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shihalyfie · 13 days
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I've already added this in a later update to my Sora meta, but I figured I should go into this in a little more detail. Between Adventure and 02, Sora switches her sport from soccer to tennis, and the reason that's actually given in explicit text is that it's part of her bonding with her mother (since her mother played back in the day and is now her personal coach). But there's actually another implied reason that's a bit lost in cultural translation, and in fact, from what I understand, most Japanese fans already assume that this was the case despite it never being stated in dialogue:
Sora probably didn't have a choice even if she wanted to, because Odaiba Middle School probably didn't have a girls' soccer club.
There are enough Japanese middle schools that don't have girls' soccer clubs that this is actually a fairly frequent story you hear among girls who played soccer in elementary school (and especially so in 2001, when Sora first entered middle school). In such a situation, if Sora wanted to continue soccer, she would have two choices:
Brute-force herself onto the boys' club: In fact, this is implied to be exactly what she did in elementary school after she self-exiled herself from the girls' club (based on her testimony from Adventure episode 26). But while elementary schools are fairly lenient about this, middle schools are not, and Sora would be up against school staff advising her against it as well as potential scorn from the team itself. Indeed, if you look at the results of a survey held by the Japan Football Association, 68% of girls who played soccer in elementary school were affiliated with the boys' team, but only 20% did so in middle school (and this is from 2009, a whole decade later, so the numbers were probably even lower in 2001!).
Find a neighborhood girls' soccer team: Even outside school clubs, there are still independent soccer teams, so it would theoretically be possible to continue with the sport as an extracurricular activity. But that would mean potentially making a long commute (depending on where the nearest team is) and dedicating extra time on top of required school club activities, something that a lot of girls in real life don't have the luxury of doing.
So while she could have gone for it if she really, really wanted to, at this point, she would have to be willing to push for it to "considering going for the Nadeshiko League" levels (and according to former Nadeshiko League player Yoshino Yuka, who had to commute an hour's distance by train to continue playing soccer in middle school, it's not something that's easy to pull off for a lot of girls and their families even if you do have that level of dedication). Of course, there's no doubt that this is an unfair, unfortunate situation no matter how you look at it, but it's one that Sora would have realistically been likely to face in 2001, and given that she was never particularly depicted as being attached to soccer beyond hobby level in the series, it's easy to imagine that she would have decided to take an alternative route in order to continue playing sports instead.
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shihalyfie · 13 days
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I love your Digimon meta blog! It's really helped me appreciate the series more and get into it after Ghost Game! I know you focus more on Adventure and 02, but do you know any other blogs, Tumblr or otherwise who also do meta's on Digimon?
Thank you so much!
Hmm, the thing about Digimon meta is that a lot of it is Adventure-biased, not just because of the popularity of Adventure, but also because the Adventure universe is the one with the most lingering questions to address compared to others that are a bit more straightforward. (Believe it or not, even I would probably be covering more than just Adventure and 02 if I could come up with things to talk about, but unfortunately, I'm not actually that creative or smart and struggle to come up with good topics when a huge question isn't shoved in front of my face.) Sadly, we also lost a lot of meta bloggers in the Tumblr exodus some years ago, but off the top of my head I easily remember @analyzingadventure (if at least because the name is easy to remember!), and I've also seen @digisurvive's stuff on Survive floating around.
The thing is, I do know a lot of names around, but I keep forgetting who are the ones who actually specialize in meta and who only posts about that kind of thing occasionally...I'm sorry, I am a terrible excuse for a community member. Please reblog this post and promote yourself if you do meta!
For things outside Tumblr, I really like Data Ravel's Digital World Archive, which talks about the Digimon franchise as an overall multiverse as well as the history of the IP itself. In particular, I like the fact that he's one of the few people who can talk about things like lore contradictions and marketing/financial problems with an academic tone that doesn't feel remotely malicious, and in fact, he treats them like things that make the franchise even more interesting to analyze and think about. So he's probably the only person I can have faith will talk about things like the 02 media mix biting off more than it could chew or Tamers/Frontier's financial problems without sounding like he's attacking them or being condescending, and it really does feel like a true analysis blog rather than something that has to go into media criticism or debating what's better or worse writing. I really appreciate the fact that he treats everything like it has its own place and value, and I feel more people could stand to be that way.
