#ryo akiyama is a good character

[koushirouizumi]

mE SINGING JUN'ICHI KANEMARU "DIGITAL SURVIVOR": SurVIVE THE World!1!!1 Can "THE THINGS" I must prOTECT FEEL THE "rEALITY"???? GET THrOUGH THE World!!! IN *THIS* World, the "ANSWER" is ONLY IN *MY* HANDS AND *NOWHERE ELSE* Survive The World - I'm SEARCHING FOR IT.

[aretheyqueer]

List of Canonically Trans/gnc Characters

My own list in this post is anime, manga, games mostly but in the spreadsheet you can add anything.

Following my tierlist of them, I realized I should make a public list so theyre not just kept in my head, since I spent quite a while finding these characters. If you want to watch/play anything with trans or gnc characters, you can use this list.

They range from good rep to bad, characters viewed as "traps" or not taken seriously to ones that the whole fandom understands is trans. I've added trigger warnings to the characters and fandoms I know can be triggering. I've also put certain names in bold to show that they're a main character, but i've only watched a few on this list so some are missing.

I would add trigger warnings for "bury your gays" and similar tropes, but I want to avoid spoilers. Maybe you can look it up first if you're worried. I've tried to exclude characters that are referred to as hermaphrodites.

The "crossdressers" section obviously includes some spoilers.

Enjoy :D

Transfem

Alice Arisuin from Chivalry of a Failed Knight (Prefers feminine name and terms but doesn't care too much).

Arachne from Angel Sanctuary

Arashi Narukami from Ensemble Stars

Astolfo from the Fate/Grand series

Leonardo Da Vinci from the Fate/Grand series (unsure)

Cassandra Igarashi from The Wicked + The Divine

Dahlia Carpenter from Carole & Tuesday

Victoria October from Batman

Elendira the Crimsonnail from Trigun Stampede

Giselle Gewelle from Bleach (The fandom is very transphobic)

Grell from Black Butler (Unnecessarily debated)

Hana from Tokyo Godfathers

Okasan from Tokyo Godfathers (Could be a drag queen)

Hibari Oozora from Stop!! Hibari-kun!

Isabella Yamamoto from Paradise Kiss

Kanamori from Heaven's Design Team

Kano Ienaga from Golden Kamuy

Kaoru Anesagi from IDOLiSH7

Kaoru Hanase from Tamako Market (Speculated to be a trans woman)

Kenji Hikiishi from My Hero Academia

Kikinojo from One Piece

Mariandale/Marian from Ixion Saga DT

Mizuki Akiyama from Project Sekai (Heavily implied)

Momoko from Shangri-La

Kikyou Motoki from Itazura Na Kiss

Nao from Skip and Loafer

Nathan Seymour from Tiger & Bunny

Perfuma from She-Ra and the Princesses of power

Petrichor from Saga

Ruka Urushibara from Steins;Gate (Transphobic fandom)

Saber from the Fate/Grand series

Stephanie from Majutsushi Orphen

Ushiyama from All Worlds Alliance

Hiroyuki Yoshida from Wandering Son

Shuuichi Nitori from Wandering Son

Yuujirou Shiratori from The Highschool Life of a Fudanshi

Transmasc

Hachiro from Gintama

Kite from Japan Sinks: 2020

Kusuo Saiki from The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. (Turned himself into a boy when he was in the womb, otherwise never mentioned)

Ryo Watari from Boys Run the Riot

Shou Fujita from Stars Align (Very minor character)

Tooru Mutsuki from Tokyo Ghoul:re

Yamato from One Piece

Yawara Chatora from My Hero Academia

Yoshino Takatsuki from Wandering Son

Nonbinary

Anne Faulkner from Paradox Live

Asra from The Arcana

Alucard from Hellsing Ultimate (genderfluid)

Chaos from Hades

Berg Katze from Gatchaman Crowds (androgynous)

O. D. from Gatchaman Crowds

Daishikyou from Gintama

Chevalier D'Eon from Fate/Grand series

Enkidu/Lancer from Fate/Grand series (Inherently no gender/sex)

Double Trouble from She-Ra and the Princesses of power

Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist (can transform into any gender)

Francois from Dr. Stone

Halara Nightmare from Master Detective Archives: Rain Code

Hange from Attack on titan (Fandom mostly refers to them as female)

Ivankov Emporio from One Piece (i'm not sure what they identify as)

Juniper from Xenoblade Chronicles

Kaoruko Someya from Okane ga Nai (Okama)

Kimera from Kimera (nb or transfem)

Kyuubei Yagyuu (Born female, raised male so has an unconventional relationship with gender)

Vanitas of the Blue Moon from The Case Study of Vanitas

Milo Belladonna from Monster Prom

Mogumo from Love Me For Who I Am

Najimi Osana from Komi can't communicate (Unknown gender)

Nakuru Akizuki from Cardcaptor Sakura (Sexless, identifies as female)

Nico from Tokyo Ghoul (Okama)

Opera from Marimashita! Iruma-kun

Orochimaru from Naruto

Ryuuji Ayukawa from Blue Period (Unsure, can be gnc/transfem/nonbinary)

Satan from Devilman

Shion Zaiden from RWBY

Someone (yes thats their name) from Shimanami Tasogare

Xanthe Zhou from Prime Earth

Yuuta Asuka from Stars Align

Intersex

Asuka Ran from Devilman Lady

Luca Esposito from Asra Lost in Space (identifies as male)

Desmond from Carole & Tuesday (Became intersex due to universe stuff but is at peace with this)

Megumi Yoshikawa from Princess Princess (Raised male before she found out she was genetically female, decides to live as a girl)

Richard III from Requiem of the Rose King (Struggles with his intersexuality, feels his body and him are unloveable)

Yoite from Nabari no Ou (Lives as male but they're unsure of their gender)

Crossdressers

Aki from Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

Azumi Agonoske from Gintama

Buzam A. Calessa from Vandread

Ferris from Re:Zero (I've heard that the novel version is transfem)

Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran high school host club (Nonbinary coded)

Ranka/Ryouji Fujioka from Ouran high school host club (Drag queen)

Hatsuka Suzushiro from Call of the Night

Hazumu Osaragi from Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl

Kurako from Kuragehime

Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 (The reveal can be triggering)

Chihiro Fujisaki from Danganronpa (The reveal can be very triggering - I recommend looking it up first if you're worried.)

Nuriko from Fushigi Yuugi (Unsure)

Rui Ninomiya from Gatchaman (May be transfem)

Cis characters that are gnc

Haruka Tenou from Sailor Moon

Kaoru Orihara from Oniisama e... (not sure what gender)

Kashima Yuu from Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun

Complicated

Angela from Black Butler (Changes form)

Berg Katse from Gatchaman (Changes form)

Fushi from To Your Eternity (Can change into female but presents masc)

Ginshu from Amatsuki (Raised male, turned genderless, dressed feminine. Idk their gender identity)

Inazuma from One Piece (Can present as both male and female, okama)

Izana Shinatose from Knights of Sidonia (Genderless to female due to universe rules)

Kou Seiya from Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars (Has a male and female form, I think)

Mahiro Oyama from Onimai: I'm Now Your Sister! (Was turned into a girl against his will)

Mermaid Sisters from Carole & Tuesday (I don't know, man...)

Natsuru Senou from Kämpfer (Transformed into a woman)

Shi Qingxuan from Heaven Officials Blessing (Can transform)

Ranma Saotome from Ranma (Changes between them)

Hinata Tachibana from Life with an Ordinary Guy who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout (Gets transformed into a girl, goes on a quest to get their original body back)

--------

If you see anyone missing, feel free to let me know if I should add them. Input on who is a main character, triggering themes and offensive characters can be commented or sent to me.

[shihalyfie]

Maybe you can explain to me - what's the deal with Ryo Akiyama? He has his WonderSwan games, he cameos in Our War Game, then in 02, then pops up in Tamers as a semi-major character, and supposedly it's the same Ryo in *everything*? Even though his personality isn't even consistent between depictions? I can understand if it's different versions of the same person, but... Could there be a weird production reason for this or something?

You know what? I've got some free time (something I don't have a lot of lately) between work and playing Survive, so what the hell, why not: it's time for a completely Akiyama Ryou-centric meta!

Who is Akiyama Ryou? Why is he so popular among Japanese Digimon fans? Why does he pop up in Adventure, 02, Tamers, and V-Tamer with almost mutually exclusive and contradictory portrayals? What happened here? Obviously, he’s canon to both 02 and Tamers, but how does that even make sense? Well, a lot of this has to do with the complicated history of Ryou in real life, in terms of the history of his games and what development notes for the anime have indicated about planning regarding Ryou. And unfortunately, a lot of Ryou’s meta-history is often misleadingly reported or even outright smothered in misinformation in English-speaking circles, making the issue even more confusing.

