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duhragonball · 2 years

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Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (some more)

I meant to watch Super Hero a third time while it was in theaters, but one thing led to another, and I just never got around to it. No big deal, I rarely see a move in theaters twice, so I’m satisfied. Still, I meant to keep discussing different aspects of the film, and I kind of lost track of that, so let’s talk about the scenes on Beerus’ planet.

The real purpose of this whole section of the movie was to explain why Goku and Vegeta aren’t around for the main plot. As with Resurrection F, they’re off-world, training on Beerus’ planet, and even though Bulma can contact them through Whis, it doesn’t work because Whis doesn’t keep a close eye on his magic staff.

This is something I really love about this movie, because it acknowledges something I’ve understood for many years: You can easily split up the cast and make anyone you want into the main character, simply by writing the stronger characters out of the story. The option has always been there and Toei and Shueisha have teased it more than once, but this is the first time they’ve committed to it whole-heartedly. Goku, Vegeta, Whis, Beerus, and Broly could easily take out the new Red Ribbon faction, but they’re not coming, so it’s up to Piccolo and the rest.

But that doesn’t mean we have to jettison those characters entirely. There’s a whole section of the movie dedicated to showing what those guys are up to. Mostly, it’s the same routine we saw in Res F, but this time Broly, Cheelai, and Leemo are on the planet too. When Beerus finds out, Goku explains that they brought them here to hide them from Frieza, but there seems to be some indication that Broly is there to train as well. When Whis proposes a sparring contest between all three Saiyans, Vegeta objects, because Broly might lose control of himself again and jeopardize the planet. So Broly ends up riding the pine, but it seems pretty clear that he’s there to learn, even if he didn’t do much in this movie.

On that note, I really enjoyed how Broly seemed to get into Goku and Vegeta’s match. In the last movie, Cheelai says that he probably doesn’t even like fighting, but I think the truth is that Broly doesn’t enjoy being forced to fight, the way his father and Frieza had been manipulating him to do. At the end of the last movie, he seemed interested in Goku’s offer to show him some things, and this movie builds on that idea. When he sees Goku and Vegeta duking it out, he smiles, because this is the kind of pure, honorable combat he can get into. The action he saw on Vampa was just survival. Frieza’s revenge scheme was just murder-for-hire. But Goku fighting Vegeta in a no-transformation, no-hand-energy, last-man-standing contest, that’s something much more noble, and I think that’s what appeals to him. Even though he wiped the floor with both of them in the previous film, he still admires their superior technique and disciplined control over their powers. It’s a nice touch.

There’s a few details with the Beerus’ Planet leg of the movie that have caused some debate, so let me weigh in on these now.

1) Beerus has the hots for Cheelai. At first, Beerus was irked to see freeloaders squatting on his planet like it was a hotel, but Leemo won him over with his cooking, and Cheelai won him over with her looks, I guess. I’ll give Beerus credit, he didn’t go gaga over Cheelai until she turned to face him. Before that, she had her back to him, so he could have been like “Wow, she’s got a great ass! She can stay!” Beerus is a class-act, is what I’m trying to say.

Anyway, the concern is that this might endanger the Brolai ship, which seemed pretty firmly established in the last movie. Not that Broly and Cheelai were kissing at the end of it or anything, but you know what I mean. Broly hasn’t expressed any clear attraction to Cheelai, so the fact that Beerus has implies that the franchise has taken a new direction.

For my part, I don’t see it that way. I think the scene was mostly included to give Beerus a reason to accept Cheelai, even in spite of her trying to steal a bunch of his stuff. He thinks she’s cute, but I don’t think Beerus is the marrying type, you know? Besides, there’s no indication that Cheelai feels anything at all towards him, other than fear, I guess.

To put it another way, there was one guy she said “Lookin’ good” to, and it sure wasn’t Beerus. I think Brolai’s pretty safe, at least until the next movie.

2) Vegeta explains meditation to Goku. At one point, Goku chides Vegeta for just sitting around with his eyes shut, and Vegeta (im)patiently explains that he’s trying to condition his mind in order to fight more effectively. Vegeta’s logic is that Jiren was never actually much stronger than himself or Goku, but he seemed invincible because of how he used his strength. According to Vegeta, Jiren would only bring his fighting power to bear at the very moment of action, and this precision enabled him to move more efficiently and decisively, putting all of his power to its most devastating effect. And Vegeta thinks he can duplicate this skill, but he has to do it in his head before he can train his body.

So what bugged a lot of fans about this is that it makes Goku look kind of dumb for not understanding this himself. I’ve even seen fans suggest that the writers must hate Goku in favor of Vegeta. I don’t think it’s that black-and-white, but it doesn’t surprise me that the Dragon Ball fandom would turn something into a zero-sum game between Goku and Vegeta.

First of all, there’s a legitimate critique to all of this. The observations Vegeta makes about Jiren are things we’ve seen in the franchise before. Goku himself used similar movements to defeat Recoome, Jeice, and Burter. The Kai-o-ken operates on the same concept, with Goku amplifying his power for short bursts. Both Mr. Popo and Korin spent a lot of time training Goku to get the most out of his movements. “Be as quiet as the sky, and move quicker than lightning.”

For that matter, Goku’s Ultra Instinct is all about this sort of thing, and that’s how Goku overwhelmed Jiren in the closing minutes of the Tournament of Power. So Goku shouldn’t need to have anyone explain all of this to him, or that meditation would help him achieve that ideal. Hell, we’ve seen him do this before. There’s panels in the manga of him meditating.

So this is just an example of the writers making Goku look stupid to make Vegeta look better, right? No, I don’t think it is. Yes, Goku’s meditated before, and yes, Goku knows how to control his movements for maximum effect, but he’s been learning to do that for decades, and I don’t think there’s ever really a finish line for any of this stuff. I think part of Goku’s weakness when it comes to training is that he tends to focus on the stuff he enjoys doing. The workouts on King Kai’s planet, sparring matches with Vegeta, and so on. He seems to feel like he already did the hard parts, and now all he has to do is strengthen his body to build on the techniques he’s already mastered.

And he really struggled with the hard parts. That whole training arc on Kami’s Lookout was full of moments where Goku just stone cold didn’t understand what Mr. Popo was trying to teach him, to the point where Kami was worried that he might not make it. Goku was also frustrated with Korin’s training, and he probably only stuck with it because he had no other choice. So Goku’s always had a blind spot for this kind of thing. He knows it’s important and he knows it works, and to a point he can pull it off, but it’s never his preference.

And really, who can blame him? This is a character who’s just stumbled into big power windfalls, either because of fate or genetics or natural talent. Korin used Sacred Water as bait to teach Goku something more valuable, but later Goku got to drink the actual Sacred Water and it made him way, way stronger than Korin’s training. Kami worried that Goku wasn’t mastering his training, which was why Kami entered the tournament to take out Piccolo himself, but Goku ended up defeating Piccolo anyway. And then Goku just snapped in the middle of a battle and became a Super Saiyan. Then he did it all over again with Ultra Instinct. I think the thing about Goku is that he’s so scary good at martial arts that he often doesn’t even understand how he can do the things he does.

On the flip side, Vegeta had to train his way to becoming a Super Saiyan, and he learned Super Saiyan God without any outside help, and he presumably picked up Ultra Ego the same way. He lacks Goku’s intuition for this kind of thing, but he’s a prodigy in his own right. The difference is that he can analyze a situation and articulate a course of action, where Goku just sort of figures things out on the fly.

Which is how you get scenes like Vegeta explaining to Goku how to do something that he ought to already understand.

3) Beerus seems afraid of Broly. Okay, so when Beerus first sees Broly on his planet, he worries that Broly will flip out again and destroy the whole place. Some fans have found this questionable, because Beerus is generally presented as being stronger than every mortal character by default. It’s not really a rule, but Golden Frieza was still suitably worried about Beerus, and Goku and Vegeta seem to recognize that they’re still not strong enough to defeat him.

But each new level they introduce in this franchise kind of strains Beerus’ credibility. Arguably, Goku and Vegeta have already surpassed Beerus, because Vegeta beat a nascent God of Destruction (Toppo) during the Tournament of Power, and Goku used Ultra Instinct to overpower Jiren, who was said to have defeated a God of Destruction himself. I mean, it doesn’t prove anything until they fight Beerus again, but they seem to be gaining on him and all he ever does is sleep and eat. Then you’ve got Broly, who clobbered Goku and Vegeta, and you really have to wonder how he’d do against Beerus. Oh, and Gogeta dominated Broly as a Super Saiyan Blue, so I wonder how Beerus would handle the likes of him,

So there’s a growing number of characters who seem to be in Beerus’ league, or maybe even beyond it. I don’t keep up with the manga, but I’m pretty sure Moro, Granolah, and Black Frieza belong on that list as well. And yet, there are fans who remain confident that Beerus would just tap each of them on the shoulder and knock them unconscious, the way he took out everyone in Battle of Gods. And maybe he still could, but when I think about Beerus vs. Jiren, I can’t see it ending that way. Jiren beat a God of Destruction, and even if we don’t know for sure which one it was, are we saying Beerus is way, way stronger than that guy?

On the other hand, it does seem kind of weird that Beerus might have already been surpassed by some of these characters and it hasn’t come up yet. If Broly’s already at that level, then that should be big moment. It begs for a scene where one of these characters gives Beerus a gut-punch and humbles him physically. That’s how this franchise works. But maybe they’re still building up to that.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure Beerus’ concern about Broly is that he might lose his shit and destroy Beerus’ planet, which is his home, where he lives. He didn’t care about the Earth, but it’s different when the unstable powerhouse is camping out in your own backyard. Beerus might be able to defeat or destroy Broly, but the point is that he doesn’t want to have to get into that kind of situation in his own home.

Or, maybe Beerus really is worried that Broly could defeat him in a one-on-one fight. It’s not inconceivable.

#dragon ball super super hero #dragon ball #goku #vegeta #broly #beerus #spoilers

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koushirouizumi · 2 years

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{Met@} (on Daisuke & Taichi)

Taichi is someone who canonically treats people without discrimination.

Daisuke does his best to embody Taichi at the start (*in the way Daisuke believes what 'embodying Taichi' means), and even when he makes mis-steps (*in embodying Taichi), and even when he begins to drop doing so, regarding at least that fact, he's clearly still trying to do some of the same (not only start of) but by the end of the series...

... The fact my fan base still doesn't appear to understand this about either character continues to astound me to this day.

No, Daisuke would NOT "be scared of" or (endlessly) """hate""" someone who was a little different from him in the long run. (That includes the Adventure and post-Tri Chosen!!!)---

Daisuke would be accepting.

Daisuke would want to make sure they're SAFE.

Daisuke, because Daisuke was characterized as a character who eventually grew to learn compassion for others, too, would at least try to show COMPASSION even when he fails sometimes at it

He already did this WITH KEN!!! KEN, who DID do awful things (and no, I do not agree with wiping them under the rug, claiming Ken ~never~ chose to do anything by himself, ignoring the fact he literally stole the real-world term and used the German "Kaiser" as a NAME)

{Ken wasn't stupid. Ken KNOWS what that word Implied} (TOEI knew what that name Implied when they gave it to him)

Daisuke, POST-02, would not (in the long run) hate or be scared of someone for being D i s a b l e d, "looking funny", "acting funny" or "ODD" ("shifty" people can't be trusted, right??) or "different", "acting M E N T A L L Y I L L"... J E W I S H, A u t i s t i c, Q.ueer, or even slightly different from him.

The entire g-ddamn point of 02 was bringing ALL the Chosen of the world together by the end, regardless of ANY differences they had.

{My IMGs} {DO NOT re-post} {DO NOT Copy} (Please ASK to Use)

(Daisuke INCLUDED.)

And everyone in the world (if they even WANT to, might be what this "new movie" determines...) receives a partner

This is literally the entire SET-UP for "The Beginning"

That's so much more important to me a concept then declaring some chara (much less ANY main/lead of this franchise) would find another human being (and not, let's assume, possessed or controlled by some Digi or another) "inherently" """scary""" based on any sort of first impressions, minimal, in the long run, differences from them.

And there is a difference between assuming Daisuke might feel let down at times by his senpai (the Adventure Chosen), and (based on your own negative feelings about Tri) mis-characterizing him so he outright HATES them, would dismiss them, would "BLAME them" for even the events of Tri, would hold an eternal, endless grudge over their heads for events not even their fault, which the characters (even Takeru!) all canonically realize were never the Adventure Chosen's faults---

... I'm so over my fan base's internlized a b l e i s m and etc. bigotries.

I'm so over it but I'll never stop pointing out when internalized bigtories (on such "views of" "characterization") are literally just that: just internalized bigotries and bias that's projected onto these characters by Neuro-typical or otherwise not always even D I S A B L E D fans (or, even, Allistic fans, because what a lot of you don't realize is what's considered "different" or "odd" to you comes natural to many of us).

Before you talk to me about people/characters you consider "scary",

Take a moment and think about why you consider those people "scary" 'by default'.

And in the end, can you really say it's not overall the concepts of "D I S A B I L I T Y" and "M E N T A L I L L N E S S" existing that's truly what's "scaring" you about character "potential"s?

"{x} character would SO hate {x} chara for the rest of his li---" (When there's no canonical reason to believe they actually would),

No they wouldn't.

It's bias that you hold against those other characters (or character 'types') for them existing.

{Marked no rb because I don't want people rbng this, sorry}

#koushirouizumi posts #koushirouizumi 02 #koushirouizumi daisuke #koushirouizumi analysis #koushirouizumi vents #motomiya daisuke #daisuke analysis #koushirouizumi advs fan base vents #02 standom issues #(I hate this fan bases Issues so much)#(I!!! hate!!! them!!! so!!!! MUCH)#(STOP trying to convince me Daisuke would hate ANY OF THEM)#(or ANYONE who might act differently around him due to even things just like Dis@bility)#(This is another vent I had building up for a long time and I'll probably re write it later but for now I'm just spilling thoughts)#(I don't know HOW to get people to stop bringing these 'theories' to me but I DON'T WANT THEM)#(Edited a bit for context and I know my points probably aren't coming across but I don't really care at this point)#(It'd be nice if even one person tried to seriously understand what I'm getting at here)#(This post also inspired by many other past insistences so it's not a specific one it's the result of me seeing this too much At All)

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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A list of key Adventure and 02 staff members, and what role they played in their writing

Adventure and 02 are usually chalked up to being made by Seki or Kakudou and with the story left there, but an anime isn’t made by one person alone, and we actually have a lot of info about several members of its production staff to know what major parts of Adventure and 02 they contributed to.

Interested? Let’s take a look!

Note before we continue: I don’t want to shy away from the fact that this is only a small chunk of the staff involved in Adventure and 02′s creation and story; a lot of what we’ve learned about both series’ development is that their creation involved ideas thrown in from pretty much any direction in the writing room. This is also with a major focus on writing, since it’s not that I want to devalue the animator staff in any way (I just don’t happen to know a lot about animation myself, so I feel it’s not my place to go into it too much), and it’s also very heavily based on information we’ve gotten out of staff testimony and interviews (for instance, we really don’t know a lot about the individual episode directors besides Kakudou himself, even though they must have had a huge hand in every episode’s creative direction).

Primary staff

Seki Hiromi: The main producer for Adventure and 02 (at least on the Toei representation side), responsible for coordinating the “media mix”, negotiating between Toei and the network representing a lot of the involved parties’ wishes, and making general “wide-spanning” decisions. A particularly legendary figure at Toei most known for being the producer for the first four Digimon series and Ojamajo Doremi, to the point she’s considered to be the sort of “mother” of the anime franchise. Was responsible for the base premise behind 02, and was also the producer for the first three (not four!) Adventure/02 theatrical movies. Later went on to be behind initial planning for Xros Wars, supervision for ReArise, and supervision for Kizuna, among many other Digimon-related roles. Known to have a very strong emphasis on “making the characters easy to empathize with”, and particularly noted to be really, really into fleshing out family backgrounds and other real-life worldbuilding. Multiple interviews for Kizuna testify that she seemed to treat the characters like her own children, and she’s also demonstrated having very strong opinions on the meaning of a Digimon partnership. Currently still involved with Toei Animation as a producer and project planner.

Kakudou Hiroyuki: The main series director for Adventure and 02. Known mainly for his extensive work on Adventure and 02′s Digital World lore and mechanic worldbuilding, and a very “media literate” person who loves making tributes to his favorite literature and cinema (both Japanese and Western). Also seemed to have a philosophy of letting the writers also throw in anything they wanted to include or pay tribute to. Has a very strict personal policy of making sure all of his internal lore is consistent within anything he works on, even if it’s something as small as a character’s birthday. Other than Adventure and 02, he doesn’t actually work very much as a lead director, with his only other full series director work being the 1998 series of Yu-Gi-Oh!, and his specialty seems to actually be episode direction, so Adventure and 02 seem to be him indulging in something experimental out of his usual comfort zone (his statements on the matter have implied that, other than Adventure/02 and X-Evolution getting everything out of his system, he actively enjoys getting to work on the smaller things instead); during the production of Adventure and 02, he also had an unusually high amount of involvement in smaller directorial work compared to most series directors at the time. Went on to be an episode director for Tamers, Frontier, Xros Wars, and Ghost Game, and worked extensively on sound direction for most of the drama CDs and Adventure PSP. Also served as the director for X-Evolution and a supervisor for ReArise. Still very invested in all things Digimon (including the things he’s not even personally involved with as a staff member). Currently still works as an episode director and animator for Toei (technically freelance, but Toei in practice), mostly for PreCure.

Nishizono Satoru: The "series composer” (in practice, the head writer who organizes the overall structure of the series) for Adventure. We actually don’t know a lot about his overall involvement in the series, with the single interview we have on hand indicating that he delegated a lot of the decisions to the individual writers, and that he bid for having the kids be allowed to act according to their own will rather than what others tell them to do. Also worked as an individual episode writer for Adventure, mainly for the ones with a high amount of importance to the overall plot (1, 2, 13, 15, 19, 20, 29, 32, 40, 48). Notably, one of the very few leading members of Adventure staff who wasn’t as involved in 02 (writing only one episode, 8). Currently still works as an anime (not necessarily Toei) writer and series composer, including the first half of Naruto Shippuden and the first Cardfight!! Vanguard reboot.

Maekawa Atsushi: One of 02′s two series composers, specifically assigned to handle the “protagonist” side (Daisuke and co.). (Note that it’s unusual for an anime to have more than one series composer.) Also wrote the script for several episodes of Adventure (9, 18, 26, 30, 36, 39, 44, 47, 50) and 02 (1, 2, 7, 15, 18, 21, 27, 35, 39, 45, 49). Not known for any particular trademark or specialty in writing, but generally has a consistent output of the mix of lightheartedness and drama that characterizes both Adventure and 02. 02 was his first work as a series composer, but he would eventually go on to be series composer and episode scriptwriter for many other works, including heading Toei’s Mahou Sentai Magiranger and Fresh PreCure (the latter of which literally saved its franchise), and being a scriptwriter for several Tamers episodes. Still works as a writer for anime (mostly young audience and kids’ works).

Yoshimura Genki: The other of 02′s series composers, assigned to handle the “villain” side of Ken and Oikawa. Had also been writing several episodes of Adventure (4, 10, 23, 34, 37, 43, 51, 53), and seemed to have been assigned to doing 02′s villains primarily due to her work with Wizarmon and Pinnochimon back in Adventure, making her somewhat of a “villain expert”. As you might expect, she’s responsible for a lot of the psychological themes behind the darker aspects of the series. Personally wrote several episodes of 02 as well (3, 9, 11, 14, 17, 23, 26, 33, 38, 43, 47, 50). Went on to write a handful of episodes for Tamers, and was involved in drama CDs for Adventure and 02 afterwards. Was involved in other anime in the past, but, nowadays, has pretty much entirely retired from anime, and currently works as a director and writer for international cinema and theatre. Very, very much adores her work on 02. No, like, seriously.

Movie staff

Hosoda Mamoru: The director for the first Adventure movie and Our War Game! (and, although few people talk about this, the 02 drama CD Letter and racing short movie). Also directed Adventure episode 21 as a guest director (there’s no evidence he was significantly involved in the writing for the series itself otherwise). At the time he worked with Toei as an animator for their IPs, but eventually ended up becoming independent and heading his own movies (chances are you’ve heard of at least one of his own movies if you’re reading this), including Summer Wars, which is basically just Our War Game! with the Digimon parts removed. Eventually formed his own studio, Studio Chizu, and is still a renowned anime director today.

Yamauchi Shigeyasu: The director for Hurricane Touchdown, as well as its spiritual sequel drama CD The Door to Summer (the only of Adventure/02′s original drama CDs to not be directed by Kakudou). Most of his work at the time was related to Ojamajo Doremi Sharp and a handful of Dragon Ball movies, and this is his only known Digimon work. The infamously eccentric artsiness of the movie is considered to be a characteristic of his, although Hurricane Touchdown is still said to be one of the most intense in this respect (Hosoda is a fan, incidentally). Still heavily involved as an anime director for various IPs to this day.

