#(.reflection

[bcclko]

[bcclko-a]

Cat, and girl monster with a cat hat - and birbs. Birbcats confirmed.

[finclity-a-blog]

papa & son but papa doesn’t remember he actually exchanged his data for a new core and egg adsdssaasds

[arttheclown]

alright alright i finally had time to sit down & compose my thoughts on how beelzemon / beelzebumon’s villain arc was handled in the original japanese sub versus the english dub because holy shit they are. different. i think both versions have their merits but there are things the dub got so wrong, especially as far as beelzemon’s relationship with renamon is concerned.

first off, i’m gonna talk about the differences - not so much which version did what better, but what sets them apart.

putting this under a cut because this is gonna be a long one. (also keep in mind i still have a couple eps left to watch from his villain arc in japanese, so i may reblog with an update or write a part 2 soon.)

1 -- the tone of impmon’s talk with caturamon (the “deal with the devil” scene) is very different in japanese. while it’s still a somber scene in dub & you feel sorry for impmon, his sarcasm is much more subdued in the original, drawing more attention to how scared & helpless he feels rather than his defence mechanisms.

i think what really drives this point home is that the little montage where he reflects on his time with his friends & realizes he’ll have to betray them in exchange for power; in the dub, old conversations are re-played for the audience, while in the og, these flashbacks are silent aside from a sad song that plays. this not only puts us in impmon’s shoes better, but helps set the tone for the tragedy of what’s about to happen & the gravity of his choice. i plan to upload a comparison soon. also, maybe it’s just me, but given that the last image we land on during the flashback montage is impmon striking renamon in the face... i’m inclined to believe that was supposed to signify that he was sorry for doing it, especially since the context of the flashbacks was that he’d harassed all of the main digimon in some way. maybe impmon was trying to tell himself that he’d already been so awful to them anyway that he might as well just cut his ties? who knows - but that’s something i feel sad music sold a lot better than voice-overs. 2 -- beelzemon / beelzebumon’s entire characterization. jesus christ, as someone who’s been praising how the dub handled such a dark storyline for years (and to be fair, derek stephen prince absolutely KILLS his role as beez in the best way), i was completely thrown off to see how radically different he is in the original. in the dub, beelzemon is still recognizable as impmon even during his reign of terror. he’s gone off the rails, but his speech patterns & personality remain the same - we’re just seeing a much darker side of him. it feels a lot like we’re watching a smaller person stumble around in a body that’s too big for them.

in japanese, beelzebumon’s demeanour is entirely different from impmon’s. his speech patterns aren’t the same & his cheeky from humour before is pretty much gone. he’s much colder. you don’t know who the hell you’re looking at anymore, which lends some disturbing credence to beelzebumon’s insistence that “impmon is dead.” for a second, you actually worry he might be telling the truth.

and then there’s his relationship with renamon & the role that plays in this particular storyline, which leads me to my next (and arguably most important) point.

3 -- i’m just gonna say it! i think the dub did the relationship between these characters dirty in this very pivotal storyline. i think there are aspects to enjoy about dub!beelzemon and sub!beelzebumon (depending on your preference on how his personality is portrayed), but they just. totally dropped the ball on his confrontation with kyubimon in episode 34 and i’m gonna explain why.

as mentioned before, sub!beelzebumon seems like a jarringly different character from impmon. almost unrecognizable. when caturamon reminds him that he has a job to do, he agrees to do it and seems prepared to carry out the gruesome task... until the moment comes for him to strike down kyubimon.

i’m gonna let these screencaps speak for themselves.

it’s only NOW that we see him breaking. he isn’t enjoying this, he doesn’t WANT to do it. he’s falling the fuck apart & it’s only now that we realize all of beelzebumon’s behaviour up until this point has been a facade. he blows up at kyubimon for “making him look like an idiot” because he’s still the same sad, insecure person he was before he evolved.

in the dub, we’re given pretty much the reverse of this set-up. beelzemon still acts very much like impmon - albeit an overpowered one - and doesn’t seem very happy when caturamon reminds him of their deal. (”let’s get this over with,” he says in response.) it gives the audience false hope that maybe he won’t actually follow through with it, making it feel like that much more of a betrayal when he does try to kill everyone & successfully takes leomon out of the picture. some people may praise that kind of bait-and-switch, and i get it, but...

there is far less real build-up to beelzemon going berserk in the dub. one minute his heart isn’t in it and the next he’s suddenly kicking kyubimon around and going out of his way to harm her. (which puts a really icky, abusive spin on their relationship that i don’t like at all.) the sub makes it much clearer that he’s trying to punish her for helping him & attempting to make things easier for himself by taking out the digimon he has the strongest connection with first. still a sick, unforgivable act, but one i can follow along with better on a psychological level.

which brings me to my final, and other Most Important point: the context of leomon’s death.

