#still love digimon but i was never as into it as i am pokemon or yo-kai watch

[oh-meow-swirls]

i think my favorite instances of pokemon and yo-kai with similar inspirations are the ones where you can barely tell they have the same inspiration. like. jibanyan and espeon are both based on nekomata. frostina/blizzaria and froslass are both yuki-onna. komasan and growlithe are both (at least according to bulbapedia on the latter cuz i really doubt it) komainu. honestly basically the only one i can think of where it's obvious are like. walkappa and lombre skdjfljfssfdsfdkljfds-

[jackpotsadmon]

shit like kizuna and distant blue sky are going to be the fucking death of me man

(long kizuna and pokemon rants in tags + a lot of emotional rambling and spoilers)

[hollowphobiasfw]

A friend of mine commissioned me to draw Son Goku, in honor of the passing of the beloved Akira Toriyama. I've not really talked about it much, but Dragon Ball Z, like many other kids in the west from the early 2000's was some of the very first anime I was ever introduced to, along with others like Sailor Moon, Digimon, Pokemon, Monster Rancher and many more and from there I'd continued to watch Eastern animation way into my 30's.

As such Dragon Ball has always held a special place in my heart, even as much as I disagree and complain about the way Toei Animation is currently handling the property and I do worry how the property will continue without Akira, I will still love the show regardless. I remember burning the DBZ songs onto CDS with Napster, hanging posters on my fall, seeing Majin Buu from a Japanese exclusive poster and wondering what the hell it was. I guess what I'm saying is I will always love this show, for without it, I'd not be the person I am today.

As for the picture itself, I knew I could never replicate Akira Toriyama's style one to one and it be foolish of me to even attempt it, but I decided to purposely go with little design choices to reflect his influence, such as using a more muted grey-ish black for one, to make Goku's hair feel a lot more natural than what we were use to seeing.

---

Patreon

Linktr.ee // Commission Info

[smokeybrandreviews]

Festival Season

I am a massive fan of MegaTen games. I love everything about them; the battle systems, characters, and overall world. I fell in love with the summoning and fusion systems of these games almost immediately and longed for other franchises to do something similar. It was basically Digimon Fusion before Digimon was a thing. Who wouldn’t want to Lego two Pokemon into a goddamn MewTwo? The missus introduced me to this brave new world with the purchase of Digital Devil Saga so long ago. It was one of the first gifts I ever got her. Watching her play that sh*t really awakened something within me. It was like watching my kid brother playing Final Fantasy IX for the first time but with, you know, violent monstrosities. Way back then, during the golden age of the JRPG, on the PS2, we made it a point to play all of the obscure titles. Nippon Ichi and Atlus were our bread and butter. We had copies of Stella Deus, every DIsgaea available, and even Soul Nomad. No one talks about Soul Nomad. One day, she came home with Persona 3. On that list was Persona 3 vanilla. Bro, after we booted it up and those first few notes of Burn My Dread popped, I was hooked. I must have put three hundred hours into that game. I conquered everything I could in that game, romanced every option, and completed one hundred percent of that sh*t. I unlocked every Persona on just two runs and readily did it again when FES released. The Answer was kind if disappointing but I didn’t mind running through the enhanced world of P3 once again. And then I did it one more time when P3P dropped, though, admittedly, Portable is my least favorite of the lot. Persona 3 opened my eyes to a world of RPGs beyond just your Final Fantasys and Dragon Warriors. Because I enjoyed this one game so much, I was open to trying out others. I wouldn’t have touched Magna Carta if not for Persona. I would have missed out on Rogue Galaxy. Wouldn’t have given Shining Force EXA a second thought. If I had never played Persona 3, I would have never played 4 or 5, and that sh*t seems so bewildering to me because those games are some of my all-time favorites. In fact, for a long while, Persona 5 was my favorite of these games. I wrote a whole thing about, about how, while I loved 3, 5 was a close second. It had legitimately closed that gap after Royal dropped but then Persona 3 Reload was announced. Guess who pulled ahead once again.

I got Reload day one and immediately dove into to. It felt familiar, yet, new. It definitely got all the bells and whistles that made Persona 5 so enjoyable but was still definitely Persona 3. I got my copy for the PS4 so, while the presentation is loads better than the original, and it shows, it’s comparable to Persona 5. Having that “side-by-side” experience just solidifies that P3 IS my favorite Persona title and one of my all-time favorite games, period. I was a little bummed Burn My Dread wasn’t the opening song but Full Moon Full ain’t too shabby on its own. More than that, the quality of life changes are amazing. It’s the little things like the Online Saves or the fact you don't get fatigued in Tartarus anymore. I love how the original character designs got a remix, bringing them closer in line with that Persona 5 aesthetic, and boy do they steal from that P5 aesthetic let me tell you! The thing is, though, it feels full circle to me. I remember, way back when I was playing P5 (shout out to Tae Takemi, best girl in the entire game), that P5 feels like the spiritual successor to P3 in every way P4 is not. Don’t get me wrong, P4 is a classic, but it feels out of place in the trio, almost disconnected. Also, I remember hating Teddy. It’s like, did P3 influence P5, only to have that sh*t bleed back into Reload? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I get to play Persona 3, on my PS4, with the look of Persona 5. I cannot stress how dope that is. Also, Satanael is DLC. You KNOW I bought due and have been decimating the early game! Thanatos is my second favorite Persona, always, Alice is the first (especially after I customize her), but Ren’s ultimate Persona is a strong third. Like, laughably so. There’s just something about summoning a Demon God that feels so…powerful. Also, you shoot God in the face. How can you not love that?

I’m ten hours into Reload and it is everything I ever dreamed  a full-on Persona 3 remake should be. This isn’t that bait and switch FFVII pulled with Remake. No, for all intents and purposes, this IS Persona 3 but with modern game play and graphics. It’s like I’m popping ion the game for the very first time, damn near twenty years later. The Protagonist is as stoic as ever and the city of Tatsumi Port Island is alive with a vibrancy only the power of PS4 could bring. Building this game on the Unreal engine was a stroke of genius because the models are crisp, detailed, and fluid. There are so many little particle effects that make everything pop. The biggest upgrade is the UI. The thing is, I’m old as f*ck. I’ve been gaming since the old NES days. I’ve seen the evolution of video game and, for me, they peaked way back in the PS3 era. When P3 originally came out, I had no problem with how the title was presented. It got a little flashier with P3P and Persona 4 added their own flair, but Persona 5 really went in on the showmanship. P3R gets a bit of that and it goes a very long way to captivating the player. I thought modern hardware would affect the charm of these OG designs, but it doesn’t. It actually enhances them considerably. It’s subtle, but the bodies are longer, the eyes are smaller, and the overall proportions feel more realistic. I kind of love it. I also love the redesigns, so far. I mean, Mitsuru is gorgeous and I adore the new-ish Elizabeth model, but I’m holding judgment until the very end when I get to see Nyx again. And definitely get my ass throttled by her. Now, admittedly, not all that shimmers is gold. The fact that the Answer, the additional part of FES, isn’t included in what is a very obvious FES remake, kind of bones. I hear that it will be DLC down the line and that sucks. I like Metis. Her design was dope. I’m also not that huge a fan of Thanatos’ first reveal being made with in-game models. The visceral nature of that genesis feels lost when not in animation. It’s good in its own way but, goddamn, did that sh*t hit different way back when. These are, of course, superficial gripes because I am having the time of my life with this game! And it’s only the first play through. That New Game is about to slap crazy hard! I cannot wait to run it back with my heavy hitters on deck. Satanael be damned, getting Thanatos and my laughably OP Alice in the mix is going to be the best!

