So....Digimon.
Mar. 14th, 2010 06:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spottoI have graciously provided a tl;dr summary at the end for all who give a crap. :D
I sadly had an entire entry dedicated to the sole subject of Digimon. Alas, it was lost in the great crash of 2010, when my automatic updates decided that indeed, my computer had to restart there and then, destroying what text was left that I had written onto the browser. Even the automated saved drafts were futile in saving my departed rant.
So we must move on.
Today or rather, a few days back, was the start of the 2010 Paralympics! Now it obviously doesn't have as much coverage as the olympics (I was rather high and giddy on the gold-medal game) but sledge-hockey looks awesome. Unfortunately I felt like shit that day so I ended up sleeping rather than watching the opening ceremonies.
If you do not know by now, I had the Great Marathon of 2010 featuring Digimon before any olympic event of the year even started. Due to Windows liking to restart while I am asleep, I no longer have any of my hot-blooded complaints or temporary obsessions on the show. Aoi-dono fortunately helps me keep it going, also a very eager Digimon enthusiast. (She seems to mostly value Adventure and 02, and my need to find someone who also shares the love of Tamers and Frontier continues on). Before the marathon I had never seen Tamers aside from a few episodes, including the Leomon death scene. Somehow even a powerful moment like that did not pull me into the third season, and so I ended up being very ignorant about that part of the franchise for many years afterwards.
Or perhaps it was the dub that put me off. Despite the fact that I had no knowledge of original animes being a young child then, the voices from Tamers were rather unsettling even without something for comparison. I also was given the impression that I could only like three characters. My previous favourite show that featured three main-characters, The Powerpuff Girls, had three radically different sisters as the stars. Unfortunately, my first impressions of Tamers was a geek, a wimp, and a tomboy...and it didn't seem very radically different as the PPG.
Not the mention it was the first time pretty much every character was not wearing a long-sleeved shirt. (Shorts, even!) So I ended up seeing some very very thin limbs which also put me off. Of course that is simply the Digimon style, Tamers' decision to throw summer clothes on the kids just made it that much more apparent.
Anyway, I was one of those few kids (as a kid, too) that enjoyed both Pokemon and Digimon. I had Pokemon Blue and the Pokemon TCG. I also remember a few very memorable episodes of Pokemon. This is the same for Digimon, minus the games and cards. (Digimon I felt had a better anime than Pokemon, though both served to be classics. Pokemon though, was much funner since its games caught on moreso than the Digimon ones.)
I watched Adventure with my brother, who also watched such shows like Sailor Moon and silly afternoon soap dramas with me as well. (In fact, at that time he was much more into these series than I was, particularly Sailor Moon. I didn't care for the drama stuff, but occasionally I asked my brother in a small girl's voice why some character who died last week was suddenly alive on the other side of the city in a ship filled with pirates.) I can remember the Saturday mornings watching WARGREYMON beat the living shit out of some Dark Master or the fourth return of Myotismon!!!
My brother moved on from Digimon after Adventure, and so I watched 02 alone. 02 was not as enjoyable as WARGREYMON FUCK YEAH Adventure, but I too liked it. It was also not as memorable because some of the later episodes I can't recall quite well in the present, before I did the marathon. I however very much loved Silphymon then (and still do!). Oh, and of course ANGEMOOOOOON.
Then I had a Digimon drought, skipping Tamers and only catching a few episodes. (As described above) Finally I was a bit older, almost having forgotten Digimon by then, when Frontier went on air on the television. I was hooked. Did you know one of my first fanarts ever was a copy of a screenshot of Kouji? I even got a Lobomon (now known as Wolfmon due to marathon!) figure which is sitting on my table in front of me at the moment. :D
I was apparently very proud of that fanart, and stuck it on the wall...in my brother's room. He apparently did not mind.
By then, Digimon pretty much completely fell out of memory. I did occasionally speak of it with Aoi-dono, and sometimes looked up Digimon on its wikia because Digimon looked cool. I then heard of the new Savers but was put off by how all the style was different. Where are my stick children, damnit!? The recycle of Agumon, the lack of goggles. I guess it just lacked a lot of the nostalgia factors that made me love Digimon so much as a child. It also had the three-character thing again, one of the main reasons I never managed to watch Tamers.
Although at some point I ended up drawing my own made up Digimon (I think the only OC I created that I ever gave a damn for) and then, eventually, through some sort of vortex of boredom I decided to rewatch Digimon. At first I decided to just watch Frontier again, since it was closer to me in my memory and I really didn't think I'd have time to go through the others. Once I finished that I thought I was finished.
Yet, I felt incomplete.
Adventure was such a classic, and I really hadn't taken a peek of it ever since I was a child. It was hard not to, really. So I went and rewatched Adventure the week after, seeing Angemon, being reaquainted with the characters, and actually having a favourite character now: Koushiro (previously known as Izzy. A name I still despise.) Of course, finishing Adventure and not watching its sequel would be silly, so I went to watch 02 too. It paled in comparison to its predecessor. Sometimes I wish there was a way to watch 02 and then Adventure without it seeming odd (I guess I could have taken it as a prequel but it would've been weird either way) so disappointment would instead come as something progressively getting better!