4 -- much like kyubimon, leomon recognizes immediately that beelzebumon doesn’t actually want to do this & that this isn’t the right path for him.

in the english dub, the dialogue is different & ultimately boils down to leomon telling beelzemon to fight him instead of going after the kids. that doesn’t happen here. beelzemon just kills him mid-conversation while leomon is trying to reason with him, and - having committed an act he knows is unforgivable - spirals out of control.

so no, i won’t say the dub butchers the entire storyline so much as choosing to handle aspects of it differently... but those choices aren’t always for the better, and i wish they just left a lot of this alone. the original context for these scenes are much more powerful & handle the characters & their dynamics more thoughtfully.

tl;dr: even if you have a soft spot for the tamers dub (which i do too, mostly for nostalgic reasons), try watching it in japanese at least once. it puts a lot of things into perspective & elaborates much more heavily on themes & ideas that the dub just skims over.

[wild-battlebond]

Digimon Xros Wars Ep48 Liveblog

Lilithmon really hates Beelzebumon’s guts so she’s turned into a giant black hole in the middle of hell and is trying to kill him and everyone else.

so Beelzebumon has gone in for healing from Cutemon but it's not working, which is always a bad sign

aaahhhhjjgggghh he's (kinda obviously) covering up his wounds with his wings

cool shot of him running out and opening his wings. like kid icarus

Shoutmon hates straight people

oh the parts of Lilithmon and Blastmon that were in the death water are all dissolved. brutal.

it's nice that the last remnants of the first arc get to go out with a bang

even when hurt and stuck in a weaker form, Damemon still tries to defend Yuu

yeah, it's like I thought. at this point, Damemon's wounds are too obviously painful for Yuu to ignore, but he also doesn't want to believe that any of this is real because of the guilt of what he's done

ah that's fitting given how Beelzebumon was someone who was given the chance to start over after hurting people

oh i guess SkullKnightmon's partner is still alive, just healing. unfortunately DeadlyAxemon was also their only way out of there.

Taiki always notices wounds no matter how sly you try to be. it's another one of his special abilities

Very Big Lilithmon's lower half looks like a big gross meatball

the xros loader showing Wisemon's infograph, then focusing on Taiki's face reflefted in the screen, and then turning to show Beelzebumon's face reflected was really cool

i feel like there's something to be said about how SkullKnightmon is holding Yuu inside his cloak, thereby preventing him from seeing what's going on. like he's still trying to shield Yuu from the true horrors of war and (literally) keep him in the dark (it's not really working though)

everybody's always trying to pretend-kill Taiki

hmm. that's definitely not going to weigh heavily on his shoulders.

bye beelzebumon

A lot of this episode was a bunch of fighting and action, along with Yuu feeling the effects of his character development, so there wasn’t a lot to say.

[kyanitedragon]

Tokyo Ghoul x Digimon Crossover

Kaneki:

Guilmon ->

I chose Guilmon as his partner because Guilmon is described as a virus type that could potentially destroy the world, or be a protector if chosen to be peaceful. “To destroy or protect” is a dynamic that I think fits Kaneki well, and was even Kaneki’s final arc. It puts a lot of pressure on him, but really, that’s what Digimon, and Tokyo Ghoul, is about.

As for Digivolution lines... Kaneki goes through so many changes in the series, both good and bad, that I figured he would end up corrupting his partner’s digivolution at least once. So I came up with both a good and bad digivolution line for his Guilmon:

Tyrannomon -> Megadramon -> Examon

DarkTyrannomon -> Gigadramon -> Darkdramon

Hide:

Lopmon -> Nohemon -> Andiramon -> Cherubimon

I knew I had to give him a rabbit, and I felt that Lopmon’s line fits him best out of all the rabbit digimon. The only change I made was I switched Tureimon with Nohemon, since Nohemon has the same henohenomoheji face as Hide’s scarecrow disguise.

As far as plot, I imagine Hide being similar to Yuujin from Appmon — Kaneki doesn’t involve Hide with the Digital World out of fear of dragging him into danger, unaware that Hide is already on his way to figuring things out and waiting for Kaneki to tell him. And eventually, Hide swoops in out of nowhere and saves Kaneki, and that’s how Kaneki finds out that Hide has a partner Digimon too.

