Digimon is a series of collectible electronic games that later became an anime and video game series when technology began to improve, you may know it better by the rip-off item Pokemon. But I?m not here to start a pissing match between Digimon fans and Pokemon fans because frankly I quit paying heavy attention to Digimon when I thought the series was cancelled after the fourth season.
Today we?ll be focusing on the Japanese versions of the show because while both versions have kind of a stupid campy feel to them that makes them endearing, kind of like PS2 era Capcom games, this season of Digimon actually relates to a joke I made way back in my Strawberry Panic review that will give you an idea of why I began watching Digimon again when I found the Japanese versions.
Anyway Adventures 02 is the sequel to the first season of Digimon, Digimon Adventures, and is the only Digimon season that I know of that ever references a previous one. Tamers and Frontier never bring up the first generation of chosen children and in fact Tamers completely rewrites the timeline, so continuity doesn?t really exist beyond the first two seasons, they just recycle the general premise and add some new shit to it. In Adventures a group of seven (And later eight) stupid kids are drawn to a world parallel to Earth comprised of computer data and they have to team up with digital monsters, or Digimon, to save the digital world or the chaos in the digital world will spread to the human world. And indeed, it does, but that?s the first season. The second season does it?s best to let new watchers sink their teeth into things by referencing the first season as little as possible and explaining everything that happened in spin-off movies, and only having two of the original chosen children appearing again.
This time around we?ve got five (later six) chosen children who team up with Digimon to stop a narcissistic lunatic called the Digimon Kaiser who is trying to enslave the digital world, and after that they have to stop some evil spider woman from-- actually I have no idea what the fuck they were thinking because the final bad guy reveal in the concluding episodes kind of throws a wrench into things.
Anyway the five chosen children are Daisuke, a worthless idiot who is considered the groups leader by virtue of they use him the same way they use the canary they take down into the mines, Takeru, a veteran chosen child who mostly serves as Daisuke?s comedic foil by virtue of having an IQ over 90, Miyako, a purple haired girl with glasses who probably smokes meth offscreen and kind of makes me think of what would happen if Tomo and Yomi from Azumanga actually did manage to reproduce together, Iori, a nine year old boy who likes shouting ?MEN? while waving a stick around, and Hikari, not to be confused with Hikari from Strawberry Panic though it is an easy mistake to make since they both stick out in my memory by having an instance where they are almost raped and have to be saved by someone whose gender is questionable.
And that?s kind of the appeal of Digimon Adventures 02, just how screwed up it is. I?m not sure if the series is self aware or not but the writing is so horrible and the morals of the story are so weak it often gets to the point that it?s hilarious, especially with how often problems get solved by watching the kids punch or ***** slap one another. Too caught up in self pity to listen to reason?
So distraught your keeping your friends from focusing on combat?
You think the Emi arc is better than the Hanako arc?
Okay, enough of that. Aside from a healthy dose of stupidly hilarious violence the plots are also cringe worthy. There are around 50 episodes, or rather there are around 30 episodes and 20 episodes worth of repeated footage for the Digimon evolving and recycled fight animations, but either way not all episodes advance the plot and there is a lot of filler, and most of it is fucking ridiculous. The most common example of filler episodes are minor episodes where the plot doesn?t advance but the Digimon gain a new stage of power, with the best example of how ridiculous things get being one episode where Iori uses an escape pod to escape from an oil rig everyone was trapped in so that he could get a veteran chosen child from the previous season to help them with his aquatic Digimon, only when presented with a new weapon he refuses to take it because he had to lie to get the chosen child out of class. Yes, the writers are so bad at making moral points they have a character whine about lying even though he had to save four children and five Digimon. Or another point is after they defeat the Digimon Kaiser but haven?t introduced the new enemy and Daisuke tries to get his partner to evolve without the aid of some weird gimmick called armor evolution, and they eventually do spark the ire of a giant turtle monster because they saw him laughing maniacally while pissing.
?no. Seriously. We see a giant turtle monster pissing and then attacking a child and a small blue lizard thing and then start pissing again after it?s thrown off a cliff. Though the most fucked up part would have to be episode 13 which weirdly isn?t actually filler, it shows a parallel world that is bleeding into the digital world, but the events of the episode can best be described as ?Hikari gets drawn into Silent Hill and is almost raped.? I didn?t know my world ran parallel to the digital world but apparently Hikari uses some hidden inner power bullshit to free a group of what she thinks at first are Digimon but that later turn into demons and try to kidnap her, saying they need her to become pregnant with their children and become their new god.
