So BomberNanimon was dub named “Citramon”, and since EVERYONE has dub names in Data Squad BR dub (unlike Adv-02-Frontier case where they mixed dub names with OG names; with Tamers being the only series to keep every OG name kept if i’m not wrong) this well... hilarious.

So you see BomberNanimon on screen, Thomas looks at it and then reports to DATS as “it’s just a Citramon” and there also no juicy/fruit puns, nothing is altered. EVERYTHING follows the JP version of this episode -- footage, dialogue, etc. EXCEPT well, names.

It’s really surreal and it will never leave my mind, also it’s fun to tell people this experience because now i wish i could find the TV rips of Data Squad BR dub to watch this wonderful thing all again.

(i don’t know any person who witnessed this when it aired, alas...)

#digimon data squad #except it's savers with the only change being dub names for everyone #digimon BR dub fun trivia!!

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genork-the-fandork · 3 years

Text

To celebrate Odaiba Day, I wanted to give some recognition to the “Odaibas” of the other series; that is, the days that started the other series’ adventures. While Odaiba Day doesn’t exactly recognize every Digimon beginning, I’d like to think it’s a celebration of all things Digimon.

So here are some one shots featuring the Adventure and non-Adventure series. I hope you enjoy! <3

"Wow. So today was the day, huh?" Tai said, glancing at the calendar on the fridge. It was the same brand of calendar that had been up the first time around. Now, two years later, it felt like yesterday that he was realizing the time flow between the Digital World and the human one was different.

The rest of the gang was crowded in his living room, eating the snacks his mother had put out for him. When they'd planned to get together, they had completely forgotten about the actual anniversary of their adventure. But in some ways, they had subconsciously remembered it anyway. Tai had a feeling the date would live on in their hearts for a long time.

"Tai! Hurry up with the food!" Agumon called, his face covered in crumbs. "I'm starving!"

"You might wanna do what he says!" Matt added. "I'm afraid he's going to eat Patamon next!"

"What?!" Patamon squeaked, hiding behind T.K.

Laughing, Tai brought out the rest of the snacks, leaving behind the calendar that had served as an eternal reminder of that fateful day.

Davis half-expected something exciting to happen on his first day of high school. Unfortunately, it was the same old school nonsense that he'd never really liked. No new kid that somehow knew the girl he liked, no computer warping him to the Digital World. It was almost saddening, really.

But his spirits lifted when he saw T.K. and Kari waiting for him outside the school. Yolei was off to the side, probably calling Ken or Cody to make sure they were ready to meet up. "You ready to go, Davis?" T.K. called, grinning the grin that used to annoy Davis to no end.

"'Course I am! I've been waiting for this all day!" he called back, running up to his friends. "Ramen, here I come!"

Kari and Yolei giggled as T.K. and Davis set off down the street, bickering over what type of ramen was the best.

It wasn't a big celebration, like the rest of the gang tended to do on anniversaries, but it was fitting for them, and that was all that mattered.

Tamers

Takato remembered the exact spot where he had first found the physical form of Guilmon. He also remembered the exact spot where the baby forms of all the Digimon had gone back to the Digital World. There were a lot of things he remembered, sentimental as he was, but he was starting to forget the exact day when it had all begun.

"To be fair, Takato, everything started on different days for all of us," Henry reasoned, closing his shoe locker and hoisting his messenger bag onto his shoulder. "I met Terriermon before you met Guilmon, and Jeri met Leomon before Kazu and Kenta met their partners. It's a bit hard to remember an anniversary when none of ours match up."

"But it would be nice to celebrate something that changed our lives the way the Digimon did," Takato said with a sigh.

"Why don't we just celebrate the day we all promised we'd meet again?" Rika said from Takato's left, appearing out of nowhere. She had long since mastered Renamon's signature skill.

Henry and Takato exchanged a glance. "That's perfect!" Takato exclaimed. "Then that'll be our anniversary!"

"But that's today—" Henry started to say, yelping when Takato grabbed his and Rika's hands and started dragging them down the street.

"Time to celebrate!"

Frontier

"We look weird," Koji said as they all stood in the train station, looking like a very conspicuous group of schoolkids.

"Well, where else are we supposed to celebrate?" Takuya snapped, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Maybe not so close to the stairs I fell down?" Koichi suggested, eyeing the offending stairwell cautiously.

"What are we gonna do? Play card games in here?" J.P. asked, snacking on some chips.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Tommy said. "Can we decide what we're doing here?"

"I knew I shouldn't have come," Zoe sighed. "Takuya didn't have a plan, just like I thought."

"Is it so bad that I wanted us all to spend time together?" Takuya nearly yelled, drawing the attention of passersby. Blushing furiously, Takuya muttered, "This is where our adventure began, guys. Cut me some slack, it's not like we were at a summer camp or something."

They couldn't help but smile at that. "Maybe we should go grab some pizza?" Koji suggested softly, placing his hand on Takuya's shoulder.

"Sounds like a plan," J.P. agreed, and they all got up and headed out of the train station, teasing Takuya about his lack of planning.

But they all silently agreed that they appreciated his efforts very, very much.

Data Squad [Savers]

"Remember the day we met?" Marcus asked, staring out at the world he now called his home.

"Hard to forget. You punch hard, Marcus," Agumon said, shaking his head at the memory. "Sometimes I still feel like I have bruises from that fight."

"Ha, sorry about that, buddy." Marcus grinned. "I never woulda thought that would lead to us both here, in the Digital World. Pretty wild, huh?"

"You got that right." Agumon paused. "I hope Yoshino and Thomas are alright."

"Ah, they'll be fine. They're smarter than me," Marcus said, waving off Agumon's concern. "If anything, I just want them to hurry up and open up the gate again so I can see my sister."

"We'll see them again, I'm sure of it." Agumon slapped a clawed hand over his chest. "If it's the last thing I do, I'll tear apart the worlds to let you see your sister again."

Marcus couldn't help but laugh at that. "Hey, thanks, bud."

That was when they heard someone calling Marcus's name.

"Marcus! Agumon! Are you there?"

They looked at each other, astonished. Was that…

"Yoshino! Over here!"

Marcus spun around with a wide smile to see his friends running toward him.

Well, what a happy anniversary this was.

Xros Wars [+Hunters]

"Man, what a ride the past couple years has been," Taiki said, adjusting the goggles on his head. "I don't think there are words to express how crazy this has all been."

"Easy for you to say," Akari teased. "You didn't get left behind twice when things were going down."

"I said I was sorry," Taiki began again, and Zenjirou chuckled at the familiar apology.

Tagiru and Gumdramon weren't even paying attention; they were too busy scarfing down their junk food. Yuu and Nene watched in almost concerned fascination while Ryouma and company dined at a table across the aisle from them.

"Hard to believe it's been a year since everything calmed down," Kiriha said, sipping his milkshake as he rested his arm over the seat of the booth. "Sometimes I wonder if I'll wake up and need to go solve some Digimon problem."

"I know what you mean," Taiki said. "It never really leaves you."

Nene smiled. "But now the world is safe and we can focus on spending time together, right?"

Zenjirou blushed at the word "together," but before he could ask her out again, Tagiru said, "Only if it means we come back here every time!"

The others laughed at that, letting Tagiru's antics wash away the uncertainty and fear that the Digital World was never truly saved. For now, they were here, and they were going to have a good time together.

#digimon #digiweek2021 #gen writes #digiweek day 7 #digimon drabble #digimon adventure #digimon tamers #digimon frontier #digimon savers #digimon xros wars #the logic on some of these doesn't track but shhhhh #didn't remember the exact nuances of savers's ending sorry a;sdjf;asdj

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firstagent · 4 years

Note

Since it popped up on the Podcast, how would you rank the sibling dynamics from healthy to trainwreck?

This is an innocent-sounding question until you go over the franchise and realize just how many sibling relationships there are in Digimon and that all but like three of them have elements that might raise eyebrows. In the interest of being comprehensive, this includes all named characters in any anime, manga, and game I’m familiar with, treating the reboot separately and including Survive because... (looks at Kaito and Miu’s bios) ...holy crap.

Sibling Relationship Rankings! (Healthy is Higher)

Joe & Shin Kido (Adventure): Shin understands Joe’s hang-ups and offers support to make his own choices without steering him in any specific direction, for or against the family. And Shuu exists too (depending on the language you’re watching in)

Juri & Masahiko Kato (Tamers): For all of the awkwardness and potential points of fracture in the family, Juri and Masahiko are very close. Fun Fact: She started carrying around her iconic hand puppet to amuse and entertain him!

Keito & Nozomi Tamada (Re:Arise): Even with very different personalities, Keito and Nozomi have a lot of respect for each other. Unlike some big brothers, he comes to a mature conclusion when he realizes she’ll be just fine with Pumpmon at her side.

Yamato Ishida & Takeru Takaishi (Adventure 2020): Yamato’s worry over Takeru only affects his reluctance to take on time-consuming side quests when he might be in danger. Far more chill about trusting Takeru with the rest of the team, he’s a motivation rather than a mental handicap.

Masaru & Chika Daimon (Savers): Perhaps a more controversial pick for the healthier side, but Masaru and Chika have a playful relationship that proves that Chika dishes out as much as anyone in the family. Given how much harm DATS and Digimon have done to the family, Masaru risks her love to keep them away from her.

Joe & Shin Kido (Adventure 2020): Shin’s still supportive and still encourages Joe to make choices for himself, but having that bugout bag ready to go raises some serious questions about that family and which side Shin’s really on.

Ai & Makoto (Tamers): Toddlers fight. It’s okay. They come together for Impmon’s sake and the fact that they’re the only duo in the franchise with mutual custody over a digivice has to say something about the strength of their relationship.

Nene & Kotone Amano (Xros Wars Manga): Nene’s tactics are still desperate but not quite as extreme as the anime, and it counts for so much that Kotone fights so hard for Nene once the tables are turned. And good lord that backstory...