[alexissara]

My Experience With TCGs

Card games are one of my favorite mediums for games, I've always loved cards and collected all sorts as a kid, Digimon, Neopets, Pokemon, Yugioh and more. I've also always been designing card games, generally the rules were just something for me and my siblings to enjoy our big mix of cards or custom cards I made by cutting out art from magazines and instruction manuals for games. So now I am working on designing a game that is actually playable and fun for everyone, Soul Of The Hero. I've been working on this for years and It's changed formats a few times over that. However, with it's current design I do think it has the legs to finally do everything I want it to do. To get to this point I did a ton of card game research, I've looked at dead and alive card games, games I play all the time and games I'd never play competitively to really get to the heart of what makes them fun, special, and great.

Yugioh

Yu-gi-oh is a game I played competitively for years and have kept up with for most the time even after I quit playing competitively. There has been little blank spots but it's a game I am deeply familiar with. Which is why in studying yugioh, I found not a lot to learn from in a positive way, it was mostly a lot of what not to do. Yugioh has been improving as a game since they left behind anime tie ins and focused on making the competitive game it's own thing. However, the game is a bit of a mess, a fun mess but it doesn't really feel like something that I want to emulate.

Still that is an important part of the process of making something and I am sure years of playing Yu-gi-oh will somehow show in the final production of Soul Of The Hero. I love Yu-gi-oh, I just also think it's a mess and probably not worth diving into ATM.

Cardfight!! Vangaurd

This game is one that fascinates me always. It always felt like this might be the best designed card game around. Until the D series every card was a resource in such a perfect way that truly made Vanguard stand out from every other card game. There wasn't a lot of dead cards, there was less useful cards but thanks to shield values and boost every card can do something, every card is an important resource.

This is a game haunted by terrible management which really holds back it's potential to soar but when I am working on card games, I think about how this games so tightly designed. Having cards all have multiple uses means your players are never drawing a card and utterly dreading it, they might not prefer it, it might mean their going to lose, but especially in the early game every card can be used for something.

Digimon

This game has one of the most fascinating resource systems. You have a rather wide pool of resources you can use but the more you use the more your opponent gets for free. It's a genuine travesty that this game is utterly fucked for Color Blind players. artistically this game really is top shelf which is really impressive given Digimon's previous TCG outings were some of the ugliest games ever printed. The actual flow of play is also really great, it really captures Digimon as a series while making an engaging set of gameplay. It's a perfect use of Digimon for a game.

The biggest thing the Digimon TCG inspires me about is trying to bring out a unique identity through mechanics, to have mechanics that simply scream, this is my game, the simple act of using them is recreating the essence of it.

Pokémon

The Pokémon TCG is a strange and unique beast. I've played it a few times in my life and I've grow to really appreciate the game more as it's improved over time. The card games ability to draw massive amounts of cards, do big time disruptions and has totally unique mechanics. I love how it has a lot of mechanics each of which can give a bit more character to each creature. It's a card game that really makes use of every inch of space of it's design to give every card a unique essence.

Something I found enrapturing and I am taking into consideration is the Rapid Strike mechanic. It was just printed on the card art, like a little stamp and it becomes this key symbol and something that there is a lot of support built around. It's not something for so early in game design but it might be a better way of doing like Archetype titles then having every card be called "Darkest Warrior Knight" then name or whatever the fuck. I also really love how able you are to dive into your resources and think that is such a fun point of design.

Sentinels Of The Multiverse

I love playing co-op and this game is one I've sunk upwards of 300 hours on. This is a game I just a blast to play despite it many of problems. This is the game that got me thinking about two v two card games in a serious way and not as a tacked on extra mode.

It's team based play is also something I am looking to when I am looking at making a purely co-op mode for my game because I think it clearly does a lot really well in making fun challenges for a team to fight with creative decks.

Fire Emblem Cipher

This game really pushed me and inspired my design further. Fire Emblem Cipher's actual card design is just, gosh, breath taking in the way it communicates so much visually about characters very quickly and how those things about the character can then be brought back into the mechanics. A lot of games have lots of little flavor information about cards that sometimes get used as mechanics but this is so quickly visually communicated all while being colorblind accessible.

It's a shame this game never got a non Japanese release and that it died shortly after Three Houses release. I have not got a lot of play experience because of that but just reading translated cards and seeing the design is a major design inspiration.

Magic The Gathering

This is the classic TCG but it is also one I think is lacking to me. The act of playing down Mana, it simply does not jell with me. The methodical play of MTG is clearly a ton of people's thing but it is not mine. What I can appreciate is the modern exploration of aesthetics and themes they've been delving into. The mish mash of settings and styles makes the game instantly a bit more captivating.

I think Magic is another game where what I'm taking from it is mostly "what not to do". Like don't sell proxy packs for tons of money but also like just design stuff I don't really jell with. That is one of the best ways to learn afterall.

Wixoss

Sometimes something that looks bad can inspire you. I've not played this game but it just, really doesn't look like a game I'd enjoy, maybe I Would but until there is some kind of digital way to play I probably won't bother. I love girls and playing all girl decks but it seems maybe a bit too horny vibes with young characters to be a thing I wouldn't really wanna touch without some assurance about the game overall.

I have no idea how Piece cards work in Wixoss but what I can say is just the vibe of the piece cards inspired a whole new mechanic for me. Sometimes the vibes are strong enough.

Weiss Schwarz

I wish this game was more exciting but it is painfully boring for the concept of "a bunch of random ass licenses fighting against each other". The games far too limited in deck building with ugly ass screen shots and promotional arts used to make the cards. It simply is terrible only worsened by the like terrible clash of some of the IPs.

However, the concept of a bunch of clashing universe has always appealed to me from like the first time I played X-men vs Street Fighter on the playstation one and this card game reaffirmed it is possible to do it and get people to want to check it out.

Shadowverse

The app had fallen onto my phone several times but it wasn't until I played the game on my phone that I started to really understand Shadowverse. The game could be called anime Hearthstone but even if that was at it was it would be way better then that game cuz it's so ugly, I much prefer the art style of Shadowverse.

The gameplay however has a really exciting Evolve mechanic that stands out among all the card games. The ability to buff any card even if for some it is just a stat boost as a core mechanic is just super cool. I think it shows that there is so many dynamic ways to make cards variable resources.

Legends Of Runeterra

Who would have expected to fall in love with this game so hard. This might be the most interactive card game ever created. This game is strictly digital and it would be impossible to work into a physical game in any good way but that's great, it's using the medium it's in to it's fullest. Creating cards, adding keywords, the push and pull of the more you do the more your foe can do, it's a really really intensely fascinating card game.

I think the champion system is where I am really looking at the game for what I could pull from what I am doing. I think having conditions to unlock a stronger version of a card that a deck can centralize around is really neat. I don't know if that literally will work in what I am doing but I think I am at least looking at the heart.

-----

If you enjoyed my little card game thoughts, you can follow me here, I'll probably talk about card games more on here and it'll keep you tunned in for when I am releasing my own card game in the far future.

[cosplayinamerica]

So my cosplay origin story started back when I was in fifth grade. I was 10 and my mom told me she couldn't afford to get me a Halloween costume that year. So I stayed up all night being really sad about it and then suddenly I had an idea.

So I ran around my house and found a bunch of different pieces of clothing and put them together. I found a white shirt I found the blue vest I found the baseball cap, and at the time I was obsessed with Digimon so everywhere I went with me I had a little demiveemon with me. So I actually even made him a mask and I put the mask on him and I had a pokeball from Burger King when they were doing those gold Pokemon cards and I put him in the pokeball and I went to school the next day as Ash. That was when I first got started I didn't know that it was called cosplay.

That was around the time [high school]that we had learned about Anime Vegas so I grabbed my cousin and then we of course did our little closet cosplays cuz of course there were no wig stores or cosplay shops or places to get costume pieces like there are today.

And we took the bus down to Vegas. I think we were 15 at the time and we were so excited when we got there and there was a whole line of people also in there closet cosplays that they put together waiting to get in. That's when I really got into cosplay when I first went to Anime Vegas cuz I knew there was a name for it and I knew I wasn't the only person that liked dressing up like anime characters.