Sakurada Hiroyuki: An assistant producer for Adventure and 02, and the producer for Diablomon Strikes Back. Hiroaki’s subordinate Sakurada is visually based off of him. Would eventually go on to become the producer for Xros Wars, Adventure:, and Ghost Game.

Imamura Takahiro: The director for Diablomon Strikes Back. Had already worked extensively as an episode director for Adventure and 02 (Adventure episodes 4, 12, 18, 28, 35, 42, 49, 54; 02 episodes 6, 12, 18, 24, 30), meaning he’s the only of the movie directors to have also been extensively involved in the Adventure/02 TV series production. Eventually went on to do episode direction for Tamers and Frontier as well. As far as we're currently aware, still works under Toei as a director.

Yoshida Reiko: The scriptwriter for all four Adventure and 02 theatrical movies (along with Door to Summer, which is a spiritual sequel to the third movie), and also a scriptwriter for several of its episodes. Originally minimally involved in Adventure (3, 14, 21), but more involved with 02 (5, 20, 24, 31, 34, 42). Known for her large focus on human drama and interaction. Also the writer for the Tokyo Mew Mew manga. Went on to do an episode for Tamers and a handful of episodes for Frontier and Xros Wars. Currently known mainly for her extensive anime writing work (particularly for Kyoto Animation), including as series composer for Yowamushi Pedal, Tamako Market/Love Story, A Silent Voice, Violet Evergarden, and Liz and the Blue Bird.

Regular episode scriptwriters

Masaki Hiro: A regular scriptwriter for several Adventure and 02 episodes (Adventure episodes 5, 12, 16, 22, 27, 28, 35, 38, 45, 46, 52, 54; 02 episodes 4, 10, 16, 19, 25, 28, 29, 40, 44, 46, 48), who was also involved heavily in Tamers (including being the screenwriter for the second Tamers movie) and Frontier (including acting as the “representative” writer for its drama CDs). Much like Kakudou, very “media literate” and loves including references and tributes to things he likes in his work. Was the writer for the Adventure novels (under Kakudou's direction), along with work on the drama CDs afterwards. Although all of the writers have strong emphasis on family drama, Masaki is the most consistently known for this, and he’s responsible for a lot of Koushirou’s background. Still works as a freelance writer and blogger (and talks very extensively about his Digimon work on social media, while we’re at it). Very fond of the 02 kids.

Urasawa Yoshio: A writer who, by the time of Adventure, had already gained a name for himself as a legendary writer focusing on surrealist and zany comedy (also known as the head writer of Gekisou Sentai Carranger). Pretty much all of the most "bizarre" episodes of Adventure and 02 (Adventure episodes 6, 11, 17, 24, 33, 41, 49; 02 episodes 6, 12, 22, 30, 36, 41) can probably be attributed to him. Went on to do some episodes for Tamers. Has been involved in anime, live-action TV, tokusatsu, movies, games, lyrics, you name it.

Guest writers

Yamatoya Akatsuki: Was involved in three episodes of Adventure (7, 25, 42), but at the time most of his work was for Doremi. Was also involved with the Adventure mini drama CDs; wasn’t involved on any 02 episodes, but did write Yamato’s drama CD Letter (which is technically branded as a 02 one). Has since become known for being a prolific anime writer (not just for Toei), including a lot of Frontier and Savers episodes, and has also been a mainstay for Super Sentai. Most famous other work as a main writer is probably Gintama. Still known for a lot of lighthearted and fun work in anime (especially for kids’ shows). Also the scriptwriter for Kizuna.

Konaka Chiaki: The guest writer for 02 episode 13 (the episode was initially intended for Adventure, but scheduling didn’t work out at the time). Contrary to popular belief, he was only ever intended as a one-off guest writer to correspond with the episode’s Lovecraft theming, and most of the episode’s plot contents were decided on by the 02 production staff and not by him, so his influence on 02 was minimal, but he famously ended up becoming the head writer for Tamers instead. Most known for Serial Experiments Lain, Devilman Lady, and Ultraman Gaia, among others (most of it isn’t kids’ shows). Has been more involved in movies and prose writing these days.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #shihameta

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seventeenlovesthree · 3 years

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Quick thoughts on episode 67 (the final...?)

Alright, alright, alright, let me sort my thoughts this time, before actually writing them down. Gotta make this three sections, “the pros”, “the cons” and “the outlook/misc”. SPOILERS AHEAD, OBVIOUSLY.

The pros:

The animation was, once again, stunning. Really, if there is one thing the reboot succeeded at 200%, it’s the animation and fight choreographies. I know I’ve pointed this out before, but it’s just so remarkable to me. I’m curious as to whether we’ll ever get confirmation on how exactly COVID screwed them over (in terms of pressure and sickness resulting in potential pacing/storytelling issues), but this was something that was really important to them, apparently, and I gotta give my kudos.

The music may not always have pressed all the buttons for me throghout the series, but in this episode, it was superb, just like in the last one.

So the kiddos ended up in primordial soup (or the Matrix, not sure here), just like Evangelion would have wanted it a space of nothingness again. The little montage we already saw in the trailer was definitely precious. Eventually, they got out of it again and ended up in the real world with their partners instead. So we didn’t get any outspoken confirmation on this despite the “merging of the worlds” being implied by Wisemon, but we can assume that it was the wishes of the children not to depart that brought them all together back into the real world. So we didn’t get a tearjerker departing scene this time - good. At least in my opinion, because that would have been too close to the OG again.

You know that you’re CRAVING any kind of character interaction/bonding when you already get giddy and squeaky when one character (Hikari) calls out for another (”Sora-san!”), indicating some kind of closeness. Loved that.

While I did dream about some reincarnation theory confirmation, obviously, that wasn’t confirmed in the end. However, all the talking about “another world” did sound like the possibility of different timelines/worlds wasn’t completely out of scope. Just like Koushirou said in the end cards: “Everybody, we’ll see you again in a new world someday!” Like... Come on.

The cons

I really wish we knew what happened somewhere along the production line. I really, really, really wonder why they hinted all these things about Koushirou’s backstory and didn’t do anything with it. Okay, maybe I, personally, read too much into it, simply because he is my favourite character, but he did get a fair chunk of character development throughout the series - but we didn’t even get one glimpse at his family situation. Why he was never shown to be “at home” like the other kids, why we never saw his parents, why he avoided the questions Sora asked about his house, why he was talking about “revenge” and “being left behind”... I don’t want to take all the “see you again!” hints literally, it may just be Tamers 2.0 and Toei is trolling us all by indicating there may be a continuation one day, but... I just really want to know and I absolutely cannot imagine that they scrapped his potential arc completely for nothing. Man... It doesn’t help that I really would have loved a potential “Taishirou being casual neighbours” scene in the end, but hey, one can’t get everything.

Every other con point will only lead to more complaining about the pacing and the lack of character development, so I’m gonna stop here, because the point above is obviously my biggest complaint.

The outlook/misc

We finally have confirmation that the purple ball in the opening Taichi was reaching for was indeed supposed to be Omegamon. Kinda could have guessed it, but being curious and wondering about hidden meanings is always fun!

That last scene, man... That last scene. As mentioned above, Tamers already pulled on my heartstrings by indicating that a continuation was possible, but now I really crave a “Kiddos and Digimon dealing with their daily life shenanigans” anime. I don’t need 60+ episodes of this, maybe just 12, maybe just a movie, I don’t even care, because Tri really handled that very intrigung plotpoint very poorly (by turning the Digimon more into dolls, their appearance literally only mattered when a building was about to get destroyed). Not to hint at the OG again, but the episode in which the kids try to get home by train will forever be one of my favourite filler episodes of all time. Yes, they turned their partners into dolls there too, but it actually had an impact and it was the most hilarious comic relief in the entire franchise, sue me. From everyone tensing up because the baby pulled on Pyocomon’s tendrils, causing Sora to pretend to speak instead of her, over Gomamon biting the coupon away, causing the woman handing it to scream in panic, to the whole damn hitchiking scene. Almost everyone in this episode had at least one character defining moment and I’m so in love with it. But I digress: We already saw Gabumon dressing up and Gomamon sneaking into school with Jyou to support him and that alone are ideas that could fill entire episodes. I want that! So bad!

Okay, so, dynamic wise, I could already write a novel about how the kiddos could interact in a potential continuation, but I’ll keep this as short as possible: Just like in the OG, we may not see everyone equally invested in further Digital World shenanigans - but this could just be my initial personal impression, because we literally don’t know much about their intentions, so I’m just playing a guessing game here:

The “main group”: In my opinion, the only ones who clearly have further interest to “work” together for the sake of the Digital World are Taichi, Koushirou, Mimi - and kinda Takeru? So Koushirou, just like his OG self, has already committed himself to doing further research on the Digital World, the Digital Gate, etc. One couldn’t help but notice striking similarities to how his setup looked almost exactly like his Tri setup in the OG timeline (indicating that he still hasn’t learned about ergonomic assessments, poor boy). So that’s a given, regardless of all timeline and reincarnation theories. Mimi is obviously providing the tech for all of it - I really, really wondered why they haven’t pulled a “Koushirou and Mimi working together because his tablet is literally made by her grandfather’s company” plotline much earlier, so I was actually surprised to see this happen in the VERY LAST MOMENT of the series. She’s the CEO of everything, so we can also assume that she hasn’t given up on her kingdom idea yet, so she obviously “works together” with the rest. Taichi - will be the guinea pig, obviously. He’s still hungry for more adventure and this might just be my wishful thinking, but the moment Koushirou heads out with his tablet, I could see him heading towards Taichi, so they can try out further gate opening tactics - which is what Taichi did promise him at the beginning of the series, remember? “If we get another chance to go to that world, let’s go there together.” Takeru might actually be more keen on staying connected with the group though, especially since he said “I could still go for more!”.

The “tag along group”: Jyou, just like in the OG, might be focussing mainly on his studies in the future and while he and Gomamon would remain close, he probably won’t be part of the “group” as often. The same might apply to Yamato, who is shown to spend more time with Takeru at least - but I really can’t tell you if they’d be too close to everyone else. Yamato’s best friend, canonically, will always be Gabumon, and while does work together well with the rest, especially Taichi, this still feels more like a necessary group assignment than an actual friendship to me. Hikari is still hyperempathetic, feeling that things are changing (implying the merging of the worlds has already started having an impact), but I’m not sure if she’d be an active part of the group though. Sora is in a a grey zone to me, as she would obviously tag along and support a lot, since she and Taichi have always been close and they go to the same school, etc. She mights actually be more likely to join the group than Hikari, because she has such a hands-on mentality in the reboot and doesn’t seem bothered by obligation, but again, that’s just my theory for now.

That’s it for now, there’s, once again, loads of potential left here, so we’ve got to wait and see if there’ll be a continuation one day - or if it really was just Tamers 2.0 and we leave it all with an open (but happy) end.

#my two cents #reincarnation theory #digimon adventure 2020 #anime #digimon #meta

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muthaz-rapapa · 3 years

Text

Let’s talk TroPreCure! (^∀^ 🌺)

i’m so stupidly proud of this dumb pun “tropurikyua~”, hahahahaha

Last post of the year and wow is there are lot to be excited for!

I even had to make a list for the stuff I want to talk about and I’m sure I already forgot one or two things but we’ll get to them as we continue to float~ along the wave to February 28th, mmkay? :)

Now for what has peaked my interest so far. And yes, we have to talk about the following first:

1) HealPre the shortest Precure season??

Unless they plan for double features in February (which I doubt but you never know), HealPre is likely going to reach only 45 episodes long instead of the usual 48~50 before TroPre I’m using this shortening of the title for now so if there’s a better alternative, tell me and I’ll switch out begins its broadcast.

Understandable because the producers probably want to get back to their normal scheduling as soon as possible (toy sales, y’know) and I suspect pushing the start of the new season back by a month is the most they’re willing to compromise.

As for me, I’m quite happy about this since HealPre’s lost its hold on my attention a while ago so the sooner TroPre gets here, the better. Though the downside might be a scrambled climax and a rushed, underwhelming ending for HealPre (I dunno if it’s January’s titles that feel a bit messy or if the hiatus is still throwing me off) but whatever. We’ll refresh ourselves with the new blood Cures so it’s all good.

2) Tropical movie announced for Autumn 2021, no All Stars??

(source)

First saw this mentioned on Youtube somewhere but it’s all over the fandom forums by now. I mean, HealPre’s movie is set for March, the usual time slot for All Stars release. If Toei intended for there to be an All Stars in 2021, there’s no way they would announce the seasonal movie before it so speculations of them skipping it this year are probably true.

To squeeze it somewhere between March and October-ish would force them to readjust their budgets as well and I don’t think even Toei wants to go through that extra hassle after all the trouble the pandemic’s caused for everyone already. It’s just easier to resume All Stars in 2022.

That, and I think Laura being a major character in TroPre despite not having a Cure title (yet) would make for an awkward situation when the three latest teams gather so perhaps that’s also one of the reasons. But I’ll get back to Laura in a bit.

3) Cure Summer is a RAINBOW Cure

So god help me if I see anyone calling her a Pink Cure.

Yes, she’s the lead Cure for this season. NO, she is not a Pink Cure.

Look, even the official website has a rainbow overlay for her profile pic and text font while everyone else’s respective theme colors are a solid hue:

Therefore, RAINBOW.

In promotional material and merchandising, they’re probably going to advertise her primarily with pink bah and at worst, she might occasionally be labeled as a White Cure with multiple subcolors (her outfit is not pink-dominant) but definitely NOT. PINK.

...also, this goes without saying but f***yea, we finally got a lead Cure practically and unabashedly wearing the LGBTQ flag and you cannot tell me otherwise, Toei!

Own up to it! Declare Manatsu/Cure Summer as the Precure queer icon!

I’m not gonna stop yellin’ until you do! 😠

4) Laura = obvious midseason Cure is obvious

First of all, Laura is a babe. I already love her the best and she’s not even Precure yet. <3

Anyways, the set-up is pretty much in the description. Important main character who’s not a mascot, stated to have a self-confident personality and just speaks her mind (oooh, I like~ :D), magical/foreign being from another world looking for Precure to save her home, possesses her own special item(s), has aspirations to become the next Queen (so she’s a princess-candidate or something to that effect, I suppose).

We’ve seen various combinations of these traits in past midseason (and a few starter) Cures so nobody should be surprised when we all guessed that one of the Cures would be a real live mermaid.

The only question is why not just make Laura a Cure from the get-go if she’s introduced to us at the beginning (like Hime or Lala) and having a team of five with no unnecessary extra add-ons later on (like Smile).

Well, there’s a simple answer for that: formula.

Toei is afraid that if they don’t spit out some new animation sequence at the halfway and third quarter points of the show, the kids will lose interest and abandon the series altogether. Which means failed toy sales. Oh nooo... [/sarcasm]

...Yea.

And this way they can also have Laura available in the Cure lineup for the next All Stars in 2022 instead of making her sit the fight out if we were going to have one in 2021. I’m convinced that’s gotta be one of the reasons. *shrug*

But ok, whatever. Her debut is gonna be later, that’s all. She’s a delayed Cure. Midseason Cure, same difference.

Moving along to the more important stuff now like what’s her Cure name gonna be, y/y?

Well, knowing Toei, a translation of the term “mermaid” into another language is the most predictable route even though we already have a Cure Mermaid. Not like that ever stopped them from repeating words before (ex. Cure Happy vs Cure Felice). Though if they do go down that road, I hope they opt for the Spanish/Italian “sirena” and not the French “sirène” because the latter sounds too close to how Cure Selene is pronounced in Japanese. And, putting it nicely, we all know Japanese pronunciation of foreign words is as off kilter as can be.

Hell, even the the Portuguese “sereia” sounds aesthetic as hell so it’d be nice if they can just remember there are other languages that exist out there besides Japanese, English and French when making the final decision at the writing table! *stomps foot* >:/

Alternatively, “nereid” or “naiad” are good choices too but they remind me too much of Greek myths and Laura’s from the Grand Ocean which covers more than just a couple of seas (Greece is surrounded by three, btw) so...

I dunno. But whatever it’s gonna be, she’s definitely got a strong association with water and her powers will probably be based on that.

As for theme color, since there’s noticeably no blue or green Cure in the starter lineup, it’s likely she will take up that spot when she debuts around ep 20.

Pink is also open since Cure Summer, again, is technically not a Pink Cure and Laura’s hair and tail fin are hot and light pink respectively but looking at Laura’s design and concept, does anyone seriously believe that?

Her upper torso consists of aquamarine while the body of her tail is definitely some shade of cyan, implying they’re aiming for somewhere around the middle of green and blue on the lighter spectrum.

And yea, I’m aware that green and blue are considered exchangeable in some perspectives with how close some of their shades are to each other but officially, I think Laura’s gonna be grouped with the Green Cures.

Cuz of the hair. If Laura’s gonna keep it the same or a similar shade after transforming, that is. The Blues have always had cool-colored hair so putting Laura in with them might disrupt that harmony whereas if you put her with the few Greens there are (including Parfait), she’d fit right in.

I mean, we’ll see but that makes the most sense, doesn’t it?

On another note, I just want to say that I love how they added frills to her arms instead of letting her elbows go bare naked. It definitely makes her look more like a genuine mermaid than if she didn’t have them (remember, half fish doesn’t mean half the body :P).

5) Magical Items

Frankly, I’m tired of seeing the transformation device being a compact again even though one of the main motifs is make-up this season. But at least, as far as Precure compacts goes, the Tropical one is my favorite cuz of how cute and delightfully colorful its toy version looks! So I guess I’m okay with it.

The Heart Rouge Rod, though? ...I dunno. I think it would’ve been fine without that...straw (?) jutting out at the top. It looks weird, doesn’t it look weird? :S

As for the collectible clip-ons, I can live without those for the rest of my life. Yeesh.

Laura’s items, the Aqua Pot and the Ocean Prism Mirror.

Again with the portable, travel-size housing. *sigh* 😩

Alright, I can let this year slide cuz Laura (I’m so soft for her, omg) probably won’t be getting legs for 20 weeks so she’s got to move about on land somehow. But unless they’re really thinking about turning this idea of carrying your apartment around in your bag/pocket/purse into a reality (cuz that would be effin’ awesome), please be more creative with your toys.

On the other hand, I’m much more interested in the Ocean Prism Mirror but from what Kusyami (the Precure merchandise reviews I follow on Youtube) said in his latest vid, this is the ED dance item so don’t know if it’ll actually have an relevance to the story or not. But I did hear him mention it having something to do with the Queen as well and since Laura wishes to become Queen, maybe it’ll be important after all? Maybe it’s her transformation device?

That’d be super cool. Let’s continue the trend of the midseason Cure having a different transformation item than the starters. Honestly, we should alternate every other year or two but we’ve gone three seasons with all of them using the same henshin gimmicks up till HealPre and I just want a break from that.

6) Fin sleeves??

These look so impractical for combat so maybe it’s exclusive to group attacks.

And/or a sort of precursor to the super forms?

*GASP* Does that mean they all eventually turn into mermaids? 🤩

7) Yui finally became Precure!! 😭

lol, it’s all crack from this point on so don’t take it too seriously but man, after Yuni’s deceptive braids, I thought I wasn’t gonna see anything that reminded me of Yui for a while and lo behold, Sango.

kehehehehehe xD;

Though Yui might be closer to Minori in terms of personal interests (fairytales and storybooks).

8) Akira, the actual Onee-chan version

I didn’t think this when I first saw her but once I read “Onee-san” in her profile, there’s no saving you now. Sorry, Asuka. 😅

Also, damn, do her sandals make her feet look big! Compare them to the heels she wears as Flamingo. Are they even the same?! lololol

9) ...this sounds awfully familiar...

Translation:

Tokimeku Tokonatsu! [Exciting/Thrilling Everlasting Summer!] Cure Summer! Kirameku Hoseki! [Sparkling Jewel!] Cure Coral! Hirameku Fuurutsu! [Flashing Fruit!] Cure Papaya!

Japanese reiteration:

Mallow/Mao: Pink no tokimeki! Lillie: Blue no kirameki! Lana/Suiren: Yellow no kagayaki!

….........

@Toei

Care to explain yourselves, punks?!

୧(ʘ ∀ ʘ ╬)

#it is 1:30 AM and im hungry and still have to do work on new year's eve so i'll come back to amuse-rage later #tropical rouge! precure #precure 2021 #cure summer #cure coral #cure papaya #cure flamingo #laura la mer

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

Text

The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: SPECIAL EDITION! Ex-Aid “Tricks”, Kamen Rider Genm

…Oh, no, I’m stuck with tv-nihon subs again, since apparently nobody else got around to subbing the Genm specials. Welp.

Like, I do want to say, right off the bat, that I’m grateful that they sub pretty much everything, but the formatting tends to sleave… a lot to be desired.

Anyway, here we go, with the awful legend rider forms and the first time we see that bright yellow should never, ever be put onto the Ex-Aid suit.

Ever.