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shihalyfie · 14 days
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If Ken hadn’t become the Kaiser, what kind of person do you think he’d be? Do you think he became kinder as a result of his experience? Obviously he’d still be a kind person if he hadn’t become the Kaiser, but I wonder if he has any lingering anxiety about becoming cruel again due to being the Kaiser.
It's hard to say unless we know what did happen in place of that (did he ever find a support group, if not, how much longer did he have to stay alone?), etc., but I also don't think there wouldn't have been some other event in his life that might have also gotten him to reconsider himself and his actions. In general, I feel like even if the events of Digimon Adventure/02/whatnot hadn't happened in the exact way they did, there are certain realizations or feelings the characters still would have had even with different but comparable circumstances.
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shihalyfie · 14 days
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So I saw the recent anime anniversary PV that the Digimon Partners Youtube channel put out and was honestly surprised when they breezed past everything after Frontier lol. I know that Toei/Bandai has a bias for the first four series in terms of celebrations and merch (even then that’s debatable for Frontier); but are there any examples of them doing modern merch for the newer series like Savers or Xros Wars (barring the TCG ofc)?
Well, the anniversary in question came with this nice key visual that they're now making merch out of as part of a gachapon lineup with every TV series:
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And even putting the 25th anniversary stuff aside, they have. If you go to the Digimon section of the Toei shop and scroll down, you can narrow it down by series. Everything listed in the sections for Savers and after is from 2020 or later. Of course, a lot of this is recent -- it's a byproduct of them getting much better at making efforts to acknowledge non-Adventure ever since there was an overhaul of IP-related direction back in 2020 (it hasn't been super publicized since it's mainly stuff to do with IP management in the background, but it's been a thing).
The problem is, it is a known fact that anything after Frontier does not sell (and even Frontier is on thin ice). The otedama (mini-plushes) for Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon were the result of a poll held on Digimon Partners for what kind of later-series merch people wanted to see, because they really cannot be certain that they're actually going to be able to make enough to not turn out a loss on these. So in the end, I'll take this over the neverending "Adventure and tri. are the only things that exist" we had during the late 2010s.
They're not snubbing the later series because they don't care, it's just that we're still at the point where most average people don't even know what a Shoutmon is! (Well, except TCG players.) When that aforementioned gachapon was announced, one of the people in my group chat sadly pointed out that since every series shown in it has an equal chance of being pulled, more than 50% of people who play the gacha are going to get something after Frontier and say "I have no idea what this is, I wasted my money on a bad pull." So unless something can be done about the current state of things where you have to forcibly insert later-series stuff into random merch draws to get people to buy them, I can't really expect too much.
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shihalyfie · 14 days
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I'm watching the Japanese version of Digimon: Frontier, and I am kind of wondering what are the differences between Takuya and Taichi? I can see the similarities, but having trouble seeing the differences.
Rather than thinking of it in terms of a list of similarities and differences, I think it's better to zoom out and look at the overall picture. What motivates them? What are they intimidated by? How do they react to certain things?
Taichi and Takuya may seem similar in terms of surface temperament, but their ways of approaching things are different (Taichi is often too easygoing and lackadaisical because he prefers to go for the first thing on his mind, Takuya tends to prioritize actively taking things head-on), their roles in the group are different (Taichi has somewhat of a coordinating leader role as is pointed out in Adventure episode 28, Takuya forms the engine behind everyone but will often have to leave the issue of organizing everyone to someone like Junpei), their ways of handling failure are different (Taichi is likely to take too much responsibility onto himself as if everything is his fault, Takuya has more varied responses like coping with stress by trying to ram it harder)...et cetera. From this perspective, I think it's conversely harder to see how they're all that similar.
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shihalyfie · 14 days
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Can you figure out what made Digimon’s dub stand out from other shows that Saban had dubbed?