My current cosplay: so right now at the School of Cosplay I am working on my Crow cosplay. He is from a show called show by Rock and he is a rockstar hedgehog LOL. He has a lot of spikes a lot of studs leather pants leather jacket a tail the whole nine yards. He is what I am working on for an upcoming competition at LVL UP Expo for this upcoming February and then after him I'm actually going to work on a pretty exciting and ambitious cosplay for Crunchyroll expo.

It's going to be a remake of Lelouch from Code Geass. And it's a remake because I made him a long long time ago way before the school even existed and looking back on it I hated how it turned out LOL and I want to take it up like a million notches

[School of Cosplay] It's just a nice safe space to work and it's very spacious and of course having an instructor there to answer any questions you may have is always helpful. I've always wanted to improve any time I've done a masquerade and I go to feedback I would always be told you have to take your costume up some more your performances are great but you got to improve on your costume work. And I would never know how to do that.

A lot of people can go on YouTube and watch videos or some people went to college for it. I'm more of an in-person learner so the school has really helped me in teaching me everything I need to know when helping me improve.

My number one [favorite cosplay I've done] would have to be Anthy from Utena. And there's just something about that costume that I just love. I think it has to do with the fact that growing up besides being a black cosplayer it was hard to find female cosplays that I thought looked good on me.

The first time I made Anthy, I thought she looked really cute on me and so once I started going to the School of Cosplay I wanted to remake her because I had learned so many skills there and so I made her a second time and she came out better but there was still something that I needed to perfect on her.

So that's what I made her a third time and that's the one you saw in the studio I'm really proud of how she came out. Ahe is perfection and she looks extremely good on me which always surprises me.

Photos by @midnight_pursona_photography

So my number three would have to be Motoyasu from the Reprise of Superhero. So me and my friends had done a shield hero group at Anime Los Angeles right before the pandemic. And my friend was going to be Naofumi, who I love but the next character in line that I was going to be Motoyasu. But I hated his personality so when I was making his first costume I was looking for any reason I could find to not hate him. That's when I found out that he had a side manga series called the reprise of spear hero where he actually redeemed himself and I actually started to really really like him. So after I did his first costume I did his second costume from the side manga and it came out so nice it was one of my most difficult cosplays to make. 

My second favorite Tokiya from uta no prince sama. I adore idol anime especially if it's male idol anime. And I have an obsession with a Japanese voice actor named miyano mamoru. So I like the cosplay characters he voices. 

body > iframe { min-width: auto !important }

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Subaru Winfield (@subarucamui)

Advice I would give to my younger self would probably be more along the lines of masquerade because my younger self did not understand masquerade. I didn't know how it worked assume that you going and getting up on stage is an automatic award. I would tell my younger self to make sure to always continue putting your best foot forward to not be afraid to cosplay outside their comfort zone and that of course anyone can cosplay do not let how you feel about yourself getting the way of what you love. Because there have been times where I have not done a cosplay because I was worried about how I would look to this day there is still a costly that I've wanted to do since I was a teenager that I have not done yet but I will soon.

https://www.instagram.com/subarucamui/

Amazon School Teacher List https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/37LJSGUKTW2ZH?ref_=wl_share

[slifers-executive-writer]

I am well aware I have not been personally present on both this blog and the precious fanfictions it is dedicated in sharing with the world. But from the news of this morning, I feel I have an obligation to address it, particularly while I still have the motivation to do so. So here it is, and I will also be reblogging my older posts that relate to this topic later today.

I was gonna start off by saying this man shaped my childhood, but... I feel I'd be like lying to myself in an effort to making it sound cliche and poetic.

No no. This man (let's say his name everyone, Kazuki Takahashi) literally molded and morphed my whole fucking life. And I'm not exaggerating either. It's no mystery to those that know me in acknowledging I didn't exactly have it easy growing up. But in spite of the bullying and numerous other hardships, I always had Yu-Gi-Oh. Like I nearly ditched Pokemon and Digimon so fast because of this. As a kid this show and its card game had become a bit of an obsession and I don't think any other form of media resonated with quite like Yu-Gi-Oh did.

Like I wanted to be THAT guy. Someone who was strong and confident, who knew what they were doing and didn't spend every other waking minute in fear of what would come next. I think we all put on a sort of alter ego when going out into the world, especially when we are just trying to figure out who we are. But in that journey of putting on a different face for others to be impressed by I find eventually we look within and slowly become comfortable with our true selves. I know it took me a long fucking time to do so. And who knows maybe deep down I'm still that scared little kid not knowing what their next move will be. But I definitely owe my personal growth to the world and characters of Takahashi's imagination.

If it wasn't for the card game, I wouldn't have met a good number of the people that walked in and out of my life. If it wasn't for the show, I wouldn't have my love for mythology and the ancient world. If it wasn't for the manga, I wouldn't have become the writer that I am today. I've drawn more Yu-Gi-Oh related art probably more than any source material. My walls and shelves are filled with countless memorabilia of the very franchise that I love so dearly. It even pains me to know that I will no longer see updates to this man's social media or any new artwork. And now with a very, oh so heavy heart I address a day I didn't think would come so soon. Rest in peace Kazuki Takahashi and Thank You for the being such a phenomenal part of my life and character.

P.S. To those that own any of his Alternative Arts in card form, hold them close to your heart and preserve them, for unless Konami decides to reprint and /or release unused artwork, we may never see the likes of his masterpieces again.

[bahamutgames]

Afterthoughts Story : Cyber Sleuth

Game: Digimon Story : Cyber Sleuth (March 12, 2015)

Console: Nintendo Switch

Alright, let's do this. So, my last RPG that I played through before taking a break so I wouldn't have anything overlapping with the most important game ever coming out this Friday Is Digimon Cyber Sleuth, obviously. I got this game for Christmas a few years back now but didn't end up playing it until this year, and finally beat it right at the end of October. So here I am, telling you about my wonderful digiexperience!

Like always, not a review, just my thoughts. Please don't take my word as gospel, just my impressions while playing. Play anything I talk about you that interests you.

SPOILERS FOR DIGIMON CYBER SLEUTH AHEAD, PROCEED WITH CAUTION! THERE'S NO SPOILERS FOR HACKER'S MEMORY THOUGH!

Opening

So, honestly, as much as I enjoy Digimon from afar. I've never been a hard core Digimon guy. I've seen a bit of Adventures, I always liked the designs, and I follow that Digimon a day twitter that has shown me a lot of AMAZING creatures from it. But truth be told, I just never really got into the series. However I saw how popular this game seemed to be, and knew it was a turnbased RPG, so I figured it'd be a great jumping in point for me. And honestly, I was right! I had a fantastic time with this game!

Stuff I liked

I was very pleasantly surprised by this game. I really wasn't sure what to expect since Digimon is a little out of my wheelhouse, but honestly I think this was a really solid RPG with a lot of high points. I think the graphics are nice, it's not the most mind blowing thing visually outside of EDEN but when you go into digital worlds I think the game looks SUPER cool and felt like playing Summer Wars. Which makes sense, but still lol. The soundtrack is also REALLY good, much to no one's surprise, I particularly enjoyed the battle themes. The boss theme and the Eater themes were my favorites, but I also enjoyed the song that plays in the Digital Shift dungeons and the Digital World.

The gameplay was very good too and honestly really surprising to me. I know they're wildly different series, but I HAVE been playing through the Pokemon games lately, so I couldn't help but draw comparisons between the two. And while this is a monster collection game, they play NOTHING alike. In fact, Cyber Sleuth plays a LOT more like a traditional JRPG. And personally, I really like that. Things are a little linear which is fine for my lizard brain. But particularly I think the combat helps this game feel a lot faster than Pokemon can at times. Since every battle has you with 3 monsters that you can swap out during combat, and fully deck out with multiple pieces of equipment, and even completely change their movelist to your liking whenever you want. I think it works very well and while it is SIMILAR to Pokemon, and it might be more my style, I think it's good that they're so different, I don't know if I'd want Pokemon to straight up rip this off even if I think there is some convenience and maybe even some polish it could borrow from this?