That is why I stopped. I didn't bother or have interest in Tamers, so if I did make myself watch it, I had this bad feeling I would go even lower into the pits. Not that 02 was bad, but watching it right after the brilliance of Adventure makes it look worse than it is. However Tamers along with Adventure seemed to me to be one of the more well-liked seasons. I also felt somewhat frustrated about how few people gave a damn about Frontier, so...eventually I gave in to that desire and started Tamers.
At first I did not really think much of it. I knew Takato would be different from the other goggle-boys, one of my main concerns in starting Tamers. I also had no idea of the personalities of anybody else except Ruki. I just knew she was a bitch and that was about it. I wasn't particularly interested in tsundere characters at all (especially female tsunderes...) and she looked like a classic one.
I must admit, never having watched such epic classics like Evangelion (I don't want to feel mind-screwed or depressed) which Tamers drew inspiration from, as well as Serial Experiments Lain, which shares the same writer as Tamers, I wondered if Tamers might not be right for me. After all, at this point everything I've seen, read, or watched lacked a lot of death and seemed rather idealistic. (Excluding movies. I've seen plenty of devastating cynical-to-death-literally movies). So how dark can Tamers be anyway? After all, Digimon was supposed to be meant for kids. So why the hell not?
At first when I saw Meramon dying for no good reason but to show the viewer that Digimon die for no good reason I was rather surprised. After that initial shock everything started to set in and I didn't really notice the random deaths that seemed to be pointed out. (These same things avoided in other seasons of Digimon) I already knew Leomon's reputation, so I wasn't particularly surprised at that. (Even though he can never be rebooooorn for death is permaneeeeent). Also because when Digimon die they tend to do something like a heroic sacrifice. In Tamers, they just die. That's real cheery.
But I wasn't a kid at this moment, I was a nineteen-year-old person. So, I just continued my way along watching more episodes. My original prediction of caring nothing for the female lead (Ruki) or even her Digimon for that matter (and I LIKE foxes!) was very correct. I didn't mind her episodes though. I usually tend to have a bit of distaste for the main character (in this case Takato), since in the pattern of every other season I just wanted that lead to go away and let others take some spotlight. (ESPECIALLY DAISUKE) However I had a soft spot for Takato, and although he DID take up a good chunk of spotlight (despite my complaints, these characters ARE the main characters...) I liked how it wasn't ALL UP TO TAKATO to do something.
Taichi, for example, despite being the main character did always need Yamato there for Metalgaurumon or Omegamon to show up. I'm not sure if I remember any episodes where SOLELY WarGreymon saved the day. They also gave a bunch of spotlight to the little kids and their pretty angel Digimon. The others seemed a little left out though, but maybe not Koushiro as much. (He had a big part in the movie, after all.) However Taichi was still the main character so he got all the stuff like going back to the real world and other important things. He was tolerable in that aspect. I could've liked more spotlight for like...I don't know, the rejects, but since I wasn't particularly fond of Sora, Mimi, Jyou, it didn't seem to matter as much. There were just too many characters in Adventure to have equal love for all.
Daisuke on the other hand stole much of the spotlight. The situation with Ken as the evil baddie in the first half did not help, and honestly? I really could care less for the 02 cast. Yes, even Hikari, Takeru, and Ken himself. I was never fond of Hikari that much, and Takeru although cool and awesome and badass just seemed...odd like that. I never really liked the kids at all in the entire series (Takeru, Hikari, Shiuchon, Tomoki), even when grown up. It was as if they still had that innocence as children while the responsiblity and GOODNESS as...older children. I dunno. Despite Daisuke stealing everything, the annoying "KILLING DIGIMON IS BAD EVEN IF THEY WANT TO KILL US" mentality only made it worse, the plot at times was really good. (Oikawa, for example) BlackWarGreymon was a lazy recolour of WarGreymon suddenly gone emo (as much as his character WAS enjoyable.) I really loved Silphymon though. Hawkmon is an awesome Digimon.
Despite my mixed feelings over 02, I did overall enjoy it. So anyway, I suppose it only made sense for SOMEONE to snap the cast I cared-not-much-for out of a silly trance that they SHOULD'VE (especially Takeru and Hikari, mind you) broke out of it themselves due to past experiences. I suppose that really is the one good thing about Daisuke. (THEY UNDELETED THEMSELVES WITH SHEER DETERMINATION LAST SEASON! If I could undelete myself I'd feel invincible!!!)
So yeah, Takuya on the other hand did not EXACTLY steal the spotlight all for himself. He did at first, had an expy situation of Taichi returning hope except in furry-form and foreshadowing (damn, it really did seem a lot like Adventure) but then he decided to take Kouji with him and steal spotlight from everybody else with EACH OTHER! Isn't that cute? Kouichi obviously got lots of late-season development for being a sixth ranger, but that leaves the other three as rejects. Izumi is my favourite Digimon female, so that kind of sucked. I think the reason my opinions of Adventure and Frontier differ is due to the lack of Koushiro. You have no Koushiro. Your lack of Koushiro makes you inferior. You instead take a character I DO like and shove them with the group of rejects, which I do not believe Koushiro is technically a part of in Adventure.