Yes, there is plenty of weird shit to Digimon, and that?s the only appeal there is to Digimon, weird shit. There are elements in it that piss me off though. One major recurring problem with anime in general is that the villains are always brilliant while the heroes are always stupid, you rarely see a genius hero, the hero always has to have a major character flaw that would get people killed in real life. Digimon has this problem in spades, during an episode where they reveal the human identity of the Digimon Kaiser we see that the Digimon Kaiser is considered a super genius but then the next scene of him we see him punting a puppy. Why?! Oh, what gets better is that afterwards when the Kaiser realizes that the digital world wasn?t a game and he got his friend killed (Kind of), he reforms himself and quits stomping puppies but then we get a scene where it states his grades dropped and it?s later revealed he is no longer anywhere near as intelligent as he was when he was evil. This was something that always bugged me, why is it that intelligence is almost always marked as a quality of evil?
Speaking of thematic problems, some of the morals are more than a little ass backwards. They try to add to some suspension as to whether or not the Digimon Kaiser really did reform when we see him kill another Digimon (earlier on they were fighting against brainwashing technology he was using), but in the episode before that it?s established that Digimon come back to life, something the children should know since the one who killed the hostile Digimon was in fact a Digimon they saw die earlier. To top it all off they keep trying to play up the ?Is it okay to kill?? dilemma around an enemy that was trying to destroy a dam which would flood a city and kill hundreds, and prior to that the Digimon that they saw killed by the Kaiser was trying to kill one of the chosen children. This may be a little morbid, but YES! IT?S OKAY TO KILL SOMEONE IF HE?S TRYING TO KILL YOU OR IS TRYING TO KILL SOMEONE ELSE!
But then again, since the series is impossible to take seriously and the morals are so weak you can be forgiven for thinking they?re just screwing with you. If you approach it thinking it?s a parody of sorts, Digimon Adventure 02 can actually be somewhat appealing and does have enough hamminess to make it funny, especially when it throws it?s hands up and has mind-fuck moments when the writers remember ?Oh yeah, they?re in a world made of computer data where anything can and typically will happen.? It?s not a classic and not enlightening, it?s just fun to watch the clichés butchered in such a hilarious way, and I?d say take a look if you saw the English dub while you were younger and want to see just how fucked up the original one was. I don?t recommend seeking out the English dub which does have some significant differences, not the least of which being that they edit out face-punching in American TV aimed at kids, but taking some time to enjoy some of the weird shit Japanese animators can crank out is a good release from playing a really bad game.
Oh, one more thing, when using a web search for Digimon ALWAYS have safe search on. You have been warned.
--Pyramid Head
Next non-game review: Digimon Tamers
Next game review: F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin (My Sims 3 review may not come)
Today we?ll be focusing on the Japanese versions of the show because while both versions have kind of a stupid campy feel to them that makes them endearing, kind of like PS2 era Capcom games, this season of Digimon actually relates to a joke I made way back in my Strawberry Panic review that will give you an idea of why I began watching Digimon again when I found the Japanese versions.
Anyway Adventures 02 is the sequel to the first season of Digimon, Digimon Adventures, and is the only Digimon season that I know of that ever references a previous one. Tamers and Frontier never bring up the first generation of chosen children and in fact Tamers completely rewrites the timeline, so continuity doesn?t really exist beyond the first two seasons, they just recycle the general premise and add some new shit to it. In Adventures a group of seven (And later eight) stupid kids are drawn to a world parallel to Earth comprised of computer data and they have to team up with digital monsters, or Digimon, to save the digital world or the chaos in the digital world will spread to the human world. And indeed, it does, but that?s the first season. The second season does it?s best to let new watchers sink their teeth into things by referencing the first season as little as possible and explaining everything that happened in spin-off movies, and only having two of the original chosen children appearing again.
This time around we?ve got five (later six) chosen children who team up with Digimon to stop a narcissistic lunatic called the Digimon Kaiser who is trying to enslave the digital world, and after that they have to stop some evil spider woman from-- actually I have no idea what the fuck they were thinking because the final bad guy reveal in the concluding episodes kind of throws a wrench into things.
Anyway the five chosen children are Daisuke, a worthless idiot who is considered the groups leader by virtue of they use him the same way they use the canary they take down into the mines, Takeru, a veteran chosen child who mostly serves as Daisuke?s comedic foil by virtue of having an IQ over 90, Miyako, a purple haired girl with glasses who probably smokes meth offscreen and kind of makes me think of what would happen if Tomo and Yomi from Azumanga actually did manage to reproduce together, Iori, a nine year old boy who likes shouting ?MEN? while waving a stick around, and Hikari, not to be confused with Hikari from Strawberry Panic though it is an easy mistake to make since they both stick out in my memory by having an instance where they are almost raped and have to be saved by someone whose gender is questionable.
