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shihalyfie · 4 years

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A meta on Mimi and her character

Today’s spotlight character is Mimi! While the Adventure characters are all written to subvert character stereotypes (no, really), I feel this is particularly enhanced for Mimi, whose surface demeanor and the first impression you get from her suggest an almost opposite character to whom she actually is.

Disclaimer before we continue: While not to the same extent as Daisuke, Mimi’s disposition and personality have some significant differences in the American English dub compared to the original Japanese. As usual, this is not meant to be any particular comment about the dub’s changes, but simply that if you’ve only seen that dub, are reading this post, and are thinking “that doesn’t seem right?” that would probably be why.

Mimi’s family background and attitude prior to Adventure

Like with any of the other Adventure characters, understanding Mimi’s personality and why she acts the way she does is most easily done by starting with her family background.

We first meet Mimi’s family in Adventure episode 35.

There is a lot to unpack with only this scene alone, so let’s get started!

Mimi’s family is quite well-to-do. They’re not filthy rich or anything, but they’re well-to-do enough for Mimi’s father to work freelancer (he works in music). This means that Mimi grew up with a fairly “comfortable” life, probably getting pretty much anything she asked for -- in other words, she’s spoiled. It also explains why she’s actually pretty impeccably polite to everyone -- she adheres very firmly to honorifics when speaking to both elders and younger people, and never, ever speaks roughly or aggressively, because her parents have basically been raising her like a “lady of the house” (ojousama) or princess. (She does use casual-form Japanese, but she never lets up on the honorifics.)

They’re very open-minded. We learn in this episode that Mimi’s bizarre food tastes in liking natto on her eggs with sugar (from Adventure episode 6) most likely come from her mother, Satoe, cooking things like kimchi fried rice with whipped cream and strawberries. In other words, the family is very into the idea of “unconventional and strange” and has no qualms about it.

While Mimi in 02 is portrayed as liking practically any kind of fashion aesthetic imaginable, both her room and the overall decor of the apartment suggest that “in-your-face cute” is the generally favored one.

Mimi’s family is also extremely affectionate. They smother each other in lovey-dovey words, her father actively likes Satoe’s weird cooking ideas, and it’s a household where everyone seems to dote on and mutually love and support each other (Mimi’s parents are almost embarrassingly lovey-dovey) without restraint.

The result is that Mimi ends up “spoiled sweet” -- she’s pampered and used to a comfortable life where everyone dotes on her, but because of the family dynamic being so built on “affection” and “open-mindedness”, she also never develops a streak towards condescension or malice.

What does that mean, you might ask?

Mimi in Adventure

A lot of people remember Mimi by the fact that she was “whining a lot” in the early stages of Adventure, and the fact that she’s a “girly-girl” with some of the associated stereotypes. As a result, one may be surprised to hear that her behavior is actually supposed to be mostly representative of an average child in her situation, and she’s often described in press materials as “someone who can befriend anyone” or “someone who can get along with anyone”. Even her official website profile talks about how pretty much everyone considers her likeable.

This may seem difficult to believe at first, but you might actually notice a pattern when it comes to her “complaining” -- it pretty much always boils down to one of the following, or something along these lines:

I’m scared

I’m tired

I don’t like this/I don’t want that

I want a bath/bed/food/(some other home comfort)

I want to go home

In other words, Mimi is basically reacting like an average child would when thrown into another world out of nowhere! All of her complaints are out of low tolerance and high sensitivity -- all of these scary and uncomfortable things around her are making her feel bad, and she’s not hesitating to make that clear with her words.

However -- and this is very important -- these are all things she’s saying specifically because she’s now in a dangerous, unfamiliar situation in another world. All of these things are things she says defensively, because she’s sensitive to being uncomfortable or hurt, but she is also never aggressive towards others. In completely normal situations -- ones where all she’s doing is socializing at school -- it’s not hard to believe that she would actually be one of the nicest and most considerate people on the planet and that she would be instantly likeable to anyone she meets. Why? Because she lacks condescension or malice. She’s a very nice person who, if not for being under heavy stress, would never step on anyone’s toes. Even during those early episodes of Adventure, whenever there’s “down time” and they’re not in an uncomfortable situation or being chased by something, she goes back to being polite and respectful of others (remember: she’s one of the most adherent to honorifics among the cast), and is perfectly kind and agreeable with them.

As much as she may sometimes get demanding during the early episodes of Adventure, she also doesn’t expect her peers to cater to her nor does she look down on them. One of the biggest examples comes from the Adventure novel:

Mi–chan was pointing at the front of the bus, where a boy wearing a long–sleeved orange shirt was about to get off. Even Mimi knew who he was. They hardly ever talked together, but he was her classmate, Koushiro Izumi. Mi–chan wanted them to look at what Koushiro was carrying on his back – a wireless laptop. “Isn’t he so weird for bringing that all the way to camp?” Mi–chan sneered with mocking laughter, but Mimi didn’t laugh. She simply didn’t find any reason to.

In a situation where people are mocking this weirdo kid for bringing his laptop to camp, Mimi “sees no reason” to look down on him. To her, what’s the point? It’s not fun to be malicious towards others, and she sees no benefit in dunking on him. Hence, because she’s actually very polite and open-minded towards others, and doesn’t see any reason to be mean, she’s not mean, and so you can see why everyone would like her -- after all, she’s not only bright and cheerful, she’s also polite and kind! Who wouldn’t like such a nice person?

Mimi’s first “focus episode” is Adventure episode 6, and we already see a lot of these traits in action. Mimi gets to see the other kids making absolute fools of themselves under Monzaemon’s brainwashing, but the most she has to say is just observing that they seem to not be having fun, and being worried about their well-being. Once she finds out the truth behind what he did to them, she gets extremely angry on her friends’ behalf -- she actually calls them her “friends”, despite them barely knowing each other at this point!

And then when the Numemon step in to fight for her, despite her initially having been turned off by them (mainly because they make her uncomfortable, both by indulging in literal poop around her presence and by invading her personal space by flirting with her), she actually almost breaks down in tears over them!

What this all means is that Mimi’s “high sensitivity” also translates to something else: Mimi has extremely high empathy for others. In terms of being “sensitive”, she’s also sensitive to how other people feel. She worries about others’ welfare constantly, even when they’re poop-throwing slime monsters who had just flirted with her, or near-stranger classmates who just happen to have been thrown onto this adventure with her whom she barely knows. That’s why she’s so nice to other people -- she feels for them, and she constantly empathizes with others’ emotions, so that’s why she’s never rude to others nor does she step on their toes.

It’s also why, even after Koushirou rubs her the wrong way and momentarily causes her to lash out at him for being insensitive about her feelings in Adventure episode 10, she also never seems to hold a grudge against him thereafter (especially since, for as much as he was acting pretty frustrating, she understands he was doing it out of good intentions). In fact, Mimi is pretty much incapable of holding a grudge at all. (More on this later!)

Mimi’s most famous incident of “succumbing to her vices” is Adventure episode 25, when she ends up letting the Geckomon and Otamamon pamper her while stringing along and refusing to do the job they’d needed her for in the first place (singing to wake TonosamaGeckomon). Let’s go over what led to Mimi getting in this situation:

Mimi was basically at her limit. She had been in the Digital World for what had been implied to be months. Going that long without her bath or soft bed or comfort, it’s understandable that she finally let stress overcome her and succumbed to her vices in full. This is basically Mimi at one of her worst possible breaking points, not her most of the time.

Taichi, Jou, and their partners never gave her a very good reason why they should leave (Taichi never explained the problems going on in the real world, nor that he’d even taken a pit stop there) and now, for all she knows, they’re trapped in the Digital World forever, so when she sees an offer to make it all stop hurting, she naturally takes it -- especially when the people telling her to leave aren’t giving her any reason why except that she should.

Even despite all that, Mimi has a complete mental breakdown after her tantrum ends up throwing everyone in jail, dreaming about how everyone must hate her now and how even the Geckomon and Otamamon are tiring of her (the fact this pops up in her dream implies that she’d had a feeling this was coming for a while now). Sora comes to give her a little encouragement, but even she says that Mimi already really knows what she should be doing now. Mimi ends up bringing everyone out to apologize to them and fulfill her duty before the night is even over.

So let’s recap: Mimi is so empathetic and worried about other people’s feelings and what they think of her that, even in arguably one of the worst mental health crashes we’ve ever seen her have on screen, she still breaks down at the prospect of disappointing everyone and making them hate her to the point she immediately recognizes how far she’s fallen and takes it back before the night’s even over. That is how much other people, ranging from Taichi to a crowd of Digimon she’s only vaguely acquainted with, matter to her.

The full “payoff” for this episode in terms of the light of the Crest of Purity glowing and achieving Lilimon evolution does not happen until Adventure episode 35.

It is interesting for a lot of reasons, mainly because it involves all of the events happening in response to things that don’t sound very virtuous on their face (early in the episode, Mimi insensitively comments on Palmon being “bad taste”, and later in the episode she starts considering the Digimon tormenting others unforgivable).

The “Crest of Purity” (sometimes “Innocence”) is something that’s often been difficult to translate, mainly because the easiest words that come to mind often have other unwanted implications, but the real point of it is that, again, Mimi is lacking in malice. The way she talks to Palmon at the beginning of the episode indicates she really didn’t think Palmon would take it seriously (she even urges her to “not think too much into it”), only to find out at the end of the episode that she sort of kind of did. (Trust me, she’s very sorry about it.) The other thing is that, when she starts protesting at the Digimon at the end of the episode, she’s doing this specifically because she’s weeping on behalf of all of the tormented civilians (including her family) that are being caught in the crossfire. She’s so constantly empathetic towards other people that seeing other people hurt, regardless of how well she knows them, just eats her inside. So for her, those who cause that kind of suffering are unforgivable, because they’re inflicting that pain on others.

This is also what leads to her breakdown near the three-quarters mark of the series. Like with how she eventually came to empathize with the Numemon who fought on her behalf, Mimi holds no grudge against Scumon and Chuumon despite them having flirted with her earlier, and Chuumon taking a hit for her hurts her the deepest among all of the other kids. Because Mimi is so empathetic towards others, every death starts tearing away further until she finally can’t take it anymore.

Mimi is fundamentally the kind of person who hates fighting, and even from day one she’d never liked it -- her way of “encouraging” fighting was more like hoping that Palmon (or her evolved forms) could survive. If she wanted to win, it was in the sense of wanting everyone to Not Die; she was never belligerent. But now that the actual body count of people she considers friends is rising, she associates fighting so deeply with that body count that the pain gets to her, and the last straw breaks in Adventure episode 45 in the form of two people she considers friends, Taichi and Yamato, getting in a fight. Everyone around her is hurt. Everyone around her is pain. The naturally empathetic Mimi feels all of this, and she thus decides to pull back from the fighting.

Mimi being such a firm pacifist does have its benefits -- not only does it mean that she holds no grudge against Ogremon in Adventure episode 46 and bid for treating his wounds even though Jou (understandably!) is initially more skeptical because of how he’d initially tried to kill them, she also creates a major dent in Ogremon’s “fated rival” philosophy towards Leomon by forcing him to question: so what if you do defeat your rival? Then what? What’s the point of fighting? Does it actually make you feel better to try and prove your strength this way? (Even Leomon, for all he’s portrayed as noble, is still shown to have a petty investment in his conflict with Ogremon in the following episode.) Ogremon tries not to think too hard about it, but Mimi questioning “what he would do if Leomon were gone” becomes a question he really does have to confront when Leomon dies in the next episode...

...which is also an important learning lesson for Mimi herself as well: fighting may cause collateral damage, but not fighting doesn’t help things either, because when less-than-virtuous forces are at work, casualties will happen either way. In fact, it’s even worse to be a sitting duck, because now you’re just doing nothing when people die right in front of you. Which is a lesson that Jou had wanted to tell her earlier, but didn’t know how to describe to her in words because of his own complicated feelings:

What he wanted to tell her was this: that he didn’t see any likelihood of co-existing with the Dark Masters, and that they had no other choice but to fight them. Even a neutral country like Switzerland had a military. They would be invaded by enemy countries without one. It would be nice and ideal if they used the nonviolent resistance approach as Ghandi did. But that didn’t mean it was okay to just be killed without lifting a finger… But not even he could find a good answer.

However, Mimi is still a pacifist. Even if she finally understands that fighting is necessary, that should not mean that she should now force herself to become someone gung-ho and enthusiastic about it. This is why, in Adventure episode 50, Jou contemplates different ways they can productively contribute to the fight -- because Mimi should not be obligated to personally fight herself when it’s not in her fundamental nature, and Jou personally does not feel that he’s very good at it. But Jou, having put some thought into “one’s own path”, realizes that literal physical violence fighting isn’t the only way to be “part of the fight” -- and so while Jou starts to realize that his unique role is becoming someone who can be a capable healer and doctor for those who are wounded, Mimi has her own talents that she can use to bring Digimon and other allies together. Because Mimi is a kind and charismatic person whom everyone finds likeable and would be willing to come along with, and since she holds no grudges against anyone, nobody would hold any grudges against her, so she’s perfect for the role of “bringing people together for the sake of what they want to protect”.

And she does. Adventure being a series that respects the contributions of those who don’t necessarily participate by direct fighting, Mimi’s rallying together of the Digimon becomes key to saving everyone in Adventure episode 52, and the fact that everyone’s together in the end makes for a great group photo.

Speaking of the final episode, in case the point hadn’t been driven home enough that Mimi’s the most empathetic and emotionally sensitive of the entire cast, the series famously ends on her very emotionally compromised farewell with Palmon. Of course, Palmon’s the one who kind of initiated it (she’s the one who initially refuses to see Mimi because she’s too emotionally compromised), but, after all, the series ends on Mimi being so frazzled about it that she loses her hat.

Mimi in 02 and beyond

As with the other Adventure kids, Mimi’s character arc continues in 02, and we learn a lot about her before she even makes her first personal appearance!