So yeah, the reason I like Adventure over Frontier is Koushiro.
Getting back to the point, Takato did not particularly steal the spotlight as extreme as the other three. Granted it probably has to do with his personality as well. The finale has Takato saving his girlfriend, while the three other people were actually fighting the big baddie. (Although you know, since they weren't the main character the fight wasn't as epic as it could've been. Takato needs an entire new mode to destroy scary doppleganger-flesh demon thingies of his damsel-in-distress while all the other three needed was some very scary computer program that has no pretty new form or nothing. Just a Beyblade in the form of a gigantic bunny tank.) Also, instead of OMFG ONLY TWO PEOPLE GETTING SUPER-ULTRA-POWERFUL EVOLUTIONS...ALL the main characters do! Even the sixth ranger! That is the advantage of only featuring three-main characters. As much as I care not for Ruki, a female getting a Digimon to the Ultimate/Mega/whatever they call the highest form is very impressive. (Unless that two-second mega/ultimate form of Tailmon in the movie actually counts.)
I feel as though I'm giving Tamers far too much credit here. I really did like it though, but it indeed has its faults. Unlike 02, I didn't REALLY have a favourite Digimon. I suppose I lean towards Terriermon or Impmon, and as awesome as a homicidal bunny-dog thing shooting gatling-guns at little girls are, or as epic as power-hungry demonic biker-impy things are that can kill Leomons PERMANENTLY are, I honestly and truly believe a half-human-half bird thing that can't possibly in anyway see, shooting kame-hadokens out of its claws totally much more awesome. Sorry. :D
Also, every single other seasons' sixth ranger >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> RYO.
I never played those Digimon games that never came out of Japan, so my opinion on Ryo is completely biased, but he really has no personality in Tamers. Hikari, Ken, Kouichi, and even that falcon-feral-kid from Savers is superior to Ryo. Making a character who came out of nowhere super-awesome for no goddamn reason is stupid and silly. At least Hikari was foreshadowed, and Ken was a complete dick at one point, also Kouichi wasn't a complete emo for stuff he did and he was cute and...okay, I like Kouichi, but at least he has a connection to the main characters like everyone else. But Ryo was NOTHING. He just popped out of nowhere as some awesome person from somewhere. If the anime gave some backstory for him so I KNEW stuff about him, like how the hell he jumped from Adventure to Tamers, maybe I'd like him better. :X
Now I should REALLY move on before I bitch and moan about the Tamers' fanfiction on ff.net that has stuff involving Ryo wtih anyone. (Ryo/Jenrya is the most BORING pairing ever. Ryo/Ruki kills off any respect I have for Ruki as a character.)
However, I find Tamers' resident anti-hero Digimon better than the other seasons. I can't exactly think of one off the top of my head from Adventure. The first Digimon that comes to mind is Ogremon, lol. That or Yamato and Gabumon are the closest, but I don't really count anyone from the main cast of kids. Impmon is awesome. He has much more development and character than BlackWarGreymon (who I love as well, but he came in waaay too late and didn't have much time to establish himself too much. MAYBE I'd like him even more if that stupid Imperialdramon didn't interfere with WarGreymon and BlackWarGreymon's guaranteed epic battle. >__>) Frontier also seemed to lack one but that's pretty much because Frontier is Adventure with sentai and without Koushiro. (Again...MAYBE Duskmon, but eh.)
Tamer's also fails in another category in my opinion, female characters. I know everyone loves Ruki for breaking the mold of female characters, but again since I watched Tamers' late I was pretty much unamused by tsunderes at this point. My love is for another pineapple-head, sorry, and Renamon is just weird. I don't think a Digimon actually looked female-human-ish at this point. (Angewomon/LadyDevimon actually looked HUMAN, but Renamon was like...a half-fie. A furry...it also broke the mold...in a bad way.) MAYBE I'd have liked Juri more if she didn't get possessed, turn super-depressed, and was the source of ALL CREEPY IMAGES in that season. It was nice to have someone break the mold of a girl with a male Digimon...
OH WAIT. HAWKMON! Oh, and Miyako. So you don't get a point for that either.
But overall, I'd rate Tamers almost as high as Adventure! The only reason Adventure is higher is because its a classic. Perhaps if I watched the sub of Digimon Tamers as a kid it would be my very favourite, oh, and because it has Koushiro. Tamers' is very awesome, but it's no Koushiro.
Fortunately for Tamers, Jenrya comes close. (He just HAD to be half-chinese didn't he.)
I have to say, 02 did seem to have the most depressing plot points/characters, didn't it? I mean everyone died in Adventure, but they'd come back. 02 though, provides you with the cripplingly depressing detail that Wizardmon never did get reborn. An actual human died and was never reborn. BlackWarGreymon used the last of his life to seal something, and seeing as he wasn't born from a digi-egg but just dark towers, likely he wouldn't be reborn. CREATURES OF ACTUAL IMPORTANCE DIE PERMANENTLY. Tamers too had a permanent death but I felt Leomon wasn't as a developed character as the ones I named off 02. (I really wasn't that sad at Leomon dying.) Also, it's Leomon damnit. Killing Leomon shouldn't even count, permanent or not! Also, Ken's backstory is pretty freakin' sad too.
