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shihalyfie · 3 years

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An analysis of Iori and his character arc

Iori has a particularly interesting position in 02′s narrative (and, even more widely so, in perhaps all of both Adventure and 02) in that his base profile is rather unusual-looking even from the get-go -- the youngest child in both groups, yet with a (seemingly) mature demeanor that surpasses even his seniors. On top of that, Iori ends up having a very deep relation to 02′s themes and plot itself in a way that isn’t initially apparent, but actually makes him a very vital centerpiece of 02′s story.

Before we get into Iori’s role in 02′s actual plot, it needs to be established that a very, very large amount of Iori’s character is heavily shaped by his family background and upbringing. Prior to the start of the series, the Hida family had a large void in it, with Iori’s father Hiroki having been killed in the line of duty. Being a mere five-year-old child who had lost his father barely into actually being sentient and basically had to live the following three years going off hearsay on what he was actually like, Iori ends up raised by his mother Fumiko and his paternal grandfather Chikara.

While not in exactly the same way as the Takenouchi family (which is literally working in cultural preservation and study), the Hida family is very traditionalist Japanese -- Fumiko makes traditional Japanese food and snacks like kanpyoumaki and ohagi, and a lot of attention is given to the butsudan altar in their house where they honor the late Hiroki (also note the tatami flooring). That, combined with Chikara’s naturally strict personality, led to Iori being raised with “very strict manners”, and by a set of very firm guidelines on honor, respect, and the like.

Having been raised into this kind of formality, Iori speaks almost exclusively in polite-form Japanese. This happens to initially make him come off a bit like Koushirou -- likely a deliberate parallel, given the Knowledge connection between the two (being the kind of person who admits that you don’t know everything and wants to know more requires a bit of humility, after all). That said, Iori’s way of doing this has some key differences from Koushirou:

Unlike Koushirou, who was largely polite out of an attempt to keep distance from everyone and thus had a streak of being somewhat non-confrontational, Iori is perfectly willing to say harsh or critical things -- in other words, his way of speaking is formal, but it’s not necessarily polite, and in fact Iori is probably the single most passive-aggressive person in this cast. He has absolutely no qualms about dunking on whatever he feels truly deserves the dunking, and he’ll certainly do it with a lot of grace, but he is very capable of being extremely cold when he wants to be.

Koushirou stuck to formality out of detachment and intimidation, to the point that, as per Adventure episodes 38 and 54, he was compulsively unable to bring himself to speak casually unless he forced himself. Iori, on the other hand, often “slips” -- on top of willingly defaulting to casual form whenever he’s talking to himself or (occasionally) to the Digimon (who are outside Japanese levels of propriety), he also has a tendency to start using casual form whenever he gets particularly emotionally compromised. (While it doesn’t quite come off in the translation, the above screenshots from 02 episode 10 are an example of this, with Iori losing his temper at the Kaiser and slipping into casual form -- and a bit of fun foreshadowing, guess who’s the one to successfully calm him down? Takeru. Remember this for later.) In other words, Iori’s formality is not compulsive, but a conscious thing he tries to maintain as he holds himself to high standards, and is unable to completely uphold during times his emotions get the better of him.

Ultimately, Iori may come off as “mature and composed”, but he’s still an impressionable nine-year-old child, who’s effectively parroting the rules his grandfather instilled in him because he sees it as The One and Only Guide to Living Life. In trying to figure out the right thing to do in any situation, Iori ends up constantly trying to fall back on “this is the right way to do things!” and taking it rather badly whenever things start falling outside of the expected pattern. Despite being the one responsible for Iori’s tightly principled life to begin with, even Chikara himself comments that Iori’s not being flexible enough in his thinking in 02 episode 5 -- because it’s not like he’s expecting Iori to be like this, but Iori is simply having a hard time applying these principles practically when he’s working with the limited range of being a nine-year-old child.

And as much as it may be tempting to see Iori as stoic, watching his expressions and way of emoting throughout the series, he does very much have the full range of emotions and curiosity and even cheer of a nine-year-old child -- it’s that he’s just constantly holding himself back for the sake of being principled and well-mannered. This has the unfortunate side effect that Iori is, as the Animation Chronicle calls it, “clumsy at expressing himself as a child”. Because he’s constantly restraining himself like this, he has a hard time expressing himself or letting himself enjoy things in the way a normal child would.

It also goes a long way in explaining why Iori is never seen hanging out with any other peers his age, and is exclusively depicted in the company of either the rest of the 02 group, or his own family. While part of it is simply because (as per Japanese school procedure) he’s too young to be formally enrolled in any clubs, 02 episode 3 goes out of its way to show Iori being left alone in the classroom with only a teacher stuck supervising him, as he tries to force himself to finish his lunch due to his stubborn adherence to principle (even though he seems to hate tomatoes). In other words, it’s heavily implied that Iori’s own behavior ended up isolating him from his peers. Considering that the 02 group is generally made up of kids who are socially displaced in some way, it naturally follows that, despite being significantly older than him, they end up welcoming him into their friend circle and treating him as an equal.

When the series starts, Miyako and Iori seem to have gotten a certain degree of closeness (with Iori as one of the only people Miyako drops honorifics on). It stands to reason that Miyako, being open-minded towards people and rather aggressively friendly, would be willing to befriend her neighbor despite the three-year age gap between them, and so they already seem to have developed a rapport where Miyako’s willing to come over to his place to help work on the Hida family electronics in exchange for food.

So, you know, this and that happens, Iori becomes a Chosen Child, and this is the start of where Iori’s “principles” start coming into conflict with each other. The nature of the Digital World crisis is a no-brainer -- the Kaiser is doing terrible things, and Iori’s just been given the tools to do something about it, and so for him, upholding his principles to do the right thing means proactively doing something about it. But getting involved in this territory war will mean “fighting and hurting other people” (bad) and “hiding things from his family and sacrificing obligations to them” (also bad). Chikara advises him in 02 episode 5 that he still needs to be the one to decide what he wants and needs to do at any given moment, but it’s clear that this is still a new concept for Iori to swallow.

It’s also important that 02 episode 5 is also the episode that introduces Jou, who very much understood the dissonance between “adhering to principles in spite of how practical that may not actually be”, which means the two of them end up bonding over...ditching real-life obligations to come to the Digital World. This bonding happens despite the fact that they have the largest age gap out of any two given kids out of the Adventure and 02 group (Jou is 15, and Iori 9) -- and yet, they’re able to bond over being like-minded like this. And while they come from different contexts, there’s also a parallel drawn between the two on “the importance of personal choice” -- because back in Adventure, Jou’s story involved channeling his desire to help others in a way different from his usual expected path as a doctor or as a Chosen Child, and, likewise, it will be up to Iori to find his own way towards what he thinks is right.

Iori’s “adherence to principles” also needs to be distinguished from Jou’s in that Jou was someone more likely to be stuck to “practical” rules (one might call him Lawful) such as waiting for adults to help them with things, or what to put on eggs. Iori, on the other hand, has self-enforced rules that are far more ideological -- he doesn’t actually care that much about institutionally-enforced rules (note how he has absolutely no issue with sneaking into school with his friends in 02 episode 6) as much as he enforces a moral code on himself about “the right thing to do”. For instance, that he has to show his respect to Jou by formally finishing his introduction, even if it’s clear they know each other by now already.

But, again, it bears repeating: Iori is a nine-year-old child. The rest of the kids respect him enough to not treat him like a younger child -- other than a brief moment of emotional compromise that Daisuke quickly apologized for, the group is never really depicted as paying particular mind or care to the fact that Iori is so much younger than them, and for the most part treat him like an equal. But Iori himself is conscious of this -- after all, it’s why he’s constantly speaking politely to everyone all of the time, but 02 episode 16 also implies he’s very self-conscious about this. The plot of the episode kicks off when Iori momentarily gets caught up in his excitement about potentially getting a new Digimental, and, once things start going south, he starts blaming himself for causing all of this and lashing out at the others for (at least, in his mind) singling him out to be the one to escape on the grounds of being the youngest. After all is said and done with the incident, Submarimon lets Iori have a moment of something Iori really does need: a bit of a chance to actually get to enjoy himself as a young child instead of restraining himself so much.

Speaking of 02 episode 16, this is also where we first get to see how the pressure of maintaining Iori’s moral code starts to emotionally tear at him. It’s the first time we see Iori lose his composure this much. To everyone else here (and, perhaps, the audience, to some degree), Iori’s making a mountain out of a molehill -- he’s calling himself an unworthy person for telling a lie that even Jou himself clearly didn’t mind. But remember, Iori is someone who’s still learning a lot about how the world works at such a young age and is inclined by default to fall back on whatever his grandfather’s told him (to a point that even said grandfather considers to be overdoing it). Right now, Iori has basically built his entire view of morality based on this kind of thing, so putting a dent on it is like encouraging a slippery slope of potentially falling into moral depravity.

The reason why I say Iori’s character arc has a lot to do with Adventure and 02’s storytelling itself is that it’s a surprisingly pragmatic series when it comes down to it -- “it’s okay to lie, sometimes” is not exactly the kind of moral you’d expect out of your average kids’ show, but, perhaps a bit unusually, this series prefers to skip all of the preachiness and focus on pragmatics. (After all, back in Adventure, a lot of the final arc revolved around the question of “is fighting the right thing to do when there might be casualties?”, with the probably-kind-of-uncomfortable-but-frankly-very-practical answer of “it certainly beats having more casualties that would happen if you sat around and did nothing.”) Iori’s character arc is, effectively, this in a nutshell -- what’s the “right” thing to do when following principles alone doesn’t seem to be doing it? In the end, both Adventure and 02 are big on this -- preachy words and moralistic principles mean nothing in the face of striving to practically minimize damage and help others.

And so, Jou -- who himself grappled quite a bit with the dissonance between principles and pragmatism back in Adventure -- is the one to successfully reframe it in a way that Iori understands: most of all, Iori doesn’t want to see people get hurt, and whether “lying” or “not lying” is the right thing to do is not as relevant as “whether people are getting hurt”. Iori not lying would have caused a great deal more of hurt than lying, and it’s through understanding this kind of principle that Iori accepts that he still has a long way to go in terms of exercising his duty to others. The secondary Digimental arcs have a heavy theme of “acknowledging your deficiencies and resolving to improve”, and in the case of Iori and the Digimental of (this thing has been translated half a dozen ways, but, effectively, honoring your obligations to others), it involves his first major moment of coming to terms with the idea that the principles on paper he’s been stubbornly following aren’t going to do it by themselves.

Once the Kaiser arc concludes and the group is posed with the question on how to handle Ichijouji Ken, Iori’s reaction to him is the most infamously extreme: Ken is a Bad Person who is completely beyond forgiveness, and Iori wants nothing to do with him. It probably needs to be made clear that Iori’s stance on not wanting to forgive Ken is not inherently unreasonable. Ken really did some awful, horrible things in the first half of the series, and it is completely within Iori’s rights to decide that he doesn’t want to forgive or like Ken thereafter.

The part where Iori’s behavior starts posing issues is not the part about whether he likes Ken or not, but rather that Iori gets so hung up on that lack of forgiveness that he becomes very bad at observing the practical reality in front of him. Or, in other words, Iori gets so fixated on the principle of what happened in the past that he’s unable to make good judgment calls on what should happen going forward. It is abundantly clear to everyone by (at the latest) 02 episode 26 that Ken is not going to easily lapse back into his old ways and would like to make an effort to repair the damage he caused; regardless of whether they like him or not, it’s in their best interest to cooperate with him and let him help out (and even keep an eye on him to make sure bad things don’t happen again!), especially when the factor of Jogress comes into play and turns out to be a very valuable asset in the fight ahead. But Iori has a a rather squeamish, petty response when he tries to claim that they shouldn’t need Jogress (in the midst of everyone else being excited about the possibilities it poses, even without Ken in the equation) in 02 episode 28, and even when he does go along with everyone working with Ken in 02 episodes 28-29 during the Giga House Incident, he approaches it like he and Ken are bartering favors and that he’ll have to “repay” Ken before he can properly return to pigeonholing Ken as an Unequivocally Bad Person.