––

We open in Dan Kuroto’s secondary lair, panning over the first fourteen Heisei Legend Rider Gashats. I am struck by the realization that I like the colors they used for these a whole lot more than the Ridewatches.

Kuroto’s also just got a Ganbarazing game cabinet in here, implying that the game is a joint project between Genm Corp and Bandai in-universe. This implication is only further enforced when he holds up three unlabeled gashats in front of the cabinet, data streams from the screen into them, and they gain labels of their own.

Introducing the Legend Rider Gashats “Magic the Wizard,” “Toukenden Gaim,” and “Full Throttle Drive.”

Legend Rider Gashat names are weird.

Kuroto says that he finally has them – gashats with the powers of legends.

…Okay, so this implies that you went and got battle data from the other 14 Heisei Riders, but I’m just saying that might have been a little difficult in a lot of cases. You know, seeing as Godai doesn’t transform because of the risk of going monstery, Kenzaki is basically in hiding while wandering the world most of the time, nobody ever knows where Tsukasa is, and Takumi is just flat out dead at the moment.

(Right here is where, up until this week, I would have thanked Zi-O for fixing two of these issues, but nooooo.)

(gfdi Sougo.)

––

After the title screen, Emu and Asuna are walking through a park, where apparently Kuroto’s called them out to meet.

…Actually, now I kind of wonder why half of the time, early-series Poppy refers to Kuroto as ‘Genm’s CEO’. Straight up using those terms, or ‘chief,’ or similar. Later on, she’ll use his name, but… like, she knows who he is. She’s not unfriendly with him. I know it’s probably some sort of formality thing that I’m not picking up on, but it still feels weird.

Anyway, he’s called them up to get back the Kaigan Ghost gashat. They’re walking, right up until a Gekitotsu Robots Collabos bugster steps out into view. Emu, being an absolute sweetheart, asks Takeru to lend him his power as he readies the gashat.

…I still don’t like the legend rider helmets.

There’s a distinct problem in his choice of gashat, however. Namely, he’s using a squishy mage form against a heavily armored robot, meaning his punches have less than no effect, and he gets sent flying just by being sideswiped by not-Gatton’s fist.

Kuroto runs up, asking if Emu’s alright.

No, no he’s not, but he’s also more concerned with making sure you stay safe, because as far as he knows, you can’t do jack to defend yourself.

Kuroto looks ‘taken aback’ by the sight of not-Gatton, and tells them that the gashat in it’s head is proto-gekitotsu robots, one of the gashats that Dr Pac-man had stolen, and asks them to get it back for him.

Emu, being Emu, immediately agrees, and runs off to go fight again, despite having just gotten knocked on his ass. Kuroto hastily opens the breifcase he’s carrying, and tosses Emu the Full Throttle Drive gashat.

Said Gashat, when activated, briefly summons an energy Tridoron out of the Game Start screen, which promptly goes and hits not-Gatton. This car also promptly disappears off screen.

(At this point, my torrent of a higher-quality version of this special finishes, and I get some much cleaner visuals. Looks like I’d been using the lower-res one, and this is much better. Also, some of the wording has been fixed up. Emu’d said that he’d made a ‘newb mistake’ in his choice of using Ghost in the DVD version, but in this one he says a ‘huge mistake.’ Much better.)

I’d like the Drive armor, because the general aesthetic converts far better into an Ex-Aid suit than Ghost’s does, but… there’s that stupid eyepiece overlapping with the eyes on the Drive helmet. This is the only problem I have with the anime eyes on the gamer suits – that the frames stick around in the legend forms, cutting into the rest of the visuals. That’s it.

As Emu starts wailing on not-Gatton with his shiny new Steering Sword, Kuroto admits that he was collecting battle data during the fight against Dr. Pac-man. We have a brief shot of him just. Lurking around a column and watching Shinnosukes fight against Robol’s minions, with a notebook in hand. Because that’s totally how he usually collects battle data. Sure.

Whatever. Anyway, Emu thinks that’s really impressive, beats on not-Gatton some more, and readies a finisher. I can’t even get mad at TV-Nihon’s typesetting habits for making the announcement a nigh-illegible red with white pinstripes, because they’re just matching what the show already had on screen, so this one’s on Toei. (Toei had a better font choice, though.)

Also, the background for the attack title card is a road, with a pair of Type Speed tires in the corners. The energy Tridoron makes a re-appearance to let Emu do Shinnosukes base finisher, and not-Gatton gets the Proto Gekitotsu Robots gashat knocked out of him.

Impressed by Drive’s power, Emu tosses the proto gashat back to Kuroto, and Asuna reminds himt hat he still needs to actually finish off the bugster.

Whoops. That warning came a little late, because the Collabos shoves the Proto Giri Giri Chambara into it’s forehead slot, and immediately goes to slice Asuna and Kuroto.

…Okay, I did not remember this – Kuroto shouts for her to look out, shoves her out of the way, and gets his back slashed in her place. As in, he’s knocked to the ground. And bleeding.

I’m pretty sure that’s for real on his part, I don’t think Kuroto expected his minion to do actually attack him. He does, however, still manage to pass Emu the Toukenden Gaim gashat, saying that since the enemy’s using a katana, this would be a better choice.

He’s right, of course, and I’m pretty sure this is, at least in part, him trying to stick to the plan, despite the ‘holy shit I am very injured right now’ factor.

The Gaim start screen opens a Helheim crack – my gaim-watching instincts immediately recoil – and the Orange Arms… well, orange drops onto Emu’s head, as robo-fruit are wont to do, at the same time as the level up screen passes by. So, he’s using both transformations here! That’s really neat!

Now please put that back because I do not want any more Helheim here than necessary thanks.

Gaim’s suit doesn’t translate nearly as well as Drives does. The flattened version of the eyes and chest piece just… they don’t do it for me. It looks like a cheap imitation. I mean, the non-chest and helmet parts of the armor work, but those… urgh. No.

Emu winds up chasing not-Kaiden down a path to another section of the park. Hah. Get it? Because part of Kouta’s armor announcement is ‘The flowered path’? I’ll see myself out.

Asuna comments to Kuroto that Emu’s doing amazing – except she’s not talking to him, because Kuroto’s taken off.

He’s leaning on the corner between a wall and holding wall for a grassy area, breathing very heavily and holding his side. He’s. He’s genuinely injured. And he’s pissed. I mean, he was sliced on the back, and he’s holding his side, but I can’t even say that it’s because he’s actually holding his driver, because he pulls that out with his other hand.

Also, uh, Rider Wiki? I have you open for easier access to names… and I don’t think ‘ruffled, but well’ is an accurate descriptor of Kuroto’s state when he hands over the Gaim gashat. Not if how he’s panting and pausing while he’s saying that that it’s time to enter the final stage of data collection is any indication.

Harutos very textured helmet, much like Kouta’s, does not translate well to the flattened image of the Ex-Aid helmets.

––

Looks like Emu and not-Kaiden have made it to another plaza, where Emu has since swapped out Kouta’s sword for his own, likely so he can actually use a proper sword-based finisher.

He wipes out not-Kaiden, and properly, this time. The proto Giri Giri Chambara gashat clatters to the ground, and the Collabos bugster appears to have finally been destroyed. Emu, cleraly remembering that there were three protogashats stolen, immediatley starts looking around, saying that “if there was a second, then there’ll be a third… Or not.”

He’s proven… sort of right, when a black and purple suit with a red and black longcoat steps into view.

“Aw, come on! You’ve got to be kidding me!”

The not-yet-named Black Ex-Aid doesn’t say anything, even after Emu realizes that “hey, you’re that asshole!” No, he just starts laying a beatdown, with lots of very Wizard-y kicks and arm strikes. Nice touch, having him use Haruto’s fighting style.

Kuroto starts up a finisher, to which Emu seems resigned to his fate of being about to take a Rider Kick to the face.

Getting knocked out of his transformation, Emu goes tumbling to the ground, the three legend rider gashats he’d been carrying clattering away.

Kuroto picks them up, switching back to his usual Proto Mighty Action X form. He activates all four gashats in turn, tossing them to the ground as their areas start generating. In his creepy, we-wish-you-had-stayed-silent disguised voice, he says that he’s obtained all the data, and the lights from the four gashats stream into one pale blue one.

Emu, picking himself up off, asks what that gashat is.

Black Ex-Aid doesn’t dignify him with an answer, instead going over to the still not defeated Collabos bugster, who is basically sprawled out on the ground. He kicks it into a sitting position, and sticks the newly-created Kamen Rider Ganbarazing gashat into it’s forehead.

This is about fifty percent payback for cutting him, I just know it. “You went off script, and now you get what you deserve. And what you deserve is an untested gashat taking control of your body, and summoning a game start screen that our local genius gamer has never seen before.”

…I really hope he picked up one of those regeneration energy items before he came out to kick ass and take data.

Anyway. Three ‘riders’ jump out of the screen before it goes blank. No, Emu, these aren’t actually them. These are Game World data copies, and they care not for your morals or history.

…Uh. The, uh. The hips of the Double suit have seen much better days. Those joint sections are completely falling apart. This isn’t like the issues with Takeru’s driver being grungy, or Kenzaki’s belt being really worn out during Zi-O, or the numerous dents in Decade’s armor. This is… it’s sad and it makes me sad.

The three ‘Riders’ advance menacingly on the very much not transformed Emu, before…

Before a figure in a white labcoat and yellow helmet shoves them away, and stands over Emu.

Kuroto: Wait, what.

Emu: Wait, what? Dr. Pac-Man?!

Kuroto asks what he just did.

Dr. Pac-Man just silently holds up three gashats, for Pac-man, Xevious, and Family Stadium.

See you next game.

––

Or, see you right now, because I’m going right into the second part!

Dr. Pac-Man momentarily stares down the three ‘Riders’, before pulling out his bugvisor – on the opposite arm from in the film – and firing, providing a distraction for him and Emu to get away.

Kuroto growls.

––

Dr. Pac-Man is basically dragging Emu by the arm to a warehouse as they run, before they come to a stop.

Emu asks, hurriedly, what Dr. Pac-Man is doing here. They defeated him!

“I have no idea how, mind you, but I’ve been assured that you were very much re-killed, and I’m willing to chalk Takeru’s reluctance to say anything up to his not quite remembering either after his near-death experience.”

Suddenly, a wild Taiga appears, punching directly for Dr. Pac-Man’s face… which is at about the same level as Emu’s, so when he dodges, Emu’s forced to leap out of the way, landing in a sprawled heap on the ground.

“So, you’re back from hell? We’ll just have to keep sending you back.”

“Wait, hang on!” Emu scrambles to his feet. “He did save me, this time!”

“That’s impossible.” Hiiro emerges from yet another column. Seriously, how did you two even know to be here? “I don’t know who that is, but we’ll just have to cut him out.”

The black Ex-Aid approaches, flanked by three figures whose suits have seen much better days.

Taiga, rather justifiably, assumes that they’re a new strain of bugsters. Emu quickyl puts a stop to that train of thought, saying that they’re fellow Kamen Riders… although they are being controlled as game characters.

Taiga’s still taking them out, though.

Dr. Pac-Man seems to approve, and tosses each of the three a Classic Namco Gashat. This pisses Kuroto right the hell off, and he pursues the now running Dr. Pac-man.

As the three inspect the new Gashats, they… well, Taiga admits they sure seem like the real deal.

Emu’s excited, because he’s a nerd and way too nice for all of this, and says that he told them Dr. Pac-Man was a good guy now!

EMU. Emu, you need to learn not to take strange gashats from people who are really, really ominous. I know this advice will go unheeded, but really. Survival instincts. You need them. Badly.

Hiiro agrees with me that your huge grin is entirely baseless, and as the imitation riders prepare to attack, the three real riders transform.

There’s some brief fighting, noticeably not in the matchups that they’ll be having soon, before Ex-Aid pulls out his new gashat. He winds up giving a quick description of Pac-Man while he’s basically got not-Fourze’s arm locked, and not-Fourze is trying to break loose from his grip.

Nice.

Brave shoves not-Double away, and describes Family Stadium, an old NES baseball game. …Okay, sorry, old Famicom baseball game, because this is in Japan. Also, I have to wonder how Hiiro of all people would know literally anything about video game history, much less that Famista basically set the standard for baseball games.

Snipe palm-strikes not-OOO off of him, and… says ‘let me try this.’ Are. Are the Namco Gashats somehow giving them these lines?! I mean, there’s no way they don’t have a heads-up display in their helmets, so… is this info just streaming from the activated gashats to the riders who would otherwise have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about? Because that is the only way I can see Taiga knowing anything about Xevious, including the name of the ship you pilot.

So, all three start up their newest gashats. Oddly, Pac-Man is the only one with an individualized name – Pac-Adventure – and Xevious doesn’t even get a jingle beyond the driver just saying ‘Xevious.’

Emu and Hiiro both charge their opponents, while Taiga, who is once again wearing a plane, makes the logical decision and activates stage select.

––

Snipe, now in a forest-esque stage, proceeds to engage in combat with not-Fourze, via copious use of miniguns and fists.

I like the Xevious recolor of Jet Combat a lot better than regular Jet Combat. The colors aren’t nearly as awful. The blue goes a lot better with Snipes usual color scheme than the garish orange. There’s a little too much linework from the source material, but I can let it pass for the better color scheme.

––

Ex-Aid and not-Double are in one of the many, many factory fight locales. They charge at eachother, but Ex-Aid leaps over Double’s punch, and books it in another direction.

I. I don’t like the Pac-Man armor. It’s a yellow and orange recolor of the torso section of Gekitotsu Robots. Color-wise, neither of them work with the bright magenta of Ex-Aid’s suit. The dark red of Robots looks out of place, more-so in motion than in static images,while the garishly bright yellow is just. It’s bad alongside magenta. It just is. The orange boxing glove fists don’t work, either.

…Actually, are those gloves from Knock-Out Fighter? Let me check real quick…

Oh. No, no they’re not. They get re-used for Ex-Aid’s version of Knock-Out Fighter 2, though.

––

Famista apparently doesn’t just equip it’s user with new armor, it comes with its own battlefield, a bugster baseball team, and gave not-OOO a baseball bat.

…Let’s just not ask why Hiiro, of all people, knows how to play baseball, and instead focus on the little baseball decals that get added to the speaker system for Doremifa Beat.

The red and white of this upgrade doesn’t quite suit Braves cyan, but it’s far and away better than what Emu got. Also, the baseball cap/visor? It has an ‘N’ on it, for Namco.

Additionally, Hiiro is able to throw a baseball so hard that it caught fire and blasted the bugster mook catcher and umpire into the wall.

I am no longer going to question anything Famista Gamer does, because that was awesome.

––

Snipe and not-Fourze exchange some decent punches, before not-Fourze remembers that he has switches! Including a rocket, which he uses to get in the air.

Snipe immediately follows suit with his jetpack, and they begin an aerial dogfight between Snipes miniguns, and not-Fourze’s gatling powerup.

I’m just going to assume that these gashats are giving the riders info, because I really can’t see Taiga knowing what the names of weapons and such are in here for any other reason.

Not-Fourze is shot out of the sky.

––

Meanwhile, Ex-Aid is running for his life. Because right now, he’s Pac-Man, and Pac-Man is on the defensive for most of his game.

It’s a nice touch that when we see Emu and not-Double running through new sections of the factory, the dots that were in the game projection disappear. They managed to get this right in the maze scene in the film, too. Nice attention to detail.

Same attention to detail goes to the small gust of green-lit wind at one point when not-Double’s Cyclone half punches, and the purple effects when his Joker half tries to land a kick.

Unfortunately for not-Double, this is right about where Emu finally finds the power pellet, and is able to fight back. To great effect, at that.

(Come on Toei, those grunts don’t sound anything like Shotaro!)

––

Snipe has unlocked a targeting system, and isn’t giving not-Fourze a chance to get airborne again. After a sizable amount of gunfire, he finally relents and just goes into his devastating finisher.

You can practically see the ‘oh crap’ on not-Fourze’s face before he gets defeated.

––

Brave manages to get a Strike on not-OOO, via the pitch going fast enough to just go right by him…

And also hit the poor, abused bugster umpire in the crotch.

The umpire and catcher feel true fear as Hiiro readies his finisher, but not-OOO still tries to hit the ball. All three of them get launched bodily into the air and explode.

––

Emu relents on his beatdown of not-Double – I feel awful about the things that poor stunt suit has gone through – and starts up his finisher.

Said finisher summons an energy Pac-man around him, and he jumps onto poor, poor not-Double. Energy Pac-man then eats said false rider, leaving only an explosion behind.

Emu realizes what I hadn’t with the other two riders, and that’s that there’s no ‘Game Clear’ announcement.

––

Poppy warps to the still unresponsive collabos bugster, who is just standing stock still as the blank Ganbarizing is projected from the gashat.

She spends a fair amount of time trying to get any reaction from it, including shouting at it, poking at the screen, and punching him, with distinct metallic clangs.

The Ganbarizing gashat flickers back into color, and the collabos’s eyes light back up. It starts going on the flailing, ineffectual offensive, chasing after Poppy.

This is just sad.

Even more sad is that Ex-Aid, in his usual armor, does a flying hip-check to knock it away from her. She takes this opportunity to get out of there.

“Now, let’s just get this gashat out of there… What’s Ganbarazing- ohhh no that didn’t work, you’re still flailing around and trying to attack me.”

Emu manages to kick the poor, useless collabos bugster away before inserting the Ganbarizing Gashat into his Gashacon Breaker for a finisher. This summons a floating swarm of Heisei Rider emblems into the air.

I like these, actually. They’re not the usual plain black silhouettes that the emblems usually are – they’re all colored, and some of them have multiple colors, namely Hibiki, Double, OOO, and Ex-Aid. It’s a nice touch.

They all merge into a giant version of the Ganbarizing logo, which Emu strikes with his hammer to blast it towards the Collabos bugster.

(Now is that thing dead?!)

I think it’s a bit early for you to say ‘Game Clear,’ Emu, or for Poppy to be giving any congratulations. I mean, this was cool, but we still haven’t heard the announcement.

And yup, they both realize that, as well, just in time for the Ganbarizing Gashat to start shaking, and pull itself out of the finisher slot in Emu’s hammer. This is fine.

It then proceeds to float into the Game Start screen, which is still here for some reason. This is fine.

Drumbeats and bells can be heard as a silhouette approaches within the screen, and pulls out a pair of drumsticks.

––

As all of that is happening, Kuroto’s still been chasing Dr. Pac-Man. He manages to corner him against a chain-link fence, and demands to see who he is. Pulling off the helmet, he startles.

Dr. Pac-Man still doesn’t speak, and holds up a Taiko no Tatsujin gashat, conveniently blocking his face.

See you next game

…Wait, what?! I thought I had- shit, now I have to find the third part in this mess of files.

…Okay, I guess I kept the DVD version for a reason, and that would be that the third segment of this was never individually subbed? I guess?!

FINE. Lower res, DVD quality it is.

––

Okay, cutting back into the unified version, with its horrible artifacting around the text, the shadowy figure hops out of the Ganbarizing Screen, and Ex-Aid and Poppy are brought face to face with not-Hibiki.

Somehow, Emu knows who he is, presumably the same way that the other guys knew about games, because nobody ever sees Hibiki.

Poppy doesn’t stick around for any more explanation, and runs the heck out of there.

Emu complains that he wasn’t done yet, as Dr. Pac-man walks up. Emu asks what happened to the black Ex-Aid, but receives exactly zero answer. Instead, he receives the Taiko no Tatsujin gashat, and gives some information on that.

He starts the finisher right away.

How better to fight the Oni drummer rider, than to play a drumming game on Oni difficulty?

And with the Ex-Aid character skin for Don-Chan when he starts up TV-Size Excite, no less!

The duel winds up being not-Hibiki launching small fireballs, which Ex-Aid cancels out with strikes from his gashat-supplied drumsticks. Once the majority of Excite is done, he truly activates the finisher, and the notes he hits during the repeated chorus start to charge up fire of their own… which grows to a massive fireball, which gets launched at not-Hibiki, defeating him.

Finally, finally, the Game Clear announcement plays.

Snipe shows up as Ex-Aid goe to pick up the Ganbarizing Gashat. He’ll be taking that, thank you very much.

Or not, if Brave has anything to say about it.

And it turns out none of them will be keeping any of their Namco gashats, since Dr. Pac-Man nyooms on in, and nabs all five from them in one go.

The black Ex-Aid shows up, and Dr. Pac-Man backs off as he takes the Ganbarizing gashat for a finisher.

Said finisher summons holograms of the previous Heisei Riders, in their pre-asskicking poses, before Genm leaps into the air, taking all of them along, and oh look that’s a whole lot of Rider Kicks aimed right at our heroes.

Fortunately, they aren’t hit by all 18 of them. Unfortunately, that’s because the holograms merge into a giant icon of the Ganbarizing logo, which Genm drops down through to kick all three heroes at once.

Nobody manages to keep their transformation once they hit the ground, and Genm just walks away.

Emu sums it up best. “What just happened?”