The tl;dr is that almost everything messy about this is extremely likely to be Bandai’s fault.

So what are the “WonderSwan games”?

As you are probably likely to know already, Ryou originates from a series of Digimon games for the WonderSwan, Bandai’s handheld console that never left Asia but did have a pretty decent following in Japan (at least until it got wrecked by the Game Boy Advance).

Now, here’s the part I’m going to deliver in a way that probably sounds really cold, but please understand that understanding this context is really important to understanding what went on with Ryou here: while many Digimon games have fans who are Digimon fans (and they are no less valid for it), most of them are actually awful games by general video game standards. The writing is usually low-effort at best, and if anime canon characters from Adventure or whatnot appear in it, they’ll be horribly out of character with flanderized or just really off characterizations (even Re:Digitize, generally agreed to be one of the better games, is not immune to this). And this was especially the case back then, when the games Bandai was churning out were basically the equivalent of the kind of bargain bin game churned out to cash in on marketing value more than they were actually any good as video games. There are exceptions, but they’re few and far between, and that was especially the case back in the day when Bandai was obviously much better of a toy company than a game company. It’s only very recently, like “last decade” recently, that Digimon games have actually started putting any real effort into nuanced writing, and that’s probably mostly because of a certain former Tekken producer named Habu Kazumasa becoming a hardcore diehard Digimon fan who started actually pushing for better writing.

The WonderSwan games, which also are equally as guilty of completely destroying the anime characters’ canon characterization and generally being very bare bones, might have been completely tossed into the ether and remembered in history as more low-effort licensing cash-ins if not for Akiyama Ryou and Millenniummon and his whole entire surrounding saga. Not because the games were the pinnacle of the world’s greatest writing, and not because they really integrated all that well with anime canon (in fact, play the games or watch a Let’s Play and you’ll see timeline and characterization contradictions all over the place to degrees that make the anime’s awkward handling of the issue look masterful in comparison). But I think the best way to describe this is similar to how many people feel about the original Pokémon games for the Game Boy. The games themselves are riddled with bugs and sloppy programming to embarrassing degrees, and the writing is stilted, barely present, and at times borderline surreal...but at the same time the concept of it all was so strong that it captivated an entire generation with so little and kickstarted one of the world’s most profitable franchises. Those games actually didn’t have a lot of substance in themselves, but the concept was strong, and the gaps were just big enough for imaginative kids to fill in the blanks with their own creative ideas.

That’s basically also what went on here with Akiyama Ryou. Advertised as “the ninth Chosen Child” and featuring a post-Adventure side story where Ryou is called to save Taichi and his friends and teams up with and fights against familiar faces, eventually fighting the embodiment of a Y2K bug who eventually becomes his eternal rival, even if they didn’t really have much to it when actually put into practice on the WonderSwan (and to be fair, it was handheld hardware from the late nineties, it’s not like it probably could have particularly detailed writing), it’s just a lot of interesting concepts that make a kid inspired to fill in the details of what’s going on with Ryou’s adventures, especially since it’s (apparently) canon to the anime as well. You can’t deny there’s appeal in the idea of a Tamer who’s sent around to do odd, unusual jobs with “borrowed” partners and fighting against the embodiment of Y2K.

Thus, Ryou became a popular character, and in very much the same way Pokémon fans latch on to the idea of Red as the world’s most badass Trainer despite the fact we don’t know a single thing about him except the fact he apparently doesn’t talk much, many a Japanese Digimon fan became very attached to Ryou and the tale of how he became a “legendary Tamer”.

The many attempts to get Ryou into the anime

Digimon is what’s known as a “media mix”, meaning it’s a franchise that’s fundamentally planned as a multimedia outlet from the get-go. Ultimately, it’s more Bandai’s IP than Toei’s, which means that if they veto any idea the anime staff has, the anime staff can’t go with it, and if they demand something get put in the anime, the anime staff has to go along with it.

As I said earlier, Ryou’s games are far from the only games to have glaring contradictions with the anime, and since Ryou’s games are more about him than they are the Adventure or Tamers characters, that probably puts them in a better position than games that are ostensibly supposed to be anime tie-ins but aren’t great about it (trying to think too hard about how Digital Card Arena makes sense with the rest of 02 will make your head hurt). However, since Ryou was a popular character, Bandai and Toei started entering in talks to make Ryou relevant to the anime, too. The thing is, though, with the games already off the rails in regards to consistency with the anime in the first place, that basically left the anime staff at a complete loss as to how. Interviews with the anime staff on the matter have all graciously stated that this kind of thing is probably just inevitable when you have a media mix, and, putting Bandai’s known history of being completely unhelpful about this issue in every way imaginable aside, this is probably true to at least some extent (as long as two branches of a media mix are being planned simultaneously, it’s very unlikely they’ll be perfectly consistent with each other).

As a result, the anime staff started making repeated attempts to find a way to fit Ryou in the plot somehow, but the problem is that the games themselves didn’t really give them a lot to work with, and Ryou didn’t even have much of what you could call a characterization in said games (again, it’s all in the realm of where you’re supposed to be filling in the blanks imagining what he’s like). The first known appearance is Ryou (in Turkey, for some reason) sending an email to Taichi and Koushirou in the Diablomon fight in Our War Game! (This was probably just intended as a “cute reference” at the time, but starts posing problems for Tag Tamers later; see below.)

After that, the staff started discussing making Ryou the central character of the summer 02 movie, presumably because the “self-contained” nature of a movie would allow for them to explore Ryou without interfering with the main series too much, and it would have also given them the opportunity to expand on his relation to Ken’s backstory -- but the plotline of the movie ended up rejected for being too depressing for a summer movie, we ended up getting Hurricane Touchdown instead, and Ryou ended up only getting his short 02 cameos in episodes 23 and 43. (Amusingly, if the original plan for the movie with Ryou had gone through, Ryou would have likely been Terriermon’s partner instead of Wallace.)

It does seem that, as part of planning, the anime staff and Bandai had firmly agreed that Ken’s backstory would be related to a game tie-in, so that part was non-negotiable even if the movie with Ryou was scrapped. In fact, in real life, the game in question, Tag Tamers, was released right before 02 episode 21 aired -- meaning audiences would get a taste of the knowledge that Ken was, indeed, originally a good-natured and kind young child who fell victim to dark forces before it was formally revealed in the anime. So when the relevant scene in 02 episode 23 aired, the kids could point at the screen and go “I remember that!!”, and they’d have extra information about Millenniummon’s role in Ken’s downfall to work with as the plot went on. As you can imagine, very fun for the kids.

However, if you look into it closely, despite it apparently being important for Ken’s backstory, Tag Tamers...doesn’t make sense with the anime, and despite what a lot of people like to claim about it being “necessary” to understand what was going on with Ken, it actually makes it even more confusing:

According to the game, Ken and Ryou were sucked into the Digital World after witnessing the Diablomon incident together, but this contradicts Ryou’s depiction in Our War Game!, Ken getting depicted as going in and out of the Digital World alone in the 02 episode 23 flashback, and Ken’s statement that his encounter with Digimon was in August 2000 (long after the Diablomon incident in March 2000!) in 02 episode 33.

Ken is characterized in ways that would make the emotional backdrop of his backstory in 02 completely fall apart. The game has him recognized as as “boy genius” even at that point in time (the fact that Osamu was and Ken wasn’t is vital to backstory), his room is full of toys and sports equipment when Ken and Osamu’s room conspicuously lacking anything that allowed them to be “normal kids” informs their characters, Wormmon doesn’t even call Ken “Ken-chan” despite that being vital to their relationship...

Ken is a year older in the game than he was during his initial Digital World trip in the 02 episode 23 flashback, and considering Ken coming back to the real world alone and clearly not gravely ill is a major plot point, him making only one trip to the Digital World doesn’t quite make sense.

The epilogue of the game depicts Ken clearly remembering Millenniummon when declaring himself the Digimon Kaiser, but that would open up a huge can of worms regarding the Kaiser’s depiction in 02.

One game later, in D-1 Tamers, the young Ken has an almost naively chipper attitude towards Ryou apparently vanishing off the face of the planet, and he tells Gennai to “cheer up” because Ryou will definitely come back, in such an insensitive manner that a Japanese Let’s Player called the game’s Ken “irresponsible”.

To be blunt about it, it seems the only information Bandai and Toei had in common was that Ken was a good kid in the past who met Wormmon in the Digital World and fell into darkness after a piece of Millenniummon lodged into him, and everything else is contradictory!

Ryou in Tamers

Nevertheless, Ryou didn’t really show up in 02, so there was still a stake on Bandai’s part (and by extension, on the part of anime producer Seki Hiromi, whose job description also involved representing Bandai’s wishes for the anime staff) to actually get him in the anime this time, so when things rolled around to Tamers the attempt was made again. The problem was, Tamers was not in the same universe in Adventure, and so far, Ryou had only appeared in games that were (ostensibly) in the Adventure universe.