And so the issue here is: Iori being so determined to fixate on trying to stuff Ken into a neat box of a Bad Person isn’t good for himself, either, because it basically means he’s going out of his way to run pointless mental loops and maintain the feeling of stewing in a grudge against him, even when it’s helping absolutely nobody. Note the metaphor drawn when Iori practices kendo with Chikara in 02 episode 24 -- he keeps doing the same motion over and over again despite the fact it’s clearly not going anywhere, and Chikara has to warn him that doing nothing but aim for the head isn’t how you’re supposed to do it. Right now, Iori is having a hard time parsing things in ways besides shoving things in neat boxes of black-and-white morality, and this lack of flexibility is severely restricting his ability to be productive.

What starts to really cause Iori to make a major shift in his thinking process is none other than his connection with Takeru, a subplot that had already started kicking off all the way back in 02 episode 19, when Iori witnesses Takeru suddenly taking a violent shift in mood against the Kaiser to the point it scares him. Iori, of course, considers Takeru to be a “good" and “kind person”, but someone like that should (in his mind) logically not be making sudden, violent outbursts like that -- and especially once he starts advocating for BlackWarGreymon to potentially be killed if it comes down to it, going very against Iori’s fundamental principle that killing anything that’s sentient is unforgivably immoral.

This “contradiction” is what leads Iori to realize that he needs to do much more if he wants to understand Takeru properly, and it’s also the start of how Iori grows into the trait of his first Digimental, “Knowledge” -- or, more specifically (as defined by Koushirou in Adventure episode 24 and 02 episode 2), “curiosity and a drive to know more”. In the case of Iori, this manifests in “I want to know more about other people.” It’s Iori effectively understanding that his very limited view of the world and how people work isn’t sufficient in itself, and this concept becomes the crux of his character arc for the rest of the series.

After tussling around and getting increasingly confused about Takeru’s seemingly paradoxical behavior, Iori finally goes directly to Yamato to consult him about it in 02 episode 35, and Yamato explains the backstory behind Takeru’s trauma from losing Angemon back in Adventure episode 13, as well as a reminder that as much as it may have been his own fault, Ken technically went through some pretty similar trauma, and everything that’s happened since his fall from being the Kaiser hasn’t exactly been sunshine and roses for him either. Iori reflects on this as he goes home, with the important statement attached: he understands Takeru’s feelings. He’s now able to understand why Takeru acts the way he does, not on the grounds of principles of what’s right or wrong, but based on the fact that Takeru’s simply a very messy human being who’s not handling his own tendency to suppress his emotions well.

Because Takeru is such a convoluted person, and because Iori’s fundamental issue with approaching things involves unraveling some very deep-seated tendencies in his mentality, the way the two finally connect in order to properly Jogress requires something a lot more convoluted than just happening to clash in a single magical moment like Daisuke and Ken or Miyako and Hikari did. Iori starts off the episode catching himself when he’s about to fall back into “principles over practicality” again -- he starts railing on the others for (in his mind) taking the impending BlackWarGreymon fight too lightly, before Armadimon reminds him that he’s hungry, and Iori realizes -- again -- that he cannot effectively enforce “the right or wrong thing to do” without taking other people’s feelings properly into account. Realizing that this is is a barrier between him and the others, especially Takeru, Iori tries to adjust his thinking pattern and even becomes the one to advocate that everyone get some proper food and rest instead of charging into the fight unprepared.

The meal results in Iori getting yet another rare moment of letting himself truly enjoy something without restraint, and is also followed by Takeru speaking openly to him about their potential Jogress -- openly, honestly, not covering it up, not even with the same light playfulness he would usually put on (including what he had with the very same topic at the beginning of this episode). It is an acknowledgment from Takeru’s own part that he’s been watching what Iori’s doing and also wants to connect, and an open and serious statement from someone who had constantly tried to cover up everything with a smile up until that point, and, with the two reaching an understanding, they finally achieve their Jogress at the end of the episode.

This connection with Takeru, and the understanding that came from it, is what allows Iori to start applying a bit more flexibility towards approaching other situations. 02 episode 38 has him finally accepting Ken’s invitation to his Christmas party, after so many episodes of despising so thoroughly -- because now that he’s taking Ken’s position and feelings into account, he’s able to properly recognize him as someone doing his best to make amends going forward and be friends. Later, in 02 episode 44, despite having originally been the one more staunchly against it on principle, Iori handles the shock of having to kill an enemy with somewhat more grace than Miyako does, because not only had he already started considering the difficulty of fighting an enemy that cannot be reasoned with and wants nothing but wanton destruction (back during the end of 02 episode 29), Takeru is there to remind him that their priority must, first and foremost, be “saving lives” -- like, for instance, the girl in a wheelchair in front of him.

And so, the final episodes of 02 put everything Iori’s learned to the ultimate test, when he learns that the major perpetrator behind it all is none other than a friend of his departed father.

Up until this point, much of Iori’s mentality had been shaped by the rather saintlike image everyone had put up of Hiroki -- it’s almost certain that he must have had his own flaws as a person, but the resistance to speaking ill of the dead, and the generally positive influence he’d had on his friends and family and his untimely death by “protecting someone”, painted him as effectively a perfect, impossible ideal for Iori to strive to. Much of Iori’s justifications for his own behavior had consistently been reliant on “my father said this” or “would my father would have done this?”, such as his reason for forcing down his lunch in 02 episode 3, or using him as a mental model in 02 episode 44. For Iori’s former mentality of “good person” and “bad person”, this is the ultimate contradiction that threatens to rip apart everything Iori had built his own values system on -- that someone so incredible and saintlike and virtuous would be friends with someone so unambiguously doing horrible things like Oikawa. Iori, taking this as an awful emotional blow, parses this with a desperate desire to understand the motive behind why someone would do this, because it’s not enough for him to continue until he does.

And in 02 episode 49, we see Iori effectively forced to confront the fact that he can’t keep relying on the model of his father anymore as the sole basis for his way of life when, in the end, his father will never return. Iori doesn’t even know him that well; he can’t conjure up an image of him talking, or anything beyond just a flat, serene smile. And when the image of his father finally disappears, Iori almost immediately accepts it, as if he’d known the whole time.

It’s also significant that Iori declares that what he’ll do next is introduce Armadimon to his mother -- because, in the end, Iori is at least now capable of “moving forward”. He can’t get his father back, and the best thing he can do is make use of his existing support group and keep pushing forward with the people he does have in his life -- quite the opposite of Oikawa, who responded to the loss of that exact same person by clutching onto the remnants of the past they shared, and never becoming able to move on.

Hence, 02′s finale ends on none other than Iori, and when you think about it, this is actually a pretty unusual position to be in for someone who’s not the lead protagonist (Daisuke) nor the most prominent focus of the story (Ken)! But it’s a testament to just how important Iori is to this narrative on a thematic level -- all of the struggles about the morality of fighting and the disparity between principles and practicality (which dated all the way back to Adventure), and 02′s prominent theme of coping with loss and regrets and figuring out how to best move on, are all tightly entwined with the character arc of this nine-year-old child. (If you want to take the parallel between the Adventure narrative and Iori even further, Iori and Armadimon sharing the same voice actress is possibly one of the most prominent ways of indicating how a Digimon partner is fundamentally meant to express one’s inner self.)

And especially since Iori is the person who should have been the most vehement about having any kind of sympathy or compassion towards Oikawa -- just remember how determined he was to be cold towards Ken only half a series ago! -- and it leaves a strong impression of the huge, huge journey Iori had gone on through this series. Iori’s arc closes on him understanding the nature of what Oikawa had wanted this whole time, and understanding exactly what it meant for him to make that sacrifice right after finally meeting his partner, and ends the story the most emotionally affected by it -- because, after all, that’s the sort of truly kind person Iori is.

Iori after 02

By the time of Spring 2003, when Iori’s had some time to reflect on it, we learn from Iori that he still does not forgive Oikawa. That in itself is fine; remember, Iori is perfectly within his rights to not do so after all that he’s done. However, again, a distinction must be drawn between whether Iori forgives him, and whether he still considers it to be important to understand the mentality behind why Oikawa did what he did, and to reflect meaningfully on that instead of running himself in circles fixating on a grudge. Again, it’s about going forward with what he knows and has, instead of getting fixated on past deeds -- and with that, Iori resolves to “study”.

In The Door to Summer, we also learn that Iori allegedly has a “girlfriend” -- or, at least, someone Daisuke calls his girlfriend (Daisuke is a bit of an unreliable narrator here, given he’s also totally blown Hikari’s “rejection” of his beach hangout offer up as if it were a full-on total rejection of him completely). It is, perhaps, interesting that Daisuke is capable of getting this impression about Iori’s relationship with someone outside the 02 group, given that he’d been rather isolated from his peers all the way back in 02 episode 3...

Iori occupies an interesting position in Kizuna, because we only have one point in time where we got to intimately know him, and that was back when he was only nine years old -- and between that and Kizuna, there is a massive eight-year timeskip. He's 17 now, and we don't get any kind of catch-up period in the middle like we did with Takeru and Hikari in 02, and that is a time period where a lot of changes in demeanor could have happened with him compared to all of the others.

At first glance, it seems that he’s gotten much more stoic -- but this is actually something that should reasonably be expected, because now that he’s a teenager, it stands to reason that he would be much better at actually controlling his emotions and not necessarily get overwhelmed as easily. Plus, it’s not like he’s shown to be completely emotionless throughout the movie; he’s just doing a much more graceful job of holding himself back (look carefully at the credits and you can see him sweatdropping at Armadimon barging in on his practice), and moreover you can still see him deliver some pretty direct bluntness about the ramen in New York. Still with formal language, but nevertheless, no flattery is to be had here; Iori will dunk on you if he thinks you deserve it (even if it’s to do with mediocre ramen).

But there are some other interesting observations -- for one, the official website profile states that he’s actually settled on his future career in law at this point, and has made himself extremely busy in order to do so. (On top of that, he at least seems to be on friendly enough terms with his peers at school that they’re happy to greet him on their way out.) The drama CD indicates that Daisuke considers him the busiest out of the entire 02 group -- yet he and Takeru went out of their way to pick him up from school, because he’s that important to them. (Think about it -- how often do you see university students going this far to go retrieve a high school kid to hang out with them?) And likewise, Iori doesn’t even hesitate to state that he’ll make time for them, and throughout the movie he’s conspicuously seen in his school uniform, implying he really is moving things around to make it happen, because they’re that important to him.

He also engages in the single most chaotic action from this group, which is getting Armadimon to break into Menoa’s lab. It’s not that he’d inherently been against this kind of thing before, especially for something important (recall that he’d been happy to sneak into school for Golden Week with the others back during 02 episode 6), but it does beg the question of where and how he got this information that Armadimon could break electric locks. Perhaps he’s become a bit more, ah, pragmatic of a person since 02...

So, in the end, Iori does become an attorney, and specifically a defense attorney (the Japanese law system does draw the distinction). The person who once wanted to stick people he considered to be doing wrong into a “bad people” box and call it a day eventually came to embrace a career that involves understanding people and advocating for their perspective, or at least bargaining for something other than defaulting to the harshest assumption and a solution that allows all of the parties to best productively move forward.

He also has a daughter, who seems to have been raised to be as well-mannered and formal as he was. But, thankfully, he himself is there to help raise and guide her as she grows up.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #hida iori #iori hida #shihameta

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variouscolors-old · 2 years

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Kamen Chef AU details (updated):

The prompt:

This is totally an AU verse now thanks to Kizuna and its drama CD’s info re: Daisuke.

The story starts when one day Daisuke and V-mon come to talk with Chef Digitamamon from Chinatown area and Daisuke asks Digitamamon to teach him some tips and such. Digitamamon then says he wants what Daisuke can do already and runs a little test. Surprised with Daisuke’s skill being not bad but also having room to be improved, the egg-like digimon accepts him as intern. V-mon also gets “employed” to help with Daisuke’s training.

Since it’s too dangerous for both, also the fact villains the Chosen Children still have to fight come to Digitamamon’s restaurant... Daisuke gets an ALIAS to keep himself safe from trouble (?!) -- So now while he’s working there he’s an Lighdramon-like armored digimon called Lightnimon and gets more than a double life as HS student and Chosen Child: Now he’s a masked chef.