––

Back in his lair, Kuroto sets the Ganbarizing gashat next to the rest of the Legen Rider ones, saying that he finally has them all. I think the Showa Riders would beg to differ, but regardless.

Dr. Pac-Man comes in through the door. He has to duck a little to get through the frame, because of the helmet.

Kuroto turns around. “Take off that stupid helmet, already!”

Setting the helmet on the table, Parad smirks. “Come on, I was just having a little fun! You took off and got started without me, after all.” He sets three of the Namco gashats down on the table – the first three. Taiko no Tatsujin is nowhere to be seen.

As Parad calls dibs on Kuroto’s chair, Kuroto saunters over to where Parad left the mask. And. Uh. Starts… stroking it. While saying that everything is going according to plan.

Why. Why are you caressing it?! That’s… that’s like, a whole different level of creepy than the one you usually operate on!

Man. Now I’m going to be stuck on that for a while.

––

Anyway, that’s the Tricks: Genm special done! Not much to say about it that I haven’t already said in the liveblog, so I’ll just leave with one last comment.

The Dr. Pac-Man disguise is literally the only other outfit we see Parad in throughout the entire show, and it’s not even his. At least Graphite got that hoodie outfit when he faked having stolen the level three gashats.

Give Parad a wardrobe 2Kforever!

#kamen rider ex aid #sailorcressy says

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alexswak · 5 years

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Notes on Animation Quality in Anime

I had a rare chance in 2017 to meet Hiromi Matsushita, one of Minky Momo’s most prominent animators. Matsushita is still active in the industry, and when I entered the room he was focused on drawing a scene, which he finished in around 10 minutes. I think he didn't lose his skills yet. I asked him for a drawing, of Momo of course, a request he found too hard even with the help of an image of Momo from google. More than 10 minutes passed, a lot of drawing and redrawing on the same paper, he handed me the illustration saying: “I’m sorry, this isn’t the real Momo.”

Now, I’m not saying he couldn’t draw her correctly because he got used to the radically different anime drawings of today, it may be because he just forgot how to draw Momo, or any other reason for all I know. Whatever the reason was, anime drawings and character designs had changed radically, evolved if you will, through recent Japanese animation history. The common answer to the reason behind this change always seemed funny to me, which is “because technology.” It’s not enough to just deny this claim, so I’d like to elaborate more on why and how anime drawings change over time. This is obviously a big topic, so what I’ll say here would be more of my (personal) perspective on the matter. Take it however you like.

I should start with defining what I mean with drawings. I’m not talking here about coloring, effects or the like, I mean the bare drawings themselves. This is literally the key drawings (frames), and to a lesser degree the in-betweens. Character designs are their own thing as well. This means that advancements in image quality and related technologies don’t count, since remastering a movie from the ‘70s in HD doesn’t mean the drawings themselves changed at all, forget about improved. Another point is the difference between the drawings on their own and how they move, i.e. the difference between animating and drawing, still there’s a direct influence between these two I’d like to talk about as well.

Sometimes, I feel like people look at the animation industry the same way they look at the gaming industry in this regard, not helped by the fact that mainstream high-budget animation productions in the US adopted the same technology for animating (CG). As for the Japanese industry though, it’s and has always been the pencil and paper. I’m not denying all the technological advancements that happened, but they weren’t fundamental changes that improved the quality of a drawing on paper. Even then, there were mostly only two new major technologies used introduced in anime production in the last decade: Digital coloring in the late ‘90s, and Xerography in the late ‘60s.

Xerography is basically a technique to copy drawings from normal paper to cels for coloring. Cels obviously can’t be drawn on due to their fragile nature, I believe. I rarely saw anyone talk about this technology before (in anime) so I’ll try to do a simple and short introduction. It was first introduced to Japanese companies through Disney’s Delmants 101, which caught the attention of Toei Douga (Toei Animation now). Toei took the device and modified it, most importantly adding an extra camera used for tracking perspective. Mainly to make drawings larger/smaller as they moved towards/away from the horizon. This device first saw use in Toei’s “Ken and Wolves” TV show early ‘60s. It wasn’t cheap nor easy, so Toei sought a better alternative, one of which was a device called “Trace Machine - ツレースマシン”, first used in “Sasuke” late ‘60s. It’s hard for me to point out how these two devices differed, but one advantage of the Trace Machine was conveying the original delicacy and feeling of the traced drawings better, something Disney’s machine didn’t manage to do quite well. Sasuke was praised for capturing the original soul of the manga, and it wasn’t Sasuke alone, Gekiga adaptations saw a rise in that era due to this machine making capturing the roughness of Gekiga drawings possible. Just look at Tiger Mask or Samurai Giants. I’m not sure here, but it seems like Xerography didn’t saw mainstream use until later in the ‘80s, probably because of costs. Anyway, here’s a Japanese article for more info.

As well-known it may be, we need a quick review: Astro Boy. Toei was aiming for a “Disney of the east” status, and really the idea of periodically producing anime was so strange back then, in Japan at least. The ~2 hours movies of the time needed years, so 20 minutes weekly was just insane. And insanely different were those TV productions from the quality movies of the time. You may have heard this before, but really watching clips of Astro Boy is the only way to understand how primitive it was. Nonetheless, it succeeded in becoming the standard for TV anime, and TV anime becoming the standard for anime in general later on even for movies. All the downgrade in quality of animation and everything.

This is where most people would start bashing the TV industry, yet I have a different perspective on the matter. The huge output of the Japanese industry is the main reason it reached its current international success and behind Japan’s status as the animation capital of the world. TV in America may have had a catastrophic effect on the industry, and wasn’t without negatives in Japan, but the way TV was handled and evolved is vastly different between the two countries and in turn the two vastly different outcomes we have now. TV in Japan presented a steady stream of relatively quick and flexible projects for Japanese creators to learn and experiment, a stream that only grew further increasing the variety of works and styles, the best thing the Japanese industry is known for now. Almost all well-known Japanese creators today had their start learning and experimenting in TV.

The huge amount of works produced was pretty useful for training creators in an environment that relies on learning by doing and still, to this day, mostly lacks any effective prior training system. Look no further than Tomonori Kogawa, who had a degree in fine arts, to see the important addition for properly studying and learning art. Kogawa kinda reminds me of Akino Sugino, not that their styles are similar or anything, it’s just that both care a lot about drawings quality. Ashita no Joe, which he supervised, had probably the best drawings quality of its decade.

When it comes to animation though, Toei Douga movies followed a similar realistic approach to Disney in treating characters as if they are actors on a stage. After TV anime emerged the principle remained the same, so creators just tried to replicate life in a working condition much more limited and restrained than that of Toei. Quality improved generally after some adapting and experimenting in this new landscape, but the focus mainly wasn’t on animation quality anyway. It was stories and direction that counted, Tomino and Gundam as a prime example. Even the “anime boom”, initiated by Yamato’s movie in ‘76, didn’t change that. The real change in that regard only came after treating animation in a more free way, free from the obligation of imitating real life I mean, which was the way Yoshinori Kanada treated it.

I won’t get into Kanada and his style, sources on him are enough anyway, what we need here is just the result of his wild popularity in the early ‘80s: Changing people’s view to anime. Before Kanada came, the only industry celebrities were directors, while animators stayed unknown. Not anymore. Kanada was maybe, for a time at least, number one in the industry, and this just goes to show the change in mindset: Animation is at the forefront now. And how did Kanada animate? Pretty unrealistically.

Let me detour a bit to talk about realism first. I remember some saying that Akira ushered in the age of realism in anime, a claim certainly far from the truth. Akira is rather the pinnacle of this long going approach. Pinpointing a start isn’t of much use in this discussion anyhow, and if not for my appreciation of documenting such info I wouldn’t have brought this up at all, but my argument is that the start of realism in animation is the start of animation itself.

Yet an important question must be addressed here: What realism are we talking about? If you think of it as just replicating life, then you’re oversimplifying animation as a whole. There’s only one way for things to move in real life, restrained by physics and all, but animation offers a multitude of approaches to represent movement, ways that imply realism nonetheless. And different approaches were popular at different times throughout anime history.

Take Utsunomiya for example, who wasn’t sure about joining the industry at first. He knew how the situation was, and how hard it would be to create anime in the same or similar to Disney and early Toei movies’ style that he so admired. I personally always found it weird how people held Utsunomiya’s style for realistic. His style is maybe considered as the epitome of what Toei’s theatrical realism aspired to achieve, and the main characteristics of that are exaggerated acting and theatrical movements, which is maybe not strictly realistic or natural. Nonetheless, as for weight and spacing, there’s no denying his accuracy and fine execution. Akira, and to a lesser extent Gosenzosama-banbanzai, are the embodiment of his and Takashi Nakamura’s approach in animating.

See this scene from Utsunomiya

I don’t know much about 70’s and 60’s realism, but the main description I read at least was, again, the theatrical realism influenced by Disney. The Kanada “revolution” was more of an abnormality, since realism returned to be the dominant style of anime after a while, and its evolution didn’t stop anyway. A lot of the pioneers of the next realism wave started or matured under the Kanada age, such as Takashi Nakamura or Utsunomiya.

There are different aspects to realism as well. One of Takashi Nakamura’s famous scenes, his scene in Gold Lightan, is considered to be a very realistic depiction of debris and stones in his time at least. Others depict effects and liquids realistically and so on. I feel like this is just a matter of approach and perspective. Utsunomiya for example saw the characters as actors on a stage, Ohira saw them a lot of times as gelatinous almost liquidy shapes, but all those approaches and depictions induce a realistic feeling in a sense, and are finely (and realistically) timed and weighed in their movement.

See this scene from Takashi Nakamrua. Notice hand and mouth movement.

Of course not all animators can do realistic movement well. Miyazaki and others complained about every other animator in the early 80s’ being a Kanada knock-off, a bad knock-offs in a lot of cases, yet Kanada’s style wasn’t hard to imitate, maybe not perfectly but definitely to a “good enough” degree. Realism on the other hand is hard, even harder in shows that lack talents such as Utsunomiya or time and budget. It was obvious after Akira, or even a while before Akira, which style the industry (or the audience) will prefer. And at that point the industry took a different approach to realism, not the realistic movement approach seen in Akira and movies that established this style in Japan to begin with, but an approach that gives the feel of realism in different ways, first being character designs and increasing the lines and details in drawings generally.

If we go back to the ‘60s and some of the ‘70s we can see many shows with designs rich in lines or styles close to realism, but it was mainly the exception and didn’t represent the main trend, some of which being caused by things like Gekiga or personal styles such as Sugino’s or Osamu Dezaki’s. Late ‘70s and early ‘80s mainly had simplistic designs which really helped Kanada’s style grow and spread. Simplicity contradicts realism by nature, and adding more lines or details to a drawing makes it harder to draw/animate. Straightforward, and this is just what happened after the demise of Kanada’s style, more realistic designs that barely move. Just look at any OVA from that period and compare it to any OVA from the Kanada wave. Amazing what 5 years could do!

Vampire Sensou in 1990. Interesting character designs, not much movement though.

Difficulty of drawing isn’t the sole problem here. Kanada’s style, despite its energetic nature, doesn’t require a lot of frames, actually the low number of frames is one of its strong characteristics. It’s a style born from the constraints of the Japanese industry to begin with, and if you think about it probably no other industry would have given born to such a style but the Japanese one. While you need a substantial number of frames to achieve a convincingly real movement. Maybe I’m over exaggerating here, but the Japanese TV industry tried two decades to achieve realism in an environment not suited for it and found Kanada’s style that embodied the sole of this industry, just to abandon it for an unconvincing realism.

Kanada’s OVA “Birth” in 1984 is probably the important turning point. Maybe you could say that the story of OVAs is also the story of Japanese anime, as OVAs reflected the state of the industry in general in each period. Maybe because OVAs were the direct way to reach the audience without the need for a TV channel or a distributor or even a high budget, in turn being a demonstration of the audience’s preference. It was definitely the free expression window for creators, young independent ones especially, free from any obligations for any big company. Obviously big companies were there, even more so in the late ‘80s after OVAs matured, but all in all it was the will of the creators that shined through. OVAs also played a decisive role in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when anime (TV especially) was facing a hard time due to different reason beyond the scope of this article. This led to OVAs influencing the development of the industry in interesting ways, hard to imagine if you look at the state of OVAs now.

The Japanese industry relied heavily on TV since pretty early on, so any problem facing TV anime is a problem for the industry as a whole. Middle/Late ‘80s wasn’t the best time for TV, a long story with multiple causes such as the change in demographics and emergence of video games, but our concern here is the paradigm shift that happened. For the most part and up to that point anime revenue came from games or manga or something else, a separate product. Not the show itself, meaning that its quality wasn’t a concern as long as it supported the primary product well. This obviously didn’t hold Ichiro Itano back from doing his wonderful circus scenes, or Tomino from executing his different depiction of mecha anime, but those again were creative acts on the personal level not the project as a whole, and in the end it wasn’t Tomino’s direction and vision that saved Gundam, it was the Gunpla.

It’s a fine system as long as the audience keeps on buying your primary product, something a lot of companies struggled with later on, reaching the OVA system where you just sell the show itself rather than a separate product. A similar system to movies, but simpler, safer and with less parties involved. We take internet for granted today, but in the ‘80s OVAs were the only choice for creators wanting to self-publish something weird or radically different, something that obviously won’t be backed by big companies.

Anyway, selling the show itself is completely different approach with completely different focus points. Quality comes first now, and first of all is drawings and animation quality, since anime is a visual medium after all. Without constraints or demands from distributors or any tight schedules, and with making less episodes, you’re able to raise quality considerably, the main selling point of OVAs. Patlabor, Gunbuster or Gundam 0083 all had high quality and were big successes, not only setting the standards for visual quality in anime, but also showing how important visual quality in anime is, both for companies and audiences. After this model matured, attempts to replicate this success in TV anime started, where the potential is much bigger due to the wider reach, which led to the contemporary late-night model we have now, maybe the most successful anime model till quite recently. Evangelion is considered to have played an active role in establishing this model, and in increasing visual quality in TV anime generally, and Ryusuke Hikawa claims that what he calls the “Quality Revolution” in the anime industry started in the ‘90s. I also think that Evangelion played no small part in establishing the production committee system we have now in every show, but I’m not quite sure.

Before I end this I want to link two nice resources for further reading. The mecha history research and an article that came in Akira’s Animation Archive, both by Ryusuke Hikawa.

#anime #anime history #animation #Yoshinori Kanada #Satoru Utsunomiya #Takashi Nakamura #Akira #Realism

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aqualianbird · 5 years

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So, I am having a relatively stressful episode at work, I have enough alcohol in my blood to make me feel chatty, and there isn’t nearly as much Saint Seiya talk on my dash as I’d need so here it goes :

Let’s talk about ... well, Seiya

It’s dificult for me to comprehend exactly how many fans of Pegasus Seiya there are around. Often it seems like he is the most hated and the most loved character in the fandom simultaneously. No, seriously, I don’t think even characters that were designed to be hated like Tatsumi or Kasa got as much (and for the latter even Shun said the dude was going way too far)

For my part I plead guilty to the first one; my sympathy for the Pegasus knight only lasted a dozen of episodes. I often joked to my sister how the reason I never watched the anime a second time (despite a habbit of feeding on re-runs of favourite shows instead of new ones) was entirely because I couldn’t stand the idea of watching so many frames of Seiya again.

Nevertheless, I always made it a point never to completely exclude completely him for any headcanoning or writing I made around the universe, especially if it touched Athena and the 5 main bronzes - few are the sound reasons to exclude him from the universe that was nammed after him.

I never say much or write much about him because, despite my irritation with the character, I never wanted to reduce him to being The Clown, or make him the bottom of all sorts of jokes.I may be wierd but even if he is a fictional character I wasn’t going to treat him unfairly ... In general we could say I could never picture him in a way that would make him more appealing to my eyes, as a writer or a fan.

So here in this saturday midnight let me first speak ill of Seiya, and then speak way less ill of him (and if you survive to the end you will find out it really is related to my work, that’s what got me thinking)

The many facettes of Pegasus Seiya and how they made me grow as a writer

(Since this is getting long I figured it needed a title)

If I want to speak ill of Seiya first it is because I am a big fan of riddles. In general I just like to understand the logical connections between everything (you have no idea how satisfied I was the day I found out the anime colours of the gold saints’ hair were chosen to contrast with the overwhelming yellows of their armours. Really it’s just like watching those videos were everything fits perfectly into everything). And I think I did figure out why the “Seiya hate”.

Furthermore, with the exemple of Seiya I started understanding many advice given to beginers about character-building and protagonists. I also hope this first part will illustrate how I always tried to “see the good” in Seiya.

I always thought he was a admirable character - in theory. I believe this is a shared feeling, nobody would dare say Seiya is a poor character absolutely useless to the dynamics of the series.

(Ok I’m idealising a little. but the least one could say is that the content he generates is usually quite neutral)

Everything he does is heoric : he never gives up, he leads, he defeats enemies 300x bigger than himself, he helps those in need ... Seiya is really good, almost perfect in everyway except for his mischievious side, and worthy of all the praise he gets within the universe - in theory.

But oh god how annoying he was in practice

I wonder how many people reading this have never rolled their eyes during one of those typical “Seiya comes to save the day” moments.

So why ? Why is he annoying so many people ? Or, at least, why is he not inspiring as much as other characters of this series do ? I think I found the solution to that riddle (and I know it to be true for at least me and my sibilings)

Personally, I can easily name the moments Seiya irritated me the most. Disrigarding this one scene in a filler where Seiya makes a sexsit comment, it was in the scenes where he appeared at the last moment to save the day and everybody was cheerfully calling him name. Or how he was always the only one to be able to defeat the “big bosses”. All these scenes irritated me in how they were written to make him look as the big hero and protagonist of the show.

Which, you know. He actually is.

The story relates his steps - check

Does heroic stuff : self-sacrifice, never gives up even if the situations look desperate - check

Is indispensable to the plot : he defeats the big bosses, so yes - check

So why ?

Tying to put more words on this, the following sentence formed into my mind : “It is faked protagonism”.

With hindsight I am affraid Seiya’s character suffered a lot from the fillers of the anime in the same way Saori’s roles in fillers left the wrong impression of “damselle in distress” and Shun as “the crybaby always needing his brother to save him”. The fillers repeated ad nauseum the same formula : “enemy attacks - the bronzes go to fight them - Seiya gets hit on the head a lot - Let’s make him hit on the head three times more to show it has nothing to do with the last enemy they fought - He still miraculously avoids head trauma and defeats everyone and is the only one getting carried in triumph”. As a result, his heroic trait was completely banalizing and we were left us thinking “Does he ever do anything new ?”

Talking to my sibilings and seeing the trends on Tumblr the past years, I believe this feeling has been refrazed a lot as “We want to see x characters instead of Seiya”.

This is the point in this analysis where the wannabe writer in me starts putting her two cents. How come even minor characters seem to be more appealing than Seiya ?

I always did get what kind of traits Kuru wanted to give him. In theory. But in practice, they never seem to manage getting past the screen. Leaving out the glamour the Gold Saints’ name offer, if we compare Seiya to the other Bronzes, even taking only manga canon events one could say he suddenly appears quite pale as a character.

For instance, in the course of the series, Shyiru begins undergoing major character developpment from day one; he who had great pride looses his battle against Seiya.

In the later arcs, he sacrifices his eyesight to save his friends in this beautiful scene, which ensues in another character developpment moment where he learns to fight blind, goes to the big 12 temples battle blind. He is the first to kill a Gold Saint -actually he is the only one to have killed 2 gold saints in this battle- and we are very often reminded he is sacrificing a happy life with Shunrei everytime he goes on mission to save the world.

In a similar way, it is easy to be reminded how Ikki is battling his past everyday, how Hyoga is struggling to build a future everyday, and we could all appreciate Shun’s amazing strength in for instance the battle against Pisces or the beautiful scene of his sacrifice in Hades

Next to this, Seiya just seems to be “beaten around”, an idiot who tags along without bringing much into the group aprat from yelling “Saorii-saaaaaan” untill the osts dry up causing him to rise up and defeat the big boss on the cue of pegasus fantasy. And yet, he still receives all the glory in the narative and is at the center of attention.

The general impression me and my sibilings got was “He is the protagonist just because the series is named after him.” The naration and the fillers seem to have built a house of cards around his punch, which is definitively what irritated me and my sibilings and I am theoretising most of the fandom as well.

Now in his defence, his comedic trait and good contact with people does not have much room in end-of-the-world battles against gods that only address to humans talking down to them, and as mentioned the fillers did not do him any favours. The plot of his lost sister is quite forgotten after the first arc, and unlike other characters it does not seems like he picks up any other defining traits during the course of the series. (Personally, the ultimate strie that just made me loose all patience is the shipping with Saori that Toei has going on)

Which is where I realised : this is probably what everybody means when talking of “insuficient of character developpment”

We often see the words “character develeppment” in critiques or writing tips. Everybody stresses how important for your story it is. But it is only recently, paired with the exemple of Seiya that I have truly realised what this means.

