#s3ph1r0th667

[shihalyfie]

I'm watching the Japanese version of Digimon: Frontier, and I am kind of wondering what are the differences between Takuya and Taichi? I can see the similarities, but having trouble seeing the differences.

Rather than thinking of it in terms of a list of similarities and differences, I think it's better to zoom out and look at the overall picture. What motivates them? What are they intimidated by? How do they react to certain things?

Taichi and Takuya may seem similar in terms of surface temperament, but their ways of approaching things are different (Taichi is often too easygoing and lackadaisical because he prefers to go for the first thing on his mind, Takuya tends to prioritize actively taking things head-on), their roles in the group are different (Taichi has somewhat of a coordinating leader role as is pointed out in Adventure episode 28, Takuya forms the engine behind everyone but will often have to leave the issue of organizing everyone to someone like Junpei), their ways of handling failure are different (Taichi is likely to take too much responsibility onto himself as if everything is his fault, Takuya has more varied responses like coping with stress by trying to ram it harder)...et cetera. From this perspective, I think it's conversely harder to see how they're all that similar.

[shihalyfie]

I've been playing the Digimon Card Game, and that got me thinking about armor evolution in the 02 anime. Besides making sure that the new cast have the foremost role in the season, what thematic purpose does the armor evolution eggs have? Is the idea to serve as something as indicating which of their seniors they take up after?

Partially, but I think it's also meant to show how one can have different forms of the same thing or prioritize them in different ways. Miyako's "Purity" doesn't mean the same thing as Mimi's "purity" (the former is more about being true to oneself, the latter is more about choosing to not have malice) while Iori's "Knowledge" isn't the same as Koushirou's "knowledge" (both want to learn more, but Iori's is more about abstract morality while Koushirou's is more practical). I also personally feel the Digimentals are more about "what one prioritizes in life and wants to do better in" rather than the Crests being more about "what one has latent potential for".

[shihalyfie]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[shihalyfie]

One thing I was seeing with Ghost Game is that the show seems to be adding limits to the more powerful forms like Canoweissmon or Lamortmon, not to mention having them deal with other dangerous digimon through tactical thinking such as with Oleamon being tricked by Angoramon.

It's been a long time since I watched Digimon Frontier, but I do remember in Appmon where there was that one episode: Dogatchmon was only able to beat Cameramon through searching for blindspots in the enemy Appmon's sights.

I tend to appreciate more tactical fight scenes, but am curious about how the different series try to balance out the higher level evolutions vs the lower ones. Do they do so, or is it like in DBZ where the higher forms are just seen as the go to?

Actually, looking at more of the season, it does seem to fall into the DBZ laser resolution after the characters unlock Mega Evolutions. I'm not really sure there is a way around it.

To be honest, I'm not the right person to be asking about this since I don't really keep a tally on it, but I think the answer is just "it depends". 02 still used certain Armor forms even late into the series because they were good for certain specialized abilities (Lighdramon was especially good at being fast), and occasionally you'd get things like the higher forms being too big or too destructive by default when it's better to minimize collateral damage.

For what it's worth, there's another reason they have to use higher forms as much as possible once they're introduced: their debut in the show is also when they start selling their equivalent toys, so they need to make the new forms look as cool as possible so kids will want to buy the toys while they're still on the market. If you ask tokusatsu and PreCure and card game anime fans about the equivalent, they'll all probably say similar things about new forms/concepts being introduced getting spammed quickly after because they have to sell something. Dragon Ball is technically in a different category because it's adapted from a manga, but Bandai does also have a stake in toy sales as well.

[shihalyfie]

Do you have an analysis or any ideas about Digimon Story: Cybersleuth? I haven't played it, and I'm curious about the game's portrayal of Yggdrasil and the Royal Knights.

I also have a bunch of questions about the Royal Knights arc of Digimon Frontier, but that can wait for another time.

So far my sole Cyber Sleuth meta is on Nokia (it's spoilery, so watch out if you decide to click the link). I do like the game a lot, and I would recommend it to anyone interested; I think it's "Digimon for adults" in a way that explores things that wouldn't be allowed in a kids' timeslot while also not going into needlessly edgy territory and staying true to its roots as a kids' franchise.