You know, I might as well rant about those damned fanfiction!
One day I was bored, so I went to fanfiction.net. It had been years the last time I read a thing there. Bad idea, I guess.
I think I found about....two fanfiction I liked.
Neither were complete, so...that didn't help.
See, I'm one of those anal people who cannot read things with dubbed names (In Digimon at least). Izzy is just awful, but I especially cannot stand Henry. I am sorry, I have this little thing for ANOTHER Henry, and I just cannot read anything else with that name. I will end up imagining a brunette archer instead and that just doesn't work. I wouldn't mind shortened names like Tai or T.K. even. I do not understand how Yolei came from Miyako. What the whole purpose of changing Matsuda to Matsuki was, or why JagerLowemon couldn't have been KaiserLeomon. (Or even EmperorLeomon, what Kaiser actually means! And you actually translated twice before for Kaiser/EmperorGreymon and The Digimon Kaiser/Emperor himself!)
Izzy Izumi is like naming someone John Johnson, except John is actually a name people do not laugh at. Yes I realize TECHNICALLY his name is Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi, but never using his actual first name or even mentioning it ever is just a cop out from dubbing over his entire name completely. Izzy is a pet name. It's a stupid name that should not be associated with that of Koushiro.
There's the nonsensical and pointless redubs, but what of JagerLowemon!? Or BurningGreymon? KOUICHI IS PART OF THE LEOMON FAMILY. THAT IS WHY HE (kind of) DIED. You know, like all the other Leomons? Thus, KAISERLEOMON. You could have made it EmperorLeomon, or even JagerLeomon. WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO CHANGE LEOMON? I suppose a "(bantyo)LIOMON" technically died in Savers...EXCEPT YOU DUBBED IT (bancho)LEOMON. WHAT. I guess asking for consistency from a dub is really stupid.
Anyway, I TRY to read the fanfiction with dub names but I cannot, and it is very unfortunate since most are dubbed. I'm sure there's plenty of awesome fanfiction out there using dub names, but my little nitpick will not go away, and so limits what fanfiction I would read very greatly. Then there's my nitpick of what fanfiction I will even read after that. I'm also unfortunately never ever a fan of the popular pairings, jumping for the less common but just as interesting ones right away. I do not care for anything involving Taichi, Yamato, or Sora together anywhere whatsoever. I do like Koushiro/Mimi, or Taichi/Koushiro. That's really about it unfortunately.
I ALSO love love crossovers between the seasons, but I can't find any I liked (save for one) through search since fanfiction.net likes to mash all seasons into one section, and probably half of all the crossover fanfiction don't even have "CROSSOVER" in the description anyway. Something much more vague like "Takato falls into a dimensional rift and finds himself in a strange place only Ryo had been to before." So yeah, there goes those.
I don't particularly favour a pairing from Frontier. There are too less characters for that, unfortunately. (Hahaha, maybe my complaint about too many characters is being revoked! Well Adventure just has too many MAIN characters, if half of them were supporting, ala Tamers style, it might work. 02 did not help by adding characters I didn't give a crap for and pushing ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE away.) And my favourable pairings from Tamers are increeeedibly rare. (I hate every single Jenrya pairing except one really uncommon one (Jenrya/Takato), but Jenrya/Ruki I can tolerate, since it has some merit in a way. HOW THE HELL DOES RYO/JENRYA OR JENRYA/ALICE MAKE ANY OUNCE OF SENSE!?)
So out of the 30,000 fanfiction that exist there? I'll probably like 30 of em. I only found two so far. This is unfortunate. Alas. Picky people don't get anything good I suppose :X.
Now, if this was TL;DR!
Digimon Academy Awards!BEST CHARACTER OVERALL
Koushiro (Adventure)
BEST HUMAN
Koushiro (Adventure) / Runner up: Jenrya (Tamers)
BEST DIGIMON
Silphymon (Adventure 02) / Runner up: Angemon (Adventure)
BEST ANTI-HERO (Digimon)
Impmon (Tamers) / Runner up: BlackWarGreymon (Adventure 02)
BEST FEMALE
Izumi (Frontier) / Runner up: Mimi (Adventure)
BEST SIXTH-RANGER
Kouichi (Frontier) / Runner up: Hikari (Adventure)
MOST COMEDIC
Adventure 02 / Runner up: Adventure
MOST TRAGIC
Adventure 02 / Runner up: Tamers
BEST USE OF CHARACTERS
Tamers / Runner up: Adventure
WORST CHARACTER OVERALL
Ryo (Tamers)
WORST ANTI-HERO
Ryo (Tamers)
BEST AT RUINING FANFICTION
Ryo (Tamers)
LEAST INTERESTING
Ryo (Tamers)
BEST SEASON
Adventure / Runner up: Tamers
I sadly had an entire entry dedicated to the sole subject of Digimon. Alas, it was lost in the great crash of 2010, when my automatic updates decided that indeed, my computer had to restart there and then, destroying what text was left that I had written onto the browser. Even the automated saved drafts were futile in saving my departed rant.