The full details of the story behind how Ryou ended up the way he was portrayed in Tamers came from a blog post by Konaka from 2021 (which I will not be linking here for various reasons, but savvy people can probably find the post themselves). The events went as follows:

Seki decided to have Ryou appear in the Digital World arc, feeling it would be best to have him in the Digital World due to Tamers being, in her words, "a meta-Adventure" (basically, she felt the Digital World arc would be a better place to put a meta element like Ryou rather than one of the real world parts of the story)

Konaka agreed to it at first, knowing he was working with a media mix franchise and this came with the territory (and Ryou’s presence in Tamers was determined before he even joined the staff), but later learned about what the games entailed and realized this risked having to connect with the Adventure universe when the whole point was that they weren’t the same universe

Konaka decided to avoid the topic of bringing in his history with Ken since that would (rather understandably) make things overcomplicated

...so basically, the decision on how to address Ryou’s presence in the Tamers universe on the part of the anime staff was just to not deal with it at all.

According to Konaka, while Ryou’s Tamers characterization isn’t necessarily meant to contradict the WonderSwan games, he still focused on making Ryou a character more for Tamers than anything else. Ryou’s status as a “legendary Tamer” is obviously a wink and a nod to the games (and, of course, a way to appease all the fans who would murder if Ryou were portrayed as anything less, kind of like how Pokémon fans would also murder if you insinuate that Red is anything less than the world’s coolest badass), but it also comes from Konaka himself -- he was apparently inspired by the character of Tuttle from the movie Brazil, in that he showed up in the Digital World before them and was a super awesome senior who showed everyone up by being badass. As for Ryou’s characterization, Konaka let Yoshimura Genki (the writer for his first episode) basically handle his entire characterization, which was also heavily inspired by his voice actor Kanemaru Junichi having a similar “refreshing” personality. The part about his antagonistic relationship with Ruki apparently came from simple logical inference that if he were an accomplished Tamer, he must have met Ruki at some point, and they probably wouldn’t get along, and so on and so forth.

So as you can see, the Tamers writing staff really wrote Ryou as a Tamers character more than they did a character from the WonderSwan games, but they also deliberately left enough doors open so they wouldn’t incur a direct contradiction. And, again, you can tell that Bandai never really gave them a Ryou characterization to work with in the first place -- it’s apparent Ryou would have had different characterization if he’d been in the 02 summer movie as originally planned, or not voiced by Kanemaru.

True to form, Bandai’s next two games sort of seemed to explain how Ryou jumped universes; D-1 Tamers depicts Ryou getting recruited into a fake tournament by the (uncharacteristically jerkass-like) Adventure kids and set to fight against Millenniummon again, which blows them through the multiverse. One game later, in Brave Tamer, an amnesiac Ryou engages in a battle with Millenniummon across the multiverse (including the Tamers universe) and even partners up with a Monodramon, who forces a Jogress between himself and Millenniummon to end the battle once and for all, the idea being that he’ll counter Millenniummon’s endless hate for his rival Ryou with his own love for Ryou, resulting in an egg that we’re probably supposed to assume will eventually hatch into Tamers!Cyberdramon. (Contrary to popular English-speaking fandom rumor, there is no indication Millenniummon was ever Ryou’s partner besides in this way.) So that explains everything, right?

...Not really.

Brave Tamer ends in a cliffhanger of sorts. It doesn’t explain whether Ryou ever gets his memories back. It doesn’t explain where Ryou goes after that. It definitely does not explain how this is supposed to lead up to Ryou having a dad in Fukuoka or a multiple-year career in the Digimon card game, nor the fact that the backstory for Ryou and Cyberdramon in Message in the Packet doesn’t match the above at all...I mean, it’s probably theoretically possible to come with an explanation, but it will definitely make your head hurt. And then to make things worse, in 2002 V-Tamer had a crossover chapter with Ryou, and his personality is in stark contradiction with the Tamers version (in that he’s portrayed as an argumentative hot-blooded protagonist type), probably because, again, the games never actually gave Ryou a characterization, and Yabuno and Izawa were probably just using their own interpretation of what he must have been like in the games.

So are all of these versions of Ryou the same character?

The official stance is technically yes, but...

In an (extremely infamous) interview from 2002, Seki confirmed that 02 and Tamers Ryou are indeed intended to be taken as the same character. The thing is, almost everyone on the Japanese end, and by that I mean including Adventure/02 and Tamers staff, has called bullshit on this, or has at least been really shocked that this is apparently supposed to be the case (for example, Kakudou himself saying in 2003 that he was still shocked about that). The Japanese wiki article for Ryou on Pixiv immediately follows Seki’s statement up with the observation that this doesn’t make sense. However, vague wording from staff since then has also hinted at the real reason Seki said this: because she has to represent Bandai’s wishes for the anime staff (and vice versa), she probably had no other choice, because Bandai made D-1 Tamers and Brave Tamer under the obvious premise they’re supposed to be the same character, so she has to deliver their viewpoint regardless of how much sense that makes or not. (Otherwise, she’d be basically telling the public that the games are wrong, and Bandai would obviously not be happy with that.) In the aforementioned 2021 blog post, Konaka admitted that his choice to dodge the topic of Ken in the course of Ryou’s Tamers portrayal probably contributed to forcing Seki to give that very forced explanation.

Although the Japanese fanbase still likes Ryou and the games, most people on that end generally don’t really treat them as the same character, and the aforementioned Pixiv wiki’s suggestion is that you treat them like different timeline possibilities of the same character akin to Ultraman’s “parallel isotopes”. Ryou is still clearly canon to 02, and canon to Tamers, and nobody disputes that, but the part that's more uncertain is whether the events of the WonderSwan games themselves are canon to Adventure/02/Tamers or whether it's more of a "broad strokes" thing (or in other words, something mostly resembling what happened in the games is canon to Adventure, 02, and Tamers, but it can’t be precisely the same way with the exact same presentation because there would be massive logical contradictions).

Pixiv’s stance is that Ryou’s background in the games is “somewhat parallel” to 02 (a shorthand way of saying “treat it as if it’s canon AU, but something close to its events did happen in the original timeline”), and for the most part I generally feel like I’ve seen people approach Tamers!Ryou somewhat differently than they do the original WonderSwan Ryou. Personally, I’ve already written about the arbitrariness of “canon” in Digimon, how official stance has always been “everything is canon regardless of how much sense that makes”, and how individual fans will have to decide their own stances on each issue for themselves. The WonderSwan games are only the first in a long line of things that make Digimon fold on itself in terms of canon, so the best thing to do is just accept that Bandai and Toei probably aren’t interested in making any more clear statements on the matter, and figure it out for yourself.

[tokosantosamakmur]

Categorizing digidestined kids based on their digimon partner "main" (with HUGE quotation) gimmick

No characters from "digimon ghost games". I just finished watching episode 2 so I don't have enough information on the characters yet.

I made this at 1 am becus of my hyperactive insomniac brain

1. Fire, orange

-taichi agumon

-daisuke cuma flamedramon

-takato guilmon

-takuya agnimon

-masaru agumon

2. Flying, air, bird

-Sora Biyomon

-Miyako Hawkmon

- Izumi Fairymon

- keenan/ Ikuto Falcomon

- adeknya masaru/ chika/kristy dan biyomon

- nene sparrowmon

3. Water, aquatic animal, ice

- joe gomamon

- iori only submarimon

- tomoki himi chakmon

- yushima hiroshi kamemon

-eri karan dokamon

4. Electric, bug, Mecha

-koushiro tentomon

-ken wormmon

-junpei blitzmon

-torajirou musimon

-haru shinkai gatchmon

5. Plants, earth, ground, pink(?)

- mimi palmon

- iori armadimon

- yoshino lalamon

- Airu opposumon

-Akari and cutemon and dorulumon

6. Martial arts, weapons, knight, ninja

-jerry leomon

-yu amane damemon

- zenjirou barristamon

- masaru dad bancholeomon

- miki kurosaki pawnchessmon black

- megumi shirakawa pawnchessmon white

7. The blue machine canon garurumon / dog machine syndrome

-yamato gabumon

- jenrya terriermon

- wanna put koji and wolfmon but their warior of light

- tohma dan gaomon

- aonuma kiriha zekegreymon

8. Dark, devil, black

-koichi lowemon

-ai mako impmon

-ryo akiyama cyberdramon

-yujin ozora, offmon

-Rei katsura hackmon

-ryoma and his digimons

- ren tobari and dracmon

9. Light, holy, angels

-takeru patamon

-hikari tailmon

-ruki renamon

-koji wolfmon

- satsuma rentaro kudamon

10. Dragonsss

- daisuke vmon

- tagiru gumdramon

- taiki shoutmon

Tell me watchu think

I dont really care

Good morning

[thegirlfromstationsquare]

🔥 about Digimon bc I am on a SERIOUS Digimon kick lately

Bear with me now as it has been a loooooong time since I've seen the series

- Meiko is a boring character & a Creator's Pet

- Mimi and Jeri doesn't deserve all the hate

- Ken and Beelzebumon had one of the best redemption arcs in children's media, right up there with Zuko

- Ryo Akiyama was unnecessary

- Angemon is K I N G

- There should be a Virus type as a Digimon partner

- Yolei is Best Gorl

- I don't mind Matt/Sora

- The hate towards the 02 cast is what brought us Digimon Tri and NOT in a good way

- I don't mind if people selfship or pair haracters with Digimon whatever makes you happy idc :)

- TBH I don't really care for shipping

- The dub is fine. Stilted but fine.