Takuya & Shinya Kanbara (Frontier): There’s definitely a sense of Takuya lapsing into thinking Shinya encapsulates everything frustrating about having an older brother, but he gets over it.

Miyako Inoue + Three (Zero Two): Perfectly normal large household. And while wondering what it would be like to be an only child is something every youngest does... top of mind fantasy, Miyako? Really?

Jianliang & Shaochung Lee (Tamers): Speaking of four-packs... there’s no doubting how much they care about each other, but Jian’s occasional short fuse with Shaochung betrays his usual calm demeanor, and we never get a picture of the full family dynamic once Rinchei and Jaarin are included.

Daisuke & Jun Motomiya (Zero Two): Everyone likes to paint Jun and Daisuke as something uglier than it really is. As much as they annoy each other, it’s still a pretty conventional sibling dynamic and they’d still fight hard for the other... even if the feeling’s closer to obligation.

Koji Minamoto & Koichi Kimura (Frontier): There’s no questioning the bond they develop, but there’s no way Koji and Koichi go from “don’t know the other exists” to “ZOMG Twinzies!” without a ton of awkwardness and feeling each other out. They’ll get better, but from our standpoint this is where we start to drift into trainwreck territory.

Tomoki & Yutaka Himi (Frontier): Tomoki can spin it all he wants but Yutaka comes off as a real jerk. Not that some resentment isn’t a little justified given how much Tomoki is coddled, but taking it upon himself to be the bearer of tough love is still not cool.

Taichi & Hikari Yagami (Adventure 2020): Hikari has a blind faith that Taichi can save the day in any circumstance, up to and including international shipping crisis. Meanwhile Taichi sees Hikari lapsing between typical friendly eight year old to brainwashed robot and doesn’t find any problem with it.

Yamato Ishida & Takeru Takaishi (Adventure): Lessons in how not to be an overprotective big brother. Yamato freaks out at the slightest notion that Takeru might be exposed to danger, including his very presence in the Digital World. When you have a complete nervous breakdown realizing that little bro’s actually pretty capable on his own, it’s not about your relationship with him anymore.

Touma & Relena Norstein (Savers): There’s caring about a little sister, making her plight a central cause in your life, and then involving her in a chess match with a madman. There’s a lot to forgive here (they are raised in a family where your kneejerk reaction to Grandma is “I bet she supported the Nazis in World War II”), but everything about their relationship just makes you uncomfortable.

Kaito & Miu Shinonome (Survive): Maybe it’s not fair since their game is the franchise’s unicorn, but their bios have warning flags all over it. He’s overprotective, ready to fight at the slightest hardship, and she repays this attitude by being rebellious and weird and eager to pursue trouble. May end up being worse once the game actually comes out.

Rei & Hajime Katsura (Appmon): Another one where their backstory makes you sympathize with the lengths they go to in order to stay together, but risking the security of actual guardians to go it alone? Jesus. Even with their ride or die attitude, you still sense a bit of friction in their relationship, and so many of their hardships are their own doing.

Nene & Yuu Amano (Xros Wars): There’s nothing seemingly wrong on the surface between Nene and Yuu, but that’s why their actions are so extreme. Yuu’s more than happy to treat her as an enemy general in his game, while Nene’s aligning herself with dark forces and causing real trouble to get him back. It’s all very loud and intense for a relationship that, without external influences, is just nice and cordial.

Yuuko & Yuugo Kamishiro (Cyber Sleuth): You can be anything you want on the internet! So why not take the identify of your big brother who was stricken with a mystery illness at a young age and lead a legion of hackers? And if you’re Yuugo, use your digital body to take control of that avatar! Nothing weird about any of this!

Ken & Osamu Ichijouji (Zero Two): Like Tomoki, Ken can come up with whatever rationale for Osamu’s abuse he wants, and Osamu at least had some kind moments, but there’s no denying that this family was a mess. And of course Ken’s reaction to Osamu’s death... could have been better.

Taichi & Hikari Yagami (Adventure): Hikari’s introduction to the series was intended to be a little creepy, and that just sets the tone. Her blind loyalty to Taichi is a primary point of emphasis through three series, and Taichi sometimes goes ballistic worrying about her... when not accidentally endangering her life. And that’s before she unleashes a world-destroying abomination at the mere suggestion that Taichi’s dead, and why telling him “what you’re doing is wrong and I kind of hate you for it” is a big moment for her, even though she’s wrong.

Neo & Rei Saiba (V-Tamer): There’s going a little overboard to keep your family together or save a sibling’s life, and then there’s aligning yourself with evil forces to avoid having to deal with your sister’s manageable disability. Call it being jaded or delusional, but when it drives your sister to attempt suicide there are definitely issues you two need to work through.

Erika & Ryuji Mishima (Cyber Sleuth Hackers Memory): Because aligning oneself with Arkadimon is always a fantastic idea. He’s overprotective, she manipulates him because of it, there’s resentment, there’s anger, and basically the entire game is spent watching these two outdo each other in terms of causing wanton destruction throughout the city and cyberspace.

Honorable Mention: Bagramon & DarkKnightmon (Xros Wars): The battle of who can stab the other in the back last.

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

#digimon #digiarticle

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timelessanimo · 3 years

Note

Hello! For the give me a character game, would you want to do Takato Matsuki and/or Airu Suzaki? Have a nice day/night!

Alrighty im going with Takato!

1. Do i like them? Yes!

2. 5 good qualities: He's a kindhearted person! Helpfull and always ready to listen to his friends. Of course he is very creative. Plus he isn't repressing his emotions which is rare for male characters in shows.

3. 3 bad qualities: He gets swept away by his emotions easily and in the heat of the moment he just charges right into battle without thinking. (I can only think of two bad qualities ahhhhhh)

4. Favourite episode? The first episode since it's a wonderful introduction to Takato as a character! I also greatly enjoy episodes 34 and 35 since those show Takato at his lowest; him evolving Guilmon into Megidramon was terrifying.

5. Otp? Takato and Jeri im sorry these two are so cute! And the buildup was so much fun to watch!

6. Notp? Takato and Ruki. These two are rivals and i can't imagine Ruki falling for the Googlehead. (Plus i think her and Ryo are cuter together)

7. Ot3? Got none haha

8. Brotp? Kenta, Kazu and Takato since they're the OG's and Takato, Jenrya and Ruki, the three strongest Tamers!

9. Best quotes? I like all of them haha

10. Headcanon? Takato is part of the Royal Knights! After he saw Guilmon again and returned to the Digiworld, they were approached by Duftmon who recruited them into the Royal Knights! Him and Guilmon still continue travelling through the Digiworld on their own and at one point, while working in an Armoury as Gallantmon they met a human girl called Zoe ;) Sadly he was under orders not to intervene with Lucemon but after meeting the Warrior of Wind he knew the Digiworld was gonna be okay. The Gallantmon in Frontier uses the Plural to refer to themselves and i just really like the thought of that Gallantmon being the very same one we met in Tamers!

The Royal Knights Takato gets along with the best are UlforceVeedramon and Duftmon! The former is more laid back and likes to just explore the world and the latter is always willing to hold lengthy discussions with Gallantmon about whatever might concern them! Takato and Guilmon faced problems simply because Guilmon is a Virus type so Takato vowed to make it so that everyone can live together without facing problems simply because they aren't a Vaccine Type etc.

Megidramon and ChaosGallantmon are the same entity. What you see depends on wether or not Takato Biomerged with his Partner before they lose their mind.

#this is so long holy #digimon #thanks for the ask!#listen i have thoughts about Takato #thank you for the ask!#sluggybasson107

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seventeenlovesthree · 3 years

Text

Odaiba Memorial Day: My favourite things about Digimon

Since I didn’t cover this throughout Digiweek, I still thought to make a little compliation post for August 1st. I made a “Digidynamics masterpost” once, but the preferences keep shifting anyway.

When and how did you first discover Digimon? As previously mentioned, I watched Digimon Adventure in German as a kid when it first aired in the year 2000. I was just 9 years old and a die-hard Pokémon fan, so before even watching the first episode, I thought it’d be a cheap knockoff - but watched it regardless and before the first episode was even over, I had fallen head over heels in love. With the Digimon designs, the music, the children... I was completely hooked. I still remember asking my mom to print out character cards, which turned every single child and Digimon partner pink, because our printer was being difficult. I asked my dad to record episodes on VHS I couldn’t watch and up to these day, I can almost recite every single line in these four episodes by heart (it absolutely shouldn’t surprise you that 3/4 of these episodes were Koushirou centric, which is probably one of the main reasons why he became my favourite character back then). I also asked my dad to buy a magazine about the show for me, even though I didn’t even realize that it was a cheap translation from an originally American Dub version, but I didn’t even care that some of the contents (especially the included character studies for Taichi, Agumon, Koushirou and Tentomon) didn’t even make sense in a German context. I still own that magazine, by the way... Just like I own several plushes, Digivices...

Two years later, when I was 11, when Tamers aired in Germany for the first time, I discovered the world of the internet and, as I mentioned in a previous post, I think I wouldn’t even have ended up in the anime fandom - or even returned to Digimon several years later -, if I hadn’t been majorly obsessed with Tamers back then. Starting to draw and write my own fanwork, having ships, etc. It was indeed a wonderful time.

What are your favourite Digimon songs? I have listed the majority of them - Japanese and German ones - here, as I still find myself singing along “Butterfly”... Time really flies.