As you can think, Daisuke himself still got no time to explain to his friends and his seniors (Taichi-Yamato-Koushiro-Sora-Mimi-Jou) or even his family about this part-time job. But hey, one day he will get there.

Now does this disguise work?

Since digimon can spot who’s a digimon and who’s not pretty well, the food scent messes with said senses and it also hides Daisuke’s scent.

Daisuke also tries his best to not talk much and only when needed. Anyone who knows him pretty well is able to identify him. There’s no in between.

To prevent being caught, Daisuke and V-mon have their own “safety route” to go back to human world and to come to the Digital World.

They also avoid using public spaces for that. So, basically he does it from his own room once everyone at home is asleep.

Thanks to 02 ep 33 we learn the 02 group’s digivices can give them the appearance and outfit they deeply want, so this is how Daisuke got this “Lighdramon-esque armor” and how he can switch quickly back to his original appearance. This is referred by “change” when mentioned.

Now, details about the muses involved there:

Digitamamon (he/him): The owner of this restaurant, pretty strict but has a soft heart. Will fight whoever tries to hurt his employees and customers, but will also smack you in the head if you break his building. It’s like a father figure for his employees, and can speak ancient digimon language.

Daisuke AKA Lightnimon (17yo, he/him): Just an ordinary Chosen from Odaiba... Who once saved the world from BelialVamdemon. So yeah, Daisuke’s pretty famous and of course there’s bad and mean digimon seeking to beat him and become famous for it. He works disguised as a digimon named “Lightnimon” (or Lightni, called by almost everyone there) as Digitamamon’s student. Somehow, his ideas and suggestions starts improving the restaurant to the point it gets pretty busy later.

V-mon (he/him): Daisuke’s partner, best digi-bud and partner-in-crime when it comes to Daisuke’s food experiments. He supports Daisuke so much, but sometimes gets worried about Daisuke and Daisuke’s clumsiness... Though V-mon can also be a walking mess and stupid. Can evolve to multiple forms by using Digimentals, but his main adult evolution is XV-mon. He works as waiter and as kitchen assistant.

Bakumon (they/them): One of the oldest employees from this restaurant. They can talk, but it’s more easier pretend to not, and just repeat the menu when someone asks them about something. They do everything though, but mostly to greet the customers and serve them.

Gekomon(s) (they/them): A tiny amount of the employees lately are Gekomon from the local area. Some probably had met Mimi, Palmon, Taichi, Agumon, Jou and Gomamon before. They have small jobs such as helping serving the customers or keeping the place clean.

#kamen chef; chef digitamamon's pupil #master post; AUs

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adventure-hearts · 4 years

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I was asked about this topic recently, and, being bored out of my mind, I felt inspired to use it as a starting point for a new series! I hope to share my current headcanons about the personality types of the Digimon Adventure universe’s main characters, according to different personality systems: astrology, Enneagram, MBTI... feel free to suggest any other typologies you’d like me to explore in the future.

In this first post, I’ll try to explain which of the Sun Sign personality archetypes I find more likely and interesting for each character. Consider this this an update of my previous headcanons, post-tri. (and post LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna).

1: DIGIMON ADVENTURE + ZODIAC SIGNS

Taichi - Aries

Yamato - Aries

Sora - Pisces [semi-canon]

Koushirou - Aquarius

Mimi - Leo

Jou - Virgo

Takeru - Libra

Hikari - Pisces

Daisuke - Sagittarius

Miyako - Gemini [canon]

Iori - Capricorn

Ken - Cancer

Meiko Mochizuki - Virgo/Libra

Maki Himekawa - Scorpio

Daigo Nishijima - Leo

Note: Every single headcanon is highly subjective and even I will probably change my mind about it. This is only a PROPOSAL.

If you’re interested in my interpretation and methodology, read on!

Canon Clues

Although there are no official birthdays for the characters, several Adventure materials have provided “goalposts” where we can fit some characters’ birthdays. I strive to make my HCs as canon-compliant as possible, so it’s important for me to take this info into account.

Miyako is stated to be a Gemini in 02.

The official synopsis of tri. Indicates that Taichi is 17 years old during the series, suggesting the has an April-June birthday.

Sure, you’re free to ignore this little nugget if you prefer, but I personally like to think there’s a reason they mentioned Taichi’s age explicitly — something they never did before. They also never mentioned the explicit age of any of the other characters.

Funnily enough, the DALEK official website and novel lists the character’s ages during the events of the film. Since the film takes place in the summer of 2010, taking those numbers at face-value would require us to believe all 8 characters have birthdays in the first half of the year.

This contradicts the explicit on-screen information about Jou’s age in the original series (see below).

I’m proposing this should be interpreted as their “average” ages, rather than precise ages at this specific moment in time — after all, in Kizuna it’s more difficult to identify the characters by their school year, like they always did before.

Sora’s birthday is canonically before the events of Our War Game. The film takes place during the spring holidays, which typically begin around the third week of March.

Sora having a March birthday is so universally accepted by Japanese fans that it’s even on her Wikipedia page. I wouldn’t be surprised if more recent writers took that information into account, post-OWG, and portrayed her accordingly.

Notice that Pisces is only the more likely option considering the canon timeline and Sora’s personality — Aries (late March) and Aquarius (mid-February) could fit as well. Hence why I consider this choice [semi-canon].

Jou, who is a 6th-grader, mentions he’s 11 years old during Adventure. This suggest his birthday would be after August 1.

Ken is supposed to be 9 years old in August 2000, when he’s in Year 3, suggesting he has an April-August birthday.

This is different from other guidebooks which only list the characters “average” ages, because this lists Ken’s precise age during a specific event.

I believe Ken being exactly 9 years old went to the Digital world is deliberate, since Osamu is stated to be 3 years older than Ken, hadn’t yet turned 12 when he died.

Again, except for Miyako, Sora, and Jou birthdays, I can understand why fans chose to ignore any of this.

Personal Notes

My method isn’t about finding a putative “Official / True Birthday” — that never existed, at least for the Adventure eight. It’s about finding birthdays that work within the limitations of canon (see previous section).

My HCs are based on the personality / character archetypes represented by the the zodiac signs. In theory, any Chosen Child could be understood as representing a specific symbolical archetypes.

The problem is that the Adventure characters are quite complex and often deconstruct traditional archetypes. This explains why it’s so hard for fans to agree on which sign they are supposed to represent. I should also note that anime series seem to understand astrological archetypes slightly differently from the Western mainstream tradition, which explains why typical anime zodiac signs sometimes feel a bit “off”.

Nevertheless, some archetypes are so strong that most of the fandom seems to have reached a consensus: Jou/Virgo and Koushirou/Aquarius, for example. Then you have textbook examples of archetypes like Gemini/Miyako (unsurprisingly canon), Taichi/Aries, and Hikari/Pisces. But even there is a lot of room for disagreement and subjective interpretation!

The 02 writers clearly intended Daisuke to symbolise Fire, Miyako Air, Iori Earth and, due to the Dark Ocean connection, Ken Water. In fact, it’s super easy to place those four characters into any traditional 4-group personality types, such as the four temperaments, Jung’s types, blood types, ABCD personality, etc.

My HCs respect this, and ended up creating two polar opposites within the team: Daisuke/Miyako (mutable) and Ken/Iori (cardinal).

It’s tempting to ascribe 12 main characters = 12 signs, but post-tri. I’m inclined to do something different and not put myself into such a limiting framework.

For this reason I repeat some signs, and I don’t have any Taurus character (sorry!).

My MAIN innovative choice is that I suspect Taichi and Yamato might represent the same sun sign.

Now, I understand this is an extremely controversial opinion. It isn’t a possibility I thought about until quite recently.

But Taichi and Yamato being “different but the same / two sides of the same coin” is incredibly well represented if both of them correspond to the Aries personality archetype.

After all, they’re the leaders, the heroes, the Knights in shining armor. This explains their incredible similarities, despite superficial differences. as well as their love-hate dynamic: the rivalry, the union, the way they complement and balance each other out in an almost instinctive way.

Here are some examples of the Aries/Aries dynamic from the literature...

Both of you are independent individuals and you don’t like feeling “owned” by anyone. Neither of you can tolerate being dominated or bossed by anyone else, so you probably make your own decisions, and direct your own lives. You respect one another’s autonomy, and a relationship that is based on constant togetherness and dependency wouldn’t suit either of you. Sometimes, however, there is too much emphasis on individualism rather than on being close and nurturing the relationship. You both have proud egos, and are sensitive to criticism. Almost inevitably you will compete with each other, and in small doses this can be invigorating. But it easily becomes nasty, and one of you is likely to get hurt. If you’ve ever seen two rams locking horns, you know what I mean! You either respect one another immensely or detest one another – rarely anything in between. (X)

If your relationship has been built on the basis that you are equals, the fire element produces tremendous vision and industriousness. Your combined power and effort could well be a force to be reckoned with — but again, only if you both learn to subdue your own ego in the service of each other. Remember, you can’t always be right. You need to try hard to see things from each other’s perspective; this will help the two of you become a great partnership over time. (x)

When Mars clashes with Mars, the result can be full-scale war, with all flags flapping, bravely and colorfully. Occasional flare-ups are bound to occur when these two are thrown into close, daily proximity, without the relief of some separateness in their association. But there will also be some glorious Highs to offset these Lows. (...) It's been said that Aries people have a way about them. They do. Their own way. Yet, despite that sometimes antagonistic Martian exterior, they'll sense each other's desperate need to be appreciated and liked. When they get together, they may struggle for leadership, but the experience will supply some well-needed lessons. The shock of living with someone - or being around some- one - as innocently thoughtless, selfish and aggressive as one's self, is sure to soften any battering Ram, although there may be a few scars to show for the les- sons in living thus mastered. Aries hearts always carry more scars than the Rams ever show, or openly discuss. (x)

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The more you read, the more this pattern begins to make sense. Try to watch the Dark Masters arc, the Agumon-is-kidnapped mini arc, tri., and even Kizuna with this possibility in mind, and you’ll understand what I mean.

Sure, order to accept this theory, you have to understand Yamato as a more atypical reserved / sensitive Aries (influenced by a Cancer Moon, perhaps?) and Taichi as a more “pure” Arien type. Yamato is more like a baby lamb, right? (don’t tell it to his face).

You can make a very strong argument for Leo!Taichi (that was my initial HC as well) or Yamato as almost anything else. I wouldn’t disagree. But why not come up with a fresh perspective to explain these two?

Oh, and in case you’re curious, their (canon) Japanese Zodiac is also the same: Dragon, the direct equivalent to Aries.

A note about tri.: typing Maki and Daigo seemed straightforward enough. Maki is the stereotypical Scorpio antagonist, and Goggle Boy Daigo’s partner evolved into a literal lion.

I couldn’t resist the idea of making Meiko a Libra, considering her digimon partner is literally the Libra and Meiko is the 9th member of the group. But personality probably fits other signs better — it’s very tempting to type her a Virgo, the polar opposite of Hikari. She could also be the missing Taurus element (Mei as the literal May Queen).

The truth is... I can’t decide!

Disclaimer: There is zero scientific evidence for astrology and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s only interesting as a tool to analyze fictional characters in symbolic /archetypal terms. My headcanons are based on extensive reading about astrology, its symbolism and psychological profiles; I’m happy to share my sources (they’re not from pop astrology). But I’m also aware of the Barnum effect. We are all biased; there are no right or wrong options. Everyone’s conflicting headcanons are equally valid.

Feel free to ask questions or request more in-depth explanations for my suggestions, but FFS don’t start arguing with me and insisting I’m “wrong” based on other people’s equally subjective and disputable headcanons.