So we must move on.
Today or rather, a few days back, was the start of the 2010 Paralympics! Now it obviously doesn't have as much coverage as the olympics (I was rather high and giddy on the gold-medal game) but sledge-hockey looks awesome. Unfortunately I felt like shit that day so I ended up sleeping rather than watching the opening ceremonies.
If you do not know by now, I had the Great Marathon of 2010 featuring Digimon before any olympic event of the year even started. Due to Windows liking to restart while I am asleep, I no longer have any of my hot-blooded complaints or temporary obsessions on the show. Aoi-dono fortunately helps me keep it going, also a very eager Digimon enthusiast. (She seems to mostly value Adventure and 02, and my need to find someone who also shares the love of Tamers and Frontier continues on). Before the marathon I had never seen Tamers aside from a few episodes, including the Leomon death scene. Somehow even a powerful moment like that did not pull me into the third season, and so I ended up being very ignorant about that part of the franchise for many years afterwards.
Or perhaps it was the dub that put me off. Despite the fact that I had no knowledge of original animes being a young child then, the voices from Tamers were rather unsettling even without something for comparison. I also was given the impression that I could only like three characters. My previous favourite show that featured three main-characters, The Powerpuff Girls, had three radically different sisters as the stars. Unfortunately, my first impressions of Tamers was a geek, a wimp, and a tomboy...and it didn't seem very radically different as the PPG.
Not the mention it was the first time pretty much every character was not wearing a long-sleeved shirt. (Shorts, even!) So I ended up seeing some very very thin limbs which also put me off. Of course that is simply the Digimon style, Tamers' decision to throw summer clothes on the kids just made it that much more apparent.
Anyway, I was one of those few kids (as a kid, too) that enjoyed both Pokemon and Digimon. I had Pokemon Blue and the Pokemon TCG. I also remember a few very memorable episodes of Pokemon. This is the same for Digimon, minus the games and cards. (Digimon I felt had a better anime than Pokemon, though both served to be classics. Pokemon though, was much funner since its games caught on moreso than the Digimon ones.)
I watched Adventure with my brother, who also watched such shows like Sailor Moon and silly afternoon soap dramas with me as well. (In fact, at that time he was much more into these series than I was, particularly Sailor Moon. I didn't care for the drama stuff, but occasionally I asked my brother in a small girl's voice why some character who died last week was suddenly alive on the other side of the city in a ship filled with pirates.) I can remember the Saturday mornings watching WARGREYMON beat the living shit out of some Dark Master or the fourth return of Myotismon!!!
My brother moved on from Digimon after Adventure, and so I watched 02 alone. 02 was not as enjoyable as WARGREYMON FUCK YEAH Adventure, but I too liked it. It was also not as memorable because some of the later episodes I can't recall quite well in the present, before I did the marathon. I however very much loved Silphymon then (and still do!). Oh, and of course ANGEMOOOOOON.
Then I had a Digimon drought, skipping Tamers and only catching a few episodes. (As described above) Finally I was a bit older, almost having forgotten Digimon by then, when Frontier went on air on the television. I was hooked. Did you know one of my first fanarts ever was a copy of a screenshot of Kouji? I even got a Lobomon (now known as Wolfmon due to marathon!) figure which is sitting on my table in front of me at the moment. :D
I was apparently very proud of that fanart, and stuck it on the wall...in my brother's room. He apparently did not mind.
By then, Digimon pretty much completely fell out of memory. I did occasionally speak of it with Aoi-dono, and sometimes looked up Digimon on its wikia because Digimon looked cool. I then heard of the new Savers but was put off by how all the style was different. Where are my stick children, damnit!? The recycle of Agumon, the lack of goggles. I guess it just lacked a lot of the nostalgia factors that made me love Digimon so much as a child. It also had the three-character thing again, one of the main reasons I never managed to watch Tamers.
Although at some point I ended up drawing my own made up Digimon (I think the only OC I created that I ever gave a damn for) and then, eventually, through some sort of vortex of boredom I decided to rewatch Digimon. At first I decided to just watch Frontier again, since it was closer to me in my memory and I really didn't think I'd have time to go through the others. Once I finished that I thought I was finished.
Yet, I felt incomplete.
Adventure was such a classic, and I really hadn't taken a peek of it ever since I was a child. It was hard not to, really. So I went and rewatched Adventure the week after, seeing Angemon, being reaquainted with the characters, and actually having a favourite character now: Koushiro (previously known as Izzy. A name I still despise.) Of course, finishing Adventure and not watching its sequel would be silly, so I went to watch 02 too. It paled in comparison to its predecessor. Sometimes I wish there was a way to watch 02 and then Adventure without it seeming odd (I guess I could have taken it as a prequel but it would've been weird either way) so disappointment would instead come as something progressively getting better!