What are your favourite seasons? A few years back, I definitely would have said Tamers, since it had such an amazing impact on me back in the day, but right now, I guess I’d only put it behind Digimon Adventure 01. I can’t even remember the exact reason why I fell back into the Adventure rabbit hole as intensely as I did at the beginning of 2021, but I did and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way. I actively only watched 01, 02, Tamers and Frontier, so I can’t say much about the other series, but if we include Tri and the 2020 reboot, the ranking might look like this at the moment:

Digimon Adventure 01

Digimon Tamers

Digimon Adventure 02

Digimon Frontier

Digimon Adventure 2020

Digimon Adventure Tri (would be higher if they had the consistent characterizations of the Stageplay)

Who are your favourite characters? Oof, tough call. I did compile a Digidynamics Masterpost once, parts of the rankings often change, but I may as well put them here for all four original seasons:

Digimon Adventure 01 (pretty consistent, though the ranking between 4 and 6 often changes):

Koushirou Izumi

Taichi Yagami

Sora Takenouchi

Hikari Yagami

Jyou Kidou

Takeru Takaishi

Mimi Tachikawa

Yamato Ishida

Digimon Adventure 02 (these are the ones that change the most, because everything past Daisuke completely depends on context and mood):

Ken Ichijouji

Daisuke Motomiya

Iori Hida

Hikari Yagami

Miyako Inoue

Takeru Takaishi

Digimon Tamers (basically Takato and Ruki share 2nd spot, I could never decide between my three children anyway):

Jenrya Lee

Takato Matsuda

Ruki Makino

Juri Katou

Shuichon Lee

Hirokazu Shiota

Kenta Kitagawa

Ryou Akiyama

Digimon Frontier (I have watched this the least, so the ranking changes basically every time I read new info, interesting meta, etc. I may not be as familiar with them as with the other three seasons, but I still got a soft spot for them).

Takuya Kanbara

Kouji Minamoto

Kouichi Kimura

Tomoki Himi

Izumi Orimoto

Junpei Shibayama

What are your favourite ships? See the Digidynamics Masterpost and this Shipping Poster, but if I HAD to make a Top 15, it’d probably look like this (right now):

Taichi/Koushirou

Taichi/Sora + Sora/Koushirou (Taikoura has taken over my heart, which I entirely blame @dutchforstrangers for :P)

Jenrya/Takato

Daisuke/Ken

Jyou/Yamato

Sora/Mimi

Miyako/Hikari

Jenrya/Ruki

Jyou/Mimi

Koushirou/Hikari

Mimi/Miyako

Ruki/Juri

Takuya/Kouji

Mimi/Meiko

Why do you love Digimon and why do you love it until now? This could be an entire post on its own, really, but to sum it all up as shortly as I can, Digimon is a series I always find myself coming back to. I definitely had others, more intense fandoms between 2003 and 2020 (including Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, One Piece and the football fandom especially). But there are just so many things about Digimon that are unique and wonderful and up to this day, I still find myself figuring out new content about it!

The characters are so interestingly crafted, they’re multidimensional and layered and I could spend hours upon hours analyzing them and their dynamics. The series isn’t afraid to tackle serious, mature and darker topics and even addresses mental health issues on several occasions and it still holds up to this day, referring to the first four seasons I watched back then - and still find myself rewatching today.

I am currently rewatching the German dub - which I have very fond memories of - as well as the Japanese original of Adventure 01, 02 and Tamers, I never thought I’d fall in love with an anime stageplay as much as I did with the one of Digimon Adventure Tri and the novels offered more characterization and lore than I ever assumed possible.

The sheer concept of having a Digimon partner, a soulmate on your own to guide and accompany you throughout your daily life has such a nostalgic, warm feeling to it, which I’m forever grateful for.

This fandom is so incredibly creative and the people I have so far interacted with - here and on discord - have been unbelievably supportive and kind and I feel very welcome here. Just a year ago, I was in a very bad place mentally - I used to love to draw as a kid and teenager, but lost that spirit somewhere along the way. Kinda how Taichi also lost his way in his late teens/early twenties and while I couldn’t really appreciate him when I was a kid, I definitely love and appreciate him a WHOLE lot today. I thoroughly fell in love all over again with his relationship with Koushirou (who I have also always related to), platonic or romantic, and I’m so happy that I found the urge to draw and write again because of them.

Digimon Adventure Tri - even if I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped for - was a trigger that slowly brought me back here and even if I still believe that the reboot wasn’t mean for people like me and can’t compare to its original in my opinion, I still enjoy engaging with this wonderful fandom on a weekly basis again.

#digimon #personal #happy odaiba memorial day #odaiba memorial day #my two cents #dgmn #okay i'm done with the spamming now!

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shihalyfie · 2 years

Note

Hmmm... We've talked a lot about the differences and changes between the original version (Japanese) and dubs for 02 and Adv'99. In the light of the announcement of the reboot/Adv 2020's US dub, can you talk a little more about the American dubs in general?

My only exposure to them were material dubbed from the US dub (Digimon the Movie, and Digimon Fusion), so i'm curious about more details 👀

I haven't seen the American English dub as recently as I've seen the Japanese versions, but I did originally get into Digimon with it and therefore I do know it pretty well. As I've said before, the fandom myth that "the dub was a very loyal one for its time" is a complete lie or at least willful ignorance (only the "for its time" part might be true, and even then not as much as people think). Also, as I've said before, I don't think enough people realize that there's actually a difference between different series' dubs. There are some things in common between each, like changed names and added jokes, but the degree of how much they did it and how much it impacted the story varies a lot, both because the approach to dubbing changed per series and because each series' own writing style interacts differently with seemingly minor changes.

The short answer is: Adventure got fairly significant changes but the plot mostly held up, 02 got the highest number of significant changes to the point it actually took serious damage in terms of story and characterization, Tamers changes mostly are tonal, Frontier and Savers (Data Squad) are where they chilled a bit, Xros Wars (Fusion) was overkill, and tri./Kizuna were about what you'd expect from modern adults' anime dubs. The long answer (with a brief history of said dubs) is below the cut. (Also, hopefully this is interesting info for those who’ve never had contact with the American English dub at all!)

Adventure

One thing that’s important to keep in mind is that Digimon dubbing and rights have actually changed hands a few times. The first few Digimon American English dubs were by a company named Saban Entertainment, headed by a guy named Haim Saban who unfortunately has openly said a lot of very questionable things about the Japanese media he’s handled to the point of bordering on racism, but that was also unfortunately very common at the time. Saban was also responsible for Power Rangers, among other things. Digimon was one of their last dubbed productions before they started falling under and got bought out by Disney. We’ll talk about that a bit later once we get to Tamers.

Adventure was dubbed while the Japanese series was still ongoing, in what seems to have been an episode-by-episode workflow. Now, the good thing is that Adventure's plot wasn't really impacted that much by the changes, and this is probably the origin of the "the Digimon dubs were very loyal" myth, because people are probably thinking of things like the infamous 4Kids outright changing plot points or cutting whole episodes. At the time, it was also unusual for an anime to outright admit they took place in Japan -- Adventure’s tried to hide it for half a series (that’s why “Highton View Terrace” is a thing), but they decided to give up once the Tokyo arc really was too obviously in Japan to do anything about.

The thing is, who on earth is watching Digimon Adventure for the plot? We’re all watching it for the characters, and this is the part people tend to ignore when discussing how much the dub did or didn’t change. All of these characters are defined by their temperaments and personalities, and these are the lines that got changed the most frequently. On top of that, the approach to dubbing seems to have been, for lack of a better way to put it, “a bit too reckless” -- they were very casual about making changes to the script without any foresight that things would become important later. This manifests most clearly in things like Mimi making a throwaway joke about a little brother only for us to learn she’s an only child later, but this does start causing more severe long-term issues in 02 (more on this later).

The most drastic change is Mimi’s personality and temperament, and there’s a reason my meta for her actually has an explicitly set aside disclaimer warning that readers coming only from the American English dub might find parts of the description to be jarring. I’m guessing that the dub production staff didn’t anticipate (or didn’t care about) the fact that the Adventure characters are meant to subvert their usual character archetypes, so a lot of the characters are rewritten to be pigeonholed back into the stereotypical tropes. Mimi definitely gets the biggest brunt of it because the dub writers basically piled on every single “empty-headed materialistic girly girl” trope they could think of on her -- obsessed with materialistic spending and shopping, lacking in common sense, haughty and condescending, et cetera. (Note that there are definitely positive examples of this kind of character in fiction -- Miyako’s character arc in 02 involves some degree of the shallowness issue -- but the problem in this particular case is that there is definitely a bit of maliciously misogynistic “girly girls must always be shallow and stupid” intent behind this here.) Unfortunately, this starts posing problems around the last quarter of the series when Mimi’s mental breakdown and character arc starts depending heavily on her Japanese version characterization, and it starts feeling jarring that someone who was so condescending towards others for three-quarters of a series is now getting a character arc about how inherently kind and non-judgmental she is towards others.

In the end, I don’t think Adventure took as much damage from the changes because it’s ultimately a very straightforward plot, and a lot of their character arcs are tied so heavily to the events depicted visually on screen that bar making severe footage changes, you can’t really change it that much. Any character arc that spiraled out of control eventually had to snap back into alignment with the Japanese version to some degree (hence why a good number of people were able to see past Mimi’s initial dub-induced rudeness), and some parts that were changed probably still needed to be changed in some way for cultural reasons (Sora, Koushirou, and Jou all have characterization elements that depend very heavily on understanding Japanese social propriety). Also, Adventure is probably somewhere around the middle when it comes to how tonally lighthearted or heavy it is compared to others Digimon series, so the added jokes do have some impact on its overall silliness, but not as much. Probably the worst part of it is that unfortunately they keep cracking jokes even when characters are having mental breakdowns or during formidable enemy climactic portions, but these are mostly offset by the character arcs being so clear that it’s still hard to dispute their contents in the end.

The real problems start once we get to 02.

For better or for worse, 02′s Japanese version has this incredibly subtle writing style where the character nuances rely a lot on individual lines of dialogue, and the plot often runs separately from how they do their character development. It’s a double-edged sword; on one hand its high level of depth and complexity means I can dedicate a whole blog to picking apart its nuances twenty years later, and it’s infamous for having a lot of people saying they saw it differently years later as adults, but on the flip side it means a lot of its best substance goes over the heads of kids or first-time casual watchers, and I’m not even sure I can blame the audience for missing it. It’s honestly too subtle for its own good at times.

