#script digimon game

[playstationvii]

The title of the magazine is 'Disney Vogue' make the font very much in the 'Vogue' style of font like the official magazine, with the Disney aspect like the Disney title. make the font clear, easy to read and it's the focus. 4K HD high quality photography of a resolution of 2000bpi and on the cover is a unknown women very beautiful jet black diamond hair, scene style, in the Disney Minnie Mouse aesthetic, she is adorning Mouse Ears, and is wearing only lingerie, corset, collar, bow, garter, garter belt stockings and Christian louboutins. Her eyes are a piercing blue grey, her hair has flecks of crimson and sterling but just a few strands. She has a professional demeanor in a professional setting, as if she's the girl friend of some famous designer. She's on an animal furr rug and she's wearing some necklaces and jewelry from

'#DearDearestBrands' Her full body is in view. A bomber jacket is draped around her loosely wearing it like a boa, she's fashioned in 'ChocolateWhite' textiles

#LouisVuitton X #Nike #DigimonWorld

[remember-digimon]

Good ol' reliable Joe!

When I first watched Digimon back in the 2000s, Joe was the character I related to the least. Now, as a big grown up in my late 30s, I finally understand what Joe is all about.

At first glance, Joe is anxiety incarnate. In the dub, he gets the 'nerd' trope that Izzy avoided for the most part. Joe is always allergic to things, worried about the slightest danger, and constantly trying to be the voice of reason. His 'voice of reason' however is more 'voice of general complaints and worry.'

If I recall correctly, in the original Japanese, Joe is like this because he's the oldest, at 12 years old. He feels it's his responsibility to make sure everyone is safe since he's the upperclassmen in this situation. In the dub, he's just a worrywort.

Joe takes on responsibility that he could easily delegate to other kids. In the episode where Gomamon evolves into Ikkakumon, Joe tries to break up an argument between Tai and Matt about climbing a mountain, only managing to get drawn into the argument himself. Later, he decides that he should climb up the mountain on his own as a compromise. He doesn't even bring Gomamon with him; Gomamon tags along anyway, of course, but initially Joe intended to go by himself.

He shows initiative, that's for sure. At least when the pressure is on. Others have noted that Tai, Sora, and Joe are the action-takers while Matt and Izzy act more defensively with Mimi, Tk, and later, Kari in mind. I like this thought, especially for Joe. He is often stumbling into danger out of his need to be the 'adult' of the group, feeling responsible for everyone's safety.

One thing we should discuss is his crest. I want to go more in depth on the crests on a different post, but here I think we need to talk about Joe's crest being changed for the dub. Originally it was the crest of faith.

Honestly, I do think reliability fits Joe a lot better. It is awkward for that to be a trait of a child (Remember, their crests were developed back during the original Digimon Adventure OVA, when Greymon fights Parrotmon). But I do think he exemplifies being reliable, because it's the right thing to do.

Conversely, Joe doesn't really expect others to help him. He wants to be relied on, but doesn't want to rely on others. He saves TK from drowning in the bay without thinking of his own safety.

Joe is also the studious member of the group. At one point, while they're temporarily back in Odaiba, Joe takes a practice test and fails it. This causes him a lot of anxiety. It feeds into the situation at home, which is another point I'll get into shortly.

In Our War Game, Joe is unreachable because he's taking an entrance exam. He's in a panic the whole time, showing how important it is that he does well. No doubt he's one of those cram school kids.

As for his family, we do meet his older brother Jim, but not his parents. In fact, Joe's parents are the only ones we don't meet out of the original 8. We do hear a lot about his dad, though, who has high expectations of his sons. Mr Kido wants both of his sons to be doctors like him, and on his terms, too. Jim says he wants to go to less developed countries to practice medicine, and that their father doesn't approve.

Jim also doesn't seem to have much faith in Joe becoming a doctor due to his high anxiety, and the fact that he faints at the sight of blood. Joe seems apprehensive about it himself, even though he does eventually go into med school and become a doctor.

To me, Joe's story is one of perseverance. When he's working off his debt in the diner, he fully expects to work there until it's paid off and is genuinely surprised that Matt would offer to help. When his test scores fall, he resolves to work harder. Even though he doesn't like the idea much at first he does eventually become a doctor. I can see how the original script would give him the crest of faith with all that in mind, but I still think reliability fits him better. He doesn't just have faith that things will work out, he's proactive in making sure they work out. Even if he's a little clumsy about it.

[digi-lov]

Digimon & Tamagotchi

Bandai V-Pet Crossovers Part 1 (Part 2)

In 1996 Bandai and WiZ inc. released the original Tamagotchi. To their surprise, the toy proved to be popular among boys as well, despite it being mostly marketed for girls. And in 1997, as a more targeted approach to this demographic, Digital Monsters was born!

A huge virtual pet boom followed and not only did Bandai and Wiz release new versions of Tamagotchi and Digital Monsters, and try multiple v-pets with a variety of styles within the next couple of years, but other companies also tried to bandwagon on the success of these virtual pets!

(Such as Nintendo in 1998 with the Pocket Pikachu-)

While the Tamagotchi was shaped like an egg (jap. tamago) with a crack in its shell where the screen is, the Digital Monster was shaped like a brick cage with bust-open bars! It also featured the ability to connect and battle! Otherwise they both use the same three button layout and similar menu icons. On the Tamagotchi, the toilet icon is portrayed by a duck themed potty, which is also used as the look for the Portable Potty items in many Digimon games.

Now with how closely these two franchises were developed, there's bound to be more that connects the two, right?

One such thing is Tamagotchimoji and Digimoji/DigiCode!

You can see that the two scripts are basically identical, just stylized differently. While Tamagotchimoji got used sparsely until they stopped using it in 2004 (But had a surprising comeback in one social media post on April 10, 2023?!), Digimoji has been used, and still is being used everywhere in the Digimon franchise! There is also a separate set of characters for the Latin Alphabet.

[Tamagotchimoji on the left, Digimoji on the right, respective Hiragana above the character]

Just like we know it from the Digimon Franchise, the Tamagotchi also grow through evolutionary stages along a branching path, depending on how well you take care of them! The original line of Tamagotchi as well as Digimon owe their designs to Kenji Watanabe! Generally all Tamagotchi's names end in "-tchi" or "-chi", similar to how Digimon names end in "-mon".

In these evolution charts, the Tamagotchi and Digimon are arranged by how well they've been taken care of / how good they are, with the top line being the best, and the bottom being the worst.

But that Tamagotchi chart is actually just the international version, which had "Bill" (aka Gaijintchi/Ketotchi) as secret character past the adult stage. Instead the Japanese version featured "Oyajitchi" (jap. oyaji means "old man").

But wait, doesn't that face look familiar...?

According to the Digimon Reference Book, Nanimon's true identity is unknown and it in fact came from another dimension, where it was known under the title OYAJI. In order to survive in the new environment of the Digital World, Nanimon had to go through a lot of training and battling.

Nanimon's name is also a play on its bizarre nature. In Japanese, "nanimon" is a casual abbreviation of "nanimono" which means "what (thing)". So, with intonation indicating a question, "nanimonda" can mean both "What are you?" or "I am Nanimon".

This joke is even included directly in Digimon World when the player encounters Nanimon.

「ん？なにもんだ？！」 "N? Nanimon da?!" “Huh? What are you?!” 「ナニモンだァ！」 "Nanimon da!" “I’m Nanimon!”

Nanimon's nature as an alien to this World is also reflected in his trait in the Card Game being "Invader".

Nanimon BT6-058 by Kenji Watanabe from BT-06 Booster Double Diamond

So yeah, Nanimon is supposed to be Oyajitchi who came from the Tamagotchi World to the Digital World.

Stay tuned for next friday when we talk about another World connected to the Digital World!

Special thanks to: tamagotchi wiki, gotchi-garden and tamatalk for being great resources!

If you're interested in more Tamagotchi stuff, go check out @tamapalace !

[tobiasdrake]

Digimon Adventure 01x43 - A Dangerous Game! Pinocchimon / Playing Games

Previously on Digimon Adventure: After an arduous battle, WarGreymon finally defeated MetalSeadramon. Whamon only scored an Assist despite doing a ridiculous amount of work to make that happen, which really goes to show how unfairly competitive PVP games incentivize toxic play over support and teamwork.

Due to the staggering of episode breaks, the original picks up fresh where we left off while the dub keeps on going 'cause we're two minutes into the new one. The children watch the ocean ribbon around Spiral Mountain withdraw back into the world below.

Takeru: Spiral Mountain's ocean is returning to normal! Hikari: Why? Gomamon: It must be because we defeated its ruler MetalSeadramon! Koushiro: So the dark powers controlling it disappeared! Taichi: Our win cleaned out some of the darkness in this world! Jou: Let's keep this pace up and defeat the rest of the Dark Masters! Tailmon: And then peace will return to Earth! Taichi: YES!!! LET'S GO!!! Jou, Tailmon, & Piyomon: YEAH!!!

MetalSeadramon ate shit and now we're 1/4 of the way to purifying the two worlds. The kids share a moment of excitement and jubilation.

...I mean, Yamato seems to be much more interested in whatever Mimi's doing than in this conversation but you can barely notice them; I'm sure it's not important.

The reversion of MetalSeadramon's domain is a fascinating plot point because it speaks to how corrupt and artificial Spiral Mountain truly is. They didn't just change the landscape, like building an artificial island out of dirt in a bay; The powers of darkness are actively forcing reality to be like this, against its nature. The Digital World is straining to return to its natural state, and will do so as soon as the obstruction is removed.

Like two north ends of a magnet being forced to touch each other by a Dark Master holding them together.

In the dub:

T.K.: Spiral Mountain's ocean is almost completely gone! Kari: But why? Gomamon: Maybe because we kicked its Dark Master's butt! Izzy: Quite interesting, but does this affect us? Tai: Absolutely! It changes everything; If we're going to get any surfing in, we'd better hurry! Joe: Those wimpy Dark Masters are no threat to Super Joe! Gatomon: That's the digi-tude I like to hear from you humans! Tai: ALRIGHT, LET'S GO!!! Joe, Gatomon, & Biyomon: YEAH!!!

The dub follows the script up through Gomamon's line, then decides that's all the exposition we really need to understand what the rules are and what our plan needs to be from here.

To be fair, they're not wrong. The original dialogue is a bit dry and over-explains things. "We defeated the Dark Master so his domain was purified," doesn't actually need three lines to comprehend.

Though it's amazing how erroneously unimpressed Izzy is. "Okay but does this really affect us?" asks the dub's pseudo-intellectual version of the character who routinely uses big words to explain the lore incorrectly, about a cornerstone victory in our mission.

Rallied up and ready to go fight the other Dark Masters, the kids--

Mimi: Wait!

Taichi: What are you doing? Yamato: Can't you tell? They're making graves. Taichi: Huh? Graves? Mimi: (points to far right grave) That's Whamon's grave. (Next to it) That one's Piccolomon's. (far left) That one's Chuumon's. (lays hands on the one she's building) And this one is for Wizarmon. Sora: (solemnly) All of them were destroyed while trying to help us. Tailmon: They all died. You could say they were sacrifices to our cause. Taichi: Then we need to ganbaru for their sakes too!

Taichi tries to use ganbaru, the Japanese cultural value of perseverance through great hardship via hard work and diligence, to revive the gung-ho atmosphere he'd had going a moment ago. But his eagerness to rally the troops causes Mimi's boiling emotions to escalate.

Taichi: We must completely and utterly destroy our enemy! Mimi: I won't. Taichi: (surprised) What did you say? Mimi: I WON'T DO THIS ANYMORE!!! WHY DO WE HAVE TO KEEP FIGHTING!?!? Taichi: What are you talking about!? We have to avenge their deaths! Mimi: STOP IT!!!

Mimi has never wanted to be part of this. She's never been comfortable with the lengths they've had to go to for survival, and she's never liked all the violence. From the beginning of them being "chosen", all she's ever wanted was to go home.

Now, in the middle of grieving for their dead, Taichi starts talking about how we need to kick in the door and go shoot up our enemies, damn the consequences, and Mimi breaks completely.

The dub can't exactly disguise what Mimi's doing. It's pretty obvious what she's making. There's no talking around that.

Mimi: Wait! We're not through here yet. Tai: Mimi? What are you doing? Matt: In case you haven't noticed, some of our friends are gone. Tai: Oh. ...sorry. Mimi: (points to far right grave) That one is to remember Wizardmon. (Next to it) The one next to it is for Piximon. (far left) That one's Chuumon. (lays hands on the one she's building) And this one here is for Whamon. Sora: Mimi, they're not dead. It's more like they've been downloaded to a different computer. Gatomon: That's right. We're digital. Our information just gets reconfigured.

They can, however, deny that the character deaths are in any way meaningful and browbeat Mimi for overreacting. Thanks, I hate it.

Interesting choice to swap Whamon and WIzardmon's graves, though. They probably wanted Whamon's to be the one closest to Mimi, that she rests her hands on and later cries over, given how fresh that wound is. I agree with that change.

Tai: What better reason do we need to get the Dark Masters? Payback for making our friends leave! Mimi: I'm not going! Tai: Huh!? What did you say!? Mimi: I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!!! EVERY TIME WE FIGHT, WE WIND UP LOSING ANOTHER FRIEND!!! Tai: This is war, Mimi, and sometimes people we like get hurt, so DEAL WITH IT!!! Mimi: STOP IT, TAI!!!

:-O

Gonna be honest, based on how previous episodes have handled Taichi's flaws, I fully expected them to dial back Tai's unhelpful aggressiveness here. Nope! He legit tells Mimi "People die in war; Fucking deal with it!" Holy shit. Holy shit.

While Mimi's breaking down, Yamato cuts in on her behalf.

Yamato: TAICHI!!! Try to consider other people's feelings for a change! Taichi: Huh? What do you mean? Yamato: What you said is right, I'll give you that. Taichi: ... (confused) Yamato: But just because it's right, that doesn't mean we can all shove our feelings down and just do it! Taichi: (small gasp) ... Takeru: Onii-chan! Yamato: We all know that we need to keep moving forward! (Voice breaks, getting emotional) But there are times when you have to stop and remember what we've lost, aren't there?

We cut to a wide shot of the group, with Mimi both visibly and audibly crying for the entire rest of this conversation.

Mimi: (crying) Taichi: If we're always stopping to do that then we won't have time to save the world! Yamato: WE KNOW THAT!!! But... Sora: Hey, can we stop this? Everybody's upset. Palmon: (hugs Mimi) Don't cry, Mimi. Jou: We're too exposed out here. Let's move somewhere safer.

Sora steps in to be the peacemaker as usual, and bottle back up the boiling tensions that have been growing between Taichi and Yamato for months. Then Jou steps up to be the senpai and get everyone moving out of the open, and all of this hostility and intense emotion is pushed aside.

For now.

In the dub:

Matt: Enough! Why don't you stop and think about other people's feelings for a change! Tai: Huh!? What are you talking about!? Matt: We all know you're right, Tai, but just give us a little space! Tai: Huh? Matt: We miss our friends who fought alongside of us! Not everyone has ice running through their veins like you do! Tai: Wha--? T.K.: Calm down! Matt: You're so busy looking forward that you never take time to look back! We've lost some good friends here, Tai, and it's nice to remember them once in a while! Tai: If we always stop to do that, we'll never have enough time to save the world! Matt: You still don't get it! I know you hear me, but you're not listening! Mimi: (starts crying) Sora: STOP IT!!! You're making everyone upset! You two are supposed to be friends! Palmon: Don't cry, Mimi! Joe: We're sitting ducks out here. Let's find someplace a little less out in the open.

A while back, I talked about how Japanese aggressive language tends to attack someone's actions or words while English prefers to attack the person directly. We see a good example of that here.

Yamato: "Your words are correct but are spoken without consideration for others' feelings!" Matt: "You have ice in your veins!"

These are the same sentiment but expressed differently. Yamato attacks the thoughtless words that Taichi's been speaking while Matt attacks Tai personally.

In any case, I do think Yamato's in the right here. Taichi is correct in the big picture that defeating the remaining Dark Masters must be the goal. However, the kids are not mindless soldier drones; They're real people, children even, with real feelings that they need time to process. They have to be able to stop for a moment to breathe, and to mourn their fallen.

Also, Taichi made my kid cry so off the cliff he goes. Koushiro can relate.

The dub's take on this argument is... complicated. On the one hand, they made a point that nobody died and Mimi's overreacting, which weakens Matt's position. But the subtext is nonetheless clear, and Tai yelled at Mimi to suck it up and deal with wartime casualties so his thoughtlessness is still on full display.

