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jolteonjordansh · 7 years

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Thoughts on Tamers Introduction Arc

Yeah... I have no idea what to call this arc since Digimon Tamers is structured so differently from the Digimon Adventure series. It’s definitely a new beast compared to its predecessors, which is probably why it has this arc to set up how this whole new world works. This consists of the first 12 episodes (and kinda sorta episode 13 since it’s sort of an arc transition episode), so basically my initial thoughts of the series. So how is it?

I probably shouldn’t be writing when I’m in the middle of finals week but here we go.

This arc is actually super short compared to what I’m used to (or maybe that’s because Adventure 02′s arcs were really long, but whatever) and it honestly doesn’t have a ton of substance, at least in terms of being super eventful. In 13 episodes of Digimon Adventure, the seven DigiDestined all got their Digimon to evolve to Champion forms, conquer File Island and confront several big baddies--including defeating Devimon. For Tamers? The three main tamers get their Digimon to evolve to Champion form a couple of time at most and typically just deal with a few rogue Digimon “realizing” in the real world.

But that doesn’t make Tamers first arc bad at all. I’m actually glad that the story, for the most part, took its time. It’s far more emotionally driven and focused on writing and developing its characters than it is throwing a bunch of action-packed battles. That could change in later arcs and this also isn’t to say any of the battles were bad here either.

Since there were so few battles, it’s easy to talk about those first. Probably the most interesting ones are the ones where each main Digimon achieves Champion form for the first time--Growlmon’s probably being my favorite. Like 02, Digimon have multiple attacks, which I really liked about that series as an improvement over Adventure. But along with that, Tamers’ “Card Slash” addition adds a good chunk of new variety to the battles. There’s mostly stat boosting cards, but the ones that give new abilities like White Wings on Guilmon are my favorite so far, so I really hope they keep being creative with it later on. Plus it also adds an extra bit of variety for how Digivolution isn’t really necessary to turn a battle around. It keeps things interesting and at times less predictable than what the Adventures series had to struggle with.

What I also really like about this arc and series so far is the characters--they’re honestly pretty unique and mostly don’t fall into major stereotypes. There’s obviously character tropes here and there, but they’re done with enough of a unique spin that I wouldn’t call any of them stereotypes. But what I like the most between all three of them is that they have their own strengths and flaws, but none of them are higher on the rung nor is there one character who is typically right about everything while there’s a bonehead who’s looked down on as the group idiot. I’ll try to explain.

Rika seems like the typical “cold-hearted bitch” and while she does fall into a few tropes, she is right about a few things. She’s very logical and her mentality reflects that, making her a better fighter and helping characters like Takato realize the flaws in his own strategies. But it’s because of her logical mindset that she’s cruel to Renamon and finds herself struggling internally. At the same time though, she has logical fears. She realizes she’s playing a dangerous game and she keeps a brave face on, but it’s when she’s directly facing that danger (such as when she’s been directly targetted by Digimon) that she feels a sense of helplessness.

Takato kind of falls into the “weird kid at school” archetype, but it’s honestly refreshing to have that character as the main protagonist for Digimon. After having the outgoing, courageous hothead Tai and... Davis I guess, Takato is honestly a more fun and (to me) more realistic character. Our previous leads were good characters in their own rights but despite the whole “average Joe” archetype the writers were going for with Davis, Takato feels like the most relatable lead so far. He’s weird, his imagination is running wild with ideas, he’s passionate about his interests to the point that it distracts him from school, he has friends but he also gets in fights with them, he gets in trouble with his parents for being a tad rebellious but he isn’t out to get in serious trouble... But guess what? That’s a kid! Kids are weird! They get in trouble! They get all sorts of ideas all of the time! And I commend the writers for nailing it with Takato.

But he’s not perfect. He doesn’t think his Digimon battles through and he gets cocky when he thinks he has it all figured out (but it’s not a running theme with him like many standard hothead protagonists). He’s extremely emotionally invested in and attached to Guilmon, to the point that he can’t possibly stand the very idea of losing him. But he’s a big dreamer (no pun intended on the theme song) that sometimes doesn’t realize how ambitious his dreams can be. When he first meets Guilmon and comes across his evolved Growlmon, he’s scared of the potential monster he’s created. He’s not the bravest kid around when faced with harsh realities, but he does overcome them and he does realize when he’s made a mistake. He’s actual a pretty big crybaby for a main protagonist, but that’s part of what makes him so human.