In regards to that polish, I do love that every Digimon is like a full fledged party member in a more traditional RPG sense. But something I was REALLY shocked by was the amount of animations each Digimon has. They all have a standard attack, signature attack, buff, damage, death, and victory animation totally unique to themselves! From what I noticed, they're not even copied between evolutions. AND your current party follows you on the map, it's really cool! I also enjoy that digimon you aren't using can be put on the farm to gather items and sidequests, or even be fed to your other Digimon for EXP. It's small but it's a neat addition.

And as long as I'm on the subject of the monsters themselves, if you've seen my thoughts on the Pokemon games you know a HUGE aspect of those games for me is the Pokedex of the region. The monsters really make or break the monster collection game for me, of course. They're the main reason I'm playing it! And while it might be unfair to give it praise for this, since it's had years of monsters to pull from. As an outsider of the series, Cyber Sleuth MORE than delivers on its monster catalogue! There are SO many monsters to meet and recruit through the game, and so many of them were brand new to me! Obviously I had the classics I know like Agumon (one of my personal faves cause, dinosaur) but there were SO many new Digimon I had never heard of before that I fell in love with. Stuff like Pumpkinmon, Geckomon, Lekismon, Zubamon (who I just learned can turn into a sword!? SO BAD ASS!!), and my new personal favorite: Groundramon! It seemed like there was ALWAYS something new to find even when I digivolving the same creature over and over, I was always finding new creatures and still didn't get most of the catalogue filled.

Outside of that stuff, I enjoyed the story a lot. There were a lot of turns and twists that kept it interesting, and I always really enjoy plots about the relationship between the real world and cool MMOs. I think the Eden Syndrome stuff is probably a little tried but it worked! I thought the Eaters were mysterious and freaky. I liked how the plot was framed around solving cases as a detective, it was a very unique format for an RPG. I liked a lot of the characters, they were all very fun. Nokia and Yuuko were funny, I liked Arata, and Kyoko was SO hot! The game is also hilarious! It sometimes gives the energy of like "we weren't given a proper script to translate so we went a little nuts" but honestly I think it worked. The game is serious when it needs to be but is still super funny when it can be and is generally very unhinged at times in a good way. Overall it was a very fun and funny experience!

Also, the ending where you're rebuilt from the memories of your Digimon team was SO cute, I loved that, what a cute little detail as a final goodbye from your party.

Stuff I didn't like

However, as you can probably tell from the translation thing, this game is a little rough around the edges. I'd say overall the quality is very high, but there's a couple things here and there that make it feel not 100% there, if that makes sense?

So, a small one that didn't come up a lot but came up more than you'd expect was text formatting issues. This makes sense because Japanese text can probably fit a whole novel into the textboxes, while English text can be a lot longer. But sometimes text would go off screen, or there would be times where I could select lines in a dialogue box that was CLEARLY not a dialogue choice? Or sometimes I felt like they'd attribute the lines to the wrong characters. It never massively got in the way, and most of the time it's not an issue. But it's still odd and something I've never seen before.

Then there's the character designs. I like the protagonist's design. I like Kyoko and Yuuko too. And obviously the Digimon rule. But like Arata and the detective and Date all kinda look basic? Like I maybe couldn't pick them out of a crowd? And it weirded me out the WHOLE time that Nokia looked almost identical to me. Was us being separated at birth removed from our memories too? I felt similarly about Jimiken, who really didn't look as cool or noticeable (despite looking like Jimiken) to be a reoccurring threat through so much of the early game. Overall I don't think any character designs are bad, just some of them are underwhelming among the humans.

The only real issues I have with the Digimon are that there's too many Vaccine types. I ended up having tons that turned into Vaccines in the end and basically had no null types. It was very odd. And also, I do kinda wish you could digivolve for the stats without having to change the Digimon's designs. Some of them have great designs but their digivolutions kinda... suck. Like Geckomon's evo looks really stupid imo, so I had to turn him into Whamon. Who changed from Virus to Vaccine. Stuff like that genuinely got under my skin sometimes. I don't like Zabueagermon. That name is stupid. I like Zabumon. Give him back to me!

However, my biggest problem with this game. Is that it can kinda drag sometimes. In a few ways. Some smaller ways are like, when you need a new mission. Instead of just giving it to you, sometimes they make you leave the office, get a call, then IMMEDIATELY walk back inside the office. Or worse, you have to walk all the way somewhere to get a job, then go back to the office to accept, THEN GO BACK to where you got the job and continue. Or sometimes characters will just kinda talk on and on and on forever until I'm totally lost from the conversation. I know it's kind of the joke with Kyoko, but it happens a lot and especially towards the end of the game. Genuinely took me out of some story moments where I couldn't keep up with what long-winded comparison she was going on about.

And that ties into my final thought on this, that the game kinda starts to drag in general towards the end. Like, it feels like nothing is happening for a large portion of the game, then the portal opens and things get exciting. And then things just kinda stop and start dragging again. Even story relevant stuff just didn't feel exciting or sometimes out of place. The worst example being when you travel to an alternative reality to get a character who died off screen to come help you because he's still alive in this world. Was that world a reference to a Digimon series I should've been aware of? This new character who joins you from this reality just shows up out of NOWHERE and realistically this whole situation is kinda meaningless? Like this didn't need to happen, it just does for some reason and then kinda never gets addressed again. WE WENT TO AN ALTERNATE REALITY? Idk it just feels very odd. And then some late game dungeons just kinda go on or are kinda repeats of earlier dungeons with tedious copy/paste puzzles. And then you finally get to the end and you have to fight the same security system over and over until you FINALLY get to the final boss. Again it's not the end of the world, but after a bit I really like feel like the game was just overstaying its welcome a little.

Final Thoughts

Honestly though? Overall I think this game was FANTASTIC and a really good introduction to Digimon for me! I didn't even fully go into some other systems and concepts I enjoyed like crossover attacks, how you recruit digimon by scanning them, the theming of dungeons using firewalls and you actually having to hack stuff using computer functions. It's cute!

Color me intrigued, I'm certainly interested in Digimon now. I know there's a remarkable amount of RPGs and Fighting games in the series, so I'll probably check out some of those. I might watch some of the anime. I'm a little card game crazy and Groundramon has a few cards in the TCG! I'm even working on my first Digifake and joined a Digimon Discord with some of my friends. There's a whole new digital world for me to jump into!

===

Thanks for reading! I totally understand why Digimon is so beloved by people, and it was genuinely really fun to finally dive into something from it full on. SO MANY COOL REPTILES IN THIS SERIES! You can see my full team right here (x)!

As for Hacker's Memory. I'm not gonna play that right now. It's longer than the base game. That's not DLC, that's a sequel!! Which is a great deal for sure! But, sheesh! I'll be sure to play it later!

I also want to give a shoutout to Helryu on Deviantart! Usually for the game cover banners at the top of posts I'll take banners from online stores, twitch, or news sites. Stuff that's probably game assets already. But they actually didn't have one for JUST cyber sleuth, they all came with Hacker's memory. So I was very happy to see Helryu did the dirty work for me. Thank you! They make lots of twitch game banners so go check them out if you need any.

That's all from me! Go out and play a game from a big franchise you've wanted to check out!

[stirdrawsandreblaws]

digimon you bitch. also i faved all your ask posts are you happy now >:c lmao <3

lmao yes i'm happy you little shit XD sorry to make you go feral waiting for me to share my top three favorite characters....i hate how hard this is so i'm gonna do like i did with pokemon and split it by series

Digimon Adventure:

Wizardmon

Izzy

Sora and Joe (tie--I literally cannot choose between them and my love for each of them is so different...very much solidified by the bakemon encounter, which is why i grabbed that pic lmao)

Digimon Adventure 02:

Ken Ichijouji (who i am still a little insane about, as you well know)

Yolei/Miyako Inoue

Arukenimon (sorry to wormmon, who is a very close 4th!!)