The kids make their way into what is clearly Vamdemon's woods, or was once upon a time before Spiral Mountain.

They walk in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Taichi: (thinking) Could I have been wrong? Yamato: (thinking) Do we really have no choice but to keep moving like this? Without ever stopping to rest? Takeru: (thinking) Onii-chan, why are you acting like this? Koushiro: (thinking) If this keeps up, our loyalty to each other will break down. I have to do something. Jou: (thinking) I need to find a place where we can stop and take a break. Sora: (thinking) Everybody's tired. Hikari: Onii-chan? Taichi: ...

Even when Hikari speaks up, calling out to Taichi, he walks on in silence and ignores her. This team is at its breaking point.

Mimi doesn't share any thoughts, but group shots show her walking with a hand over her eye. We can't hear her anymore, but she still seems to be crying.

In the dub:

Tai: (thinking) I'm not as cold as Matt thinks, am I? Matt: (thinking) Maybe I was a little too rough on Tai, but he's gotta respect our feelings! T.K.: (thinking) I've never seen Matt so upset before. Izzy: (thinking) This is terrible. We should be concentrating on fighting our enemies, not each other. Joe: (thinking) I just know they're all thinking about me! That's why no one's talking! Sora: (thinking) Everyone's so tired and cranky. Hikari: You okay? Tai: ....

Matt softens up a bit in the dub, though he still doubles down on his position like Yamato does all the same.

Jou, meanwhile, has another senpai moment turn into a laugh line about what a tool Joe is. Joe, what possible reason could you have for thinking that any of this is about you? You had one line in the argument and it was "We should get moving."

Suddenly, Hikari notices something. She stops walking, looking around the twisted woods around them.

Hikari: ... (Hikari hangs back) Tailmon: What's wrong, Hikari? Hikari: Did you hear something just now? Tailmon: Like what? Hikari: You didn't hear something like a voice? Tailmon: Like a voice? No, I didn't. Hikari: Oh.... Tailmon: We should catch up before we lose sight of the others! Hikari: Okay!

We're given no audio cues of any kind to indicate what Hikari heard. There is a sound, but it's a sharp SUSPENSE tone that plays when something startling or unexpected occurs.

We hear nothing in the dub either, though she has a bigger reaction to it. They replace the suspense tone with Kari herself making startled mouth noises.

Kari: Whuh!? (Kari hangs back) Gatomon: Why'd you stop, Kari? Kari: Did you hear a noise just now? Gatomon: What kind of noise? Kari: You mean you didn't hear someone speaking just a second ago? Gatomon: You mean a voice? No, I didn't hear anything at all. Kari: Weird. Gatomon: Come on, let's get back to the others. There's safety in numbers. Kari: (affirmative) Hm.

All in all, a pretty faithful translation.

Hikari hurries to catch up but, unbeknownst to the group, they're being monitored.

Taichi: (angry) Where did you go!? Hikari: I thought I heard something, but it was just my imagination. Taichi: It's dangerous, so don't wander off on your own! Hikari: Mm, okay.

While Taichi's scolding Hikari, we pan out to see that they're being monitored on a security screen.

Pinocchimon: They need to hurry up and get here! I'm getting tired of waiting for them.... Kiwimon: Well, they are human children. Pinocchimon: Ugh, honestly, they're so slow!

Pinocchimon presses a button on a remote in his hand, causing a conveyor belt beneath the children's feet to activate. It rushes them on ahead, startling everyone.

Taichi: Huh? What the...? Hikari: The scenery's rushing past us. Kids: EHHHHH!?!? Jou: WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!?!? Koushiro: The ground we're standing on is moving forward! Pinochimon: (in his room) There! I'm such a good host!

Nothing suspicious or dangerous about this whatsoever!

...maybe we could have stood to take our rest back at the graves.

In the dub:

Tai: (angry) Where were you two!? Kari: I thought I heard something but it was just my imagination. Tai: It's dangerous out here, so stay with the group. Kari: Okay, I'm sorry. (Pan out through security monitor into Puppetmon's place) Puppetmon: If these kids take any longer to get here, I will develop wood rot! Kiwimon: Have patience; Rome wasn't built in a day. Puppetmon: Yeah, but I was, and I'm tired of waiting! (Remote beep; Ground starts moving for the kids) Tai: Huh!? What's this!? Kari: Why are the trees running so fast!? Kids: AHHHHHHHHH!!! Joe: WHAT IS GOING ONE!?!? Izzy: THINGS AREN'T MOVING FASTER; WE ARE!!! THE GROUND WE'RE STANDING ON IS ACCELERATING!!! Puppetmon: This is more fun than the time I was fumigated for termites!

The dub's having a lot of fun making wood jokes with Puppetmon. Though the second one doesn't really make sense in context; Puppetmon was not built in a day. He's a Mega Digimon; It took a long time and a lot of hard work to become a Puppetmon.

Kiwimon's original voice performance is young and boyish, similar to Pinocchimon's. Dub Kiwimon is a stuffy old English butler, like Puppetmon's very own Alfred.

Now that the Chosen Children are on their way at turbo speed, it's time to figure out what sort of games Pinocchimon's going to play with them.

Pinocchimon: When those kids get here, what should we play with? Let's see....

Pinocchimon digs through his toy box before pulling out a revolver.

Pinocchimon: Aha! Check this out! A .44 Magnum. It's really destructive! (holds up a bullet) And this is a dumdum bullet! (loads it) When you shoot someone with this, you can see right through their stomach!

Demonstrating zero muzzle discipline whatsoever, Pinocchimon levels the gun straight at Kiwimon with his finger on the trigger.

"Dumdum bullet" is a way of saying it's an expanding bullet; One that's designed to expand on impact and create a much larger wound than a normal bullet would. Hollow points are a well-known type of dumdum bullet.

In the dub:

Puppetmon: (digging through toy box) Now, where did I put those dolls? I haven't seen some of these toys since I was a sapling!

That's it. That's all you're getting. He makes another wood joke and then we cut the fuck out of there before he finds what he's looking for. You can feel the censors screaming "ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!"

I have no doubts that this episode made at least a couple people on the dub team cry.

Incidentally, as a Wind Guardian, Puppetmon's "In-Training" form would have been a Yokomon. So he was, indeed, a sapling at one point. That joke checks out.

Meanwhile, the children try jumping off the track they're on to avoid whatever's waiting up ahead.

Taichi: Jump off to the side!

They jump off into the grass to their side, but then that grass starts moving instead of the conveyor. There's no getting out of this.

Koushiro: NOW THIS ONE'S MOVING!!! Sora: Hey, where do you think this is taking us? Yamato: Where else? The enemy must be waiting up ahead! Takeru: Oh no! Jou: We can't just let ourselves fall into the enemy's hands! Taichi: You're right....

Meanwhile, Pinocchimon's still digging through his toy chest. He takes out a long-range grabbing toy.

Pinocchimon: They still aren't here yet!?

Pinocchimon extends the toy, grabbing Kiwimon's head. Kiwimon pays it no mind.

Kiwimon: Pinocchimon-sama, there's no sign of the children anywhere. Pinocchimon: WHAT DID YOU SAY!?!?

Pinocchimon yanks Kiwimon offscreen, with comical crashing sound effect, then rushes over to see the monitor himself. Sure enough, the children are gone.

Pinocchimon: HUH!?!? W-WHY!?!?

Panicking Pinocchimon pulls out his remote and flips frantically through surveillance feeds, but can't find the children on any of them. We don't see for ourselves but, from audio, it seems that at some point he starts swapping through actual Japanese television channels rather than his security feeds.

Cutting back to the Children, we see they're actually still where we left them, right next to the edge where the currently moving grass chunk connects to the conveyor walkway. But they've climbed the trees and gotten out of sight.

Sora: I wonder if one of the Dark Masters is here. Koushiro: That seems likely. Jou: We were walking straight towards the enemy this whole time! Taichi: But we have to face them at some point anyway. It's the same result either way! Yamato: (angry) We all know that! You didn't have to say it, you know! Takeru: Onii-chan! Don't start fighting! Yamato: (softens) Takeru....

We may have had a momentary ceasefire, but things still aren't settled between Taichi and Yamato.

In the dub:

Tai: We've gotta jump off! (The kids jump, only for that chunk to start moving) Izzy: Now this part's moving! Sora: Obviously, someone's trying to get us somewhere and in a big hurry. Matt: I bet you're right. Why do I get the feeling that someone's not too friendly? T.K.: Oh no! Joe: This is the first time I've ever been carsick without a car! Tai: I've got a plan!

Joe's participation in this conversation is reduced to him whining about his poor constitution again, and the dub credits Tai for single-handedly coming up with the tree-climb escape.

Puppetmon: This one's always good for a few laughs. (Puppetmon long-range grabs Kiwimon) Kiwimon: Master!? Yes, that's very entertaining, Lord Puppetmon, but there's no sign of the children. (Puppetmon yanks Kiwimon offscreen and replaces him) Puppetmon: WHAT!?!? They were here a second ago! Where are they!? (beep) Not here... (beep) Not here! I need a new cable company!

Despite "I need a new cable company" being a perfect setup for the TV channel gag, it doesn't happen in this version. All we hear is the beeps from his remote while he flicks through the feeds.

Sora: I have a hunch that one of the Dark Masters is behind all this. Izzy: I bet you're right. Joe: We have to do something! I say we either keep going or we build a nest! Tai: Well, I say we have to fight whoever it is sooner or later, so let's get to it! Matt: Oh, come on! Again with the fighting? Why don't you just go to a neutral corner or something! T.K.: Come on, Matt; Please stop fighting. Matt: You keep out of this!

Yamato's problem is that Taichi's vocal eagerness to fight is insensitive to everybody else's feelings. He doesn't disagree that we do have to fight them but he doesn't like the blunt way Taichi expresses it; He doesn't like that Taichi seems almost excited to be walking into a trap, seeing it not as any kind of danger but as an opportunity to throw hands with the next Dark Master.

Taichi's position right now is basically Guardians 3 Star-Lord. "It's not a trap if you know the trapper's trying to trap you; Then it's a face off!"

Matt in this scene seems to be disagreeing with even fighting the Dark Masters at all? That's a sentiment Mimi expressed when she was breaking down, but that's not Yamato's position. Also, he snaps at T.K. to shut up, which is a pretty significant dialogue change to make him look even worse than his altered argument does.

Yamato backs off at Takeru's behest, but Taichi keeps pushing.

Taichi: If we stay in hiding, we'll end up getting slaughtered. We should go straight to where the enemy is! Yamato: Hold on a second! Takeru: Onii-chan!

Suddenly, Taichi flickers out of existence, as if teleported.

Yamato: Taichi disappeared! Hikari: Onii-chan! Koromon: TAICHI!!! Jou: Where did he go!? (vanishing sound effect; pan over to the others) Sora: Mimi-chan disappeared too! Palmon: Mimi, where are you!? (Sora and Koushiro disappear) Piyomon: Sora!? Tentomon: Ah, Koushiro-han is gone too! (Jou and Hikari vanish) Gomamon: Jou!? Tailmon: Hikari! Takeru: Everyone disappeared!

Suddenly and without warning, Takeru and Yamato are the only ones left in the tree. Well, them and all of the Digimon.

In the dub:

Tai: Alright, Matt, let's try it your way. We'll stay up here and wait for the enemy to get us! Matt: That's not what I meant! T.K.: Stop it, Matt! (Tai vanishes) Matt: Where'd Tai go!? He disappeared! Kari: Did he fall!? Koromon: Oh no! Joe: He vanished into thin air! (vanishing sound effect; pan over to the others) Sora: Look! Now Mimi's gone! Palmon: Mimi, come back! (Sora and Izzy disappear) Piyomon: Sora!? Tentomon: Maybe their screensavers are on sleep! (Joe and Kari vanish) Gomamon: Joe! Tailmon: Kari! T.K.: Everybody's disappeared but us!

Not sure what Tentomon's joke here is supposed to mean, but otherwise pretty faithful.

The kids re-emerge in pairs throughout the forest, in the order they disappeared.

Taichi and Mimi appear together.

Taichi: What the--!? Mimi: EHHH!?!?

Sora and Koushiro appear together, with Koushiro standing on a log.

Sora: W-What just happened? Koushiro: The enemy must be behind this.

Jou and Hikari appear together, with Jou appearing in a pool of mud which splashes all over him. Because fate is unkind to our poor put-upon senpai.

Jou: WAAAUGH!!! It's cold.... Hikari: ...Tailmon?

While Yamato and Takeru remain in the tree, untransported.

Yamato: They're gone! Takeru: Why? How did this happen? Yamato: I don't know. The enemy must have done something to them.

In the dub:

(Tai and Mimi appear) Tai: Ah! What's going on!? Mimi: OH!?!? (Sora and Izzy appear) Sora: Huh!? How'd we get over here!? Izzy: We've been transported! (Joe and Kari appear) Joe: WAAAUGH!!! I hate mud. Kari: GATOMON!!! (Matt and T.K. remain) Matt: I think it's over! T.K.: But now we're separated from everyone else! Matt: Don't worry; We'll be alright without the others. Especially Tai!

Two separate characters speculating that the Dark Masters are doing this have their lines changed. This hits Matt the hardest, as his replacement line is incredibly spiteful.

Unsure of what's going on, Yamato turns his attention to what matters most to him.

Yamato: Takeru. Takeru: What? Yamato: I'll do whatever it takes to protect you, so stay close to me. Takeru: Onii-chan, we only made it this far by working as a team. So why do you keep giving me special treatment? Yamato: ...Takeru...? Takeru: (hurt) I've been fighting right there beside the rest of you this whole time! Haven't I? Am I just a burden to you? Onii-chan, are you saying you'll protect me because you see me as unreliable? Yamato: Takeru, that's not what I meant... I... What I wanted to say was.... Takeru: What? Yamato: (thinking) I... I....

This has been a long-time coming, since all the way back on File Island. It has its roots all the way back in the Seadramon episode, when Yamato wanted to remove the bones from Takeru's fish but Taichi taught Takeru to do it himself. Takeru feels infantilized by Yamato's treatment, and is finally confronting Yamato about it.

In the dub, this comes on the heels of Matt saying they're better off on their own and to screw the others, so the vibe is different.

Matt: T.K.? T.K.: Yeah? Matt: Just stick close to me and I'll protect you no matter what happens! T.K.: Listen, Matt. The only reason we got this far is because we worked as a team. Each one of us has played a part along the way in keeping us together, including Tai! Matt: But I...! T.K.: (angry) And I don't need you to protect me all the time, neither! If you haven't noticed, I've grown up a lot! I've fought alongside you guys since the beginning and I've always held my own! Matt: T.K., that's not what I meant. What I... What I wanted to say was.... T.K.: What? Matt: (thinking) I'm pushing everyone away!

This is meant to be a close, personal moment about the long-running wedge that's been growing between the brothers. The dub makes it about Matt failing to appreciate the contributions of Tai and the rest of their group, including T.K.'s.

It still makes time for T.K. to bring up Matt's behavior, but that's not the focus of the scene. And T.K. furiously yells at Matt about it, rather than the more sensitive and wounded tone he takes during the original confrontation.

Cut to Pinocchimon in his room. He's laid out a crudely drawn forest map, using dolls of the kids for the teleportation trick. Those are the dolls he was looking for in the dub, before they cut the parts with the gun.

Pinocchimon: (singing) One, two, and three have disappeared~! Pinocchimon: Hey, Kiwimon! This is taking too long. I should just kill them all. Kiwimon: Then you won't have anyone left to play with. Pinocchimon: I guess you're right.

Taking aim with his slingshot, Pinocchimon shoots Jou's doll in the stomach, knocking it over. The real Jou grabs his stomach and screams in agony, falling into the mud from the force of Pinocchimon's shot.

Hikari: JOU-SAN!!! Pinocchimon: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Watching through the monitor, Pinocchimon cracks up laughing at Jou's agony.

Hikari: Jou-san, are you okay? Jou: My stomach suddenly.... Hikari: Does your stomach hurt? Jou: I've been shot in the stomach! Hikari: EHHH!?!?

The dub changes up Puppetmon's sing-song to something that will better rhyme in English.

Puppetmon: (singing) One, two, three, you're still in the tree~! Puppetmon: ...y'know, Kiwimon, this isn't as much fun as I thought it would be. I should just destroy them all. Kiwimon: Then you won't have anyone left to play with. Puppetmon: Good point! (Puppetmon shoots Joe, who falls down screaming) Kari: JOE!!! Puppetmon: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Kari: Joe, are you alright!? Joe: My stomach...! Kari: What's wrong? Does it hurt? Joe: No! I'm just doing this 'cause it's fun! Kari: JOE!!!