- Sometimes I feel some Digifakes are more creative than some of the canon digimon at times

[khtrinityftw]

A gradual downgrade I noticed in the KH Trinity that surprisingly ends up working to its advantage are the cutscenes. In KH, they are directed by Jun Akiyama and they are absolutely astounding. Akiyama is a very cinematically inclined man (as he further showed when he went on to direct the cutscenes for FFXII), and he makes each KH cutscene feel like it comes straight out of a Disney animated movie (without...you know, actually coming straight out of a Disney animated movie). The usage of the camera and how close or far a shot is, the movements of the characters and their expressions, the visual tricks that can say so much about a character without that character having to actually say anything, it’s all simply beautiful.

When Ryo Tsurumaki, who was event director on the original COM, got to do it over in 3D with Re:COM, he clearly aped Akiyama’s style to the best of his abilities. And he did a pretty good job, but there’s always something about it that isn’t quite the same as Akiyama’s style. It’s like with Steven Spielberg imitated Stanley Kubrick’s style in A.I: Artificial Intelligence - you can tell that it’s a quality impression, but an impression all the same. However, that works for COM because it feels like a high-quality DTV sequel to a theatrical movie (like Lion King 2 or Lion King 1 1/2). Not the same, but close enough.

Then for KH2 we got Masaru Oka, who is the event director on the series to this day and does the most bare-bones, bog-standard, the-least-that’s-to-be-expected job, ranging from adequate to mediocre. On occasion he might end up composing a visually stimulating shot, but for the most part his cutscenes are just the camera in a fixed position while characters go through the most minimal of motions needed. And that’s still how it is today, even if KH3′s graphics might momentarily fool you into thinking there’s been an improvement. However, this actually works for KH2 as well, because it’s composed like a shonen anime series in of itself, and let’s face it: most shonen anime series usually aren’t well known for high-quality animation outside of perhaps battle scenes (which in KH2 are usually gameplay sessions totally outside of Oka’s control), they’re done with just the barest minimum of effort required to make them engaging to watch.

[kaazzzyy]

Kengan Omega One shot series : Introduction

Hi, everyone ! 

Sooo, I thought about writing some Kengan Omega stuff and finally came with an idea : making connected one shots with a female reader as she interacts with Kengan’s characters. All one-shots will be posted according into chronogical order and occurs during Omega. I hope you will enjoy them !

(Reader’s name is not defined so you can call her by any name you like. However, her gender and appearence are fixed by myself ! )

Nervousness and anxiety. And maybe a little bit of determination...

That's all what's running through her at this very moment.

Her tiny form is standing in front of the not-so-impresive building she was searching for : The Yamashita Trading Co. Her watering eyes looked down to the paper in her shaking hand.

'There is no mistake... That's the right adress. C-come on (Y/n), the first step is the hardest !', she tought, trying to store some courage before coming in.

Her stress rate made a sudden jump the moment she pushed the door open. nobody was here. She let out a sigh of relief. She examined her surrounding quickly to finally head for the only interesting thing in the ground floor : the stairs.

'Okay... He must be upstairs... Let's go... !'

Climbing the stairs, she immediatly noticed something. Her hands weren't the only things shaking now; her legs started to give her up too. She mentally cursed herself for being such a nervous mess. Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the fading sound of voices coming from upstairs. She stopped for a second, then resumed in making her way upstairs. She was sweating so much, she felt like she was climbing a mountain actually .

She is now standing just before the door where the voices are coming from. She reajusted her red tie, the collar of her white shirt covered by her black three piece suit, to finally tighten the red hair elastic holding up her high ponytail. Then, she knocked on the door.

The voices suddenly stopped. She swallowed. Hard.

She opened the door, nevertheless. Way slower than she would have wanted to.

Three pairs of curious and surprised eyes were instantly on her. She made her best to introduce herself without stuttering.

"H-hi ! I'm (Y/n) (L/n) ! I was told to come and see Mister Yamashita today. Is he here ?"

She failed.

A short uncomfortable silence followed before the second woman in the room spoke up, very politely.

"(Y/n) (L/n) ? He told me about you coming. Mister Yamashita isn't here for the moment. He had an urgent meeting, sorry."

'Hum... Maybe it's my chance to come later so I won't have to stand before so much people but Mister Yamashita...'

(Y/n) tried to ignore the two males looking at her and only focused her attention to the blonde woman.

"Owh, I see ! Hum... So... I will come again later then ? Is it okay ?", she nervously smiled. - "From what he said me you want to join the Kengan Association as a new CEO. I just started telling these young men everything about the Kengan Association and the way it works. Are you interested in joining us in ?", proposed the woman as she reajusted her glasses.

The proposal surprised her but she managed to answer quickly, thanks to her nervousness.

"Y-yeah ! Of course ! Thanks for having me.", she thanked as she closed the door and searched for a chair to sit on. They were no chairs in the room, exept from the ones where the two guys are sitting. Hopefully, she noticed a couch beside the blonde one and took a sit. She did her best to not die from embarassment when she caught the blondie looking at her from aside. She acted like she didnt notice and looked down at her sweating hands.

She finally looked up when the woman started speaking again.

"I'm Akiyama Kaede, Yamashita Trading Co.'s secretary. And these two are Narushima Koga, an apprentice fighter and Gaoh Ryuki, an official fighter. They are both new to the association."

(Y/n) looked at both males and nodded at them with a nervous smile.

"N-Nice to meet you both...!"

Koga nodded at her back while Ryuki answered her, indifferent. "Nice to meet you."

'What a warm welcome...', she tought ironically.

Kaede resumed her speech about the Kengan Association. (Y/n) (L/n) knew some of the things said but she also learned a lot about it. Then came the most interesting part for her : the one about fights and fighters.

'I see... So all the fighters must have been registered with Yamashita Trading Co. to be able to fight in Kengan matches...', she thought deeply, almost not noticing the two other males entering the room suddenly. They greeted Kaede in a very friendly and warm way which made Koga obviously angry as (Y/n) conclued they must have known each other for a long time.

"Allow me to introduce you Himuro Ryo and Kaneda Suekichi. They are both active fighters." - "Pleased to meet you. My name is Kaneda, as she just said.", repeated the closed-eyed smile guy, happily. - "Himuro as a perfect 21 win record in the Kengan matches, and Kaneda is a veteran with 12 matches under his belt."

(Y/n) was looking at them in owe, then focusing on Kaneda. 'So that's how active fighters look like... That one seems pretty fragile tought...'

"Kaede, do you mind if I start now ?", asked Himuro. - "Of course ! Go right ahead !" - "So, like Kaede just said we are both fighters. We are employed by Ginokuniya Bookstore.", he started before turning his attention on Ryuki and smiled, "So, Gaoh, was it ? We saw your match yesterday. You beat Kokuro in your debut match... That's pretty impressive." - "Tch. Condescending ass.", commented Koga.

(Y/n)'s eyes widened as she saw Koga being punched hardly in the face by the white-haired man. She didnt even have the time to process what happened that Ryuki kicked his desk and then threw his chair at him. Himuro dodged the desk, deflected the chair with his arm and finally blocked Ryuki upcoming attack with one hand as his other one was under the boy's chin, menacingly.

"Wait, for real ? He adapted to "that move's blind spot"...!", exclaimed Koga, dumbfounded.

'What is he talking about ? I couldn't see anything ! That was happening so fast !', the girl thought, breathless. If only she knew that Himuro's next question would have made her even more shaken up. She wasn't prepared for what was coming next.

"What did you move to kill Kokuro after the match was over ?", asked Himuro angrily, "Choose your words carefully, 'cause I can still kill you from this distance."

'K-KILL ?!', yelled (Y/n) in her head as she suddenly stood up in surprise.

"You are right, I would have ended up killing Kokuro if Mister Yamashita hadn't stopped me. I just forgot that it was just a "match"... I've only fought in fights to death up until now.", explained Ryuki like it was nothing.