BONUS: Sun sign Archetypes / Personality Keywords

Aries

Aries at its best : Brave, assertive, pioneering, quick, determined

Aries on a bad day: Aggressive, hard-headed, selfish, impulsive, impatient, brutal

The Aries archetype : Prince Lancelot, the brave and romantic rock star of King Arthur’s court

The Aries stereotype : The rage-a-holic in the pickup truck who just gave you the finger after cutting you off on the freeway

Gemini

Gemini at its best : Curious, inquisitive, quick witted, communicative, inventive, clever, adaptable

Gemini on a bad day : Verbally cruel, deceptive, disloyal, restless, doesn’t follow through”

“The Gemini archetype : The jester; clever and mischievous, your wit and agility are your best defense

The Gemini stereotype : The meddlesome neighbor, snooping and eavesdropping

Cancer

Cancer at its best : Family-oriented, nurturing, intuitive, domestic, maternal, sensitive, sympathetic, emotional, patriotic, retentive, traditional

Cancer on a bad day : Moody, touchy, oversensitive, negative, manipulative, overly cautious

The Cancer archetype : The universal mother

The Cancer stereotype : The smothering mother

Leo

Leo at its best : Regal, creative, magnetic, performer, generous, inspiring

Leo on a bad day : Vain, domineering, attention seeking, insecure”

The Leo archetype : The benevolent monarch

The Leo stereotype : The shallow playboy or party girl

Virgo

Virgo at its best : Discriminating, thorough, scientific, clean, humane, scientific, analytical

Virgo on a bad day : Picky, critical, petty, self-centered, hypochondriac, gloomy, pedantic

The Virgo archetype : Sherlock Holmes, with his staggering powers of perception and analysis and his earthy tweed jacket

The Virgo stereotype : The quiet, slightly geeky scientist or secretary with horn-rimmed glasses and a repressed manner

Libra

Libra at its best : Refined, artistic, diplomatic, sociable, peace loving, persuasive, just

Libra on a bad day : Fickle, over accommodating, argumentative, indecisive, insincere

The Libra archetype : The diplomat

The Libra stereotype : The gigolo or “kept” man or woman”

Scorpio

Scorpio at its best : Determined, probing, brave, passionate, insightful, empathetic, penetrating, investigative, powerful

Scorpio on a bad day : Jealous, suspicious, sarcastic, secretive, vengeful, manipulative

The Scorpio archetype : The magician, able to transcend the laws of nature to achieve transformation

The Scorpio stereotype : A secret agent, skilled at investigative work and most comfortable working behind the scenes”

Sagittarius

Sagittarius at its best : Philosophical, adventurous, freedom loving, scholarly, funny, honest, athletic, traveler

Sagittarius on a bad day : Crude, blunt, know-it-all, arrogant, superior, intolerant

The Sagittarius archetype : The wayfaring stranger who transforms a community with his knowledge and wisdom before moving on

The Sagittarius stereotype : The clown who trips over his gigantic shoes and throws pies in your face

Capricorn

Capricorn at its best : Responsible, authoritative, traditional, pragmatic, hardworking, economical, serious, mature, ethical

Capricorn on a bad day : Domineering, stubborn, inhibited, unfeeling, fatalistic, judgmental, unforgiving”

“The Capricorn archetype : The wise elder

The Capricorn stereotype : A cranky old man or woman who keeps yelling at kids to “stay off my lawn!”

Aquarius

Aquarius at its best : Independent, genius, iconoclastic, rebellious, logical, scientific, progressive, intellectual, humane

Aquarius on a bad day : Eccentric, temperamental, unpredictable, cold, opinionated, radical”

“The Aquarius archetype : The charismatic rebel who wins over his fellow men by thumbing his nose at authority

The Aquarius stereotype : The mad scientist

Pisces

Pisces at its best : Sympathetic, compassionate, emotional, intuitive, musical, artistic

Pisces on a bad day : Impractical, timid, procrastinator”

The Pisces archetype : The mystic

The Pisces stereotype : The flake

from Kent, April Elliott. “The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology: Everything from zodiac signs to prediction, made easy and entertaining”.

#series: typing the chosen #digimon #headcanons #personality types #astrology #this is a series but I cannot promise timelines!

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sorasfishing · 4 years

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#Noctislistening - Miyako Edition (3 of 12)

In which I ramble about songs that the Chosen Children/Digidestined listen to.

Brought to you by @tangledupblue‘s Digimon music playlist headcanons with you can find here!

I was thinking this would have been good to post on Monday for me, because of one of the songs on this playlist. But hey, reading this now gives you time to prep this playlist for the day. :P

I think I’ll do post 01 Chosen followed by one 02 Chosen. Listen, dance, repeat.

Last time, we rocked out with Yamato (#2). Next time, we chill out with Jou (#4)!

It’s Miyako’s turn today! Let’s have some fun!

Sorry, not you today, Daisuke

Hyperactive Morning Bird

Miyako is fun and loves her friends to death. She’s also sweet and love-crazy. She’ll daydream and be on cloud nine whenever her crush or love is on her mind. :D

I had fun with this playlist! It is so upbeat and I danced and sang along to a lot of the songs. Many of the artists took me back to my teenage years (Spice Girls, M2M, Sheryl Crow!!) and also my college years when I was discovering more UK dance pop & rock (Sophie-Ellis Baxtor, Kylie Minogue, Girls Aloud). And omg, 70′s and 80′s pop (ABBA, The Pointer Sisters, Tiffany, The Bangles) I looove it.

I also love that Fleetwood Mac is in this playlist - I’ve been really into them especially in the last few years.

I’ll choose my top 6:

He is We - Skip To the Good Part // First time hearing this song and I think the lyrics and singer are adorable

No Doubt - I’m Just A Girl // I appreciate No Doubt now as I’m older.

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Alessia Cara - Scars To Your Beautiful // She’s one of my favorite singers out there right now :)

The Bangles - Manic Monday // Like... this is every Monday.

Katrina & the Waves - Walking on Sunshine

Spice Girls - Stop // Stopping here(lol) to mention I watched Spice World over and over, and I even played with my cousins as the Spice Girls. Please tell me which Spice Girl are you if you had to choose! I didn’t really relate to any of them but I ended up being Scary Spice, because of my hair (incoming: personal pic)

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I have thick, wavy close to curly hair and it can get incredibly frizzy and out of control. Hence, Scary Spice lol.

(If anyone saw this pic before, with no cut and no context... I meant to hit save draft and not post. oops XD)

(yes I chose avocados again; and an emoji based on a selfie of me)

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Anyway! Here’s the video for “Stop” ^_^

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I also want to mention that the other day I heard “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper and imagined Miyako going around knocking on the doors of the Digigirls to have a fun day out with her. Mimi was the first since she would say yes in a heartbeat. They both visit Hikari next who says yes, and then it takes all three of them to convince Sora to join them - but of course it doesn’t take long for her to resist!

I think this song can fit into the soundtrack of Miyako. :D

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Your turn. Are you listening? Tell me your favorites from Miyako’s playlist!

#inoue miyako #yolei inoue #digimon headcanons #noctislistening digidestined series #personal

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 4 years

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Maou-jou 1

I sampled this manga with what’s called a “Viz sampler”. I only ever seem to find those at libraries, so I’d assume only they and bookstores can get those.

…Twilight looks like Maou Sadao (Hataraku Maou-sama!).

“Dawner”??? I can read katakana, ya idjits. His name is Akatsuki. Update: The translator must’ve gone, “Dawn is a girl’s name. Let’s tack on an -er so it looks like a guy’s name.”

Aw, Hiro Shimono is Akatsuki. If it were Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, we could’ve gotten a Kirito joke out of it.

Oh! 快眠 (Kaimin) = good rest, literally “happy sleep”. Hence this is the nation of Goodreste. I see.

The lightning effect is soooooooooo cool! *eyes glitter at the particle effects*

I’m gonna die from cuteness from all the teddies and seals!

The little fanfare is so cute and the yokudekimashita reminds me of my days playing the arcade game Bomberman (which had a flower sticker much like this one). I wanna see this get a dub and succeed on all its merits! It’s basically my baby already…bar the fact it took a bit to work up to the first good bit of comedy.

The teddy demons are called Debiakuma, a pun on kuma (bear), devil and akuma (devil). Lessee…After “lesser demon”, there’s more text…“Fluffy bears that can be also used as pets. They give in easily to temptation. A lot of them live in the demon castle, so the princess likes to gather their fur, dye it and spin nice cotton out of it. Warning: A lot of them will either run away or call you their friend./Occasionally act as friends for the princess.”

LOL, I recognised that voice of the Scissors guy straight away…although I didn’t know who it belonged to. That’s Suwabe. (It doesn’t sound like Suwabe, I would’ve thought it to be Takuma Terashima or something.)

Aw, the Japanese version is more boring this time. It’s just Scissor Magician (in the singular for both).

*hears Scissors Demon going -ageruwa”, which is a feminine sentence ending…that’s Suwabe trying to (voice) act effeminate???!!!

These trumpet sounds never get old.

LOL, Siberian huskies dressed as Russians…

Okay, my turn again: Hari means needle, toge means thorn. Next to “His stomach is soft”, part of the subs are cut off due to Funimation’s hardsubs, but I can read “he is proud of his defence” on the 2nd line, “is the type to not refuse when relied on” on the 2nd-last line and “his favourite food is strange bird chawanmushi” on the last line.

I love how parts of the castle are upside down for no reason at all except to look cool…architects must hate that, though.

I hadn’t heard of “seesaw battles” until now. but the metaphor does make sense...kind of.

What about changing the mattress? Update: She does do that…kind of.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Kirito was under my nose all along! Damn Demon Kinggggggggggggggggggg!

Kamina glasses on one of the background trees! Cute tapir! Ahhhhhhhh, it’s so cuteeeeeeee!

Anyways, that’s a fun show. Not as fun as HypMic, but still fun after it gains momentum.

Munou na Nana 1

I remember seeing spoilers for a twist at the end…let’s hope I don’t anticipate it. That would kill the entire anime for me.

The message actually says something about how the island is a nest for enemies of humanity.

There’s the ice narcissist I saw in the promo stuff, right on cue. I’ve never heard of his voice actor Hiromichi Tezuka before, although he does sound like Hiroshi Kamiya or someone much better.

Why do I get the feeling once the title character arrives, even Nanao will get powers…? Or maybe Nana is the catalyst for Nanao’s powers awakening or something? (Just realised having a Nana and a Nanao together in the same anime is confusing…)

Subbers spelt “noblesse oblige” wrong, unless it was deliberately done as such.

I predicted the “duke it out” line.

There’s a menu on the wall of the restaurant.

Maybe Nanao’s “talent” is his leadership stat or something?

Or maybe even Nanao is an enemy of humanity and doesn’t know it? (Sorry, speculation going into overdrive…that usually happens with superpower works like this for me, because I like to analyse them.)

Maybe Nanao can see the future, like the protag from Koi to Producer?

Technically, shouldn’t ice be weak against fire…? Or am I too used to the Pokemon system?

Called it! Nanao has a hidden power! (That reminds me: I still don’t know what Lucien’s (from Koi to Producer’s) power really is.)

Vigilantes is really good at exploring how people can expand on their own powers.

…wow, I heard rumours that the main character was going to die, but I’d pegged Nana to die, not Nanao.

Onodera is clearly important…maybe he was the one with the wind powers? Or was Nana lying about that?

…dude, the red eyes are kinda obvious that Nana is evil in some way, or at least really devious.

Grace of the Gods 1

All I really know of this is that it’s got slimes and it’s an isekai/SoL hybrid…That’s it.

…I am not, I repeat NOT, on board for a harem centred around an 11 year old!

Ryoma speaks with an unnatural amount of starts and stops, hence the caveman speak.

What’s Jil’s role in the party…?

Why would you even need to know 4 high-level skills? Isn’t it better to know all of them?

LOL, I knew the isekaid guy was meant to have a hard life so he could start over with slimes, but…stick Doppo in this and it’s basically the same thing. At least Doppo tries to resist his bosses behind their backs, this guy just did the whole gaman thing and look where that got him!

If he worked for a black company with no overtime and so forth, how did he know about a recent anime trend, eh??? Sounds suspect. Update: Unless he was thinking about 90s isekai, which still involved less reincarnation than this.

I noticed the gods have senbei (the rice crackers with the seaweed). Western-looking gods probably shouldn’t have senbei, unless…they did that to make Ryoma feel more at home?