I didn't see enough of Tamers to have real favorites so i'm skipping to Digimon Frontier:

Neemon (if i had a digimon partner it'd probably be this goob tbh, if not numemon orz)

Koichi Kimura

Koji Minamoto

and that's the last of the anime i've seen... but i've played a bunch of the games and the TCG and stuff so I'll make a list of my favorite Digimon overall:

Tokomon

Wizardmon

Gabumon

i go to great lengths to get these ones whenever possible, as well as toyagumon, impmon, demidevimon, birdramon, tentomon, and dokugumon. i also really like the design for noblepumpkinmon but i didn't play ReArise.

as for the rationale behind #1...tokomon scared the shit out of me the first time i saw it do the teeth thing in the anime and it's basically never left my mind; 11/10 design, fucking flawless

[kichimiangra]

...Well now I gave to ask about Shalconimon. Tell me more?

Shalconimon was my childhood fan digimon. I had been a digimon fan since about when the toy town episode first aired in the usa and that was only because despite seeing the ad for "the show that is like Pokemon but they're DIGITAL MONSTER" I couldn't remember what channel it was suppossed to be airing on so I missed a good chunk of the initial airings of the first arc. I had immediately fell in love with the franchise and wondered "If I had a digimon, what one would it be?"

I didn't have internet at the time, but my grandparents did and I would try to find pictures of what other digimon existed that maybe weren't in the show when I would visit them, or if a classmate had the old cardgame I would ask if I could look at their cards so I could just know what digimon existed to be options for!

I was (and am) an indecisive child tho so I never could just point at one and say "Obviously THAT would be my digimon!' Unlike say, my older sister who took one look at he Pink Gabumon running around Gear Savanah in Digimon World and said "ah yes. Psychemon. There is my partner." (Though in modern times she's a big fan of Labramon)

It wasn't until the day that the finale to Adventure 02 aired, and right after it ended the trailer for Tamers aired; "I used to watch show show... I used to play the cardgame... I even made up my very own digimon! But now.... everything is real." (don't remember if that's how the trailer went) Just with the line " I made up my very own digimon, my dumb ass was like "Wait.... I can make up original fancharacters for things?????" And with that I went to work desigining my very own digimon!

I have always been a huge fan of dinosaurs and I always thought the dinosaur digimon where some of the coolest! The Triceratops were always my favorite (Though I like a LOT of dinos) and although Monochromon and Triceramon already existed I wanted my own Triceratops in my favorite color! (HOW DARE GAMMAMON bE like FIVE CERATOPSIANS IN A TRENCH COAT!!!!) I remember as a kid I could only draw him from the side as ya do, but no art from that era remains.

I remember me and my sister writing our own digital world adventures with our made up digimon and I can't remember really what they were about, but I think Shalconimon was intended to be... kinda an asshole? Like imagine instead of the usual Digimon/Tamer partnership where they almost immediately get along you had more like something from early Medabots where Ikki and Medabee were at each other's throats, or what if Hiro from Ghost Game had gotten Espimon as his partner from the start instead of Gammamon and Espimon just didn't like to listen? At the time with only Adventure and 02 out, and Tamers only having barely started airing the idea of that kind of partnership seemed novel and unique, and maybe inside my baby author brain, just maybe the idea of "Starting off on the wrong foot and having room to grow" sounded narratively satisfying?

About half a decade ago when I revisted him I redesigned him a bit. He was a little over designed from the beginning and decided to upgrade Shalconimon to a Champion Level digimon. Shalconimon was originally the rookie form. I don't remember giving him a Baby I, Champion, or Ultimate but he did have a stupidly conceived Mega that I now call PajamaAngemon because that is exactly what he looked like. Angemon in Pajamas... god why did I give him an angemon form that was so stupid? Anyway after his level promotion he ended up getting a new rookie who... doesn't have a 'mon' name? I just call it the Protocerakeet, because it looks like a fusion of a protoceratops and a Parakeet.

Somewhere in the mid 2010's, I think it was around 2014 or 2015, I had been feeling bummed at the lack of digimon world vpet rpg style games to scratch a digimon world itch, considering World for the ps1 was getting on 15-20 years old and the newest game in that style was Re:Digitize that STILL to this day doesn't have an official English release. I didn't know Next 0rder was in the works, so it just felt like Vpet Rpgs were just... not being made and if they were not being ported over. There had been a rise in games in the indie scene creating spiritual successors to games that the dev had loved growing up but the mainstream and AAA scenes just don't develope anymore and so I had started thinking up two potential game ideas that where intended to have that vpet rpg feel. One was about Cryptids, but it evolved into something less vpet rpg-ish and into a more LoZMajora's Mask/ Stardew Valley calendar based resource time management game. The other was about some kids finding themselves isekai'd to NOT!File Island to help NOT!Jijimon return NOT!Digimon back to NOT!File City while stopping one of the only other humans on the island, NOT!Analogman. So the second one was more of a scratch the serial numbers off Digimon world Clone, replacing Digital Monsters with Monster's based on Extinct Species. The Protocerakeet lives there as that idea's mascot/NOT!Agumon.

[protokirby]

A little story for yall. Ingo and Emmet stuff at the end.

I'm going to confess here. I had a twitter account before I had a tumblr account. And though I just coincidentally decided to make an account during the time a bunch of people were migrating from twitter, I would say I'm not a twitter migrant. I would more say this situation is more akin to being switched at birth and now I just recently found my real family after being in a bad place by mistake.

Let me explain. I've been aware that tumblr exists through my life, just- never made an account for some reason. I always felt like I matched the vibe of this place regardless. I do not know why I didn't think to make an account here before. Maybe because I mostly don't care much for a lot of social media. I use Discord a lot considering it's my primary source of talking to people with how far away from people I live and people are scary offline. Aside from that, I go on youtube some and most of what I put on twitter nowadays is videos from my switch.

I feel safe here. Like I'm at home here. I can post things here and feel good about posting stuff.

Twitter on the other hand, I had only made a twitter account because of a game I played as a kid (cough cough Hungry Shark Evolution cough cough) where I could get free stuff or could keep my game progress or something like that if I connected to a twitter account. But eventually when I decided to actually make tweets on there, I felt like an outcast and nothing I ever tweeted felt "twittery" and more like very undercooked tumblr posts.

I had a reddit account for a little while years ago too but I never felt safe there. Dunno why I had even made the account. One day I posted a meme to a pokemon reddit. The meme had Ingo and Emmet on it and people kept asking what it had to do with pokemon. This was WAYYY before legends arceus back when Ingo and Emmet were.... obscure for some reason?? I really like both of them and I always have and I was aware they had obscurity I just didn't know they were obscure enough for an entire reddit page(?) to come after me for putting a meme "that had nothing to do with pokemon" on there. I'm very glad legends arceus brought more people to the submas fandom. I also made a little reddit page(?) thingy because I thought at the time that's just what you do on reddit and then forgot it existed for weeks until I went back to discover people were putting digimon porn all over it and I panic-deleted my reddit account. That was the end of that problem. Don't get me wrong, I love digimon, maybe even more than I love pokemon but there's this one meme I've seen going around tumblr. What was it? Something like the gnome saw a ding-dong and started to cry(?) I don't remember the exact wording but that was the emotion there.

I want to make friends with some people in the submas fandom on here. My favorite pokemon games may be sword and shield, but that doesn't mean I neglect other generations. I know I talk about Ryuki from sun and moon a lot on here and have mentioned Ingo and Emmet in posts before and the submas posts might have the most notes of anything I have posted.

I'm not tagging this post with them though because this post isn't entirely about them, though I am about to talk about them a lot in this post. I just feel like it wouldn't be morally ok to tag submas and all that when there's all this other stuff. Or my morals are being way too sensitive but idk

So anyhoo...