Koga and (Y/n) let escape a sound of surprise as Ryuki continued, "But if you can't kill people in Kengan matches, then I will follow that rule."

Himuro thought for a second before letting go of Ryuki. "It seems like you are not lying."

He then sat down as he explained the reason he was here. Apparently Yamashita asked him and Kaneda to be in charge of their "education". (Y/n) managed to calm down a bit since.

"From this day forth, I'm going to be your mentor. I'm going to make you two into first-rate fighters." - "No, I'm good.", instantly refused Ryuki which made everyone sweatdrop while (Y/n) cracked a smile. The way he said that was way too funny for her.

Now that the situation finally calmed down, Kaneda proposed to Koga to follow him while Himuro did the same with Ryuki. Koga seemed distrusful at first but accepted anyway. On the other hand, Ryuki just walked after Himuro silently.

(Y/n) was now left alone with Kaede. Being alone with her made her way less nervous than she was earlier so she dared to spoke up for once.

"It was the first time I faced such a situation. I think I will have to work about that.", she joked with a small giggle.

Kaede smiled at her. "Indeed ! But don't worry, it's usually way calmer around here." - "I hope so !", she laughed before continuing, "So, do you have any idea when Mister Yamashita will be back ?" - "I have no idea for the moment, i'm sorry. Maybe you can give me your number so I can tell you when he's avaible." - "Oh yeah ! Here's my number..."

Kaede wrote the girl's number on a piece of paper before thanking her and apologizing for the CEO's absence.

"It's okay, don't worry ! He's a CEO so he must be very busy, I can understand that.", she smiled brightly before walking up to the door, "Thanks for all the informations you gave us earlier, it was very interesting. I hope I will get to see you soon. Have a nice day !"

(Y/n) waved at Kaede before going out of the room and closing the door behind her.

'She seems to be a kind and lovely girl.', thought Kaede with a eye-closed smile, 'I wonder what kind of CEO she will become...'

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

The next day, (Y/n) received a message from Kaede. She will be able to see Yamashita today at the office. She smiled in front of her phone as she just woke up. She got dressed and took her breakfast before stepping outside with a helmet on. She climbed on her motorcycle and drove towards her next destination.

She lived pretty near from Yamashita Trading Co.'s building but she always enjoyed riding her bike, even for the shortest trip. She arrived soon at the previous day's adress. She parked her bike, put off her helmet, and headed for the first floor just like yesterday.

She was wearing the same outfit as before. She didn't really like dressing formally but she wanted to make a good first impression on people. Besides, it made her looking more professional and credible, some assets she really lacked because of her shyness and her ability to get nervous very easily around people she doesn't know.

"Good morning Mister Yamashita, Miss Akiyama !", greeted (Y/n), entousiastly. She was surprisingly feeling at ease around them already. She met Yamashita briefly once some weeks ago and immediatly noticed how comfortable the atmosphere around him is. He's just so kind, respectul, not intimidating at all... at least for her.

Yamashita's face brighten up at her entrance. "Here you are Miss (L/n) ! I'm sorry for yesterday ! I had a very important meeting and all..." - "No need to apologize, Mister Yamashita !", she reassured with a smile, seeing the man before her getting obviously nervous and embarassed, "It happens ! Besides, Miss Akiyama already told me a lot yesterday and I could even have the chance to meet some active fighters." - "Yeah, that's a unique chance !", he laughed, "I planned to take you to see a real Kengan match soon anyway, so that you can witness how it looks like." - "Really ? That's so nice of you, thanks !"

(Y/n) was now as excited as ever. She didn't know why, but seeing a real Kengan fight is something she was waiting for with impatience.

"But I also have a bad news for you...", continued Yamashita, now a mix of sadness and seriousness on his face.

(Y/n) looked straight at him, growing more and more nervous by the second. "What is it...?"

"You wanted to integrate the Kengan Association as fast as possible as a new CEO, but that won't be possible right now." - "W-why ?", she brutaly asked, unable to prevent her sudden anger to take the upper hand on her usual kind and smiling self. Yamashita reajusted his glasses, "The Association is encountering some serious problems at the moment. However,I will gladly hire you as a new secretary so you can see by yourself how the association works !"

Yamashita smiled silently at her, waiting for her answer. (Y/n) thought for a short time before nodding slowly. "It's with a huge pleasure that I accept your proposition !"

'Anything is better than being in stanby for a non-determined lenght. Besides, being right on the field is a perfect opportunity to learn. Let's do that, yeah. I wonder what are these "problem" he is talking about, tought...'

"So, when will I be starting ?", finally asked the girl, curiously. - "Right now ! If it doesn't bother you, of course ! All this wasn't planned after all." Yamashita scratched the back of his head in embarassment. - "No, I don't mind at all ! I had nothing planned today anyway..."

Yamashita laughed happily as he gave Akiyama some instructions about (Y/n)'s new role in the Yamashita Trading Co. The beautiful woman only nodded silently before looking at the girl.

"Come here, I will show you some data about the fighters and how it works.", offered Akiyama as she sat in front of her computer.

(Y/n) instantly nodded and took a sit next to the blonde secretary and listened carefully to everyword she said.

Yamashita looked at the two females with a slight smile on his face, his expression softening. Having suddenly a few more new people around him made him happy for some reason. Maybe he was starting to feel lonely somehow ? 

Even him didn't know.

[thisgirliscatastrophic]

I’d love to hear your opinions on Ryo Akiyama and what you would do with him in 02 or Tamers to make him less Gary sue...

(Sorry if this is random)

Honestly, I think for Ryo he would probably struggle a lot with understanding people and himself. He's been around digimon for like how long? I think the fact that he comes off so cool and collected 24/7 is the most unrealistic thing about his character. It's almost like he can read the other characters like an open book. I can sorta understand him being able to do this with the Tamers, but the 02 gang? Nah, nope. He's just rarely in sync with people and he's very athletic, but not good at school (he's been gone for years).

[o-w-quinlan]

Game Journal: Anode/Cathode Tamer - Entry #01

A couple weeks ago I posted about wanting to play Tag Tamers (the game that’s basically Ken Ichijouji’s backstory for Adventure 02) now that it had finally been translated to English, but there’s just a little problem: I never played Anode/Cathode Tamer, so how can I play the sequel?

So, to remedy that, I’ll be playing through Digimon Adventure: Anode/Cathode Tamer for the next few weeks. I’ll use this “journal” to give my thoughts on the game, its characters (particularly Ryo Akiyama, though also how it sheds light on other Adventure characters) and its story. Each of these entries is going to be detailing 2 hours of gameplay, but given how big the exposition is at the start of the game, this first one is just going to be the tutorial.

The game starts with this little introduction. It seems about 5 months have passed since the end of Digimon Adventure, and it’s still 2 more months until the events of Our War Game.

We get our introduction to our hero, Ryo Akiyama. Like so many other children, he’d rather spend New Year’s Eve chatting with his friends in the computer than interacting with his family. Through those conversations, we learn that strange phenomena (like earthquakes!) have been ocurring lately, and that a boy named Taichi has been saying in his school that this is due to the digimon. Doesn’t exactly fit with how he acted in 02, but we’ll assume there’s character development in-between.

Of course, fate strikes and there’s a blackout, after which a mysterious message appears in Ryo’s computer. Agumon begs for help, claiming that Taichi and the other have been defeated. Ryo is extremely confused, but agrees to help the strange creature and is promptly faced with a digivice.

Following Agumon’s instructions, Ryo grabs it and soon disappears, after which we hear one of his parents asking him to go check why the lights went off, getting a bit worried when there’s no answer.

In a scene reminiscent of the first episode of Adventure, Agumon greets Ryo and introduces him to the Digital World, though this time with a much more concrete answer as to what it is and why Ryo has been brought here (go character development!). Agumon explains that his adventures are supposed to be over, but a new enemy emerged and somehow “broke” time, also kidnapping the Chosen Children. After the brief appearence of a giant killer wave out of nowhere (go Adventure references!), Agumon explains that this kind of phenomena have been going on in the Digital World and that they have to stop their new enemy to save it. Ryo, obviously, questions whether this is a dream or a game, but he doesn’t seem to be freaking out too badly.

Not freaking out is obviously a mistake in the Digital World,, I guess, because a Shellmon suddenly appears to attack them. We get to the tutorial battle of the game (which is automated and confusing and I learned nothing from it), after which Agumon tells Ryo they’ll go to a nearby village to better explain this.