Firstly, we learn that Mimi’s moved to America. The in-universe reason is that it’s for her father’s work...or, at least, ostensibly so, because 02 episode 40 implies that the actual reason was that her parents wanted them to be away from Digimon incidents. (Which, of course, didn’t last very long.) The meta reason for Mimi moving, however, very likely has to do with the fact that 02 involves a subplot of Chosen Children appearing all over the world, and Mimi’s character involves an innate talent for bringing people together.

We learn in Two-and-a-Half Year Break that Mimi moved in 2001, only one year before 02′s events, and eventually got caught in the 9/11 incident -- where she met a number of other American Chosen Children in New York and, now much stronger of heart since the events of Adventure, was able to help them in the recovery efforts, despite there being a language barrier. With this, and the fact she’s shown at a huge party in 02 episode 14: they’re not kidding when they say Mimi can become friends with pretty much anyone. Even going to an entirely different country and dealing with a language and cultural barrier, Mimi is such a naturally kind and compassionate person that she immediately doesn’t have any problem fitting in. (Because, really, someone that level of kind and friendly is hard to dislike.) And in a world where international solidarity between Chosen Children is getting more and more important, that is a very valuable role to have.

The other thing we find out early about Mimi in 02 episode 2 is that Sora catches on that Miyako is a lot like Mimi, based on the fact that Miyako also is empathetic and has an aversion to fighting. And Sora’s completely right, because when Mimi does come into the picture, the similarities -- and differences -- between her and Miyako say a lot about both characters.

When Mimi arrives in Japan in 02 episode 6 (for her cousin’s wedding), she and Miyako immediately get along with each other, and Miyako instantly role-models her, to the point of claiming her as an honorary older sister (despite already having older sisters herself!). It’s not surprising; Mimi and Miyako are both very bright and cheerful people, and Miyako even shares the background of being slightly pampered by her family (although presumably more due to her being the youngest of several siblings). Mimi, for her part, continues her trend of being likeable and fond of pretty much everything (including even her beloved tuna-mayo onigiri that she hadn’t had for so long), and is perfectly happy to be tight with Miyako.

The Digitamamon incident in 02 episode 14, however, adds an extra layer into why Miyako idolizes Mimi so much besides Mimi just being cool in general: Mimi is kind, forgiving, mature, and incapable of holding a grudge -- to the point her pacifistic tendencies kick in even when Digitamamon gets hit by a Evil Spiral and she refuses to fight him, despite him literally starting to beat her up. Again, Mimi came to understand the inevitability of having to fight back in Adventure, but Digitamamon is, to her, a friend who was trying his hardest to turn over a new leaf -- so, naturally, she tries to see if she can appeal to his heart instead. Miyako, on the other hand, is on the opposite extreme -- she’s so judgmental about her poor first impression with Digitamamon that, despite fully knowing well that Evil Spirals cause their victims to lose their ability to have reason, keeps trying to use it as evidence that Digitamamon was a traitor from the get-go.

Considering that the “secondary Digimentals” arc is largely about Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori coming to terms with their deficiencies in their respective traits and aspiring to do better, Miyako unfavorably compares herself to Mimi because Mimi is everything she wants to be and currently isn’t. Unlike Mimi, Miyako is aggressive, in-your-face, occasionally judgmental, belligerent, sometimes insensitive (not by choice), and often shallow, which she fully admits to in this episode. Of course, the reason Miyako gets the Digimental of Purity (Mimi’s trait) is because she hates this about herself -- even in 02 episode 31, she gives herself no shortage of grief for her foot-in-mouth syndrome and the fact she’s not as “kind” of a person she wants to be, and she herself is also fundamentally devoid of malice, just quick to jump to conclusions and a bit sidetracked by first impressions. (After all, Mimi was guilty of being accidentally insensitive when she called Palmon lacking in taste back in Adventure; the point is that when both of them do it, they really don’t mean badly, and end up sorry for it later.)

But that’s a story for another post about Miyako; more importantly, the reason Miyako is harsh on herself about this in this episode is that, in many ways, she’s everything Mimi is not, because Mimi is empathetic and mature and polite and never steps on anyone’s toes.

02 episode 25 gives us more to work with; first of all, she’s depicted in yet another completely different hair and fashion style (which she brings up another of during the winter season), and her drastic shifts in style indicate more of her “open-mindedness”; she’s open to trying out tons of new things and is willing to like just about anything. More importantly, however, she turns out to be completely open-minded about recruiting Ken to help out, even though she’s well aware of what he’d done as the Kaiser (and, again, Miyako sees her ability to be forgiving as something to look up to). Because, again, Mimi doesn’t hold a grudge; she doesn’t send anything accusatory or forceful to Ken, but simply believes that he should be given the chance to know what’s going on and help out if he so chooses, which becomes key to Miyako herself also choosing to accept Ken at the end of the episode.

Given that Mimi is portrayed as so open-minded towards trying all sorts of things, it’s probably no surprise that her “career” in Kizuna is so different from what we eventually know she’ll be doing in the epilogue -- instead of her cooking show, we see her running an online shopping business. After all, with her being so open-minded about wanting to do potentially anything, it’s very like her to "dabble” in a few different experimental things before (or perhaps “without”!) settling for something. What we know about this business is also quite on brand for her; her business specializes in “cute” (her preferred aesthetic, which she also shamelessly dresses in), and she’s established as setting up business all over the world to the point she has to constantly travel. Presumably, her natural charisma made it easy for her to set up connections.

Interestingly, her website profile also omits any discussion of any kind of university or other post-secondary education, implying that, unlike the others, she chose to dive directly into her career after high school. Again, it’s quite like her to find something she wanted to do and pursue it the moment it was in front of her -- no matter what it is, as long as it’s interesting.

Mimi’s largest amount of focus in regards to the movie is in To Sora, where she’s seen checking in on Sora after noticing she hasn’t been in the group chat in a while -- again, as someone constantly empathetic to how her friends are doing, it’s natural that she’s the one who catches on and decides she needs to check in. As someone who loves uplifting and supporting her friends first and foremost, she happens to be fully aware of what everyone’s currently up to (compare how Taichi had to be actively updated on Sora and Takeru’s status from Yamato in the movie proper), and also provides nothing but positive supportiveness to Sora’s troubles during their conversation -- as usual, always respectful and polite, and never condescending.

And, of course, she naturally empathizes with Sora having hesitation about fighting -- both because she’s been busy herself, but also because she, of course, understands exactly how it feels for fighting to be emotionally taxing -- and declares that she’ll support Sora with whatever she does, just like how she found her own path back in Adventure by choosing to contribute by bringing people together instead of fighting. She makes do on this promise as well, considering that she keeps up with supporting Sora during her exhibition.

By the time of the 02 epilogue, Mimi has decided to change tracks entirely and go for cooking, which, while being very different, is also very on-brand. This time, the part about “cooking” is something that comes from her family, since, after all, experimental cooking (...of some kind) was something Satoe got the whole family to embrace. The exact nature of her job is literally “culinary researcher”, which is a Japanese catch-all to refer to the sort of “food critic” who experiments with food and writes extensively (or, in this case, runs a TV show) about different ways you can enjoy and put together food, which also goes in mind with her streak of “open-mindedness”. The common point is, really, that everything Mimi does comes out of positivity, supportiveness, and love.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #tachikawa mimi #mimi tachikawa #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

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ahiddenpath · 4 years

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hi, new follower here!! i hope you'll get better soon :"D mind if i ask your headcanon about what the digidestined will do under the lockdown? thanks!

Hi there, thank you for following me! I’m alright, I just have GAD and am struggling with it right now. I imagine I’m in good company now, though, what with the pandemic... Which is an appropriate segue into your ask!

I’m sure there are folks who don’t wanna hear about lockdown and pandemics, so I will throw this one beneath the cut :D I will assume that the kids are their 2020 ages (ie, Koushiro was born in 1989 ish, so he’s about 31), and I will try not to be depressing. I’ll also assume the digimon are currently in the Digital World, just for my sanity. I’m also assuming the Chosen are okay economically, and that the lockdown is enforced (ie, none of them are allowed to report to work or go out, with few exceptions).

Thanks for the ask <3

Taichi

Chilling out at home, reading manga, watching TV, and being lazy is fun... for a few days. Very soon, Taichi is pacing his apartment, doing at-home workouts, and wishing his cooking was better. He can only eat so many omelettes!!!

The social isolation hits hard at some point, even though he Facetimes people. And even though he finds ways to move in his apartment, staring at the same four walls is rough for someone who prefers stimulation. He temporarily moves back in with his parents or with a friend at the first opportunity!

Probably gets pretty buff during lockdown. He loses his tan, and his hair grows back to its incredible childhood proportions, which makes his friends and family laugh!

Yamato

Does a lot of cooking/baking, and takes the opportunity to study and work out. Being an astronaut requires top mental and physical condition! He’s pretty used to being isolated to a degree, because... Again, astronaut.

He’s worried about his loved ones, especially Takeru and his dad. When he can, he temporarily moves in with one (or both?). He says it’s “to take care of them,” since they’re so “hopeless,” but he’s full of shit. He’s lonely and worried.

If he’s in space, then he’s even more frantic, due to the distance from his loved ones. The astronauts frequently look at earth and wonder what the hell is happening down there.

If he’s with Sora at this point, then he fares better for her companionship and reassurances.

Sora

She checks in with her friends and family over Facetime. They think she’s worried about them, and they’re not wrong... But doing something for the people she loves helps Sora find purpose and connection in difficult times. She experiences worry for the world and her friends, so she tries to keep busy.

Sora has a lot of hobbies, so she spends the time working on outfit designs and sewing. She finally makes a dent in her fabric supplies! Still, she’s an active person, and she starts to feel pent-up before long, even though she’s exercising. When she’s not sewing or talking to friends, she cleans and escapes into online art galleries.

If she’s with Yamato at this point, she probably fares better. If not, I imagine she might temporarily stay with a friend when she can.

Koushiro

What lockdown?

Just kidding! Still, Koushiro feels a little guilty because... He’s enjoying working from home instead of reporting to the office, and his work productivity has skyrocketed. He’s not particularly lonely, since he can use Facetime, and he doesn’t feel pent-up at home.

But he soon finds that he relies on the routine of reporting to work and moving through the day more than he realized. During lock down, it’s easy for him to forget to eat, bathe, sleep, and take breaks without his routine! He also lost a lot of his food options, and he can’t cook...

Luckily, Taichi often calls in the evenings to play online games.

He temporarily moves in with his parents ASAP.

Mimi

THIS IS THE WORRRRSSSSTTTTTT! Mimi can’t deal with lockdown. Hopefully, she was able to move in with friends or a romantic interest for a bit beforehand. If not, I think she might actually pop. And even with friends, she’ll crave stimulation.

She tries to spend the time thinking of new recipes, but her ingredients are limited... Which means that she digs deep into the supplies that have sat, unused, for a while...

She probably has a lot of board game nights and virtual dinner parties with her friends.

Jyou

If he’s a human doctor at this point, then he’s an essential employee. He’s working himself to the bone to help people. He won’t allow anyone to live with him for now, because of the risk of exposing them. He’s on top of covid-19 research and news, and how little is known about the virus and the changing information terrifies him.

His friends start ordering food to be delivered to him, fearing that he isn’t taking care of himself. He mostly sleeps when he’s at home, since he spends so long working so hard. I hope other people will support him, because Jyou will set himself on fire to help others.

Takeru

Uses humor to cope, but on the inside, he’s afraid. Calls his family and friends a lot, and tries to be nonchalant... But they know he’s scared and wanting to check in.

Takeru reads and writes constantly during lockdown, and watches shows and movies that he’s always meant to watch. He usually takes walks for inspiration, and the lack of visual stimulation/change of scenery is rough on him. He’s also pretty social, so lockdown is rough on him. He probably takes up a random hobby to cope, something really weird, like ventriloquism. Is he doing this to mess with people, or because he’s losing it? Who knows!

Blogs about everything. Everything. Prank calls his friends, and pretends that they’re buying it when they clearly are not.

Probably comes crying to live with Onii-chan for a bit ASAP.

Hikari

Hikari keeps herself occupied well, but she’s worried about her friends and family, and she gets lonely. She calls everyone often, especially Miyako when she’s feeling really down.

Hikari holds online learning sessions for her kiddos, both group and individual. It’s a ton of work, but she’s glad to see her students and have even this much normalcy. She probably couldn’t cope without it.

She does a photography light study during lockdown, and probably adopts a cat, if she doesn’t have one already.

Daisuke

Spontaneously combusts by day four. I’m kidding! Mostly!

I’m not sure if restaurants operate during a lockdown, but ramen isn’t a good delivery option, I’d imagine? Well, if he can work, at least he can get out and do that. If not, he spends most of lockdown experimenting with food and drinks, and researching for his business. He joins Taichi for work outs- they follow the same videos together. Constantly calling his friends, especially Ken and Miyako. Probably drinks more than he should. Watches lots of movies and TV, plays video games.

So like... You know, he keeps busy as best he can, but Daisuke is an active, social man. It’s rough on him!

Miyako

I imagine she has kids by now... She probably throws herself into keeping them busy and entertained. The good news is that she has Ken and at least one kid at this point, so she’s not alone.

Being pent-up is hard for her, so she tries to put together novel experiences for herself and her family: crafts, games, cooking challenges, forts, and competitive cleaning. Even though they’re inside all day, everyone is pooped by the end of the day!

She winds down in the evening by talking to Hikari or Ken with a drink.

Iori

He’s grateful to live with his mother and grandfather at this time. I don’t know if he’d still be able to do lawyer work- maybe he can study cases that are on hold? Would he be a lawyer at this point?

Iori has a steady, grounded personality, so I think he’d fare alright. He would practice kendo, maybe participate in online training, and spend time with his aging grandfather. Maybe he’d take the opportunity to record his grandfather on camera, asking him questions about his life.

Iori would probably check in on people intermittently, but I think his primary focus will be on his family at this time.

Ken

Hmm, this is hard... I imagine police are essential, but is Ken more of a... detective? I’m not sure if he’d be working or not?

If he is, well, he’d be busy with that. If not, I’m sure there’s a lot to do at home, with young children. The good news is that he isn’t lonely, unless he has to live elsewhere in the event that he’s working and doesn’t want to potentially expose his young family.