I keep wanting to reveal some au versions of Ingo and Emmet to tumblr but haven't gotten around to it among other things. Specifically from an au I have that I call the beast au. A lot of what I have is edits of official art of characters because I'm not comfortable enough with my art level just yet. I've been drawing my whole life, except I've always just tried to mimic the artstyle of whatever I was hyperfixated on and I don't actually have an artstyle of my own. I of course, still draw pics of the aus sometimes just that I like to have my art references in the official style.

Something about the beast au is that like all my aus, nobody uses the bathroom and children are had in alternative ways so they don't have all those things I don't like. Folks could go out naked if they absolutely wanted to because there's nothing to hide. In the beast au, some beasts look more beastly than others or even wear less or no clothes. They have fur though. The ones with more fur tend to be less likely to wear clothing. The beast au is not specific to Ingo and Emmet by the way. I have Grusha from scarlet and violet. I feel confident in my art skills when I look at it. This au, like many other aus of mine is very complex and even has some non pokemon characters in it. I have beast au versions of three characters from Megaman Battle Network.

I just can't show the beast au Ingo or Emmet because- their beast au versions have been in heavy need of a redesign for a long time. Also I kind of want there to be drawings of them rather than showing edited official art to tumblr. For anyone curious, they look like this right now but whenever I look at that edit, I always think something like "I can do better. I can do way better." If you saw checked out the embedded like when I mentioned the beast au Grusha, anyone could tell I can indeed do better. I intend to have drawings of them before I show improved versions to tumblr though.

The problem is that I need to wait until I have a specific kind of drawing motivation and I'm still waiting for that motivation to appear to get better images of my beast au versions of Hop and Leon. The Leon is... acceptable. And an edit of an anime screenshot. But if you couldn't tell why I embedded a link to that and not the Hop, it's because the Hop is completely unacceptable. I just have to wait for the right kind of drawing motivation.

(Some people who follow me may remember another au Hop I have shown off a lot. He isn't from the beast au, though he visits the beast world a lot because he's a universe traveler in a complex system of universes. Some universes he goes to significantly more often than others. He's friends with several beasts including beast Hop so yeah he'd go there a lot. I have an entire alternate multiverse basically. The beast world is just one of many. Would that be called "am" instead of "au"? The au he's from takes an entire google doc to explain. If you read it, feel free to scroll down past the blank pages heheh)

Though fret not, my friends. I have a drawing of normal Emmet. Putting it under a keep reading because I'm sky about showing drawings just there and I don't want to just embed the link to it in the post like the other things. I don't know why "Image Options" has been inaccessible for months when I used to be able to cover things in a sensitive content warning (I'm sensitive to showing stuff so I did that a lot)

It's kind of a rushed thing I did years ago about a dream where Emmet won a horse race and was flocked to by many women. I vividly remember this scene and Emmet saying this in the dream. It was rushed because I worried I would forget but I never forgot

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

i want to think about little monsters. maybe like pokemon and shit. what do you think of those

lets think about them anon...personally i am fond of them.. pokemon and digimon really spoke to me as a kid. one of my oldest memories is my cousin showing me his pokemon cards in like 1998. my mom recently sent me some of my prehistoric pokemon art i been meaning to scan it n upload its SO cute. i like replaying the gba n ds games. oh another type of monster i love is neopets. neopets shaped me more than anything it was such a versatile creative outlet, i was just on there at 8 years old posting my heart out. day in day out i wld draw those little creatures and share them in a way thats basically the same as how i do now.. i always wonder how id navigate self expression differently if i never got into neoepts. yeah the little monsters really gave me my start in life, they paved the way for so much. still to this day im the biggest sucker for a creature and i think thats why the shih tzu is so appealing to me. you look at a shihtzu and your like "Thats not real." ty for asking anon im glad we could have this talk.

[stoutlandchild]

There is no new PMD so I'm going to cope through PMD AU posting.

-I really want to aid characters like Gladion and Silver but I never finished Heartgold and never played the gen 7 games since I wasn't into the franchise when they came out (and honestly nowadays I'm more intrested in other things like...Digimon which reminds me go check it out its really good-) if someone who is more familiar with those characters than I am wants to weigh in please do I'd love that.

-If your wondering about gender ratios in relation to Bede being a Hattrem then Hatterene my answer is that he's Gender and I will not elaborate further.

-Uh I don't really have any move sets yet but Bede learns Psychic right before he evolves and N has Agility. Bede's pretty slow even with it but N uses it to great advantage.

-While Bede doesn't remember everything and N has friends he wants to go back to there's always a nagging feeling in the back of their minds about staying, they've felt more right like this than they ever have been.

-That's actually why there still Pokemon post-game, won't get into the specifics but I like it when protagonists stay non-human by choice. I think there's a lot to say about when being something that's not human makes you more like yourself...if that makes sense.

-Bede might be a lower evolutionary stage and younger than N but he's the more competent in battles. Bede likes doing it, he finds it fun and rewarding and (even if he's really rude and mean about it) does want to help so he just puts more effort into honing his skill than N does.

-Bede's favorite dish is Pecha Berry Pie, N's is Black Gummi Tea...I like thinking about food choices.

-I Will Reiterate that Bede Gossips with Local Pokemon.

[parallelroutes-ooc]

[ MUNDAY: wow i never talk about myself, this feels so weird. (fair warning that i do tend to downplay myself.) ]

@ubiquitarian

❤️ — what are some of your best qualities?

i have been told by… a lot of people… that i'm a good listener.

friendliness. i highly enjoy being around people, even though i know i'm not going to be close with the vast majority of them. i'm just a social person by nature.

wisdom. i don't sound like it because i never have the chance to be? i also deliberately type like i normally do to make people feel comfy around me, so that doesn't help either lol. still, i enjoy being The Grandpa when i end up in communities with much younger people for this reason.

creativity. to the point where i literally can't enjoy media without taking inspiration and going right to my own projects and ocs/stories. it's a hassle struggling to absorb canon when i constantly have to muffle what i want to do to make sure i can pay attention RIP.

-

🧶 — any non-writing hobbies/interests?

lol there's a lot.

when it comes to free time… i primarily love mmorpgs, but i just don't stick to them with how much there is to do - never feels like i'm going to get anywhere and it's just overwhelming. i did do ffxiv, guild wars 2, blade and soul, aura kingdom/twin saga and had been pretty far in with all of them, but they just ultimately didn't scratch the itches i needed.

however atm, PSO2 NGS (phantasy star online 2, new genesis) is kind of my dream mmo? it's a new game, f2p is 100% viable, combat is really fun and feels really natural on ps4, i have a cute and outrageously beefy/OP level 19 character and solo everything, nothing is super hard to understand, perfect game for casuals like me who just play 1-2 hours in the morning and slowly chip away at the story/game. it's just basically everything i want in an mmorpg so i'm always just happy playing it.

shout-out to pokemon sword, rune factory 4, digimon story cybersleuth. old fav games are okami, pokemon emerald/oras and ultra moon, star ocean 3, .hack//GU, dark cloud 1+2. there's some i forgot by now but still.

then there's also making ocs and art. i am so so bad at fanart (hence why i stopped) but i did really well with drawing ocs back when i was still comfortable drawing. (designing weird monsters was a huge fav and i'd probably still be able to do it but don't have the desire/opportunity anymore so! and anthros/furries were super fun to draw! help! i drew too much!)

i'm also neglecting learning music production and japanese but they have been on my peripheral for 10+ years so someday i will actually do them. (neither will be very difficult for experience reasons but what is self-starting lol.)

i've never been too big on reading anime and manga so i tended to float toward jp games instead. but… i still have a hard time getting into something new so. lol.

fashion too. love making outfits. i used to be big into lolita fashion, visual kei, pastel goth. i still have so much punk stuff too lmao. pinterest is a hellhole to try and stop browsing if you like fashion/clothes in general.

-

😗 — what are some of your favorite things to do when you have some time to yourself?

generally, all the hobbies require effort that i don't necessarily have the energy or attention span to give, so it usually just ends up with talking to people, scrolling tumblr or twitter or reddit etc, listening to j-music.

this one doesn't have much to say, lol.