Unfortunately, combined with being dubbed as it still aired in Japan, this created a very nasty combination with some of the most recklessly aggressive dub changes in the entire Digimon franchise. (This isn’t just personal bias; if you actually do a count of number of changes per episode, 02 changes average at about 1.5 times an average Adventure episode and 2-3 times an average Tamers or Frontier episode.) A lot of the substance of what makes 02 work in the first place either completely dies in the dub or at least becomes significantly harder to see the value in, and there's a reason it seems to have the highest rate of people saying they liked it much better when watching it in Japanese for the first time. Those from non-English speaking countries who got Digimon the Movie (the only product consistently translated from the English script instead of the Japanese internationally) have sometimes complained that the tone and characterization seemed off compared to the Digimon they knew, with jokes being cracked every half minute and everyone being really rude to each other. So basically, imagine that for fifty episodes.

The changes are basically more aggressive and more exaggerated versions of the Adventure changes, but they end up getting much more damaging to 02′s integrity as a series overall for the following reasons:

Daisuke. Very little of his original characterization survived the dubbing process, and there’s a reason I consistently dedicate entire posts to what happened to his characterization and how this created a chain effect with 02′s entire writing. After all, Daisuke’s the lead protagonist! 02 is when the series started getting very theme-heavy (Adventure’s was broadly about individualism and self-awareness, but not as pinpoint about overarching story themes), and unfortunately the first half-writing basically added almost every toxic masculinity trope you can imagine to him, almost as if they wanted to make him unlikable. They started toning it down in the second half as Daisuke’s forward-thinking nature and friendliness actually became plot important, but this still didn’t fix the issue because now the character arc just became flat-out unbelievable (someone who was so arrogant and self-centered in the first half is supposedly one of the most open-minded and friendly guys around?).

“Adding jokes” is consistently done in every series dub, but the 02 dub stands out because it seemed to be utterly incapable of ever cutting the jokes out even during plot-important moments when it really needed to, causing a lot of the series to become basically devoid of emotional depth. Of course, this only ended up causing problems for characterization too, because the Japanese version could have a scene where they’re exposing their vulnerabilities and emotional weaknesses, but we have to make this into a joke, again, which implies nobody in the series is actually taking this seriously. (Kiuchi Reiko’s Daisuke has multiple moments where you can tell in delivery Daisuke’s about to cry, even if he doesn’t actually break into tears, but I can’t remember a moment I ever felt that way with Davis.) 02 starts off tonally lighter than Adventure at the beginning but ends with a much heavier emotional toll on all the kids by the end of it, but you’d probably never believe this with the American English dub alone. This is also why 02 fans who favor the Japanese version tend to get very upset when people justify why the American English dub is better because “it’s funnier”, because a lot of what made it “funny” also ended up doing serious damage to some core parts of the series.

A lot of the 02 kids’ characterization is built up through one-off lines or the nuances of how they approach things, and the dialogue changes being done so uniformly and recklessly across the series means that basically all of this goes out the window. Instead, it’s replaced with everyone constantly mocking and dunking on each other, which probably sounds fun and “savage” at first, but it leads to two major problems: firstly, it does damage to a series where a lot of the appeal is about the group’s dynamic and way of playing off each other (you’re supposed to get the impression these kids really, really love each other, because this is a series heavily themed around relationships and all that), and secondly, every single character now has an identical sort-of-snarky temperament with no clear distinction between them, so it’s no wonder the 02 kids have such a strong reputation in English-speaking countries for being “flat with no character development”. A good number of the emotional payoffs in the second half become nonfunctional because everything meant to build up to it is no longer recognizable.

Even in the original version, 02 definitely has a very crowded plot where lots of things happen and subplots get juggled around at the drop of a hat, but the very reckless dubbing approach to these points leads to unaddressed/unanswered/contradictory plot points and portrayals basically permeating the entire series. Hey, did you know the ending to episode 13 wasn’t a cliffhanger in Japanese?

I’m not saying it’s impossible to see some of the substance behind 02 when you’re dub-only; I liked the series well enough when I was younger (although I very much disliked Davis due to being upset with the creepy -- and dub-exclusive -- way he invaded Kari’s boundaries), and I think perceptive fans have been able to see bits of the original Japanese series’ substance poking through the cracks (although it generally manifests in things like “I see what it was going for even if it didn’t succeed in execution” far more often than it would in Japanese). But I definitely think 02′s Western reputation has definitely taken a severe tangible negative hit thanks to this dub, and there’s a reason this blog devotes about 10% of its posts just trying to weather out and inform people of the differences at all because the confusion has gotten so bad.

Incidentally, Ken’s character arc and backstory is closest to that of an Adventure character in that it’s heavily tied to the actual plot events depicted on screen (i.e. it’s the least subtle and hardest to miss), and that’s probably why he’s the character who’s closest to unscathed out of all the 02 kids. I think the strength of that character arc contributed heavily to salvaging 02′s Anglosphere reputation and allowing 02 to still get good reviews by a decent number of people out there; it’s hard to argue with what happened in it, and it’s also hard to argue with the appeal of the rough-around-the-edges Davis mellowing out through his relationship with him (even if it has way more hurdles to get around than it was originally intended to).

That said, I do have a major credit to give this dub and it’s that it had a lot of pretty good dub-exclusive insert songs (mainly made for The Movie, but I digress). Adventure’s dub only had one, “Hey Digimon”, and it was this lighthearted song that they somehow felt they had to use even for some really climactic battle scenes, resulting in some of the worst anticlimax ever. 02′s are much better and much more well-timed.

Hurricane Touchdown gets its own post because while people generally know it was the most edited-down part of The Movie, the fact a lot of people don’t actually know much about the original movie (it didn’t even have very good fansubs until around two years ago) means what got lost is often not very well-known -- mainly that the original was heavily about moving on from denial and nostalgia for the past, and that Wallace was characterized as a relentless flirt and general disaster child. (Willis in The Movie comes off as significantly more responsible while Davis antagonizes him, but in the original Japanese version Wallace was the unhelpful gremlin while Daisuke was more understandably upset at his antics.)

One extra thing I have to point out before I move onto Tamers is that Diablomon Strikes Back (Revenge of Diaboromon) was the first Adventure-branded thing to be dubbed by anyone besides Saban. (Diablomon Strikes Back, both Tamers movies, and the Frontier movie were dubbed by Disney in 2005, between Frontier and Savers/Data Squad.) As a result, for a while, it was probably the most accurate-to-the-source dub of any Adventure product. There are still some changes, but they’re within line of necessary cultural nuance considerations and the overall tone of the movie. I’ve seen some dub-only people say that Davis came out feeling unusually nice and friendly compared to the TV series. Yeah, funny thing about that...that’s actually because that’s Daisuke’s original characterization. My biggest fear right now is that the upcoming 02-based movie may have fights breaking out over how the characters are portrayed there, because it’s entirely possible they’ll be accurate to Japanese characterization but get accused by dub-only fans for being out of character.

Tamers

I’m not actually sure at what point the deal between Saban and Disney was finalized in practice, but on paper the handover happened around the point of the D-Reaper arc. This is where things kind of get interesting, and I think whether you prefer the original version of Tamers or the American English dub will really be a matter of taste.

Firstly, not only did they start really toning down how aggressive they were with the changes, they also started getting more tasteful about how they wrote in added humor (instead of just intrusively adding in jokes in periods of silence, the way people would deliver lines would be more smoothly integrated into the series). It feels much like a transition period into what would eventually become the style used for Frontier and Data Squad, and it’s why I wonder if the shift to Disney wasn’t already happening earlier than when they say it did.

Tamers is a much more straightforward series than either Adventure or 02 when it comes to characterization -- it’s not very subtle, and characters will often state their motivation or epiphanies directly in dialogue -- so although there are of course enough changes that you could unpack them in more detailed Tamers meta or run into discrepancies in deeper fandom discussions, for the most part the characters come off as almost the same among most casual watchers. This means that the biggest difference is tonal, and that’s where the preference issue really comes in.

Japanese Tamers is a very unrelenting series, and its reputation for being “dark” probably has a lot to do with the fact it has very minimal situational comedy compared to Adventure, 02, or Frontier. (Note that Ghost Game is heavily relying on situational comedy for tonal regulation; Kiyoshirou is a huge factor in balancing out all the knives and stuff.) I don’t believe the core contents are necessarily unusual for Digimon standards, but I do agree that tonally speaking, by the time you get to the third quarter, it becomes a barrage of heavy thing after heavy thing happening to the characters without as much in the way of balancing it out (or at least not much compared to other series). It’s a lot for even an adult to handle, and based on testimony from Japanese fans watching it at the time as kids, it was often just too emotionally draining for them. It’s considered one of the leading theories over there as to why Tamers was the first series to experience a major financial hit (ratings started dropping enough to make the TV networks panic early in the series, and it ultimately made only barely over half 02′s toy revenue that year), in that people may have dropped it because it was just too much. (In actuality, there were several other things that probably contributed to the downfall, but the point I’m making is that this is notable enough for people to take it seriously as a theory.)

In contrast, American English dub Tamers was...I’m not going to say “making jokes” per se (it thankfully does not have people crack inappropriate jokes at people’s suffering or anything like that), but the tone of everyone’s dialogue carries an ever so slightly lighter and more casual tone from the beginning even all the way to the end. If the above theory of the original series turning people off for being too overwhelming is true, it’s very possible that -- ironically, given Tamers’ reputation -- the dub contributed to actually retaining a proportionally larger audience in English-speaking territories as a result of being less unrelenting. (Of course, again, things went south in the West too due to changed universes going over less well with Western audiences and other things related to franchise mismanagement, but, again, that’s a digression.)