I have no idea? I think Digimon is just popular.
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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Roleplaying-wise ideas but i keep bouncing into those back and forth so... I'm so sorry this is weird coming from someone not into the Kaiser himself, but the concept of a baddie instead of a hero, so...
What would happen if someone else (Daisuke, Miyako, Iori) had actually started as the Kaiser's ally instead? Like, some sort of henchman or servant. Yes, you know what I mean (I've been very into Gordon's (a Japanese artist, just leaving this info to readers) ideas for Kaiser/Miyako lol
I also have been imagining my own silly idea of Daisuke himself ending up as the Kaiser's henchman at the beginning, but it was more in the lines of Sonic Movie's Robotnik/Eggman & Agent Stone lol. Very cliche-like but yeah, i like that trope~
So when I first got this ask in my inbox, I thought, "ooh, interesting idea, I'll think about it later!"...but then once I actually did start thinking about it, I realized I couldn't come up with anything without more details because the other kids generally are too high on the scale of morality by default to enjoy the idea of being his henchman. I think perhaps it would require a second Dark Seed...or...yeah, in the end, I think this needs more detail or specifics before I can take this beyond crack AU. I'm sorry, I think I've failed you this time!
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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I don’t know if there’s like any information on this but I figured I’d ask, do you know if there’s any reason why Yoshino & Lalamon didn’t get character songs like everyone else? It’s just really weird to me but I never see it mentioned or anything…
There's been no official statement on it as far as I'm aware, but if I had to guess, my first guess would be that it probably had to do with Aragaki Yui (Yoshino's voice actress) and her agency. Yoshino was only one of very few voice acting roles she ever had in her entire career, and it was very early at that; her agency was probably demoing out various career outlets for her to see what stuck, but she was always meant to be a live-action actress from the beginning. So it's possible (again, this is just purely speculation) that her agency wasn't up for the usual anime voice actor stuff like character songs, and poor Lalamon unfortunately had to take the hit as well despite her character being tied to singing (and Yukana being a voice actress who does this kind of thing all the time) because it'd be glaring to have Lalamon but no Yoshino.
For all it's worth, Aragaki is now so incredibly famous and prominent that they can't even get her back to voice Yoshino anymore, so I think it's safe to say that stuff surrounding her is very different from what you usually get with Digimon voice actors. The big question is really just how much that applied during Savers' airing as well.
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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If Kai Urazoe (Takato's cousin) gets digimon partner. Do you think it will an aquatic digimon like Sangomon?
I don't see why not! I'm sure they'd both love it.
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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hello! i'm rewatching 02 again and discovered your blog midway through -- really impressed with your meta! i was wondering if you had an answer to something that's always perplexed me about the second series. is there a reason the OG chosen children go to such great lengths to hide their continued adventures from their families? i can understand why daisuke et al would need to hide those things, but didn't koushiro's parents literally meet tentomon during the tokyo arc? why all the secrecy?
Thank you for reading and for the kind words!
I think it's simply just to not worry them and to avoid the awkward questions (mainly because the monsters were associated with stressful fighting and all, and they know their parents have those associations). In fact, there's even that moment in 02 episode 27 where Koushirou's mom walks in and flatly asks where "Tento-san" is, and the entire atmosphere gets awkward; it's partially because of the cute nickname, but there's also a nuance that they did all that flailing and cover-up only for it to not be a big deal.
Likewise, I think it is likely that Hiroaki was told what the "camping trip" in 02 episodes 18-21 was, and that one of the reasons they decided to ask him in particular was that they knew they could convince him not to spill. And while Natsuko clearly knew Patamon was around, Takeru had withheld the details about the reason he was there and the Digital World territory war until she confronted him in 02 episode 39; of course, she responded by saying she trusted him to take care of it, but I imagine he'd probably had a real worry that she would protest or try to stop him.