Even with a slingshot, they seem reluctant to let Joe state he's been shot. Joe sarcastically quips instead. Solid sarcastic quip, though. Perfectly suits the tone.

Pinocchimon has some more ideas to play around with the children.

Pinocchimon: I think I'll try this next... Take this... And this... And do this!

Pinocchimon swaps Taichi and Jou's dolls, causing them to teleport into each other's places.

Hikari: (Taichi appears) Onii-chan! Mimi: (Jou appears) What's going on!? Pinocchimon: Then I do this.... (Pinocchimon swaps Hikari for Sora) Taichi: Hikari! Again!? Koushiro: (sees Hikari appear) Hikari-san! Hikari: Koushiro-san! Where am I? Pinocchimon: And when I do this....

Pinocchimon turns Taichi's doll upside-down and bops his head on the ground. The same happens to Taichi.

Sora: T-Taichi!? Taichi: AUGH!!!

He swaps Yamato in the tree for Koushiro, then swaps Takeru for Mimi.

Koushiro: Mimi-san!

Then he picks up Takeru's doll and tickles him in the belly.

Pinocchimon: TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE!!! Takeru: (laughing hysterically and flailing in midair) (Takeru's set back down on the ground) Jou: Are you okay, Takeru-ku--WAUGH!!! (Jou vanishes, replaced by Yamato) Takeru: Onii-chan! Yamato: Takeru! (hug)

In the dub:

Puppetmon: I've got a new game I want to play! Come here! You too! (Puppetmon swaps Tai and Joe) Kari: (Tai appears; sarcastic) Oh, brother. Mimi: (Joe appears) AHH!!! STOP MOVING!!! Puppetmon: This is like playing chess with the DigiDestined! Tai: Kari! Kari: HELP!!! (vanishes, replaced by Sora) Izzy: (Kari appears) Fascinating! Kari: Maybe for you! Where are we? Puppetmon: We've reached the turning point! (turns Tai upside-down and bops him) Sora: Impossible! Tai: Ugh! (Matt and T.K. exchanged for Izzy and Mimi) Izzy: (Mimi appears) Welcome back! Puppetmon: (tickles T.K.) Coochie-coochie-coo! T.K.: (laughing hysterically and flailing in midair) (T.K.'s set back down on the ground) Joe: I don't know what's so funny but this is no laughing ma-- (Joe vanishes, replaced by Matt) T.K.: Matt, you're back! Matt: T.K.! (hug)

Most of this scene is the kids flailing and yelling each other's names so it'd be hard to get wrong. The dub has some good bits in it. I like Izzy's "Fascinating...." when he sees Kari pop up, and having Joe cut off mid-complaint was also pretty fun.

While the children are being teleported around left and right, the Digimon remain up in the tree.

Piyomon: Where did everybody go? Tailmon: We're no help up here. Let's go search for them! Patamon: Got it! I'll go find Takeru! Mimi: (quietly) ...I'm going to wait here.... Koromon: Koushiro! You stay here with Mimi! Koushiro: Understood. Please find everyone else. Digimon: ON IT!!!

The Digimon leap down from the tree, heading into the forest to find their Partners.

Meanwhile, in Pinocchimon's room, he's making choices. On the surveillance monitor, he's zoomed in on Takeru.

Pinocchimon: I think I'll play with this one first. He looks fun to pick on! Kiwimon: Shall I retrieve him? Pinocchimon: Nah. I'll go get him myself.

Pinocchimon slides down the fireman's pole in his room to the ground floor, then sprints out the front door, eager to acquire his new toy.

In the dub:

Biyomon: You know, I'm getting tired of doing nothing. Gatomon: I won't be some cat stuck in a tree! Let's go look for them. Patamon: Good idea. I'll start by looking for T.K.! Mimi: Oh, this is awful! Koromon: You said it! How could it get any worse? (Cracking sound) Izzy: I'll tell you how! The branches are starting to crack! Digimon: AHHHHH!!! (leap down from the tree) Patamon: They should learn to fly.

A small change: Tailmon takes charge of the Digimon in this scene, demonstrating her maturity and headstrong confidence. The dub lets Biyomon be the one to broach the topic of taking action, though Gatomon's still the one who cements it into a plan.

The more glaring change is Mimi and Koushiro. Mimi refuses to leave the tree, finally delivering the first significant line she's had since she broke down crying at the graves of Whamon and the others. It's a reminder that she is, at this point, utterly traumatized into inaction.

Which the Digimon accept without question, charging Koushiro to watch over her while they go into the fray.

The dub swaps that out for a more generic "This is awful", offering no reason why Mimi and Izzy would remain in the tree - especially after adding in that the branches are all about to break? Weird-ass choice.

Puppetmon: I think I found a new toy to play with. He looks very easy to scare. Kiwimon: You want me to get him for you? Puppetmon: No! I'll get this one myself!

That part's pretty faithful.

We go to a commercial break from here and come back to Yamato checking on Takeru.

Yamato: Takeru, are you okay? Takeru: Uh, I think so, but I suddenly felt something tickling me and I couldn't stop laughing. Maybe something's wrong with me. Yamato: Are you sure you're not hurt? Takeru: Hey, stop worrying about me so much! I can take care of myself now! Yamato: Takeru.... Pinocchimon: (singing in the distance) Let's play~!

Yamato stands up quickly. He and Takeru frantically scan the woods around them.

Takeru: Who's that? Pinocchimon: (slightly closer) Let's play~! Yamato: Takeru, be careful! Pinocchimon: (very close) Let's play~! Takeru: (thinking) The voice is getting closer....

Suddenly, Pinocchimon claps his hands over Takeru's eyes from behind. Takeru reacts quickly, grabbing the hands and shoving them away, then sprinting forward and whipping around as soon as he's free from Pinocchimon's grasp.

Pinocchimon backflips away from Takeru, landing a short distance away and raising his hands.

Pinocchimon: Let's play! Takeru: You're....

Before Takeru can finish that thought, Yamato steps between them.

Yamato: Just try and lay a finger on Takeru again! I'll make you regret it!

In the dub:

Matt: T.K., are you alright? T.K.: I guess so! But I felt like something was tickling me and I couldn't stop laughing! I wonder if there's something wrong with me? Matt: Are you sure you're not hurt? T.K.: Hey! Stop being so worried about me! I told you before that I know how to take care of myself! Matt: (startled) Okay! Puppetmon: (singing in the distance) Hey T.K.! (slightly closer) Whaddya sa~ay! Matt: T.K., stay close. Puppetmon: (Very close) Time to pla~ay? T.K.: (thinking) Sounds like the voice is getting closer! (Puppetmon puts his hands over T.K.'s eyes; T.K. forces him off) Puppetmon: TIME TO PLAY!!! T.K.: It's you! Matt: (steps between) Keep your hands off my brother, Puppetmon, or I'll chop you into firewood!

I like Puppetmon's sing-song here. Good creepy rhyming scheme. Pinocchimon's steady repetition of the same singsong notes getting closer and closer also works for creepiness factor. They both handled that well.

Matt's "chop you into firewood" crack is my favorite of the wood jokes thus far.

Despite Yamato's attempt to intervene, Pinocchimon isn't interested in him. He continues to address Takeru directly.

Pinocchimon: So your name is Takeru. Hey, join me in a game of war. Takeru: A game? Like... just pretend? Pinocchimon: That's right. Here, I'll let you use this.

Pinocchimon holds up an uzi, then tosses it over to Takeru. Takeru catches it with both hands.

Takeru: I-It's heavy....

He drops the gun causing it to misfire and let off a few rounds. Takeru screams, flailing to stay out of its firing line until it stops.

Takeru: TH-THIS IS A REAL GUN!!! I'D DIE IF I PLAYED WITH THIS THING!!! Pinocchimon: OF COURSE!!! Dying for real is what makes the game fun! But don't worry, I won't let you die that easily. It'd be pretty boring if you died right away.

Natsuko has educated her son well about the dangers of being reckless around firearms.

Fucking viruses, y'all.

In the dub, Puppetmon talks to Matt instead of ignoring him and addressing T.K. directly.

Puppetmon: Aww, come on. All I wanted to do was play a little game of War with T.K.! T.K.: Oh? Play? You mean, like, pretend?

Then they cut the entire bit with the uzi and skip to Pinocchimon's response to Takeru's outrage.

Puppetmon: BUT OF COURSE!!! At least, in the beginning, it will be make-believe anyway! But then it's BYE-BYE!!! And it will be time to destroy you for real. If I got rid of you now, I'd have no fun!

So, obviously, the key difference between versions here is that Takeru did not accidentally misfire a machine gun.

As a small characterization note, Puppetmon doesn't quite grasp the idea that playing and killing are the same; He draws a clear line between the two.

Obviously, Yamato has some concerns about all of this.

Yamato: Takeru! Don't listen to him! Pinocchimon: YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!!!

Pinocchimon throws a red ball at Yamato, which explodes into ribbons to bind him.

Yamato: This...! Takeru: ONII-CHAN!!!

He tries to remain on his feet, but topples over after a second and falls forward into the dirt.

Takeru: ONII-CHAAAAN!!! Pinocchimon: Now, let's get going! Takeru: NO!!! Pinocchimon: You refuse? Hmm... It won't be any fun if you won't come, so... (points at Yamato) Maybe I'll just kill him instead. Takeru: Ah! Pinocchimon: Well...? Takeru: You can't! Pinocchimon: Then you're coming? Yamato: TAKERU!!! DON'T LISTEN TO HIM!!! Pinocchimon: Shut up!!!

Pinocchimon summons some extra ribbons to bind Yamato's mouth, so he can no longer participate in this conversation he wasn't invited to.

Pinocchimon: So, what do you say?

Takeru kneels down and picks up the discarded uzi from the ground.

Takeru: I'll go. I just have to come with you, right? Pinocchimon: That's what I wanted to hear!

Pinocchimon leads the way, while Yamato strains against his bonds and tries to talk through the muffling ribbons.

In the dub:

Matt: T.K., he's just trying to scare you! Don't listen to him! Puppetmon: DON'T LIE TO HIM OR YOUR NOSE WILL GROW!!! (Puppetmon ties Matt up in ribbons) Matt: I CAN'T MOVE NOW!!! T.K.: Are you okay!? (Matt falls down) T.K.: MATT!!! Puppetmon: Now, shall we get going? T.K.: Forget it! Puppetmon: You don't want to? Hmm... Well, if you don't come with me, it's no fun! (points at Matt) Maybe instead I'll destroooooy... your brother! Whaddya say? T.K.: Okay, I'll come! Puppetmon: That's a good boy! Matt: T.K., it's a trap! Run away now while you still can! Puppetmon: Shut up! (Puppetmon gags Matt) Puppetmon: So, is it a deal?

Unsurprisingly, they cut the shot of Takeru picking up the uzi and have Puppetmon keep speaking.

Puppetmon: We'll have lots of fun! Hehehehehe.... (walks off)

"Don't lie or your nose will grow" is a solid reference to Puppetmon's inspiration. I like that line.

Though the original "Stay out of this!" bit speaks to the core of this scene; Emphasizing that this is strictly between Takeru and Pinocchimon, and that Yamato's participation is unwelcome. This plays to the conflict between Yamato and Takeru.

Super weird delivery on "I'll destroy your brother," as sometimes happens when English lines have to shore up to lip flaps that were originally delivering Japanese dialogue.

Matt yelling "It's a trap" is hilarious. OH REALLY? Evil Pinocchio saying "Come play a game with me and I'll kill you when it's done" is a trap? You think so? I dunno. I like the cut of his jib.

Matt is yelling the blindingly obvious, but that works for me because it conveys his lack of trust in T.K. Pinocchimon's standing there with a neon sign that says "COME ENJOY MY TRAP" and Matt doesn't think T.K. can tell that the trap is, in fact, a trap.

Takeru follows Pinocchimon to his mansion, and playtime begins.

In a clear reference to the James Bond franchise, we look down the barrel of Pinocchimon's revolver while he sweeps it around the room, passing Takeru first but then going back for him. Takeru sets the uzi down helplessly on the ground when he realizes he's been made.

Pinocchimon: There you are! BANG!!!

Takeru flinches as if he'd been shot.

Pinocchimon: Hurry up and run; This is getting boring. Takeru: O-Okay!

Leaving the uzi behind, Takeru runs off deeper into the house.

Most of this does not make it into the dub. We hear Puppetmon's voice overlaid against an exterior shot of his house.

Puppetmon: Now you hide and I'll seek and destroy!

Followed by T.K. running for his life down the hallway. They also cut a shot from later of T.K. running up the stairs back in the foyer, with some direct editing done to paint over the revolver in Puppetmon's hand.

Puppetmon: That's good! Keep running! You make the game interesting!

Sprinting down the hall of Pinocchimon's mansion, Takeru looks for a place to hide.

Inside the room down the hall, Mushroomon and Blossomon can hear Takeru's footsteps.

Blossomon: Someone's coming. Mushroomon: Wonder who it is? Blossomon: Must be Pinocchimon-sama's new toy.

Takeru throws open the door and hides inside the room with them. Seeing the two Digimon inside, he doesn't really know what to say.

Takeru: U-Um....

He ignores them and then races around behind a shelf before peeking out.

Takeru: H-Hey, don't tell anyone I'm hiding here, okay?

Before the pair can even say anything, the door opens again. Pinocchimon enters the room.

Pinocchimon: Hey, did Takeru come in here? Blossomon: Takeru? Oh, if you mean that human boy, he's hiding behind the shelves. Pinocchimon: Really? Great!

Pinocchimon runs around to the shelves, then levels his gun at the gap, but Takeru is nowhere to be found.

Pinocchimon: Hands up! ...huh? He's not here? Mushroomon: WHAT!? THAT CAN'T BE!!! WE JUST SAW HIM!!!

Mushroomon and Blossomon run forward to see for themselves. Behind them, in the background, Takeru can be seen creeping around the wall to take cover behind the door.

Pinocchimon: LIARS!!!

Pinocchimon furiously lets out two shots, executing them both. Mushroomon and Blossomon disintegrate into pixels.

(Blossomon was a Perfect so, y'know, holy shit. Hollow-point ammunition is no joke.)

Pinocchimon: They make me so mad! (Takeru suddenly sprints out the door) Pinocchimon: Ah! There you are!

Then we get the shot the dub already used, of Takeru running up the stairs from the foyer.

Pinocchimon: (pursuing) Heading upstairs?

Takeru demonstrating how capable he is in this scene. Not only evading Pinocchimon in this closed room, but even outwitting two henchmon that would have spoiled his escape.

In the dub:

Blossomon: Hey, someone's coming! Mushroomon: Who could it be? Blossomon: Sounds to me like Lord Puppetmon has found a new play toy! (T.K. enters the room) T.K.: Oh, hi there! ...bye! (T.K. hides behind the shelf) T.K.: By the way, I'm hiding back here so don't say anything, 'kay? Mushroomon: No problem. (Puppetmon enters with his gun painted over) Puppetmon: Hey, you guys; You didn't happen to see a little kid run back here, did ya? He's got a green hat and a backpack. Blossomon: No, we didn't see anything like that, boss. Mushroomon: All we saw was a kid wearing a backpack and a green hat. He's hiding over there. Puppetmon: LOSERS!!!

They cut up the footage on Mushroomon and Blossomon's lines, so they can show as little of Puppetmon holding gun-shaped air as possible. They splice in close-ups of Mushroomon and Blossomon's faces for their lines.

Then, on "LOSERS", a super close-up of Puppetmon running through the hall edited to only show him from shoulders up replaces the actual footage of him jogging across the room and trying to ambush Takeru.

We rejoin the real footage at the shot of the empty space behind the shelves, since Pinocchimon's facing away for that and the gun is out-of-frame.

Puppetmon: Come out, come out wherever you are! Especially if you're behind the door. (Takeru runs out the door) Puppetmon: Aha!

Once he finds the space behind the shelf empty, the rest of this scene is cut. Blossomon and Mushroomon simply cease existing between shots and we go straight to Takeru running out the door.

Out in the woods, Patamon discovers Pinocchimon's mansion.

Patamon: What's a building doing out here? Maybe Takeru is in there!

Patamon goes in to investigate.

Inside the house, Takeru slips into Pinocchimon's playroom, looking for a place to hide. He unknowingly steps on Pinocchimon's remote, turning on the moving walkways and bringing all the children outside to a centralized location; Even the tree Mimi and Koushiro are in.

Jou: What's going on here!?