My impression is that the Tamers dub never got quite to the level of utterly assassinating emotional resonance the way 02′s was often guilty of, but of course there are things you can still dispute for good reason (based on characterization nuances -- Kazu is a bit more openly misogynistic than Hirokazu is, Ryou and Ruki’s dynamic is a bit changed in ways that probably turned a lot more people off, and I’m personally uncomfortable with how the Chinese elements are the most aggressively stripped out in a series that partially involved discussing racism against Chinese families in Japan), and tonal preference is always going to be a thing. Also, Tamers is a bit unusual in Japanese in that it's one of the more willing to be indulgent in gender-neutral Digimon personalities (Renamon, Culumon, etc.) and this unfortunately doesn’t come into play in English -- although I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume this was more due to the fact the writers simply didn’t get the memo in time and weren’t given references on how Japanese pronouns work. That kind of thing is more commonly provided to localizers today, but the actual translation process was very shaky back then.

I will say one really major thing the Tamers dub bungled (possibly due to lack of foresight) is that they changed Leomon’s last words to Juri to ones of reassurance -- they even named an episode after the new version! -- only for things to pose problems when it turned out his last words having a trigger word for her (”destiny”) was plot important. They awkwardly tried to retcon it by having flashbacks to the scene use more accurately translated dialogue, but it’s really conspicuous.

In any case, like I said, the last quarter was when things transferred fully to Disney, and that’s when the changes started toning down.

Frontier

Legally, Frontier’s dub is by “Sensation Animation”, but in practice by Disney commissioning former Saban staff to finish dubbing Digimon material. Nevertheless, the company shift shows in multiple ways -- for one, they stopped having the rights to the original Digimon dub theme song anymore, and that’s why you’ve never heard it used in anything since Tamers (and why the Frontier theme song is used in Revenge of Diaboromon, because that’s the only theme song they had the rights to at the time).

Again, I think there are definitely nitpicks you can make here if you happen to be a Frontier meta writer, and I definitely think there are reasons to be annoyed at the fact everyone is a bit more cruel to each other than they were in the original. (It’s not as bad as 02 because in Frontier everyone is very rough around the edges and not always in sync, especially at the beginning of the series, but it is supposed to be one of the tighter groups in the end, and them softening around each other is a way the series often employs to show the potential these kids have to be much nicer people.) However, on top of this being where dubbing started to really chill due to the company change, Frontier is also a very straightforward, easy-to-understand plot, and therefore I don’t think I’ve ever heard any major disputes in understanding between Anglosphere fans of Frontier and others in terms of getting the characters and how they work.

Probably the one biggest difference I can think of is Kouichi, and this is mostly due to his very limited screen time in terms of speaking for himself -- in Japanese it’s much clearer through his speech pattern he’s actually normally a very casual, sociable kid (he uses ore!) and just happened to be shy with the others due to circumstances. His major focus episodes in the American English dub (with Crispin Freeman’s delivery) sound a little more sad and a bit angstier, so you might get the impression he’s a lot softer and more introverted of a kid.

Savers/Data Squad

For all I’m not normally the biggest fan of Disney, I have to say it is kind of impressive they were pretty dedicated to Digimon during the time they had it. They went ahead and dubbed all of the remaining movies (at the time) to promote Data Squad, and when they brought on Studiopolis for it, Jeff Nimoy made it a thing to get high-demand voice actors among Digimon fans for it (if I remember correctly, Colleen O'Shaughnessey is Yoshi specifically because of this). But anyway...

Data Squad is about the level of Frontier in terms of dialogue and tone changes, with the one major sticking-out point being that Disney got really antsy when it came to depictions of bombs and led to one of the franchise’s most infamous censors (hi Citramon). Personally, though, I think Citramon is hardly much of an issue compared to the fact that Tohma’s fake betrayal centered heavily around the fact he was being blackmailed with a bomb around his sister’s neck...but other than that one unfortunate part, Savers was always a series that was big on situational and slapstick humor even to the very end, so it takes well to dub humor, and on the flip side the dub was careful to still preserve the themes about xenophobia and the cycle of hate.

Xros Wars/Fusion

I haven’t seen all of this one’s dub yet (I stopped after five episodes), so I’m going off what I remember of it and what others watching it reported. This was the first dub done after the franchise was transferred back to Saban Brands, Haim Saban’s successor company to Saban Entertainment. They seemed to be on a roll of procuring Toei franchises, since they took Power Rangers back and also tried to start a dub of PreCu-- um, Glitter Force. Unfortunately, they were also convinced that the best way to go about things would be to pretend it was the nineties again.

The end result is Adventure/02-style dubbing applied to a 2010 series in an era where nostalgia wouldn’t even save it. (I do think it’s a bit hypocritical the Digimon fandom treats this like the most radical dub in the franchise when in actuality Adventure and 02 were even worse at times, but it is true that in this case Saban didn’t even have “this is normal for the time” as an excuse.) The problem is exacerbated even further by the fact that someone (not sure if it was Saban or Nickelodeon, which aired the series) decided that most of everything that could be remotely taken as objectionable had to be censored to ludicrous degrees -- even if they were things that were fine back in Adventure -- and while I’m personally whatever when it comes to issues of design, I feel like even the idea of a kid in Taiki’s backstory getting gravely ill from pneumonia for months being considered objectionable is a bit much.

Overall Xros Wars is a bombastic series that never lets up on situational humor, and even during its most tense moments it’s over-the-top, so Fusion probably didn’t suffer too much to that extent, but I also unfortunately heard stories of them still overdoing it to the point that even if it didn’t cut into the series themes and characterization, it was just plain cringeworthy writing. That said, I don’t know very many people who survived watching it to the end in the first place...

tri.

I don’t personally know very many people who watched this beginning to end, and I didn’t watch it myself (and the reason is actually just because Vic Mignogna as Matt is just a bit too much for me to personally bear at this time). I do know that the dub was allegedly commissioned by Toei themselves now that they’ve been getting more actively involved in their series localization. Otherwise, I didn’t hear much about it, and the few people I know who did watch it didn’t have much to analyze very deeply about it. I assume there was definitely some added humor, but from the sound of it it was somewhere around Tamers level.

The biggest complaint I heard was mainly that they tried to have Meiko have a sort of “fake Southern” accent to approximate her Tottori dialect, but in actuality it was just too intrusively distracting.

Kizuna

I assume this was also commissioned by Toei. This one I did actually watch myself. Not many added jokes (and the few they added were well-timed), Daisuke and the others are in-character, and honestly this is probably because the movie just goes so fast and is so packed that there isn’t much room to add in the first place. In fact, my biggest issue with the dub is something that wasn’t the dub staff’s fault at all; the original Japanese script’s official translation is awful, and the dub staff was very obviously given that to work with. The other issue is that the voice acting is a bit stale compared to previous dubs -- one thing I had never faulted Digimon American English dubs for prior to then was voice acting quality, and it was one of the best among dubs of the time -- but this is probably because it was during early COVID pandemic conditions, so I don’t think much could have been done about it.

Adventure: reboot

So funnily enough I’m writing this despite not knowing much about it at all -- I don’t even know who commissioned this or who has the rights. (My best guess is Hasbro since they’re the ones who took in Power Rangers after Saban Brands also imploded, but I really have no idea.) I also don’t know where it’ll be airing; it doesn’t sound like Nickelodeon, and it could very well be a streaming service like Netflix.

I will say, though, as someone who watched the reboot from beginning to end, even if they do decide to go nuts with joke adding in the dub for it, I don’t think the series risks getting heavily damaged by it. As I pointed out earlier, impact of heavy dub changes also varies depending on how straightforward the series itself is, and not only is Adventure: extremely straightforward, it also is a series centered more around action and zany hijinks than it is character psychology, so a bit of extra humor doesn’t seem out of place there. But we’ll have to see!

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon tamers #digimon frontier #digimon savers #digimon multi series talk #shihameta #dubbing discourse #tomorrows2top #shiha's ask box

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legendheroes · 2 years

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I appreciate peeps questions and such, but i'll have to clarify a few things:

I won't write/draw AUs or Stories/Fanfictions, OCs or even headcanons/theories from other people. Even the old ones i've collaborated with i prefer to not touch them again (because, i lost contact with people and also lost all the posts/details of them ) ↓

Please avoid sending me many of "what do you think of [X]" questions because sometimes those kiiiinda make me get no idea what to answer, or perhaps i've been answered/posted something related to it before. Even so, if you would like to send one of those, first check if i hadn't answered it or something similar to it first! ↓

At this moment, this blog is me being delusional about the AU thingy on the pinned post. Most of those posts might be about them. ↓

My memory is foggy about certain series, so if i end up misremembering something... Yeah, please contact me asap. ↓

I know i've said this on countless accounts but, I have little to zero knowledge of the American dub, so my portrayal/answers/headcanons/etc are all based on the original Japanese version and sometimes stuff borrowed from the BRPT dub (which is mostly the same as the original JP for most of the series -- except Fusion). So please, don't assume that I had watched the US dub or that I am American. ↓

My stance on the digimon (monsters) are that there's more than one of each species within the multiverse. So, Daisuke's V-mon/Magnamon, OG & Reboot Taichis' Agumon/Omegamon and Takato's Guilmon/Dukemon are not related to the Royal Knights. ↓

I will follow all canon material if possible when working with canon versions of the characters, BUT only what i can work with. If something gets in conflict with the main TV series (Adv99-02-Tamers-Frontier-Savers-XW-Appmon-Adv2020-GG) i will reject the contradictions and use only the stuff not affected or influenced by it. Basically playing with the idea the events we know in certain media are played differently in-universe, adopted from Pixiv Dictionary. Explained better by Shiha in this post here.

