08-01-2013, 12:33 PM | #1 |
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Digimon
14 years ago today, a group of kids from Odaiba, Tokyo mysteriously vanished into thin air, only to reappear a few hours later. For them, though, they had been gone for months. These kids came to be known as the Digidestined and went on to stop the apocalypse.
... Okay, so seriously, we don't have a dedicated Digimon thread. After finding out today was "Odaiba Day", I got nostalgic and plan to spend most of my day rewatching Digimon Adventure, the original series. I haven't seen anything past series four, but that personally was about my limit, and I found both Adventure, 02, and Tamers to be much more compelling and interesting tales. I know they've since gone on to make a few more series, the latest being Digimon Fusion and Xros Wars, but I know nothing about any of them and figure they most likely don't appeal to me. That said, here's finally an actual place to talk about Digimon. I know we have quite a few Digimon fans around.
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08-01-2013, 12:39 PM | #2 |
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Love the thread. I've always been a huge fan of Wizardmon, myself. Adventure and 02 were definitely the finest for me, but it went downhill in the third series. Although for a bit the third series was pretty cool, too, in a different way.
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08-01-2013, 12:45 PM | #3 |
我が名は勇者王!
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02 was horrible in retrospect, although at the time I thought it was really good. Hated Tamers at first but respected it later. Adventure rules, of course.
Digimon itself seems really antiquated, though. I don't think with modern understanding of the internet I'd like it as much as I did when I was 13.
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08-01-2013, 12:49 PM | #4 |
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Props for makin this Deo.
Recently, Nickolodeon has been airing the original Adventure. I watched it once on a nostalia trip and am now DVRing it every night just in case I miss it. This practice has managed to rekindle my love for the franchise. As for my opinions on each series: Adventure was great, as was Adventure 2. Tamers started slow but got good for a while before becoming confusing. Frontier was nice though once Lucemon's minions are brought in things went a bit downhill. Savers had me quite confused but I still enjoyed it. Have yet to see any of Fusion/Xros Wars but what little I know, it seems like it'll be decent. Kind of like a Digimon ZeXal type thing. |
08-01-2013, 12:53 PM | #5 | ||
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08-01-2013, 01:01 PM | #6 |
我が名は勇者王!
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It's more than just an anime though, even if that's 90% of what we'd talk about. There's the Tamagochi-like pets that used to be sold and the video games which are all that's left of the franchise in North America now. So, I wouldn't object to this topic popping up here versus in Anime/Manga.
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08-01-2013, 01:27 PM | #7 |
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I already told you why I made it in the Entertainment section Talon
If you feel it would be better suited for the anime forum, by all means, a mod can move it there. I thought I was saving others trouble by posting it here as opposed to there. |
08-01-2013, 01:31 PM | #8 | |||
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It's true. I was recently reading your post in the Pokemon vs Digimon thread and saw you made some good points about how when Digimon was in its prime, the internet was still this new, mysterious place to us and Digimon sort of represented that on a fictional level. I hadn't thought of it like that before but it's so, so true. |
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08-01-2013, 02:40 PM | #9 |
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Seen Adventure, Adventure 02, Tamers, Frontier, and the first bit of Savers.
Tamers was probably my favorite, Frontier's theme song will always have a special place in my heart (and I will always be able to recite it from memory), Adventure is fairly good and Adventure 02... I need to rewatch. I should get around to watching Savers eventually. I've heard some fun things about Xros Wars, namely that it drops the more 'mature' angle that the franchise has been going for and instead harkens back to the days of Adventure and Adventure 02. Almost like an Adventure 03, if you get my drift. |
08-01-2013, 02:53 PM | #10 |
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I agree the Frontier theme song was pretty good, even if it was a departure from the traditional. Really liked the tribal sounding twist, too. "If we're all for one world, there's a world for us all!" I guess my main issue with Frontier is, while a creative twist on the traditional Digimon story... I didn't particularly like that the humans were the Digimon this time. It was really Power Rangers-y. Not really my thing.
As for Last edited by deoxys; 08-01-2013 at 02:58 PM. |
08-01-2013, 04:22 PM | #11 | |
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Man, I remember Adventure and Tamers being great as a kid. Not sure I want to try watch them again in case they've aged poorly. Anime wise, always preferred Digimon to Pokemon.
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08-01-2013, 04:23 PM | #12 | |||
我が名は勇者王!
