shihalyfie

[shihalyfie]

Hi! I wasn't able to see 02TB in theaters and with it coming out on english blu-ray soon I was wondering how was the official translation? I'm nervous about it after seeing your post talking about the Kizuna translation and how messy thst was.

I've also heard the subbed version was using dubtitles is this true?

The dubtitles thing is true, unfortunately. The good news is, even with it using dubtitles, the translation doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as Kizuna's was!

In the case of Kizuna, it seems that the movie was translated to English using the messed up translation that was in the official subs, then the dub was written based on that messed up translation, making it two tiers of disaster. (A more detailed breakdown is in the post the OP mentioned.) In the case of 02TB, whatever translation was used as a base seems to have been generally accurate, and although "dubtitles" usually is an inherent recipe for disaster, it seems like the dub was written with the knowledge that the script would be made into subs later. So unlike...pretty much every other American English Digimon dub...there's no added jokes, no extra lines, everything sticks pretty closely to the Japanese script, and the furthest they went was just playing with the phrasing and making minor changes so things would lip-sync. Pretty surprising, honestly.

That doesn't mean I don't still have some quibbles with it. In particular, I'm guessing whoever did the base translation wasn't familiar with Adventure lore or what lore points are kind of die-on-a-hill level for the fandom (especially "is this epilogue-compliant or not?"), so there was some loss in nuance regarding the discussion of partnerships and such that made the issue way more confusing than it needed to be. But that's not something I can entirely blame the translator for, and besides, I'm not sure that's something that would be any different if the subs weren't dubtitles; it's a recurring problem that goes beyond just this movie, and it was a problem in tri. and Kizuna too (and I'd argue it was much worse there, since unlike them, 02TB doesn't really reference the original series that much).

To put it simply, in the case of Kizuna, the subs were messy enough to ruin much of the meaning of the plot itself, and if someone were to ask me about Kizuna having only seen it with the official subs or dub, I would probably strongly suggest that they go over it again with a properly done translation (a fansub or a translation of one of the novels or whatnot). But for 02TB, if someone's only seen the official subs (dubtitles) or dub, I wouldn't really see any reason to worry about anything, especially since the movie itself was refreshingly easy-to-understand and straightforward. I don't think the minor little quibbles I had were enough to significantly change the overall plot or anything, so while I'll probably still make a post to clarify the aforementioned lore translation issues once the Blu-ray comes out, it's not something I think would matter too much if you're not a hardcore fanfic/meta writer or whatnot.

#shiha's ask box #digimon adventure 02 the beginning #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #fancyobservation1

[shihalyfie]

Waaaait, but we did see the countdown ring things appear in the phones, because they're connected to the digivices in Kizuna. And then, i've been suspecting evolution methods and so other things might now be linked to smartphones like modern digimon media has (like, ReArise, Cyber Sleuth, Survive, possibly New Century too)

Maybe the phones can still show the countdown?

Possibly! Since the phones have a link to the Digivices, it's possible they've absorbed/inherited all of the "practical" (visual display, etc.) functions the devices had. We at least know for sure they can open gates.

#02tb spoilers #shiha's ask box #tomorrows2top

[shihalyfie]

I don’t know if it was posted or anything, but with the ending of 02TB, does the digivices being gone mean that the separation process from Kizuna wont happen? Or just that the countdown isn’t visible?

It's never been posted (to my current knowledge), and unfortunately I'm going to have to hold off on specific analysis of the details until I actually have a hard copy of the movie I can reference, but my impression of the Digivices disappearing was that pretty much absolutely nothing substantially changes, both the good and the bad. The theme behind them disappearing was "at this point, they're merely symbolic objects correlating to something that now exists on its own." So the existing aspects of partnership happened to be using the Digivice to channel themselves through because that's how they started off, but now they can find other outlets, meaning the countdown is probably indeed still there but not visible or, alternatively, finds a different way to make itself visible anyway.

#shiha's ask box #02tb spoilers #thelastaprilfool

[shihalyfie]

I just wanted to say thanks for writing your stuff. I'm pretty much a dub-only watcher for silly reasons and while I've never hated 02, my personal focus on plot means I've always viewed it as a noticeable step down. Getting to understand more about the character arcs in the original version of the show goes a long way towards helping me better appreciate the story they were telling.