That is why I stopped. I didn't bother or have interest in Tamers, so if I did make myself watch it, I had this bad feeling I would go even lower into the pits. Not that 02 was bad, but watching it right after the brilliance of Adventure makes it look worse than it is. However Tamers along with Adventure seemed to me to be one of the more well-liked seasons. I also felt somewhat frustrated about how few people gave a damn about Frontier, so...eventually I gave in to that desire and started Tamers.
At first I did not really think much of it. I knew Takato would be different from the other goggle-boys, one of my main concerns in starting Tamers. I also had no idea of the personalities of anybody else except Ruki. I just knew she was a bitch and that was about it. I wasn't particularly interested in tsundere characters at all (especially female tsunderes...) and she looked like a classic one.
I must admit, never having watched such epic classics like Evangelion (I don't want to feel mind-screwed or depressed) which Tamers drew inspiration from, as well as Serial Experiments Lain, which shares the same writer as Tamers, I wondered if Tamers might not be right for me. After all, at this point everything I've seen, read, or watched lacked a lot of death and seemed rather idealistic. (Excluding movies. I've seen plenty of devastating cynical-to-death-literally movies). So how dark can Tamers be anyway? After all, Digimon was supposed to be meant for kids. So why the hell not?
At first when I saw Meramon dying for no good reason but to show the viewer that Digimon die for no good reason I was rather surprised. After that initial shock everything started to set in and I didn't really notice the random deaths that seemed to be pointed out. (These same things avoided in other seasons of Digimon) I already knew Leomon's reputation, so I wasn't particularly surprised at that. (Even though he can never be rebooooorn for death is permaneeeeent). Also because when Digimon die they tend to do something like a heroic sacrifice. In Tamers, they just die. That's real cheery.
But I wasn't a kid at this moment, I was a nineteen-year-old person. So, I just continued my way along watching more episodes. My original prediction of caring nothing for the female lead (Ruki) or even her Digimon for that matter (and I LIKE foxes!) was very correct. I didn't mind her episodes though. I usually tend to have a bit of distaste for the main character (in this case Takato), since in the pattern of every other season I just wanted that lead to go away and let others take some spotlight. (ESPECIALLY DAISUKE) However I had a soft spot for Takato, and although he DID take up a good chunk of spotlight (despite my complaints, these characters ARE the main characters...) I liked how it wasn't ALL UP TO TAKATO to do something.
Taichi, for example, despite being the main character did always need Yamato there for Metalgaurumon or Omegamon to show up. I'm not sure if I remember any episodes where SOLELY WarGreymon saved the day. They also gave a bunch of spotlight to the little kids and their pretty angel Digimon. The others seemed a little left out though, but maybe not Koushiro as much. (He had a big part in the movie, after all.) However Taichi was still the main character so he got all the stuff like going back to the real world and other important things. He was tolerable in that aspect. I could've liked more spotlight for like...I don't know, the rejects, but since I wasn't particularly fond of Sora, Mimi, Jyou, it didn't seem to matter as much. There were just too many characters in Adventure to have equal love for all.
Daisuke on the other hand stole much of the spotlight. The situation with Ken as the evil baddie in the first half did not help, and honestly? I really could care less for the 02 cast. Yes, even Hikari, Takeru, and Ken himself. I was never fond of Hikari that much, and Takeru although cool and awesome and badass just seemed...odd like that. I never really liked the kids at all in the entire series (Takeru, Hikari, Shiuchon, Tomoki), even when grown up. It was as if they still had that innocence as children while the responsiblity and GOODNESS as...older children. I dunno. Despite Daisuke stealing everything, the annoying "KILLING DIGIMON IS BAD EVEN IF THEY WANT TO KILL US" mentality only made it worse, the plot at times was really good. (Oikawa, for example) BlackWarGreymon was a lazy recolour of WarGreymon suddenly gone emo (as much as his character WAS enjoyable.) I really loved Silphymon though. Hawkmon is an awesome Digimon.
Despite my mixed feelings over 02, I did overall enjoy it. So anyway, I suppose it only made sense for SOMEONE to snap the cast I cared-not-much-for out of a silly trance that they SHOULD'VE (especially Takeru and Hikari, mind you) broke out of it themselves due to past experiences. I suppose that really is the one good thing about Daisuke. (THEY UNDELETED THEMSELVES WITH SHEER DETERMINATION LAST SEASON! If I could undelete myself I'd feel invincible!!!)
So yeah, Takuya on the other hand did not EXACTLY steal the spotlight all for himself. He did at first, had an expy situation of Taichi returning hope except in furry-form and foreshadowing (damn, it really did seem a lot like Adventure) but then he decided to take Kouji with him and steal spotlight from everybody else with EACH OTHER! Isn't that cute? Kouichi obviously got lots of late-season development for being a sixth ranger, but that leaves the other three as rejects. Izumi is my favourite Digimon female, so that kind of sucked. I think the reason my opinions of Adventure and Frontier differ is due to the lack of Koushiro. You have no Koushiro. Your lack of Koushiro makes you inferior. You instead take a character I DO like and shove them with the group of rejects, which I do not believe Koushiro is technically a part of in Adventure.
So yeah, the reason I like Adventure over Frontier is Koushiro.