The Digimon cheerfully run up, joining the group.

Digimon/Piyomon: (miscellaneous vocalizing of cheers) / Sora! Gabumon: (alarmed) Yamato!

Gabumon slashes open Yamato's bindings with his claws.

Yamato: Takeru! Pinocchimon got Takeru! Taichi: What!? Hikari: That's terrible! Sora: We have to save him! Taichi: Where did Pinocchimon take Takeru? Yamato: (voice breaks, grabs his head despondently) I don't know.... Taichi: PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, YAMATO!!! Koushiro: I'm sure the moving walkway we were on before must lead to Pinocchimon. Jou: Yeah, that's right! Koromon: LET'S GO LOOK FOR THAT WALKWAY!!! Taichi: Yes! Let's go, everyone!

Back at the graves was not the time for Taichi. But now is the time for Taichi. Bold and immediate action is demanded of this situation.

In the dub:

Patamon: Hey, look! A house in the middle of the forest! I wonder if anyone inside has seen T.K.? (T.K. accidentally brings everyone together outside) Joe: What's going on around here!? Digimon: (run up) YAY!!! Gabumon: (alarmed) Matt! (Gabumon cuts Matt loose) Matt: T.K.! T.K. was taken prisoner by Puppetmon! Tai: Puppetmon!? Kari: Oh no! Sora: We have to help him! Tai: Where'd that creepy little toothpick take T.K.!? Matt: (voice breaks, grabs his head despondently) I don't know...! Tai: GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, MATT!!! Izzy: It shouldn't be that difficult to find them. I'm sure that first road we were on leads directly to Puppetmon. Joe: Then we'll all be trapped! Koromon: It's worth it to save T.K.! Tai: I agree! Let's go get 'em!

Joe's last line is changed to make him look cowardly and reluctant, when he was agreeing with this plan in the original.

"Creepy little toothpick". They are not letting up with the wood jokes but, again, that's a good one. Nicely personalized insult for Evil Pinocchio.

I like it when writers come up with inhuman insults for inhuman characters.

With a plan made, Taichi and Koromon rally the team. But before they can set out, they're interrupted by a new contestant.

Taichi: What the--? Kiwimon: Pinocchimon-sama is enjoying his playtime. Please do not interfere.

Kiwimon is an Adult-stage Data-type Ancient Bird Digimon from the Wind Guardians lineup, evolved from a Floramon that's been well-cared for but poorly trained.

I. Um. I need us all to try and be very mature (snerk) about their special attack name. Okay? Can we be grown-ups about this? (haha)

Narrator: Kiwimon. An ancient Digimon who was once believed to be extinct. Despite being a bird-type Digimon, their wings have degenerated so they cannot fly. Their special attack is Little Pecker. Kiwimon: LITTLE PECKER!!!

Look, when they were giving the move its fancy exotic English Words name, they probably didn't know. It makes sense in context. But holy shit, that is not making it across the pond intact. XD

Little Pecker is one of those attacks that spawn mini-me's, like Dokugumon's itty-bitty mini-Dokugumon drones. Kiwimon spits a gatling gun of chibi Kiwimon bullets.

In the dub:

Tai: Who are you!? Kiwimon: No one may interfere with Master Puppetmon's playtime. You're all staying right here. Tentomon: (rundown) OH NO, IT'S KIWIMON!!! An ancient Digimon that was said to be extinct! Although he's a bird-type Digimon, his wings have degenerated so he can't fly! Kiwimon: PUMMEL PECK!!!

Between Bullet Hammer/Puppet Pummel and Little Pecker/Pummel Peck, "pummel" is becoming the go-to word for sweeping uncomfortable attack names under the rug.

Tentomon does a fantastic job with the diegetic rundown. Covers everything.

Koromon evolves to Agumon and the Digimon take turns firing off their attacks; Each shot destroying one of Kiwimon's Little Peckers. Meanwhile, Patamon enters Pinocchimon's estate through the window, entering his playroom.

Patamon: What's this? (picks up Pinocchimon's remote) What are these dolls for?

Patamon prods Jou's doll, causing it to fall over. Then he hears a loud yelp from the monitor displaying the Chosen Children.

Jou: WAUGH-OW!!! Gomamon: What's wrong, Jou? Jou: Someone pushed me out of nowhere! Hikari: (gasp) Are you okay, Jou-san!? Patamon: This is... Then this would be....

Patamon starts pushing buttons on Pinocchimon's remote, watching the walkways move on the screen.

Patamon: Ah! I have to tell Takeru about this!

In the dub, Patamon says nothing when he picks up the remote; His lip flaps simply move in silence. Then he moves on to the dolls.

Patamon: I wonder what these dolls are for? (Patamon pokes Joe) Patamon: This one looks like Joe.

Joe's offscreen reaction when Patamon pokes the doll is weirdly reserved and quiet.

Joe: Agh. Oof. Gomamon: Joe, what happened!? Joe: Why does this stuff always happen to me? Gomamon: What!? Kari: Weird. I didn't see anyone push you. Patamon: Joe's on TV!? Let's see what else is one. (pokes buttons) (The walkways start moving in response to Patamon) Patamon: Ohhh! Hm... Now that's what I call a remote control!

An invisible force suddenly shoves Joe to the ground and his in-the-moment kneejerk reaction is "Yeah, I guess this might as well happen." Poor Joe. What have we done to this boy's self-confidence?

Elsewhere in the mansion, Hide and Go Shoot is not going well for Takeru.

Takeru runs for a staircase to take him downstairs, but Pinocchimon cuts him off, coming up those same stairs.

Pinocchimon: Found you!

Pinocchimon starts shooting, each bullet striking the floor by Takeru's feet and forcing him to jump until finally he loses his balance and falls on his butt.

Pinocchimon: Hehe! I think I'll start with your legs. Revolver: Click. Pinocchimon: ...h-huh? Revolver: Click. Click. Pinocchimon: I'm out of bullets. Got to put in some new ones.

Calling a timeout on Takeru's impending torturous execution, Pinocchimon rifles through his pockets. Then, one by one, he slowly pulls each bullet out individually and loads it into the revolver's chamber.

Pinocchimon's glacially slow reloading buys Takeru an opportunity to think things through and try to figure out a game plan.

Takeru: (thinking) At this rate, he's going to kill me. I have to do something. Something....

The dub edits the gun out of Puppetmon's hand as he comes up the stairs, but they missed a frame. For one single frame you can see the gun flicker in and out of existence. It's super subtle and flashes by quick, though, so it can easily be mistaken for one of Puppetmon's miscellaneous doodads moving around as he's running.

Pretty much all of this scene is cut after he reaches the top. They splice in footage from the next scene, where Puppetmon and Takeru are standing and talking with his gun safely hanging by his side off-camera.

The only part they keep is Pinocchimon rifling through his pocket for bullets, which gets recontextualized.

Puppetmon: There you are! I found you! The game's over! T.K.: Ohhh. Puppetmon: (rifling) I'm gonna destroy you in a minute, but first I have to scratch my legs! T.K.: Hmm. Puppetmon: I guess that's what I get for having a leg made of poison oak! T.K.: (thinking) I can outsmart him!

They stand there and chat, and then T.K. realizes, "Oh, he's dumb. Neat." Moving along.

Thinking about everything he's learned about Pinocchimon, Takeru executes his master plan before Pinocchimon can finish reloading.

Takeru: (whining) Awww... This isn't any fun at all.

Pinocchimon stops reloading, letting out a surprised and self-conscious gasp. Rook takes bishop.

Pinocchimon: What was that!? Takeru: I'm sick of doing the same thing over and over. I wasn't expecting you to be such a boring person. Pinocchimon: No one's ever said that to me before! Takeru: Really? That's probably because you don't have any friends, huh?

Direct hit. Pinocchimon flinches as if struck, then sheepishly looks off to the side.

Pinocchimon: ...I-I have friends.... Takeru: Then why haven't I met any of them? Pinocchimon: ...I'll introduce you at some point-- Takeru: (jogs over to Pinocchimon) Not "at some point". Do it now! Pinocchimon: Now... isn't a good time.... Takeru: Ehh? (leans in) Sounds like you don't have any real friends at all! Pinocchimon: I do too! I'll go get one right now, so wait here!

Desperate to prove himself, Pinocchimon completely forgets that he was about to execute Takeru and sprints downstairs to find a friend he can show off.

As soon as he's gone, Patamon flies up with the remote in hand.

Patamon: Takeru! Takeru: Patamon!

Someone's not going to have to look far to find a friend.

The dub picks up from T.K. casually deciding he can outsmart Puppetmon. They have to do a lot of painting over in this scene to erase the gun from wide shots as well as the bullet holes in the floor. Though they also try to minimize how many shots they use that require that.

T.K.: How boring! I'm not having any fun at all! Puppetmon: Whaaaat!? I'm the life of the party! I put the fun in fungus! T.K.: Ha! You just play the same game over and over again! Boring! Puppetmon: (flinches, sheepish) ...I'm not boring.... T.K.: Well, if that's true, how come you don't have any real friends?

They play that shot of a skeptical bean-mouthed Takeru pressing the advantage twice, so they can use the second one to replace a wide shot of him crossing the hall and closing distance with Puppetmon.

So he bean-mouths a second time, then offscreen teleports to lean in close to Puppetmon.

Puppetmon: I-I've got friends.... Takeru: (leans in) Yeah? Then how come I haven't met these so-called friends of yours? Puppetmon: Alright! Then I'll get them and introduce you right now! (Puppetmon runs off; Patamon approaches) Patamon: T.K.! T.K.: Patamon!

Honestly, the game has been pretty boring in the dub. Because the majority of what they're actually doing had to be cut, Puppetmon and T.K. run around the house playing an ordinary game of hide and go seek.

And since they're still needing to cut footage to hurry us along past the gun as fast as possible, Puppetmon caves to less pressure than it took to get Pinocchimon to fuck off too. Takeru had to work harder to walk Pinocchimon into that emotional mousetrap than T.K. did.

SuckerPinocchimon goes downstairs to a storage closet, picking out parts. He selects a football.

Pinocchimon: This will work....

Unbeknownst to him, Patamon and Takeru are in his playroom going to work.

Takeru rips up the map Pinocchimon was using for his teleport shenanigans. Then he takes a hammer and smashes Pinocchimon's remote to pieces.

Meanwhile, out in the woods, the children are still dealing with Kiwimon. With their numeric advantage, they easily shoot Kiwimon's Little Peckers out of the air.

Yamato: Hey! Where's Takeru? Kiwimon: Hnhnhnhnnn.... Yamato: ANSWER ME!!! Taichi: Yamato! Let's just focus on destroying them. Yamato: (angry) Like you understand how I feel! Taichi: If we don't destroy them, we won't be able to go rescue Takeru! Yamato: No! We should find out where Takeru is before we destroy them! GABUMON!!! Gabumon: Got it. Gabumon, WARP-SHINKAAAAAA!!!

Gabumon says the words, but nothing occurs. Yamato's Digivice and Crest are still and silent.

Yamato: (lightly shaking, shocked) ...It won't glow.... Gabumon: What's wrong, Yamato? I can't evolve. Kiwimon: LITTLE PECKER!!!

YOU and your inappropriately named attack stay out of this! We are having a moment here!

They're both kinda right here. Kiwimon can't tell us anything when they're pixel dust. We do need to go through Kiwimon to get to where we think Takeru is but we're only assuming we know where Pinocchimon took him.

Taichi wants to blow through Kiwimon and go straight for where we think Pinocchimon's lair is, while Yamato wants to stop and interrogate Kiwimon which takes time we might not have. Both of these positions have their pros and cons.

But Yamato is also so emotionally compromised by Takeru being in peril that he tried to burn an Ultimate evolution against an Adult-stage Digimon. That's overkill of the highest order. He is not thinking straight.

He straight up says to Taichi's face that Taichi can't understand what he's going through. We just had an entire arc about Taichi's little sister being hunted for assassination, so that's an unfair accusation to make.

Yamato is doing what he correctly accused Taichi of before. Neither Taichi nor Yamato is wrong, but they are both being unfair and refusing to take other people's feelings into account.

In the dub:

Puppetmon: I like to make friends! (T.K. destroys Puppetmon's stuff and we cut to the woods) Matt: Hey! Where are you keeping T.K.!? Kiwimon: Ohohohohohohohoho.... Matt: ANSWER ME!!! Tai: I know how you feel, Matt, but first we have to destroy Kiwimon! Matt: How can you understand how I feel!? Tai: I understand that if we don't beat him first, we won't be able to find T.K.! Matt: NO!!! FIRST, WE'LL FIND T.K., THEN WE'LL FIGHT YOUR WAR!!! Gabumon: Right, Matt! Gabumon, Warp-Digivolve to.... Huh? (Digivice and Crest make weird out-of-service beeping noises) Matt: (lightly shaking, shocked) It won't glow! Gabumon: What's going on here, Matt!? How come I can't Digivolve? Kiwimon: PUMMEL PECK!!!

"First we'll find T.K., then we'll fight your war" goes hard and I love it. They're still treating Matt's position as if he's against fighting the Dark Masters at all, but as a single verbal slap in the face, it still works as an assessment of Taichi's attitude towards fighting.

I don't like that they have the Digivice start beeping like haywire. Beeping like haywire is what it does when it's working; The point here is that it's not doing anything. The silence of the original is far more effective at conveying the idea that the Digivice won't activate.

Back at the mansion, Pinocchimon finishes construction on his new bestie.

Pinocchimon: All done! No matter how you look at this thing, it's a friend!

Takeru finishes destroying everything in the playroom and sprints downstairs from the top floor, as Pinocchimon comes up the opposite staircase.

Pinocchimon: I brought my friend! Look! Nobody: ... Pinocchimon: (kinda hurt) ...huh?

Takeru doesn't stop running. With Patamon flying beside him, He sprints out the front door and races off into the woods, leaving this wretched mansion behind. He doesn't notice Floramon and Delumon as he passes.

Floramon: It's Pinocchimon-sama's new toy.... Delumon: We shouldn't get involved in this. Floramon: Let's pretend we didn't see him. Delumon: Good idea.

The pair turn around and go back to... being hedges, I guess?

(Probably a good idea not to get involved. Look what happened to Blossomon and Mushroomon.)

In the dub:

Puppetmon: There! Done! I said I like to make friends, and I made one! (T.K. leaves the top floor right as Puppetmon arrives) Puppetmon: I brought my friend! Look! Huh? Nobody: ... Puppetmon: (kinda hurt) T.K....? (T.K. escapes out the front door) Floramon: It's Lord Puppetmon's new toy! Deramon: Where's he goin'? We're going to play charades. Floramon: Maybe he doesn't know how to play. Deramon: Yeah, that's it.

The dub does the "make friends" pun again. In case you didn't catch it the first time, I guess.

Floramon and Deramon don't seem as passively afraid of Puppetmon as their Japanese counterparts.

Puppetmon, however, still has that edge of bewildered sadness in his voice when he realizes he's been played. Good job there.

Back in the woods, while the kids are still discussing what to do with Kiwimon, Kiwimon's Little Peckers go for Sora.

Terrible mistake. Kiwimon was harmless enough that we could tolerate standing around and talking about this. But as soon as they go for Sora, Birdramon evolves and shuts that shit right down.

Blocking the Little Peckers with her wing, Birdramon counters with a Meteor Wing that vaporizes Kiwimon. Kiwimon lets out a high-pitched death cry, then they're gone.

Sora: Thank you, Birdramon! Piyomon: (evolves back) Sora! Sora: Piyomon!

In the dub, Kiwimon lets out this posh upper-class noble giggle when he's killed. His chortle then takes on an echoing ghostly quality and fades as the smoke clears to reveal he's gone. An odd choice for a death cry.

(Might be trying to imply that he ran off in the smoke or something? I don't know. It's weird.)

Sora: Birdramon! Thanks a lot! Biyomon: (evolves back) You're welcome. Sora: Biyomon!

Unfortunately, one person is not very happy with Sora's win.

Yamato: Takeru... What about Takeru!? (Yamato gets up in Sora's face) Yamato: You destroyed them!? NOW WE CAN'T FIND OUT WHERE TAKERU IS!!!

Taichi runs over, grabbing Yamato's arm and pulling him back from Sora.

Taichi: Hey! Watch it, Yamato! Takeru: (distant) HEY!!! Sora: (gasp) Takeru-kun!

The whole group turns to see Takeru running across the grass to rejoin them.

Takeru: HEY GUYS!!! Yamato: (relieved) Takeru!