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But as I've grown older I was able to rectify that better, and taken at face value Tamers had far stronger character development than the first two series. The fights weren't as good, but fights are really a child's domain, I think. For PreCure, I'm usually less interested in the battles and more in the character d. If I do have a dislike, it's all the D-Reaper stuff at the end. The D-Reaper was amorphous and non-sentient, so even though it was an antagonist, my interpretation of it was more like a phenomenon, such as a hurricane, rather than a true enemy to be feared or vilified. Quote:
There was also urban legends and discussions of that era (like John Titor) that leaked into the realm of "plausible" for a young child's mind. The idea that one could go to an alternate dimension, consisting of information that generated monsters, didn't seem impossible back in 2000. Of course at the time I was also enjoying such things as Baldur's Gate and El Nino. Good times.
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08-01-2013, 04:30 PM | #13 |
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So I'm halfway through the second episode...
Good heavens this is hard to watch. This show really started off as the pinnacle of all things wrong with english dubbing... this is almost more cringe worthy than Watamote. Of course it's not entirely the dub's fault, as the introductory premise was obviously pretty god awful, too. So many bad lines in the dub though, such as: "That's Matt, he's a self proclaimed cool kid." "No autographs, please." "I hope I can get a signal out here with my infrared internet connection!" *giant tidal wave appears out of nowhere* "Whoa guys watch out, surf's up!" *after all the Digimon gather* "We're Digimon! ... ... ...Digital Monsters!" *Kuwagamon's Godzilla.wav noises* "I'd shake your hands, if you had any." "They made vaporware out of him!" *after being saved by sea creatures* "I thought I was allergic to seafood!" ... and it just goes on and on with something else awful coming out of someone's mouth every few moments. Thankfully I already know for a fact the show does get better, but I'll be damned if this isn't a prime example of everything wrong with dubs. Like I said, it doesn't help that the story premise is awful at first, too. It really feels like they weren't sure how to start writing it so they just pulled something out of their ass and made it work by explaining it all in later episodes - so, kind of the opposite of what a lot of shows do where they have an idea but aren't sure how to continue or end it. This show seems like they didn't know how to start it, but figured out how to make it work as time went by... but I guess we'll see, my opinion on that could change because right now I'm basing it completely off of memory! |
08-01-2013, 05:14 PM | #14 |
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WARP DIGIVOLVE
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08-01-2013, 05:25 PM | #15 |
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I watched the first series or so. WereGarurumon was my favourite. One can argue the series was better than pokémon in a lot of ways, but it didn't manage to hold my attention. It got silly faster than pokémon did.
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08-01-2013, 05:34 PM | #16 |
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Pokemon never really got silly in my opinion, just repetitive. That's one area where Digimon excelled... while there was some repetitiveness to it, it wasn't nearly as bad as Pokemon. Even to this day Pokemon retains the same basic formula for the most part with nearly every episode.
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08-01-2013, 05:39 PM | #17 |
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I see pokémon as getting silly when, for example, Iris pulls a Dragonite out of her rectum or there's a doubled up up set of Gym Leaders in Kanto, one of whom flies around catching the Regis for kicks.
But I wouldn't know about Digimon repetitiveness. Seemed fairly samey to me. |
08-01-2013, 05:54 PM | #18 |
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Apparently I made this thread on the right day because Digimon Adventure and 02 were just added to Netflix Instant this morning, if anyone has been feeling nostalgic like myself.
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08-02-2013, 04:20 PM | #19 |
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MMMM dat theme song. Actually beats out the original Pokémon theme song for me. *ducks incoming brick*
Also, Leomon. Poor dude cannot catch a break. |
08-07-2013, 09:58 PM | #20 |
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Do I have to spoiler anything about Adventures through Frontier? Hope not.
I've been watching it faithfully since it started. It's nice to see Digimon again. I used to check Netflix to see if it's there, so I'm glad it is. I missed an entire week because my DVR had it set to only keep 5 episodes at a time, and I was saving some for my nephew because he likes the show too. The whole "we can't kill Digimon" thing Yolei spouted off throughout Adventures 2 annoyed me. Tamers...the beginning was boring, and I forget when it gets good because I've seen so little. Taomon is still my favorite Digimon in existence. Frontier was my favorite series. Lucemon's minions were Crusadermon and Dynasmon, right? What annoyed me about them is that they never lost. I'm all for an enemy being strong, but those two always beat the kids horribly. Never saw anything after Frontier...mostly because I never knew what channel ran the 5th series, and I was too lazy to search for it. |
08-07-2013, 11:38 PM | #21 |
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I've been rewatching Digimon Adventure (dubbed, of course) and I'm up to somewhere in the early 30s, can't remember where.