We meet our favorite vaguely useful mentor figure. Ryo asks him if he has also been brought to this world against his will (good to see Ryo’s aware of how messed up this is), but Gennai simply tells him he’s digital lifeform too. He proceeds to introduce out new villain:

Meet Milleniummon, the fusion of a Mugendramon and a Chimeramon Taichi had defeated (so NOT the Chimeramon Ken created later). With its fearsome powers, it broke time and created a new world where the previous Adventure has been reset and the old villains brought back to life. Gennai “asks” him to help them save the Chosen Children and defeat Milleniummon. Agumon and some other child-level digimon question what they will be able to do against such a powerful foe. The answer is simple: they’ll defeat them together, along with whatever allies they’ll gain along the way. Gennai instructs Ryo to go defeat a nearby nest of enemies, and the game officially starts:

This is the view outside of Gennai’s house, by the way. Good to see he has finally moven outside of the lake. Moving west, we immediately find a Digimon Village, full of houses where the most popular topic is Variable Moves, a couple shops, a place run by Datamon which seems to be akin to a Pokemon Daycare, and (most interestingly) a tree whose leaves give gameplay advice. I’ll call it the Wisdom Tree from now on. Anyway, we make our way to the cave at the north of the village, starting a battle immediately after entering it.

To fight in this game, you’re given a grid of movement. You can only attack your opponent when you’re directly next to them, and can move away at any point. I assume that once I have 3 digimon, every fight against multiple oponents is going to depend on my skill to position my digimon, corner my opponents and move away when I’m in danger. As of now, though, I have only one digimon, so the strategy is ATTACKATTACKATTACK.

Oh, and my opponents are babies. Three babies, to be precise.

Following our heroic slaughter of infants, Gennai congratulates us as if we had just saved the village. As a reward for our service, he grants us a gift:

Taichi’s digivice! And yes, it’s specifically Taichi’s. He says that, since it’s not Ryo’s, we will not be able to use its full powers, but since Ryo is still a Chosen Child, he’ll be able to use one of the abilities of the digivice. Namely, he’ll be able to recruit the enemies he defeats for his team. And here I am thinking about how much such an ability would have helped the Chosen Children in Digimon Adventure. Or why Gennai insists on telling a kid who volunteered to help that he’s not the one they actually want.

Afterwards, he brings us to the edge of the village and says that Taichi had already cleared every obstacle in our path, but then Milleniummon did what it does best and reset it back to the start. Gennai promptly leaves telling us that he’ll be in his home if we want his help.

Oh, and when he was describing the events of Adventure before, he made sure to only ever mention Taichi and say that it was Agumon, Gabumon and Patamon who saved the world. Way to minimize most of your saviors, Gennai.

This is it for the tutorial. Next entry is going to be about what I hope is the first level. See you!

[reapers-game-blog]

All Involved || Ryo MM Trial || RE: Kousei

Kousei had quite an entrance... Actually, if Ryo was being honest with himself, Kousei being an 'evil' mastermind made him even more handsome. Staring in awe and slight horror at this long winded explanation, Ryo gasping and coughing in offense to various bits and pieces, Ryo couldn't bring himself to say a single word to the other. Because, well... He was right. 

Ryo never said to himself or to others that there was such a thing as a good person. Look at the one who killed for her obsession with her princess, or the girl who killed to get her jollies (thank you Based Beau). He heard Kousei speak of him desecrating Shuuko's corpse 'for no reason', and he rolled his eyes... But in the end, said nothing. What was there to say? Ryo agreed with it all. He was awful, he knew this much, Megami was... questionably growing more awful, and Ji-Hye... Ryo's face went blank as he tuned out Kousei's ramblings. Ji-Hye did nothing wrong. And Megami, possibly too. Crossing his arms, Ryo fiddled with the tassle of his jacket as the other finished. 

"Hey now.. Buddy." 

Ryo looked over at Kousei, his face devoid of any cocky, coy smile, and no glaring jeer, but emptiness. 

"I think you're wrong. On the whole...'Human beings' heartless mumbo jumbo hot dog. I for once, don't actually agree with the most negative nihilistic word spewing from your mouth like a broken toilet pipe. You know why? 'Cause even though we've been through Hell, and probably are literally there, some of us still have hope to live-- er, exist - on after this. Some of us had families to care for, people to cherish, dreams to fulfill. Why would there be people like Yuudai Akiyama who seemed to be nothin' but a really chill guy who actually believed I couldn't dance and offered to teach me? Why would there be Ji-Hye, my actually genuinely favorite horror movie actress, who seemed to fight so hard for the people she cared about. Shit... wasn't the person taken away from her like a dog, or something? Anyone who likes dogs can't be bad!" 

Ryo found himself chuckling to his own nonsensical ramblings. 

"I get it... I fucked up. I'm always fucking up, but honestly that's part of my character arc. I get close to you, I let you put your walls down, then I stomp on your dreams. Always been that way, probably always will. 'Cause I live a fast paced life where there's no room for error and no room for pity. But... Just because someone who's a level 0 in Friendship did a doozy to his 'friends', doesn't mean the rest of them are as shitty! Aaaaand... I said before! I desecrated Shuuko's body to make the game more interesting, and honestly to make things a little more challenging, y'know? Buuuut that's not my point! People aren't heartless. Not all of them. Even I have a heart somewhere in this charming, handsome, and not to mention sexy dead body! Even Beau has something heart shaped in her corpse, probably!" 

Ryo bit his lip as he seemed to focus hard on something. 

"Even my Big Bro Satoshi... I lost all memory of him, but I wrote a memoir of him once we learned that memories of loved ones could be lost! He seemed to be a loving, doting sibling. He tried to change my ways, and make the world a better place. How could a person like him not exist? You sayin' he's heartless, too? What about you? What about Clarity? What about Sascha, and Raiden... to an extent? I still think what he did was super sad and kinda pathetic but... The man knew what he wanted! Even they had the heart to care for another person. Even they had the soul it took to show me that not everyone was a Yuudai Miyamoto. Not everyone was nihilistic and cruel like me."

He shrugged, crossing his arms. 

"Maybe we witnessed different killing games, but no one here deserved to die."

Ryo paused. 

"... Wow. And I totally meant that." 

[shihalyfie]

Re: Ryo, i like the idea of some original Akiyama Ryo existing at some point and something happening to him get fragmented into pieces, sais pieces going to different universes and timelines, resulting in the phenomenon where there's not just original one anymore but fragments of him.

I love space-time stuff (i mean, i have a whole story about Advverse and its different timelines + other worlds lol) so this is catching my attention 👀👌

I think that's one way to handle it! The last post probably made me come off as harsher on the games than I really intended to be (it's mostly that I know too well Bandai hasn't really had a good track record of being prudent about issues like these), but from a fanfic writer's perspective, sometimes the fun itself comes from taking difficult-to-figure out parts of canon and using it as a challenge of sorts.

If you do want to take Ryou being the same character in 02 and Tamers at "absolute" face value (that is to say, about as closely as the way the games obviously want you to take it, in its most literal form), the challenge becomes a question of how an amnesiac Ryou ends up adapting himself to the Tamers universe. Then you have concepts like the one you mentioned where the universe explosion at the end of D-1 Tamers scattered "fragments" of Ryou across the multiverse that integrated themselves into them, like Tamers' or V-Tamer's timelines. Or you can just take the games' plotlines as a "suggestion" and do whatever you want with the rest of it. Even if you're taking the games at the most face value as possible, you're probably still making concessions here and there to make it integrate with anime timeline, so the question is really just going to be about how much.

Personally, I haven't really settled on a definitive personal headcanon on what's going on with Ryou because I have multiple ideas and haven't been able to make a decision about which one(s) I want to commit to or develop further in my head, but the part I do end up no-compromise is that I'm really not a huge fan of any aspects of the games that derail anime characters' characterization (Ken and Wormmon in Tag Tamers and D-1 Tamers, the Adventure kids' characterization in D-1 Tamers, et cetera), so those are the aspects I tend to ignore or do away with the most. Likewise, a lot of the fanon that Ryou left the Adventure universe for the Tamers one because he was jaded and bitter has to do with interpretations of the fallout from the D-1 tournament, and since that's the part that I have the most discomfort with I tend to not really favor that line of thought (I don't begrudge anyone else who likes that, angst is very juicy after all, I'm just not personally comfortable with it).

The other big question is the fact Ryou is part of 02's media mix, and 02 canonically aired in the Tamers universe (that 02 is involved is confirmed by staff notes and later Digimon crossover works) but nobody in the Tamers world seems to know or care about the fact a popular fictional character is real, but the easiest way around this is that the "Adventure and 02" and Digimon franchise in the Tamers universe already has obvious differences from the real one, so the WonderSwan games and 02 tie-ins presumably didn't happen in the Tamers world's version of the franchise. That said, Millenniummon being a time-and-space distorting entity makes it very easy to come up with other reality-bending shenanigans or explanations, so you really have a lot of options.

[suchabluberrii]

Ok so I think there were many many things 02 did wrong, it had too many messy ideas that didn't lead anywhere, such as the dark ocean, the appearence of Ryo Akiyama, the brief mention Ken does about DNA evolution shotening their partners' life never being aproached again... I feel like the 02 plot is all over the place and has too many filler episodes. Character development isnt really important naymore to go through evolution so the 02 kids aren't half as developed as the prior ones and the villains don't feel that dangerous anymore.