Seriously, how does a guy with no overtime still have time for online games? Even if he were getting just ads for them, he probably wouldn’t have paid enough attention to be able to figure out what the cliches are, right? Either that, or the Dragon Quest system is older than I think it is.

Slimes don’t have paws…or hands or other appendages…to give…

…I’m not sure what to think there. Am I meant to think the slimes are cute? Am I meant to think the catgirls/animal girls are cute? The answer to those questions is “no”, so…eh.

IWGP 1

Basically, I chose this for associations with HypMic.

…the best first impression involves a CGI car. Of course. <- (sarcastic)

Given HypMic, I almost expected a rap battle…nahhhh…Rap battles don’t look so cool outside HypMic, man.

The owl is a pun. Fukurou (owl) matches ‘bukuro (bag, which is the 2nd character in “Ikebukuro”). There’s also an owl statue used as a meeting spot, much like Hachiko in Shibuya…(I learnt a bunch of things about the division territory through HypMic. Let me show off…)

I think the character designer for this anime also did Joker Game…that’s throwing me off a little. Also, they had a prime opportunity to use a Buster Bros song, so I’m still a bit miffed about that – this OP’s kinda standard. Update: The character designer is Junichiro Taniguchi – my insinct was wrong on him. He did Touken Ranbu Hanamaru’s character designs.

“Smoking kills” – Yuuuuuuuup. That’s true.

Why do I get the feeling all the male otaku will wanna bang Makoto’s mother (to put it lightly)…?

Curiously, the one who hates drugs in HypMic is Jyuto, who’s not from Ikebukuro Division at all. Hmm…

Yokoyama’s voice sounds familiar…but I’m not sure why. Update: If I had to guess, I’d say he’s Saito Soma or someone who sounds similar, so maybe Takuma Terashima, Daisuke Ono or something like that. Update 2: Takahiro Sakurai. See? I knew I knew that voice.

“Big Rei” (“Rei-nii”). That’s different from Ichi-nii (what Saburo calls Ichiro) and could also be goroawase for 02.

Uni of Tokyo is the most prestigious uni in Japan. It has quite the reputation.

…is it just me, or does Makoto have a piercing in his left ear? IWGP also happens to happily work with my existing character, although said character has a piercing in his right ear.

Zero One kinda looks like Uta (Tokyo Ghoul), LOL.

…and of course the girl has to rely on the dude. *sigh* Welp, we can throw drugs off the list for “things that count as TV-MA to Funimation” – IWGP is rated M (not 15+ explicitly, but that’s what it stands for normally) in my region.

This ED song…that’s the sort of song I was expecting from HypMic, Akudama or this.

Seems both Makoto and Takashi have earrings…maybe in both ears? Takashi’s are yellow, I could confirm that much.

…this is decent, but putting it up against its competitors is a bit harsh.

Crusade 1 (cont. from sneak peek - it’s in the title here because this is where it’s completed)

Turns out that preview was most of the episode…like “14 of 24 minutes” long.

Wait, how did Alice fall forward and end up in the princess carry pose? I remember having trouble with that when a character in a story of mine had the same problem.

…Iska-nii…(?)

That opera house looks pretty darn modern to me…

…eh…that was middling. Nothing any ol’ adaption of Romeo and Juliet couldn’t do, bar the CGI for the magic fight in the middle. (There was a fluffy griffin thing in the middle there, though.)

Akudama 1

Ume + Kimura and a cool urban aesthetic. Let’s go!

This is kinda Tron-like, eh?

Ooh, now it’s more like Cop Craft.

Kimura seems to use his gruffer voice more than his Ichiro voice, but Ume is actually worse on that fron with his ordinary voice…Welp, at least his ordinary voice sounds like it fits right in with the Courier. I almost expect an Ocean’s Eleven thing (or Now You See Me, since I’ve actually watched that) from this. Update: Turns out Kimura is the pompadour guy, not the fighter.

You can tell Ordinary Person is an okay person because she keeps saving cats. A bit cliché, but it’ll do.

Ohhhhhh…I can see where this plotline is going. Ordinary Person pretends to be Swindler to get herself out of this mess, but then she keeps getting involved with the Akudama. It’s a typical plot for a typical gal, common to insert a viewpoint character in series that require one, or a magical girl ally.

Wow, those missiles look like a**.

LOL, Hoodlum’s sentence is kinda measly in comparison to most of them. Plus, when he yelled, that sounded more accurate to Ichiro than Fighter was, so…yeah, sorry I messed up.

…Ordinary Person has some real bullseye…uh, eyes.

This could be a top contender…aside from the CGI, which does look a bit funky. I’m getting a death game vibe here, but I don’t know if that’s really the case. Also, it’s a lot of fun, but the possible intolerable thing here is Ordinary Person’s screaming – the pretense she has to keep up seems like it’ll fit right in though.

JJK 1

I read the manga once, dropped it and then read it again and didn’t realise why I dropped it.

Fushiguro has long eyelashes, tbh. Itadori comments on that at one point, I think.

Oh, it was a fish (carp) in the manga. I couldn’t figure out what the Japanese equivalent was just from the Kokkuri board.

This track club teacher is a bit of a freak, honestly. Meddling in kids’ affairs is probably illegal to some extent.

Itadori is known as “tiger” because the kanji for “tiger” is in the surname. Update: Also, the Czech dude Mirko was called “the Croatian tiger”, if a tweet I read is any indication.

I like how there’s more comedy in this one. They show the world records, so you have standards to compare Itadori against.

This is an almost beat-for-beat adaption, bar the slight comedy of the records being added (and not explaning who Mirko is). The contrast makes this better.

“People really can die.” – That’s summoning some real energy of “People die when they are killed.”

(Brief thoughts on the dog and cat short: I enjoyed that more than I thought I would. The picture of a realistic cat – someone’s actual photo of their cat?- that serves as a punchline never gets old and in fact, sometimes contributes to the humour.)

HypMic 2

LOL, TV-MA warning strikes again.

“Kore wa prologue/Hajimete no ippo/Fumidasanai yatsu ni wa/???? shinpo.” – The translation is really good for the bits I can read…the problem is I can’t read the bottom left corner. Update: The part in the bottom left is nai...That’s it.

…uh, even people from around the world can read 24 hour time??? You don’t need subs to read Arabic numerals???

…couldn’t you have just told Ichiro verbally, Saburo…? Update: Come to think of it, kids these days are more on their phones than ever, so it makes sense but also kind of doesn’t.

You don’t really need subs for laughter either…

I’d never heard of “pulling rank” before…hmm: “to use one's high position in a society, organization, group, etc., to order someone to do something or to get special treatment or privileges.”

…and here comes the F word here to mess with us again. Japanese nastiness is conveyed using words that might be considered “soft” in English, hence the sudden jump to use the F word a bunch, but the subbers could use some variety in their swearing. I mean, “dips**t” worked where it did because subbers made Samatoki go overboard with the F word, but…you could stand to use that more, maybe(?)

I like how even the Tenderloins guy rhymes where he’s meant to. It’s the prelude to a battle, after all. (He kinda looks like Kotaro from Zombieland Saga.)

…I freaked out for a second. I swore I saw a similar-looking restaurant (udon shop, located on the left of one of the shots) while in Japan. Also, we finally get to see Ichiro’s reputation at work.

…I still have no idea what a “steelo” is after all this time, but I didn’t realise I was staring at a part of Ore ga Ichiro until I saw it in context. Also, it was kinda derpy – but still really in character – for Ichiro to run to his destination with his arms up like the Glico man in Osaka (except he had his head down).

I get a weird feeling the subbers may have used the wiki translation because I’m using it as a reference and the language seems oddly similar for the most part…

The kick Ichiro does seems like it references the OP.

Notice the location is Nishiguchi Kouen…the West Gate Park. *raises eyebrows at the IWGP anime*

…oh! It occurred to me that the sign the BB do with their hands is…well, a lowercase B. (LOL, if you read my previous line funny, it rhymes.)

Gentaro doing the peace sign to his chest…that was random the first time, because it doesn’t seem in character, but then it does for Dice and possibly Ramuda, so Gentaro probably just chose to go along with it (“to add to his image as a rapper,” maybe…?).

Oh, Saburo has airpods in…those aren’t good for blocking sound, are they…?

Notice the owl on the…uh, café(?)…Ichiro goes to.

That one “holy shit!” made me laugh like a madman. Where it came from, I don’t know, but it was so random I had to laugh at it.

This makes me wonder…if you use a mic that’s different to your personal mic, does it produce the same speakers? No one’s ever addressed that before (much like how no one questions if magical girls always need the same transformation device – I wanted to make a plot on that someday, but I can’t seem to find a comprehensible way to pull it off…LOL, that reminds me, I even had a HypMic version of that featuring Samatoki at one point, but it probably makes even less sense than the standard one because it activates via physical contact. It’s notable – in my head – for Nemu’s version of the “power” being “Samatoki can’t swear, no matter how hard he tries”).

I’m pretty sure that round thing wasn’t part of Ichiro’s rings, ever. (…Unless that was the head of his spoon or something.)

…Microwave? (referring to the shot inside the hospital, which seems to be based off ARB)

The series normally transitions from BB -> MTC -> FP -> MTR, so it was interesting to see that shuffled up. Update: That’s if it has to have an order, but notably ARB breaks this standard a lot by assigning colours to each solo and then arranging interactions based on not repeating those colours (aside from the Sky High Tower event). With 4 things there are 4! = 24 possible combinations and 6! = 720 possible combinations if you count DH and BAT, so as we move forward with those 2 divisions...prepare for more shuffling.

…is Jiro gonna steal a ball? I thought it was just bikes anime characters stole. (LOL)

The mic changes the background, too, huh? Never expected that from more than the speakers.

…and of course, s*** explodes and the day is saved once again....by the Buster Bros!!! (LOL, but also *sigh*)

Hmm, so this anime’s real plotline probably involves this trio: Rex, Tom and Iris. They’re probably foreign in some way, judging by Tom and Rex. Maybe they’re aligned with a foreign government or something? Update: If you look at the credits, their full names seem to be Tom Whisper Weathercock, Iris Innocent Traiter (sic) (LOL) and…Taroumaru Rex…? (romanisations confirmed for all katakana)

Sadamezuka was voiced by the ubiquitous Kenjiro Tsuda.

It seems Cola Bintarou (aka Subaru Kimura) was on the case again today. He wrote the new song for BB, called RUN THIS CITY, along with Gesshoku Kaigi.

Of course, I’m going to keep this anime on my list...I’m just a bit worried about myself going forward, because I realised my ego got a bit inflated trying to defend the series from haters. I’ve never had a series where I’ve been a fan from the beginning that wasn’t already a known quantity for a while (Muhyo and Roji’s, Furuba). With Boueibu, I was discovering things alongside other people (or even later in a lot of cases) since it was anime-original.

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arbitrarygreay · 5 years

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Digimon Adventure Tri

Digimon Tri was fairly good at slice of life shenanigans (and ship baiting, lol that ship-baiting was way more enjoyable than it had any right to be), but really really bad at actual plot. Basically, Taichi and Jou were the only ones with good arcs, and everyone else was static or contrived drama. Mei and Meicoomon offered neutral (slice of life/ship-baiting shenanigans) to negative value (actual plot). I mean, some of the arcs were promising, and then they just threw them all into the trash to stuff more meaningless action in. All of the rookie/baby digimon shenanigans were GREAT, and I would watch 26 episodes of just that shit with zero actual plot stakes. (And to be clear, this included a good deal of proxy ship-baiting, lol) The writers clearly had a lot of affection for these characters and relationships, but just couldn't figure out a broader plot that serviced any of that except for Taichi, and even the catharsis and effects of that arc were mostly left unshown. (But also, they didn't give a shit about 02 lmao) Hell, I would have taken more reheated not-really character arcs rehashing the old series, than how the entire cast become utterly impotent in the second half, so it was just 2 entire movies / 9 episodes of them failing, and failing, and failing, and failing, and yet the storytellers trying to tell us things were actually progressing. (I mean, Mei/coomon were impotent the entire series, so) Worse, the personalities that were very distinct in the earlier movies all got washed out into a morass of generic "worrying." Apparently, who the DigiDestined are in extremis...is boring. Also, the 26-episode format was horrible, they should have stuck with keeping them in movie chunks. You had hella awkward breaks and catch-up repeat footage, but worse, the big climactic music moments were ruined because the OP had JUST played like 2 minutes before.