Yggdrasil and the Royal Knights are portrayed in a way that seems to be somewhat of a mixture of what you'd find in Frontier, X-Evolution, and Savers. There was one particular thing that I found a bit refreshing about its portrayal of Yggdrasil, a character that I already found to be on the verge of overmilked at the time the game released (but this is spoilery, so I sadly can't go into it too much at the moment).

[shihalyfie]

Hi. I have been doing some more reading on the background of digimon, and I read somewhere that American comics were a big influence for character designs, and I was wondering about the designs of a lot of the megas, especially Agumon, Bond of Courage, and Gabumon, Bond of Friendship in Kizuna. Is this really true, and to what extent has this been ongoing? How does this relate to themes of evolution?

This is true, but it's not as specific as you might think. Watanabe really likes the design of American comics in the sense of a drawing style known as "AmeComi" (アメコミ), which is basically "a style akin to American comics" in the same way you'd hear a lot of people here say "anime style" or "manga style". A lot of the things in Digimon design have things you would be more likely to have seen in American comics at the time than you would in manga, such as bold, strong shadows. I've yet to hear anything particularly deeper than that when it comes to Digimon, so I think it's really just in the sense of the artists who work on Digimon taking inspiration from things they like and not necessarily being limited to just Japanese media.

[shihalyfie]

I imagine you haven't heard, but there is a tabletop rpg called Animon Story that is apparently inspired a lot by Digimon. I'm playing it right now and I can definitely see some influences, but it is making me wonder about other games as well. Are there any other games that come to mind when it comes to the themes of Digimon outside of the franchise itself?

I'm unfortunately not super familiar with tabletop RPGs myself (real life stuff never worked out in such a way that I got to play one), so it's hard for me to really answer this question. I know that in Japan, Dungeons & Dragons is not very popular due to the fact it uses 20-sided dice and Wizards of the Coast has a copyright on the d20 ruleset that won't allow it to be translated (not to mention Japanese translations of early iterations were terrible), so things like Call of Cthulhu and games that only require 6-sided dice are more popular. There's also a thriving indie tabletop culture there, so people are more likely to make their own than to play D&D.

The most I can think of is that D&D has the famous Law/Neutral/Chaos alignment system that was adopted by Shin Megami Tensei, which Digimon takes blatant cues from for its Vaccine/Data/Virus attribute system, but beyond that I'm not sure...

[shihalyfie]

Hi. I'm currently watching Digimon Tamers and am curious about your thoughts on the character of Impmon and how he changes over the course of the season. It seems simple enough, but I'm curious if there are any hidden nuances that that apparent on the surface.

Hm, well...I think Tamers is a fairly straightforward of a series, so "things that aren't that apparent on the surface" in regards to Impmon don't quite come to mind at the moment (although it's probably not helped by the fact it's now been a few years since I last saw Tamers front-to-back). Any of my followers (or anyone who sees this post) willing to chip in?

[angstandhappiness]

Interesting

I'm watching the Japanese version of Digimon: Frontier, and I am kind of wondering what are the differences between Takuya and Taichi? I can see the similarities, but having trouble seeing the differences.

Rather than thinking of it in terms of a list of similarities and differences, I think it's better to zoom out and look at the overall picture. What motivates them? What are they intimidated by? How do they react to certain things?

Taichi and Takuya may seem similar in terms of surface temperament, but their ways of approaching things are different (Taichi is often too easygoing and lackadaisical because he prefers to go for the first thing on his mind, Takuya tends to prioritize actively taking things head-on), their roles in the group are different (Taichi has somewhat of a coordinating leader role as is pointed out in Adventure episode 28, Takuya forms the engine behind everyone but will often have to leave the issue of organizing everyone to someone like Junpei), their ways of handling failure are different (Taichi is likely to take too much responsibility onto himself as if everything is his fault, Takuya has more varied responses like coping with stress by trying to ram it harder)...et cetera. From this perspective, I think it's conversely harder to see how they're all that similar.

[shihalyfie]

I think series honestly tend to be on a spectrum on this kind of thing, so it's hard to say what a future series would be like, but Ghost Game is so on an extreme with this kind of thing that I would say it's still an outlier. Like you said, opinions were all over the board, some preferred it, some didn't like it, but hey, there's a reason they say Digimon fans never agree on anything...

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

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

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

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

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

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