Touka:

Lunamon -> Lekismon -> Crescemon -> Dianamon

Similarly, I knew I had to give Touka a rabbit digimon as well. I had a hard time choosing which rabbit partner to give to who, but I think it fits that Hide gets the rabbit evolution line and Touka gets the rabbit warrior evolution line.

Hinami:

Biyomon -> Hawkmon -> Parrotmon -> Crossmon

Hinami likes birds, and I think Biyomon would compliment her well. I chose this line to Parrotmon to reference Hetare and real-life birds instead of the phoenix evolution line.

Ayato:

Gazimon -> Sangloupmon -> Astamon -> Beelzebumon

Gazimon is based on a rabbit, although its a bit less noticeable than the others’ rabbit partners. This line is pretty edgy, which was very intentional in choosing for Ayato.

Nishiki:

Gizamon -> Coelamon -> Orochimon -> Gaioumon

Nishiki’s alias is Orochi, so I knew I had to give him Orochimon. Orochimon doesn’t really have a canon evolution line, so this was trickier and I had to play around with the evolution a lot.

Yoriko:

Floramon -> Kiwimon -> Lilamon -> Lotusmon

This doesn’t have much thought behind it besides “this line is cute”, but since Yoriko had such a small role in Tokyo Ghoul I was having trouble thinking of a Digimon to reference her. But I think this cute flower / bird / fairy line fits her.

Kimi:

Gomamon -> Dolphmon -> Marinedevimon -> Leviamon

I knew I wanted to give her a Dolphmon, to match Nishiki with an aquatic digimon and dolphins are known for their intelligence. And when I looked at Dolphmon’s possible digivolution lines, I knew I had to choose this one. Kimi starts with adorable Digimon, that end up becoming a water demon and then a Demon Lord, which I think reflects well how in Tokyo Ghoul she starts as an innocent human girl but ends up having messed up morals.

And finally,

Uta:

Piedmon

I’m not going to give his digimon an evolution line, because instead I see him as someone who mysteriously appears with a powerful digimon, helps out, and then disappears again. And, well, it should be obvious why I chose a clown digimon for him.

[piamii]

rewatching digimon

Tamers 32: Juri is actually pretty badass, she’s totally fine managing the behavior of an extremely powerful digimon using her experience of dealing with alcoholics at her parent’s restaurant/bar, LOL. and she’s not scared in the least. and she womans the fuck up and does her first card slash for Leomon. really didn’t like her in the dub and starting to like her a lot in the sub. we shall see though, she’s about to become a walking dark cloud... Tamers 33: i like how Jianliang’s dad just trips and falls backward onto Yamaki while trying to reach Siuchan on the slide, and Yamaki has no reaction. it’s such an awkward and amazing panel of animation also, i just went on a long rant to M about how most female characters in every fandom i’ve been in are really one dimensional. even Ruki, who i used to like a lot, suffers from this issue-she’s strong and has character development, but she’s still a huge bitch. i dislike both male and female characters who use their strength to be shitty to other people, but male characters often get better treatment in terms of exploring their nuances of character. we concluded that this is because of capitalism and writing what appeals to the widest audience. anyways but my POINT IS... i like Antiramon now that ive realized what i want in a female character. she’s strong, quiet, and puts up with Siuchan’s young child antics lmao Tamers 34: oh god haven’t even watched 3 minutes but already crying in the club because Leomon’s about to die and Juri just got so badass...fuuuckk and also Impmon is my problematic fav D: watching the fight scene makes me realize all of the Renamon x Impmon moments that have led up to this moment and when Beelzebumon says, “Don’t look at me like that,” that clinches the deal for sure. idk if digimon can feel romance but i sure as hell platonic ship them now. okay yup, leomon just died and im about to cry. juri’s cry is so piercing and the way takato is animated is so freaking intense. he has never been this angry and vengeful before. I think the ending scene highlights Takato’s soft personality. even though he gets really intense and he’s technically the “leader,” there’s a very clear part of him that cares deeply about his attachment and connection to Guilmon and constantly thinks about what it means for them to be friends. so when he makes Guilmon evolve into crazy demon dragonlord (reminiscent of Skullgreymon in S1), we see his Digivice shatter. i see it as he’s lost grip on a key part of himself. which i also see as his reflection for how much he cares about Juri and how much tenderness and connection he feels towards Digimon in general.  

[bcclko-a]

Coop? Sometimes? Pls??