The first 28 episodes were for the most part terrible. This doesn't change my previous opinion yet that the anime is better than the Pokemon anime, but it's definitely dealt a hard blow to the rose tinted glasses I was wearing. I do suspect it will get better as time goes on because once they arrived back in Japan the show already started improving. I suspect once the villains start revealing themselves more the show will get a bit darker and the story will improve, but we'll see. There were a few gems here and there, but even the climactic battle between Angemon and Devimon only lasted for about five minutes and was a huge letdown. Angemon defeated him with one punch! But really, the formula for most Digimon episodes prior to ~episode 20-ish were no better than Pokemon's rehashed formula fighting off Team Rocket or some other trainer. A. Digidestined are exploring File Island/Server B. Digidestined meet a single or group of good Digimon C. Said Digimon have a problem, problem turns out to be caused by bad Digimon D. Bad Digimon attacks group, one or two Digimon digivolve to fight it D (Variation). Bad Digimon attacks group, only no one can beat it and it's up to one of the Digimon to Digivolve for the first time to defeat it. E. Black Gear is removed from the evil Digimon and destroyed, Digimon apologizes and offers to help them in return for saving it. F. Devimon/Etemon/Myotismon: "YOU'VE FAILED ME FOR THE LAST TIME SERVANT! I'LL GET YOU DIGIDESTINED!" G. Credits It's basically the same ol' same ol' every time. After Etemon is defeated and Tai is somehow magically transported back home (which by the way he DOESN'T MENTION TO ANYONE THAT THIS HAPPENED) (though this was still one of the best episodes, also the animation was startlingly better for some odd reason... before going back to normal style in the following episode...) the formula changes slightly but stays the same. The only real difference is that the kids are all looking for each other and in the process individually run into stronger Digimon, and now they need to Digivolve with their Crests to reach Ultimate. So yeah. First 30 or so episodes of Digimon, not so great. I also have a real problem with some of the background art style, as it mostly comes across as bright and ugly, though I understand they were going for the "other worldly" effect and to their credit it worked... but my bigger complaint is the random ass shit that happens. I think the one that legitimately pissed me off the most at how retarded it was was the convenience store in the cave at the bottom of the ocean that had a box on the shelf with all of their tags in it "right next to the jerky!" (though I'm sure shit like this is dub added, and I really will never understand why the fuck companies feel the need to throw in retarded puns and asinine bullshit where it doesn't belong - just stick to the fucking original writing, it was for children to begin with and the kids aren't going to give a damn one way or the other!) Actually, I'd say that about sums up my feelings for the first half of Digimon Adventure quite well. Seems pretty damn obvious they wrote it more to sell a product than to tell a story, so here's hoping the second half is as crazy as my ten year old self thought it was - I'm looking forward to seeing if The Dark Masters was as frightening as I remember it being, or if it's just going to be an excuse for Agumon and Gabumon to Warp Digivolve to their Mega forms and for Angemon to become MagnaAngemon. Which I totally suspect is what will happen. I'm also sort of looking forward to 02 again despite all of this. I don't remember much, but I do remember it was twisted - kids getting kidnapped and having barcodes tattooed on their necks because it was the mark of the beast, and turned evil or something? I might be off, but that's how I remember it, and that's fairly fucked up if that's indeed the case. I'm also strongly considering giving Digimon Savers a chance. I saw a gifset from it on Tumblr earlier which captured my attention, and the dialogue within really caught my eye enough for me to want to check it out. I know nothing about the series, so... possible spoilers? "Did you feel that?" "Yes." "Yggdrasil has fallen." "Now you understand. God is not absolute." "Yes... but it appears I've realized that too late." If that's the kind of dialogue I can expect from Digimon Savers, color me interested. Even in just five lines it captured my attention enough to make me consider giving it a chance. Will be back soon-ish for a review of the second half of Digimon Adventure. Not sure how it'll go, but we'll see... edit: Oh, one more thing: I am getting VERY FUCKING SICK of hearing the damn theme song everytime they Digivolve, and I'm getting even sicker of hearing this song EVERY. TIME. THERE IS A BIG ULTIMATE BATTLE. It COMPLETELY kills the mood.