Basically, this one depends on circumstances. I could see Ken doing alright, or doing really... not alright if he’s separated from his family.

#earlgreymon #head canon #chosen children #digidestined

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izzyizumi · 4 years

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Digimon Adventure [Taichi/Koushiro (Taishiro)] Fic

Series: Digimon Adventure[s]; Tri is referenced / implied-as-AUs or for semi-canon compliancy (light spoilers for Kokuhaku; but not majorly referenced; just a quote) {plus a gif of a small moment involving Taichi + Koushiro} [also one more small conversation moment between Taichi and Meiko] (a scene from the first episode of the 2020 Reboot is referenced) Title: Words Type: Fanfiction / Shortfic Wordcount: 125 words, plus a small series of gifs Characters/Pair: Taishiro [Taichi x Koushiro] Rating: Gen[eral] / PG (for this part) Warnings: none for this specific part; more just written a bit dramatically Genre: also Gen/with ship implied, if written just a bit dramatically Notes: part of REPEAT?_Verse, (ficverse version here); - it can be read as a standalone fic - it can be read as an AU and/or spinoff of the main REPEATVerse; - or as its own standalone AU/spinoff (i.e. this can be read on its own) -- This bit is short enough, so I thought I’d post it over here. -- Added some gifs / quotations for emphasis -- formatting is also for emphasis -- the gifs at the beginning are also for direct quotes references -- Japanese version characterization of Koushiro is used/referred to. (Namely indicating his overly-formal-way of speaking in Japanese) -- see further notes at end for a bit more (including head-canons)

gifs by izzyizumi, {DO NOT REPOST} {usage of gifs may be allowed if permission is asked / or if credit is given. However, read my ‘About’ & AGREE to my ‘FAQ’ pages first. Please do not use / ask if you match anything in my “Do Not Interact” section.}

[note: commenting/tagging respecfully/positively is ok!] [please click on the above banners to enlarge!] {PLEASE READ THE ABOVE BANNERS BEFORE INTERACTING}

Summary:

{ WORDS }

-- To be honest,

Taichi and Koushiro don't need words. ( They have a lot more than Just )

( words )

-- Like, ... the way that Taichi-san looks at him, so gently.

( ... when he thinks Koushiro can't tell. ) Like, ... the way that Koushiro does the exact same thing all the time

( and Taichi notices ) ( every time. ) Like, ... the way that Taichi-san -- gently touches his shoulder.

( Attempting reassuring? him )

Like, ... the way that Koushiro ALWAYS, ALWAYS, WITHOUT FAIL, uses,

"Taichi-san"

Like, the way Taichi --

-- RECOGNIZES --

... WORDS ARE HARD for Koushiro.

Like, the way Taichi -- -- is always there for him

-- regardless. Like, the way Koushiro --

will always be by -- Taichi-san’s -- side

-- until,

the very end.

Notes:

-Originally written December 29, 2018; not posted previously. -Posted today for a couple particularly kind-of-reasons (see tags). -Also, when taking place in the main REPEAT universe, my Asexuality spectrum headcanons for either may be read in/implied - it is also Asexuality Awareness week, hence also why posting today. { Ace Week is October 25 through October 31st }

{ for Taichi I can see him as Demiromantic Pansexual OR Pan-Demiromantic & Demisexual, depending on ‘verse }

{ for Koushiro, essentially the same thing. However, in Tri canon compliancy specifically, I usually put him as Demiromantic Pansexual }

{ I can also see either as Queer in general, or Bi. [ while also using Gay as an Umbrella term ] Though for Koushiro I usually keep him specifically more as Pan. For both I also really love Gender-fluid headcanons, though this part was specifically also written with Ace and Aro[mantic]-spectrum headcanons in mind. }

#taishiro #taishirou #taichi x koushirou #taichi x koushiro #izumi koushirou #izzyizumi posts #izzyizumi fic #fic: repeat #verse: repeat #verse: advs #verse: AU #verse: tri #verse: standalone #c: koushiro izumi #c: taichi yagami #c: taichi #c: koushiro #(mainly this is me pointing out various little moments between them)#(Koushiro very clearly struggles with wording at times in the Japanese version)#(to a kind of extent Taichi himself does too when it comes to Emotions)#(yet they sure do work as a team PERFECTLY despite that huh)#(up to the point of Taichi in tri TO MEIKO blatantly defending Koushiro's way of communicating)#(today is also the birthday of . my bio-Parent)#(so i'm in A Mood)#(there are Reasons why I relate so heavily to Koushiro as a character)#(It'd be cool if people could like. recognize that when they interact with me about him? idek)#(literally. I could reference every single Japanese version Koushiro scene moment and quote to you in Detail)#(i'm actually doing a bit of that here... idek it just. feels sometimes like people don't like recognize these things about me)#(anyway as always Read The Banners and my FAQ BEFORE interacting)

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flyonmylovee · 6 years

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[ I’m getting back into my writing groove so here’s some sappy headcanon stuff I like about Sora’s friendships/relationships !! (part 1)

Taichi: I imagine Sora & Taichi’s friendship as an ongoing dramady of them figuring out how they can be polar opposites yet exactly the same. Taichi recognizing when Sora is down (...most of the time) and trying his hardest to cheer her up. Always great intentions, usually poor execution. He’ll bake her something she’s allergic to as an apology and Sora won’t have the heart to tell him his hard work is going straight in the trash. She’ll wait till he leaves. She’ll wish that she could try a bite so she could at least tell him it was good. He won’t follow up, though, so it doesn’t really matter. Unlike with most others, Taichi takes Sora’s forgiveness at face value. If they’re talking forgiveness, they’re way past the point of holding back from each other.

Their fights only get bad because they take each other for granted. Every once in awhile one of them will go too far. The other will hold a painstaking grudge even though after a few days it all seems silly but they’re in too deep to drop it. Sora & Taichi test each other. There’s a weird thrill behind it, isn’t there? When Sora gets particularly snappy, Taichi will push her and see how mad she can get. Someone’s gotta do it, right? Lest she pent it all up and explode unexpectedly? Taichi is the true hero here. /s

I figure that Taichi realizing all the stuff Sora does behind the scenes to maintain their friendship is like being a little kid and realizing your teacher doesn’t sleep under the desk at night. You should have known, but huh- wow, right? Sora keeps Taichi around for a reason though! When Sora needs support, he is a rock solid pillar for her. She’s not sure why she keeps telling him things, but he’s never told a soul about their private conversations when she’s asked him not to. Their trust is the type you crave in newer friendships but cannot achieve unless you literally grew up together or put in an exhausting amount of effort. Fortunately for Sora & Taichi, both things are true. He knows where the spare key to the Takenouchi apartment is hidden and he remembers what boy made Sora cry in elementary school- he cannot remember the reason behind the crying but he certainly remembers how badly he wanted to teach that boy a lesson. If Sora & Taichi didn’t meet as children they’re not sure their friendship would work. They don’t bond over shared traits, but shared experiences.

Taichi & Sora have their own rules. As far as Taichi’s concerned, he can pick on Sora as much as he wants but the moment someone else does it- shoo. Perhaps the two of them develop feelings for each other. Maybe it’s at the same time, maybe it’s not, but they’re probably short lived. Sora will catch him practicing football on occasion and her mind will wander to ‘what ifs’. Taichi doesn’t let his mind wander. He can’t. If his mind wandered over to Sora, he’s not sure he’d ever get it back.

Yamato: Okay, okay. Imagine when someone you reaaalllyyy care about- really, really- asks you if you think they’d be a good father. Imagine you say yes, of course, and that person responds like they’d never even considered they could be a good parent before. I think about this moment with Sora and Yamato ALL. THE. TIME. Cue the waterworks. Yamato tries to hide it. His bangs conveniently fall into his face, but Sora knows. She always knows. He hates that she knows until he doesn’t. Eventually he likes it. Eventually he can no longer imagine what it’s like to close yourself off to absolutely everyone.

Okay, this girl gets him. Cool. But can she vibe with the family? Heck yeah. Little brother approves? Absolutely. It seems too perfect- it cannot be real. I don’t think Yamato likes to wait for things to break because the anticipation will kill him. Many of their fights come out of thin air. One day Sora complains that Yamato never does the dishes. Yamato overreacts. They don’t speak for the rest of the afternoon. Later that night, Yamato uncharacteristically (to an outsider) breaks the silence to apologize. He was the only one that did the dishes when it was just him and his dad, and he took pride in keeping the apartment orderly. Huh. He has no idea why he just told her that. It’s too late. Suddenly, it’s 2am and Sora’s heard the entire story of his family’s divorce. At some point they made a blanket fort on the floor and that’s where they fall asleep. The moment is lost to the night. They tell no one- it’s a shared secret.

Koushiro: You’re watching The Office. Michael does something wild. The camera pans to Jim. Jim is already staring at you, shaking his head in tepid disbelief. That’s it. That’s the friendship.

There is an unspoken appreciation between Sora & Koushiro. When the group starts throwing around unrealistic ideas, Sora’s voice always rings through to bring them back to reason. Koushiro can go on with his explanation for another few minutes. He doesn’t think to ever thank her until a day she isn’t there.

Sora & Koushiro are closed off but in very different ways. Koushiro doesn’t think to reflect on his current state of well-being until Sora asks him about it and in a way, reminds him that he’s human. Sora appreciates that Koushiro doesn’t pry. He’ll call a liar out if it’s affecting their mission, but hey, Sora wandered off to look for firewood three hours ago and hasn’t returned yet? Taichi or Yamato can go after her, but Koushiro doesn’t recommend it. She’ll be okay with time. Time doesn’t always matter, much like it took Koushiro no time to be comfortable in Sora’s presence. It happened so naturally that he doesn’t even notice how different he treats her. Forming a coherent sentence speaking to most women? No thanks. Tumbling into a theory about the big bang, black holes, and creationism in the digital world? Well hey, Sora! Here’s an explanation you never asked for, I appreciate you nodding through the whole thing even though you have no idea what I’m saying.

Many people might not be at ease around Koushiro, especially when he’s focused on something, but Sora actually finds it relaxing. Nothing about their friendship is performative. There’s no bracing, no anticipating, and no drab attempts at hiding feelings. ]

#ooc;#headcanon;#headcanons;#tO bE cOnTiNuEd;;;;;#long post;

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50cyg · 7 years

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Yamato’s awareness of Taichi in Digimon Adventure Tri: Saikai/ Reunion

Everything begins after the airport battle (this post is going to be a shot by shot, and I’m aware it’s kind of over the top, but what is Tumblr for if not crazy break downs and over-analyzing like this).

From the get go, Yamato seems particularly interested in watching Taichi.

Koushiro points out the damage to the rest of the chosen and they all turn to look

Then we get a close up shot of Taichi’s reaction, where we can see the affect it has on him

And immediately after, we get this shot of some of the other chosen looking towards the damage

Notice Yamato’s line of sight in this shot compared to those of Hikari and Takeru, he doesn’t appear to be looking at the damage but instead is focused on Taichi. Whether it’s because Agumon is still injured or simply because he feels that something is wrong, he is already showing heightened concern for and/ or interest in Taichi.

And then we see a close up on Yamato, where he goes from looking… I want to say interested, or curious...

To looking concerned and maybe even upset

Again, he appears to be looking at Taichi here, not the damage. And he is looking at Taichi’s back for that matter, which means that he can tell, just from looking at Taichi from behind, without seeing his facial expressions like we did, that something is wrong with Taichi and it is upsetting to him.

They proceed to discuss the men in suits and potentially getting some answers, and when Taichi shows a lack of enthusiasm about getting answers from Daigo

We get an immediate reaction shot from Yamato, where in we are made aware that he finds Taichi’s behavior strange due to the confused noise he makes (similar to a ‘huh?’)

Now granted, Sora and Hikari look concerned for Taichi in the following shot as well

But the movie does not call attention to it the way it called attention to Yamato’s reaction. And as we will see later, none of them key in that something is wrong with Taichi the way Yamato does.

When Mimi shows up, while everyone else is presumably smiling the way Taichi is

Yamato doesn’t smile until he seems sufficiently satisfied with Taichi smiling

Moving on to the scene on the way home:

The kids are discussing Himekawa and wondering who she is. Notice how Taichi seems to be looking down while everyone else is looking at Himekawa. I think this might be a nod to the fact that he is not emotionally okay, despite the fact that we saw him smiling earlier.

Then Taichi says he is just glad they are all going home safe, and Mimi follows this up by asking where Jyou is.

It could be because he was triggered to do so by Taichi’s comment, or maybe he would have done it anyway, but when everyone else is looking at Mimi while they answer her question about Jyou, Yamato is instead looking at Taichi.

Now Mimi is also looking at Taichi in this shot, but that is most likely because he is answering her question.

The following morning, we see all the kids watching the news, including Yamato, about the incident at the airport, where the broadcaster talks about the damage and paints the Digimon in a negative light.

Then immediately after, we see Yamato is waiting for Taichi in front of his apartment complex.

Based on the way Taichi stops upon seeing him, and the way he says his name, I’m inclined to believe he was not expecting Yamato to be there. Yamato just shows up suddenly. Now I have no idea how far apart these two live or how much time passed between the news broadcast and Yamato’s arrival, but I don’t think it’s far fetched to assume that Yamato would have had to rush over to Taichi’s place immediately following the broadcast in order to be there when he is. And why is he there? I can think of three potential reasons:

1. He wanted to talk with Taichi right away upon seeing the news

2. He knows Taichi’s bicycle was destroyed and is offering him a ride

3. He is concerned about Taichi’s reaction to the news based on his behavior from the previous night and wants to check in on him

These reasons do not have to be mutually exclusive, it could be one of these three reasons or a combination of any number of these reasons. Yamato definitely has the news on his mind though, because he asks Taichi if he saw it right away

But Taichi never gives him an answer, he just makes a noise as though he wants to dodge the question.

Now it’s possible they could have chatted about it on the way over to school but, based on how their conversation goes under the bridge later in the movie, I’m inclined to believe they didn’t discuss it.