@queenharumiura

[ for 😗, see above! ]

🗒 — what is/are your favorite genre(s)/theme(s) to write?

fluff, hurt/comfort, weird plots that go really wild and meta, very short-term depressing/tragic thoughts, ships. i do like writing nsfw too, but definitely not here.

-

🤔 — what genre(s)/theme(s) do you struggle to write the most?

honestly? everything longterm. i tend to forget where plots are going, which is why i'm not great with RP plots or keeping track of hc characterization. i just don't have enough attention span to take notes or reread every rp ever BUT-- when i have an active/dedicated partner, i can keep rolling with something for a long AF time. (thank you in specific, neochan!)

serious answer is long sad/angsty plots. i just don't do that well with them unless i get in the mood, but i don't really want to be sad, so it's just not usually my thing if it's not just a thread or two.

there is also that long posts are pretty taxing too, but there's not much i can do about that because lol i just innately write with the intention of going back and rewriting. rip!

[firedragon1321]

Hey Kids! Who Wants to Learn What it Was Like Getting into Digimon in America in 2007?

This is my Digimon origin story. Click to read my tale of woe, Youtube videos, bootleg figurines, and the birth of the Tai thirst.

IN THE BEGINNING

So I was too young for Digimon Adventure’s original airing. I was around five, and- at that time- I wouldn’t watch anything I thought was “a boy’s show”. Yet, I was okay with The Powerpuff Girls and its brutal opening sequence. Buttercup was my favorite. So ???

Little me was stupid.

Pokemon came first, and- without it- I wouldn’t have gotten into Digimon. There’s a Youtube Pokemon parody that sucks, but it mentions Digimon and Agumon. Here it is if you want to suffer-

undefined

My sister knew that Ash’s blatant OOC got under my skin, so she would play this 200 times a day. It was enough times for me to wonder what an “Agumon” was. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because you could barely hear the word “Agumon”? He doesn’t even show up in the video.

So I looked up Digimon. I discovered the In-Training and Rookie-level Digimon first, which was good because they resemble Pokemon the most. I fell in love with the cute blobs and critters. This led me to wiki pages for the DigiDestined. The first one I found was Sora, followed by Tai.

Yes, this man. But Kizuna didn’t exist yet, so it was when he was a cocky little shrimp. That cocky little shrimp moved into my brain and hasn’t left.

But this was 2007. Digimon didn’t air on Saturday mornings on Fox Kids anymore. How could I possibly access the adventures of Tai, Agumon, and the rest of the gang? Well, there were two answers, and both sucked absolute shit.

METHOD 1: JETIX AND THE TIME SLOT OF DOOM

Any anime fan of a certain age- namely from before streaming- remembers a time when anime was only on at an ungodly time. Midnight, 2 AM- whenever normal people weren’t awake. This was common- and somewhat understandable- with anime loaded with violent content, in order to keep it away from the kiddies. But Digimon is specifically for children. Yet, it still got this treatment.

At least, any season before Data Squad did.

Digimon was owned by Disney at the time, and they aired it on Jetix (which was one of the higher channels you had to pay extra for). Data Squad- the newest season- got a normal air slot. This may be due to the fact that Disney had a hand in its dubbing. In fact, Marcus Damon shares his English VA with Axel from Kingdom Hearts, and references his famous catchphrase in one episode. (Go to 0:27 to catch the line, plus avoid having your ears destroyed.)

undefined

If you wanted to watch Adventure, 02, Tamers, or Frontier, they were only on at Stupid AM. I kept my interest in Digimon a weird secret at first- probably because Tai awakened my hormones and I felt embarrassed. My mom caught me at two in the morning watching a children’s cartoon, but she thought it was...something else. 

After explaining the issue, we taped the episodes on old video cassettes. I still have them around somewhere. So we did find a way around the time slot of doom. Unfortunately- once Disney XD came into the picture- they nixed everything but Data Squad, which only aired for a very short window. After that, they were pretty much done. Digimon wouldn’t air again until Fusion dropped on Nickelodeon, and Fusion was never one of my favorite seasons.

Which brings me to-

METHOD 2: YOUTUBE PART 1/3 VIDEOS

Yeah. I had to deal with these.

I didn’t know about pirate sites. There was no Crunchyroll back then. The only episodes I had on tape were those obtained via Method 1. Because Digimon requires watching all of its episodes to understand the story (unlike Pokemon, which is more loose with its storytelling), I needed a way to fill in the blanks.

Enter Youtube.

Youtube’s videos were a godsend. I watched them while waiting for after-school activities. I even used the software at school to make a crude AMV begging for a continuation to Tai’s story (this was before tri. threw me a monkey’s paw). There was just one teeny issue, and any anime fan from this era knows what I mean.

Part 1/3 videos were the only way to access Digimon episodes on demand in 2007. While it didn’t bother me much back then, it was nonetheless a pain in the ass. For the whippersnappers- Youtube videos containing old anime episodes cut them into pieces (usually two or three, but sometimes four), forcing you to dig through the recommended videos or the uploader’s account to get the whole episode. This is still the only way to watch some old anime for free. Fighting Foodons and the English dub of Mon Colle Knights come to mind for me.

...I like kiddie anime. Digimon and Pokemon both had a hand in that.

ADDENDUM: FANSITES 

Digimon had little to no active internet presence in 2007 outside of ancient shrines. I would read shitty fanfiction on Angelfire relics. This was also my first exposure to bad fangirl practices, which came through sites like The Lost Temple of Ishida. This was its splash page (found through Wayback Machine- the site itself is dead).

The best/worst part of this is “come in my pretty ones”, which is just so out of character for Matt that it’s funny. But at the time, I only had a instinctual understanding of what OOC was. It was the thing that made the Pokemon parody so annoying, but I had no name for it. So I had a weaker bullshit detector than I do now, which let me enjoy more fanfics with plenty of OOC trash in them.

Everyone starts somewhere.

I didn’t interact with any Digimon fans- as the sites were old and inactive- which was probably for the best. Their ancient scrolls introduced me to fandom basics, like shipping. I tried my hand at it, shipping Taiora in part to deal with my Tai thirst. That didn’t work for reasons listed below.

ADDENDUM: TAI THIRST

I had a crush on Ash as a small child, but that was innocent since I was small. Once Tai came into the picture, I was a bit older. My crush on him was- different. Like “look up pictures of his naked butt in the uncut version of Ep. 8 and save them to a friend’s computer so I didn’t get in trouble” kind of different. (I’m sorry, friend.) The fact that this content was only in the Japanese version made it doubly taboo.

(Actually, this image is about the same quality as what I had access to, lol.)

I went hog wild at first. I wrote bad poems and had a binder full of screenshots. I wrote my first initial and his in hearts on my notes. It was pretty bad. Over time, I figured out this was kinda cringe, which intersected with general shame at my sexuality waking up.

So I shipped Taiora. I thought- by putting Tai in a relationship with another girl- I could segregate myself from my raging crush on him, and all the uncomfortable thoughts that came with it. Unfortunately, this pairing didn’t click in my mind. I was plagued by daydreams of Tai being deathly ill, which was my brain’s way of saying “hey- maybe forcibly shipping Tai to deal with your personal BS is a bad idea?”. So I moved on to Mary Sue stand-ins, which had the same result.

The one good thing about being 11 in 2007 means I (sort of) grew up in real time with the character. Tri. dropped when I was 19 (kind of odd, but there was only a two year difference between me and tri.!Tai’s age of 17). Kizuna was only two years ago. Both of us were in the adult world in our own ways. Tai’s like an imaginary childhood friend, and he helped me through a lot of things. I know he’s fictional, but I really felt like I grew up with him.

By around tri., I decided I didn’t give a shit anymore, I compromised by keeping my fangirl thirst to Tai exclusively. Since I had a lot of background with the character in addition to thirst, it was more “acceptable” to me. tri. Determination...helped.