I read somewhere that “If your protagonist becomes perfect, if he is not longer evolving, then he stops being a protagonist”. I think with Seiya I could sense the results of keeping a protagonist that is not longer evolving in the story.

One could also argue he is not sacrificing as much as the others. Like sure, he is ready to sacrifice his life every time, but it also never seems that his life is in any real danger - he only ever ends up in the hospital after the big guy is defeated. He never seems to suffer any consquences of his injuries during the battles - has the narative ever implied he could not throw his punches as well as usual because of his injuries ? He mostly attacks, falls down, can’t move for a few minutes and then gets up again. It is more a narrative of “If you don’t succeed, try harder and harder untill you do”.

Which helped me put in practice another writing advice : do not let your main characters excape the consequences of their actions.

It does not mean everything has to be realistic (of course they can loose way more blood that humanly possible and still survive because it visually increases the dramatic effect). I come to realise it means that if you give too much free passes, the stakes will not feel as high, and your plots will bear much less tension than they potentially could.

Going back to Seiya as much as his actions are heroic in theory, they do not feel heroic to most people watching it probably because his "never giving up and keep punching” attitude does not have consequences. They have as much effect as him getting out the trash : it sure is unpleasant, it smells baad, the trash starts leaking, it’s disgusting, you hears noises inside the trash disposal and nobody wants to know what would thrive in this smelly and juicy environement, but in the end it will be over in a second. You just throw away the bag, maybe you got a bit of trash juice on your shoes but it will easily be washed away by water.

Taking the same problem from a different angle offers the opportunity to look into giving traits to your character :

We can all agree that “never give up and keep punching” was intended to be Seiya’s main trait of character. It seems, however, it did not result to be as memorable or as inspiring as planned. Which reminded me of this other piece of advice :

“If you give your character a trait you consider his most defining characteristic, but never challenge it at any point, this trait is going to have as much effect as a mole on their cheek” - it is now loud and clear to me.

With the exemple of Seiya, I would add variety in the challenges is important, because repetition decreses tension, and less tention also means less investment in one’s story (or the story involving one particular character).

And if repeated to much, it becomes annoyance towards one’s character.

Calling myself out - Time to work on liking Seiya

Now this has gotten so much longer and personal than I ever expected, but after speaking so bad of Seiya I really do not want to leave out the part where I speak good of him. Especially when it involves my favourite kind of riddles with Saint Seiya characters : fill the gaps.

As mentioned before, it was always quite clear what traits Kurumada wanted to give the Pegasus Saint. Let’s start with the most obvious ones:

Mischievious side, implying as well that :

Has a sense of humour

Quite good with people or at least with kids

Rebel/independent side (flashback of Saori ridding Jabu, the begining of the anime)

Never gives up

Is a good leader / is capable of bringing people toghether / of rallying people to his cause

The last ones on the list are quite easy to forget about him, because of the “lack of challenge” discussed earlier (nobody would have ever forgotten about his leader skills if let’s say he had prevented Hyoga from turing over completely to Poseidon to stay with Isaak). In that spirit, I recently came across an idea that would make those two traits more “challenging” and give a more human dimention to his character.

Now the fact he was since always a bit of a rebel has an influence on his leader capacities, as being an independent mind he stands out and will not depend much external factors to go in a direction. But this alone does not make such an unchallenged leader as Seiya.

Now this is where my current employment helped this reflexion : I work customer service, more precisely a position involving processing and solving issues.

The very first advice I was given during training was “Always sound confident. Even if you understand jack about what the customer is talking about, just sound confident. Make believe that you know your shit even if you are just about to google a crash course on the subject. Because if they even think for a second that you don’t know they will eat you“.

And let me tell you how accurate this advice is. I became the favourite of this Italian lady who always had problems with her printer because I read to her in a very confident voice an article I was reading on the spot after punching out her question in google.

It is not easy, and it really pumps your adrenaline, but it is true : if you sound confident people are going to follow your lead and believe in what you say. Even if you yourself have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Now today, I was thinking how this could be the secret behind “The Miracle of Seiya”; maybe this is why Seiya is very good at being a leader, and even more, why he is very good at being a leader in the apocalypse fighter army of Athena.

He reassures everybody and gives them hope by making them believe he has 100% confidence in a given situation and that everything is under control, much like I became a printer and Wifi expert in the eyes of that Italian lady even though I actually dread those motherfuckers.

That would totally explain this bit at the Cancer temple too, this scene we all make a little fun of, where is is all “Don’t say that Shiryu ! We must think that we have still 9 hours to save Saori !” and moments later he seems to be ignoring his own advice saying “that’s not a lot” (Could be also something lost in translation tho)

And with this sort of influence on other people, he finally becomes a crucial character to the story, as he becomes the glue to the team without which it is possible the other bronzes would not have been as solid of a team, maybe even disbanding as the challenges they faced seemed often hopeless.

And with that I think I am ready to write something involving Seiya someday ...

#fair warning :#this blog is in serious danger of becoming a compilation of the owner's monologues #hello procrastination my old friend #seriouly tho these other fandoms seem to have such interesting or funny meta discussions #oh well

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aquaburst3 · 6 years

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ursae-minoris-world

replied to your

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ursae-minoris-world replied to your post: ...

Thanks for the answer ! It sounds fishy to me, because the EP said if there was romance, it would be built on early on, so that seems like a weird turn-around

That too. I mean, like someone else mentioned in another ask, the EPs said that all of the romantic relationships would be built up since day 1. It seems OOC for them to turn around and make Shiro’s endgame some random dude. Because if they wanted to do that from the start, they would’ve shipped him with Adam from the get-go.

Even if you consider the possibility of the showrunners backpeddling based on the Adam shit show, it’s impossible for them to animate a scene like that to please fans. Animation takes a lot of time. Episodes of animated series take over a year to make from start to finish. They wouldn’t have enough time to animate a scene like that, because it would take several months to animate. While I know Josh Keaton went back into studio recording, it could be just for redubbing a couple lines, since that’s common in animated. That’s the main reason why I doubt the theories about them animating a sheith scene!

What gives me the biggest red flag of all is that the guy Shiro marries was Roy from Macross...or aka that blond dude sitting at the desk while Hunk and Lance are sneaking out in the first episode. If it’s implied that Shiro got married to Roy from Macross, the company that made that series would never allow it. Much like the Adam situation, they would have to deal with Japanese companies. But it’s even worse in this situation, because they would have to deal with both Toei and the guys who made Macross (I have no idea who owns it, even after looking it up on MAL) to get the greenlight! So yeah, that isn’t happening.

Either way, there are too many red flags with this for these leaks to be real.

#ursae-minoris-world

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rockthistowninsideout · 6 years

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Bokura no Mirai Recap

After the second episode my internet was cut off so I will deliver my opinion on the remaining three episodes all in one go:

~ It’s a bit of a pity that we didn’t get to see the 02 kids for real, just their silhouettes and glimpses in the very first movie, but I’m happy that they are going to be safe. I still cannot exactly draw a line between the rise of Ygdrasil and their capturing but I guess that Ygdrasil wanted as little enemies as possible.

“You’re late.” ~ Yes, Yamato, that would have been my first reaction as well when my best friend since and for forever comes back from the dead. *sarcasm off* But seriously, I think this statement and the look he gave Taichi conveyed all the emotion that had bursted up earlier and the happiness Yamato felt when Taichi showed up. And I was happy as well to see them reunited again.

~ HolyOmegamon, or whatever his new name is, was massive! I wasn’t sure how all super evolutions (not refering to the actual evolution state here) from previous seasons could be topped but Toei did it! And once again it’s great that all Digimon contributed to it and that even Meiko could help, that she even basically initiated the whole thing.

~ Talking about Meiko: she did great in that last movie, she has really grown into a full-fledged DigiDestined. It took me three movies to warm up to her. But it took me even longer to like Meicoomon. Only in Bokura no Mirai could I feel for her - that might sound heartless - but before she just seemed whiny. Now I get that all she’d ever known was Meiko and that she clings to her because of this, that she got locked away behind bars and the shard of Apocalymon has probably also done its damage. She got her redemption arc when Koushirou revealed that all the back-up data of the other Digimon was stored inside Meicoomon and that she could release this data and help the other Digimon remember.

~ Which brings me to the scenes where I cried. Namely the scene where the Digimon finally became their older selves again. I’m very happy that Toei found a way to solve the problem of the memory loss and restore the ‘old’ order. I mean, it would have worked, too, if they had to start their bonds anew but this way it’s better for my old Digimon loving heart ;)

Now we’re already into the last sequences.

~ What has been pointed out before: Sora’s new haircut! Which I need a bit of getting used to as it makes her look older and even more mom-ish (has a bit of soccer-mom-vibe to it, sorry). But it probably reflects that she has grown even more mature after this adventure. The funny thing is that Takeru notices first, and even calls Yamato out for not noticing. I don’t know if that implies that Sora and Yamato are already a couple, but I can see that they’re at least already dating at this point.

~ In this scene it is also mentioned why Taichi chose the ‘new’ career path in the Epilogue. And now I can see it, too. In my opinion, it truly needed Tri to explain why the rash and outspoken leader would choose a career on the slippery and brittle diplomatic area. But now it all makes sense, from him having a conscience to fulfilling a prophecy/order/wish of a person he’s grown fond of. This is such a Taichi thing to do, honestly.

~ And that wish was voiced by a dying Daigo and that was, wow, a little unexpected. Digimon has never shied away from killing important and embosomed characters. Still, it was heartbreaking, especially since he died in such a bloody way (though a nice contrast to just dissolving into data) and not knowing where Himekawa has gotten. Which I don’t know, either, but when she’s been swallowed by the Dark Ocean that probably equals death.

~ In the same scene that we get to know Taichi’s career path, Yamato also brings up his. For me, this still comes as a little out of the blue but it seems more fitting now.

Okay, I have three more notes in my book, so take a deep breath and then we’ll get to the last bit.

~ I was a little anxious when Hikari suddenly said that she would be going to hate her brother when he would agree to give Ordinemon the final blow. (Btw, Ordinemon is such a tragic character. So big, and so many conflicting souls live in her chest, yet she’s so deadly and dark. I couldn’t really hate her as I did with the four Masters of Darkness.) But then she said she would hate herself, too, because she would fight at his side. I raised my fist when she said that and we finally got to see Magnadramon, the only Mega Level we hadn’t seen before. I’m on board with @rainbow09‘s (?) theory about Magnadramon having now altered data because of her part in Ordinemon which is expressed in her changed tail ends. (If that isn’t your theory, then I’m sorry I remembered that wrong).

~ Then came the moment where my hopes where suddenly raised and my imagination started running wild: when the Digimon Kaiser/Gennai/whoever said that just because Ordinemon is defeated doesn’t mean Ygdrasil is and that there are still Daemon or Diaboromon left who could wreak havoc and be turned into Heralds of Destruction. Which meant to me that there is the slight chance of a new season. (Seriously, why did they forget about him? He would have certainly deserved being decked in the face. Takeru, where are you when you’re needed the most?) Alas, this hope was mostly crushed when, in old Epilogue manner, Takeru told us the story of the three months after. There he said that Homoeostasis shut down Ygdrasil (and for the sake of both worlds hopfefully for good, if not for me). Though I wouldn’t mind a new mini series for next year’s 20th anniversary of Adventure *coughs*.

~ Anyway, the epilogue of Tri may also have confirmed Meichi? As always, Toei stayed very vague but I don’t mind. I don’t mind if Meichi is canon or not. It would be just hella cute if Meiko ended up to be Taichi’s wife/partner when we stay in the rosy bubble that is the Epilogue. I’m also already in fic mode again, I’m in the mood for a slowburn Meichi fic.

~ An additional note: It was absolutely great to see a dumbfounded Hackmon and therewith Homoeostasis. Their self-assuredness had been so smug and saying “Homoeostasis is the one who desires harmony and stability” for the umpteenth time didn’t help.

So, here we are, at the end of my analysis/rant and at the end of Digimon Adventure Tri. Those three years have been a wild ride of emotions, I lived again through my childhood and I’m so happy that this dream came true.

#digimon tri spoilers #digimon tri bokura no mirai #bokura no mirai spoilers #digimon adventure tri

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duhragonball · 2 years

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (182/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story takes place about 1000 years before 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

LUFFA vs. BROLY (guess who wins)

[21 May, Age 767. New Planet Vegeta.]

The Time Patrol's primary function was to preserve and maintain the linear passage of time. The word "linear" implied a simple, one-dimensional vector from past to future. In practice, the flow of time was more comparable to a mighty river. It flowed in one direction, but its course could be altered, nudged, and redirected. And there were eddies and vortexes, and other anomalous flows. Many of these were brought about by natural causes, rather than the desperate act of a villain like Towa or Demigra. It was the Time Patrol's job to monitor these naturally occurring anomalies, and when necessary, to isolate them from the main timeline, like a gardener pruning a tree.

In some cases, the Supreme Kai of Time found these "trimmings" useful. They contained alternate scenarios of historical events, and some of these could be used to provide a safe setting for training purposes. These so-called "Parallel Quests" could be undertaken by Time Patrollers to evaluate their performance, sharpen their skills, or practice for a real mission involving similar conditions.

In one particular Parallel Quest, Goku and his friends were not preparing for the Cell Games, nor perishing at the hands of Dr. Gero's murderous androids. Instead, they were investigating a rogue Super Saiyan in another galaxy. The search led to a world called "New Vegeta", which the Saiyan renegade Paragus had presented as a new throneworld for the Saiyan Kingdom. But in truth, Paragus had only chosen the planet because it was on a collision course with a comet. His goal was to lure the Saiyan Prince Vegeta to his doomed planet just as the comet struck.

What Paragus had not counted on was that his son, the Super Saiyan Broly, had his own vendetta against Son Goku, and when his primal rage erupted, it upset Paragus' scheme and threatened the entire universe. Paragus was the first casualty of Broly's senseless rampage, and the Z-Warriors were almost helpless against his immense power.

None of this was of any great importance to the seven Time Patrollers who now entered this dangerous scenario. As grim as the event was, it had no bearing on the true history of the universe. For Laddis, all that mattered was Broly, a well-known boogeyman among the ranks of the Time Patrol. Defeating him in this PQ would be a great accomplishment, and he craved glory more than honor or respect.

"I only needed you on this mission because you're the only Time Patroller with access to any PQ's involving Broly," Laddis said to Luffa, who had accompanied him in the time machine. The Supreme Kai of Time thinks you're hot stuff, so she authorized you to tackle these extra-dangerous missions. Well, when I'm through today, she won't be able to overlook me so easily next time!"

"You're an idiot, Laddis," Luffa said. "If you wanted to prove your worth to the Kai, all you had to do was work your way up. If you'd done well enough on the PQ's available to you, then she'd probably give you the same access she gave me."

"If you really believe that, Luffa," asked No. 44, "then why have you been letting other Time Patrollers accompany you on these dangerous missions all day? How is that any different from what Laddis is up to?"

Luffa regarded the girl for a moment before answering. No. 44 resembled a teenage girl, but she claimed to be a cyborg, built from a mechanical body covered with synthetic, genetically engineered flesh.

"I was letting the other Time Patrollers get a taste of these kinds of situations," Luffa said. "They could fight as much or as little as they could handle, but they were doing it to get stronger, not for bragging rights. If Laddis here really wanted to prove something, he wouldn't have smuggled his whole crew in to the time machine to help him."

"Who asked you, lady?" asked Krebs, one of Laddis's team, which he affectionately dubbed "The Crapkickers".

"Yeah," said Pells. "Laddis calls the shots around here, and he wanted us to come along, so we used the Micro-Band watches to hitch a ride."

"What the Majins mean, Luffa, is that we already know Laddis is a big deal." Felds was speaking now. The Earthling woman talked tough, but Luffa couldn't help but notice how she stepped behind the others. "Unlike little 44, my cybernetics actually serve a purpose besides secretarial chores. I scanned you while we were in the time machine, Luffa, and your data doesn't begin to compare to his."

"Good for him," Luffa said. "I offered to fight him, but he wanted to do this stupid Broly hunt instead."

"Ugh. You don't get it," Felds said with a condescending sigh. "Laddis has nothing to prove, not to you, not to anyone! Beating you isn't worth the trouble, because Broly's the one with the fearsome reputation. And beating Broly is a formality, because we already know Laddis can do it, so we're going to help him speed things up."

"Fine. Have it your way," Luffa said. "This ought to be entertaining, at least. I assume Laddis can turn into a Super Saiyan, then."

"Oh, don't you worry about that," Laddis said. "He took a wide stance, and balled his fists as he began to summon his ki . Within seconds, his eyes turned green, and his black hair glowed like molten iron, including the wispy beard that extended from his chin.

"Not bad," Luffa said. "I guess you're not all talk."

"This is only the beginning," Laddis said. "I'm not like the other Saiyans on the Time Patrol. I grew up in outer space, not some jerkwater radish farm, or a comfy Capsule Corp mansion. When I learned Super Saiyan, I worked out a few things. Check it out."

He made a great shout, then his body began to expand, swelling to nearly twice its normal size. Red lightning began to crackle around his golden aura, and his hair seemed to grow a bit longer.

Luffa made a low whistle when his transformation was complete. "Interesting," she said. "You've got some real promise, Laddis. A lot of the other Super Saiyans in town showed me what they could do, but they didn't have this level of control. I think I'm starting to get into this idea of yours."

44 looked at Luffa in disbelief. "You're not serious about letting him fight Broly, are you?"

Luffa grinned. "Why not? We're here, aren't we? If things get out of hand, I'll step in, but I'm starting to think he's got a decent shot at this, especially if his crew helps him. It's might not be fair to Broly, but that's his problem."

She dropped to the ground and took a seat. "Come on," Luffa said, patting the dirt on her left. "This should be fun."

"Fun?" 44 asked. "How can you--? Oh, never mind."

She sat down beside Luffa, who then grabbed hold of the bill of 44's trucker hat and tugged it down over her eyes.

"Hey!" 44 cried.

"Relax," Luffa said. "I promised you, didn't I? I won't let anyone hurt you. That goofy cap of yours won't even come off your head."

"Enough fooling around," Laddis said. He stripped off his jacket, revealing a white compression shirt underneath. The jacket had been big enough to contain his larger form, but the shirt had simply stretched, nearly to its limit. "Felds, gimme tactical on Broly."

"Cripes! Do you feel that?" said Claves.

"I knew he was strong, but that's nuts!" said Pells.

"Cut the chatter," Felds said. "Yeah, he's got a huge power level, but that just means he'll tire himself out. And if I can get a little peace and quiet, my cybernetic eyes can get a complete reading on the big goof's energy pattern... whoa."

"Whoa? What do you mean 'whoa'?" Krebs asked.

"I... I'm picking up other power signatures," Felds said.

"What are you talking about?" Laddis demanded. "I can't sense anyone else."

"They're probably too faint for you to detect," Felds explained. "I barely picked them up myself. Positive identification... that's Goku... Vegeta... Gohan... Trunks... Piccolo..."

"I didn't know they were in this scenario," Krebs said.

"Yeah, they all fought Broly on this planet," Pells said. "At least, that's what the files said. Felds, are you tellin' us they've already lost? We just got here!"

"There's another one," Felds said breathlessly. "No positive ID. He's inside a space pod. Oh no... ohhhhh crap."

"What are you waiting for, Laddis?" Luffa asked. "Get out there and fight him!"

Laddis ignored her and pressed Felds for more information. "Talk to me, Felds!" he sputtered. "He may have beaten all those guys, but he must be worn out from the effort, right? Right?"

"Broly just crushed that sixth guy," Felds said. "Just crumpled up his pod like a soda can... while he was still inside. Laddis, the projections are in. Calculating... This guy's barely even warmed up."

"What?" Krebs shouted.

"That's nuts!" Pells gasped.

"Felds, that doesn't make any sense!" Laddis protested. "You're telling me he beat five Super Saiyans and Piccolo, and he's not even trying?"

Felds swallowed hard and cleared her throat. "He's coming this way," she said. "He must have sensed you, Laddis. Get ready..."

"Get ready? For what?!" Laddis shouted. "You're supposed to tell me this guy's weakness!"

"I'm sorry, Laddis," she said. "I don't have anything in my files that would prepare us for this! Maybe we can ambush him...?"

"All right!" Laddis said. "He'll come after me, so Pells and Krebs, you two spread out and flank him. Claves, you're on sniper duty. Wait for me to lock up with him and line up your shot! Felds, you--!"

There was no time to issue any more orders, for Broly had suddenly stopped walking and started flying. The Time Patrollers were gathered at an elevated area overlooking a ruined city. Rather than fly up to the edge of the cliff, Broly simply flew through solid rock and smashed his way through the surface, like a column of superheated steam erupting from a geyser. One moment, the Crapkickers were preparing for the fight, and in the next, Broly was suddenly in their midst, scattering them away like leaves in a storm.

"Well what do we have here?!" he asked with a sinister kind of glee. "It looks like Kakarot had more friends than I expected."