So, when they reach school, we can assume Taichi still hasn’t said anything and he doesn’t even face Yamato, yet Yamato looks uncomfortable and doesn’t move his eyes from Taichi.

Then, when they hear the girls start to talk,

He takes Taichi away from there, as though he knows what’s wrong with him, or at least what is causing his behavior, and how to handle it.

When they presumably find out that Daigo is away that day, and therefore they will not be able to get any answers, Yamato takes note of Taichi’s reaction (by looking at him when he slouches in defeat).

Then we have the scene in the courtyard, the one where Yamato was totally about to beat the crap out of some fellow students (I’m not going to lie, Yamato’s violent side entertains me to no end).

Now, this shot is pretty ambiguous as to where Yamato is looking, but I think it’s possible to interpret it as him looking at Taichi (btw if you missed him he’s in the doorway).

I’ve seen many people question where the heck Yamato came from or why he is there when he suddenly runs in ready to kick some ass. I think part of this is because a lot of people didn’t notice that he is standing in the doorway in the previous shot. As to why he is there, honestly, I theorize that at this point he’s just straight up stalking Taichi, it’s certainly consistent with his behavior up to this point.

So, assuming he is there because he is watching Taichi, it means he is choosing to pay very close attention to Taichi’s behavior and actions. Or maybe that he is even concerned and wants to make sure he’s there if anything happens.

In Daigo’s office later on, Yamato, once more, looks for Taichi’s reaction (this time to the info they got from Daigo) and looks concerned about Taichi’s, again, lack of enthusiasm.

Then in the battle against Alphamon both boys arrive on the scene at the same time. When they notice that Alphamon is targeting Meiko, and that she is in danger, both go to run towards her in order to protect her. However, Taichi has flashbacks to the damage in the fight against Kuwagamon and hesitates. And the second Taichi hesitates, Yamato notices and turns around to find out what Taichi is doing.

HOW?!?! How does he know Taichi isn’t following behind him? There is a giant mecha type Digimon in front of them, a girl in peril, and Yamato immediately notices when Taichi hesitates. Does he have psychic GPS lock on Taichi at all times? Does he have some kind of Taichi-sense that alerts him whenever Taichi gets a few feet away from him? Does he have a telepathic link to Taichi where he is immediately aware of any changes in Taichi’s mental state? Seriously, the only explanation I can think of for this scene is that Yamato has some sort of metaphysical link with Taichi that makes him aware that Taichi is not behind him, or that Taichi is hesitating. This would make sense if they were joined by Omegamon, but they are not!

He also somehow knows exactly what to say to get Taichi to snap out of it.

When it comes to Taichi, Yamato is borderline clairvoyant.

And it’s not just that, Yamato doesn’t just break through to Taichi with his words, he breaks through to him by simply existing within Taichi’s memories. The memory of him shows up through all of the images of destruction and gives Taichi the strength to fight.

It doesn’t last though, and that’s what causes Omegamon to break apart. But the fact that he could do it for even a bit is impressive.

I think it’s pretty cool too that Yamato knows to link his arm with Taichi at the right moment to stop him from falling backwards

Then after the battle we see Taichi fall to the ground, while Yamato remains standing

But in the following shot of them, we see that they are both sitting down, and Yamato is sitting cross legged so it doesn’t give off, at least to me, the impression that he collapsed as well. Rather, I think it’s probable that he made the conscious decision to sit down next to Taichi and stay by his side.

Okay this final scene is interesting,

Now we don’t know what happened between the reveal of Meiko being a Chosen Child and this scene, so I am purely speculating all of this. It looks like some time has passed and everyone else has gone home. The only 3 people left are Taichi, Yamato and Sora. Since Taichi looked fine right after the fight there is no reason for Yamato to suspect that there is anything wrong with Taichi, or that Taichi had doubts during the fight and still has doubts, but he does seem to know. I believe it’s likely that he very quickly picked up on the fact that Omegamon broke apart because of Taichi and that is what this scene is about. It’s a precursor to the Kabedon scene in the next movie. So again, Yamato knows something is wrong with Taichi even though he is acting fine after the battle. I kind of think it’s likely that Yamato stayed behind as everyone else left to watch Taichi some more and Sora stayed to supervise in case a fight breaks out.

Hope you guys had fun reading this insanely long post as much as I enjoyed rewatching Digimon Adventure Tri in order to make this insanely long post XP

For Part 2: Yamato’s awareness of Taichi in Digimon Adventure Tri: Ketsui, Kokuhaku and Soshitsu

#taiyama #taichi x yamato #digihusbands #saikai #digimon adventure tri

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digijosify · 7 years

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Musing about Miyako (and also Daisuke, to an extent)

This is probably the last one of these I’ll be doing for a while. There ARE other characters I want to address, but Tamers is calling and I want to get back on my bullshit.

At any rate, this is definitely the last one of these with an alliterative title. :p

I said it several times over the course of liveblogging this series, but I will say it again:

Miyako should have been the Goggle Girl.

I’ll head this off with a disclaimer that, in spite of what I said at the beginning of this series, I’ve come to really appreciate Daisuke as a character. Some of my favorite moments of this series are scenes of his repartee with Jun, and his relationship with Ken is excellently fleshed out. This re-watching of the original version was just what I needed to wash the bad taste of Davis that the dub left in my mouth.

But I’m still not convinced he was ever really the leader of this group.

Save for a few brief moments where he gets to truly shine, I never got the impression that Daisuke ever rose to the mantle of Taichi’s goggles that adorn his head.

But you know who DID have the makings of a great leader? Miyako.

I chose this particular screenshot to illustrate my point. Her catchphrase, simple as it may be, is something that the other Chosen readily rally behind. There’s even an episode where she’s absent, and the others lament that they miss her shouting “let’s roll!”. It’s something that motivated them, improved their bonding as a team, and kept their morale up whenever she said it. All of which are well within the necessary qualifications of an effective leader.

More than that, though, is that Miyako possessed a keen strategic mind as well, working often with Koushiro to coordinate and delegate tasks between the other Chosen. This is another important quality of an effective leader (remember when Taichi delegated the task of deciphering the cards to Koushiro?), the ability to recognize the individual strengths and weaknesses of your team members and coordinate tasks and responsibilities accordingly.

Hell, she even has the whole Courageous Gumption thing down pat, particularly when she goes into her manic episodes. Granted, she’s much more prone to reckless behaviour than Taichi ever was, but it’s also this spirit of hers that allowed her to break down the language barrier between the Japanese and Russian Chosen.

She’s smart, she’s capable, she’s bold, and she even has a little bit of cunning. She takes risks, but calculates them beforehand, and she leaves everyone smiling as she does.

One of the areas in which 02 falls short in comparison to Adventure is that the team never experiences any kind of fracturing or discord of any sort. The closest we get to that is the group’s initial reluctance to bring Ken aboard, but that doesn’t take very long to get resolved, and then it’s never really brought up again. And I will give Daisuke credit for spearheading the movement of getting everyone to work with Ken, but that doesn’t compare to what the Adventure crew went through and the lengths Taichi had to go through to rally everyone behind him once again.

Answering an ask in the middle of the series, I wrote out the seeds to a piece of speculative/AU fiction that I feel would have made 02′s overall story more compelling and lent more weight to the jogress evolutions. But man, how cool would it have been to have Miyako in charge of the whole affair?

I suspect that I’m not entirely alone in my thinking here, as more than a few of my readers have emphatically agreed, at the very least, that Miyako should have received the Digimental of Knowledge and seem to be in agreement that Miyako was underserved by 02′s plot. I further suspect that this is why a lot of people felt very unsatisfied with her epilogue-given fate of being a housewife. But I’m going to give a(n admittedly half-hearted) defense of that: raising kids is hard work. And it’s hard work that I feel is woefully under-compensated and under-recognized in modern western society. And after some reflection, given my views of Miyako as she’s been presented, I do feel compelled to conclude that the qualities that would have made her an excellent leader would also make her an excellent mother.

That said, I still think she should have also had a job as Koushiro’s lab partner and/or diplomatic relations in the Digital World Embassies. Yes, yes, I know, second shift and all that, but in fairness Ken can and should pick up the slack at home.

#digimon adventure 02 #extra #digimon liveblog

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shihalyfie · 4 years

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A meta and analysis on Yagami Taichi

Being the face of Adventure and arguably the rest of the franchise, Taichi has the honor of being an important figure in the realm of shounen anime overall, which has the unfortunate side effect of very often being described with things that don’t actually match him at all -- the way people often talk about him (especially mainstream press) tends to portray him like a stereotypical shounen hero who charges aggressively into everything and is hot-blooded all of the time. That’s not...quite on the mark.

I think “impulsive” is certainly a correct way to describe him, but in a very different way than one might think -- and, in fact, Taichi is much more of a multifaceted character than he’s often pigeonholed as. How? Well, let’s talk about it!

Taichi in Adventure

The main reason it’s probably incorrect to call Taichi “hot-blooded” by nature is that, in actuality, he is far more often too chill than otherwise. It’s not that he aggressively charges into everything without any rhyme or reason! Rather, it’s more like he takes everything very easily and has a “don’t worry about it!” attitude.

In fact, I think our friend the Animation Chronicle explains it better than I can:

If he doesn’t know/understand something, he acts while he tries to figure it out...

So in other words, rather than our conventional version of “being impulsive” meaning beelining to the most aggressive possible action, rather, it’s more like “the first thing that pops into his head” -- even if it’s a fairly easygoing or relatively harmless-seeming solution, he just goes for it because it sounds like it’ll work and he doesn’t see any reason why not.

That said, it’s also made abundantly clear by multiple sources that his ideas do come with some kind of consideration:

From the Animation Chronicle: “He appears to move with reckless abandon, but he actually does take in his surroundings and he takes good care of his juniors in the soccer club.”

From the Adventure novels: “Taichi treated everyone without discrimination, as equals. That attitude of his didn’t change, even towards Koushiro. If Taichi hadn’t invited him, Koushiro was sure that he would have never gone to summer camp.”

Sora and Koushirou even back this up personally in Adventure episode 16, when Koushirou points out that Taichi had always been kind to his juniors, and Sora recalls an incident when he’d foregone an opportunity to score a goal because he’d known Sora was more likely to pull it off successfully.

So in other words, Taichi is, fundamentally speaking, not someone who does things for personal glory, but does want to work for other people’s sake. It’s just that, in trying to carry that out, he has a tendency to default to the first thing that pops into his head. Or in other words, Taichi’s primary way of thinking is “act first and figure out the details later” -- and this has both good and bad things about it.

Firstly, the fact that Taichi has such an “action-first” philosophy means that he’s capable of acting very practically in situations when others would freeze up. A very good example of this is Adventure episode 21; after angsting for half an episode considering quitting the fighting and enjoying his life at home, the moment he realizes that everyone else will be in danger if he leaves everyone be, he immediately instinctively steps in to help everyone. It’s not necessarily that Taichi doesn’t feel the stress or danger of fighting; it’s just that when he sees the practical impact of people he cares about getting hurt in front of him, all bets are off, because he needs to help people now.

The second thing is that, as Koushirou points out, he’s very kind to his juniors, and people in general -- he doesn’t really pay much mind to things like seniority, and is more concerned about treating everyone in accordance to their practical capabilities. This means that he’s someone who has a certain sense of charisma, especially since he’s appreciative of people’s abilities.

This is best indicated in Adventure episode 28, when two important things about Taichi are brought to the forefront:

Taichi’s natural charisma and ability to appeal to people makes him someone good at “bringing people together” -- indicated by the fact that the group hadn’t taken long to completely fall apart after he’d momentarily departed in Adventure episode 20, but came back together after he’d rallied them. The Adventure kids, coming from rather different social circles and backgrounds, were not originally the type to stay together or be particularly tight with each other by default, and so, during the first half of the series when they still had ways to go in terms of having any kind of meaningful bond with each other, they were unconsciously dependent on the charismatic Taichi to keep them together.

Taichi is a “natural leader” in every sense -- “leader” meaning not only someone who pushes people forward, but also someone who recognizes others’ abilities and is willing to delegate rather than trying to do everything by himself. This was briefly demonstrated in Sora’s Adventure episode 16 flashback when she remembers that Taichi willingly gave up the opportunity for a goal when he understood she could do it better (it’s reflected in his soccer position, too), but also here in Adventure episode 28, he gives the task of solving the card puzzle to Koushirou because he (correctly) determines that Koushirou, not himself, is best equipped to do the job. Also note that the episode makes clear that everyone agrees to it specifically because Taichi appointed him to the position -- much like how “understanding everyone’s abilities and delegating properly” is an important and necessary skill for a leader, everyone trusts Taichi to make that decision, and therefore trusts in Koushirou because he was appointed by said well-informed decision.

So those are the good things about him. What about the drawbacks?

The first is that Taichi is, unfortunately, a little emotionally insensitive. He doesn’t mean badly, of course -- you can’t deny that his penchant for teasing or trolling people makes him quite a fun person to be around -- but he tends to lack a bit of emotional insight and is prone to crossing the line with his remarks. Again, this is a symptom of him being too chill about things at times; he tends to react with “what’s the big deal?!” -- a statement that one should absolutely not say when arguing with someone, and which tends to get Taichi in hot water, especially with Yamato.

While the trope of “the shounen hero and the cool rival often having friction” is quite common in anime like this, Adventure’s play on it is actually quite different from how it would usually be played elsewhere. In most other shounen anime, this kind of relationship would have to do with something like the hot-blooded protagonist wanting to charge in and the cool-headed person wanting to be more “rational” about it, but in Adventure, Taichi and Yamato are pit against each other due to reasons that have to do with emotions. Yamato, contrary to what his character archetype might suggest, is someone who’s openly passionate and emotional, and is also someone who goes out of his way to care about others and their welfare -- so he often gets into fights with Taichi because he perceives Taichi to be insensitive and not putting sufficient thought into the others.

Yamato’s reactions are certainly extreme -- Adventure episodes 9 very clearly depicts him as the one losing control of his emotions and escalating the argument with Taichi to a full-on fight, whereas Taichi wanted him to calm down -- but he’s not fundamentally wrong in that this is an aspect Taichi needs to improve about, because it is true that Taichi tends to take the first suggestion of “what’ll get something done” that pops into his head, but also has a problem of vastly underestimating how dangerous things might be.