I've made enough "Sora will remember this" cracks about Taichi being shitty to her and Yamato being more mature that I'd be remiss not to point out what a dick Yamato's being right now. Understandably so, he's having an emotional breakdown about Takeru, but still.

In the dub:

Matt: Biyomon, what did you do!? (Matt gets up in Sora's face) Matt: Look what your Digimon did! Without Kiwimon, we'll never find T.K.! (Tai grabs Matt's arm and pulls him back) Tai: Calm down, Matt! T.K.: (distant) HEY!!! Sora: It's T.K.! (T.K. approaches) T.K.: Hey everybody! Hi! I'm back! Matt: (relieved) T.K.!!!

The team meets Takeru, eager to hear what happened.

Takeru: I was able to protect myself all on my own this time! Hikari: That's incredible! Taichi: That's awesome, Takeru! Congrats! Yamato: (face falls) Mimi: We were so worried about you! Jou: You sure have grown up, without any of us realizing.

Though initially relieved, Yamato's face darkens the more they praise Takeru. Jou's line is his breaking point. He turns and walks away from the group.

Takeru: Hehehehe, stop it! You're embarrasing me! Gabumon: Yamato! (follows) Jou: (turns) Oh?

Gabumon follows Yamato. Jou notices them go, but doesn't say anything.

In the dub:

T.K.: See, everybody! I told you I could do it! I can take care of myself just fine! Kari: You're the man! Tai: Nice going, T.K.! Great job, buddy! Matt: (face falls) Mimi: We were worried about you! Joe: Boy, for a little kid, that was a pretty big escape. (Matt turns and leaves) T.K.: Ahahaha, stop it, guys! You're embarrassing me! Gabumon: What's wrong, Matt? (follows) Joe: (turns) Huh?

Mostly faithful but I have issues with Joe's line. Jou's remark that Takeru grew up without anyone noticing is a significant point for Yamato and Takeru's arc.

Again, this goes all the way back to Yamato wanting to debone Takeru's fish for him and Taichi teaching Takeru to do it himself. Being chased down by a mad puppet with a revolver is a pretty extreme situation for it, but the point nonetheless is that Takeru doesn't need to rely on Yamato to do everything for him.

The fantasy elements are fantasy elements but the point is that Takeru is getting older and becoming more self-sufficient. He's not dependent on Yamato anymore. Yamato isn't ready to confront a reality where his little brother doesn't need him to debone his fish.

The new line for Joe congratulates T.K. for the win, but still keeps him firmly within the boundaries of "little kid". Joe calls this out as an exceptional outlier and not a product of T.K.'s growth and maturity, which is a problem when that's the thing Matt's supposed to be upset about.

Oblivious to Yamato's departure, Takeru continues.

Takeru: I smashed up the weird gadgets that were making the ground move too! Jou: Really? That's amazing! Takeru: Everything's going to be okay. Pinocchimon was manipulating us with these dolls.

He sets down his backpack, showing off the dolls he looted while he was wrecking the playroom.

The kids all pick up their dolls out of the bag, checking them out.

Taichi: (cheerful) This is supposed to be me? I don't look anything like it! Sora: Mimi-chan's looks pretty cute. Mimi: Liar! I am not this ugly! ...but I'll keep it as a souvenir anyway. Sora: Ha! (The girls giggle cheerfully) Piyomon & Palmon: (grabby hands) Show me! Show me! Takeru: Hey, where's Onii-chan? Jou: I just saw Yamato head off over... There.... Huh?

Jou points in the direction Yamato went, but there's only dark and twisted woods over there. No sign of Yamato or Gabumon.

That's not a question that will be answered this episode. For our final scene, we cut back to Pinocchimon briefly, looking around his destroyed playroom. He sadly picks up the smashed remote and stares at it for a few seconds.

Pinocchimon: So he doesn't like playing with me, huh? Alright. I get it.

We leave off there, with that ambiguous yet ominous sentiment.

In the dub:

T.K.: I also smashed the remote control that was making the ground move underneath us! Joe: That's terrific, T.K.! Izzy: Prodigious! T.K.: Everything's gonna be alright now! Puppetmon was using these dolls to control us! That's why all those weird things were happening! (T.K. sets down his backpack and everyone grabs their doll) Tai: (cheerful) Is this me!? I don't look anything like this! Ha! Sora: Wow, Mimi, your doll is really pretty! Mimi: What? No way! I would never wear rags like this! ...oh! I could take her to the mall for some new clothes! (The girls giggle cheerfully) Biyomon & Palmon: (grabby hands) Alright! You go!

In one last bit of slicing and dicing footage, the dub moves Pinocchimon's lament here, interrupting the kids.

Puppetmon: So he didn't want to play with me, huh? T.K.... You'll pay for this....

While the original leaves what Pinocchimon's feeling ambiguous and ominous, Puppetmon directly swears revenge.

Then we cut back to the woods to finish up the other scene.

T.K.: Anybody see where Matt went? Joe: He's right over there. T.K.: Huh? (Joe points to the dark and twisted woods) Kids: HUH!?!? Joe: I don't get it! He and Gabumon were there a second ago! They vanished! Here we go again! Narrator: Will Puppetmon take revenge on T.K.? Is he behind Matt's disappearance? Find out on the next Digimon: Digital Monsters.

They moved the scenes so they could imply that Puppetmon kidnapped Matt for that spicy cliffhanger. Find out the answer to these questions... RIGHT NOW.

Uh. No. That's not anywhere close to what happened here. Pinocchimon is distraught in his playroom and has no time or emotional space to go gallivanting around the woods right now.

...

DUN DUNNNNNN.

Assessment: Holy shit, can you imagine what it must have been like to be working on the dub and have this episode cross your desk? Guns! Actual guns! Guns everywhere! Children playing with guns! Evil Pinocchio kills Digimon with guns!

Pokemon had an episode where Suddenly Guns too but that was a one-off episodic adventure where Ash goes to Safari Zone and gets to see a Dratini. He did catch a herd of Tauros there that goes without explanation in the American version, but nonetheless, it's not super important. They were able to deal with the guns there by carving the episode out of the lineup and simply never broadcasting it.

But you can't do that here because Digimon is a serialized adventure. This episode is kind of fucking important, like most episodes are, and can't simply be deleted from the lineup. So we. Just. Have to deal with the guns. Somehow.

We were tooling along with a cartoon adventure about fighting monsters and then suddenly there were guns and Little Peckers all over the place.

This is the episode that made the censors cry, and it shows in the absolute butchery they had to make of it in order to get it onto television.

(But they also managed to screw up important characterization scenes too while they were at it.)

[amethyst-geek]

I shall now use my TD/6teen high school/urban fantasy AU to pay homage to this incorrect quote

homage 1

Trent: Don't kill me. I'm part of a polycule.

Random mook: You think I care about that?

Trent: Oh, that's not a plea for mercy. It's a warning.

Gwen, Courtney, and Duncan burst through the wall.

Duncan: Are you ready to die?!?

homage 2

Mickey: Don't kill us. We have a lot of cousins.

Random mook: You think I care about that?

Jay: Oh, that's not a plea for mercy. It's a warning.

Izzy bursts through the wall with Cody, Scott, Jen Masterson, Rodney, Harold, Scarlett, and Crimson following.

Izzy (with cheerful smile): hi, are you ready to die?!?

Jellymon: Don’t kill us. We have a partner.

Asuramon: You think I care about that?

Angoramon: Oh, that’s not a plea for mercy. It’s a warning.

Gulusgammamon bursts through the wall.

Gulusgammamon: Are you ready to die?!?

[otakween]

Digital Monster X-evolution

If those janky Digimon World cutscenes were a whole movie, it'd be this. To be fair, I think outdated CGI has a lot more charm than a lot of the higher quality but soulless stuff they put out nowadays. Plot-wise it was nothing special, we've seen this plot a zillion times by now. They just injected it with some new gimmicks. I did find the main character charming enough. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing another attempt at an all-CGI movie as long as that didn't become the new default (slippery slope lol).

Notes:

Although the plot of this film was really simple they managed to add some convoluted lore anyways...because Digimon. Just when I was thinking "that was confusing" I saw that this wiki has a 900 page long (not really lol) explanation/play-by-play. Maybe I'll read it when it's not my bed time: https://wikimon.net/Digital_Monster_X-evolution

Of course they had to open the movie with Leomon dying (really?) Why is that a thing? I've never felt emotional seeing any Leomon die tbh lol

I think Dorumon and his digivolutions have really strong designs. His rookie form kinda looks like a furry version of Monodramon. I've been playing Digimon RPG (the MMO) and just by chance ended up with him as my partner (I actually thought I was getting Impmon lol). Fate!

Not a lot of levity here, the script took itself very seriously and the characters spent most of the film just being existential and talking about the meaning of life. Kinda heavy for a silly little monster battle film.

Legit got a little emotional when Dorumon was being bullied, but it's really easy to feel sad for a furry little creature

The CGI actually held up better than I thought it would for the most part, the mecha digimon especially looked awesome. The only "AH! KILL IT WITH FIRE!" moment was Andromon -shudder-

(Of course, Andromon is ugly in any form, but this is definitely his worst).

Weird seeing Omegamon vs. WarGreymon. I was also surprised to see Magnamon in the Royal Knights. He just seems more beast-like to me than the other knights.

Tokomon was one of those "is it cute or is it annoying?" baby characters. I'm leaning more towards cute, but there were moments where I was like "alright, that's enough of him" loi

Dorugamon kinda reminded me of Toothless. I wanna pet his big nose :3c

They just couldn't resist, they had to call something in this franchise "Yggradsil" didn't they

(They also used other Norse names, the same ones used in Ah! My Goddess).

The funky X-forms of digimon were fun, very angular. It reminds me of the newer Pokemon games how they keep adding new gimmicky forms. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of these. I guess in a way, this is a more realistic "evolution" since it has to do with the digimon reacting to their environment by developing antibodies.

I saw people complaining that Frontier only had two Royal Knights, well I guess they made up for it a bit here. Are they always gonna be working for the villain side? I wanna see a series where they're the heroes!

It was neat seeing Silphymon again. I get excited when 02 characters show up cuz it's kind of the underdog season in my mind.

The villain digimon (aside from the royal knights) weren't very well explained they just kinda showed up, caused havoc, then went away. The only reason why I have a name for any of them is cuz I read the wiki. I guess it would be hard to naturally fit in all the names...

The name "Alphamon" was kind of an eyeroll. They're running out of epic names lol. (Also, it just makes me think of alpha bros nowadays). The design is nice tho, it's got the black w/ gold highlights thing that I liked in Frontier.

Lots of badass cape shots in this (see my final screenshot above)

At the end of the movie the digital world was destroyed and then restored (Frontier much?) It wasn't really clear what that meant for the digimon. Did they all just resurrect via digiegg? Were they recreated exactly as they were before the world's destruction? -shrug-

Pretty sad that this movie never got any love in the states. I wonder if there's a fandub out there somewhere.

Apparently Digimon World 4 is related to this movie so I'll be playing that next!

[randomthefox]

Sorry for IDWposting again but I was reminded of something I said on Discord the other day:

Like... these aren't stories. They're half-finished vignettes at best. You'd think by virtue of sheer volume, there'd be some shred of consistent character psychology, or some imagery, or a metaphor, or something along those lines somewhere, but no. It's like the more you read, the more bereft the writing becomes.

I don't know how to contend with the notion of an English major who writes stories, plural, lacking in the basic elements of a story, and gets praised for his lack of craft because people fill in the blanks themselves.

Dialogue that is flat, sometimes uncharacteristic - where would street-rat Surge have learned the word "inept"? - characterization is inconsistent sometimes within the same issue; themes, what themes? go read something else; no symbolism or pacing or structure or worldbuilding beyond fanservice... No wonder IDW feels so flat. It's not a story with any real thought put into it. I'd hardly be pressed to call it a story at all. Honestly, the DC crossover just brought this idea to the forefront in a way that made it hard for me to ignore. There was just no craft whatsoever put into it, even though this is an idea Ian seemingly seemed excited for. My brain broke trying to comprehend it.

Yeah it reminds me of when I'll dump my idea outlines for, like, cowboy sonic au or the cyberpunk digimon setting, stuff like that. Documenting the ideas and themes I want the story to explore, a general overview of events, occasional specific lines of dialog exchanges. It's not how I'd go about writing an actual story by any means.

But that's exactly how Flynn writes his actual stories.

"and then Shadow goes harumph and walks off, and Batman says he'll handle him. And Batman is able to pick up on Shadow having trauma just like him, because he's Batman and he can just intuit that kind of thing (I've seen the DCAU I know bertmerns) and he bluntly confronts Shadow about it and they bond over their tragic backstories. And then they ride their motorcycles together."

Like, I swear, that's probably exactly what the fucking script he submitted looked like. I know because I'VE SEEN WHAT IAN FLYNN'S FINAL SCRIPTS LOOK LIKE.

This is the shit that the cultists are touting as peak fiction that is superior to any of those stupid smelly video games 🙄

It's fucking embarrassing. His best genuine professional effort is equivalent to the kind of brain droppings I dump out so I don't forget about the ideas I'll never do anything with.

[jaxbydaniels]

LF Multi-Para Roleplay Partners!

I havent ever really used tumblr but I've been roleplaying for around 10 years now maybe more actually and I want partners ;-; I'm 3rd person, write 3-5 paras per character per reply and into a lot of fandoms. I love writing OCs in Fandom worlds and doing non-canon OC plots. But some Fandoms I do enjoy CC. Romance, Dark vibes, sci fi, fantasy, mystery, etc. I started out on facebook as Shadow the Hedgehog using one liner script style and I've come a long way since then lol Fandoms I enjoy include: Sonic, Batman, Doctor Who, My Hero Academia, Disney but I have a v specific idea for it, kinda like Once Upon a Time/Dreamlight vibes but darker and more mystery inspired, Gravity Falls, Fairy Tail, Spyro, Zelda, Marvel, Pokemon, Digimon, Maybe Horizon Zero Dawn, and more I'm forgetting. I usually play male mains tho can do female sides. I prefer to Rp against female characters and love romance! Tho I do have some queer characters, I just am not queer myself so I tend to gravitate to cishet pairings. Anyway! Feel free to send me a message about yourself, your style and what you're looking for! I'd prefer to move to discord to discuss and being friends is a must! We dont just gotta RP let's game and watch stuff and just be goofy lil gremlins together iunno ;-; I prefer to RP on GDocs but can be persuaded otherwise maybe. DMs are open and feel free to check my pinned About Me post!

[ultraericthered]

Reimagine That Villain (Con)

Akito Sohma, Fruits Basket Abusive Family Head -> Big Pharma Drug Lord

Not much would fundamentally change about Akito as a character, but she'd now hold an extra position of power that gives an extra layer to how corrupted she's become as the God-like head of the Sohma family. In this revision, the Sohma family for years were the producers and sellers of medical herbs and tonics, to good and bad effect. In the modern day, this family business has transformed into a phamraceutical conglomerate that controls the supply and flow of all the drugs and medication in the land, which again go to good and bad effect. It's also how the Sohmas invented a serum specifically for the Zodiacs to keep their animal spirits at bay within them as they live their everyday lives avoiding physical contact with the opposite sex. Zodiac members Hatori and Kureno in particular would be crucial to this enterprise, always faithfully following Akito's orders. As you can probably guess, much of what Akito does with this business would be patently illegal, leading to consequences once she's come around.

Akihiro Kurata/Analogman, Digimon Xenophobic, Power-Mad Scientist -> Cyber Nazi

For one thing, a version of Analogman where he is explicitly the same character as Digimon Data Squad's Akihiro Kurata would be something new and interesting. And if he featured in something along the lines of Digimon Survive, he could go even darker and more depraved than in Data Squad or the Digimon World games of old. Instead of just one guy on his own, "Analogman" would now be the head of a large hacker organization that operates under Nazi-esque ideology about what the purpose of Digimon should be for humans and are out to cleanse the Digital World of all Digimon that don't fit that mold, and to weaponize those that do for purposes of world domination and persecuting "weak and feeble-minded detriments to society", as Kurata schemes to remake civilization in his image by using what can only be found in the Digital World and with Digimon.

Carmen Sandiego, Carmen Sandiego Master Thief -> Shadowy Criminal Mastermind

Here's a really interesting one: for those unsatisfied with the less villainous Carmen Sandiego we got most recently, how do you restore Carmen's villainy without seeming to just regress back to what's been done already? My solution: flip the script so that the very recognizable and often seen master criminal is...no longer that. Oh, there'd still be plenty of "Carmen Sandiego" sightings, still plenty of engagement with ladies in red hats and coats, but that would be Carmen, like an evil Padme Amidala, using decoys to fool ACME with. The real Carmen Sandiego sitting at the center of everything would now be a Dr. Claw-like figure, always giving directives from her control room, sitting in the shadows, never fully seen. So now even in capers where you end up catching Carmen, you've still not really caught Carmen. So long as the genuine article Carmen Sandiego remains uncaught and in control of VILE, the chases do not stop!