#digimon adventure tri #category: anime

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hopeshauntedmyghosts · 6 years

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Soooo tri. is over and I hated it! I just need some place to write down my thoughts but if you wanna read, there’s all the spoilers below.

I’m really not one to automatically hate new additions to classics and I’ve liked and defended tri. countless times when I felt it was deserved buuut a finale is special.

I get they might be teasing a continuation of tri. with the DigiVice beeping AND Toei teasing SOME new Digimon project, but honestly, it feels like they wanted us to shut up about questions we have right now that weren’t answered. It would have been enough to just have the antagonist have his scene in the end, playing with the black cube and mentioning those other evil Digimon, that’s vague foreshadowing that could have been everything or nothing. Just do that to have your *MAYBE* cliffhanger, but answer all other questions please. But quite a lot bothered me in terms of plot and aesthetics-

- The music’s timing was SO off the entire time. They cut the songs as they pleased and it still didn’t fit the evolution or fighting animations at all, almost always ending too early

- What. Happened to the 02 kids now. Them finding out about Yggdrasil’s plans without Takeru and Hikari (hey Toei we get you wanted to separate them but you have to face the angel kids belong to BOTH groups, it’s unlikely the new 4 would go on dangerous missions without them since Miyako and Iori would be weak af!) or the others is at least as much, if not more, unrealistic than the original 8 never worrying/asking about them

- Why are we always only getting ass shots of Ordinemon I’m uncomfortable as hell

- Would it have killed them to animate shadowy figures of original Adventure scenes for ALL kids when the Digimon regained their memories, instead of just for Taichi? When I got sad about the Digimon losing their memories in the third movie, I sure as heck was NOT sad about them forgetting the events of tri. 1-3, but of the original series! Especially important for the Tentomon, Palmon and Gomamon that only got generic reactions to their memories (“we went through hard times together!”-“those precious memories”-“I’m happy when I can be with Jou!”), they could have AT LEAST said something SPECIFIC to tri. like Patamon and Piyomon did

- What was that instrumental ver. of butterfly during Holydramon’s evolution. Not only did it sound horrendous and less dramatic than the original that we just heard prior, it’s so out of place for the sweet gentle and mysterious Hikari too. An orchestra version would have been perfect, for her character and as a more dramatic continuation from the original

- So that’s your build-up for the 02 epilogue? One line from Yamato about his career but what’s really difference between him suddenly saying he wants to be an astronaut where there were so signs for before whatsoever compared to the epilogue? It is just as random as before. I understand we can be pretty sure about Taichi’s kid’s mom now but honestly I hate how Sora showed no signs of liking Yamato any more than Taichi, I don’t ship anything of the triangle but now it just looks like she had to settle for Yamato because Taichi was taken. All other relationships (Takari, Jou’s unnamed girlfriend, Koumi/Mimi going back to America to marry Michael which her kid looks very much like) being as vague and hinted as before is actually something I like, at least they’re not making any less sense but instead just gave more room for speculation

What else I liked: usage of re-vamped version of Shouri ~Zen no Theme~, parallels to the first movie especially with Meicoomon’s PW being dandan and Daigo repeating his encouraging words “dream big” that was both sweet as heck, also the dialogue between Yamato and Gabumon in the beginning

Unsure: at first I quite liked how the antagonist/Yggdrasil’s puppet, barely appearing in Ketsui, then got madder and goofier with every movie, absolutely nuts in this one, but after a while he got on my nerves

Questions: What happened to Daigo and Maki (ultimately the other 3 kids that were in their group. Side not but their characters and plotline are so underappreciated and could make a bitch-ass season themselves). What about Alphamon and Hackmon. Where are they. Why did the Digimon return (02 epilogue shows them living with the kids so when do they decide to do that lol). What was Meicoomon again (Libra, which held a fragment of Apocalymon and would have been Yggdrasil’s tool for this perfect chaos world yeah but why again this Meiko’s Dad create it? Or didn’t he? I’m confused. Side note but they could have made him a more interesting character, like Yamaki from Tamers who is also your morally gray adult character but had so much reason and dynamic to him). I might have just missed things but I’m so confused.

I would be okay with a continuation of tri. MOSTLY for the side effects it had: tons of merchandise, events, interviews, music, pretty art, all of that. If new movies also give me occassional lols and awwws like the existing six did AND answer some of my questions, then gimme. If I could name any wish for the new project though (just hoping it’s an animation) it would be season 0 with Daigo’s group and well written bridges to the events of tri. I get that other season’s continuation (including Tamers) or adaptions (including V-Tamer) are very much desired but I think they have more room for mistakes and holes like the ones tri. suffered from, while entirely new characters that are still already very logically entangled with existing overall Digimon lore are *another* life-time chance to cover holes, one chance they had with tri. and sacrificed it for an overly complicated plot with too many inconsistent side-tracks.

Rant over, I’m sorry, I’ll watch everything Digimon Toei throws at me and they know it and that’s why my frustration will fade and I’ll probably fall in love with tri. again in a few weeks, but that’s one reason I think first thoughts after just having watched the movie are important and why I write them down. Thanks for reading

#digimon adventure tri #digimon #digimon adventure tri spoilers

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sailor-donatello · 6 years

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Random observations about the reaction to Digimon Tri

These aren’t particularly spoilery but just in case...

After finishing Tri and seeing a lot of the fan reactions I’m starting to wonder if this series is one where your mileage may vary based on how much you liked Adventure 02. Cause like, most of the complaints I’ve seen about it are either about how the 02 kids aren’t there or are about Meiko...Or both. The whole thing about the 02 kids feels a little silly to me considering how obvious it seemed that Tri was always going to be about the Adventure 01 characters. They’re what all the advertising was centered around before the first movie even came out, so I don’t get why anyone would expect the 02 Digidestined make anything more than a brief appearance. Granted it was a very brief appearance.

In a way, the negative reactions I’ve seen kind of remind me of what happened with Sailor Moon Crystal, though in a different way. For both shows, fan expectations were not only too high, largely due to nostalgia, but were also different from what was promised. With Crystal, this was mainly about the animation not being up to par despite the series start as an experimental web series. But with Digimon Tri it’s more about missing certain characters and the insertion of a completely new character (which is something that nearly always causes problems because people HATE change).

Most of the people I know IRL who love Digimon weren’t huge fans of Adventure 02 and in general seem to like Tri quite a bit more than it’s been received on the internet at large. Then again, most of us are also older and watched the series as teenagers rather than as kids so that might also play a factor since our sense of nostalgia for it probably isn’t QUITE as strong...Though I can’t really say how true that is, I can’t speak for anyone else but even if I was too old to be a part of the target audience for the series, I REALLY love Digimon. In either case, I can’t really say whether or not correlation equals causation in this case or not, it's just something interesting to think about...Or talk about so long as people don’t get pissy and judgemental about it.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not saying I HATE 02 or anything, it certainly had elements that I liked. Ken and Wormmon were amazing, Veemon was super cute, and it definitely had better villains than the first series did (aside from maybe Myotismon). And although I didn’t like her when I first watched the series Miyako is MUCH more likable in Japanese than she was in English. Overall though I had problems with it, I found most of the new characters and partner Digimon either annoying or was just plain apathetic towards them, Takeru’s characterization seemed disjointed, and I really didn’t care for most of the designs (new characters and original cast included).

I’m also not saying that I think Tri is perfect either. In general, I enjoyed watching it but it certainly has flaws and really dragged in parts...I kind of wish they’d introduced a warp evolution for all the Digimon after they acquired their final forms so that we could have gotten more out of the action scenes. Koushiro and Jou could have done with more screentime and I REALLY wish they hadn’t just repeated Jou’s character arc from 02 and had actually come up with something new for him. And I definitely wish they’d kept the fanservice elements out of the show, like I can kinda deal with Rosemon’s boobs jiggling all over the place but I really did not need to see that much of Ordinemon’s ass.

#digimon #digimon tri #digimon adventure tri #this is way longer than i meant it to be

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koushirouizumi · 1 year

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Me, looking around my old Digi-O.C.s site C.D.: ... "Myotismon" in this super old thing I wrOTE: "This {"world" you live in} is *an alternate world* {from 'my own'}! You can thank (TAKERU) T.K. TAKAISHI and his silly NOVEL for THAT. Because of HIM, this {real} world is a NEW reality in which THE {Original} DIGI-DESTINED {I KNOW} never EXISTED!" m E: (GENUINELY having forgotten I wrote that in) I can't BELIEVE ""T.K."" ALSO accidentally created the Repeatverse {+before This Site even Existed}

#repeatverse #repeat takeru #repeat vamdemon #repeat chosen #koushirouizumi posts #koushirouizumi advs #koushirouizumi cof #(IM LAUGHING so hArD m E ' H E L P ')#(M E ' I cant BELIEVE T.K. helped create rEPEAT KOUTAI ')#(m E ' This IS going to be implied somehow in the Lost Day Hour A.M.V. now ')#(I know I did have a lot of silly A.U. takes re that novel existing in actual 02!canon but w O W...)#(Me 'So yeah in the past T.K. MAY have been more up there but sorry Koushiro Mimi Jou & the rest all came up to overtake T.K.s spot')#(OK I'm not posting the whole thing it was *very incomplete* and goofy US dubverse young me DigiAdvs x Pkmn cross-over style rp but)#meanwhile on digiadvs #meanwhile on 02 #(Me ' This. This was before I even WAS shipping KouTai ')#(DAISUKE VOICE ' IT WAS YOU ??!??!? ')#(TakerU VOICE ' Um . Things . Happened ')#(Koushiro Voice ' I had to fill him in on the rest of the 'technical' stuff but ... ')#(Hikari Voice ' I Helped Too ' {Contribues over Half the Book})#(Edit: This Was Drafted But I STILL LAUGH remembering This Line Now)#my like hate relationship with patamon line #my like hate relationship with angemon #my like hate relationship with vamdemon #my very hyper specific interpretation of takeru and takaishidas that is still very based in 'canon' thank you #in which tk accidentally helps create a multiverse via a book where takeru with koushiro assisting explains multiverse theory in depth #the digital world runs on wishes #in which takeru accidentally unleashes D I G I M O N into Our World #You Too Can Be A Chosen {If You (WANT) To Be}

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izzyizumi · 4 years

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youtube

Digimon Adventures ~ x Kagerou Project “My Funny Weekend” AMV [music (C) Jin, singer: Hatsune Miku {Vocaloid}] featuring CHARACTERS/DUO/SHIP[s]: MIMI TACHIKAWA, HIKARI YAGAMI (as supporting characters) + Taichi Yagami [Taichi “Tai” Kamiya in U.S. Dub] x Koushiro(u) Izumi [Koushiro “Izzy” Izumi] ~ {KOUTAI}/[Taishiro(u)] & with bonus scenes for: Jou Kido x Mimi Tachikawa [Joumi] as a main ship Miyako Inoue x Hikari Yagami [Miyakari] Sora Takenouchi x Mimi [So(Ra)Mi] as side main ship Mimi Tachikawa x Meiko Mochizuki [MiMei] {brief} Miyako Inoue -> Mimi Tachikawa [Mimiyako] as implied crush Taichi x Koushiro x Meiko [TaiKouMei] x Mi (Mimi) as equal polyships Taichi x Koushiro x Mimi [TaiKouMi] as an equal OT3 Daisuke Motomiya* x Hikari x Miyako as equal polyship {brief} (* Ken can be read in into the background if you like Dai/Ken[suke] ) [ or DaiKenMiyakari as an equal polyship ] Yamato x Sora [Sorato] / x Mimi [YamaSoMi] as an equal OT3 {brief} [or +Jou for YamaJouraMi] as equal polyships ~ you can feel free to read in whichever of the above pairs you want (or anything else that’s in my shiplist pretty much!) however, please keep in mind the main ship is Taishiro. It is not intended as brotp only but as ship.