Then you have Henry, who’s sort of the in-between for Rika and Takato and the pacifist. He has the ability to fight, but he’s too scared to fight because of a past experience with his Terriermon digivolving to Gargomon and being out of his control. He cares a lot about Terriermon, but he realizes that he’s a creature that isn’t meant to exist in the “real world”. He has a balance of rationale and emotions, though it’s clear that his emotions tend to win over certain situations--he typically takes Takato’s side and stays out of fights because of his attachment to Terriermon. He’s a middle ground in the cast, but not to the point that he’s boring.

As for the Digimon, I like pretty much all three. Guilmon’s easily my favorite--he’s just so gosh darn adorable and his relationship with Takato has been really good so far. Renamon is the stoic and “cool” one, and I do like her. Nothing has really happened that has made me say “Oh my God, I love this character!”, but she’s interesting enough and I like some of her dedication to Rika, even though she has been pushed aside by her. I do also admittedly really like Kyubimon’s design too. Terriermon is just... sort of there for me. I wasn’t really fond of him when I first started watching, and I don’t particularly care for Terriermon or Gargomon’s designs. But I have warmed up to him at least though, and I do like that he’s a bit of a subtle smart aleck.

To briefly mention one other Digimon, Calumon is a white ball of pure adorableness. I never thought there was a Digimon that could rival Patamon as the pure cinnamon roll but my gosh, Calumon’s very existence is the embodiment of pure. There’s no other way to describe him. I can see he’s kind of a walking plot device, but dammit, they made this plot device too cute for me to possibly be mad about!

Oh, and there’s Impmon I guess. Yeah, he’s a little shit. I literally have nothing else to say about him (though I do wonder how much fun the dub writers had tweaking his script).

Normally I would talk about the antagonist here too, but there’s so little we know at this point of the show that I really don’t know how to comment. Just, “Ooh, government conspiracies!”. I’d complain about how overdone that is, but at the same time there comes a point where you watch so much Digimon that you wonder where the hell the government is. I mean, Adventure 02 briefly touched on this, but just had Gennai screw them over anyway. The main baddie’s lighter clicking kind of has my attention for some reason though. A nervous tick perhaps? Maybe I’ve just played too much Ace Attorney.

Yet despite all of the “cover-up” going on with the Digimon, I have to say that it’s borderline completely unnecessary considering how freaking stupid the pedestrians in the Tamers world are. Seriously, I thought it was bad in the Adventure series for how few recognized the whole Digimon thing and how shocked they were when it happened for the third time in tri, yet they acted like it was a totally new thing. But the people in the Tamers world are either blind, coincidentally not around when something happens, or just really, really stupid. No one ever notices a Digital Field, Hypnos tries to cover up all of the totally clear as day kaiju fights by shutting down any technology, yet no one reports it? Not once does anyone question whether or not Guilmon is more than just a kid in a really realistic looking costume? I mean, I can accept passing off Terriermon as a plushie, but there are moments he talks right in front of people and no one raises a fuss. There is one scene where Henry scolds him for potentially drawing attention, but this is just one of many, many times where people conveniently do not notice. You can only stretch one’s suspension of disbelief so far. The subplot where Impmon pulls a ton of pranks in a park is about as close as it gets, but I can kinda believe people mistaking him for a kid in a costume. You can only get so far with a walking, talking dinosaur running around in public. But hey, if We’re Back! could pull it off for about 30 minutes, why the hell not!

It’s a nitpick at best, but it seriously starts to become questionable three series in, especially when the Adventure series always tried to cover up the partner Digimon when they could, but then you have Tamers with kids just casually walking around with their Digimon. I mean, I wish that was the world we were living in!

I guess if I had to nitpick about another thing, the animation towards to the beginning is kind of laughable. I know just about any show is like that in its first few episodes, and maybe this is because I’m not watching the show on an old low-resolution CRT TV as it was meant to back in the early 2000′s, but there’s definitely some bad, wonky and very simplified frames and cycles of animation. There’s also a couple of cheap digital animation tricks being overused, like just moving single frames of animation with zooms or moving them around like little puppets. I do think the animation does improve within the first arc, but I’m pretty sure plenty of the animation budget went into the Digivolution animations. And honestly, they are still pretty impressive to look at to this day and are very stylistic. Granted, they look kind of... painful for the Digimon, but it’s still more impressive than having the Digimon just... spin into Champion form.