He was enormous. Like Laddis, his Super Saiyan form involved an expansion of his body, but he was much larger than Laddis. In this form, Broly stood three meters tall, and every muscle in his body bulged as if they were about to burst out of his skin. In addition, his hair and aura glowed with a greenish tint, rather than the traditional yellow of other Super Saiyans. There seemed to be no end to his power, as a greenish-yellow aura cascaded around him like an eternal tide crashing onto shore. His eyes glowed so brightly that it was impossible to find his irises. There was simply a blank field of white in each eye, a window into a bottomless abyss of depravity.

"You're too late to help Kakarot and the rest of those idiots!" Broly announced to the Time Patrollers. "But don't worry. Even if you had arrived sooner, it would have made no difference. His fate is sealed, along with yours!"

With that, Broly threw back his head and laughed. As his did, his ki increased again, kicking up a powerful wind that buffeted the Time Patrollers like the exhaust from a jet engine.

"Luffa!" 44 gasped. She was about to get up to retreat, but Luffa grabbed her by the arm and held her tightly.

"Take it easy," Luffa said. "They're just getting started."

"How is he generating...?!" Felds muttered. "Does not compute. Does not compute..."

"What do we do Laddis?" Krebs pleaded. "Just tell us what to do--!"

"To hell with this!" Claves shouted as he turned to run away. "He's all yours, Laddis!"

If any of the Crapkickers objected to Claves' cowardice, they didn't say anything. The only one to object was Broly, whose face screwed up into a petulant sneer before he raised his hand in the direction of Claves' flight. A green light appeared in Broly's massive palm, and when he was ready, he tossed a ki blast at the Namekian. Claves was knocked out of the air before he could even get one hundred meters away. He crashed into the woods, his orange and green jacket flaming from the heat of Broly's attack.

"You can try to run away if you like!" Broly said to the others. "But it won't save you. Even if you could hide from me, I'll just destroy the entire planet."

Laddis looked around at the rest of his team. Only the Majins, Pells and Krebs, were still standing, but they were too frightened to take any action. Indeed, they were waiting for him to show them a way out of this debacle. His only answer was to drop to his knees, and mumble to himself in terror.

"Worthless," Broly grumbled. "A complete waste of Saiyan blood!" He grabbed Laddis by the throat and raised him high over his head. "You can prepare a place for Kakarot and the others in hell!"

"All right, that's enough. Put him down."

He turned his blank stare toward Luffa, who had risen from her seat to approach him. He dropped Laddis unceremoniously, then frowned, then made a harsh, guttural noise as he sniffed at the air.

"Who are you? What business do you have with me?" Broly asked. "Huh? Did you come here to die?"

Luffa stared at him with interest, but not terror. "You are Broly, I take it? I just wanted to make sure I didn't have the wrong guy."

Then she transformed, and her body glowed with the same golden glow as Laddis, but without the muscle expansion he had demonstrated.

"That is my name," Broly roared, "but it doesn't really capture the truth of what I am! Here, let me show you!"

He stalked toward Luffa, and with each step, his feet made a strange squeak.

"Just like Cell?" Luffa muttered to herself. "So he got it from Saiyan genes, then? Weird." She glanced down at her own feet just as Broly had reached her.

"Luffa, watch out!" 44 cried as she dropped to the ground and covered her head. But it was far too late for that. With horrific speed, Broly had pulled back his right arm, and was now driving his fist directly towards Luffa's face. His hand was bigger than her entire head.

Luffa stepped slightly to her right, and Broly's fist sailed over her left shoulder.

"This is what everyone's so afraid of?" Luffa asked.

Broly continued to attack, and Luffa dodged his strikes with minimal effort.

"Is that all?" Luffa asked. "I mean, this is impressive-- don't get me wrong-- but why were they so afraid of you?"

Broly pulled his arm back and made an angry growl. "They fear me because I will destroy them all!" he insisted. "All of you weaklings, then this puny planet, and then anything else that I deem fit for slaughter!"

"Right, but any dope with a high enough power level could do all of that," Luffa said. "What makes you so special?"

"He's the Legendary Super Saiyan, you idiot!" Laddis cried out. "Can't you see that?"

"No, I can't!" Luffa called back. She gestured to her head. "Look at me! I'm a Super Saiyan! So are you, Broly! What's the difference!"

"You can figure it out in your grave!" Broly shouted as he tried to fire a ki blast at Luffa. She brought her hands up just as she vanished inside a field of bright green light.

When it subsided, she had not moved, and there was no sign of damage on her body. Her aura had intensified, but nothing more.

"He's the most dangerous Saiyan of all!" Laddis said. "Can you not see that green in his hair?!"

"Wait," Luffa said. "Is that what this is about? You're 'legendary' because you've got that green tint in your ki ? I thought you were just more comfortable fighting this way."

"You've been very brave so far!" Broly said with a sneer. "And your jokes have been a little amusing, so I'll give you credit for that much. But now your time has come! Now, I bathe this field with your blood!"

"I don't believe this," Luffa said. "What a waste of my time!"

As Broly powered up for his next assault, Luffa turned to look over her shoulder at 44. "Hey!" she shouted. "Are you watching this? "

44 had taken cover near the Time Machine, and was startled by the sudden attention. "Uh... yes! Yes, I'm watching!" she called back.

"Good!" Luffa shouted. She turned back to face Broly and added: "Because I don't want to have to explain this over and over again."

Broly threw up his fists, intending to bring them down upon Luffa in one crushing blow, but he hesitated when he saw a bright light from her body. And then she began to scream.

As her aura intensified, something appeared around her like a bubble, which would vanish and reappear, and sometimes glow bright green. There was a high-pitched whine as the energy intensified, but this was soon drowned out by Luffa's furious wail.

Broly tried to attack Luffa in spite of this, but his blows were deflected away. Soon, he gave up trying, and allowed whatever was happening to Luffa to take its course.

"Impossible," 44 said as she watched what was happening. "She can't be... Not her too!"

At last, Luffa's body began to change, and grow. The muscles on her arms and legs expanded, and even her height began to increase. Her hair, which had been standing straight up and glowing yellow, now extended out a little further from her scalp, and the locks stiffened, resembling great claws of light reaching out for the darkened sky. Her eyes were still covered by the tinted goggles she wore to protect her from the Blutz waves of the approaching comet, but beneath the lenses, her eyes glowed a brilliant white, which made her goggles glow from within.

And when it was all finished, she stood before Broly looking almost exactly like him. She was not as big as he was, but she was much larger than her former self, and her hair and tail now had the same green-yellow color as his. Her black shirt had stretched to contain her expanded torso, and her baggy yellow pants looked more like tights.

"Now then," Luffa said with a laugh. "Was this what everyone was so worried about?"

"No way...." Laddis said with a gasp. "She... she did the same transformation as Broly!"

"That's nuts!" Pells exclaimed. "She didn't even know who he was until a minute ago!"

"She must have figured it out," Felds said. "She studied his ki and worked out how to do it herself, in just a few seconds."

"That's nuts!" Pells exclaimed again.

Luffa now stood over two meters tall, her face twisted in a savage scowl to match Broly's. But then she looked at the others and clicked her tongue.

Luffa looked at them and laughed. "You guys don't get it," she said. "I didn't just now figure out how to do this! I've known how to do this all along."

"What?" Felds screamed.

"That's... nuts!" Pells exclaimed a third time.

"What, like it's hard?!" Luffa shouted. "Laddis was playing around with his Super Saiyan form, so what do you dopes think I was doing back in the day, huh? I was afraid I'd lose control and blow myself apart! Unlike you Time Patrollers, I couldn't just look up how Kakarot did everything. Had to work it out for myself. I used to flash back and forth a lot during that first month. But once I got a handle on it, I started looking for ways to make it better. It didn't take me long to figure out how to adjust the power. How to make myself swell up like this. This is just one of the variations I came up with. The only trouble is, I just couldn't find any use for this form. My wife always liked it. Thought I looked cute this way. And that's nice and all, but that's about all I ever got out of it."

"Y-you could do this the whole time...?" Laddis gasped.

"So could you, probably," Luffa said. "If you worked at it. But enough about you Laddis, let's talk about your boogeyman." She turned to face Broly and grinned. "So, Broly. If this form makes you 'legendary', and I abandoned it, then what does that make me?"

"You think you can mock me?!" Broly roared. "I'll tear you to pieces!"

"Fool," Luffa said. "I just told you. I ditched this form because it didn't do me any good. What does that tell you about the form I normally use? I know all your strengths, Broly. And I know all your weaknesses. But if you're too frightened to attack me..."

Broly screamed and drew back his hand for another punch. This time, Luffa did not dodge, and his fist simply stopped when it hit her chin. He couldn't even stop her from smiling.

"It's great for defense, isn't it?" Luffa asked, speaking without moving her jaw. "We could punch each other all day, and not feel a thing."

Without warning, she moved away from his fist and delivered a roundhouse kick to his abdomen, then followed up with an elbow strike on his nose. Broly was confused but unhurt. He was visibly frustrated to see anything else that could match his strength.

Luffa then unloaded a series of green ki blasts on Broly, flinging the energy like a pitcher lobbing curveballs. Broly deflected these, and sent them flying off into all directions. The blasts exploded in the horizon, briefly lighting up the night sky as they burst.

"And you still have a ton of power to bring to bear," Luffa said. "And the speed is fine too. For a while there, I was really starting to think I was on to something with this form. I guess you never figured out the problem with it."

Broly responded with ki blasts of his own. He threw much larger globules of green energy at Luffa, who took the opportunity to dodge them. They exploded over the horizon, and even the light from the comet was washed out with green. A few of his attacks did connect, but she simply powered through them, and came at Broly without slowing down. They locked hands as they met, and thus began a test of strength. For a moment, Broly seemed to have an advantage from his greater size, but that proved to be fleeting. Within moments, Broly and Luffa were even. And then he began to be pushed back...

"See, you're just some big menace, from what I can tell," Luffa said between grunts and snarls. "All you do... with that power... is push people around... and conquer planets. I'm a mercenary... and I don't get paid by the hour. It's not enough for me to win, Broly. I wanted to find ways... to improve, so that I could win faster, and move on... to my next job. So while you were pushing everyone else around... I was pushing myself to surpass this form. Want to know how?"

Broly's only response was to scream, and to push back with all of his might, but he couldn't get Luffa to budge. At last, Luffa pulled free of his grip and raised her arm over her head. It began to glow with energy, and she swung it down against Broly's left arm. Unlike their earlier attacks on one another, this one actually managed to damage him, and Broly cried out as his flesh was singed from the contact.

"I remembered the lessons I learned from my mother!" Luffa shouted. "She taught me how to fight smarter, not just harder! Weaker Saiyans have to make every shot count! Inflict maximum damage as efficiently as possible! If it works for them, then why shouldn't that work for everyone? But you, you expend energy even when you're standing still, like you've got nothing to lose!"

"This form carries heavy defense and power," Luffa said, "but it's crap on precision! Offensively, your only good move is to barrel right through your opponent, just beat the snot out of them! But not everyone will be kind enough to just stand still and let that happen! So you have to sacrifice some of that heavy defensive power and risk taking some hits yourself! Like I'm doing now!"

As she spoke, her body shrank down, not to its original size, but about halfway. Her hair still had the green tint to it, but her irises were visible again on her eyes, and her speed and strength increased remarkably. More importantly, Broly was being overwhelmed by her renewed assault.

"I tried this variation for a while!" Luffa continued. "It's got a lot going for it. What you're using now, it's mostly defensive power. You weather your enemies' blows, then overwhelm them with brute strength and speed, but there's not much room for finesse when you're that bulky! But this gives me a little of both! I can hit you faster and more accurately, and after a while, I figured out that I can channel the ki better too! You're just spilling it out in every direction, but I'm using most of mine to attack!"

"I'll tear you apart!" Broly screamed. "You're nothing, do you hear?!" But for all his vitriol, Broly couldn't touch her. "You see!" Luffa scolded him. "I'm vulnerable now, but it doesn't matter because I'm hurting you too much for you to fight back! That's the way it's done! And once I figured that out, I realized I didn't need this green crap at all! I could just stick to the 'normal' Super Saiyan power and push forward with that!"

Now, she shrank down to her normal size and color, and Luffa moved even faster, pummeling Broly from every possible angle. Occasionally, green energy would appear at the point of her strikes, as Broly's immense ki continued to protect him, but that field was weakening, and Broly was quickly losing ground. He swung his arms in vain, desperately trying to grab hold of Luffa and take back the initiative, but she was too nimble for him, her movements too sure.

"Eventually, I realized the original form was the best, Broly! I learned a lot from the form you're using, and maybe it'll come in handy from time to time, but when it comes to fighting, this is the way to go, and what else would a Super Saiyan do with this kind of power, anyway?"

"No!" Broly screamed. "Noooo!"

He finally managed to grab hold of Luffa's head, and he slammed her face-first into the ground, digging a trench through the forest. When he decided he had gone far enough, he unloaded a barrage of ki blasts, bombarding the ground with one attack after another.

Not far away, the Crapkickers were simply too stunned to react. The entire mission had been far more than they had bargained for. And so, only 44 was left to recognize the danger they were in. She moved away from the relative cover near the time machine, and ran towards Broly as fast as she could.

"Stop it!" she shouted. "You can't keep firing all that energy straight down! You'll destroy the planet!"

Broly stopped, but only long enough to look around and laugh at her. "And what will you do about it, child? If you're in such a hurry to go to your grave, then so be it!"

He stood up and lurched toward her, his feet making the same awful squeak that they made before. 44 stood her ground, though whether this was through courage or sheer terror, she could not say.

Broly raised his fist high over 44's head, and with a sick grin, he brought it down upon her...

... only for his hand to pass harmlessly through thin air.

"What?!" he growled.

"She's off-limits, Broly," Luffa shouted. He looked up and found her floating in the sky, holding 44 in her left arm.

"Y-you're okay?" 44 asked.

"Of course I am," Luffa said. There were only a few scorch marks on her clothes, but nothing more.

"But he had you pinned down, and he kept shooting all that ki at you!" 44 said.

"Yeah, I had to stay put while he was doing that, so I could deflect all that energy away from the planet," Luffa said. "How do you think we managed to avoid getting blown up?"

"I'll kill you!" Broly screamed. "I'll rip your limbs off one by one!"

"Yeah, fine," Luffa said, "but leave 44 out of it. I promised the kid her hat would stay on, and I take that kind of thing seriously."

"I've had enough of your jokes, woman!" Broly snarled.

"Fair enough," Luffa said. "I guess I should wrap this up."

With a flash of golden light, she vanished, leaving 44 hovering in the air by herself. At first, 44 began to fall, before she used her own power of flight to stop herself. While Broly was watching this, Luffa had closed the distance between them, and drove her fist into his gut. It staggered Broly, and he cried out in pain as he coughed up a glowing green fluid.

Flecks of this ki charged blood landed on Luffa's face. As she watched Broly recover, she licked some of it off with her tongue, and smiled.

"Yeah, that clinches it. When I first saw you," Luffa said, "I had hoped that you had somehow mastered that big bulky form, that you had come up with some interesting twist on it, something that would give me a run for my money. But no. If I was right about you, you would have at least been able to block that punch just now. It looks to me like you just lucked into this green power, and you never challenged yourself to try anything else. A legend ought to be better than that, Broly."

He tried to hammer her down with forearm strikes, but she deflected them with her own arms and focused on his abdomen, raining down ferocious punches and kicks without pause. If Broly had a strategy, it seemed to be one of waiting for his opponent to tired out. It never happened.

"I can see how you might have given Kakarot some trouble!" Luffa said. "At his level, a bruiser like you would be almost unstoppable! But I'm not Kakarot. I'm Luffa, and I'm better!"

She actually let him grab her in his massive arms, but only long enough to scream and force his hands away. Then she held up her hand and began charging her fingers with red ki energy.

"I'm better than Kakarot!" she said. "Better than you, and I'm damn sure better than Laddis over there!"

She aimed her hand at Broly, pretending to line up a ki shot, but this was just a feint. As Broly moved to block her, she spin kicked his right arm, just below the shoulder.

"That's a nerve strike," Luffa explained. "The way you are now, you never stood a chance of hitting an opponent the way I did just now. But I can pick you apart like this, cripple you one limb at a time! And where will your defenses be then?"

Broly's only response was to scream, and Luffa simply screamed back at him.

"That's all you've got!" Luffa shrieked. "Just a lot of size and power and noise! Well it's useless! You want to be a monster? A true freak? Hah! I'll show you a monster!"

To his credit, Broly's resolve never wavered. He stood and fought, and at times, he even managed to block some of Luffa's attacks, even though his right arm was practically paralyzed. But within minutes, she had worn him down the point where he could no longer defend himself at all. For a time, the skies echoed with his baleful screams of rage, but they soon faded as his voice faltered. Soon after, the only sounds that carried were Luffa's raucous laughter, and her low, furious grunts as she continued to batter Broly senseless.

Finally, mercifully, Broly lost the power to maintain his transformed state, and his body shrank to its normal size. As his hair and eyes returned to their normal color, Luffa pulled her last punch, and used only enough power to knock the wind out of him. Broly collapsed, utterly defeated, but still breathing.

"Good fight," Luffa told him. "Maybe this wasn't such a waste of time after all. Hey! Laddis!"

"Y-yes?" Laddis called back. He had taken shelter behind a large rock, and was very anxious about becoming the focus of Luffa's attention.

"Any further business here? This whole thing was your idea, after all. Are you sure you don't want to spar with me?"

"No!" he cried out. "Ah, I mean. No, that's all right. Thank you... ma'am."

"Then lets get you and your crew out of here," Luffa said. She turned away from Broly and marched back to the time machine. "I want to reset this mission, and I don't need any spectators. If no one wants to participate, then I'll just go alone."

"You.... you want to do this again?" 44 asked as she fell in behind Luffa.

"Damn straight," Luffa replied.

"But why?" 44 asked. "You've already won your wager with Laddis. You've got nothing more to prove. Broly was no match for you."

"Kid, I don't care about any of that," Luffa said. "I'm here to train, remember? Broly's no legend, but he held out for a good long while. He's one tough bastard, and I figure if I re-do that fight a few more times, I can beat him even faster. After about a hundred times, I ought to see some real improvement."

"A hundred times?!" 44 gasped.

"Let's go, Laddis!" Luffa shouted to the others. "Quit dawdling! It's not like any of you should be tired. I'm the one who did all the work!" Then she looked over to 44.

"How about you, kid?" she asked.

"Me?"

"I don't know much about cyborgs," Luffa said, "but you can probably get something out of a workout like this, right? Don't worry, I'll wear Broly down to a manageable level before turning him loose on you."

"Ah... maybe on a different mission?" 44 said. "Something a little less... intense?"

"Hah! Maybe some other time," Luffa said. "After I've finished this business with Demigra, that is..."

********

[8 April, Age 850. Toki Toki City.]

"So, how did it go?"

44 kept her distance from most of the other Time Patrol staff. She preferred to avoid distractions wherever possible, but there were a few Time Patrollers who had managed to break the ice with her. Taino, a Majin with a fondness for the Ginyu Force, was one of these. Taino carried out her duties in a Frieza soldier uniform, and she once told 44 that she had programmed her scouter device to lock onto her friends whenever they were heading for one of the restaurants in the city, just so she wouldn't have to eat alone.

"Well," 44 said, "the chronoscopy calculations added a lot to my workload, but they didn't turn out to be too difficult. I shouldn't be behind schedule for long--"

"That's not what I'm talking about," Taino said. "I meant the mission with Luffa. That's all everyone's been talking about for days!"

"I know," 44 said as she poked at her bisque. "I've overheard a number of people discussing it."

"Well, you were there," Taino said. She threw out her arms for effect. "What was it like? I wish I could have seen Laddis' face. That loudmouth's had it coming for months!"

"Fortunately, no one was hurt," 44 began. "And my hat stayed on, so I dropped my protest of Luffa's use of the restricted PQ missions."

"Do you ever take that thing off?" Taino asked. She pointed at the mesh-back cap and read the markings on the front. "Ninety-eight CIAL? What even is that?"

"It's a trucking company on Earth," 44 explained. "I just like the way it looks."

She removed the cap, and released a pile of shoulder-length white hair that she had kept stuffed inside.

"Why do you wear your hair long if you keep it under your hat all the time?" Taino asked.

44 shrugged. "I just do. Anyway, the mission went well. I don't want to try another one like that, though. It's too intense for me."

"See, this is why you should join the Taino Force!" Taino said. "We always do PQ's together, and we stick to the lower difficulty missions. Plus, you can wear one of these cool uniforms!"

"Sorry," 44 said. "I've never been much of a joiner."

"Oh, I get it," Taino said. "You're waiting for Luffa to start her own team, so you can join up with her. Well, I can't blame you. She's definitely got the 'it' factor these days. Her fashion sense could use some work, but people like the baggy pants look, I can't argue with that. Yellow and black might look good on you. Sure, I can see it. I can't wear yellow because... well, my whole body is yellow so it'd just be too much, but you're kind of an amethyst color, so it'd suit you."

"Even if she started a team," 44 said, "I'm sure she'd want warriors, not a clerk like me."