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08-07-2013, 11:54 PM | #22 |
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Haha! I thought you saw it on Netflix before you decided to talk about it.
But yeah, Digimon Adventures 01 definitely did not age well. Just a few minutes and I had to stop to think, "It's an old cartoon. Give it some slack." Then I shut off Netflix. As a kid I liked Adventures, I didn't care for 02 because the Worm thing was annoying and the who fusion digivolution was silly/dumb to me. Loved Tamers, but never saw how it ended. I liked the darker tone and felt it was much more mature, which at the time I thought I had too, lol. Never got to see the rest. I think after Tamers, FOX didn't pick up Digimon again or didn't air them with the rest of their cartoon block. It ended up on another station at an awkward time. The kids themselves turned into Digimon right? Not sure of the rest. |
08-08-2013, 12:05 AM | #23 | |
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Fox dropped Digimon and it started airing on UPN weekday afternoons in the summer. Dropped the iconic theme, the kids themselves turned into Digimon by fusing with ancient Digimon spirits, and I didn't like the times it aired. I had no interest by this point. I think the biggest hit was the fact that it didn't have the original gang OR Takato, Henry, and Rika. If every season was just going to be a new alternate universe and a self contained adventure, why should I have interest? Maybe if it was in the same universe I'd be okay with it, but to completely disregard a previous season as being an AU to tell a new story with new terms seems so cheap to me. I understand it lets them start with a clean slate each time, but this is a TV show, not Final Fantasy. Really grinded my gears, I liked the previous protagonists and their story, why do we have to disregard it completely as irrelevant every time there's a new season? |
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08-08-2013, 11:41 AM | #24 |
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Well.... suspicions confirmed.
Just a quick update. I went ahead and watched through the entirety of The Eighth Child Arc after making the post I did earlier and it is a noticeably significant improvement over the previous arcs, though somehow I think almost anything would have been better than those. But really, it was a breath of fresh air, and quite decent, too. It's all back in the real world and with it comes real world problems. The show, and the dub, too, was surprisingly unafraid to talk about touchy subjects other companies like 4Kids would never dare touch: Izzy having to deal with the fact that he's adopted, Matt and T.K. and their parents all awkwardly trying to handle their divorce. Sora's conflict with her mom and her mom believing Sora doesn't love her - maybe they wanted to give kids something to relate to, but Saban left all of this stuff in and even left in the fact that Matt and T.K.'s dad is a smoker. Matt and Tai willfully getting struck through the hearts with arrows to allow Agumon and Gabumon digivolve was kind of eye popping, in fact the whole theme of "The Prophecy" was and how much it sounded like something out of Revelation, not to mention Myotismon's resurrection occurring at 6:06:06. The plot was good for what it was. Aside from one or two filler episodes during the arc, Digimon stopped following the old method of episodic storytelling and instead stretched out what was happening over the course of several episodes. Digimon only digivolved when they needed to, and that wasn't necessarily always because "evil giant Digimon is attacking, we have to stop it". In particular, 35, 37, 38, and 39 all stood out as great episodes. There were a few flaws in the storytelling... but I'm not going to go into it now. Nothing plot holey, but enough to catch my attention in that it made no sense. But it's a kids show, what do you expect? I'm concerned about going back to the Digital World, though. I feel like the series excelled when they placed the story in the human world (which may be why I enjoyed Tamers so much), but maybe now that they've actually got some semblance of a story to ride onward with it won't be so bad. |
08-10-2013, 01:51 PM | #25 | |||||||
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I love Digimon, so much~
Totally inspired a new Patamon avatar haha. I only ever watched 1-3 really. Adventure was (of course) amazing. 02 had some really likeable bits but also some really nonsensical elements and so many random dropped plot points (Kari and the Dark Ocean anyone?). Tamers had so much going for it, I always felt it had some of the best characters the Digimon Universe had ever made but I didn't really care for the whole Digimon Card Digivice swiping thing, but it went to a very dark place nearer the end which made it feel completely different to Adventure/02 so that was quite interesting. This thread also led me back to watching a bit of the subbed Japanese version of Adventure, which I never watched all the way through. But I did watch the majority of it before I trailed off onto other things. Quote:
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I was also browsing the internet and stumbled upon this. Sounds like it'd be one hell of a cool game~ |
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