I just completely lost my mind with this screenshot. This led to the towel my friend gave me, which I haven’t used but can’t get rid of. I’m in a more comfortable place on this subject than I was in 2007, even if it’s not perfect.

ADDENDUM: MERCH

Finding merch in 2007 was a pain in the butt. It wasn’t really widely available in the same way as Pokemon. So there was only one option- eBay and its bootlegs.

There was a woman who was somewhat of a family friend at the time. She was my ticket to all the Digimon figures I wanted. But of course- eBay being eBay- the figures I got my mitts on were fakes. I didn’t care, as long as I got tiny Tokomons and Patamons to play with. As a kid, I was drawn more to the cute, more Pokemon-like Digis. Blame Tai (again) for making me obsessed with the giant dinosaurs.

This was my only ticket to any form of Digi-merch, except the odd book here and there. Except the Bin that Got Away.

I remember  someone was selling Digimon figures at a giant yard sale. My mom only allowed me to buy two of them. So I chose a large Terriermon- who I’ve since lost- and WarGreymon. I liked WarGreymon due to his connection to Tai (it all comes back to Tai). 

The catch is this WarGreymon was a digivolving figure that went with a MetalGarurumon. At the time, I didn’t like Matt, and connected the Digimon to him. My reasons for hating Matt were really dumb, since he’s a lot like me personality-wise. Matt always fought with Tai, so I thought their relationship was more antagonistic, like Ash and Gary. Not to mention I didn’t like Matt’s fans. My only exposure to them was The Lost Temple of Ishida. So I purposefully picked out the MetalGarurumon bits of the digivolving figure, only taking WarGreymon. 

Some other lucky kid bought the whole bin, so now my WarGreymon can’t digivolve. But I can take comfort in the fact that he was equally screwed.

CONCLUSION

Being a Digimon fan in 2007 was tough. If I wasn’t an autistic kid who hung out with other, older autistic kids, I might never have found anyone to talk to about Digimon. Luckily, times have changed. I now have all of Adventure and tri, on DVD, and Kizuna on my PS4. On top of the old tapes, I have one or two official tapes I got from consignment shops, including one of Tamers. I figured out Digimon merch could be found if one knew where to look. I have the blursed towel.

As I keep collecting things and thinking about what these characters mean to me, this story will keep growing.

[smokeybrand]

Festival Season

I am a massive fan of MegaTen games. I love everything about them; the battle systems, characters, and overall world. I fell in love with the summoning and fusion systems of these games almost immediately and longed for other franchises to do something similar. It was basically Digimon Fusion before Digimon was a thing. Who wouldn’t want to Lego two Pokemon into a goddamn MewTwo? The missus introduced me to this brave new world with the purchase of Digital Devil Saga so long ago. It was one of the first gifts I ever got her. Watching her play that sh*t really awakened something within me. It was like watching my kid brother playing Final Fantasy IX for the first time but with, you know, violent monstrosities. Way back then, during the golden age of the JRPG, on the PS2, we made it a point to play all of the obscure titles. Nippon Ichi and Atlus were our bread and butter. We had copies of Stella Deus, every DIsgaea available, and even Soul Nomad. No one talks about Soul Nomad. One day, she came home with Persona 3. On that list was Persona 3 vanilla. Bro, after we booted it up and those first few notes of Burn My Dread popped, I was hooked. I must have put three hundred hours into that game. I conquered everything I could in that game, romanced every option, and completed one hundred percent of that sh*t. I unlocked every Persona on just two runs and readily did it again when FES released. The Answer was kind if disappointing but I didn’t mind running through the enhanced world of P3 once again. And then I did it one more time when P3P dropped, though, admittedly, Portable is my least favorite of the lot. Persona 3 opened my eyes to a world of RPGs beyond just your Final Fantasys and Dragon Warriors. Because I enjoyed this one game so much, I was open to trying out others. I wouldn’t have touched Magna Carta if not for Persona. I would have missed out on Rogue Galaxy. Wouldn’t have given Shining Force EXA a second thought. If I had never played Persona 3, I would have never played 4 or 5, and that sh*t seems so bewildering to me because those games are some of my all-time favorites. In fact, for a long while, Persona 5 was my favorite of these games. I wrote a whole thing about, about how, while I loved 3, 5 was a close second. It had legitimately closed that gap after Royal dropped but then Persona 3 Reload was announced. Guess who pulled ahead once again.

I got Reload day one and immediately dove into to. It felt familiar, yet, new. It definitely got all the bells and whistles that made Persona 5 so enjoyable but was still definitely Persona 3. I got my copy for the PS4 so, while the presentation is loads better than the original, and it shows, it’s comparable to Persona 5. Having that “side-by-side” experience just solidifies that P3 IS my favorite Persona title and one of my all-time favorite games, period. I was a little bummed Burn My Dread wasn’t the opening song but Full Moon Full ain’t too shabby on its own. More than that, the quality of life changes are amazing. It’s the little things like the Online Saves or the fact you don't get fatigued in Tartarus anymore. I love how the original character designs got a remix, bringing them closer in line with that Persona 5 aesthetic, and boy do they steal from that P5 aesthetic let me tell you! The thing is, though, it feels full circle to me. I remember, way back when I was playing P5 (shout out to Tae Takemi, best girl in the entire game), that P5 feels like the spiritual successor to P3 in every way P4 is not. Don’t get me wrong, P4 is a classic, but it feels out of place in the trio, almost disconnected. Also, I remember hating Teddy. It’s like, did P3 influence P5, only to have that sh*t bleed back into Reload? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I get to play Persona 3, on my PS4, with the look of Persona 5. I cannot stress how dope that is. Also, Satanael is DLC. You KNOW I bought due and have been decimating the early game! Thanatos is my second favorite Persona, always, Alice is the first (especially after I customize her), but Ren’s ultimate Persona is a strong third. Like, laughably so. There’s just something about summoning a Demon God that feels so…powerful. Also, you shoot God in the face. How can you not love that?

I’m ten hours into Reload and it is everything I ever dreamed  a full-on Persona 3 remake should be. This isn’t that bait and switch FFVII pulled with Remake. No, for all intents and purposes, this IS Persona 3 but with modern game play and graphics. It’s like I’m popping ion the game for the very first time, damn near twenty years later. The Protagonist is as stoic as ever and the city of Tatsumi Port Island is alive with a vibrancy only the power of PS4 could bring. Building this game on the Unreal engine was a stroke of genius because the models are crisp, detailed, and fluid. There are so many little particle effects that make everything pop. The biggest upgrade is the UI. The thing is, I’m old as f*ck. I’ve been gaming since the old NES days. I’ve seen the evolution of video game and, for me, they peaked way back in the PS3 era. When P3 originally came out, I had no problem with how the title was presented. It got a little flashier with P3P and Persona 4 added their own flair, but Persona 5 really went in on the showmanship. P3R gets a bit of that and it goes a very long way to captivating the player. I thought modern hardware would affect the charm of these OG designs, but it doesn’t. It actually enhances them considerably. It’s subtle, but the bodies are longer, the eyes are smaller, and the overall proportions feel more realistic. I kind of love it. I also love the redesigns, so far. I mean, Mitsuru is gorgeous and I adore the new-ish Elizabeth model, but I’m holding judgment until the very end when I get to see Nyx again. And definitely get my ass throttled by her. Now, admittedly, not all that shimmers is gold. The fact that the Answer, the additional part of FES, isn’t included in what is a very obvious FES remake, kind of bones. I hear that it will be DLC down the line and that sucks. I like Metis. Her design was dope. I’m also not that huge a fan of Thanatos’ first reveal being made with in-game models. The visceral nature of that genesis feels lost when not in animation. It’s good in its own way but, goddamn, did that sh*t hit different way back when. These are, of course, superficial gripes because I am having the time of my life with this game! And it’s only the first play through. That New Game is about to slap crazy hard! I cannot wait to run it back with my heavy hitters on deck. Satanael be damned, getting Thanatos and my laughably OP Alice in the mix is going to be the best!