Finally, the music is really good too. “The Biggest Dreamer” is another awesome Digimon opening provided by the late Koji Wada, “EVO” is a great Digivolution theme that I really like the lyrics for, “Card Slash!” is catchy as hell, and “My Tomorrow” is a nice ending theme, probably one of my more favorite ones. There’s also “3 Primary Colors” as an insert song, but I didn’t really get enough of an impression of it just hearing it once. I also really like the instrumentals for these songs, like the piano version of “The Biggest Dreamer” (OW MY HEART) and that jazzy version of “Card Slash!” is pretty swell too. The other BGM is nice as well, and I think I may have heard a few songs reused from the Adventure series, but I’m not 100% sure on that. If there’s any complaint I have about the music, it’s that so far the fights have been so short that the songs don’t really get a chance to play in full--even at TV size. I don’t really mind moments where songs like Card Slash! transition into EVO, but I do hope we get more fleshed out fight scenes to give some of these songs the treatment they deserve.

There really isn’t much plot for me to talk about since this arc is spent establishing the world and characters, but I don’t particularly mind that! I like that the show takes its time to introduce its audience to the world it has, but not to a point that it drags or bores the audience. It still has enough good characters, good action and new Digimon elements as well as enough mystery to keep me invested. Characters with good enough chemistry and development that I’ve already cried at least three times. Because Digimon enjoys doing that to me, and I keep watching it anyway.

Which is exactly why I wrote this as fast as possible so I could go watch more. That’s it! See you guys after another 10+ episodes!

#Shut Up JJ #JJ DigiWatches #final thoughts

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jolteonjordansh · 7 years

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Thoughts on DATS Arc

Oh my God Digimon Savers is so addicting.

No BSing, no fancy and elaborative descriptions, thoughts are right under the break.

Let me tell you, I have been wanting to get to Digimon Savers for the longest time since I’ve gotten into the whole Digimon thing again. I honestly wanted to outright skip Digimon Frontier so I could go straight to Digimon Savers after I watched Digimon Tamers. Granted, Frontier ended up having some... good things about it in its own right, but I realized just how low I had to set my expectations just to enjoy it. After watching Frontier, Digimon Savers is practically mind-blowing and is better in pretty much every single way possible. And this is just my impressions of the first 13 episodes.

Thankfully, Digimon Savers goes back to the human and Digimon partner formula we all know and love. While I guess I can... give Frontier credit for trying something different, I don't think it did enough and it just wasn't as effective as the usual formula. For me, this is a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", but I guess I can't truly get mad at Frontier for trying something new. Though personally, I think Frontier should have been more a side series, but that's just me. Enough on Frontier comparisons though.

The story starts with an Agumon escaping a facility that tries to maintain peace in the Real World and the Digital World known as DATS-the Digital Accident Tactics Squad. One of the members and one of the main cast, Yoshino, goes to investigate and finds probably one of the best introductions of a main Digimon protagonist by coming across the Agumon and main character Marcus fighting each other in hand-to-hand combat. The two fight each other to exhaustion and eventually gain respect for each other, leading to Marcus protecting Agumon and literally carrying him away on his back to protect him. Note: Rookies are strangely oversized in this series and bigger than most human children, so he's carrying an oversized lizard on his back after being beaten to the ground. If this sounds over the top, that's because it absolutely is.

As Marcus continues to try to hide away his new Agumon friend, he eventually gets caught up in taking care of him as well as involved with Digimon invading the Real World. He actually gets super excited about this and wants to keep fighting these Digimon because as an actual street fighter, he finds this really awesome. In one of his fights with a Digimon, a mysterious old man gives him a Digivice that allows him to Digivolve Agumon to GeoGreymon as well as transport Agumon around (kind of like a Poké Ball). But when he's eventually dragged to DATS to return Agumon back to the Digital World, he asks to join not only so he can keep fighting Digimon, but so that Agumon doesn't have to be sent back to the Digital World. The DATS leader, Richard Sampson, agrees to let him join. Richard is the average strict leader, but he also has a Digimon called Kudamon, who wraps around his neck to be the most adorable living scarf critter I've ever seen.

The show basically follows a "Monster of the Day" sort of formula, eventually introducing a third character known as Thomas with his partner Gaomon, a boxer dog. He and Marcus don't get along very well at the start considering they're practically polar opposites of each other--Marcus is hot-headed and thinks in the spur of the moment, while Thomas is very cool, collected and strategic. This kind of makes them the foiling duo that gets the special treatment in every Digimon series, and considering poor Yoshino doesn't get too much attention in this first arc, this does make it seem that way for now. What I do like about this "duo" is that they make it very clear from the start that they don't get along, but to such a degree that their disagreements become detrimental to their missions and it does become an actual problem. But they are able to eventually set aside their differences and become partners. So they do set aside the whole bickering duo cliché out quickly while still making both characters different enough with their own methods of taking care of situations.