PAST AMVS / VIDEO EDITS IN THIS SERIES: Kagerou Daze (Heat-Haze Daze) / Children Record [+Adv Chosen] / RED / Additional Memory and Imaginary Reload music edits for KageDaze / Days (short edit) / Lost Time Memory / Yesterday Evening / Summertime Record / Shounen Brave [+Jou] / Outer Science [+Villains] / Headphone Actor (short edit) / DAZE (short version / TV Size OP) / KOUSHIROS ? CYBER JOURNEY [+Maki] / Brave Heart x Kaien Panzermast [+Chosen Children] / Night Tales Deceive [Yobanashi Deceive] / [KOUSHIRO’S] Imaginary World / Mekakushi Code [Blindfold Code] [+Yamato&Sora&Adv Chosen] / Ultramarine Rain [+Mrs Yoshie Izumi; Izumis] / Imagination Forest [+Mimi&Jou] / Transparent Answer [TaiKou+Meiko] / Jinzou Enemy [Artificial Enemy] / DEAD and SEEK (short edit) / Headphone Actor (Full version Preview) / Otsukimi Recital [Moon Viewing Recital] [Advs Taishiro & 2020 Taishiro] (Note: Check the link for ‘ Otsukimi Recital ‘ for all links to any past AMVs as well as story info / the story introduction link!) (*It’s ok to start on/only watch this current AMV!) [*You may understand the story/implied timeline of things better if you begin from my “Kagerou Daze” AMV, though it’s also not required! “Children Record” is also recommended as a starting point/upbeat song! “DAZE” also serves as a mini Opening theme song and is also upbeat!] {NOTE : PLEASE read my FAQ and “about” sections BEFORE interacting directly with me, my contents / fanworks / this series, or my blog!!!}

[More info + lyrics under the ‘read more’!]

SHORT VERSION SUMMARY:

- THEY’RE MAYBE STUCK IN A TIME LOOP ...

- OF KOUSHIROS’ OWN { ACCIDENTAL ? } CREATION ...

- HOMEOSTASIS IS INVOLVED - Not Gennai might be TOO { tri } ??? - wHErE aRE tHe 02 KIDS - wait is this tri or an AU ??? - YOU’LL BE SURPRISED or maybe not if you’ve followed this series

- WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THEM ALL ANYWAY

- YOU GUYS CAN’T FIX THIS BY MOPING

- GOOD THING THE GIRLS ARE HERE

- MIMI AND ALSO HIKARI CENTRIC THIS TIME - the 2020 crew continue to appear too !

- OH HI TAILMON FANCY MEETING YOU H E R E ----- - WAIT did you get to show up much before now ??? - THIS IS WHY THEY’RE ALL IMPORTANT - YES THE GIRLS CONTINUE TO BE IMPORTANT HERE TOO - tri spoilers through to Kokuhaku ending + a short scene from Kyousei ( with Homeostasis ) / no Kizun@ spoilers! - Hikari especially needs more time to shine in this thing ok - I really love my Digimon Adventures WLW ships - yes, even if I headcanon them as M-spec / Multi-gender Attracted - pls deal with this if you’re consuming this series ok - specifically, I like Sora, Miyako and Yamato as Bi and Taichi, Koushiro, Mimi, Hikari and Daisuke as Pan and/or some other combination of M-spec, so please respect this as well if you’re consuming this series - Jou and Meiko I can see as pretty much anything so Yup - I also really love making AUs of AUs so I can cram in - all my OTHER SHIPS and polyships and headcanons too I mean. - it’s a Ficverse - it’s not subbed yet Apologies. video editor began the crashings

LYRICS PREVIEW

I always get carried away BUT I’M DEFINITELY NO MATCH FOR THE SUN I’M THE ONLY ONE ON THE PATH TO BEING A HEROINE

GO ON ! Be more HAPPY Always be EXCITED Once you’re GREEDY for it IT’S JUST RIGHT FOR TODAY I’LL HAVE THE AIR-CONDITIONER at 20 DEGREES And EAT SOME ICE CREAM

I’M GETTNG RESTLESS TAKE ME TO THAT FUTURE

On a cold summer afternoon I SET OFF INTO THE CITY It’s all “ AGE RESTRICTED ”, how ANNOYING !!

“ LIKE A CHILD ” HUH ? DON’T MAKE ME GAG

I’ve ALWAYS WANTED TO JUST LIVE LIKE “ MYSELF ”

“ CHEERFULLY ” AT FIRST , but then “ UNWILLING TO GIVE UP ”,

I’LL RUN WILD RAMPANTLY, RIGHT NOW ! COME ON , GET OUT OF THE WAY , OBSTACLES !! { LIVE } & APPEND ROUGH I DON’T HAVE THE TIME TO BE SAD { LIVE } & APPEND ROUGH Being in a slump or whatever sucks DOESN’T IT ? { LIVE } & APPEND ROUGH LAUGHING DURING HAPPY TIMES { LIVE } & APPEND ROUGH ... Isn’t that THE BEST ?

FULL LYRICS

[ VERSE 1 ]

A disappointing weekend, I let out a yawn I love having AN EXCITING LIFE , don’t you ? My plans derail as I’m deep in thought The practical problem has an almost daring correct answer

The invitation’s childish but I’m getting frustrated I don’t wanna see people, I WANT TO SEE SOME SCENERY Doing WHATEVER I WANT in whatever clothes I’m wearing - I should have THE RIGHT TO THAT , right?

[ VERSE 1 INTERLUDE ]

BUT ON A DAY THIS HUMID, whatever movie I watch, I tend to do something more fun than worrying

I always get carried away BUT I’M DEFINITELY NO MATCH FOR THE SUN I’M THE ONLY ONE ON THE PATH TO BEING A HEROINE

[ CHORUS 1 ]

GO ON ! Be more HAPPY Always be EXCITED Once you’re GREEDY for it IT’S JUST RIGHT FOR TODAY I’LL HAVE THE AIR-CONDITIONER at 20 DEGREES And EAT SOME ICE CREAM

[ CHORUS 1 INTERLUDE ]

Let’s come on! Don’t look away! Don’t get frustrated! Hey! Hey! Hey! Swimsuits are nonsense! I’m not going swimming it’s BORING ! Crowds of people are OUT OF THE QUESTION ! HEY! HEY! HEY!

I’M GETTNG RESTLESS TAKE ME TO THAT FUTURE

[ VERSE 2 ]

A sentimental adventure, SHINING SAVILE ROW I want a MATURE REFINED TYPE OF ROMANCE TOO

On a cold summer afternoon I SET OFF INTO THE CITY It’s all “ AGE RESTRICTED ”, how ANNOYING !!

“ LIKE A CHILD ” HUH ? DON’T MAKE ME GAG

I’ve ALWAYS WANTED TO JUST LIVE LIKE “ MYSELF ”

“ CHEERFULLY ” AT FIRST , but then “ UNWILLING TO GIVE UP ”,

I’LL RUN WILD RAMPANTLY, RIGHT NOW ! COME ON , GET OUT OF THE WAY , OBSTACLES !!

[ INTERLUDE VERSE ]

{ LIVE } & APPEND ROUGH I DON’T HAVE THE TIME TO BE SAD { LIVE } & APPEND ROUGH Being in a slump or whatever sucks DOESN’T IT ? { LIVE } & APPEND ROUGH LAUGHING DURING HAPPY TIMES { LIVE } & APPEND ROUGH ... Isn’t that THE BEST ?

[ INTERLUDE VERSE 2 ]

Aah, tomorrow is definitely gonna be A more wonderful day than today Once the day comes to an end, another day will start again Since LIFE GOES ON, don’t get frustrated

[ FINAL CHORUS ]

C’mon! “ SPARKLE ” more! Always be “ FIRED UP ”! If you’ve gotta { W I S H } for something, { WISH } for something { better than you deserve } ! You can choose yourself whether to laugh or cry But enjoying something is just the best!

Be more HAPPY Always be EXCITED Once you’re GREEDY for it IT’S JUST RIGHT FOR TODAY ... IF YOU’RE IN THE MOOD TO WATCH THE MOON Then let me ESCORT YOU * LET’S COME ON !

Don’t be careless! Don’t get frustrated! Hey! Hey! Hey! YUKATAS *** are NONSENSE! I’m gonna TRIP, I CAN’T WALK! I’m so RESTLESS, how about we JUMP IN? Hey! Hey! Hey! NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT { RAINS } T O M O R R O W ,** ... IT’LL BE FINE

... ‘Cause I’m sure it’ll be A GREAT DAY . ~ translation via / with credit to natsuhikoshidou, edited with bits from the Kagerou Project wiki !

* - relevant AMV: Moon Viewing Recital ( check the links ! ) ** - relevant AMV: Kagerou Daze ! *** - yes they’re wearing the Yukatas here

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fizzingwizard · 7 years

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So, Kyousei brings up two traditional Digimon themes: one is Sacrifice, and the other is the Big Picture. This is a Fizz Thinks About Things Through Writing post, so other insights are welcome. But it’s Looooong ahahaha.

LOTSA THOUGHTS UNDER THE CUT

First some background.

Adventure

In Adventure, the kids spent the first half of the season fighting for their survival/to get home. That was their goal. They learned things, about themselves and about the world. But after that, they made a decision together, understanding what they’d be facing, to return to the digital world - once again without an assured method for getting home. With the hope and optimism of children, as well as more grown up knowledge of the role they had to play, they returned and faced the Dark Masters.

Immediately they realized the situation was different. They watched a number of friends die one after another trying to protect them. They experienced loss after loss and failure after failure. They started to lose hope. Eventually this contributed to the fight between Taichi and Yamato and the subsequent breaking of the team.

In the end, Taichi learned to keep his eyes on the Big Picture by realizing that it’s made up of many different parts: there would be no victory unless they were united. At the same time, he made himself Piedmon’s sole target, refusing to let Koushirou fight with him. It was strategic - Gatomon was also there, but presumably tired from fighting LadyDevimon, and WarGreymon had a far better chance of enduring Piedmon than Tentomon did. But it also meant Taichi set himself up as a sacrifice in the name of the “big picture.”

Already, he’d learned to see himself not as a hero, not as a leader, but as a piece of puzzle. His expendability balanced with his individual worth. Most of the Chosen dealt with this question in some way in that final arc, notably Sora and Yamato and Jou.

One other relevant bit - Taichi throughout Etemon’s arc. His single-mindedness and desire to power up led to Agumon’s dark evolution. SkullGreymon was born. By a stroke of luck, he ran out of gas before he could do too much harm, but imagine if that hadn’t been the case. The kids were forced to witness one of their own turn against them as a direct result of their actions. On top of that, later Taichi got sucked into the warp created by Etemon/Datamon’s destruction, and while he was fine, the rest of the Chosen were left wondering if he was dead.

In 02, the new team was fortunate in that they only faced controlled or replica Digimon for the first half. It felt like Digimon was pulling its punches, until suddenly, with BlackWarGreymon, that was no longer the case. The new team had never killed real Digimon with hearts and struggled with it. Although weakened by lackluster writing, this dilemma became a real focus, and they couldn’t run away from it. I still remember Miyako protecting some dudes by attacking LadyDevimon (I think?? some digimon) with a skateboard, and then Silphymon destroying it for good. It was understandably difficult for Miyako to swallow, though she did. And then Oikawa died too, the show’s first human victim.

Much earlier, Ken lost his partner as a consequence of his own actions. Even before that, Taichi had to square off with Agumon who was under the Emperor’s control, and the reality that they would have to hurt him to save him. The goal was still “save him,” but it easily could have turned into a repeat of SkullGreymon. As a fan, I can’t imagine that Taichi didn’t flash back to that. In fact, even though the show doesn’t make it obvious - we did see SkullGreymon as a result of the Emperor’s forced evolutions. I never thought about it as a kid, but now that reappearance, followed by having to fight a brainwashed MetalGreymon, seems deliberate and purposefully evocative.

Tri

Let’s start with Saikai.