Getting back to the point, Takato did not particularly steal the spotlight as extreme as the other three. Granted it probably has to do with his personality as well. The finale has Takato saving his girlfriend, while the three other people were actually fighting the big baddie. (Although you know, since they weren't the main character the fight wasn't as epic as it could've been. Takato needs an entire new mode to destroy scary doppleganger-flesh demon thingies of his damsel-in-distress while all the other three needed was some very scary computer program that has no pretty new form or nothing. Just a Beyblade in the form of a gigantic bunny tank.) Also, instead of OMFG ONLY TWO PEOPLE GETTING SUPER-ULTRA-POWERFUL EVOLUTIONS...ALL the main characters do! Even the sixth ranger! That is the advantage of only featuring three-main characters. As much as I care not for Ruki, a female getting a Digimon to the Ultimate/Mega/whatever they call the highest form is very impressive. (Unless that two-second mega/ultimate form of Tailmon in the movie actually counts.)
I feel as though I'm giving Tamers far too much credit here. I really did like it though, but it indeed has its faults. Unlike 02, I didn't REALLY have a favourite Digimon. I suppose I lean towards Terriermon or Impmon, and as awesome as a homicidal bunny-dog thing shooting gatling-guns at little girls are, or as epic as power-hungry demonic biker-impy things are that can kill Leomons PERMANENTLY are, I honestly and truly believe a half-human-half bird thing that can't possibly in anyway see, shooting kame-hadokens out of its claws totally much more awesome. Sorry. :D
Also, every single other seasons' sixth ranger >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> RYO.
I never played those Digimon games that never came out of Japan, so my opinion on Ryo is completely biased, but he really has no personality in Tamers. Hikari, Ken, Kouichi, and even that falcon-feral-kid from Savers is superior to Ryo. Making a character who came out of nowhere super-awesome for no goddamn reason is stupid and silly. At least Hikari was foreshadowed, and Ken was a complete dick at one point, also Kouichi wasn't a complete emo for stuff he did and he was cute and...okay, I like Kouichi, but at least he has a connection to the main characters like everyone else. But Ryo was NOTHING. He just popped out of nowhere as some awesome person from somewhere. If the anime gave some backstory for him so I KNEW stuff about him, like how the hell he jumped from Adventure to Tamers, maybe I'd like him better. :X
Now I should REALLY move on before I bitch and moan about the Tamers' fanfiction on ff.net that has stuff involving Ryo wtih anyone. (Ryo/Jenrya is the most BORING pairing ever. Ryo/Ruki kills off any respect I have for Ruki as a character.)
However, I find Tamers' resident anti-hero Digimon better than the other seasons. I can't exactly think of one off the top of my head from Adventure. The first Digimon that comes to mind is Ogremon, lol. That or Yamato and Gabumon are the closest, but I don't really count anyone from the main cast of kids. Impmon is awesome. He has much more development and character than BlackWarGreymon (who I love as well, but he came in waaay too late and didn't have much time to establish himself too much. MAYBE I'd like him even more if that stupid Imperialdramon didn't interfere with WarGreymon and BlackWarGreymon's guaranteed epic battle. >__>) Frontier also seemed to lack one but that's pretty much because Frontier is Adventure with sentai and without Koushiro. (Again...MAYBE Duskmon, but eh.)
Tamer's also fails in another category in my opinion, female characters. I know everyone loves Ruki for breaking the mold of female characters, but again since I watched Tamers' late I was pretty much unamused by tsunderes at this point. My love is for another pineapple-head, sorry, and Renamon is just weird. I don't think a Digimon actually looked female-human-ish at this point. (Angewomon/LadyDevimon actually looked HUMAN, but Renamon was like...a half-fie. A furry...it also broke the mold...in a bad way.) MAYBE I'd have liked Juri more if she didn't get possessed, turn super-depressed, and was the source of ALL CREEPY IMAGES in that season. It was nice to have someone break the mold of a girl with a male Digimon...
OH WAIT. HAWKMON! Oh, and Miyako. So you don't get a point for that either.
But overall, I'd rate Tamers almost as high as Adventure! The only reason Adventure is higher is because its a classic. Perhaps if I watched the sub of Digimon Tamers as a kid it would be my very favourite, oh, and because it has Koushiro. Tamers' is very awesome, but it's no Koushiro.
Fortunately for Tamers, Jenrya comes close. (He just HAD to be half-chinese didn't he.)
I have to say, 02 did seem to have the most depressing plot points/characters, didn't it? I mean everyone died in Adventure, but they'd come back. 02 though, provides you with the cripplingly depressing detail that Wizardmon never did get reborn. An actual human died and was never reborn. BlackWarGreymon used the last of his life to seal something, and seeing as he wasn't born from a digi-egg but just dark towers, likely he wouldn't be reborn. CREATURES OF ACTUAL IMPORTANCE DIE PERMANENTLY. Tamers too had a permanent death but I felt Leomon wasn't as a developed character as the ones I named off 02. (I really wasn't that sad at Leomon dying.) Also, it's Leomon damnit. Killing Leomon shouldn't even count, permanent or not! Also, Ken's backstory is pretty freakin' sad too.