Again -- and this is very important to stress -- it’s not that he doesn’t care about others, and it’s not that he’s unaware of the dangers around him or the potential for repercussions! As Sora says in Adventure episode 16, he is conscientious of his surroundings and aware of potential risks. He has always put thought into his actions, and he doesn’t just charge into things with no rhyme or reason. He just has an abysmally poor sense of judgment, because he’s so naturally chill that he thinks “it’ll be fine, don’t worry!” -- and thus starts stubbornly locking down on what he wants to do because he’s so sure it’ll be fine and that everyone (usually Yamato) is overreacting.

If you want a specific example about Taichi’s tendency to misjudge: in Adventure episode 9, Taichi and Yamato get in a fight when Yamato perceives Taichi as too insensitive about Takeru’s potential welfare, which weirds Taichi out because Yamato’s being awfully overprotective. On its face, it might seem hypocritical because we later find out in Adventure episode 48 that Taichi is just as overprotective of his own sister, but it’s important to note that in the relevant episode, Taichi states that he has to go out of his way because Hikari continually fails to vocalize whenever she’s hurt or in pain. This implies that Taichi sees Takeru as someone who’s clearly capable of taking care of himself because he expresses himself better (and thus, Taichi doesn’t understand why Yamato has to go out of his way for him). Indeed, Takeru ends up latching onto Taichi because he sees him as treating him with the independence that Yamato won’t -- but Takeru has his own very deep-seated emotional issues that he just happens to be very good at hiding, and while Taichi is certainly always looking out for Takeru, he never seemed to have become aware of this problem.

This difficulty in judgment leads into a certain pattern of behavior that Taichi exhibits that only comes up in very specific situations, but is so consistently depicted that it’s basically an inherent trait of his: what I call the “Yagami Taichi stress response”.

Taichi is the kind of selfless person who prioritizes others’ welfare over himself, and there are times when it will often fall into almost self-destructive levels. (This is a trait he actually shares with his sister, although the two of them naturally deal with it in very different ways.) His first priority is “helping everyone”, and especially “helping anyone who’s in trouble” (especially when it’s happening right in front of him). Which means that whenever he feels that others are depending on him for something, he ends up often taking too much responsibility for everyone’s welfare, and starts cracking under the pressure.

Because Taichi is the kind of person who prioritizes “action first” and figuring things out as they go along, this means that his reaction to stress is basically becoming a completely unfocused mess. Or, in other words, he lets the thought of but we have to do something!! completely consume his head, methodology be damned, and he starts panicking and doing everything in every which way to get it done, to the point he starts lashing out at others or becoming an emotional wreck because of the stress. The first time we see this is Adventure episode 16, where, being the only one with a working Crest and feeling that he and Agumon have the responsibility of protecting everyone, starts pushing himself and Agumon to carry everyone’s burdens, resulting in everything going wrong and the dark evolution to SkullGreymon at the end of the episode.

Again: It’s important to remember that, even at his “worst”, Taichi’s main priority is helping and protecting others, which means that his way of responding to that stress is basically determining that he’ll take all of the responsibility onto himself. That involves things like forcing himself to “work harder for everyone’s sake”, or becoming dangerously self-sacrificial, or at least allowing himself to become an emotional wreck because as much as he knows better, his one strongest thought is always we have to do something!!

Taichi exhibits more of this behavior in Adventure episodes 48 and 49, to the point he gets unusually aggressive with Koushirou (which is also explicitly pointed out as him not acting like his usual self) once he starts panicking about Hikari’s welfare. Again, note that all of this stems from we have to do something!! -- he basically starts panicking because despite Koushirou clearly doing the best he can, once things start going south, it’s just not enough.

So, speaking of things going south: because Taichi often misjudges situations, whenever things go wrong, he takes it badly. This is someone whose first course of action is to “act first and work it out as we go along,” but the number one thing he can’t stand is seeing other people get hurt, and so when other people do get hurt because of the consequences, Taichi shuts down -- for instance, when he learns that his ploy to attempt to get Greymon to evolve ended up hurting Koromon and everyone around him in Adventure episodes 16-17, and when his taking the Digital World too lightly (taking Koushirou’s explanation of it being “like a game world” at too much face value) ends up getting Sora in trouble and his own life in danger.

Which leads to a certain degree of irony: Taichi’s behavior isn’t normally out of solely recklessness -- mainly really poor judgment and a tendency to underestimate things -- but when he does slip up and start having to deal with consequences, he does become reckless. But because this recklessness is out of a desire to “not let anyone else get hurt”, it results in him being reckless specifically with his own welfare -- he’s the kind of person who “takes too much responsibility onto himself”, and his way of responding to the issues of “someone might get hurt” and “but we have to do something!!” means that he, by default, responds to everything with “okay, then I’ll be the one who gets hurt!” Or in other words, his solution to preventing other casualties while still doing something to help others involves becoming dangerously self-sacrificial. Because in the end, Taichi is the kind of person who hates seeing people being in trouble or hurt in front of him, and his instinct is to always protect people, no matter what.

But, again: Taichi’s way of “action first” is not a fundamentally bad thing -- remember, Adventure episode 21 established very well that this trait of his is very good for bringing him out of his biggest bouts of hesitation, because he has a very practical understanding of the need to fight in order to prevent more casualties. This is especially because the final arc of Adventure deals heavily with the concept of “collateral damage”, or the question of how to handle fighting to save people, when people are inevitably hurt (or, in this case, dying) in the process.

Yamato accuses Taichi in Adventure episode 43 of not being conscientious enough about the friends they’ve lost in the process, but once Yamato succumbs to his resentment and personal beefs and starts selfishly picking a fight with Taichi in Adventure episode 44-45, Taichi indicates that he is keeping his fallen friends in mind -- it’s just that, to him, not continuing the fight is an insult to everything they’d died for (especially because, indeed, more people will get hurt if they don’t do something).

And, ultimately, in Adventure episode 50, Taichi does conclude that Yamato, Jou, and Mimi are right about one thing: while he’s always been right about them needing to do something, they do at least need to be careful about how they go about it so that they don’t incur more sacrifices along the way. Fortunately, Taichi is a soccer captain and perfectly capable of quickly coming up with a suitable plan on the fly (he even cites it in this episode, and in fact had already demonstrated an ability to come up with tactics when necessary back in Adventure episode 20) -- it’s not that he’s never been able to do flexible thinking, it’s just that his natural tendency to be “too chill’ about things and overestimate the efficacy of the first thing that popped into his head was something he needed to learn to think through a little harder.

And so, the final episodes of Adventure indicate him finally starting to tap into his capacity for that -- thus truly becoming the definition of the Adventure group’s “leader”.

Taichi after Adventure

We learn in Our War Game! that Taichi still has a bit of a way to go in terms of the “emotional sensitivity” part, most notably when Taichi starts getting defensive when he accidentally disrupts the computer connection, and Koushirou (most likely correctly) pinpoints this insensitivity as the likely reason he and Sora got into a nasty fight prior to the events of the movie. In fact, while Taichi already clearly had some shades of this in Adventure, when his “teasing” of others or stepping over their boundaries could sometimes go a little too far, it’s especially indicated here that Taichi is very, very bad at dispute resolution, because he keeps trying to deflect blame for his own actions and indirectly accuses Sora of being the irrational one in regards to their argument. (Again, for anyone entangled in a dispute with a friend: “dismissing the other person’s feelings” and going for the ad hominem, instead of at the very least acknowledging them in the process of making your point, is the number one worst way to handle this.)

Of course, Taichi wouldn’t have gotten this far if he didn’t have the natural charisma to compensate -- again, he’s fundamentally someone who cares about other people and attends to them. But, unfortunately, he’s still bad at knowing how to deal with other people’s emotions and learning to deal with them with proper empathy...

...So, in fact, it’s striking that the Taichi we initially meet in 02 is someone who, most of the time, seems to come off as very mature and put-together. The fact that he so willingly turned over his goggles to Daisuke at the beginning of the episode is a really huge deal, frankly -- even if you don’t subscribe to the theory that there’s any major sentimental backstory to it a la V-Tamer, that’s still an item he’s kept on him since he was a tiny child and clearly must have a huge amount of attachment to, yet he immediately handed it over to Daisuke the moment he felt Daisuke was worthy of it.

It’s actually quite a bit of a swerve for those of us used to the more “playful” Taichi who sometimes took things way too lightly, but it’s also important to realize that this is the Taichi that Daisuke and his friends see. This is especially in light of the fact that Daisuke starts off the series with a very severe inability to be assertive, so Taichi, who’s always been naturally assertive from the get-go (almost too much sometimes), is everything he is not, and therefore admires.

Taichi is still Taichi, which means that he’s still subject to the Yagami Taichi stress response, and he gets very close to blowing up angrily at the others when they show up late. But unlike how he had a whole train of being rather out of control when emotionally compromised in Adventure episodes 48-49, he gets himself together fairly quickly and admits that he also didn’t want to force everyone to come if they didn’t want to (to the point where he had even thought about going alone with Hikari in the worst-case scenario -- again, note the tendency for self-sacrifice and putting responsibility on himself).

We also see him about to lapse into it again at the end of the episode, when he freezes up because he’s not sure about what to do in regards to the potential of hurting Agumon in the process of getting him back -- but Yamato manages to get him back on his feet, rather literally, and with a punch to the face.

This punch tends to be really often misinterpreted as if violence is just a fact of life when it comes to Taichi and Yamato, but it is very, very important to understand the context behind this scene and how it differs from the two’s relationship in Adventure. Whenever the two fought back in Adventure, it would be a very vicious argument with the two genuinely angry at each other, and with Yamato accusing Taichi of being insensitive and thus becoming hostile and resentful towards him. In this scene, however, Yamato has become conscientious of Taichi’s own feelings and reasons for hesitating. This is evidenced by the fact he only does a single punch and holds out his hand to Taichi right after -- said punch was strictly meant as one meant to snap him back to reality, and Yamato holds out that hand knowing that Taichi will not take it as anger or resentment, but rather “I did this because you needed something to get you back into focus, I know you also know this and won’t take it as an insult, and I understand your feelings and want to help you.”

It’s important in establishing the level of deep trust Taichi and Yamato have where they understand each other’s positions now without fighting over it -- the two of them even point out in the next episode that the reason they can get away with this is because of how much worse they used to go through before, but now, the two of them treat each other with mutual sympathy, understanding, and support, and devoid of condescension whatsoever. And because of that, Taichi is able to “snap out” of his hesitation much more quickly than he would three years prior, because now he has Yamato’s emotional support, and Yamato even frames the situation in a way the “we have to do something!!” Taichi would understand: if they don’t do something, Agumon will continue to be the Kaiser’s slave destroying everything that he himself would never want to see destroyed, and even if they end up accidentally losing him in the process, it would arguably be a bigger mercy to him than it would to let him continue in this state. It’s all very practical reasoning that works best with Taichi’s way of thinking, and because of that, they’re able to push forward into the events of the next episode.

But just because he’s become more mature doesn’t mean he’s lost his characteristic charisma or ability to be playful or a tease -- after all, Taichi has always had a penchant for a bit of a smug personality, sometimes even bordering on the petulant. This especially comes out when he’s with Agumon, but, really, Taichi is a person who really likes fun.

On another interesting note, however, Taichi sends Sora off in 02 episode 38 when he’s very heavily implied to have caught on that Sora is about to confess to Yamato, and pushes her on without giving her grief for it. Regardless of whether you subscribe to the theory that Taichi has his own unresolved feelings in the situation, the important part is that he understood that this was a grave enough situation for Sora that this did not merit teasing her or insensitively poking into her feelings on it -- in other words, it’s a huge contrast to Adventure episode 26 when he was clearly at a loss on how to deal with her when she was emotionally compromised, and Agumon and Gabumon commented that he wasn’t as mature as Yamato in dealing with this.

But now, Taichi is much more capable of showing actual empathy for others and understanding when it’s the time to hold back on the teasing or potential insensitivity, and for that, Agumon compliments him on the same maturity he’d failed to express three years prior.

By the time we get to Kizuna, the fact that Taichi is one of the lead protagonists is for obvious meta reasons (he’s the protagonist of Adventure, after all), but it also makes sense that a movie centered around the millennial existential crisis -- and, specifically, the issue of career uncertainty -- would have him as a major player in it. Remembering that Taichi is fundamentally the kind of person who operates as “act first, deal with it later,” it makes perfect sense that the terrifying pressure of dealing with something as vague and uncertain as career pressure would be something that Taichi would continually put off. Again, Taichi is a very practical-minded person who usually works best with things that are clearly happening in front of him, so “wide-ranging” things are things he plays badly with.

Despite Taichi being very clearly depicted as “out of it” for this movie, at the very least, certain fundamental personality traits of his haven’t gone away -- for one, he’s still one of the most expressive characters in the movie (to the point many a fan has commented on his jackpot of facial expressions) in terms of petulance, sometimes getting a little defensive, and driving poor Koushirou a little nuts with his tendency to be reckless with electronics. He also gets a bit cocky during the battle with Eosmon, which, again, tracks with his tendency to do that every so often (and to be fair to him, everyone was guilty of severely underestimating Eosmon at the time, so it’s not like this was a major miscalculation on Taichi’s part).

Moreover, much like in 02, Taichi and Yamato are understanding of each other’s feelings to the extent that Yamato is the first person Taichi calls to dump his feelings about his existential crisis over. Even though they’re still prone to some mild bickering at the beginning of the movie, they immediately go back on high-fiving terms right after, so it’s a very far cry from the time back in Adventure when Yamato would look down on Taichi for being insensitive.

But here, we have this one line that basically represents the source of all of the problems Taichi ends up going through in this movie, including the reason for his loss of Agumon: Taichi is trying to “force” himself to become an independent person, and in the process is pushing Agumon away, and, on a more metaphorical level, his own self.