Chelsea Van Der Zee, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Krakken Nerissa's Alter Ego -> Nerissa's Spawn

This one's a no-brainer, since the twist about Chelsea being Queen Nerissa was beyond stupid in concept and in practice. She doesn't even need to be her actual daughter. Making her a shadow spawn like Lena to Magica in 2017 DuckTales makes just as much sense.

Claude Frollo, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame Hypocritical Religious Priest -> Hypocritical Religious Politician

I'd really love to see a modern day retelling of the The Hunchback Of Notre Dame story, and one angle that just writes itself would be to update Minister Frollo into not a man of the Church nor the law, but a Christian Nationalist politician who uses his faith and ties to the Church as justification to abuse his authority to do terrible things to people who he sees as lesser than himself. His guardianship of Quasimodo and attempt to rape Esmeralda could be whole political scandals he'd want to keep under wraps, and the influence he holds in his office could be used to create a narrative around Esmeralda and her people, thus swaying public opinion against them. Frollo's never stopped being relevent, so this is a good showcase of that.

(Image used is of actor John Noble, who'd be ideal for this part.)

Professor Cold Heart, Care Bears Silly Ice-Themed Villain -> Cold-Blooded Predatory Academic

Cold Heart actually started off as a fairly frightening bad guy, in like a legit uncomfortable way - he lured little children to his home, gave them drinks spiked with something that turned them into toad-like creatures devoid of feeling, and made them serve him as his slaves. In reappearances with his new sidekick Frostbite, he became more of an eccentric and comedic bungler with an ice and snow gimmick who invented various things to cause trouble, though is predatory nature around children was still there. Were he ever rebooted, the Professor should be returned to his roots and then some, situating him as a legitimate professor within an academic institution where he can prey on his students and twist their feelings into something cold and negative that serves his sinister purposes. This would obviously require he be a little less on the zany side, and a lot more, well, cold.

(Credit to the--jacobian on Deviantart for the design edit).

Dahlia Hawthorne, Ace Attorney Figurative Demoness -> Literal Demoness

In canon it's implied that Dahlia was born the "evil twin" between herself and Iris, with a natural connection to the darker side of the spiritual realm that she never really understood herself, but that influenced her corruption into the person she became as she was increasingly cut off from any positive influences that could curb this corrosion of her soul. If Dahlia was ever reintroduced, I say to hell with her connection to demonic spirits being just a subconscious thing - let her be consciously aware of the demons and all too willing to channel all that dark spiritual energy to both commit her crimes and cover her tracks. The tired trope of "all the men go gaga for how pretty and pure she seems to be" could be elevated if there was actually something hypnotic that Dahlia was deliberately utilizing to keep people blind to the truth about her, and her battles against Mia Fey become that much more epic when both use spirit techniques.

Dewey Novak, Eureka Seven Prideful, Genocidal Colonel -> Prideful, Genocidal Media Mogul

Y'know how Holland and Gekko State ran their own tabloid paper where they tried to get the truth about the world and the Scub Coral out, only for Dewey to deride that because "the masses aren't interested in truth"? A better alternate continuity of this series than anything Masahiko Minami put out there would lean into this and make Dewey a Rupert Murdoch-esque media mogul rather than an army colonel, someone who bends the truth and spins information to suit his purposes, turns news into straight up propaganda, and has programmed the minds of many to believe what he wants them to, which is where most of his followers who do his criminal work come from. This would also add a more interesting dynamic to the struggle of the two Novak brothers; how does one wielding truth on a small platform stand up against one who weaves falsehoods from a larger platform? Such a conflict would be very relevent to today's era.

Eliza & Neil Regan, Candy Candy Smug Snake Troublemaking Bullies -> Manipulative Influencer And Consummate Wild Card Rogue Respectively

As I've said before, Candy Candy deserves to be rebooted and go the Voltron: Legendary Defender route in modernizing the storytelling and characterizations compared to the old anime, and Eliza and Neil could be two halves of a full Prince Lotor - Eliza being the scheming strategist with a charming facade who's an expert at manipulating others, and Neil being the one with the romantic attraction to Candy, which like Allura and Lotor would be in stark contrast to their original incarnations in that Candy would actually return the attraction only for Neil to end up betraying her trust and feelings. There’d be more depth and development of both their characters and their family background, and they’d even get some redemption by the end.

Father, Codename Kids Next Door Devilish Man -> Godly Man

Like with Frollo, this one would also lean into something all too commonplace in today's world: the abusive parent or patriarch who uses his religious faith to indoctrinate and control his children, and protect himself from reproach. Rather than be a dark figure with flaming Hell powers, this Father would embody the idea that the God that some religious radicals want people to both love and fear, and the Devil that they want people to hate and fear, are actually just two sides of the same coin, as they're both tools of control and ensuring complacency with the religious dogma. At times he's benevolent and beaming with bright holy light, but at other times he's furious and burning up with the fires of Hell, with the thing he hates most of all being rebellion against his supreme authority. In short, he would be the ulimate abusive adult for the Kids Next Door to go up against.

Ganondorf/Ganon, The Legend of Zelda Great Demon King Of Evil -> Demonically Evil Autocrat

Just once I'd like to see Legend of Zelda lore in a modern world setting get tackled, and an incarnation of Ganon who's like the Victor Orbans, Vladimir Putins, Donald Trumps, Elon Musks, and Jair Bolsonaros of the world would be threatening and loathsome in a new but equally powerful way compared to the Demon King.

Gwen Grayson, Sky High Costumed Supervillain -> Villainous Influencer

In hindsight, Gwen Grayson is a prime candidate for pulling off the Roderick Kingsley move of making the transition from costumed supervillain to a different type of supervillain who inspires the creation and deeds of others. In Gwen's case, I can see her going hard on becoming a villainous social media star and influencer. She's a technopath, and technology has advanced a lot since 2005. Big social media platforms are the sort of places she'd thrive, being able to manipulate, harrass, and do dealings with a whole lot of people.

Dr. Irie, When They Cry: Higurashi Medic And Scientist With Loli Maid Fetish -> Amoral Researcher With Deep Malice And Predatory Urges

In a new telling of Higurashi (maybe a more modern version set outside of the 80's), Dr. Irie should undergo Adaptational Villainy to bring him back around to his conceptual roots, being just as much an agent for Nomura as Okonogi except he flips to being a double agent for Tomitake and the faction he follows. Beneath his pleasant, patient and kindly persona would lie a vile, ruthless demon of a man that Irie's always struggled with suppressing, like a literal case of Jekyll & Hyde, embodying all the thematic ideas behind Hinamizawa Syndrome, which Irie passionately researches. While not keen on the idea of having to harm any of the kids, he is still willing to use them for his own ends and fiercely believes he’s doing what’s right for humanity so that, through the validation of Takano's findings on the swamp virus, none may surrender to their inner demons anymore. Even if that means he must hypocritically exploit his own inner demon to realize this ambition. He could make such a good villain!

Junko Enoshima, Danganronpa Ultimate Fashionesta -> Ultimate Influencer

Similar to Gwen Grayson, but this one's even more obvious. There was absolutely no excuse to go with "she exploited a brainwashing anime made by someone else in order to brainwash people into embracing despair" when social media rabbit holes and influencers that lead people to embracing dangerous ideas are a fucking thing.

Ken Ichijouji, Digimon Adventure 02 Abusive Megalomanic Tyrant -> Abusive "Law And Order" Tyrant

Ken as the Digimon Emperor's a funny deal: in the original version of the anime, he was an abusive sociopath on a power high pursuing delusions of grandeur in a world he believed was all made up and existed to service his desires. In the English dub, he adopted a more traditionally "evil" persona because in his darkened state of mind, he thoroughly enjoyed getting to play the villain as he pursued his quest for conquest of the entire Digital World. And in Adventure Tri...well, that wasn't really him, it was just some total nothing of a character impersonating him for no reason. If Adventure 02 got rebooted into a new continuity the way Adventure did, here's an idea: a Digimon Emperor who believes himself to be the good guy. Ken would maintain a sense of kindness and righteousness and a desire to do some real good in the world, but it's been perverted so that he's willing to embrace tyrannical, abusive, authoritarian means to uphold "law and order" in the Digital World. Imagine Kyle Rittenhouse if he was both powerful and actually intelligent. In this Ken's warped mind, he's the Big Good, his word is the law, and his deeds are justice. This would naturally make his Heel Realization even more devastating!

Lila Rossi, MiraculousSquandered Character -> Chaotic Neutral Trickster

Lila may yet turn up in a sequel to the Ladybug & Cat Noir Movie, but the way I'd personally prefer to see her reinvented is close to what she was in Season 3 of the show except a lot more fleshed out with actual motivations and a purpose for being in the cast. She'd lie to get attention and adoration from others just like she did since she was first introduced, but she'd also be a morally dubious wild card who plays by her own rules and will decieve, manipulate, or even force others into compliance with her whims. A teen supervillain who doesn't need a costume or superpowers, which she'd relish being. In her off time, she could actually be pretty chill and friendly, even with Marinette, and her basic Chaotric Neutral morality could sometimes even shift her towards positions of helping the heroes when she feels it suits her interests or she just has nothing to lose from doing so.

Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, Game Of Thrones "Chaos Is A Ladder" -> "Greed Is Good"

What would be the obvious modernization of a duplicitous, fiendish and entitled Master of Coin with a network of spies at his disposal who started a war and has much influence in what goes on in his realm? A corporate raider and bank manager who's also a Julian Assange-esque information broker holding just as much influence in the political and military affairs of his homeland. This one's so easy!

Lucy, Elfen Lied Tragic Homicidal Menace -> Analytical And Sadistic Trap Master

Plenty of people have stated interest in seeing Elfen Lied get remade and retold, and it got me thinking what a new take on Lucy might be like. I think you could potentially go even harder with her character. Like rather than just the vectors and the power they give her, Lucy possesses a wider asortment of psychic abilities and can use it to play mind games with her prey and opponents. Through her strength and her mental capabilities, she could lure people into whole Saw-like death traps and in fact would often do so to test humans' wills to survive, and just to fuck with them like she enjoys doing. Those that would actually make it out alive would be spared by her, deemed worthy of living in the world she seeks to create, and might even be singled out to be recipients of the Diclonius gene, gaining the Queen more followers to make use of when the time is right for them.

King Magnifico, Wish Charming And Vain Sorcerer Monarch -> Big Tech Mogul Mafioso This would be my Mirrorverse King Magnifico that I described here.

Mok Swagger, Rock And Rule Aged Sorcerer Rock Star -> Aged Sorcerer Media Mogul

Should somehow Mok Swagger returned, I think the ideal line of work for him would be a wealthy and influential master of media, like an unsettling cross between Rupert Murdoch and Harvey Weinstein. If you've seen the movie, you'd know why this would fit him too well.

Capitán Monasterio, Zorro Tyrannical Commandante -> Corrupt Police Comissioner/Governor

Zorro is another legend that's in need of a modern retelling, and the figure of the tyrant Monasterio lends himself well for an update in which he's now a corrupt and oppressive comissioner of a Californian police department who's also running for a Governor position. We've seen much reprehensible corruption from men who carry badges and abuse their authority to break laws rather than uphold them and to terrorize people rather than protect them, and such people entering politics has never been more relevant than nowdays (hello, Eric Adams!). A brutal officer turned statesman would be the natural adversary for El Zorro to fight and get others to rise up against.

(Image used is of Erik Estrada, both an actor and a police officer).

[stringsofself]

Feeling like rambling about some of our story associations, especially regarding story endings; particularly ones that are 'forced', when we say 'forced', like I am not digging at this game in particular it does what it does for a reason but digimon survive does that thing a lot of that genre of games do, you have to play it once and certain bad things happen by default, then you get to fix them the second time, you've seen them

We're also going to touch on timeloops because we have feelings about those as well and they tie into the above in the form of 'do it again if you want to get a different ending even if you made the right choices this time you just Can't be Allowed to Have It unless you do it Again'

Christ that was a long preamble. Pretentious bullshit below.

Some stories feel right. Even if they are bitter, even if they ache, there is a rightness in their unfolding, in the way they reach. A story that follows its proper course has a rhythm, a pull, a gravity to it, and when it reaches its conclusion, no matter how tragic or triumphant, it feels like exhaling after holding your breath.

And some stories are wrong. Not in a way that is merely dissatisfying as an art object to be observed, it has nothing to do with that, not in a way that can be dismissed as preference, but in a way that itches. That burns in the back of the skull like a misplaced thread in the weave of something more concrete than narrative alone.

Do you ever feel it like an itch, like an ache in your teeth when a story is wrong? Not just unsatisfying, but fundamentally incorrect, like something deeper than the script behind it is misaligned? Because that’s what it feels like to us; it's an instinct, a deep, ancient knowing of what should be. A story is not just an arrangement of events, it's not just a string of choices and consequences, cause and effect. It has a shape that it longs to follow, and we feel it when that shape is broken.

It’s not just about endings. It’s about stories having integrity. About them being allowed to be what they are, not just what someone else decides they should be. A story forced down a predetermined track, twisted into an unnatural shape to suit convenience or expectation, is a story denied its own truth.

There is no greater insult to a story than to be in a Cage.

And a time loop is just, a wound left open, a narrative trapped in its own ribs, unable to even death rattle. A moment that should have passed, but instead festers. Again and again and again, the same choices, the same failures, the same desperate grasping for something that refuses to move. A loop denies the natural course of a story, forces it to stumble over itself in repetition, twisting time into a prison. It drives us mad.

A forced path, an imposed sequence; these are hands twisting the threads out of place, denying the story its right to follow its own course. When we are made to watch a tale walk itself toward a fate that was never meant to be, when we are forced to linger in endings that are not the right ones, it feels like something inside us is unraveling. Like a deep, structural error has taken root in the marrow.

It isn’t just a preference. It isn’t just about disliking a story’s direction. We are keenly aware of when we simply are not enjoying interfacing with an art piece, or when our tastes simply rub incorrectly against an art not meant for us, and to be clear none of this has anything to do with liking these stories or those medias, we genuinely enjoy many stories involving these things! This is not about Media, this is about Stories, but Stories as Reality, a Story in the sense that your life is a Story, or mine, or a cat or a dog or an earthworm has a Story.

This is about the way worlds turn.

We aren’t just guiding them to an end; we are ensuring they unfold as they should, without falsities, without stagnation. And that means we feel it, we know it, when something is wrong.

{And as an aside, perhaps this is why dear Joker was not once fooled by Maruki, the dream was Beautiful, he will admit that, but as he would say; the Show was Over, to try and shove more pages in, even if the person he loved most in the world had wanted to stay in that fantasy - which Akechi did not - he probably still would not have been able to do anything but draw the curtain to a close.}

That aside.

We know when a story should be allowed to end.

And we know when it has been ended too soon.

There is a difference between a thread that is meant to be cut, and one that has been torn before its time. There is a difference between a tale reaching its natural conclusion and a tale being forced into one.

To recognize when something must be let go is just as much a part of it as recognizing when something must be held onto.

Maybe that’s why it matters so much. Maybe that’s why it burns when we see it go wrong.

Because a story is alive.

And to deny it its truth is to kill it.

[playstationvii]

[digimon-v]

I finished translating a full playthrough of Digimon Tamers: Brave Tamer and I wanted to share it here.

This isn't translated in-game. What I did was play it through in Japanese and then, using a translated script, made text box images to overlay in a video editing program.

I am no a video editor, I'm barely a let's player, but I wanted to be able to have a series of Brave Tamer with the English subtitles. I wanted to be able to read along with the action like the other WonderSwan games that were translated.

The script I used came from here:

Please, give them thanks and support for translating this game ♥

[self-indulgent-paw-patrol]

Ok i'm ngl it's kinda funny that u put Immortals as Ryder's song bc i JUST rewatched Big Hero 6 this week!! And I can already feel myself falling back into it, it's just!!! So comforting and cute and heartbreaking 😭 anyways, do you think that movie exists in the Paw Patrol verse? Do you think the pups + Ryder have seen it? Idk why, but i can see Marshall having a Baymax plushie somewhere -💖🌟✨️💫

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE COINCIDENCE

When I work with stuff in a fandom, I like to think EVERYTHING exists in their universe too. Take Digimon as example:

The famous sequence from the beginning. Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers. The first two are direct sequels, with the second working around the 2 youngest kids from the first but now more grown up and with a new group of friends, while the older ones from first are still around as well. The third is a different universe, where the kids play Digimon Trading Card Games and have Adv and Adv02 as an anime to promote the TCG (just like us in our real world). Waaaaaaaay up ahead in yet ANOTHER different universe, all "heroes" from other verses are summoned up to fight a bigger baddie, and the kid from Tamers is like "Oh I know these two, they're fictional characters in my world (about the main protags from Adv and Adv02)". Digiception!