Thank you for stopping by and I'm glad they were helpful! I'll honestly be the first to admit that if you look at 02 from a plot-only perspective, it's a great deal messier than Adventure's hard linearity (arguably the polar opposite in approach), and I also am aware that me seeing the messiness as something to appreciate in its own way is very much not an approach most people are on board with. But if my writing helps people find something else to appreciate or enjoy for their day, I've accomplished what I wanted!

#shiha's ask box #apocalypticavolition

[shihalyfie]

I've alluded to tri. having some very troubled production behind the scenes, and among everything that apparently went on back there, there seem to have been at least two major bottlenecks: 1) the fact that the director (who, based on his own statements about deliberately not consulting source material, most likely didn't even watch Adventure to begin with) kept asking everyone to make things more "mature" without being clear on what that actually meant, and 2) the fact they ran out of budget and had to rewrite the entire plot halfway into it. Even the most brilliant of creators probably wouldn't be able to work at their best under such conditions.

But conversely, this also means that there were some excellent people involved in production whose efforts probably haven't been as appreciated as they should be! So I want to take a moment to spotlight some people I want to give props to:

Ayana Yuniko and Nakanishi Yasuhiro: These two scriptwriters were childhood Digimon fans who were thrilled to be on the project, and their enthusiasm clearly shows in every interview they were in. Ayana even made keen observations like noticing that the Adventure kids aren't as super-tight as people tend to make them out to be (something I've pointed out myself, and something that generally only tends to crop up among fans who have studied the series closely), and Nakanishi stated that she would slip him detailed notes about the characters and their relationships.

Both of them stated they were trying to portray the Adventure characters in a character-accurate way but kept getting their scripts rejected for not being "mature" enough, leaving them unsure about what they were supposed to do. Their roles on the series were also limited; Ayana was on parts 1, 2, and 4 while Nakanishi was on part 4 only, and they were sharing the scriptwriter role with multiple others (even within a single movie). But if I were asked to pick who on the staff list I would want to see come back for another Digimon work, it would absolutely be these two.

Kakikara Yuuko: The one in charge of overall writing for the series. tri. had a total of five scriptwriters and could have up to four(!) on a given movie, so because of that, her statements on the series and its story direction have been a bit difficult to tell whether it was her idea personally or whether she was delivering the writing room's discussion result. But one of her final statements on the series basically amounted to "I'm grateful if you even came to watch it to the end at all," and she was quite humble about saying she felt things could have been done differently; considering it sounds like she had a hard time keeping everyone and everything in order, I can only imagine she went through a lot trying to make sure everything ended safely. Incidentally, her writing portfolio is also quite respectable (and even includes kids' shows).

Suzuki Takaaki: The person with the job of "setting researcher", i.e. the one with the job of looking into the lore. Sadly, it seems like most of his ideas didn't make it into the final series (possibly because of the budget loss-induced rewrite), but his one solo interview indicates that he put quite a bit of conscientious thought into how Digital World lore works, including the idea of an EMP weapon that would affect Digimon easily but not humans (an idea that doesn't pop up among fans as often as you'd think, and took up until last year to make it into actual Adventure material via Takeru's 02TB in-universe fanfic).

Sakabe Gou: The person in charge of the series BGM. We haven't heard a lot from him, but the little we have indicates that although he also had difficulty understanding what the director was asking for when he wanted "mature" music of some kind, he himself put some very thorough thought put into the composition. In particular, he went into detail regarding the music used at the beginning of part 4, which seems to be a fan-favorite track from what I've seen (it's also my favorite too!). Sakabe also has an extensive and respectable portfolio outside Digimon; in particular, he's very highly regarded in Kamen Rider circles, so if you have a friend who's a fan, it might be a good idea to ask them about it!

[shihalyfie]

It's a loaded topic that I generally try not to bring up much because of the various controversies surrounding it, and a few years ago, I was hesitant to mention this in public because there was no way to frame it in a way that didn't sound like a hate post. (That, and admittedly, I probably was not in the right mental frame to handle it well back then; a lot of things have changed in the last few years.) But now this has been on record and even alluded to via official sources, and I don't see a point in being touchy about it anymore, so here's something I really wish more people would understand when they talk about tri., Kizuna, and 02TB:

Between tri. and Kizuna/02TB, almost the entire production system was overhauled, and there are almost no key staff members in common.