#ni rambling about something else in this blog

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fizzingwizard · 4 years

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Episode 26 already! I can’t believe we’re about halfway through... This episode seems to be end point for the current “arc,” or “mini arc,” maybe?? I’m not sorry to see it go but overall, this episode was pretty eh... Not bad, just kind of... I don’t get why we needed it. A fair few REALLY important things do happen! Those are awesome! I just think we could have got them in a more... interesting... way? xD Like, I didn’t hate watching it or anything, it just kind of felt like, with all the important stuff going on, shouldn’t there be more... oomph? (And I know we had a ton of oomph lately, it’s about time to wind down for a while... but then why pick now to spring certain things on us... anyway...)

Pic of the day!

generic group shot that captures each Chosen’s individual fighting spirit!

Koushirou: *intent focus*

Sora: *look of concern*

Jou: *I must have learned something in school that will be useful here*

Mimi: *Jou thinking always makes me nervous and a little grossed out*

Recap below!

So last week I’m pretty sure I vowed to violently murder someone in a back alley (or something like that) if we didn’t get to see the gang eat some FOOD this episode.

Well, looks like y’all are safe from me for now. Though I gotta say, I’m mildly concerned that they are eating Digi-eggs. Don’t those look like Digi-eggs? Other than the random very normal looking grapes...

Thank HEAVENS they are taking a BREAK.

Taichi uses his telescope to remark that Cloud Continent is not only a continent in the clouds, but it sure looks small from down here. Leomon admits he’s not really sure what’s going on anymore either xD

Leomon’s mainly weirded out by Patamon, who... I suppose just doesn’t fit the bill for what he expected the holy Digimon to be like :P lol

Ok so quick aside... I’m honestly kinda peeved that we’re still with Leomon’s silly group of clowns. I know that sounds harsh! And I love Leomon! But his army is... uh... well, he definitely made sure he’d be the coolest one around at all times xD It makes sense that he’d be hanging around because after all, getting to the Holy Digimon was one of his goals as well, but honestly he and his team just feel like replacement back-up for the other Chosen Children who are in the real world atm. AND FIZZ IS NOT INTO THAT. At this point I really do NOT understand why the kids had to split up and send some to the real world at all. I suppose it may be explained in the future but I also won’t be surprised if the answer is “It’s exactly like you saw, Devimon tried to separate them.” I would much rather have had the whole team together. I mean, if this was an excuse for Taichi and Yamato to get close... it really didn’t feel like that. At least not to a point where they couldn’t have gotten with the others around too.

Anyway, break time’s over, because there’s an actual monster fight going on. It must be cool to watch - the way Ebidramon shakes Seadramon reminds me of the T-rex vs stegosaurus battle in Fantasia xD But then Seadramon has the last laugh and EATS EBIDRAMON’S DATA, enabling it to evolve to WarSeadramon. That must have been an epic meal

Meanwhile in the real world, important things are happening, Koushirou’s using lots of Big Words with Kanji and Mimi is happy to get back at Jou for one-upping her last episode by correctly recognizing the roman letters this time. They are still sitting on the same bench where they’ve been for SIX episodes now. My butt hurts just thinking about it.

Patamon is very informative.

Patamon: We’re all gonna die!!

Thank you Patamon. You are so cute.

WarSeadramon decides Takeru and Patamon look like a yummy dessert after his meal, so he attacks them, only to be feigned off by our heroes. WarSeadramon gets pissy and says “Two on one is no fair! I have friends too!” and calls MetalSeadramon to join him. Apparently, MetalSeadramon can move on land :O This was one of the freakier things, I was actually like GAAH

Taichi tells Yamato to take Takeru somewhere safe. Since he is clearly very tasty to Seadramons. Yamato doesn’t bother arguing xD

Takeru: Hey! I’m your brother not a bag of beans!

However they are both cut off! Stuck between a rock and a hard place!

Meanwhile, Koushirou is literally a bad ass. He’s managing to reroute the rogue ships whose GPS have gone haywire by sending a signal from a second satellite, which the ships then pass on to the other ships.

Thus helping them get back on course and not collide with each other.

I mean this kid is in fourth grade. HOW HAS HE NOT BEEN SNAPPED UP BY THE GOVERNMENT AND TRAINED INTO SOME CHILD SUPER SPY???

no seriously... I’d actually kind of LOVE it if that were a thing x’D Like the government goes to Koushirou’s house and tries to get him to come but his parents are like “Um no he is a child and he needs a childhood” and protect him :’< When will this show realize WE ALL LOVE KOUSHIROU

Mimi: HURRY UP!!!!!!!!!!

Mimi: H... Hikari... you were still here...? Ehehe.... um... *whisper* hurry up!!

so yeah Hikari is still here! Standing! Staring! Really creepy! I get that the others are very distracted atm but it seems like someone should be like “do you need help? are you lost? do you need a doctor since you seem to have gone catatonic??” Only Koushirou is actively doing anything, I think someone could be spared to at least let her sit on their lap!

Back in the digital world, Garurumon is so distracted by the fight happening in front of him that he fails to notice the attack from behind, and Professional Self-Sacrificing Idiots Taichi and Greymon save the day.

They predictably fall off the cliff wheeeeeeeeeeee

It’s raining men, hallelujah

Under water, Greymon gets his assed kicked until Taichi manages to swim to him

which seems to give him renewed focus, I suppose, and he’s able to get away from the two Seadramon pals and get some air.

However they almost immediately drag him back down. You would think Greymon would be REALLY bad in a water battle and at least need to evolve to be any use (especially given that both evolved Seadramons are perfect levels), but both Greymon and Garurumon never evolve this episode, so I think we’re supposed to assume that even after eating they’re just not recovered enough for that yet. GOOD

Yeah but here’s what confuses me. Yamato does not do anything to help. Well, I shouldn’t say anything - whenever an enemy comes out of the water, he and Leomon’s team attack it from afar. But I mean, Taichi is in the water, being attacked by two Digimon who are both a level higher. WHY DOESN’T YAMATO GO IN TO HELP?!?!

We can’t even give him the excuse of needing to protect Takeru because 1) Takeru has Leomon’s entire team to protect him and 2) Takeru is fighting!!!!!!

I’m sorry but Yamato should be in the water. This is just crappy writing. He’s shouted “Taichi!” three times in the exact same way this episode and has very few other lines, so I actually sort of suspect that Namikawa Daisuke might not have been available to voice him this episode?? Maybe? So they just couldn’t give him too much to do for that reason. That’s totally speculation, I just don’t understand why Yamato does so little here.

Back with Koushirou, his plan has worked and all the ships are successfully changing course woot

Aww looks like a Christmas tree

The way Garudamon carries Zudomon is A++

The partners inform them that the Zurumon are on the move...

Jou theorizes that they’re off to gobble up more data somewhere else. Mimi’s like “ew?”

They decide they really need to get back to the digital world now. They’re finally worried about Yamato and Taichi and figure they’ll be more useful over there. I really can’t think of a reason why Koushirou could not have saved all these ships from the digital world so YEAH HARD AGREE. What even was this interlude?? Show us how cool a hacker Koushirou is?? We already KNEW that, he can do it from the digital world too, and watching the kids sit on a bench for six episodes was NO GOOD. Grrr. At least I needed them to do something really cool to justify all this but... nope! Can’t say it was necessary for Taichi and Yamato’s sake either!

There is one awesome thing that comes out of the separation...

Hikari: Oh you want to go back to the digital world? Why didn’t you say so?

ZIP!

Aaaaand they’re gone! Hikari included! :O

I kind of guessed this was gonna happen when Hikari first showed up, but I also sort of thought, it seems so early to have her join... I know this season is Doing It Different but we JUST got Takeru, I figured we’d spend more time on his story first. Also figured the lead in to Hikari joining would be more... Idk... this was just kind of anticlimactic, y’know? But whatev.

Now the only thing is... there’s no reason they had to go back to the human world for this. Hikari could have just come on her own. “It’s calling,” she says. Well, it could have called her regardless. So we really didn’t need this for Hikari’s sake. Bleh.

Curly

Ok so injuries really are a thing now. I’m down. We don’t get blood but we get to see lots of sparkly data leakage.

Still best boy, warts and all

What I DO really like... that i think we saw this ep as well as the episode before last in particular, is how important the kids are to their partners this season. Greymon loses it when Taichi’s KO’d in the Devimon battle, and this time, when they were separated under water Greymon started to panic until Taichi arrived. That alone seemed to restore his confidence. And even though he can’t evolve further, Taichi’s still able to give him a power boost. That was the one thing in 99 Adventure - the idea that the partners were connected with their human partners and needed their help to reach the next level was always fun, but mostly left the kids just running around unhelpfully much of the time. Tamers added on to it with the card game boosts (which were just to sell toys to kids BUT I still thought was cool lol). And then Frontier just did away with the partners all together and made the kids the monsters which I did NOT like personally. (YMMV although that one ep where Takuya has a crisis and becomes Flamemon was a cool effect.) This season has found a good balance, I think, between keeping the kids involved and preventing them from being too involved, if that makes sense. Of course it still means they’ve got suction cups on their shoes and can hold their breath underwater for unusual lengths of time...

Yay we won!!

... Never mind, now there are four of them xP

(but really, did he think he’d beaten two Perfect levels just like that? A level below, under water, and two-on-one? Taichiiii)

Yamato’s still just shouting Taichi’s name like the girl in Forrest Gump. “Run Taichi run!”

Then... Taichi hears a lovelier voice than Yamato’s!

Taichi: Zudomon!! Why do you sound like my little sister?

Bang bang Zudomon’s silver hammer came down upon his head

Bang bang Zudomon’s silver hammer made sure that he was dead

The whole gang is back!!! YAAAAAYYYY the one reason to love this episode!

So nice to see someone other than Greymon and Garurumon be a badass xP

And then this!! Anticlimactic though it was, I’m really excited to have Hikari on the team. She’s joining about halfway through which is kinda similar to how it was in 99 Adventure, but 99 Adventure had a much better lead in... however this season still has lots of storytelling to do.

Taichi is pretty amazed but not freaked, at least not yet.