In Paw Patrol, thanks to the movies, we know THERE IS Paw Patrol merchandise being sold around and pretty much funding everything the Paw Patrol owns, from lands, to buildings, vehicles, equipment, technologies, everything is funded by SELLING LICENSED PAW PATROL MERCHANDISE. I bet they have the animated cartoon too. Can you imagine Ryder writing down episode ideas for the writers to work on scripts and have the episodes animated and airing in a constant for several years?? The ideas coming straight from Ryder??? All that merch wouldn't sell itself just by their fame as rescuers alone - although I gotta agree I'd buy dog and horse stuff from my local cops/firemen if they'd invest in showing off their animals at all.

ANYWAY

For me, everything exists in the Paw Patrol universe just the same. And yes I think they'd have watched BH6. Ryder would show up at anime cons and events cosplaying as Hiro. AND YES MARSHALL WOULD HAVE A BAYMAX PLUSH. LET'S GIVE HIM ONE. Whenever I get to open that askbox again, I mean, lol

[shihalyfie]

This is potentially a very loaded question so feel free to not answer if you don't feel like it, but how do you as a woman feel about the handling of female characters in Digimon (anime of course, but also games, manga and even the Digimon themselves)? I've seen takes of all kinds from women over the years so I'm curious how you feel. But again, no pressure to answer if you feel uncomfortable with the subject or too daunted by all the material on the table.

Oh man, I don't mind talking about the subject in itself, but what makes it hard for me is just that the Digimon franchise just has so many things at once with so many different writers and different writing philosophies that I can't really treat the entire thing like a monolith. Especially when you have things running the spectrum from Cyber Sleuth (where female characters arguably drive the narrative far more than the male characters) to Next (which has gotten me angrily ranting about the absolutely awful way it treats its girls, a rant which I would prefer to not subject my followers to).

So before I go ahead, I do want to make sure anyone reading this understands that I'm just talking about my own personal experience and feelings regarding the situation, and I'm very sure that other people will feel differently. I definitely don't feel qualified to comment on what's the ideal way to write female charaters in media or whatever (as if there's even one right answer to that!); I can only truly comment on myself and my own stances on it. (And of course, the OP graciously asked specifically about that, but I just want to make sure nobody reading this post misunderstands!)

Well, I will say that if there's one thing that does seem to be consistent (and I say consistent, because Next absolutely violates this one and Frontier does kind of dangerously toe the line), it's that I haven't really seen Digimon fall victim to the problem of what I call making its female characters the Designated Girl Characters™. Explaining what that is is kind of tricky, but a lot of shounen series will have this very strong "consciousness" of its female characters like they're there to fill a quota, and thus treat them in a way that's kind of alienating. Or in other words, "they section off this character very weirdly in a way they would never do for the male characters." (Note that while Ruki's character arc is made with strong consciousness of her being a girl, the whole point is about condemning the idea she should be treated like some novelty just because she's a girl, so I don't count it as this.)

It was really refreshing to see a 1999 anime portray the girls as mingling with the boys like it was no big deal, and I do wonder if Adventure setting this precedent is a big reason later series have followed in this regard. Adventure through Frontier were made with heavy female creator influence, something that the fandom really tends to downplay (especially because a lot of people suspiciously avoid acknowledging their importance, like how everyone will talk about Hosoda but nobody will talk about the fact Yoshida Reiko wrote the scripts for everything he did, or how people virtually ignored Seki's existence compared to Kakudou until very recently). I think a lot of that shows in its writing; of course, that's not to say there aren't things that really could have used improvement (I think Izumi's treatment in Frontier is the one pretty much everyone universally agrees really left much to be desired, and Tomita even outright admitted he's not very good at writing girls, although that frankly kind of surprises me given how much of his other work has involved writing girls really well), but at the very least it does show a bit more conscientiousness about its female characters than you would see in other shows where female creators were either nonexistent or clearly had no influence in the staff room.

On the flip side, there's also things that were more tasteful in execution than may have even been intended; Sora's character arc isn't that much about her femininity in practice, and Juri does come off as better than your average damsel in distress character, but that doesn't change the fact that the nuance is still there (and that in the latter case a certain writer has outright indulged in that), so all I can do is just be grateful that it didn't get worse.

I guess in the end, my stance is "give or take". I like a lot of other kids' shows (including shounen) that have been better or worse than Digimon's average level, and Digimon itself is so varied that I think it just kind of mingles in there. There are things I like, things I don't like, but at the very least there haven't been too many things that crossed my personal boundary of "absolutely not" (there are, there just aren't many). I think Adventure and 02 in particular are often accused of being more malicious towards its female characters and "screwing them over" than they were intended to be, since a lot of it seems to be a combination of wanting to portray its characters a little too realistically and simply just accidental bad circumstances of how it presented (the fact Hikari's two most famous episodes are by two non-regulars on the series who seemed to be huge fans of portraying her with a brother complex really did not help here), and things like "the same things that feel personally relatable to me are also things that read badly to others, so I understand why people don't like it but I also feel kind of weird when they imply that this kind of concept is inherently Bad" (a lot of things related to Sora and Miyako fall into this category for me). And I mean, part of the reason Miyako became my central character back when I wrote fanfic more often was that I just found her to be an incredibly complex character for the kind you'd usually see in shounen works; I honestly don't know of many other things that would portray someone like her sympathetically instead of cramming her into a "hysterical woman" trope box.

There's also the fact that there's a lot more adult-oriented Digimon media coming up nowadays, so there's that awkward situation where "female character representation" starts having a blurred boundary with "waifu character". Which is not to say that I mind the idea of male fans also liking the female characters I like, but more so that when you get into this territory, I start getting conscious about whether the female characters are more obviously being written in a way to "please the male fans and make them into fanservice material" than it respects them as characters. And I mean, I say it's a blurred boundary for good reason; the aforementioned Cyber Sleuth characters do kind of have that (especially in their character designs), but they are actually written as good characters with agency, whereas you have things like the Adventure girls in tri. who are ostensibly written to follow up on their Adventure character arcs but came off to me as being uncomfortably shoved into the Waifu Character Fanservice troping boxes, especially Mimi and Hikari. (Hooters outfit Mimi and brother complex Hikari are among the few things that I would say have crossed a serious line with me.) So again...give or take.

I will say that the American English dub had a somewhat more misogynistic nuance in the way it treated Mimi, Miyako, and Hikari (it had a lot more condescending tone in the way it portrayed Mimi's airheadedness/materialism and Yolei's penchant for fangirling while also expecting Kari to just put up with Davis harassing her, and it exacerbated the already-kind-of-uncomfortable feelings I had about the unsympathetic way Sora is portrayed in Our War Game!), but it's not to the extent I felt it derailed the entire narrative.

As for the Digimon themselves, the feminine Digimon design sexualization didn't bother me much when I was younger (I remember I really wasn't bothered by Angewomon's design at all), but it does bother me a little more now, especially since you have more designs like Venusmon these days (really? really?). But then there are also really good designs like LovelyAngemon and Mastemon that are just plain cool! And then even designs aside, there's a difference in the way each work portrays them; for instance, you can tell certain anime had more fun with the chest jiggles on the same Digimon that other series were not weird about at all. Maybe the fact Adventure and 02 weren't really weird about Angewomon's design was exactly why I didn't notice it very much back then?

Well, that got long and very rambling, but I hope that answered your question to some extent!

[bitethetablet]

wait there’s people who say daisuke’s dumb and didn’t know the difference between digimon and pokemon?

i genuinely thought he picked a digimon in a snarky little “heh digimon better” way because he seems to be big into gaming— i mean he has a gaming magazine and and what i’m guessing is an official gameboy since he’s rich

also if the script to the steam awards promo is canon he knows what the steam awards is and that they’re literally in a game themselves

[tobiasdrake]

Digimon Adventure 01x07 - Roar! Ikkakumon / Ikkakumon's Harpoon Torpedo

Previously on Digimon Adventure: After vanquishing Sid at the end of Toy Story, Woody went mad with power and created an empire. Also, Mimi learned that there can be too many teddy bear hugs.

Now the kids are back on the road again, exploring the island to find options and answers.

We open with a shot of that great mountain in the center of File Island. The Black Gears seem to be coming from it, flying high over the forest below.

This is a quiet, ominous scene in the original; Devoid of music, with only the sounds of the trees rustling and the gears whirring as they make their way across File Island. Then we open on the kids walking, visibly shivering from the cold. Even the Digimon are suffering, with Patamon and Palmon openly complaining that it's too cold.

Everyone except Gomamon, who's visibly having a great time.

The dub adds some background music and has Gomamon talk over the whole setup.

Gomamon: I know this is no day at the beach, Joe, but that's no reason to be a worrywart about it and make all your friends unhappy! Pardon the pun but chill out; Only you have a problem with the cold, right guys? Everyone, think warm!

Well that's a harsh scolding to walk in on. Joe hasn't even had a chance to say anything yet! This sets up a visual contrast, with the sight of everyone freezing and suffering contrasting against Gomamon's claim that everyone else is fine.

Either way, it hits the main point: Gomamon is completely unbothered by the frigid cold that everyone else is suffering from.

Suddenly, Taichi pipes up, giving the group encouragement in the form of a distraction to keep their spirits up.

Taichi: If we get any snow, we can have a snowball fight! Mimi: Snowball fight! Palmon: What's a snowball fight? Koushiro: A snowball fight, huh? Tentomon: What is that? Is it food? Koushiro: No, a snowball fight is a fun activity where we throw snowballs at each other. Yamato: (to Taichi) We can finally have a match! Taichi: I won't lose! Sora: I'm looking forward to it! Takeru: I wanna make an igloo! Palmon: *to Tentomon* Hey, do you know how to make an igloo? Tentomon: Now that has to be food. Koushiro: Again, it's not.

The dub script for this scene is slightly different but conveys the same ideas pretty much perfectly.

Tai: Yeah, but if it snows, we'll throw some snowballs! Mimi: And make snowmen! Gomamon: Who do you think snowmon is? Gabumon: A Digimon from their planet. Izzy: It's difficult to explain. Tentomon: Well, if it's edible, count me in! Izzy: No, the best thing about snowballs is that you can throw them at each other. It's a fun game that we play in the winter months. Tentomon: You throw food!?!? Matt: We can even build a snow fort! Tai: You'll need one! Sora: I bet I can beat you both blindfolded! T.K.: I wanna build an igloo! Palmon: I'll help! ...if you tell me what it is. Tentomon: An igloo sounds scrumptious to me! Izzy: Too bad they're not edible.

The main difference between the two versions is Mimi's introduction of a snowman into the conversation and Sora joining in on the hypothetical snowball duel between Taichi and Yamato.

The highlight of the two versions is definitely Tentomon's horrified misunderstanding of snowball fights in the dub, though. "You throw food!?!?" That got me. XD Nobody tell him about food fights.

Gabumon's confident explanation of snowmon is also pretty funny. Characters confidently answering questions about information they do not possess is never not funny.

Jou, on the other hand, is not swayed by all this fun snowball fight talk. Sora asks why he looks so on edge, and Jou explains exactly what's making him so anxious about all this snow talk.

Jou: (muttering to himself) You guys are taking it too easy. It would be unbearable if it snowed. Sora: Jou-senpai, why are you standing all alone over here looking so serious? Jou: Of course I'm serious! Think about it! If the temperature drops any further, it will be difficult for us to set up camp. In this cold environment, it'll be hard to find food too. My head hurts from all of this! I'm the one who has to protect everybody! ...because I'm the eldest.

While he's talking, we see Takeru, Koushiro, Yamato, and Taichi chatting happily to underscore the difference between his attitude and theirs. We don't hear what they're saying, but the big smiles on their faces conveys the idea that they're taking things much more lightly than he is.

The dub gives them dialogue and distracts from Joe's speech, which paints him more as a joy-killing worrywart.

Joe: Come on, get serious! It would be horrible if it started snowing right now. Sora: Lighten up a little, Joe; We're just trying to look on the positive side of things. Joe: BLEGH!!! T.K.: Hey, Tai! When's it gonna snow? Tai: Probably any second now. Matt: Right on Joe's head! T.K.: That'd be so funny! Tai: I can't wait to see his face! Joe: You know, if the temperature drops any lower than it is already, we won't be able to camp out anymore. We'll be frozen Digi-Treats! That's right! Go ahead and laugh but when your tootsies freeze, don't come crying to me; I'll just say I told you so! It is always better to be safe than sorry; Think first!

The important context of Jou being the eldest and needing to take responsibility he isn't equipped to handle doesn't make it into the dub. He does get the final word, but half of the scene is spent ridiculing him; Even Sora scolds him for his attitude, where in the original she strikes up conversation out of concern for him.

Also the dub just has Joe suddenly going "BLEGH!!!" which automatically costs it a million Joe Dignity Points.

Either way, as the kids keep going, they come upon exactly what they've been discussing.

A snowfield lies ahead. Mimi and Takeru go run around and play in the snow having fun, but the others hang back with Jou to much more seriously discuss what we should do and where to go from here. All talk of snowball fights and igloos evaporates the instant it's really happening.

Taichi puts two options in front of them: Either they cross the snowfield, or they turn around and climb the mountain behind them. Suddenly, Agumon gets a sniff of something. A strong smell from nearby. The other Digimon and even the kids start sniffing the air, and they can all smell it too.

An onsen/hot spring! You can feel the cultural difference in how the kids react to this revelation.

Yamato: I see. This is-- Jou: AN ONSEN!!! Mimi & Takeru: ONSEN!!!

Jou, Mimi, and Takeru all scream at the top of their lungs when they realize what's in front of them. Meanwhile, in the dub:

Matt: But what's it coming from? Joe: A BIG GEYSER!!! Mimi & Takeru: Wow, a hot spring!

Mimi and Takeru are still excited but a bit more reserved with it rather than the ecstatic shriek of the original. Joe's still stoked, though.

Ecstatic, the kids race across the snowfield with hot springs on their mind to find warmth and relaxation. No, wait, hold up. It says here, uh....

It says "boiling black goop". They find boiling black goop. File Island sucks and I want to go home.

(I am reasonably certain that what they're looking at is a mudpot, a highly acidic and viscous bubbling slurry found in volcanic regions. Technically considered a hot spring but you wouldn't want to soak in that.)

Well, we aren't going to be able to bathe here but at least it's warm. Convection from the mudpots is providing relief from the bitter cold, but Jou quickly calls the group's attention to the problem of food. Fortunately, Takeru spies an answer.

An absurd answer. An incomprehensible answer. An answer that visibly makes Jou want to pull his hair out when he sees it. An answer that staggers all reason and sanity, and yet is not that unexpected anymore on File Island.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sure, why not. Forget it, Jou; It's File Island. Hopefully this one isn't full of Numemon. Against Jou's protests, the kids race to the fridge. Taichi throws it open to discover eggs for days.

This discovery provokes an interesting conversation on the ethics of food stealing during a survival situation.

Taichi: Guess this means dinner's served! Jou: W-Wait a minute, we don't even know if they're edible! Taichi: (huge grin) Don't worry, I'll test them for poison! Jou: What are you saying!? Even if we could eat them, we'd be common thieves for taking other people's property! Yamato: We don't have a choice. We're hungry. Sora: They'll understand if we explain it to them. Koushiro: At any rate, this is an emergency situation. Tentomon: Let's have dinner!

Honestly, the others have a point. Children stranded in a foreign land and starving rank pretty high on the list of acceptable reasons to violate societal norms. This while File Island excursion is the most emergency that a thing can possibly be.

The dub version of this conversation is pretty much an exact translation, though I really like their version of Tai's "I'll test them for poison" line.

Tai: GRUB ON! These will keep us all fed for a month! Joe: Wait a minute, you shouldn't even touch them! We don't know if they're fit for human consumption! Tai: Then I'll be the guinea pig! If I turn purple, you'll know they're not edible. Joe: There's more to it than that; Even if they were edible, they don't belong to us! That would make us all thieves! You gotta think about stuff like that, Tai! Matt: Unless you're into eating rocks, we don't have too much choice. Sora: I'm sure they'd say yes if they knew we were in trouble. Izzy: Exactly; We'd tell them it's an emergency situation. Tentomon: (sarcastic) Rationalize away.