Should Takeru or Hiakru have been leads? Absolutely. In fact, Takeru was going to be the original leader but decided to change him to Daisuke to get more of a Taichi-like character, and it doesn't really make sense because he really hadnt been leading the team throughout the show as Taichi did...

So I stumbled onto this amazing 02 rewrite that fixes all the wrong with 02 and I love it so much

It does justice to every single character, both the new ones and the old ones, it makes the children's families involved with the plot, empowers Hikari by making Dagomon's call relevant, I really just decided to accept this rewrite as canon lmao. You should truly check it out if 02 upsets you, its such a good read.

While the new digimon show is going out, I’ve been rewatching adventure and 02 (and Tri for the first time which, unpopular opinion,I liked a lot) and…I have feelings about 02.

Why weren’t Takeru and/or Hikari leaders in 02 ? Don’t get me wrong, I like Daisuke but it make so much more sense to have Hikari be a leader who might be struggling to get out of her brother’s shadow or Takeru whose character development from Adventure (from tiny child they have to protect to the last protector,the last one standing) could have lead to that role really naturally (or both, both as leader would have been great)

Also, Takeru and Hikari are main characters in this show and they both kinda get the almost nothing in character development ? They both have really good moments that I really love but I’m pretty sure by the end (not counting the epilogue), they are the same people they were at the begining.

[crownedbenevolence-blog]

d i g i m o n !

           👑 ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏғ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ :: is this where i admit to the public that i'm a weeb ? yes. yes, it is. oh, babe, you already know this. send me a fandom and I'll tell you what character I would RP from that fandom -- and, those characters are ryo akiyama from digimon tamers and takeru takaishi from both digimon adventure and digimon tri. i roleplay ryo already, my legendary hero boy, but tk ? sign me up. that's my son. my good hope son. my blonde boy. always wearing a hat boy. i ship him with kari way too much.            well, anyway, those are the characters i would rp in the digimon fandom !

[khtrinityftw]

Honest KH2 Critique

I wanna talk about Kingdom Hearts II since we're quickly approaching it's 15th anniversary. Ever since it was released, it's become a game that people irritatingly refuse to be moderate over, or at least when it comes to the vocal fans online. People who love it don't love it so much as worship it, while people who hate it don't hate it so much as despise it with every fiber of their being. I may technically fall into the "love" category (I share the majority fan and critic view that KH2, especially it's Final Mix edition, is the best game in the series), but I'm also willing to look at both its good and its bad, and do so in moderation rather than hyperbolically.

And I know, without a doubt - Kingdom Hearts II...has the absolute worst-written story out of the KH Trinity!

OK, that was said hyperbolically, but I did so as a joke!

It's so weird that the original Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories have narratives that are deeply and thoughtfully structured with such care and consistency, and then the trilogy is rounded out by such a messily-written rollercoaster of quality!

.....Well, all right, maybe not that weird.

When interviewed shortly after KH2's first public reveal at the 2003 Tokyo Game Show, this is how Tetsuya Nomura described the process for writing the game's story: "I'm writing the plot, the main story of Sora and co. Other people are in charge of the plots for the events that will happen in each Disney world. Combining that with Nojima, we're completing one scenario."

The "other people" in question are the Event team: Masaru Oka, Ryo Tsurumaki, Michio Matsuura, Atsuko Ishikura, Yukari Ishida, and Kumiko Takahashi. Daisuke Watanabe and Harunori Sakemi also assisted Nojima with scenario writing whenever the need arose.

The problem that this process caused isn't apparent at first glance, but it's actually right there in that interview excerpt: "I'm writing the plot". In KH and CoM, Nomura only wrote the initial plot outlines, which were very simple and ripe for being fleshed out by the actual scenario writer. There's a big difference between that and writing a full-fledged plot the way he did here. 

Nomura wrote the story for what transpires in the KH-original worlds: Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, the World That Never Was and Destiny Islands. It goes like this:

As far as plots go, I actually really like this one. It's a strong plot.

It's also convoluted as Hell.

I made a post saying the three one-word convoluted elements of KH2's plot are "Nobodies", "Data", and "Ansem". All three of those are literally the cornerstones of this plot that Nomura cooked up: they play a huge role through the beginning, middle and end! Because Nomura had more power with making this game, none of the more...out-there stuff that these concepts created could be curbed or removed. Which means that the scenario writer had better be in tune with Nomura when it comes to presenting them in a coherent way.

For the most part, Kazushige Nojima was....not.

Here is a tell-tale sign that Nomura and Nojima were not in sync. When asked if he planned from the start to make Kingdom Hearts be the heart-shaped moon seen on the cover of the original game, Nomura replied "No, I didn't. I asked Nojima-san to write the scenario and in his scenario it was written that the Kingdom Hearts Xemnas created is 'like a moon that floats in the World that Never Was'. When I read that, I thought ‘’Oh, this can be connected!’’"

Nomura just admitted that Nojima essentially had to make up how to convey Xemnas harnessing and trying to complete Kingdom Hearts, because Nomura's plot did nothing to convey it. It was a "wait, how the fuck is he doing that!?" detail. And you really get the sense all throughout the scenario that Nojima is struggling with trying to convey Nomura's stuff, and he has said as much in interviews: Nomura's plot and concepts confused him.

It also doesn't help that Nojima was the least major scenario writer on the original KH, mainly limited to the co-creation of Ansem with Nomura and writing the entire End of the World section. This is probably why Xemnas and Ansem the Wise are clearly the KH-original characters with the most confidence and complexity behind their writing in KH2's scenario. Nojima writes Sora, Kairi, their Nobodies Roxas and Namine, and Riku far more simplistically and trope-y, and the other Organization members and trio of Hayner, Pence and Olette are side characters so naturally they don't get much depth. 

Then there's Masaru Oka and his Event Team. First off, while Masaru Oka is definitely on Nomura's wavelength and understands his vision to a fault, as Event Director he is superbly mediocre at presenting that vision, or Nojima's for that matter. He just isn't cinematically inclined the way Jun Akiyama was in the original KH, and that leads to the event scenes usually being the barest minimum of adequate at best, and laughably awkward at worst.

Secondly, Oka and his team were responsible for creating the plots in the Disney worlds (hence Oka's credit alongside Nomura under "Base Story"). But not only were they frequently lazy and just directly rehashed the movie's story but with Sora, Donald, Goofy and the Heartless shoved in, but half of the time they didn't even bother connecting the world plots to Nomura's main plot in any meaningful way beyond thematically ala CoM, and neither Nomura nor Nojima seemed keen on correcting this even when they really should have.

Here is a chart displaying the game's flow, stage by stage as set by world battle level. Stages where the main plot is progressed in some way are bolded, and stages of the main plot as created by Nomura have red borders around them:

Aside from Space Paranoids which was part of Nomura's plot from the get-go, the only time where correlation with the main plot occurs without any side factor to note is Beast's Castle, where both visits feature the machinations of Organization member Xaldin and culminates in the boss battle against him that leads to his demise.

Olympus Coliseum correlates to the main plot in the first visit but not the second, although the second visit is now made plot-relevant due to tying up loose ends from the first. Port Royal correlates to the main plot in the second visit but not the first, although the first visit is now made plot-relevant due to setting the stage for the second (it also has Larxene's Absent Silhouette in FM). There is technically a main plot correlation in the second visits to the Land of Dragons and Agrabah (the latter of which has Vexen's Absent Silhouette in FM), but Nojima botched the writing of them to the point where there may as well not have been, especially in the case of Agrabah’s which is "oh btw, an Organization XIII member came by off-screen".

And then there's the case of Disney Castle / Timeless River, which only acquires relevance to the main plot because it was decided that Maleficent should be resurrected and be Pete's boss in the present time. And unlike her appearance in Halloween Town, her role in this stage correlates directly to her role in the main story, revealing her resurrection to the heroes and establishing that she seeks a new evil stronghold from which to advance her return to power. Pete's backstory and connection to King Mickey shown here also receives a direct reference toward the climax of the World That Never Was.

While it could be argued that there's additional value in the first visits to Port Royal, Agrabah, Halloween Town and Pride Land due to the presence of Pete (Maleficent when it comes to Halloween Town), I would have to disagree because nothing they actually do in these stages end up mattering to the main story whatsoever - especially in Pride Land, where Pete just shows up in lion form to say “Ooga Booga Booga!”. Their presence alone just ain't enough.