You know, I might as well rant about those damned fanfiction!
One day I was bored, so I went to fanfiction.net. It had been years the last time I read a thing there. Bad idea, I guess.
I think I found about....two fanfiction I liked.
Neither were complete, so...that didn't help.
See, I'm one of those anal people who cannot read things with dubbed names (In Digimon at least). Izzy is just awful, but I especially cannot stand Henry. I am sorry, I have this little thing for ANOTHER Henry, and I just cannot read anything else with that name. I will end up imagining a brunette archer instead and that just doesn't work. I wouldn't mind shortened names like Tai or T.K. even. I do not understand how Yolei came from Miyako. What the whole purpose of changing Matsuda to Matsuki was, or why JagerLowemon couldn't have been KaiserLeomon. (Or even EmperorLeomon, what Kaiser actually means! And you actually translated twice before for Kaiser/EmperorGreymon and The Digimon Kaiser/Emperor himself!)
Izzy Izumi is like naming someone John Johnson, except John is actually a name people do not laugh at. Yes I realize TECHNICALLY his name is Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi, but never using his actual first name or even mentioning it ever is just a cop out from dubbing over his entire name completely. Izzy is a pet name. It's a stupid name that should not be associated with that of Koushiro.
There's the nonsensical and pointless redubs, but what of JagerLowemon!? Or BurningGreymon? KOUICHI IS PART OF THE LEOMON FAMILY. THAT IS WHY HE (kind of) DIED. You know, like all the other Leomons? Thus, KAISERLEOMON. You could have made it EmperorLeomon, or even JagerLeomon. WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO CHANGE LEOMON? I suppose a "(bantyo)LIOMON" technically died in Savers...EXCEPT YOU DUBBED IT (bancho)LEOMON. WHAT. I guess asking for consistency from a dub is really stupid.
Anyway, I TRY to read the fanfiction with dub names but I cannot, and it is very unfortunate since most are dubbed. I'm sure there's plenty of awesome fanfiction out there using dub names, but my little nitpick will not go away, and so limits what fanfiction I would read very greatly. Then there's my nitpick of what fanfiction I will even read after that. I'm also unfortunately never ever a fan of the popular pairings, jumping for the less common but just as interesting ones right away. I do not care for anything involving Taichi, Yamato, or Sora together anywhere whatsoever. I do like Koushiro/Mimi, or Taichi/Koushiro. That's really about it unfortunately.
I ALSO love love crossovers between the seasons, but I can't find any I liked (save for one) through search since fanfiction.net likes to mash all seasons into one section, and probably half of all the crossover fanfiction don't even have "CROSSOVER" in the description anyway. Something much more vague like "Takato falls into a dimensional rift and finds himself in a strange place only Ryo had been to before." So yeah, there goes those.
I don't particularly favour a pairing from Frontier. There are too less characters for that, unfortunately. (Hahaha, maybe my complaint about too many characters is being revoked! Well Adventure just has too many MAIN characters, if half of them were supporting, ala Tamers style, it might work. 02 did not help by adding characters I didn't give a crap for and pushing ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE away.) And my favourable pairings from Tamers are increeeedibly rare. (I hate every single Jenrya pairing except one really uncommon one (Jenrya/Takato), but Jenrya/Ruki I can tolerate, since it has some merit in a way. HOW THE HELL DOES RYO/JENRYA OR JENRYA/ALICE MAKE ANY OUNCE OF SENSE!?)
So out of the 30,000 fanfiction that exist there? I'll probably like 30 of em. I only found two so far. This is unfortunate. Alas. Picky people don't get anything good I suppose :X.
Now, if this was TL;DR!
Digimon Academy Awards!BEST CHARACTER OVERALL
Koushiro (Adventure)
BEST HUMAN
Koushiro (Adventure) / Runner up: Jenrya (Tamers)
BEST DIGIMON
Silphymon (Adventure 02) / Runner up: Angemon (Adventure)
BEST ANTI-HERO (Digimon)
Impmon (Tamers) / Runner up: BlackWarGreymon (Adventure 02)
BEST FEMALE
Izumi (Frontier) / Runner up: Mimi (Adventure)
BEST SIXTH-RANGER
Kouichi (Frontier) / Runner up: Hikari (Adventure)
MOST COMEDIC
Adventure 02 / Runner up: Adventure
MOST TRAGIC
Adventure 02 / Runner up: Tamers
BEST USE OF CHARACTERS
Tamers / Runner up: Adventure
WORST CHARACTER OVERALL
Ryo (Tamers)
WORST ANTI-HERO
Ryo (Tamers)
BEST AT RUINING FANFICTION
Ryo (Tamers)
LEAST INTERESTING
Ryo (Tamers)
BEST SEASON
Adventure / Runner up: Tamers
Dubs suck and Spotto is picky. That is all.
OH, and to end this I wish to post this video of me playing LF2 with commentary and background Digimon music. (Yes, Commentary. Listen to me be frustrated in this video. I suppose it'd make it somewhat entertaining than the other dull playthroughs.)
THE ENDDDD!!