Since that's most of the plot abridged as of now, I should talk about each of the characters. Our main character Marcus is partnered with the signature Agumon, and as I mentioned before he is another hot-headed protagonist. With that, you'd might expect a Tai clone, but that's not quite the case. Marcus is the oldest of the protagonists so far (14 years old), the only protagonist not to have signature goggles, and he takes the whole hot-headed protagonist to a whole new level. He does fight Digimon on a regular basis, and it's one of the most Crazy Awesome things I've ever seen. You could throw some of the biggest and most threatening Digimon at him and, whether through his guts or his stupidity, he would not hesitate to punch them straight in the face. It makes him such an entertaining character to just watch, but at the same time he does have some depth. He does care a great deal for his mother and his sister Kristy, and the show foreshadows his family has been tied to Digimon before he ever discovered Agumon, so he isn't all too basic. And while he does have Agumon as his partner, similar to Tai, his Agumon is honestly more interesting. While they aren't completely different, down to both having the same big appetites, Marcus' Agumon really looks up to Marcus and can be very protective of his friend. They have the occasional fights over trivial subjects, having a whole episode even dedicated to that, but generally they just have greater chemistry than Tai and his Agumon. That's not to say Tai and Agumon were bad and they have had good moments, but they're definitely more on the basic side compared to Marcus and his Agumon. Marcus' Agumon also doesn't directly follow the same Digivolution line and instead Digivolves to... GeoGreymon, who really isn't that different other than a few patterns and extra spikes, until he Digivolves to RizeGreymon who has a giant revolver arm. I... definitely have to give them credit for doing something different to be sure.

Thomas--or to be more precise, Thomas H. Norstein--is a top-class member of DATS who has a great amount of talent in pretty much every area. He comes across as a bit of a Marty Stu rival at first, but after he and Marcus begin to get along, we do see more humanity in him. My particular favorite bit of development is in the 7th episode where Thomas takes Marcus' place to help celebrate Kristy's birthday. As a sort of rich boy aristocrat, he tries to make the most elaborate and perfect plans for Kristy, but he quickly learns that she has lived a simple life and enjoys it that way. His time with Marcus' family helps him understand how to just enjoy the simple things in life and it also foreshadows how his family life might have been more complicated than we know at this point. There's also an episode where he gets to meet a boxer that was his idol as a young child, and it helps really show the kind of respect he has for other people while not over-idolizing them. His partner Gaomon comes off as a bit boring at first, only quietly listening to Thomas' orders with a reply of "Yes, Master," but after Thomas warms up to Marcus, Gaomon becomes a bit more vocal and even funny since he's used to being so serious and has to loosen up, especially when Kristy calls him a cute puppy and he tries to clarify that he isn't a dog. Truth be told, I'd totally be Kristy in this situation and I kind of have a weakness for characters who have a cute appearance but try to be serious and have no idea how to handle compliments about being called adorable. He also has an awesome Champion form, Gaogamon, who's basically a big boxing Shiba Inu who still has boxing glove paws. It's strange but adorably awesome.

Yoshino, also simply nicknamed "Yoshi" in the dub, is the girl of the group similar to Rika in Digimon Tamers, but she is funny enough. As I mentioned before, she doesn't get to do much in this arc. She does have an ongoing catchphrase of "This is the worst," and it's definitely appropriately timed and hasn't really gotten old yet. She's sort of the do-gooder who tries to do what's right, but will get caught in the middle of Marcus or Thomas or both's shenanigans and has to go along with it. Despite her lack of development, she has some potential in her and she's nowhere near as irritating as Zoe in Digimon Frontier could be. Her partner Lalamon is pretty basic as well, not having too much of a personality but is sort of there to be cute. Again, she might also get more development with Yoshino later. She does Digivolve a handful of times to Sunflowmon, which is sort of a weird... flying sunflower thing? I guess if you looked at her in a certain way you could kind of see her as a sort of sunflower dragon.. maybe? But it's not really a bad design and is kind of fun really.