Hikari’s just like “I was called here” and yes she’s as freaky as ever. If anything she’s even more freaky. I’m down as long as she gets a bit of personality beyond “mysterious” and “adores her brother”

I mean Takeru’s had plenty of opportunities to be a baby BAMF so far, so Hikari deserves some too. I wonder how long she’ll go without a partner?

Next week! It’s our first Takari shot!

Also... ooooohh??

The group will go to a new continent. Exciting exciting. Though I ragged on this episode, I’m still overall enjoying this season. But yeah I’m so GLAD the team is back together and unless something happens to change my mind, I def think they never should have been separated from the beginning. Or at least it should have been a much shorter separation. Anyway they’re together again so fingers crossed for more good stuff to come.

#digimon adventure:#digimon adventure reboot #digimon adventure 2020 #digimon #digi spoilers #fizz watches digimon 2020

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jippy-kandi · 4 years

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Digimon Adventure: 2020 – Episode 1: Tokyo: Digital Crisis! (Review)

Thoughts on the first episode of the Digimon Adventure reboot series.

Disclaimer: I just want to make it clear that I’m watching and reviewing Digimon Adventure: 2020 in the context of it being a children’s anime -- because that’s what it is. By design, it’s obviously going to be “dumb” to the mind of the average adult. But that’s OK, because it’s for kids. And for a first episode aimed at children? It was pretty good.

The opening credits were 99% Taichi and I don’t like it if it’s permanently going to be this way. But I’m hoping that it will change to perhaps be character-centric to the person being “highlighted” in a particular episode, going through all eight kids, until there’s a permanent one where all eight are equally in it. I also hope the same for the ending credits.

I noticed that Angemon and Angewomon were missing from the opening credits, whereas the other digimon evolutions are shown. So I assume they’re following in OG Adventure’s footsteps and doing the whole “special angel” evolution reveal? I’m OK with that. It seems really interesting how they’re setting up Takeru and Hikari to be included this time (as they were both missing in the ending credits with the other five standing opposite Yamato . . .).

Both the opening and ending songs are fine, but I prefer the original songs, especially Butter-Fly. You are missed, Kouji Wada. <3

The art and animation of this series is really good. Toei Animation are really putting money into this series. I’m impressed.

I have mixed feelings about how they chose to introduce the characters. On the one hand, I think utilising just two characters is great to really highlight them to the audience and not overwhelm them with too much information. But on the other hand . . . I think introducing all eight characters in the first episode would make it appeal to more kids, because they can easily identify with one kid and keep watching the series. But a kid might watch this first episode, not like Taichi or Koushirou, and just switch off from the series completely. But I think what they went for is probably best for how they plan to introduce the characters (particularly regarding what they have in store for Yamato being a lone wolf who joins them later).

Taichi was a bit too generic to me. But, it’s only the first episode, so this isn’t a real criticism -- I’m sure he’ll be fleshed out as the series progresses. He also seems more responsible than OG Taichi. And while I do like his new voice, I think Toshiko Fujita was a lot better; she managed to convey more personality in her voice.

Koushirou was actually quite “cute”. But I’m not sure I totally like that he’s being portrayed as shy . . . he never seemed shy to me in the original series, but just a kid who was super absorbed in his own tech world. But his shyness did make him more endearing? I’m just not used to it so I find it a bit unsettling. But it does “humanise” him more and thus makes him more relatable, rather than just a distant tech nerd, so I guess it’s a positive? I also really like his voice.

I am liking the Taichi/Koushirou friendship a lot. You can tell Koushirou is going to completely idolise Taichi for making him feel included and “useful”. And let’s be real: Koushirou has always been the most underrated character when it comes to popularity, relative to actual impact on the plot, because he’s actually the one who solves almost everything and he doesn’t get nearly as much credit for it as he deserves in the fandom. It’s nice that they’ve spotlighted him with Taichi in this episode.

So apparently Mimi’s family owns a conglomerate because they made both Koushirou’s tablet computer and Takeru’s hat? I always thought the weird “TK” scrawled on his hat was for his name (TaKeru or T.K.), but apparently it’s for TachiKawa! Wow, Mimi is insanely rich this time around (moreso than the first). Princess indeed!

Takeru’s design is so freaking adorable. I still think his clothes are a bit off, but his face is so adorable! And I didn’t really think that of OG Takeru. I mean . . . I guess he was kind of adorable, but not overwhelmingly so like this one! He hasn’t said one line but, OMG, the cuteness. *SQUISH*

Did anyone notice that in Takeru’s room, there is a poster of an ASTRONAUT? OMG I loved that! What a nice throwback to Yamato’s future career in OG Adventure (and thus to the 02 epilogue!). I can imagine reboot Yamato idolising astronauts and influencing Takeru into liking them, too. Awesome Easter egg there!

So the Crests are showing up right from the start. No rehash of finding the Tags and Crests, then! (Or will they find the physical forms later?) I really like how different from OG Adventure it already is, while keeping touches of the old as well. Toei have done a good job with mixing the old and new so far. Keep it up!

I thought Taichi’s meeting with Agumon was super cute and quite “realistic” with Taichi reaching his hand out to “pet” Agumon! Though Taichi is obviously more courageous than the average person, because uh, I would be afraid that dino would bite my hand off, lol.

I thought Agumon’s evolution “sequence” to Greymon was really cool, but at the same time, I did miss an actual evolution sequence like the OG one. It’s probably just nostalgia making me feel that way. I can accept this new version though! It feels very “updated”.

It was very fast-paced compared to OG Adventure. I’m not sure I entirely like that Agumon evolved so easily and so quickly to Greymon in the very first episode, but it also didn’t seem to hinder the episode. But where do they go from here? What do they have planned to pad out this series if things happen so quickly? I’m intrigued to find out!

Oh, remember how I said less than 24 hours ago that I might not even like reboot Yamato? Yeah, well . . . throw that idea out the window, because the dude had two seconds at the end of this episode and HE ALREADY WON ME OVER lmao. He had NO LINES and was still the highlight of the episode for me. My attachment to him is insane. (Of course, I’m hoping he doesn’t turn out to be a super douche, lol.) I like that he was “chosen” before Taichi and was in the Network before him. What have you been up to in there, Yamato?

While I LOVED the ending credits, as I said before, I hope it changes to be central for each specific character (going through all eight kids), before there is a permanent main ending that includes all the characters equally. I really don’t like how Toei Animation seems to forget that there are EIGHT CHARACTERS and not just two. Come on, Toei, do the right thing!

But . . . let’s talk about the ending credits. IT WAS AMAZING. It characterised Yamato so much without him saying a word. I love that he’s still a lone wolf, that music is still a big part of his life (a bass at 11!), and that his love for Takeru is still so genuine. There was also a pivotal scene where it shows Jou, Mimi, Taichi, Sora and Koushirou standing together, and Taichi smiles at Yamato, who hesitantly steps forward to join them. I loved that! It made me think about the discarded plot where “Yamato might’ve separated from the group entirely” -- it seems like this is a reverse version and I can’t wait to see it play out. The scene that inspired that discarded plot idea was when Yamato decides to fight Taichi, and Sora yells at him to stop -- and I just loved her reactions to him throughout that arc. Especially because, if Taichi had turned on the group, I think Sora’s first instinct would be to conk him over the head -- but she gives Yamato a massive pass and then supports him to separate from the group to find himself. My Sorato thoughts are already swirling about how Sora will react to Yamato in this reboot! Will she hate him at first? Will she ask him to join? Oh my, they haven’t even interacted in this reboot and I’m already shipping them, lmao. I hope Sorato still have a connection in this reboot!

Overall, I liked it for a children’s anime. And I never would have watched it if it wasn’t a reboot with the original Adventure cast, as I have only seen a few episodes of Tamers, Frontier and Savers . . . and a few seconds where Yamato shows up in Xros Wars, lol. I’m not interested in Digimon, I’m interested in the Adventure cast. So I’m really glad this reboot exists! I’ll happily watch all episodes of this series because it’s more of my kids goddamnit. XD

Oh, and I just want to apologise that even though the episode was focussed on Taichi and Koushirou, I used screenshots of Yamato and Sora for the episode post . . . I’m sorry, I’m a Sorato blog! XD;

I think I will do a weekly Digimon Adventure: 2020 “review”, because the episodes are only 20-ish minutes long and it’s easy enough to consume and write about. And even if I might not have a lot to say about a particular episode, I can still spam Sorato screenshots, lol. :P

I can’t wait for the next episode! Because: YAMATO. <3

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure 2020 #sorato #yamato ishida #sora takenouchi #chosen children #taichi yagami #koushirou izumi #mimi tachikawa #jou kido #takeru takaishi #hikari yagami #review #screenshots #spoilers #is this tag really needed?#just go watch it!

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pulaasul · 4 years

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Digimon Adventure Tri – Daisuke and the others? Who are they?

A Digimon Adventure Tri review.

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This review may be a bit late, but I didn’t watch the fifth movie because I was spoiled by a certain plotpoint and tropes and I really detest tropes of that plotpoint. Considering that I opted not to watch the fifth movie, I didn’t watch the sixth movie as well, I may get confused at the chronology of the events.

I had watched Last Evolution Kizuna, the review of which is linked here, thankfully the producers of Kizuna opted to have an original story as opposed to continuing from the plot threads that Tri left hanging over the course of six movies.

With the reason for this review’s lateness out of the way, let’s continue on with the Tri’s review.

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Despite the lateness, I am reviewing [デジモンアドベンチャーtri - Dejimon Adobenchā] Digimon Adventure Tri

As with some of the movies I had reviewed on my blog, I have an alternative title for Digimon Adventure Tri as a whole.

デジモンアドベンチャーtri 大輔たちわだれだ？or Dejimon Adobenchā Daisuke-tachi wa dare da?

Digimon Adventure Tri – Daisuke and the others? Who are they?