"Don't be so sure," Taino said. "The key to team building is diversification. Luffa's already got raw power down by herself. Maybe she'd want to include someone who's good at math. Besides, the way everyone tells it, she seemed pretty impressed with you. They said you stood up to Broly. No many clerks can say that."

44 shook her head and looked down at her soup. While she tried to decide how to respond, Taino's scouter began to chirp.

"Whoops, I got a call on this thing," Taino said. "Yes, Ukatz. Yes. Yes. No, I don't think so. No, that was Iass' job. Uh-huh. Right. Okay, meet me at the base in ten minutes. Yes, I mean my apartment, but that is our base, at least until they let us use the conference room again. Okay. Right. You too. Bye."

Taino quickly excused herself, barely noticing 44 as she left.

"You think she'd want someone like me?" 44 murmured to herself.

NEXT: Lookout

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #super saiyan #luffa #broly #laddis #claves #pells #krebs #felds #44 #new planet vegeta #taino #toki toki city

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the-cryptographer · 6 years

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So I haven’t actually reread the Monster World Arc in the manga for a good while (although I checked a couple of details). So far as I can tell, most of the actual game plays are the same as in the manga (except for Miho’s inclusion) but it’s a tossup whether any piece of dialogue is filler or not. So *huh hmm* we’re going to play a little game. It’s called ‘try to infer what the hell Takahashi might have been planning to do (or not planning to do bc I’m not entirely sure any planning went into any of this) with Yami Bakura’s character before the manga got axed and everyone got distracted by Kaiba, based on this unfaithful adaptation of his work’.

"Role playing means to play a role. The players act as their characters and enter a world of adventures. That is what makes this game popular.”

I guess the question is- is this why this game is appealing to Ryou/TKB/Zorc? The question of identity has always been strong regarding the Bakurae. And not a question that was ever answered, in contrast to Yuugi and Atem. Y!Bakura also often imitates Ryou as one of his tactics. Does he like acting? Should he go to acting school postcanon? Does his affinity for acting mean that the obfuscation regarding his individuality and identity is somewhat purposeful on his part? What could he be so intent on hiding?

Also perhaps a pointed statement. An enemy concealing themselves as a friend is something both Y!Bakura and Malik seem prone to. But maybe more interesting in that TKB sees Atem and the Pharaoh’s Court as enemies that have concealed themselves in their opulence and authority. Hiding in plain sight.

In any case, fun and games are now over.

Miho faints and gets trapped in her figurine - (she’s so cute~) - and everyone loses their shit.

Jounouchi’s hair also loses its shit. I’m not sure what’s going on with it.

Honda runs in to roll a critical to save Miho. Even though it’s neither his turn, or does he have a skillset that would allow him to do so.

Y!Bakura then proceeds to trap his soul in his figurine as well, as punishment for rolling when it’s not his turn. Is that a real offense the DM can punish? Because that sounds fake. Very fake.

The more important part, though, is that you know Ryou also gets angry when he’s DM-ing and people get belligerent and roll when it’s not their turn. Please imagine Ryou playing Monster World with Honda postcanon, and Honda makes mistakes and Ryou’s also like: Manners! It’s not your turn! And Honda kind of cringes: ...Please don’t say that. And Ryou’s all: ???

Jounouchi is rolling next.

Savage.

So then pretty soon everyone is Monster World Figurines (so cute) and Atem is the one rolling for all of them. It’s Atem vs Y!Bakura, everyone. Huzzah!

A good screencap.

Atem is popular. And much better at rolling dice for Jou than Jou is.

And Jounouchi is jealous and attention starved as usual. This poor neglect child. Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me.

Yuugi continues to do his magic hands beast tamer thing, and recruit enemies to his side.

The sound effects here as he pets(?) this dragon are adorable.

In the meantime, Ryou has “cursed” Y!Bakura’s dice. Ryou confirmed as too occult and creepy even for Y!Bakura.

Ryou has also taken back control of his left hand.

Aaaaand I... actually completely forgot this happened. Everyone talks about how Y!Bakura stabbed himself during Battle City. But his self-mutilative tendencies seem to extend far beyond that one moment.

...This too. I guess in a technical sense, Y!Bakura says he default wins so long as the heros all die in this game of Monster World. And this is his game, so maybe Zorc’s defeat really won’t have any further consequences on him. But... I’m not convinced. It seems likely that Zorc/TKB/Y!Bakura - whoever the hell this is - doesn’t care if he dies in the process of wiping the others out. Probably you could have foreseen Y!Bakura/Zorc killing TKB in Memory World based on this but- here he’s willing to kill Zorc’s expy, not just TKB’s expy. This seems like a subtle difference that could have had some great significance. The ultimate evil doesn’t actually care about living to perpetuate ultimate evil.

And I believe this is the final part of our ‘figure out what Takahashi was thinking’ game. Atem devises this strategy as a way to recruit Ryou, who crawls out of Zorc’s left arm. BUT! Zork implies that it is, in fact, possible to recruit him. Was the original plan for Atem & co to level up to level one million and recruit Zorc at the end of the manga? It might mean more coming from the heros, but the villain himself implying that there’s something redeemable in him is interesting in of itself.

In other news, Jou’s stupid martyr streak continues.

And things are getting dicey and wrapping up to their conclusion. (Get it? Dicey? Haha. I’m not funny.)

That’s what you get for shopping at Walmart, Y!Bakura.

So the dice break, and then Atem says-

And so we get initiative and can do whatever we want now!

Yeah, also pretty sure that’s not how the game works, Atem. If your dice break, don’t you just have to get a new set of D10s and re-roll? Fake. So fake.

But wait, going back, something that didn’t happen in the manga.

Y!Bakura tries to kill Ryou for interfering, it seems. Which is approximately how I see their relationship, personally. But I’m still not sure I appreciate Toei trying to end the debate on whether or not the Ring Spirt is at all protective of Ryou’s person. Hmmm. HMMM! I think it’s a question better left vague than answered in this clumsy manner.

So, YAY! Our heroes won the game. And the Millennium Ring breaks off Ryou’s neck and falls to the floor. Where it was left 5ever and everyone was happy and that was the end of our Ring related troubles, YAY! (I s2g, Ryou. Don’t ruin this for me!!!)

And then Ryou makes this to celebrate. And Yuugi and Atem are represented individually. And it’s all very cute and we should appreciate it!

THAT’S IT! ANIME OVER!

#Ring Spirit #meta lite #save me from this card game hell #long post

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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A meta and analysis on Hurricane Touchdown

Hurricane Touchdown sure is one of the Digimon entries that’s really difficult to describe. Often said to be “confusing” and “like an acid trip” (for pretty good reason, honestly), it somehow also manages to have a lot of hold in public memory, partially due to being one of the three movies that got widespread international distribution via Digimon: The Movie. Moreover, its relevance has started to re-emerge thanks to Kizuna, the director of which has stated Hurricane Touchdown to be his favorite movie (multiple times). Rather recently, there was even an editorial written by a journalist who had been covering Kizuna, professing that he had watched Hurricane Touchdown as a kid and hated it, only to rewatch it as an adult and appreciate it much better.

With all that, plus the fact that the movie recently got a new translation, it’s probably a good time to go back over the movie and analyze it! Despite what popular sentiment may have you believe, the plot of the movie isn’t that fundamentally incomprehensible, just buried under some rather unusual production and execution decisions. But there’s a lot to be said about the themes and story of the movie, so let’s dig in!

(All screenshots and quotations from the movie are based off the Hudie translation.)

Hurricane Touchdown in meta franchise terms

The full title of the movie isn’t technically Hurricane Touchdown by itself, but rather “Digimon Hurricane Touchdown!!/Transcendent Evolution!! The Golden Digimentals”. (The Japanese fanbase tends to shorten it to “Digimon Hurricane”, or, for even more shortening, “dejihari”.) The double-titling there is because of how it was originally screened; it was the 02 “summer movie”, screening in July (between the airings of 02 episodes 14 and 15). Functionally, the franchise has thereafter treated it like a single movie, but at the time, the fact it was technically “two” movies gave it the longest running time of any Digimon theatrical movie, clocking in at a little over an hour. (The tri. movies are officially considered OVAs and not theatrical movies due to their limited-screening nature, so as of this writing Kizuna, at 95 minutes, is the only theatrical movie to break this record.)

The movie itself has a pretty fascinating development history – for one, Akiyama Ryou was originally planned to be the starring character instead of Wallace. It’s also the first Digimon movie to be in “questionable canonicity” territory – this is very normal for Toei tie-in movies, since development for these kinds of movies usually starts at the same time or even before the TV series itself, making it hard to reconcile canon, but unusual at the time for Adventure, which had both its first and second movies be plot-relevant to Adventure and 02 respectively. It is generally understood that the movie takes place in “summer” – possibly between episodes 14 and 15, at the same position it screened in real-life – but, interestingly, the Western and Japanese fanbases’ opinions on why it’s questionably canon tend to differ: in the West it’s usually based on the appearance of Tailmon and Patamon’s higher-level evolutionary forms (which shouldn’t be possible as per 02 episode 27), but in the Japanese fanbase it’s based on Wallace’s existence posing a timeline contradiction (according to Adventure episode 45, there shouldn’t be any Chosen Children before 1995, but the movie states that Wallace had been one before then). Add to that The Door to Summer, which seemingly contradicts the ending of the movie (in which Wallace and Gumimon find what’s implied to be Chocomon’s egg, whereas The Door to Summer has the line “Chocomon isn’t here anymore”), and everything is just a tangled mess.

Despite that, it’s pretty remarkable how lasting the movie has been in public memory. Even with all of the factors working against it – the fact it’s often accused of being confusing (or, by many a Japanese kid, boring and slow) or an acid trip – Wallace is a very popular character, more so than you’d expect for a “guest” character in a one-off movie, especially one so controversial. 02 fans often even consider him an honorary seventh member of the 02 group. His article on the Pixiv dictionary wiki is pretty surprisingly thorough, at that. Questionable canonicity aside, the fact The Door to Summer even exists is pretty significant – how many one-off questionably canon movies have you seen getting an actual sequel?

As an aside, Hurricane Touchdown has a bit of an interesting relationship with Ojamajo Doremi, which is in some sense classic Digimon’s sister series (it aired at around the same time as Adventure through Frontier, and was also headed by their producer, Seki Hiromi). Wallace was voiced by Miyahara Nami, a voice actress who grew up in an international school in Austria and thus speaks fluent German and English, thus often putting her in roles that require speaking one of those. (If you listen to Wallace’s Japanese speech through the movie, it has a very heavy accent, which is deliberately affected on Miyahara’s part.) A year later, Miyahara would be cast as major character Momoko in Motto! Ojamajo Doremi, and The Door to Summer would prominently feature Nat-chan, a girl voiced by Shishido Rumi, who voiced Ojamajo’s Onpu (who is generally agreed to be Doremi’s most popular character, and Shishido’s most famous role). Coincidence? Opportunistic casting? Who knows.

The movie itself

But that’s enough beating around the bush. Let’s get to the movie itself!

I’m not going to dwell on this too much because I’m going to be going more in detail about it below, but our story starts off in Wallace’s hometown of Summer Memory, a fictional rural village in Colorado, in 1995. (As mentioned earlier, this is a bit of a timeline contradiction; Adventure episode 45 establishes that “the one who wishes for stability” and the Agents didn’t get the idea of human Chosen Children until 1995, whereas the events of Hurricane Touchdown imply he’d been one before then.) Chocomon suddenly vanishes, and a gust of wind is left behind, implying that he must have been kidnapped. It’s not exactly said by what he was taken by (Digimon: The Movie ties it into Our War Game! by having both be traced to a “virus”, but no mention of such is made in the original Japanese version).

The mystery of what it is that took Chocomon away is never fully elaborated in the course of the movie, but as it goes on, it becomes increasingly apparent that it doesn’t actually matter. Why? Well, stay tuned.

So, timeskip to 2002!

As Takeru and Hikari are visiting Mimi in New York, Hikari, who is known to have a bit of an empathic connection to Digimon, senses that there’s a “crying Digimon” (this will be important later), and Mimi suddenly vanishes – as do the other Chosen Children.

I think part of the reason this movie is often pinned as feeling like an acid trip is that the demeanor and attitude the 02 kids express in this movie feels a little too laid-back for the very urgent situation of their seniors having suddenly up and vanished (which is also not helped by the movie’s overall soundtrack being a lot more laid-back than the events on screen should suggest). This is especially odd because it’s absolutely not like the kids aren’t worried about their seniors at all! Rather to the contrary; “getting Taichi and the others back” is the major motive driving the whole group for the rest of it, and it’s constantly brought up as their goal in dialogue, shaping their actions throughout the rest of the movie. The execution of the dialogue and the overall direction create a bit of a tonal mismatch, but on its face, the actual storytelling checks.

Shortly after, Chocomon – now evolved and corrupted into something – appears, and Wallace and Gumimon confront him.

The fact that Wallace refers to his partners by their Baby-level names (Chocomon and Gumimon) even after they’ve clearly evolved brings up a lot of interesting implications. One is that, not having been privy to any great adventure in the Digital World before, Wallace doesn’t have a lot of awareness of names changing after evolution the same way his Japanese peers do. But another important thing that comes out here is that, through the course of this movie, Wallace primarily sees his partners the same way he did as a young child. A lot of this movie’s story centers around Wallace’s difficulty in moving on from the past and accepting that things aren’t the same way that they are anymore – and so, just like how he has a hard time swallowing that the circumstances have changed, he has difficulty seeing his own partners as having changed, and calls them by the same names despite everything.

Takeru and Hikari catch on, and Hikari’s psychic sense catches on that something’s happened to her brother, too.

Oh, and incidentally, said seniors aren’t in a pleasant place to be in at all.

The fact that the older kids are clearly Not Having a Good Time in the realm they’ve been kidnapped to – it’s depicted as cold, lonely, full of negative emotions, and eating away at their ability to even bodily function – is very heavily connected to what we later learn about what’s been going on with Chocomon through the last seven years. Moreover, the one truly coherent thing Taichi and Yamato can spit out at this stage is concern for their siblings – i.e., love. Keep that in mind for later!

Wallace drops a line to his family (”Amy” presumably being his sister) saying that he’s going to head to Summer Memory, and skips town. Repeat: Summer Memory is in Colorado – he’s doing something as drastic as going out of state to follow Chocomon, which naturally does not amuse his mom very much (as we find out later in the movie). Patamon eavesdrops on the conversation and relays the information to Takeru and Hikari, who contact Daisuke in turn.

So the remaining three kids nyoom all the way to the US using frequent flyer miles (which makes you really wonder whose those are, or what on earth they told their parents to allow three elementary school kids go around unassisted in another country) to go save their seniors, which apparently doesn’t fund their trip all the way to Colorado, forcing them to hitchhike from New York.

(We also get a quick scene implying that Daisuke has better proficiency in English than Iori and Miyako, as he translates some of the statements for the guy they take a ride from. This is pretty surprising, given that Daisuke hasn’t really been portrayed as particularly book smart…but then again, language skills sometimes just happen to come naturally to some people regardless of skill in books, and hey, it might just come in useful for his future ramen chef career in New York…)

We get our first major scene of dialogue between Gumimon and Wallace, and we learn quite a bit about their characters in the process. Gumimon has a similar laid-back attitude to the more prominent Terriermon in Tamers, but beyond that (and a shared voice actress), it’s important to note that they have very different personalities otherwise. In this scene, Wallace and Gumimon get in an argument over how to handle Chocomon, with Wallace insisting that they shouldn’t have attacked him and that they should have just “talked” about it – even though, as Gumimon correctly points out, he was pretty obviously trying to physically attack Wallace.

In fact, at this part of the story, Wallace is being extremely irrational and in denial. You don’t even have to watch the rest of the movie to see that Gumimon’s very practical stance on the matter is reasonable – Chocomon was very much trying to attack Wallace, and getting caught in the fight was pretty much all he could do for Wallace’s safety. But Wallace, still stuck in the past, can’t accept that at this point in the movie, and, honestly, is being a bit of a brat about it too – he’s engaging in progressively more self-destructive behavior over the course of the movie (ditching his family to set off by himself in order to hitchhike to Colorado, for one). We later find out that Wallace is specifically obsessed with going back to the flower field where he lost Chocomon, having independently come up with the idea that this would somehow let everything go back to what it was before – even though there was really no sign this would actually fix anything.

The Adventure universe generally runs on a concept that a Digimon partner is representative of part of the self, and so, tying that into Wallace and his two partners, it can be taken that Gumimon and Chocomon reflect the duality of Wallace as a character – Chocomon representing his desire to latch onto the past and hope that everything can be the same that it was before, and Gumimon as Wallace’s sense of reason, advising him about the reality of the situation and how to practically get through it (and, thus, to move on). In fact, Gumimon is the one constantly advising him about said self-destructive behavior (reminding him that his mom is probably worried about him, but also berating him for just ditching the train as a result instead of thinking about how that’d leave them without reliable transportation for the rest of it).

The symbolism is driven in even further when the only thing Gumimon has to say, in response to Wallace clinging further onto the idea that going to the flower field will fix things…is a cryptic statement that Chocomon didn’t like the heat, then suddenly offering to be a hat to provide Wallace shade. Because right now, Wallace and Chocomon are the same: clinging hopelessly to shards of the past.

The other 02 kids make their way to meet up in Colorado, but run into some snags when Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori end up missing the exit to Denver (Takeru is not amused), and Hikari and Takeru’s train ends up stranded thanks to Chocomon’s interference…

…and, making things worse, Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori try to take a plane back to Denver, only to overshoot it again. (Sorry, Taichi…your juniors are idiots.)

Fortunately, they get lucky by running into the very same boy they’re indirectly looking for on their way to hitchhiking. We learn that Wallace has never had exposure to other Chosen Children before to the extent of knowing there were any Digimon in Japan, nor has he ever been to the Digital World, so for all intents and purposes, his experiences with Chocomon and Gumimon are all he knows (i.e. he has no awareness of large-scale Digital World affairs). He also apparently speaks Japanese, which is convenient for this movie so that they don’t have to have a language barrier, but, amusingly, Wallace claims that it’s because he “had a Japanese girlfriend once”. (Gumimon, who is much more reliable of a source, says that he’d apparently put an honest effort into studying, so an interpretation that Wallace really likes anime or something is not out of the question.)

It’s also interesting to see how the others react to him, especially considering that it’s becoming increasingly apparent that he’s involved with the disappearance of their seniors. Miyako is as openly friendly as she generally always is, Iori presses him very calmly about questions relevant to the disappearances and Chocomon without even batting an eyelid (future lawyer in training here), and Daisuke is suspicious from the get-go…which is exacerbated when Wallace starts flirting with Miyako. The running gag of Daisuke getting angry about Wallace flirting with Miyako has a lot to unpack here – the most obvious standby is the shipping interpretation (or, at least, that Daisuke may be as protective of Miyako as he is Hikari), but there are other points to observe as well. Firstly, Daisuke is a rather abruptly straightforward and overly honest person, and it makes sense that he’d play badly with people who seem dishonest – after all, his suspicions of Wallace started even before he started flirting, and he also shows similar hostility around Takeru (also not a very straightforward person) when he suspects he’s being made fun of. But also, the Pixiv dictionary entry takes the interpretation that Wallace’s personality had gotten a bit “warped” by his experiences – or, in other words, he’d developed this penchant for acting like a flirt, wandering off on his own, and altogether being incredibly wishy-washy because of the trauma of losing Chocomon and his inability to get over it.

And as much as Daisuke’s being a prick about it (to the point that mocking Wallace for it gets him left there stranded with him), he’s absolutely right about the contradiction Wallace’s posing – he’s acting all high and mighty about trying to become an “adult” (meaning that going off on his own and flirting with girls presumably are part of his perception of what Mature Guys do), yet he’s being a total mama’s boy by constantly dropping everything to call her repeatedly through his trip. (It’s even worse than the subs here suggest; he calls her “mama”, the kind of super-affectionate language used by Mimi and Ken.) As Gumimon says, Wallace thinks he’s actually right, but he doesn’t actually have it together at all.

Another interesting thing to note here is that at this point of the movie, Wallace calls Daisuke “Daisuke-kun” (with honorific attached, slight distance). Remember this for later.

Chocomon appears to confront them again, but he seems to not properly recognize Wallace – because, as we later find out, he doesn’t see the current Wallace as “Wallace”, and will accept nothing less than a younger Wallace from exactly the way he was when they were separated. (It is later stated in the movie that this is why he kidnapped the seniors and turned them younger; since he can’t recognize “Wallace” the way he is now, he’s taking anyone he can find with a Digivice and de-aging them in the hopes that he’ll find “Wallace” among them.) Gumimon recognizes that Chocomon is beyond recognition, and tells Wallace to not see him as Chocomon, but Wallace refuses to accept this and continues to intervene in the fight, telling Chocomon that they’ll meet again in the flower field. Again, Wallace’s mentality isn’t that different from Chocomon’s at this point – he may not be delusional to the point he wants to literally turn back time, but he still thinks that reproducing the conditions of seven years prior will fix everything and make it all better again.