I know it's tempting to treat "Toei" like it's some kind of monolith, but it's very important to remember that any stylistic differences in approach or concept between tri. and Kizuna/02TB aren't just because of answering critical reception, but also because almost the entire production system was scooped out and redone from scratch. The one key member they have in common is Kizuna/02TB producer Kinoshita, who was brought onto tri. as late as part 5 and has explicitly stated that he wasn't involved on its story.

The reason this overhaul happened also wasn't just because of something like "people didn't like tri. (in terms of story content)". For one, tri. was subject to a lot of troubled production behind the scenes -- and I'm not making this up, it's on record that they ran out of budget halfway through and had to rewrite the rest of the plot. But another important thing that may not be as clear to people who only learned about it after the fact is that tri. was a downright PR disaster at the time it was going on, such as:

The infamous "nade-nade" incident (ask anyone who was present during the tri. announcement and they'll probably be able to tell you the details)

The director openly saying things like the fact he deliberately does not look at the source material when making adaptations because he sees it as too limiting, accompanied by a number of other inflammatory statements in magazines, etc. suggesting that he probably had never seen the original Adventure to begin with and saw it as a series he needed to make as more "mature", even to the point of rejecting character-accurate scripts for it (that said, it is very important to remember that a series is far more than just one staff member, and there are other staff members who did say they watched it and clearly did their research, so the point I'm making is that the director's attitude naturally made a lot of people in the audience very angry and is a big reason he started currying a bad industry reputation during and even after tri.'s run)

Magazine interviews with staff members and other Q&As generally being so vague and unwilling to answer questions clearly that it got people upset (for example, when a social media campaign soliciting questions for a Q&A session was held for a screening of part 6, it was said to be "suspiciously" too dark to actually answer the questions)

So when you see discussion about tri. being controversial because of "contradictions in the setting" or whatnot, it's not people getting petty about characterization, it's because the production system for tri. managed to make a ton of public relations decisions that unilaterally pissed a ton of people off, so having contradictions in the lore and characterization came off as being due to carelessness and negligence more than anything.

Right now, the series has been over for more than five years, so I'm not bringing all of this up because I want to start an angry mob against the series or anything (I myself have a lot of favorite things that had clearly troubled production issues and controversial statements from staff members, so I'm not saying this alone should be grounds to evaluate a series). The point I'm making is that I see way too many people talking like tri. and Kizuna/02TB were made under the same mentality by a vaguely-defined concept of "Toei" and that any differences in approach are from some bizarre hypocrisy where they keep contradicting themselves. What happened here was that they saw the public relations fallout, realized it wasn't a good idea to continue getting people mad, and completely overhauled everything with entirely different people and an entirely different approach -- and the fact they did not do a similar complete overhaul between Kizuna and 02TB is conversely why they share more in common.

#tri negativity #(I mean I hope this didn't come off as too negative for people who like the series but nevertheless)

[shihalyfie]

How come Gabumon didn't dark digivolve after Matt was manipulated by Cherrymon?

The mechanics behind what constitutes dark evolution aren't very well-defined, but an implicit requirement behind it is that it also presumably involves an emotional disconnect between one and one's own partner. The SkullGreymon incident involved Taichi emotionally pressuring Agumon to levels that made him uncomfortable, but in Yamato and Gabumon's case, the latter said that he'd stick by him no matter what, and it was a mutual agreement (even if for a distorted purpose).

#shiha's ask box #piscesdragon8

[shihalyfie]

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.

#shihameta #takenouchi sora

[shihalyfie]

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.

#duetfighter01 #digimon multi series talk #shiha's ask box

[shihalyfie]

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.

#ree-fireparrot #shiha's ask box

[shihalyfie]

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:

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.

#shiha's ask box #potatolane #digimon multi series talk

[shihalyfie]

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.

#shiha's ask box #digimon multi series talk #s3ph1r0th667

[shihalyfie]

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.

#shiha's ask box #mgree0067 #dubbing discourse

[shihalyfie]

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!

#shiha's ask box #tomorrows2top

[shihalyfie]

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.

#shiha's ask box #digimon savers #pokemon026

[shihalyfie]

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.

#shiha's ask box #toantakeri #digimon tamers

[shihalyfie]

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.

#shiha's ask box #flanprincess