And that?s kind of the appeal of Digimon Adventures 02, just how screwed up it is. I?m not sure if the series is self aware or not but the writing is so horrible and the morals of the story are so weak it often gets to the point that it?s hilarious, especially with how often problems get solved by watching the kids punch or ***** slap one another. Too caught up in self pity to listen to reason?
So distraught your keeping your friends from focusing on combat?
You think the Emi arc is better than the Hanako arc?
Okay, enough of that. Aside from a healthy dose of stupidly hilarious violence the plots are also cringe worthy. There are around 50 episodes, or rather there are around 30 episodes and 20 episodes worth of repeated footage for the Digimon evolving and recycled fight animations, but either way not all episodes advance the plot and there is a lot of filler, and most of it is fucking ridiculous. The most common example of filler episodes are minor episodes where the plot doesn?t advance but the Digimon gain a new stage of power, with the best example of how ridiculous things get being one episode where Iori uses an escape pod to escape from an oil rig everyone was trapped in so that he could get a veteran chosen child from the previous season to help them with his aquatic Digimon, only when presented with a new weapon he refuses to take it because he had to lie to get the chosen child out of class. Yes, the writers are so bad at making moral points they have a character whine about lying even though he had to save four children and five Digimon. Or another point is after they defeat the Digimon Kaiser but haven?t introduced the new enemy and Daisuke tries to get his partner to evolve without the aid of some weird gimmick called armor evolution, and they eventually do spark the ire of a giant turtle monster because they saw him laughing maniacally while pissing.
?no. Seriously. We see a giant turtle monster pissing and then attacking a child and a small blue lizard thing and then start pissing again after it?s thrown off a cliff. Though the most fucked up part would have to be episode 13 which weirdly isn?t actually filler, it shows a parallel world that is bleeding into the digital world, but the events of the episode can best be described as ?Hikari gets drawn into Silent Hill and is almost raped.? I didn?t know my world ran parallel to the digital world but apparently Hikari uses some hidden inner power bullshit to free a group of what she thinks at first are Digimon but that later turn into demons and try to kidnap her, saying they need her to become pregnant with their children and become their new god.
Yes, there is plenty of weird shit to Digimon, and that?s the only appeal there is to Digimon, weird shit. There are elements in it that piss me off though. One major recurring problem with anime in general is that the villains are always brilliant while the heroes are always stupid, you rarely see a genius hero, the hero always has to have a major character flaw that would get people killed in real life. Digimon has this problem in spades, during an episode where they reveal the human identity of the Digimon Kaiser we see that the Digimon Kaiser is considered a super genius but then the next scene of him we see him punting a puppy. Why?! Oh, what gets better is that afterwards when the Kaiser realizes that the digital world wasn?t a game and he got his friend killed (Kind of), he reforms himself and quits stomping puppies but then we get a scene where it states his grades dropped and it?s later revealed he is no longer anywhere near as intelligent as he was when he was evil. This was something that always bugged me, why is it that intelligence is almost always marked as a quality of evil?
Speaking of thematic problems, some of the morals are more than a little ass backwards. They try to add to some suspension as to whether or not the Digimon Kaiser really did reform when we see him kill another Digimon (earlier on they were fighting against brainwashing technology he was using), but in the episode before that it?s established that Digimon come back to life, something the children should know since the one who killed the hostile Digimon was in fact a Digimon they saw die earlier. To top it all off they keep trying to play up the ?Is it okay to kill?? dilemma around an enemy that was trying to destroy a dam which would flood a city and kill hundreds, and prior to that the Digimon that they saw killed by the Kaiser was trying to kill one of the chosen children. This may be a little morbid, but YES! IT?S OKAY TO KILL SOMEONE IF HE?S TRYING TO KILL YOU OR IS TRYING TO KILL SOMEONE ELSE!
But then again, since the series is impossible to take seriously and the morals are so weak you can be forgiven for thinking they?re just screwing with you. If you approach it thinking it?s a parody of sorts, Digimon Adventure 02 can actually be somewhat appealing and does have enough hamminess to make it funny, especially when it throws it?s hands up and has mind-fuck moments when the writers remember ?Oh yeah, they?re in a world made of computer data where anything can and typically will happen.? It?s not a classic and not enlightening, it?s just fun to watch the clichés butchered in such a hilarious way, and I?d say take a look if you saw the English dub while you were younger and want to see just how fucked up the original one was. I don?t recommend seeking out the English dub which does have some significant differences, not the least of which being that they edit out face-punching in American TV aimed at kids, but taking some time to enjoy some of the weird shit Japanese animators can crank out is a good release from playing a really bad game.
Oh, one more thing, when using a web search for Digimon ALWAYS have safe search on. You have been warned.
--Pyramid Head
Next non-game review: Digimon Tamers
Next game review: F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin (My Sims 3 review may not come)