During this whole time, the older(?) kids are getting progressively younger, and it’s turning out to impact not only their physical bodies but also their mentalities. At this point, they’re starting to lose awareness of what’s happening to them, as they become more and more connected to Chocomon’s emotions.

Daisuke is smart enough to catch on that Wallace definitely knows what’s going on, and starts to interrogate him. Recall that Daisuke is completely within his rights to do so at this point – Wallace is not only acting incredibly shady, he’s also being dismissive and refusing to give Daisuke any concrete answers about something that most certainly involves him at this point. As the 02 kids keep reiterating, their seniors have been kidnapped, and it’s pretty clear to anyone that Wallace knows something about this, but he continues to blow them off.

Wallace also doesn’t seem to be very happy about the fact Gumimon had evolved during the battle – remember, Wallace is very resistant to changes in his status quo, and especially when it involves Gumimon evolving in a similar way to Chocomon.

Daisuke continues to pry into what’s going on with Wallace and Chocomon, and Gumimon, who understands that there’s no use in denying that this is a problem, tries to be straightforward about it – but Wallace, still stubbornly refusing to open up about it, won’t even let Gumimon tell Daisuke about the truth.

Daisuke realizes that they’re not going to make any territory as it is, so he decides to have Lighdramon take them to Summer Memory for the time being, bonding a bit more with Wallace in the process.

Once they reach Summer Memory, the kids learn about Takeru and Hikari getting stalled by Chocomon on the train, and the fact everyone else on it had disappeared – meaning that the responsibility that Wallace is carrying for not taking care of this problem begins to weigh further on him. Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori continue to interrogate him about what he knows.

But Wallace, still stubbornly, refuses to talk, and being in Summer Memory only drowns him in further memories of his past with Chocomon and Gumimon. We learn a bit more about Gumimon’s past, too – apparently, he was quite the crybaby…

And when Gumimon finally begins to spill the details of what’s going on – that Chocomon wants to see the younger Wallace and is kidnapping kids with his Digivice and turning them younger as a result – Wallace still continues to double down on his denial. Notice his wording – his specific insistence that things will go back to “how they used to be,” because it’s not just about getting Chocomon back, but also a fixation on recreating that happy childhood he had with him.

(There’s also a bit of a cute moment around here where Daisuke asks Wallace if he needs to call his mom – after having teased him for being a mama’s boy earlier, Daisuke really is starting to care about his welfare. It’s also amusingly mentioned that Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori are broke out of money until they meet up with Takeru and Hikari again…)

That night, Wallace tries to go off by himself to the flower field, not even bringing Gumimon with him – as he implies later, he doesn’t even want to get Gumimon involved with this because he was the closest to Chocomon – but Daisuke, having finally caught on to his suspicion that Chocomon is not only relevant to Wallace but also Wallace’s partner, confronts him about it. Wallace thus finally spills the details – that Gumimon and Chocomon were born from the same egg, that Wallace kept them from his mother and stuck with them during childhood, and that, seven years prior, Chocomon suddenly vanished while they were playing at the flower field.

Wallace: I’ve never been able to forget about Chocomon since then. Not even after moving to New York, not even once. We were such good friends…So why did Chocomon have to end up like that? Does he hate me for not being able to save him? Daisuke: So the enemy we’re fighting is actually your Digimon? Your most important friend?! Daisuke: Of course you’d never be okay with that…

Daisuke is in shock, even though he’d already started to suspect this.

I said, earlier, that Wallace is being extremely irrational and in denial. I did not say that his feelings aren’t valid. Wallace’s situation sucks, and Daisuke recognizes why this hurts for him so much, especially after putting himself in Wallace’s shoes (and in fact it’s even worse for Wallace; Daisuke’s only known V-mon for less than half a year, whereas Wallace is talking about his formative childhood friend).

Daisuke: I’d never be able to do it. If V-mon were to turn into something completely different…Even if he went on a horrible rampage…There’s no way I’d ever be able to bring V-mon down. Wallace: Daisuke… Daisuke: So then, what are we supposed to do? Wallace: It’s not something you need to be crying over. Daisuke: But…

This entire scene is an interesting one for many reasons, especially because of the position in which it aired – this was in the middle of the arc in 02 when everyone was getting their second Digimentals. Daisuke had, only a few episodes prior, expressed trepidation over “friendly fire” – fighting any friend who had become controlled by the Digimon Kaiser. This is consistent with that (and the 02 kids’ general bleeding hearts and difficulty with fighting friends), and it’s even worse – unlike before, when we were talking about evil mind control, Chocomon is pretty obviously a victim of his own madness. And although Wallace continues to insist that this isn’t Daisuke’s problem, Daisuke, for all he’s rough around the edges, is a genuinely kind person who thinks of others to the point he breaks down in genuine tears over the problem, and it’s consistent with not only his prior characterization of thinking about others’ feelings in 02 episode 8, but also how this eventually ties into his indignation over seeing others being hurt (episode 20) or their feelings being trampled on (episode 49).

Another interesting thing here is that at no point in the movie is “killing” ever brought up, but rather the word used is taosu, which literally means “defeat”. In 02 proper, its use is somewhat euphemistic – most famously, it was used in episode 44, when Miyako and Hawkmon have a crisis over killing LadyDevimon (so in short, there’s no illusions about the fact killing is in play here). But in this context, it’s not even really about killing. Wallace doesn’t even want to fight in the first place. The sheer action of physically beating up a beloved friend is painful, with killing as the ultimate unwanted outcome. Everything about this sucks. But Daisuke correctly points out that Taichi and the others’ welfare is on the line here, and everything feels like the wrong thing to do. “What are we supposed to do?”, indeed.

So that’s why Daisuke momentarily indulges in Wallace’s denial-induced pattern of thought, because it really does seem like the only out here. (Especially because, from Daisuke’s perspective, Wallace seems to understands this situation better than he does – even if he doesn’t actually.) If they go to the flower field, they won’t have to fight and everyone will be saved and it’ll be fine! Wallace is irrational and in denial, but you can’t blame him and Daisuke for really, really wanting to believe this.

And Daisuke drops this zinger of a line, too:

Daisuke: So don’t say you’re gonna go alone.

Daisuke’s characterization really is important here, because, again, this movie came out during the first arc of the series, before episode 21 and the second half that centered around Ichijouji Ken’s redemption. At this point in the series, Daisuke was still being extremely deferential to others, especially his seniors, in almost all cases, and although episode 8 was a momentary glimpse into the kind of resolve Daisuke could have when it involved something he really cared about, this movie is really the first major sneak peek into how supportive of a person Daisuke is going to develop into, especially when it comes to Ken.

And Gumimon reaffirms that he’s going to stick by Wallace no matter what – filling the traditional role of a partner that Chocomon won’t anymore.

So they go to the flower field, and everything…fails spectacularly.

Well, before that, we get a glimpse of how the older kids are doing (they’re barely even conscious now), and we finally get to see Chocomon “in his element” and not as a rampaging monster. Things really, really aren’t going great for Chocomon either. He desperately and sadly jumps among the kids, trying to find Wallace among them, and what he really, really wants is just to be with his partner again. But they’re all “wrong”…

At first it seems like Wallace is making headway – for a second, Chocomon even recognizes him as Wallace! – but he continues to insist that he wants Wallace to come “with him”, to where it’s “cold and lonely and no one is there”. The way he starts chanting that he wants to go back is represented by the young Chocomon’s voice getting progressively lost in the monster’s voice, and Wallace, starting to grasp how futile Chocomon’s clinging to the past is, makes his first statement of the movie’s core theme: you can’t go back to the past, the only thing you can do is look forward and think about what you can do from there.

So after witnessing very clearly, in front of his eyes, how Chocomon is not going to listen to reason and will accept nothing less than something he can’t have, to the point of evolving and distorting everything around him, Wallace’s denial finally hits its limits, and he accepts that fighting him will be the only option out. (Again, note the use of “defeat” here – it’s not really about beelining straight to euthanizing him as much as Wallace has finally gotten over his refusal to fight Chocomon at all.) And considering that the situation is clearly rapidly escalating, and that Chocomon himself is clearly not in sound mind and having a terrible time himself, it doesn’t take much to see why the bleeding-heart Daisuke would also end up conceding so quickly. There’s a limit to how much you can hold out with pacifism when that just happened right in front of you!

(Also, Wallace no longer uses the honorific on Daisuke. Friendship level up!)

Chocomon evolves further and further, and his personality starts to actually take a turn for the cruel as he starts toying with the Digimon. In fact, it’s made pretty apparent that they’re no match for him from the get-go – he keeps toying with reality and forcing the Digimon back and forth between forms. He ends up “altering the world” into something reflective of his own heart, and it’s repeatedly pointed out that it’s “cold and lonely” – in short, Chocomon is subjecting the world to feel the same pain and loneliness that he felt, the pain that was enough to drive him mad.

And Wallace finally has this to say:

Wallace: Like Daisuke said, I’m a big baby. But you’re not Chocomon anymore. No, you’re the one who did this to Chocomon…Chocomon was all by himself and lonely, and in that loneliness, he tried so hard…But you took his heart and locked it away somewhere! I’m going to fight. If I defeat you…If that means I can free Chocomon from you…Then I want to fight, too! I need strength…

Firstly, Wallace acknowledges that he’s been a brat – that he’s been philandering around and acting spoiled and stringing everyone around (character development!!). And secondly, Wallace finally acknowledges the truth of Chocomon no longer being recognizable anymore. The ending quarter of this movie focuses heavily on the idea that Chocomon has now become so distorted that he can no longer even be considered the same thing anymore – it’s ambiguous as to whether that “you” that Wallace refers to having taken Chocomon away is actually a separate supernatural entity, or whether Chocomon was drowning in his own loneliness to the point those negative feelings became their own entity and consumed him.

In actuality, though – it doesn’t really matter! 02 as a series would also go on to blur the boundaries between external interference and internal forces – Ken having the Dark Seed as an influence but also being personally responsible for his own emotions driving him over the edge, and having to take responsibility regardless, and Oikawa technically being possessed by Vamdemon but still being goaded on by his own fixation with the past (in fact, notice how all three of these cases have to do with a fixation on things that can’t be brought back). Right now, the only thing that matters is that Chocomon is no longer recognizable, the thing in front of Wallace is no longer the same friend he knew, and even being able to bring back Chocomon’s sense of self is something Wallace wants.

(Daisuke also throws in a more charitable interpretation of Wallace’s actions even when he’s being hard on himself, pointing out that he can’t really be called a “baby” when he also did have genuine determination to come all the way there to find Chocomon despite his age.)

Hikari and Takeru arrive on the scene, and after Daisuke loses his marbles a bit over his happiness at seeing Hikari-chan there, Hikari points out the same thing: “You’re not the Digimon that was crying.”

Chocomon starts turning the 02 kids younger too – and remember, it was established earlier that he was using the Digivice as a guide. That meant it made sense for him to target the older kids, since they had the same model of Digivice Wallace did. But Daisuke and the others have D-3s, and there’s no way to really mistake them for Wallace – so in other words, Chocomon has devolved to inflicting cruelty for no good reason, with the original motive having completely vanished.

In increasing desperation, Angewomon and Angemon decide to evolve, and…look, I don’t have an explanation either, but I have to admit I’m somewhat amused by the fact that even they don’t really seem to have an explanation beyond “well, we’re desperate and hopefully it’ll do something!”

So they evolve, and Chocomon oneshots them. But that’s okay, because they released some golden Digimentals for Daisuke and Wallace to use! So V-mon and Gumimon get shiny new golden forms –

– and Chocomon pretty much oneshots them, too. More specifically, he eats them…and within his body, Magnamon and Gumimon’s consciousness gets eaten apart to the point they start forgetting their partners. Wow, this situation just got worse.

Yeah, so, despite the movie being named after the golden Digimentals, the actual point being here is that power means absolutely nothing in this situation. Remember, I pointed out that even from the beginning Chocomon was straight-out warping reality – they really didn’t have a chance.

So basically, everything devolves into complete chaos. Everyone’s being turned into little kids, with the mentality to match. All the Digimon are being oneshotted and being tossed around like tissues. But the one constant through all of this is that the kids are constantly running after their partners.

Remember how, back when the older kids were first getting sucked into Chocomon’s world, the one thing that seemed to remain intact at first was “love”? That “love” is what reaches out to Magnamon and Gumimon inside Chocomon, and makes them remember their partners again.

And, more importantly, that “love” is what awakens Chocomon – the real Chocomon – inside his consciousness, and he wordlessly makes a gesture begging Magnamon and Gumimon to kill him. And so they do – with understanding and consent from all three involved.

So in the end, the most extreme conclusion was reached. Chocomon died, at the hands of Daisuke and Wallace’s partners. But in that moment before he died, Chocomon’s pain was relieved, and he was himself again – Gumimon says that “Chocomon was smiling”, even in spite of his usual personality being that of a crybaby. They may have failed in their struggle to prevent the inevitable conclusion of having to kill Chocomon, but they did, to some degree, “save” him – so all of it did mean something in the end. And Daisuke promises that this still doesn’t mean the end of everything – they may have not been able to bring back Chocomon, and especially not in the exact way that would make things “the way they were before”, but the future is still there for him to return someday.

So, we clean up loose ends. Taichi and the others are returned safely, and in the end, Wallace decides to still be a vagrant for a bit longer – and to flirt with Hikari and Miyako a bit before he leaves. In the end, Wallace still has a long way to go if he wants to really grow as a person. But as Miyako points out, he’s gotten a bit bolder than he was before – and he’s greeted with an egg in the end, as if opening up new possibilities.

The Door to Summer contradicts the finding of this egg, or at least opens up the possibility that this wasn’t actually Chocomon’s, so it’s ambiguous as to whether the frame of Terriermon and Lopmon at the end of the credits is meant to be taken literally, or if it’s just symbolic. But even in the case of the latter, Chocomon is seen as Lopmon, a form he never got to have in Wallace’s childhood – so, in the end, it’s about different possibilities opening up in the future, rather than replicating that of the past.

All right, let’s recap this movie for those doing a tl;dr! Or, more specifically, let’s recap the events in chronological order:

Sometime before 1995, an egg emerges from Wallace’s mother’s computer, and hatches into twin Digimon, Chocomon and Gumimon.

In 1995, while playing in a flower field in Summer Memory with Wallace and Gumimon, Chocomon disappears for unknown reasons.

For the next seven years, Chocomon is trapped in delirium, full of loneliness and pain from being unable to see Wallace, and starts to become obsessed with the idea of reuniting with him, but, in his madness, accepts only a version of that reunion that involves him being the same young child he was when they parted, as if nothing had changed since.

Wallace, likewise, develops a fixation with getting Chocomon back so that things can be like “the way they were before”, even after moving to New York.

In 2002, Chocomon begins to kidnap kids with the same model of Digivice that Wallace has, and starts to forcibly turn them younger and send them into delirium like his own, hoping that this will bring the “Wallace” he wants back. Wallace starts to chase after him and decides that returning to the flower field in Summer Memory will allow him to communicate with Chocomon and make him go back to the way he was before.

Takeru and Hikari, hoping to find a lead on their seniors’ disappearance, drop a line to Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori, who head to the United States, also hoping to find a lead in Summer Memory. On the way, they run into Wallace, who is evasive about his connection to Chocomon and the kidnapping incidents.

At Summer Memory, Daisuke confronts Wallace and learns about his story, emphasizing deeply with the difficulty in killing an important friend, and agreeing that they should reach out to Chocomon at the flower field.

Chocomon continues to fall deeper into madness at the flower field, and Wallace and the others realize that they have no choice but to fight him. As Chocomon becomes so distorted he’s no longer recognizable, Wallace declares an intent to at least save his consciousness.

As the fight carries on, the kids are de-aged by Chocomon in his madness, and Magnamon (V-mon) and Gumimon are swallowed by Chocomon. However, the kids’ love for their partners awakens Chocomon’s consciousness again, and he asks Magnamon and Gumimon to end his pain.

With everything settled, Wallace and Gumimon are able to face forward into the future in the hopes of meeting Chocomon again and starting anew from scratch.

The Door to Summer

Actually, there’s not much to really be said about Hurricane Touchdown’s spiritual sequel The Door to Summer, except that it revisits similar territory to the movie, observing it more in Daisuke’s context than it does Wallace’s. (The story is very much more Daisuke’s than it is Wallace or Mimi’s.) The short synopsis is that Daisuke, having had a pretty bad time recently, finds himself in contact with a mysterious “winter” (in the middle of summer!) that seems to reflect his own heart…and a mysterious amnesiac girl whom Mimi names Onpu “Nat-chan”, who immediately latches onto Daisuke. In the end, “Nat-chan” turns out to be “a Digimon who’s taken in a lot of evil data,” who goes on a rampage and forces the others to fight and eventually kill her.

Although the reason for Nat-chan going on a rampage is more concrete than what was given in Hurricane Touchdown (it’s portrayed as “data chips” that seem like fireflies), The Door to Summer also makes it very clear that it wasn’t just supernatural influence, but also Nat-chan’s loneliness, desire for a human partner, and jealousy of Daisuke and V-mon’s relationship. Daisuke, while showing immense hesitation about fighting her when she had befriended them, still manages to “save” her in some way, to the point she actually verbally thanks him as she dies. And in the end, Daisuke and the others decide to take her egg and find a partner for her – even if she can’t be Daisuke’s partner like she wanted, she can still start anew with someone else.

Wallace in Kizuna

Warning: The rest of this post contains spoilers for Kizuna.

As said before, Hurricane Touchdown has been said to be the favorite Digimon movie of the director of Kizuna – and certainly, while Kizuna references all four Adventure-series theatrical movies, Hurricane Touchdown’s references are the least subtle, with the plot point of de-aging kids lifted directly from it. (Except, in this case, it’s in the context of trapping oneself in blissful memories rather than being portrayed as the upfront listless torture it is in Hurricane Touchdown.) Moreover, the theme of warning against being fixated on the past is just as present in Kizuna as it was in Hurricane Touchdown, especially when Kizuna’s main antagonist (Menoa) also falls victim to something that’s part supernatural influence and part getting swallowed by her own negative feelings…so it’s only fitting that Wallace himself makes a cameo in the movie. Two cameos, in fact.

The fact that Wallace is established as canonically existing within the Adventure main timeline has thrown a lot of people for a loop, especially since recent franchise events have made it questionable as to how it’s possible for canon to even make sense anymore because consistency has just gone out the window, but the Pixiv dictionary’s chosen rationalization for this is that, at the very least, “(some version of) Wallace exists in the timeline of the main story”. I’m inclined to agree with this evaluation; the fact that people around the globe can agree that the movie is questionably canonical but can’t even agree on how, and the fact that certain franchise entries considered canon (Tag Tamers) have their own contradictions, plus the fact that it’s not like Hurricane Touchdown takes a complete knife to timeline and lore common sense and more that it has some contradictory minutiae that are really easy to sidestep, it’s not actually that hard to say that some timeline of events that reasonably resembled Hurricane Touchdown (with maybe only some minor timeline or evolution differences) happened during the summer of 2002, and thus that Wallace exists.

Assuming that the story of our canonical Wallace is mostly the same or similar to that of the story presented in Hurricane Touchdown, Kizuna provides us with quite a bit of interesting information. We’re treated to two shots relevant to him: one in the form of his name at the top of Koushirou’s list of kidnapping victims, and one where he appears in person at the very end. It’s hard to miss him; he’s wearing similar colors to the clothes he wore in Hurricane Touchdown so you can identify him even at a distance, and he’s also the only loser around here with two partners. That’s right, two! Two!! Chocomon is back – and as Lopmon, exactly like the end credits card of Hurricane Touchdown depicted him!

So it looks like that, one way or another (after Hurricane Touchdown, after The Door to Summer, whatever, make up your own story), Wallace did manage to reunite with Chocomon and start a new life with him. It looks like not all of his habits have died – he’s depicted in a place with palm trees, meaning he’s definitely not in New York or Colorado, so either he’s moved again, is still maintaining the vagrant lifestyle, or just happens to be on vacation.

The other interesting thing here is that Wallace is depicted as one of the Eosmon kidnapping victims. According to Menoa, kidnapping victims were ones who were entertaining thoughts of wanting to go back to the past and remain a child forever – something that should intuitively be against everything Wallace learned in Hurricane Touchdown. But it’s important to point out that Eosmon’s lure is depicted as working on a subconscious level – certainly, if the kidnapping victims in Kizuna were to be outright asked if they wanted to be kidnapped and de-aged and trapped in their childhoods forever, most of them would probably say “no!”, and Wallace is likely no exception! But even if he’s starting his life anew with Chocomon now, it’s not hard to believe that there would still be lingering subconscious regrets about everything he’d lost with Chocomon and the childhood they could never spend together, ones that Eosmon’s allure would end up connecting with, even if the events of Hurricane Touchdown had consciously taught him better. Alas, being a human is hard.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #hurricane touchdown #shihameta #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers

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