I guess that's the same word I would use for the show so far really. It's fun. It can be over the top and ridiculous at times while still taking some moments seriously. When there's humor or funny moments, it often comes naturally and doesn't feel all that forced. When some of the serious moments do pop up, they're pretty powerful. I was really torn up with how poor Kristy and Piyomon was treated in their whole situation. Between Kristy being studied by DATS scientists to see if she was meant to be Piyomon's partner, to Marcus directly fighting Piyomon because he didn't want his sister to be in danger being involved with Digimon, to Piyomon simply wanting to protect and be with Kristy. It’s made it all the more tragic when Piyomon gets taken away to the Digital World and then finds his way back to the Digital World, searching for Kristy in a blind rage only to not even properly remember her. It really hurt to see Marcus with RizeGreymon to take down Piyomon as Garudamon, especially when it's treated as a sort of bittersweet triumphant moment. It hurts and it makes for a tough end of the first arc. But even other smaller moments like Marcus and Agumon's fight, despite how trivial it is, still hurt in the end to see how attached and much of a duo they are. There's even an episode where Marcus has a Soulmon basically haunt and cause harm to him after he accidentally upsets Kristy and she wishes harm upon him without thinking. This leads to a freaking tanker targetting him and attempt to crash into and kill him, and he willingly leads it away so it hurts no one else but him. While this arc didn't have me break down the number of times the Digimon Tamers Introduction arc did, it's still quite similar and the end of it sure clutched my heart pretty tight.

There's also a bit of depth with the plot implying some use of the Seven Deadly Sins. In this show, wild Digimon are infleunced by these feelings in people and seem to be drawn in by it. But how this is happening and to what extent they're taking it to, I have no idea. But there's still enough to keep my attention. It's also interesting how the show is similar to Digimon Advenure 02 in that they can willingly travel between the Real World or Digital World through a method called the "Digital Dive", but it's considered dangerous for humans because it hasn't been studied enough to be safe. It does add a bit more complexity to travelling between the Real World and Digital World like Adventure 02 tried, and only Marcus and Thomas have traveled only once to the Digital World in this arc until leaving for it at the very end of this arc. There is one other thing confusing me about the plot of this show... AND IT'S THAT FREAKING OLD MAN. I swear, he's like that one weird NPC in a video game you have to remember for a very specific sidequest and it's just eerie that he knows so much and even gives Marcus his Digivice. He doesn't quite strike me as the "surprise antagonist" or something, but man, every time he shows up to conveniently lead to the resolution of a plot, I just find myself yelling "WHO ARE YOU OLD MAN!?". He's not really a bad part of the plot or anything, just one of those weird characters that just exists. But much like the other side characters, he's harmless and and none of them are really bad or irritating. They’re just fine.

I have to say though, after watching the sloppy animation of Digimon Frontier, the animation for Digimon Savers is just fantastic. I'd argue it's some of the best animation out of any of the Digimon anime series. While it's no question that the Adventure series had some inconsistent animation and Digimon Tamers had a bit of a rough beginning, Digimon Savers looks great from the start. It's by no means perfect animation, but considering this was the first Digimon TV series in a few years, the amount of effort and budget it has is honestly shocking. Nothing looks particularly bad even in the beginning, and the Digivolution animations are by far the best I've seen in any Digimon series. Straight from Champion level, they already utilize CG, but they use a very smooth cel-shaded CG that blends in well enough with the digital animation, often to the point that at times I can't tell whether I'm looking at CG animation or digital animation. The fluidity is great, and it shocks me that they had this kind of smooth animation in 2006 when Digimon Adventure tri. struggles to have fluid CG animation for its Champion level Digivolution animation. CG models and animation are also used for background objects too, but it actually blends in well and you have to really search to pick it out. The whole world in general is just legitimately a marvel to look at.

This great presentation is backed up really well by the music too. It doesn't follow the orchestrations of the Adventure series or Digimon Frontier, nor does it follow the jazz sounds of Digimon Tamers. Instead, Digimon Savers goes with more of a techno rock theme for its soundtrack. And you know what? It works really well, especially since the show is a little further in the future than its predecessors and it follows a tech squad trying to solve issues regarding the Digital World and Digimon. It helps give the show its own personality and emphasizes said personality. Shockingly, there's no songs from Koji Wada, not even the opening. But the opening theme and its lyrics are super catchy, and I adore Believer as a Digivolution insert song. In just a few episodes, it's definitely gone up as among one of my top favorite Digivolution themes, and I’m glad to hear that awesome guitar riff akin to the beginning of Brave Heart return. The first ending theme is also nice too, and all of the songs just have the same kind of energy the show has.

Overall, Digimon Savers has some great first impressions going for it. It definitely feels like the three-year break in anime series really did Digimon some favors. Despite how Digimon Savers follows the footsteps of its earlier predecessors, it feels fresh and there's absolutely some merit to get out of watching it, at least those are my thoughts so far. I'm really looking forward to watching it more and seeing just what new things it might do.

So yeah, it's super addicting. I'm off to watch more!

#Shut Up JJ #JJ DigiWatches #final thoughts

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