Taichi moved out of his parents’ house under the pretense of not burdening his family, but Hikari’s comment about their mother wanting him to drop by indicates that it’s not likely they necessarily wanted him to move out -- and despite that, Taichi is miserable in his daily routine of walking back and forth from school and working at a part-time job and eating convenience store food. He’s clearly lonely, yet he won’t allow Agumon into his room (it’s stated that his visit midway into the movie is his first time here). He keeps his old goggles and Digivice, yet he shuts it in a drawer and only opens the drawer to stare at it from time to time, and when Agumon finally does visit and finds his AVs, Taichi freaks out and pins it as an “adult thing” before he finds himself in the awkward situation of basically gatekeeping his own partner with a societal standard he doesn’t even understand.

I should point out that the AVs are not strictly porn, if you want to be really technical about it; it’s “gravure” videos, involving a cosplayer dressing up in sexy/high-exposure outfits and striking suggestive poses, but it’s not actually explicit porn. Moreover, a toned-down version of this scene exists in the Shueisha Mirai version of the novel, where the issue is not about AVs but rather the fact that Taichi only has alcohol in his fridge -- absolutely nothing non-alcoholic, despite how impractical this is -- because “[he’s] an adult, after all.” So the point of this scene is that Taichi’s being performative, or in other words trying to do Adult Things because That’s What Adults Do. And since a Digimon partner is representative of the inner self, and especially established in 02 to have relevance to one’s “less dignified and more childish dreams”, Taichi looking down on Agumon, i.e. looking down on himself, becomes the reason why he ends up losing him at the end of this movie.

As things get worse for Taichi and the crisis escalates, we actually get another glimpse of the Yagami Taichi stress response -- Yamato confronts him on whether he’s okay with going in to save all of the Eosmon victims despite knowing what’ll happen to their partners. Taichi, frantically (Hanae Natsuki’s voice acting really sells it here), has an emotional outburst and professes that, no, of course he’s not, but, again: they have to do something!! Because in the end, Taichi is a selfless person who understands that bad things are happening to people now, and the important thing is saving them now and dealing with the consequences once that’s done with, and even Yamato admits that, as much as he hates it, this is the correct answer.

Taichi does, unfortunately, lose Agumon at the end of the movie, but there are multiple indications he’s already on his way to getting him back, given that Taichi’s starting to address all of the problems he was neck deep in at the start of the movie. In the middle of the movie, after having shut his goggles in the drawer all of this time and only pulling it out whenever he was depressed, he decides to embrace the courage they initially symbolized and puts them back on his neck, and when we reach the climax of the movie, he uses Hikari’s old whistle to wake everyone up. This needs to be distinguished from all of the “nostalgia” everyone else had been drowning themselves in by looping themselves eternally in old memories from a desire to never move on from them; symbolically speaking, Taichi’s blowing of the whistle represents acknowledging the important things in your past, and making productive use of them to move onto the future, rather than the unhealthy reactions of either drowning eternally in nostalgia, or performatively shutting everything out about your past in a bid to reach some arbitrary standard of adulthood.

Hence, Taichi’s thesis -- the one he had failed to write at the beginning of the movie -- is only filled out once Taichi embraces that past version of himself, because his thesis summary is about reflection on his past experiences, and making use of those to think about how to apply them to the future.

This is, obviously, intended as a lead-up to the 02 epilogue in which Taichi becomes an ambassador -- or in other words, someone who indeed specializes in “bringing humans and Digimon together” and offering proposals on how they can coexist in the future. Agumon, of course, is an important part of this job (look at his suit and bowtie!), instead of Taichi shutting him out and treating him like someone who doesn’t belong in his adult life.

Of the careers depicted in the epilogue, Taichi’s is the most “furthest-reaching”, since, as a diplomat, he has influence over a pretty huge range of things, which fits with Taichi’s tendency to shoot for some pretty high things -- and, also, conceptually, it works well with what we’ve always known since Adventure to be Taichi’s true specialties as a “leader”: having the charisma and understanding to bring people from different places together, and to lead them all forward.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #yagami taichi #taichi yagami #shihameta

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izzyizumi · 5 years

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I need a webcomic or something of Izzy using internet slang in his own charmingly nerdy way. Saying "Yas, queen!" to one of the girls out of no where. "That's lit, fam." Someplace else where it would fit but be slightly out of place too. Talkin' about snatching weaves on occasion. I need this in my life so bad you dont understand.

@apple-brightaaaa hi !!! (I’ve been seeing you about in my notifs!) o/[ I’M GLAD TO SEE OTHER KOUSHIRO FANS AROUND AAA …….. ;;;;; ]

pffft I can see where this sentiment comes from definitely, but! ;; I have to admit I’m …much more comfortable/familiar nowadays with writing “ KOUSHIRO ” more than “Izzy”, a-aha…. and to me there’s kind of A LOT of differences there re: mannerisms, way of speaking, Japanese culture vs. for example American + AAVE, pop cultural references between the two in general etc. ?? ?

SO while I can see this eventually happening with “Izzy” (maybe just post-Tri ?? ?) I definitely CAN’T really see it happening with “Koushiro” very much ;;; (Because, even by the end of Tri, “Koushiro” imo was still struggling to communicate feelings in ways here too; etc…. he had VASTLY improved since Adventure/02 that was but still YEAH. /Kokuhaku, [the 3rd Tri film with him co-starring] in general/particularly comes to mind/)

AT THE SAME TIME THOUGH I do believe Koushiro too would eventually begin relaxing [ IF SLIGHTLY ] / opening up a bit more later in life, especially as an adult ??? ;A; ;A;/I guess you could say too I can see MAYBE something like . Miyako ?? ? teaching him some such phrases (since Miyako canonically studies/travels in Spain now, is a LOT more enthusiastic/prone to dropping her catchphrase,[“BINGO” - Japanese version Miyako] + she probably hears/learns things from people she interacts with there as well as Daisuke, Mimi, Wallace etc. when they visit the US [Mimi is canonically friends with the American Chosen too!!!]; etc. ??? ?)

SO LIKE maybe one day Koushiro will deadpan

“ That’s … ‘ lit ’ , … ‘ fam ’ ?? ? ”while responding to Taichi or Mimi OR BOTH or whoever, and they’ll look at him in a startled kind of surprise/total shock, and then

he’ll immediately flush BRIGHT RED and stammer in his own self-defense

“ MIYAKO AND DAISUKE SAY IT A LOT !! ! ! ”

(PFFT I should also mention I’m not super great at creating/writing things on the spot though ;A;/ I WROTE ONE TAISHIRO OTP FIC ….. /ONCE/ and scattered drabble-length oneshots with them/the Adventure Chosen in general and then immediately my creative drive has kind of . stalled . again /OTL I APOLOGIZE /I’m also very much NOT an artist AAA…. I CAN DO AMVS/VIDEO EDITS TO AN EXTENT /BUT/ I also need to have a clear idea there too orz)[ THERE’S A CHANCE KIZUNA MAY REVIVE MY CREATIVE DRIVE ESPECIALLY IF KOUSHIRO ACTUALLY GETS SCREENTIMES WHERE HE’S ACTIVELY INVOLVED AND NOT JUST BEHIND THE COMPUTER BUT/AAAAA SINCE WHEN DOES THAT HAPPEN L B R/WISHES FOR IT ANYHOW ]

#izzyizumi ask box #izzyizumi replies #izzyizumi chatting #izzyizumi headcanons #izzyizumi commentary #koushiro #koushiro commentary #koushiro headcanons #(BTW I APOLOGIZE FOR REPLYING LATE AAA)#(You happened to catch me RIGHT when I was in the middle of returning from a family trip aaa ;; ;; ;)#(I'M BACK NOW but YEAH ;A; THAT)#(this week in general also could have been way better than its' been OOF)#(I'm still a bit busy too because helping out with something else going on AA)#(I DO SEE ALL MESSAGES AND SUCH THOUGH)#(also YES um I try to be very cautious myself when it comes to such cultural references because YES I admit I too uh . uh)#(Am Very Behind)#(VERY BEHIND)#(but also re AAVE especially I try to be SUPER careful because I REALLY don't want to misuse or misunderstand it)#(and tbh I feel it's not mine to use anyhow and I don't particularly want to ? yeah ;;)#(sorry aaaa)

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izzyizumi · 5 years

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Digimon Adventure(s) REPEATverse: an introduction

Fic: here ( please note any and all notes/warnings before reading ! ) AMVs: (short index at start links to past AMVs for this series): here * the AMVs are recommended if the fic itself isn’t your thing ! * the AMVs and the fic can be viewed separately from each other ! * you can still gain a same amount of the main story from the AMVs alone ! * the fic goes more into headcanons/ships/etc. as well as side ‘verses * However, I’m aware my writing isn’t the best so the AMVs may be preferred ! * basically, I’m a lot more confident in my minimal AMV making skills than my fic writing ability, but not for lack of trying I suppose ? * by viewing the AMVs you also get to hear cool music ! * some of it’s kind of depressing too though u m just as another warning * OK BUT THE MUSIC IS VERY GOOD OVERALL TOO THE BACKSTORY (NOTE: CONTAINS MAIN STORY SPOILERS FOR FIC):

Koushiro Izumi, in a distant FUTURE TIMELINE (but pre-02 Epilogue), during a "final battle", witnesses Taichi Yagami about ready to face his death, as well as the deaths of the rest of the Chosen Children - - including that of Koushiro Izumi himself. ( After all, if TAICHI CANNOT WIN ... ) In a last-ditch effort to save EVERYONE and everything, Koushiro CODES and sets in motion an endless " Reboot ", to constantly loop and " REPEAT " the timeline - or timelines. This is in the hopes that one day, they can figure out where they went wrong, stop the enemy, and finally save the day - the worlds - and everyone.

Unfortunately, despite this best effort of Koushiro's, this endless Reboot sends " YGGDRASIL " INTO MADNESS . "Yggdrasil" begins to execute more and more violent attacks against the Chosen Children with each "Reboot" / "REPEAT" in the hopes of wiping them out and "removing" the Chosen, especially one Koushiro Izumi, for good, and destroying all worlds that exist. " HOMEOSTASIS " becomes involved when they begin to target the Chosen - and one Koushiro Izumi, especially - for similar means, in an aim to wipe them out and "remove" them as well, and also, in an attempt to regain the Digital World's balance and stop Yggdrasil while they're at it. However, EVEN HOMEOSTASIS, SOON BEGINS TO DELVE INTO MADNESS ...

The series of events sets off a major chain reaction. Almost all, if not ALL, of the Chosen Childrens' former villains begin to become aware of the worlds' and Koushiro's plights, as well. After all, when you have a massive telescope where you can spy directly on the Chosen from afar ala Piemon, how could they NOT become aware when the Chosen (and especially, one Koushiro Izumi, and ALSO, one Taichi Yagami) begin acting strangely of their own accord? Some of the former villains begin attempts to use the situation to their specific advantages, while ignoring the wider plight - for example, Etemon may simply want to gain the revenge he wants for Taichi defeating him " that time ", even if it means Etemon giving up his mind in order to do so. MUGENDRAMON [“Machinedramon”] ESPECIALLY has his own goals that may or may not involve a certain OTHER TIME-HOPPING " RYO AKIYAMA " as well as attempting to UTTERLY DESTROY A CERTAIN KOUSHIRO IZUMI WHILE HE’S AT IT. Some of the former villains and the Dark Masters even begin fighting against each other - and yet more of them, particularly Piemon, may be becoming more and more aware of the timelines - and which CHOSEN REMEMBER those timelines - as time goes on.

Moreover, every time Koushiro must "REPEAT" a timeline, the pressure begins to build further and further until it's near mind-breaking levels. Not only does he have to deal with SAVING MULTIPLE WORLDS AND UNIVERSES, and coming up with plans to defeat all of these enemies ON HIS OWN, without telling any of the others lest they figure out what's really going on with him, - but he ALSO has to relive his personal storyline and issues, over and over and over and over again, for endless timelines on end. And considering Koushiro Izumi also was someone who started out feeling like " even if he wasn't around , THE WORLD would STILL GO ON ", WELL ....

The pressure buildup becomes too much -

--- and Koushiro Izumi, via the Digital Worlds' coding and his own skills, wipes his own memory as well as those of everyone elses'. ESPECIALLY those of TAICHI YAGAMI’S. {...and, even voluntarily on Taichi’s part, As Well}

... but along the way ---

--- Koushiro Izumi, in his endless thirst for KNOWLEDGE ..and wanting to know exactly what is going on here,

... soon starts to REGAIN those memories, in numerous other timelines.

How much does KOUSHIRO remember ? How much does TAICHI YAGAMI begin to remember ? What will Taichi Yagami himself CHOOSE to do ?

How much do THE VILLAINS, K N O W?

How far along the “original timeline” do the timelines actually get to progress before thing begin to collapse, yet again ?

And can anything REALLY be done to stop the worlds and the Chosen Children from becoming closer and closer to being utterly and completely destroyed ?

... and will KOUSHIRO - and, TAICHI - be able to yet again handle the immense pressures ?