A lot of fans were surprised/disappointed by Taichi in the first movie. He got easily distracted by the risk of causing more destruction. His fighting spirit seemed gone. He almost called Hikari in for reinforcements against Kuwagamon, but stopped himself. Then, although he hated the way people were talking about the Digimon, he commiserated with them as well, and he was at a loss for what to do. “The more I see, the less I understand,” or something of that nature, he said. Yamato, who wanted him to be the sure leader from the old days, was upset.

Taichi continued to be wishy-washy throughout Ketsui, and into Kokuhaku. Then comes Tri’s first big sacrifice: The Digimon prepare themselves for Reboot.

They do it willingly. They don’t want it to happen, but every one of them is prepared to have their memories wiped if it means saving their partners’ world. When it’s clear they won’t be able to save their partners in time, Koushirou tells Tentomon to go inside the box that will preserve his backup data, even if he’s the only one who can make it in. But Tentomon refuses to leave MetalGreymon, the only other one not yet infected, to fight alone. Good thing too, since MetalGreymon gets infected minutes later.

The Chosen watch helplessly as their partners sacrifice the substance of their bonds, along with all their memories, to save them.

Jumping forward to Soushitsu a bit: We learn that Maki and Daigo are Original Chosen Children. We learn they faced the Dark Masters and in order to beat them, four of the five partners evolved into the Digital Sovereigns who preserve the digital world’s balance. The fifth - Maki’s partner - for some reason doesn’t evolve, and becomes a sacrifice. The world is saved. Homeostasis was directly involved in it. As far as I can tell, neither Maki nor Daigo ever went back to the digital world (at least not until Maki began communicating with Yggdrasil). Maki grew obsessed with finding a way to save her partner, who was rendered unable to be reborn as a Digi-egg. Maybe Daigo joined their agency out of his own desire to know more about the other dimension he’d visited as a child, or maybe it was just to keep an eye on Maki.

Maki couldn’t live with the unfairness of the sacrifice her partner made. It was to save the world, but she couldn’t accept it. She wanted to find another way. Kyousei makes it seem to me like she thought she and her partner could fix the damage she caused in the process, once they were reunited. When that doesn’t happen, when Bakumon shows no sign of recognizing her, she loses it. Everything she’s worked for has failed - and she’s even undone what good her partner’s initial sacrifice did in the first place.

At the end of Kokuhaku, Koushirou works tirelessly to find a way to reunite with their partners. At this time, no one’s seeking to undo what happened - that thought doesn’t seem to occur to them - but they are seeking to influence the future. In the end they go to the digital world, and it’s like the first episode of Adventure in reverse: this time the children are the ones who have to convince the Digimon that they’re partners and meant to protect each other. The allusion is clear as crystal, especially with Sora, whose bond with Biyomon was cemented in the old days by how intently Biyomon tried to protect her, despite her lack of power. This time around, it’s Biyomon scolding Sora for being reckless when she’s “just a human,” and her comprehension of Sora’s love and care for her results in her mega evolution.

In other words, the Chosen were able to rebuild their bonds with their partners. Even lacking memories, they just believed that as partners, they’re meant to be together, and were willing to do the legwork it would take to prove themselves. This doesn’t seem to have occurred to Maki. Instead of trying to teach Bakumon about herself, she freaks him out - maybe she’s already too much under Yggdrasil’s influence or something, I don’t know, but the point is she never makes an attempt to accept Bakumon the way he is after the reboot. It seems like she wanted to go back in time and redo the day her partner died, even though she knew the reboot wasn’t going to make that happen. (By contrast, as far as we can tell right now, Daigo seems to have become resigned to his impotency - I am psyched to find out more about him at last in the final movie.)

So now we reach Kyousei.

The unthinkable has happened and a Chosen’s partner Digimon has become an extreme threat to both worlds. It’s SkullGreymon on steroids. As I wrote elsewhere, although SkullGreymon is never alluded to in Kyousei, Sora did bring him up in Kokuhaku - while talking to Meiko, no less. I can only think this was a deliberate set-up to make us draw parallels. Sora’s message was “but Agumon turned out fine in the end!” But in Kyousei, Meiko has to face the possibility that no, Meicoomon will not be fine.

First, Meiko doesn’t try to dodge when Meicoomon attacks her on the ship. She’s in shock, but personally, I also think she had a split second feeling of “I’m okay with this.” She is overcome with guilt that she’s not enough to save her partner, therefore she can’t bring herself to run from death. At least not death at Meicoomon’s hands.

As many have noted, Meiko’s questioning her validity as a Chosen is akin to what Sora and Yamato in particular went through at the end of Adventure. Why was I chosen, if I can’t save my partner? If my role as her partner has caused this to happen? The others try their best to comfort her by relating their own problems (”I was like that,” Sora says) and telling her to let her friends share her burden.

Meanwhile on earth...

Homeostasis announces that it will take the matter of Meicoomon into its own hands. Meicoomon has a shard of Apocalymon. Though her relationship with Meiko kept a lid on her powers, that is no longer functioning, and Meicoomon is a threat to everyone. Daigo takes this to mean Homeostasis has given up on the Chosen. It seems that way when the digital world itself tries to expel them. But Homeostasis does come upon Hikari and fill the Chosen in on what it’s doing, so maybe it does feel some obligation towards these kids it “used as pawns” as Daigo puts it. It’s also not all powerful, given that Omegamon is able to holds his own against Jesmon.

Homeostasis represents the Big Picture, and no one’s tender feelings towards Meicoomon are going to stop it from eliminating the threat. Jesmon’s attack - “one for all” - implies that sacrifices are necessary for the greater good.

This is a reality it’s hard to argue with. In our world, the non-anime one, unfairness and inequality result in all sorts of sacrifices big and small that can never be recovered. Adventure was not one of those happy-go-lucky kids shows where everything’s always all right in the end. It wasn’t gritty either, but somewhere in between. It acknowledged reality while also building its young viewers up to take risks in the name of those they love.

Which brings me to:

Abandoned by Homeostasis, under attack from literally everyone - other humans, the digital world, Yggdrasil - the Chosen have to decide what they’re fighting for. What’s worth fighting for, when the whole world’s turned against them? No one’s looking to them for heroics now. Not even the power that chose them in the first place has their back.

They decide they are fighting because they care about their friends, their partners, each other, and as Taichi says, “We don’t care if it’s right or wrong.”

That is to say, at this time they have not accepted the Big Picture, at least not as Homeostasis paints it. They are still fighting for the myriad smaller pieces that together form the Big Picture. They’re fighting to bring Meicoomon back to Meiko.

Time out to talk about Taichi again.

This movie is a sequel to Saikai as far as Taichi’s development is concerned.

Meiko is caught between memories of Meicoomon as she was and fear of her as she is now. Taichi overhears Meiko confess she loves Meicoomon, and wonder if she was wrong simply to want to have fun with her friend. Taichi basically explains to her the struggle he’s had since Saikai:

Is it so childish to want to remember the good times with your friend? To value those and wish to have them back? Is willingness to sacrifice them really the adult thing to do? Adults want the same things as children - Maki is living proof. I feel like Taichi is trying to tell Meiko what he learned as a child about balancing your expendability with your individual worth. That it’s possible to acknowledge reality while also valuing yourself. He yells at her for giving up on herself. Agumon makes his move next, and what finally gets Meiko to allow herself to cry? Agumon telling her he loves Meicoomon. The simplicity of his emotion echoes what Meiko truly feels towards her partner, and it makes her break down at last. It must be truly hard for her, wanting her partner back while surrounded by all these kids who are happy with their partners and being tormented by her own. Agumon’s pure emotion gave her permission to feel selfish, if only for a moment.

Agumon “reports” all this to Taichi. Taichi says:

Everything from this point on hearkens back to something Hikari said earlier about “we can never understand what others are going through until we experience it ourselves” or some such. This is the culmination of Taichi’s up-till-now wishy-washy behavior, which was his new adult understanding that there are going to be no take-backs. Taichi wanting to share Meiko’s feelings becomes very important after this.

Homeostasis comes on Hikari now, and for whatever reason, explains to them why what it’s doing is necessary and that their bonds as teammates obstruct the big picture. Hikari tells Homeostasis to get out of her.

This is super important too.

They fight Meicoomon, and are torn because while she’s incredibly dangerous, her battle is driven by intense fear, and while she keeps attacking them without mercy, she also appears to protect Meiko. They still want to believe Meicoomon can be saved, but Jesmon joins the fight, followed by Alphamon. They have to send Omegamon for their side. As four extremely powerful Digimon fight for dramatically different reasons, the children come to the realization that they have very little control over what happens now. All they can do is watch as a violent, heart-breaking, and ultimately pointless battle rages above them.

Meiko then says they should kill Meicoomon.

Meiko had asked this question earlier - if “partner” meant “hope,” then what was that hope as it pertained to herself and Meicoomon? Sora reacts like this. Mimi cries because of how tragic it is. Taichi reflects on Meiko’s simple love for Meicoomon she’d shown the night before when she thought no one was watching... and decides to do as she wishes.

“Meicoomon is one of us. I...”

As strange as it may seem, I think compassion is the motive behind Taichi’s decision, even though it aligns with what Homeostasis said about the Big Picture. They don’t pause to reflect on that, but I do. As long as the only goal was Meicoomon’s eradication, they are playing right into Homeostasis’s hands here. But their motive is different.

Of course this doesn’t go down easy with the others. Yamato, who relies on Taichi to make the big decisions, as well as to balance all of their feelings in the process, takes him to task for it, but in the end he can’t come up with any other plan. He lets out a badly animated anguished howl.

Meiko smiles.

And then she runs directly into battle. It’s the third time she’s let herself stay in harms way, and the first time she put herself there deliberately. Which is why I feel that lack of willpower/resignation to death has morphed into a full-on embrace. I think what ran through her head would be something like, “Yes, Meicoomon has to die, and I, her partner, will be there for her through it, no matter what happens to me.”

Yamato and Taichi run after her, are separated. Taichi makes the next sacrifice: he deliberately becomes a battle casualty so Omegamon can protect Yamato and Meiko. He didn’t do this for the Big Picture. He did it because he cares about his friends first and foremost.

Maybe he wouldn’t have if he knew Hikari would go freaking berserk :P

I am wondering if there is not something Simon & River Tam going on with the way Taichi’s apparent death sets off Hikari. Her words, “I need to be with my brother,” are weird. And the result is a world-crushing monster. Now it’s not just Meiko whose partner is a threat to their survival - through that weird fusion, Hikari’s partner is now a part of that weapon herself. Surprise!

Here is the irony: At the very end, the concept of Big Picture is turned on its head. The key to global destruction was the upset of Taichi’s own very balance of expendability vs individual worth? What should be a small sacrifice, in terms of the Big Picture, has had devastating consequences. Did Homeostasis know this could happen, and that Taichi would trigger it? Did Yggdrasil? He (I mean, the “Mouth of Yggdrasil” that is) sure seems happy about it.

If somehow you made it through this whole long post, you may be wondering “Fizz, what’s your verdict on the Big Picture & Sacrifice thing?” I don’t have one. Now that I’ve written all this, I don’t have any conclusions and need to think more.

The Big Picture Taichi appears to have reconciled himself with is one that both takes risks for another’s desires and makes sacrifices for another’s resolve. Homeostasis’s is colder. Yggdrasil is all negativity, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone at bat who is pure Good, so. That’s interesting. I am not sure where Tri is going with this, only that it’s going somewhere. I’m putting my thoughts here to play with for the next almost full year (auuggghh!!) until the final movie.

One thing in particular: the question of what it means to be Chosen, and furthermore, why they were Chosen in the first place. I feel like everything hinges on this. The children are used to choosing for themselves regardless, that’s not an issue. But there must be a reason that at some point someone, apparently Homeostasis, thought partners was a good idea, as well as a reason why it changed its mind, and that’s what is going to lead the eventual outcome of Tri. It feels to me like maybe the idea for partners was meant to circumvent a big picture outcome that someone didn’t want to accept...

eta: one last note... for the time being, we are left with one partner without a Digimon (Meiko), and one Digimon without a partner (Koromon). [Well, actually two partners - Hikari as well - as a couple folks have pointed out.] I have no comment other than to put it out there...

#digimon adventure tri #digimon tri #kyousei #digimon

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