So basically, it's kind of like how it wouldn't really be easy to tell your parents "hey, you know that really scary incident from three years ago where the town nearly got destroyed? We've decided to involve ourselves in that again, except on a weekly basis!" Their parents naturally didn't have any issue with the Digimon themselves (hence them being depicted as joining the family Christmas parties in 02 episode 38), but it was specifically the part about getting involved in fighting and violence and traveling between worlds that was being kept from them, and given that one of the reasons Mimi's parents moved to the US was that they didn't want to be involved with monster fights anymore, you can see that the kids probably wanted to avoid any chance of being obstructed for as long as possible.
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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In terms of upcoming home video release of 02TB (DVD+Blu-ray), do you have a plan to buy the original Japanese version (without English sub) or waiting for the official release of English version?
Original Japanese version of the box is a yes. I might still get the English version too, and even if I don't full-on buy it, I'll at least rent it to show my support. I did that with Kizuna because I was curious about the English dub, and I think 02TB's dub is even better. (It's not a fair comparison because Kizuna's was done during lockdown conditions, so it's inevitable, but I personally thought the voice acting direction was much better and less stiff in 02TB.)
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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I heard that Matt became an astronaut because Adventure 03 would've been about outer space. How would that idea work?
The general gist of it is that Adventure was in the Digital World, 02 was in the real world, so the third series would have been about space, and all three of them would have been about the theme of fighting against forces inhibiting evolution. There's more than that, but that's generally the important part (and with beta ideas, it's always hard to say how solidified they were rather than just "ideas conceived that never got off the ground").
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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In Adventure 02, the original villain was suppose to be Matt, not Ken, who would turn to the dark side. Do we have any more information about how that would work if the idea wen through? Matt was already manipulated into fighting Tai
To be more precise, that was a suggestion that was on the table at one point, but it's never been said how long that was on the table and how seriously it was taken. Given that this was when talks for 02 had just gotten off the ground, that means it probably would have been during the Odaiba or Dark Masters arc, so my personal guess is that the plot point of Yamato fighting Taichi in Adventure might have been because of that discussion, as in, once they scrapped the idea for 02, they repurposed it into a late Adventure plot point. That's just my guess, though.
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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Oh yeah, I absolutely think it would have been much harder! But I still think they would have done it, and moreover, the Dark Seed was also only "necessary" because Ken is the kind of kid who probably wouldn't do that kind of thing without the push. Imagine finding someone who actually was more cruel and prone to a power complex, and it's possible that it might have been easier in ways that offset the ways it's harder.
I’ve been thinking about a thing – based on private roleplaying stuff – what would’ve happened with Ken if he had been friends with the five 02 kids before the 02 TV series' events?
Like, would their influence have prevented him from becoming the Digimon Kaiser? Or wouldn’t have altered anything in the plot and he would still go into the Kaiser route? 🤔
I think Ken might have been prevented from being the Kaiser, but someone else would have taken the role (Ken was picked because his situation made him convenient for Oikawa and co., not because there was anything particularly unique about him). But for Ken himself, I think they might have been a much better support group for getting through his brother's death, et cetera.
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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So... If they (02 staff) had kept the Kaiser persona as a secret for a little longer and the kids had befriended Ken before the reveal, would Ken start recovering his heart/mind or would he just deceive everyone like a cold hearted villain?
I think he would have tried to prevent the others from befriending him (he looked down on them as "insects", after all), but would have also been struggling with the feeling that seeing their friendship is a bit enviable. To be honest, I think he would have had too much pride to not spill the beans at some point; he was clearly enjoying the idea of revealing his identity to Daisuke and upsetting him that way, so keeping the secret for pragmatic reasons didn't seem to be a huge priority for him.
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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There's an opinion that while in the original Japanese version indicates Takato is just a bit immature, the first ending and his image song indicate he has depressive tendencies. What do you think?
I certainly won't rule out the idea of him having depressive tendencies, but at the same time I don't think anything we saw of him is particularly unusual for a ten-year-old to be feeling. Being a kid is hard.
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shihalyfie · 1 month
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Hmm~ A fun question! What will happen if Digimon's characters read your blogs?
I'd be mortified if they did, I don't think they'd be very comfortable seeing someone try to unpack their thoughts and motives in such detail!
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