#akiyama ryo #digimon homeostasis #digimon yggdrasil #repeatverse #timeloop au #fic: repeat #c: koushiro izumi #c: taichi yagami #c: ryo akiyama #c: repeat chosen #c: chosen children #c: mugendramon #c: yggdrasil #c: homeostasis #c: digimon villains #('I'M BAD AT NOT SPOILING MY OWN FICVERSES' - M E)#(this is the MUCH longer and more detailed summary that should explain at least SOME of these things compared to the one line fic summary)#(I'VE BEEN WANTING TO THROW @ RYO AKIYAMA @ RYO AKIYAMA @ RYO AND @ MUGENDRAMON @ MUGENDRAMON)#(IN FOREVER T O O O M G JUST. THE WONDERSWAN GAMES LORE. I STILL BARELY UNDERSTAND IT BUT J U S T)#(SO YEAH MUGENDRAMON IS VERY VERY MUCH INVOLVED IN RYO'S DIMENSION HOPPING AND I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT)#(I DON'T DISLIKE RYO ACTUALLY I gENUINELY DON'T)#(JUST THE AMOUNT OF CANON AND LORE KIND OF DRIVES ME UP A WALL TRYING TO KEEP IT ALL STRAIGHT AAAAA)#(THIS IS NOT THE FAULT OF THE TRANSLATORS AND MORE THE FAULT OF ME BEING BAD AT ORGANIZING MORE EXTENSIVE LORE)#(ok but SERIOUSLY RYO. RYO. R Y O. RYO VOICE @ KOUSHIRO ' Need help ? ')#(KOUSHIRO VOICE ' P L E A S E ')#(RYO VOICE ' so you know ' ' there's this sWORD ' ' that just mIGHT help with at least SOME of this ' ' you fought Diablomon ' ' ..right?')#(KOUSHIRO VOICE WEAKLY ' U m ' ' .... Things kind of. ' ' ... happened ' RYO ' ...Guess I'm back ' KOUSHIRO THINKING ' I owe you my life ')#(RYO AKIYAMA CAN BE VERY USEFUL ACTUALLY)#(RYO AKIYAMA CAN BE VERY USEFUL WHEN NO ONE ELSE REMEMBERS RYO AKIYAMA IS NOT YOUR ENEMY)#(When You're Koushiro Izumi and you've gained an immense amount of Knowledge but you WIPE EVERYONES MEMORIES bUT YOUR OTHER SELVES REMEMBER)

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50cyg · 7 years

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Jyoumato Month (Brotp edition) Day 6: Headcanons

I’m posting these really late, and completely out of order and also won’t be doing a post for all the days, only a few of them. But I’m super excited to post some content for my brotp :D Expect all of my Joumato Month posts to be posted in the next week

Thank you to @reliablefriendship for letting me participate even though I don’t ship them romantically, you are the best.

Also note that Taiyama and Jyoumi will feature in my headcanons for this pair

Okay let’s begin, there are a lot of these:

Jyou/ Yamato Headcanons

Let me preface this by saying when it comes to Jyou and Yamato’s relationship FUCK Digimon Adventure Tri, most of my HCs for this pairing were crushed by Tri but I don’t care cause when it comes to Yamato and Jyou they have it WRONG (I still love Tri a ton though)

I am convinced that when these two go to accomplish tasks together it consists of Jyou spending half his time apologizing for Yamato’s behavior, or him trying to compensate for it

Yamato: give us the information

Jyou: please

Yamato: *grabs documents from persons hands*

Jyou: thank you very much for the information, it was very nice of you to provide it

Yamato: There is information missing from these documents, where is it, I swear I will kill you

Jyou: not actually

Yamato: *begins death glare*

Jyou: you know what… I don’t guarantee anything

Jyou’s relationship with Yamato isn’t very different from his relationship with Mimi in the sense that he is very supportive of them both and understands them but at the same time is prone to getting tired of their shit and will voice it

These two study together a ton, but since Jyou studies way more than Yamato, Jyou still has to study on his own a lot. Also, since they are in different years they can’t help each other with their homework so it’s just them sitting in a room together quietly but each other’s presence keeps them motivated and makes it more bearable, especially for Jyou.

Yamato’s respect for Jyou grew a ton after Adventure and Jyou is actually now able to get Yamato to calm down or re-think his actions and words, though not nearly to the extent that Taichi can do so. However, he can’t stop Yamato when Yamato is really pissed and tries to resort to physical violence, his personality is too docile for that.

These two go shopping together, Jyou likes getting Yamato’s opinion on clothing. It takes Yamato a while to get used to having to pick stuff out that will both look good and that Jyou is willing to wear. Jyou is picking about clothing because he is very self-conscious and also practical. They’ll spend hours in a store and it annoys the hell out of Yamato who, inspite of being very well dressed and having a sense of fashion that makes some people think he spends a lot of time in stores, has very good taste and knows exactly what he likes so when alone he moves through stores like a machine. When Mimi gets invited along Yamato wants to shoot himself.

Yamato finds Jyou attractive, but it’s one of those things that doesn’t cross his mind unless he’s helping Jyou pick out clothing or happens to see him topless. Jyou appreciates Yamato’s good looks cause let’s face it who doesn’t.

Yamato had a crush on Jyou briefly when they were younger, though he was not aware of what it was at the time and only recognized what it was as he aged.

Jyou would follow Yamato into hell and back but is more rational and often tries to find a different route if possible :P

When these two need to accomplish tasks or go on adventures together, Jyou usually ends up taking charge because Yamato both consciously and subconsciously prefers to be led. And again, Yamato has developed a strong respect for Jyou and recognizes that he often has good plans and is a good strategist.

Jyou is physically stronger than Yamato (they are both weaker than Taichi), but he rarely uses this strength to his advantage unless he has to stop Yamato from doing something epically stupid (in a moment when Yamato is having an emotional outburst).

It is not uncommon for both Taichi and Jyou to agree and voice when Yamato is being a pain in the ass

Also, not uncommon for both Taichi and Yamato to agree and voice when Jyou is being a pain in the ass

Can you tell that Jyou, Yamato and Taichi is my BroT3 lol

Jyou is Yamato’s confidant, especially when he is annoyed with Taichi (this becomes less so when Gabumon is around).

You know how Gomamon encourages Jou in super overdramatic ways? Yeah well Yamato does that shit internally all the time :P but he’s too much of a tsundere/ too shy to voice any of it, so he usually resorts to just a encouraging pat on the back :P

Mimi and Yamato talk a lot together about Jou, well actually it’s usually Mimi doing most of the talking. When Jou and Mimi start dating, Yamato becomes her confident. (this HC applies if Jou is dating Sora as well, also applies if Jou dates a girl outside the Chosen, might apply if he dates Hikari, I’m on the fence about if it applies to Hikari)

Jou learns very quickly to never ask Yamato for advice about girls, he knows 0, literally nothing

They are, of course, each other’s best men at their weddings

Jou gets cold feet at his wedding and Yamato has to calm him down

Takeru is more likely to call Yamato when Yamato is moping, Jou is more likely to physically go to the apartment

Yamato is a bad influence on Jou when it comes to alcohol. Yamato can hold his liquor, Jou cannot, this amuses Yamato and he will often successfully drag him to bars and get him drunk at parties. Taichi 100% gets in on this.

Jou’s girlfriends must be approved by Yamato, obviously this doesn’t apply if he dates another Chosen because it’s understood Yamato already approves all Chosen (at least within the primary group, this doesn’t necessarily apply to all Chosen around the world obviously)

They get a lot of looks from girls when they are with each other (they are incredibly aesthetically pleasing and contrast each other nicely, it also helps that they are both tall).

Yamato gets derogatory comments about being half French, depending on how subtle they are Jou doesn’t always notice but when he does he gets very upset and demands the person apologize. If the person making the derogatory comment is someone within a group that Jou hangs out with (say someone from his class) he will cut ties with the person unless they show remorse and a definite sign that they will never do it again, and even then he isn’t particularly forgiving of it.

Jyou and Koushiro occasional talk to each other about how annoying their best friends are when they are having a lovers spat, neither of them have time for this shit

Jou is the best gift giver when it comes to getting gifts for Yamato. Taichi and Hiroaki are usually hopeless and Takeru is more likely to get a joke gift. Mimi, Hikari and Koushiro don’t know him well enough to get him anything truly fitting. Also, honestly, I have an insane amount of difficulty believing that Sora and Yamato are even good friends, so she just gets him safe gifts that she would get for anyone she doesn’t know particularly well.

If Taichi ever broke up with Yamato, it would be the one and only time that Jyou would ever punch Taichi in the face, though he would not follow it up by telling Taichi he needs to get back together with Yamato because Taichi is free to make his own choices

Yamato would rather hang out at Jyou’s house than have him come over to his house because he likes being in homes with families that are still together, and enjoys watching Jyou’s family interact (though in the case of his relationship with Taichi he would rather have Taichi come over due to privacy reasons :P)

When they were younger, Jyou would always apologize or cave when Yamato got agree with him when it was uncalled for. However, as they grow older and begin to spend increasingly more time together Jyou begins to grow more bold and be more aware when Yamato is in the wrong. As teenagers Jyou will say either “watch your tongue” or he will sigh and turn away when Yamato gets angry with him or lashes out undeservingly. This always gets a Sorry out of Yamato, though not always right away.

Jyou doesn’t approve when Yamato gets a motorcycle because he thinks they are dangerous. And he will never ever get on it, except if there is literally no other option and Yamato forces him on.

#joumatomonth #jyou kido #jou kido #yamato ishida #jyoumato #joumato

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flyonmylovee · 8 years

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[ Here are some of my coherent thoughts on Shoushitsu + Tri overall, hopefully more organized than the string of upper-case letters I splattered across everyone’s dashboards a few days ago. This is INCREDIBLY long and all based on my personal speculation and the limited knowledge of mythology + themes outside of the adventure-verse, so I hope that dividing it into sections is helpful if anyone actually wants to read this and everything should be taken with a grain of salt. ]

So before I go any farther, I feel like I should say that I loved Shoushitsu. I’m becoming quite the apologist for it but I mean, I’ve been waiting my entire life for Sora to not be written out of a movie. While her character development leaves much to be desired, I have a ton of faith in the next two movies. I’d like to wait for those to come out before I make any definite judgments about whether Tri did Sora justice or not. I remember reading interviews with the Tri crew before Saikai came out, and the way they spoke about the characters really made me believe that they understand how important they are to us. I have faith that this is still well-planned. Little parts of Shoushitsu actually reaffirmed that for me. Now, if the next two movies don’t pull through I will totally eat my words, but as of now, I’m genuinely pretty happy.

On Sora’s Arc: I don’t think it’s complete. To be honest, I don’t think any of the kid’s arcs are complete, so I’m 100% setting myself up for disappointment with the last movie, but once again I’m keeping the faith that something’s planned. Anyways, I think we all saw Sora’s problem coming from a mile away. She’s an introvert who tries to get her energy from others. If she can’t be motherly she feels like she has no purpose. Everyone grows up except for digimon. What would she do if Piyomon wasn’t around? Apparently, totally crash and burn and turn invisible to her friends.

I noticed a lot of references to Meiko throughout Sora’s ordeal. Meiko’s a newcomer and arguably the source of all their problems. Sora spent a considerable amount of time worrying about her and trying to include her in the group. The moment Pyocomon rejects Sora, you can literally see the darkness in her eyes and the entire first episode I was yelling at my screen about how nobody noticed her obvious depression. I really like the way sad Sora was animated. It was resonating. Someone should have felt it, and I think Sora knew that too. Instead, we see everyone consistently worrying about Meiko. Taichi declares that she’s part of the group and that they have a responsibility to reunite her with Meicoomon. So where does that leave Sora, who’s also very separated from her partner? I think this speaks a lot to the scene around the campfire later that night. They’re discussing how Meiko’s just a normal girl and pondering whether she’d make it in the digital world. Someone says that she probably wouldn’t. Sora has a strikingly out of character moment when she agrees with them. “Probably.”

I think that was Sora’s true low point. She threw someone under the bus for morally questionable reasons. It seems like Sora felt excluded not just by Piyomon, but replaced by her entire group of friends that she’d spent years emotionally investing in. “I just wanted to be recognized” is such a meaningful line. She’s not one to try and profit off someone else’s misfortune, so if Sora felt any true darkness, I’d say this was the moment.

To make matters worse, another scene that stuck with me is when the kids first realize that Meicoomon’s memory is still intact. Sora’s the first one to really question it and ponder about whether the reboot was really worth it. When Koushiro confirms that it likely wasn’t, I think Sora sort of cracked. The comparisons to Meiko are still relevant here.

In the end, Sora ultimately solves her own problem and is able to reconnect with Piyomon. She’s persistent and Piyomon realizes that she’s “a big softie”. I question how much of this is due to Sora evolving as a character and Piyomon just deciding to not be such an asshole, but still. No one held her hand through any of it. Even if she wanted someone to, she didn’t let anyone. I can easily make the case here that nothing about Sora really changed- she just hit rock bottom and was able to bounce back. My instinct is that if Piyomon were to change her mind and reject Sora again, she’d fall right back into the same depression. There’s still the potential for Sora to see that darkness and like so many of the chosen’s problems, they remanifest in different ways. Sora will continue to struggle with feelings of self-worth, which is disappointing, but when it’s so deeply embedded it’s also unrealistic to see it solved in a single movie.

I think what matters most about the conclusion is the affirmation of one of Sora’s core beliefs. They and their digimon partners are exceptional. They’ll always be connected, no matter what happens. This is the thought Sora uses to cheer Meiko up and Meiko repeats it right back to her. I think the Tri crew was trying to emphasize it’s importance. More than anything, I think what matters here is that Sora’s darkness caused her to question that belief. Who is she if the value she always relied on isn’t true? What’s the use of her words if they’re just cliches? If they and their partners aren’t exceptional, how can she not consistently be anxious about the future?

I did appreciate the end of Sora’s arc. You see the “taiorato” triangle reversed. (And, in fact, you see the taiorato crew in different triangle formations at many points during Shoushitsu. For me it highlighted changing dynamics.) In the first movie, Taichi and Yamato stood in front of her and we see Sora in the background worrying between them. At the end of Shoutshitsu, it’s Sora front and center with Pyocomon held close. Taichi and Yamato are standing behind her, probably wondering how it’s possible to suppress so many negative emotions, but Sora could care less. It highlights the importance of her friendship with Piyomon over everyone else. Everything fell back into place (thankfully) and she can move forward. As long as Piyomon understands her, they can regrow.

And this is good. A scene I particularly enjoyed in Adventure is the one where they finally encounter Sora after she’s realized she has the crest of love. The only reason Sora got any emotional closure from that is because she opened up. Why did she open up? Piyomon told her she should. Piyomon helped her explain her feelings. Piyomon asked everyone to understand. I think Piyomon acts as Sora’s translator. No one really understands her and I question whether Sora actually wants them to. When it comes down to it I think she just wants to love and be loved in return. The only thing is that Sora still hasn’t learned to truly love herself. She’ll have to one day, but I’m not sure if we’ll see it.