The consequence here is that for the continuous stretch of Port Royal in the first go-round, Olympus Coliseum in the second, and Agrabah, Halloween Town and Pride Land in both go-rounds, it feels like nothing is advancing. And as bad as that sounds on paper, it's even worse when applied to gameplay because it means this lasts for several hours straight! The only main plot event that happens in either cycles is Kairi going to Twilight Town, which happens in a sudden cutscene between Agrabah and Halloween Town and is thus totally out of the player's control!

To sum things up, Nomura wrote a main plot that was good but too overwrought with confusing and complicated details. Nojima is a highly talented writer, but he didn't fully get Nomura's vision. Oka gets Nomura's vision, but he isn't a highly talented Event Director (and as seen in later games, he has even less talent as a writer) and often portrayed scenes that Nomura or Nojima came up with flatly. And none of these men were in sync when it came to how the Disney world plots and the main plot would connect, often simply not caring or else just not trying hard enough.

That is why KH2 has the weakest writing in the KH Trinity: the primary creative voices that shaped the story were completely out of sync with one another on a regular basis. You could say that their hearts just didn't connect on this project. And as a result, we have blatant inconsistences, bad edit jobs, pacing problems, mood whiplashes, missed opportunities, and dumbass moments galore.

However, on the occasions where things between them did manage to sync up, we were given some of the highest points in not only the KH Trinity but the entire KH series, and the input that was given from Daisuke Watanabe, Harunori Sakemi, and others like production assistant (and major Disney fanatic) Eri Morimoto surely helped the messy story become not quite as big a mess as it could have been otherwise. And that story still stayed true to the series' roots as a whimsical Disney/FF crossover project driven by relatable characters and emotional resonance, as opposed to a vanity project for Nomura that is driven by perplexing lore, plot twists and mystery boxes.

And that's why I and so many others love KH2, warts and all, and would gladly take dozens more narrative messes just like it over the different, far less enjoyable kinds of narrative messes that we've been getting afterward.

[tsumiscribe]

How do you think daisuke affected kens transition from the digi Kaiser to Ken. With how daisuke trusted him practicly immediately and became best friends coughinlovecough

Allow me to first, paint you a picture:  8-year-old Ken Ichijouji.  Arguably neglected, or at the very least severely overshadowed by his exceptional Big Brother.  Kind, and gentle, but very few, if any friends, because he was shy and reserved.  His big brother, although sometimes displaying questionable behavior, was his one and only favorite-person.  Ryo Akiyama, his ‘friend’, companion in the digital world, who vanished from existence (and if the implications of the Anime are to be believed, also his memories) was the only other companion he had.  And then his brother died.  From Age 8-10, Ken was under the influence of the Dark Spore, which fed easily off the deep-set depression of these losses.  So, even with himself beginning to excel in EVERYTHING, his warped personality kept him from desiring any personal connections with anyone.  His soccer team-mates, his classmates, all of them were just a point of reference for his own excellence.   He had one goal; to be the best.  It’s pretty easy to argue that, for two years, Ken didn’t really have a sense of self worth as much as a sense of ACHIEVEMENT.  He believed himself Superior, above all others, so everything else was irrelevant. Enter Daisuke Motomiya.  Someone who stood out even among all the ‘lower’ people.  You could tell he made a real first impression on him during that soccer match when he threw aside any hope at winning the game, as long as he could get in ONE SHOT against Ken.  And then he did.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, even before things cleared up for him, that Ken was unusually interested and fixated on Daisuke.  Because he was different.  He didn’t grovel for his attention, he didn’t outwardly worship the ground he walked on.  He opposed him.  He intrigued him.  Ken had never had a ‘foe’ before – someone who challenged him directly.  I think even that early on, Daisuke started to have an affect on him.   You can see as the Kaiser arc progresses, the vague moments where Ken starts to lose his grip on things.  When he comes to his senses and goes through all of his soul-searching to re-discover the person he hasn’t been for a solid TWO YEARS (arguably more), He withdraws.  Now it’s not that he finds others to be beneath him, but he realizes the depth of his actions and thinks he does not deserve their forgiveness or compassion.   The chosen are understandably wary of him, and while he wants their forgiveness, he has no expectations of them every being his friends.  He’s not sure he trusts himself to BE a friend.  And then there’s Daisuke – Up in his face, cheerful, accepting, encouraging.  It severely throws him off, not only because he doesn’t believe he deserves it, but because as a child, that’s not the sort of encouragement he ever received from anyone.  Even when he was the Boy Genius, his parents praised him for his accomplishments, no so much accepting his character.   It was off-putting, unbelievable even. Ken is so lost, that even though he’s not ‘suicidal’ per say, he sees the potential for his own death to be inconsequential, if it’s for the greater good, and for the sake of fixing all the terrible things he’s done.  And then there was Jogress. That scene in the series is, really, the turning point of everything.  Whether Ken likes it or not, he’s suddenly KNOWN so intimately, and for the first time, he has a strong BOND with another person.  It feels strange, but natural, and it’s empowering and exhilarating… and then it ends and he freaks out, because now that they’re not synced, the whole thing feels like some weird violation of his mind and body.  Daisuke, after that, 100% accepts that they’re partners, and doesn’t understand how Ken couldn’t.  But I think, in truth, the way he comes around after he’s had time to think (and listened to Wormmon) is that, if there’s something out there like that – someONE out there, like that, that maybe, there’s a chance.  From that moment forward, it’s not that Ken doesn’t understand Daisuke, as much as he doesn’t understand WHY… and eventually he realizes, he doesn’t need a Why.  He’s Daisuke, and he doesn’t question Ken, accepts him whole-heartedly even though Daisuke probably received the most focused of his ire when he was the Kaiser… and if Daisuke can forgive him, and accept him, maybe there’s hope that things really can turn around.  If Daisuke – or someone LIKE him – hadn’t practically forced his way into Ken’s personal space the way that he did, I don’t know that Ken would have ever fully recovered.  He may never have felt ready or willing to open up to anyone (except Wormmon) and might very well have recklessly endangered his own well-being for the sake of atoning for his sins.I really don’t think it’s a stretch to say, without Daisuke, Ken might not have lived much longer than his brother did. 

[idoldigidestined]

Ryo

OK so when I first started this blog I talked about Ryo a decent amount. Ryo Akiyama is one of my favourite digimon characters/ideas. This is probably my most controversial view in digimon... I think Ryo is a good character/idea.

However I don’t mean that in the literal sense. Ryo is super bad in Tamers and he’s always been kinda a Gary sue. However, that doesn’t mean he’s a bad character. I feel Gary/Mary Sues always have it hard because they are mostly meant to be self inserts. Sometimes a story needs that.

Video game characters are always in this weird space... as long as the game isn’t super character driven you can do really anything. You are the character. While this doesn’t apply for all game let alone all genres the RPG like the wonderswan games and the Digimon World games lend themselves to self inserts and gary sues quite a bit Inless you’re bad at a game or the game gives the character flaws in the plot like Final fantasy games.

For example YOU are link in Breath of the Wild. You might want to try to hurt innocent NPCs, you might try and thrown a chicken in a volcano, you might not save hyrule... this is all on you. You are link.

Same happens in lots of games. To various ranges of success.

Ryo is supposed to be a self insert for kids playing the Wonderswan games. Ryo is those kids.

In tamers they didn’t play with this at all. They kept him as ‘most’ kids would played/saw him as. An over leveled over skilled bad ass. That’s what I saw him as when I played the games.

However, because YOU are Ryo that’s not how he has to be. He can be what ever you want him to be cause you are him. Also, before I hear some people say ‘BUT CANONICALLY’ id like to point out that digimons canon at times is not only loose but unstable. Also not everything is canon and canon doesn’t always matter.

Im pretty sure the majority think Ryo in Tamers is terribly written and could have been dealt with a lot better. Even if they wanted to keep the OP self insert character.

Even even if you don’t want to see him as a better character in cannon I 1000% will support you. However, his lack of use in the fandom is quite frustrating. Even if you don’t like him because he is a self insert character you can change him to be what ever you need him or want him to be. (With some exceptions.) (Don’t ask me what they are IDK just quite yet.)

He can be anything you need in fan fictions. (In drawn or 3D art Ryo isn’t that useful unless you like how he looks but hey that type of stuff a lot harder to rationalize. Also most people just don’t like him and that’s ok.)

Need an OP knight that you hear of in legend as a reference and wanna use the main cast as characters? Use Ryo.

Need a strait man character who isn’t Joe or Henry? Ryo is an option.

Need an OP goal character that’s referenced sparsely? Ryo.

Need a kid who’s really lucky and helps the main characters rarely? Ryos there.

Tbh this is verbal vomit and there probably holes you can poke but I just really wanted to explain why I LIKE ryo as a character/idea. He’s something that’s unlike any other character in the older digimon works, to my knowledge I didn’t play many mainline digimon game cause I couldn’t access them.

I probably explained this badly sorry.

Idk I probably came off as stupid or rude... sorry for wasting y’all a time with this stupid rant.