The biggest difference is that Tentomon oddly seems to be on Joe's side in the dub? But overall it's practically verbatim, just a little wordier. But also, "If I turn people then they're not edible." XD Perfect addition to Tai's line.

Outvoting Jou once again, the kids set to work preparing the eggs. They're getting pretty good at wilderness survival. They make crude bowls, a rudimentary cooking stove to fry eggs on, and nets to boil the eggs in one of the less viscous boiling springs.

(Nobody stops to ask the obvious question of where the eggs came from if there are no chickens in Digimon World. Multiple previous conversations have established that there aren't animals or people here; Only Digimon. But. Y'know. Kids. They probably think eggs come from the supermarket.)

For his part, Jou whittles chopsticks while muttering to himself.

Jou: Everyone's so cheerful. I can't be like that. Because I have responsibility....

Contextually, he means that in the sense that he's responsible for whatever happens to them, not that he has responsibility as like a personal characteristic. It's what he was talking about earlier: Whatever happens to them is on his head because he's the eldest.

The dub makes this another argument between Joe and the others.

Mimi: Hurry! We wanna eat! Joe: (dour) Sorry, this just makes me feel uncomfortable. We'd be in big trouble if someone got sick; No doctors, y'know. Why do I always have to be the one to think about these things?

Ironically, Jou's burden is specifically the answer to Joe's question.

Once everyone's finished, they set out the eggs and dig in. ITADAKIMASU!

Yamato wishes they had some white rice to go with it, while Matt wants ketchup. I feel Matt; I'm a ketchup-on-eggs person too. Dub Sora thinks it's gross though.

(Sora and Matt start dating in a few years. I wonder if there's any fics about the inevitable ketchup-on-eggs bickering? You know that's gotta come up for the dub versions of these characters.)

From there, Jou laments that they wouldn't have to do so much work if they were at home. Joe expresses a similar sentiment, but his lament is that ketchup would be easy to come by at home.

This sets the others on a depression spiral, thinking about how homesick they are. Koushiro gives us a timescale: The kids have been here for four days now. In the dub, Izzy adds that he wonders if anyone's started searching for them yet.

At that point, it's Sora's turn to lift everyone's spirits with a distracting conversation topic.

What kind of topping do you like on your eggs? The kids take turns answering with their preferences.

Jou - Salt and pepper. Taichi - Soy sauce. Yamato - Mayonnaise. Sora - Sauce. Koushiro - Ponzu, a tangy citrus sauce. Mimi - Sugar with natto on top; A fermented soy bean.

The kids agree that Koushiro and Mimi's answers are weird, especially Mimi's. Natto on eggs? What?

(Meanwhile I'm over here recoiling in horror at Yamato's mayo eggs.)

Some of the responses in the dub are a bit different.

Joe - Salt and pepper. Tai - Soy sauce. Matt - Salsa. Sora - Doesn't answer, instead saying Matt needs a reality check. Izzy - Mustard and jelly beans. Mimi - Maple syrup with cherries on top.

The dub kids find Izzy and Mimi's responses weird too, but T.K.'s kinda into it and curious to try.

All this talk of weird egg toppings sends Jou into a complete meltdown.

Jou: You all put that weird stuff on your eggs!? (hangs head in hands) I'm shocked. The Japanese culture is collapsing before my very eyes!!!

Taichi tries to defuse the argument by asserting that everyone's culinary choices are valid except natto, but it's too late. Jou goes off.

Jou: With eggs, all you need is salt and pepper! Not sauce or mayonnaise but salt and pepper!

Gomamon calls Jou stubborn, provoking an argument that quickly devolves to Gomamon asking Jou to Fight Me Bruh.

In the dub, Joe's reaction is honestly tamer than Jou's.

Joe: What!? You're making me completely lose my appetite; I just like plain eggs! (hangs head in hands) I wish we could talk about something other than egg recipes.

Here, Tai's remark isn't so much to defuse the conversation as it is poking fun at the group.

Matt: Come on, join the party! Tai: I think it's really too late for him. I think Joe thinks we've gone a little crazy over these eggs. Joe: Well, really. Jelly beans and cherries on eggs, that's just crazy talk! Salt and pepper's all they need. Keep it simple; That's always been my motto!

He's still grossed out, but he's not calling them the decay of Japanese culture over it.

After Gomamon tries to fight Jou, Yamato steps in to try and de-escalate. Yamato tells Jou that he's acting off today and asks what's up, but Jou screams at the whole group that they're the ones who are off and storms away.

The dub captures the same elements but the delivery of Joe's actor undercooks the emotional tension. Joe sounds mad, telling everyone things like "You're all asking for trouble!" in an angry but still reserved Joe voice; Jou, however, is full-throated screaming at the group, audibly furious beyond any consolation.

Over eggs. Because this isn't really about the eggs. It's about everything that's happened. Jou's crumbling under the pressure of his responsibility.

Finally, Jou storms off to be alone and cool down beside one of the boiling hot springs.

When Jou calms down and returns to the group, he finds Yamato and Taichi at each other's throats. Koushiro explains: They're bickering over whether we should go to that huge mountain we keep seeing in the center of File Island. It's called "Mugen Mountain", mugen being the Japanese word for Infinity. The dub translates Infinity Mountain faithfully.

(Don't know about y'all but I'd be hesitant to start climbing something called Infinity Mountain in a place where physics are playful. The possibility that the name might not be hyperbolic would give me pause.)

While we see the two bickering, Sora summarizes their sides for Jou's benefit.

Sora: Taichi says that if we go there, we can survey our entire surroundings. Jou: That's true. On a mountain that tall, we can see everything. Sora: But Yamato is against it because it's dangerous. Piyomon: There are a lot of ferocious Digimon on that mountain. Jou: I see. That is dangerous.

While in the dub, Tai and Matt themselves yell their opinions at each other mid-argument for Joe to hear and consider.

Tai: It's the perfect spot! We gotta climb up there; It's the best view of the island! Joe: You've gotta admit; He's got a point there. Sora: That's not how Matt sees it. Matt: Nobody would make it up that peak! It's much too big of a gamble! Biyomon: He might be right, Joe; There could be lots of evil Digimon up that peak! Joe: Hmm... That's not good! That wouldn't be worth the risk.

The biggest difference between the two versions is Yamato's side. Piyomon in the original states with certainty that there's ferocious Digimon there, while Biyomon in the dub is only speculating. Given that the Digimon have been Tour Guiding everyone and identifying various important Digimon by name, it makes sense that she'd have a good idea of what's on Infinity Mountain. So that's a point to the original.

However, the way it's phrased makes it sound like Yamato's only worried about fighting Digimon, while Matt sounds more generally concerned with the idea of a bunch of inexperienced children trying to do expert mountain climbing, regardless of what else is up there. So that's a point to the dub.

Taichi calls Yamato out for unproductive cowardice and Yamato calls Taichi out for recklessly endangering the group. Jou tries to convince them to settle down and stop fighting, but they respond by putting him on the spot. Pick a side: Taichi or Yamato? Jou agrees with both of them and demands time to think, and the whole argument turns into a three-way shouting match rather than being settled.

(That's a Nat 1 on Jou's Diplomacy check.)

Eventually Sora is forced to step in and yell at all three of them to cool it. Together with Piyomon, Agumon, and Gabumon, she declares bed time - Leaving Jou with nothing but his abject sense of failure.

While the others sleep, Jou reflects on how badly that went.

Jou: I couldn't do anything. I even got caught up in the fight instead of stopping it. This won't do. I have to stay focused. I have to keep everyone in order! Me!

Jou rises to his feet with determination to take action. He's going to climb Infinity Mountain himself.

He barely makes it out of the cave before Gomamon catches him. Jou protests Gomamon's presence, demanding he stop following him. Gomamon retorts that he has business to take care of up on that mountain so they just happen to be going the same way.

Jou and Gomamon help each other up the mountain, dissolving the tension between them pretty quickly. Gomamon offers Jou a "hand" to help him climb; Jou points out his flippers for a joke, surprising Gomamon with the fact that he even can tell jokes. For his part, Jou physically does help Gomamon up the mountain.

Jou and Gomamon stop to take a break on the mountain, but suddenly a massive earthquake strikes. The partners bear witness to a secret door opening in the mountainside, spilling out more Black Gears and sending them across File Island.

Jou immediately decides to investigate whatever this is.

As they approach the secret door, the sun comes up. However, it's already closed and sealed, and the Black Gears are gone. Jou and Gomamon find nothing waiting for them.

Then they hear a noise. The sound of wings beating in the distance, coming closer.

Unimon, an Adult-stage Vaccine-type Digimon. The narrator explains:

Gomamon: It's Unimon! He's a smart, gentle Digimon. Narrator: A sweet Digimon whose form is a mix of the legendary beasts, the unicorn and Pegasus. His special attack is the fireball Holy Shot.

While in the dub, Joe and Gomamon go over him like this.

Joe: Oh, that's just great; A flying horse wearing a mask! This can't be good. Gomamon: That's not your everyday flying horse, Joe. That's Unimon! He's a wise old Digimon. I never knew he lived in these mountains; He's not much of a talker!

Normally I side with the original over the dub on these character intros, but I like Joe's agitated remark and Gomamon's personalized exposition more than the clinical analysis that the narrator provides this time.

Jou initially insists on hiding. Despite Gomamon's assurance that Unimon's kind and friendly... the kids have heard that a lot on this island.

Fortunately, Unimon's just stopping by for a drink of water. Everything is fine. Gomamon steps out of the cave to go chat up Unimon and--

Red Alert. Everything is no longer fine.

Expectedly, the Black Gear slams into Unimon's back, driving him wild. He turns on Gomamon and Jou, advancing menacingly. In the dub, he says, "Hello, Gomamon; Aren't you happy to see me?" in a hostile voice, but he says nothing in the original.

Back at camp, Sora's the first to wake up. Stepping outside the cave, she finds a message Jou left, informing the other kids that he'll be back in a bit and asking them to wait for him. Immediately realizing what reckless action Jou's taken, Sora wakes everyone up to go after him.

Jou and Gomamon flee for their lives from Unimon, but his flight advantage makes escape impossible. He destroys both sides of the path they're on with his Holy Shots, pinning them down to one area.

Again, the original Unimon only makes horse noises, while dub Unimon speaks English, taunting them with remarks like, "That's a perfectly good route if you're thinking of flying away!" Also, the dub refers to Holy Shot as Aerial Attack.

With Jou and Gomamon pinned down and nowhere left to run, Unimon begins charging up a final Holy Shot to kill them both. Jou hugs Gomamon tightly, closes his eyes, and waits for the end. Then he hears the crash, but nothing hits him. So he opens his eyes and....

Sora and Taichi have arrived as backup!

While they're distracted checking up on Jou, Unimon nails Birdramon with a Holy Shot, sending her tumbling down the cliff. Sora slides down after her to check on her. Meanwhile, Agumon evolves into Greymon to take over fighting Unimon.

It does not go well. Unimon's flight advantage allows him to easily outmaneuver Greymon on this narrow ledge and swing around for a dive bomb.

As Greymon picks himself up and opens fire, Unimon's full three dimensions of maneuverability let him dodge Greymon's Mega Flames, while Greymon has few options to protect himself from Unimon's Holy Shots. Greymon gets pummeled by Unimon's fire while landing no shots of his own.

Birdramon returns to the fight, but Unimon sails straight between the shots of her Meteor Wing to land a body slam, putting her back on the ground.

This fight is ugly, but Jou has a plan. Recognizing that their real enemy here is not Unimon but the Black Gear corrupting him, Jou takes charge and leaps off the fucking cliff to land on Unimon's back when he sails close by below.

Unimon begins bucking and thrashing in the air to stop Jou from pulling out the Black Gear. Gomamon screams at Jou to come down from there, but Jou to stop, but his mind is made up.

Gomamon: JOU, STOP!!! It's impossible! Jou: No! I have to do this! I have to protect everyone! Because... I'm the oldest... I'll PROTECT EVERYONE--

And then Unimon wins, bucking Jou off and sending him tumbling from a lethal height.

It's a strong moment for Jou that doesn't quite hit the same way in the dub.

Gomamon: JOE, STOP!!! Don't try to be a hero! Joe: I know! But I just have to do this one thing... I'm not going to stop until it's done! I have to think positive! I'm responsible! I've gotta do it--

Followed by being bucked off. There's a certain pathetic quality to the dub's Joe that makes this a heartwarming "He tried" moment. While, in the original, this is the culmination of Jou's responsibility and pressure to safeguard the younger kids; the realization of Jou-senpai.

He fails. And he falls. But as he plunges to his doom, this moment is what awakens Gomamon. With a bloodcurdling scream of Jou's name, Gomamon SHINKAAAAAA!!!

Ikkakumon has feelings about what just happened. An Adult-stage Vaccine-type Digimon, Ikkakumon derives the name "ikkaku" from the Japanese word for narwhal. He's Narwhalmon.

(This makes pitting Ikkakumon and Unimon against each other exceedingly funny, as narwhal tusks are believed to have been the source for unicorn myths. They're sometimes called the Unicorn of the Sea. So. Y'know. Get wrecked by a REAL unicorn, Unimon.)

Ikkakumon's signature move, Harpoon Vulcan, fires multiple horns from his head at his target. The dub calls it Harpoon Torpedo.

That Unimon is extremely difficult to hit in the air remains a problem, however. Or rather it would be a problem but, much like Andromon's Gatling Missiles, every shot from Harpoon Vulcan contains a fun toy surprise inside!

Specifically, homing missiles that target Unimon's Black Gear, hitting home and destroying the corrupting influence.

With the Gear destroyed, Unimon promptly flies off. Even the dub version has no parting words despite speaking English.

Once that's settled, Taichi, Sora, and Jou unpack things. Taichi congratules Jou and apologizes for last night. Jou shakes hands with Gomamon and formally thanks him for the rescue, much to Gomamon's embarrassment. The hostilities are all swept aside.

Since they're only a hop, skip, and jump from the peak, the trio finishes the climb together. But the answers they find at the top are incredibly discouraging.

Nothing but ocean surrounds this lonely island for as far as the eye can see. There is nowhere else to go. The episode ends on that suspenseful moment, as the kids stare out at the dismal truth.

Taichi: Th-This is.... Narrator: Taichi and the others became highly discouraged when they discovered that File Island was a solitary island admist the vast sea.

The dub, on the other hand, spins this around to end on a positive note.

Group: Whoa! Tai: Not much out there. Joe (V.O.): So Gomamon and I fought all the way to the top to see what was there and we found... Well, nothing. But I think we discovered quite a bit on the way up!

Yeah, that's a bit of a tone difference. They don't find nothing at the top of Infinity Mountain. They find despair. The revelation that there is no escape in sight, that there is nowhere they can go but File Island. That the island sits alone in a vast ocean with no clear indication of where else they can go, or if there even is anywhere else to go.

But. Y'know. We're lightening the show up for an American audience and hoo boy at that. It's just funny to see the Japanese Narrator deliver this revelation with horror and then American Tai's just like, "Huh. Neat. Anyways...."

Assessment: This is the last of the character intro episodes we'll get for a while, as Patamon's evolution is being withheld for later. This one ends on such a dark note because the plot officially begins next episode.

For Jou, this episode really highlights the crushing pressure he's under. Something it doesn't resolve, but instead simply spotlights. No answer is explicitly given for the stresses that led him to explode at everyone on Egg Night. What answer can be given? The situation is what it is.

Everyone moves on and forgives each other, but Jou remains under the burden of a responsibility he's not equipped to handle. Nonetheless, an answer is implicitly given when he and his team lean on each other against Unimon. Jou takes charge and wins the day, but only because they were there to help him in the first place.

Cooperation and mutual respect is what's going to keep them alive out here, more than anything.

Much like with Sora's episode, the dub misses the mark at several points with regard to Jou's character arc, which is basically erased here. What they replace his emotional turmoil with is more like the journey of a weak boy needing to be brave.

Without the perspective of his senpai responsibility, Joe just comes across cowardly due to his cautious sensibilties. Which, I think, is an uncharitable treatment; The way he leaps from the cliff without hesitation pretty well conveys that Jou isn't afraid of harm to himself; He's cautious because he has an obligation to keep these children safe. He'll jump straight into the fire for them, but he'll do everything in his power to keep them from lighting themselves on fire first.

But as usual, the dub also has some great moments and solid lines going for it as well, with the snowball discussion being its highlight.