I’d like to take a moment to discuss whether Sora was “shafted” or not. On the surface it definitely does. However, when you look closely, it seems like the writers really took the time to look at her major arcs in Adventure. There are many parallels that are meaningful if you know where to look, which echoes the way that Sora’s friends really need to treat her. Just like Takeru continued to evolve in this film (which he did, it wasn’t just Patamon ‘stealing the spotlight’), I think Sora has the potential to continue growing in the next two installments. Should she? Yes. Will she? ...Probably not. Am I still hopeful? Yeah, absolutely.

On Taichi & Yamato: Their interactions in this film took years off my life. There’s a scene involving Machinedramon where Tentomon’s buzzing around mumbling “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!” and there isn’t a more accurate comparison to me watching Shoushitsu for the first time. I loved every minute of it.

Let’s start with Taichi. We know that he doesn’t understand Sora. I’m always brought back to Sora’s CD drama when she first tells Taichi she’s quitting football to play tennis. Taichi’s totally dumbfounded. He thinks that Sora’s losing herself and he questions her decision. Sora becomes flustered, and if I’m remembering correctly, doesn’t even offer Taichi an explanation. She just gives up. It’s like she already knows it would be no use to try and tell him that her starting tennis is a result of her allowing herself to truthfully grow. I think that Taichi was spot on throughout this entire movie in terms of his interactions with Sora. No complaints from me. The entire movie could have been Taichi following Sora around in the woods like a lost puppy and I would’ve been happy. There are a few key moments that stuck out to me, though.

First, there’s Taichi saying “I could never understand you, Sora” before echoing something Piyomon said to Sora before. She takes care of her own problems and never tells anyone else. (Does she really take care of her own problems though??) Anyways, in Adventure, Taichi tries to cheer Sora up by telling her that she cares for everyone else. He thinks that’s good. Sora instantly shoots back at him and says he doesn’t know her and he should stop speaking like he does. To me, Taichi’s reaction here made it seem like he never forgot that conversation. He doesn’t understand her. If he made that implication in the future he’d probably get chewed out again. In Taichi’s very literal head, his comment probably sounded completely rational and that sort of makes me laugh. Interactions like this with Sora just seem to never go in his favor and it’s like he’s started to just accept it.

Still, it’s easy for the viewers to see how much he cares for her. Taichi struggles to maintain a necessary level of consideration in order to make Sora feel better. He laughs with Agumon in the river as Sora walks away, he calls her a big pain, he tells her to chill out, and basically repetitively word vomits into her hat and wonders why she won’t put it on... all things that remind me of their friendship in adventure. It highlights the youthfulness of their friendship. His teasing her is incredibly thoughtless and poorly timed, but we’ve seen this a million times before and we don’t question whether he cares for her.

One of my favorite scenes in all of Shoushitsu is Meiko and Sora’s encounter with not-Gennai (as I’m gonna start referring to him because he’s creepy af, but more on that later). Sora, who clearly hasn’t planned beyond the next couple of seconds, starts throwing rocks around and finds herself in a physical tussle with the enemy. This is the second or third scene of many in which Sora should have probably died, but the other cool thing about Shoushitsu is that we learned Sora’s bones are made of metal. Anyways, as Sora’s digging herself into this hole, about to hit six feet under, portals open up to all the other chosen children. We don’t really see anyone’s reaction, but we know they can see everything. The one person that we do zone in on is Taichi. He’s staring up at the scene, wide-eyed with worry, and he mutters Sora’s name in disbelief. I really enjoyed two small details about this scene: the timing and the portal’s location. Just before Sora’s fight, we see Taichi talking to Gabumon about whether being chosen matters anymore. He had faith that he could have Agumon digivolve if he needed to, but that obviously didn’t happen. I started to wonder if Taichi was reminded of SkullGreymon, etc. I think a big misconception about Taichi is that he’s always ready to charge. In Tri he’s clearly not, but he wasn’t always that way in Adventure either. It’s actually pretty common for Taichi to freeze and to question himself, and that scene sets him up to be in that mindset. And just, HIS EYES. When he sees Sora it’s like he freezes again. He’s already feeling useless, he couldn’t help Sora before, she’s about to get totally obliterated by Machinedramon’s cannon, and the portal that appears in his area is up the side of a cliff that looks like it’s at least 100 feet tall.

That animation probably didn’t mean anything, but it was neat to think about how quickly Taichi probably had to scramble up there to rescue his friend. I imagine him instantly side-lining his doubts and stereo-typically jumping into action, which he hasn’t been able to do all season. If that happened then Sora was the cause. I like to imagine that Taichi was thinking he couldn’t let her down again. His face made it seem like his life was flashing before his eyes, and perhaps he was remembering all the times he’d froze to Sora’s detriment. Nanomon’s the best example. Sora almost died and whether it was actually Taichi’s fault or not (ok it 80% is), he knows what it’s like to live with the guilt of losing her. Now, I also believe scenes like Nanomon’s treated Sora as kinda disposable for Taichi’s character development (another post for another day), and Shoutshitsu towed a fine line with this, so I’m glad that they didn’t show him scrambling up the cliff. Still, it’s an interesting thought. I only rewound the scene a handful of times.

Now moving on to Yamato, I have some... complaints. But don’t we all with him? Anyways, in the broader scheme of things I also appreciated his interactions with Sora. It’s obvious that he cares and that he’s more attune with her feelings. He has a better sense of what’s inappropriate and what isn’t. Still, he’s struggling, and I don’t know whether I totally buy it. When Yamato went right along with Taichi in calling Sora a big pain (just before I yelled that Sora could kill the two of them in the digital world and no one would ever know) I asked myself a pretty good question. What the fuck is Yamato’s deal? I actually don’t think we really know. We’ve gotten a good picture of the way he’s grown, but most of his issues have revolved around Taichi. I hope we circle back around to him later and see him work through some crisis that explains this. I think he should understand Sora better than this, whether they’re together or not. My only logical explanation for the way he acts is that Taichi’s around. I wonder if Yamato would have acted differently had he approached Sora alone.

I’ve also heard a lot of mixed reactions to the lack of Sorato in Shoushitsu. I’m kind of glad that their (non) relationship wasn’t emphasized. It would have detracted from Sora solving her own problems. I’m starting to think that Sora and Yamato really aren’t together, otherwise I don’t know if Taichi would’ve tagged along for the conversation. He’s always been pretty thoughtful about giving them their space, it seems. Remember the first time we see the three of them in Saikai? Anyways, as someone who ships Sorato, Taiora, and Taiorato, my hopes of seeing some new information are dwindling. However, I really do think that we’ll get a small scene in the last movie. If the Tri crew is serious about connecting things to the epilogue I think they’d tack something in about them making up, or something reinforcing the fact that they’re together. Maybe they’re saving it till last to capitalize on those $$profits$$ but I think there’ll be something.

On Gennai: There’s been a lot of contention about the scene. I’ll be the first to admit that it made me hella uncomfortable. It’s long and drawn out and I was uncomfortable enough watching him search for her digivice, and then that other thing did me in. I acknowledge that Tri’s goal with this was to make people uncomfortable. The kids are grown up. Things are dark. This show isn’t for kids. Mission accomplished. I particularly like the way not-Gennai speaks. Excellent job by the voice actor TBH. Everything about him is creepy. I also couldn’t shake the thought that as Sora was fighting with him, her friends saw the whole thing. Digimon’s never been a show for processing but I do maybe wish they’d done a little more here. Taichi & Yamato should have been angrier and I feel like this was the second time when something majorly traumatic happened to Sora and we just assume she doesn’t need to process it. Not that there’s... really time. I don’t really know what I’m asking for here but I don’t think many of us expected that sorta scene, so.

On the flip side, a lot of folks have really valid criticisms of this scene. There was no warning for it and I’m so sorry that so many people had to sit thought it unexpectedly. I think those that watched it first could have put out some sort of warning while still being spoiler free, and I’m gonna personally keep that in mind for the future movies because not-Gennai continues to be creepy af. I don’t really have anything valuable to add to the Gennai discussion beyond this, so this is where I’ll leave it. I just hope we all know that it is 100% ok and normal to wish this scene wasn’t in the movie and it has nothing to do with not accepting that Tri is for adults.

On the plot overall: I feel like I’m being pulled in twenty different directions and I don’t know how Tri could possible wrap this all up with a nice, nostalgic bow. I wonder if they’re planning on some sort of Tri 02 which... wow. That would be incredible, wouldn’t it? But my hopes are not high, they actually don’t exist at all, so... moving on. Er, I made a post about it, but wtf are those planetary objects that are floating around? Why did they show up after the battle between Alphamon and Omegamon? Is it representative of the infection? Of that strange, inter-dimensional world? Was it just an addition to the animation? If not, why are they still present during the evolution scenes in the fourth movie? They’re all over the place. I personally think the digimon are still infected and that the true reboot hasn’t really happened yet. I think a true reboot will come when Meicrackmon causes enough damage to get Yggdrasil’s attention and reset the entire world. I think that reset already happened in the very beginning scene. It reminded me of “the end of the world” event from Norse mythology. I think it will happen again and I think we’re in the specific “pre-apocalyptic” period that’s mentioned. Maki obviously believes the reboot already happened but I think she got played. I don’t think the digimon needed to lose their memories, I don’t think the kids needed to go to the digital world... I just think that different actors were trying to make Meicrackmon well... crack. It happened, but it could have happened in a number of different ways.

I’m noticing an “X” theme and I can’t help but think about the x-antibody. There’s always this focus on Meicoomon’s eyes. I don’t know much about the x-antibody or Yggdrasil’s reset in previous seasons/games, but I would love to talk to someone who does? The first time Meicoomon changes modes (not evolving), we see that DNA-X appear on Meiko’s digivice. I wonder if it’s symbolic of the X factor altering her partner? To me, this helps me rationalize why Alphamon’s involved. Additionally, to me, the orb that appeared on Maki’s digivice sort of looks like Yggdrasil’s orb form...?

Random note, here, but there’s also a lot of talk of falling into darkness, or hands plunging into darkness. I thought it was interested that Meiko (who also didn’t deny that Meicoomon was “bad”) says “I thought you were finally out of my hands, but...”

I also like Meicoomon’s nickname of “The Libra”. So Meicoomon’s meant to act as some scale, and not-Gennai wants her to tip into chaos due to Yggdrasil’s will? Why was Meicoomon “never meant to be born”? Why can Meicrackmon evolve into Ophanimon and Mastemon (literally a balance of darkness and light, normally angewomon and ladydevimon jogressed) in one of the games? Is Meicoomon meant to be a scale on her own or is there someone else keeping the balance? Why did a Tri writer say that Meiko felt the need to alter her behavior after she noticed Meicoomon acting strangely? Why did they say Meicrackmon’s “physical appearance” is important? Why is her digiegg being similar to Tailmon’s important (especially when Hikari’s trait is light)??? Plotmon is known (sometimes?) as a digimon that was created by human researchers. I totally believe that Meicoomon was created. Perhaps by Meiko’s dad? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS. WHERE ARE THE 2′s IN THE DIGITAL CODE. WHY WAS IT PURPOSEFUL FOR ONLY PALMON AND GOMAMON AND LEOMON TO BREAK THROUGH INTO THE WEIRD INTER-DIMENSION? WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE NAME ‘TRI’ BESIDES INDICATING THE THIRD SEASON? Yggdrasil has three roots that carry it’s worlds, right? Three “norns” that cater to it? For some reason this makes me think of everyone else jogress digivolving. I don’t know why don’t look at me this is unfounded and I shouldn’t be posting it. In like, every Tri interview though there’s at least one person telling us to watch the evolution sequences carefully, so I feel like that holds the key to something.

Anyways, I’m so deep into Norse mythology and I need to stop so those are some of my under-developed thoughts. I don’t know much outside of Adventure seasons, so.

Random Points: 1. I still can’t get over the art. There’s so much thought put into some of these scenes. I also LOVE the tri version of keep on. oh my god. 2. I like the parallel of insults Piyomon was throwing at Sora. “You’re weak” “You’re only human” and then the insults of Meiko that Sora jumped in on “she’s just a normal girl” and then how not-Gennai taunted Sora “without this you’re just a normal kid.” There’s so much under the surface here which is Sora in a nutshell. 3. We were brought through that strange inter-dimension before we see the kids in the digital world. It’s when the Tri logo is on the screen and the background is dark. You see those strange planetary objects floating around. Are we even in the digital world we know? I’m reminded of the way Taichi says “I encountered you” in the first PV. 4. Still convinced that if the reboot happened Plotmon shouldn’t have Hikari’s whistle. Isn’t Hikari holding the whistle string in her poster? We also heard the whistle at the end of the first PV. I hope they use it to call Ophanimon FM back to reality or something. 5. Hikari is the only one who seemingly is okay with the reboot. Plotmon has none of her bad memories. Still though, something is off. If the kids figure out how to reverse everything I think Hikari will try to stop them. 6. I liked that when Taichi + Yamato were failing miserably at cheering Sora up, Yamato would also twist his head to glare at Taichi when they made it worse. It’s like he always assumes Taichi’s a fool ahaha. 7. I’m also laughing because what if, ok what if... going back and looking at my linked post above, there’s an interview with the Tri crew and they talk about how Omegamon splits apart too early due to Taichi’s emotions. Yamato calls him out on this. The interview asks us how that will affect things now. I remember reading somewhere that a digimon’s digicore can be altered if jogress evolution is interrupted, or something like that. I cackle every time I think about all of this somehow being Taichi + Yamato’s fault. It obviously isn’t but just... what if they made it worse ahah. Get wrecked, Yamato. Anyways, digicores coming into play here would have many implications. Everyone’s last little bit of data would remain, right? I don’t know anything about digicores so I’ll leave it at that.

Ok, I think that’s mostly everything! Wow this is a novel and a half, so if anyone’s still reading this... than..k.s? I want to add screenshots so I’m at work so maybe later. I may add more thoughts too. All subject to change, but I wanna keep it all here so I’m not spamming everyone with smaller, more frequent posts.

#♡ I'm sorry Sora's not home but I'll tell her to call as soon as she gets back [OOC]#tri spoiler #tri spoilers #tri;#shoushitsu;

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