TL:DR

Tri was an enjoyable watch. If you want more characterization of the OG chosen 8 and their respective Digimon, it’s a definite watch.

If you’re a big fan of the 02 kids, they do acknowledge them, but better not to expect anything on that front to avoid disappointment.

For me, Digimon Adventure Tri as a whole is a 6.8/10 for me.

I love the many things they did here, but both my bias for the 02 kids and the many things happening just left a bad taste in my mouth.

If that doesn’t hint my love for the 02 kids, this is your confirmation XD.

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I’ll start with the movie series�� art style. I still maintain my stance that I do not like the art style they chose for Tri. I will, however, expand on my reasons from the other review.

Tri’s art style is better suited for still images rather than animated. The best suited comparison I can make, and I’m sure a lot of people will protest, but it’s like the Pokemon’s Sun and Moon anime art style.

From what I heard, the new Pokemon art style focuses more on animation detail and flow. Tri’s animation and art style, while a major improvement from the fights seen in Adventure and 02, still come short seeing the ‘derpy faces’ and awkward poses found in the movie.

(Yamato has bulging pecs and it looked like both Taichi and Yamato skipped leg day)

The new art style does make the ENTIRE CAST absurdly attractive from Taichi to Himekawa even down to the background characters who have something unique in their designs despite just being one off characters.

The new art style does lessens the “cartoonish” vibes we got from the first two Adventure seasons of Digimon, so no extra-large heads, hands and/or feet. You could definitely feel that this was an updated version of the previous art style, although taken to extremes.

Although… Jiggle physics are seen on the Digimon.

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PLOTWISE...

Having watched the entire movie series, I can definitely understand why the 02 kids were given that treatment. However, there were plenty of instances to incorporate them into the plot organically than what we were shown.

The overall plot was heart wrenching, it delves into the themes of sacrifice and unchecked grief.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT! BE WARNED!!!

We’ll backtrack a bit, I stated above about how the 02 cast could’ve been incorporated into the plot organically than what we were shown.

There were many instances where they could’ve been mentioned by anyone of the cast: the appearance of the Digimon Emperor, Hikari and Takeru checking up on Ken after the Emperor’s appearance, even the instances where they welcome Meiko into the group by encouraging her in times of distress; among other things.

A simple muttering of “where are they?” or “how are they doing?” from anyone, especially from Hikari and Takeru who were a part of the 02 team, would’ve made their exclusion from the main events a bit bearable and understandable.

Them not acknowledging their absence is a very out of character: for Takeru and Hikari, as they were teammates; from Taichi and Yamato as they mentored Daisuke, the former passing the goggle-torch unto him; Mimi and Sora for Miyako; Joe and Koushiro who has commented how reliable Iori was and how his thirst for knowledge was an admirable trait.

all my cons bullet points are my salt towards the 02 kids’ absence lol

In other matters, another thing worthy of criticism, this is for the franchise as a whole, is the fact that there’s a Leomon death inserted in every iteration of Digimon. (01&02 have the original Leomon, Tamers had Juri’s Leomon, Frontier both had Ice Leomon and KaiserLeomon in Kouichi Kimura, Savers had BanchoLeomon.)

Leomon’s death this time around fails to have an impact considering it has become a meme nowadays. Anyone vaguely aware of the franchise would even joke about the Leomon’s screentime before he dies, which was the case in the Tri movies.

There are two events in the Tri movies that didn’t really needed to be there, which really hampered my score for the movie series. First one is how the Mysterious Person, using Young Gennai’s form, to lick Sora’s face.

Another event that didn’t need to happen was how the same Mysterious Person choked Meiko to the point of her losing consciousness, those events IN THE SAME MOVIE really put me in an uncomfortable state, as did a lot of people.

This may be my bias speaking, but I really don’t like how Daigo died in the movie series. I am sure his death potentially served to raise the stakes of the plot, but not really.

The stakes of the plot was already at an all-time high with showing the “deaths” of the 02 kids in the first few minutes of the first movie. It’d raise the stakes even higher HAD THE OG 8 CHOSEN CHILDREN ACKNOWLEDGED THE ABSENCE OF THE 02 KIDS.

Daigo’s death was unnecessary for the stakes were already planted, but they failed to sow those particular seeds hence his death was needed. That and I really love Daigo Nishijima.

Tri could’ve been a rescue movie on top of stopping the apocalypse movie, Meicoomon shenanigans included.

I will admit that learning of Taichi’s supposed death in the tri movies, turned me off from watching the movie series to its completion, back when this was first released. Learning that Daigo, my favorite character, dies in the next one really turned me off from the franchise. Watching it now, I still maintain my stance that he didn’t need to die.

Devimon’s appearance really felt tacked on, he would’ve been a great plot point for Takeru to overcome in the movie, instead we got a few seconds of appearance then nothing. Not even delving into Takeru’s psyche about Devimon’s appearance.

The entire last movie was needlessly dark and that’s says a lot.

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Considering this is a review, no review is complete until you state all the positive things you can say about the movie.

As with the debut season of the franchise, Character interactions are at the forefront of the movie series. In here we learned things about them, including Hikari’s teasing remarks towards Takeru or how Yamato is actually scared of ghost stories.

We also learned that the Teenaged Wolves broke up, due to musical differences as Yamato claimed and formed two new bands. “Knife of Day” and “World of the Knife”. The fact that the characters saying the band names have a Might Guy teeth shine effect on them was incredibly hilarious.

Koushiro being a blushing mess when it comes to Mimi was also great.

The viewers can really see the entire group’s dynamic with each other.

The digimon themselves aren’t just one-note characters. They may act as a foil to their human partners, it doesn’t change the fact that they weren’t one-note compared to what we’ve seen in both Adventure and 02.

Interactions aside, each human character having breakdowns and developing in the movie series was another thing I liked about Tri, tying them to digivolving to ultimate/mega level was a pretty neat idea.

It means that Taichi and Yamato aren’t the sole stars of the Adventure saga now.

Speaking of characters, the new characters in this movie-series [Daigo Nishijima, Maki Himekawa, Meiko Mochizuki] were introduced organically and were pretty great in their roles. The twist that the former two were Chosen Children before Taichi and the others was neat as well.

The three of them performed their roles pretty well: Daigo being a shady mentor, who’s loyalty is divided between his student and his work; Meiko being the new kid on the block really helped establish how out of place she really is, it does help that Mimi was incredibly welcoming towards her; Maki’s unchecked grief led her to taking drastic steps just to be reunited with her partner digimon, kickstarting the whole plot of Tri.

[I have a theory that Daisuke and the others were reporting to Maki, once she learned that they were aware of Yggdrasil’s plans, she led them to a trap that was when they were one-shotted by Alphamon.]

We go back to Leomon. It was nice to see a familiar face. Even his scenes were hilarious and awesome. Him being able to stave off the infection from various points in the movie he was in was also great. It makes sense in character as he does have incredible will power, going back to the Adventure days when he was possessed by Devimon’s black gears.

I also appreciate that the boys and girls had equal opportunities at being the eye candy. The boys were the eye candies during their time in the hot springs, while Mimi and Meiko had their chance as eye candies during the school festival.

Last and certainly not the least, were the new arrangements of the Original Sound Track of the Digimon Adventure themes from Butter-fly to Brave Heart’s orchestral version. They’re simply that good to listen in a loop.

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As for suggestions, I have a few. This is constructive criticism after all.

Acknowledge the absence of the 02 cast.

Explain why they were absent in the first place, or at least what the characters think why they were absent.

From vacation abroad

On Yacht

Even visiting people out of Tokyo would also work

Both Leomon and Daigo didn’t need to die. Mortally wounded characters are fine, makes us think they’re dead for a few minutes to delve into character development, as was the case for Taichi and Hikari.

Make the 02 kids’ lives as stakes in the plot.

Cut back on the flashback images.

Exposition is also good, even Taichi voicing out his hesitance would’ve made for a great character moment, instead of just glaring at the enemy.

D.R Gennai shouldn’t have licked Sora. That event really didn’t need to happen.

D.R Gennai should’ve just let Meiko bleed to the point of unconsciousness instead of choking her as he taunts Meicoomon to fear and give in to her infections.

Devimon should’ve been an earlier opponent that was later reused in the ending movie to show how much Takeru has grown add in digivolving to Seraphimon.

A video file of Daisuke’s and the others’ defeat at the hands of Alphamon should’ve been viewed after the reboot happened, that would’ve raised the stakes higher.

Daisuke and the others should’ve joined the last fight in the last movie. Escaping from the hospital through their Digimon before collapsing at the very end.

I have no problem with Daigo’s partner becoming Baihumon. I think it’d been better had it been Azulongmon, considering he was the goggle head during his time and thus the leader of his group.

We know that Azulongmon is the leader of the Four Digimon Soverigns.

I think it’d come full circle had Daigo been partnered with Azulongmon.

I think the movie would then end with everyone visiting Daisuke and the others, Meiko included, introducing her to them.

Overall, I give the movie series a 6.8 out of 10 rating. It was a good watch, but the plot fell once they delved into darker themes and darker events for the sake of being dark and without substance. There were a couple of events that didn’t need to happen but happened for the sake of being dark.

Daigo’s death was certainly one of those events. The stakes could’ve been raised higher had the 02 kids were integrated into the plot and not just relegated into glorified silhouette cameos.

These suggestions would still run the course of the plot we got in Tri, but it would’ve flowed the plot organically and didn’t go dark for the sake of being dark.

I wanted to be generous with my rating, but it just won’t do. Even my bullet points review had more Cons than Pros. Factor in my bias for the 02 kids, and you get a 6.8 rating.

#digimon adventure tri #taichi yagami #daisuke motomiya #takeru takaishi #hikari yagami #yamato ishida #mimi tachikawa #joe kido #koushirou izumi #meiko mochizuki #daigo nishijima #maki himekawa #sora takenouchi #hackmon #alphamon #ordinemon #review

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