Astinus

Heh, cute and pun-rific.

Thank you so much Asty!

Episode 19:

This is the one with Devimon's whirlpool. Highlights include Takeru laughing at Ken's ridiculous getup and Jun's continued struggle to join Yamato on the camping trip. The bit with Jun actually begs comparison with the hitchhiking jokes in the movie, and I think it works better here, probably because the scenes are spread out along the episode and it dovetails nicely with how everyone straight-up leaves Daisuke out of the loop for the whole episode because he can't get to an enemy that's across an ocean by himself. On that note, the reasons they give for splitting the party are so weird in this episode. "Why are we leaving Daisuke back there?" "So we're not leaving the girls alone," and then they don't ask, "...So why aren't we waking up the girls?" Really shoddy logistics work here. And as good as the actual confrontation between Takeru and Ken is, I didn't quite buy the setup with Devimon as the trigger. Yes, episode 13 of Adventure was traumatic, but Takeru mentions "endless despair" when it took literally seconds for him to get Angemon's egg and learn that he'll come back. The scene is shot and scripted like it's about a character who dies permanently, and the audience knows that's not the case so the connection to what follows doesn't stick. Anyway, next episode is Magnamon, and my memory says it's easily the best part of the show so far if not entirely, so that should be fun.

P.S. posted first chapter of Will Somebody Stop These Kids?, and I just realized this is the first pokemon chapter fic I've worked on since that dumb parody from years and years ago.

And now you get a really long post on your profile page. :)

Movie 3:

Jeeze louise, where do I even begin with this movie? The first two adjectives that came to mind were "weird" and "oppressive." "Weird" comes from the plot but also from the visuals. You can tell they wanted something similar to Hosoda's distinct style for the previous two movies, but when you don't have a genius like Hosoda actually in charge this can result in an uneven and bizarre look. Instead of having the fluid and lively quality of a Hosoda movie, this one's more like they filled the uncanny valley with wobbly jello. By "oppressive" I'm mostly referring to the music. I get that it's supposed to be the American West, but when it's overused to this degree it just makes everything drag. Combine that music with the intense but balky fight scenes and Chocomon's (Wendigomon's) weird noises and you have a movie that makes you scratch your head more than anything.

As for the story, it is a MESS. There are a number of decent ideas, but they're stitched together with such little coherence. Road trip through the west? Good idea. Chocomon spiriting away Chosen Children and turning them younger? Good idea. And here's how they try to make it happen: "Hikari sent us an email that says 'Please save my brother,' who is in Japan. Let's fly to America where she is!" It would have just taken a few lines to show why Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori know the correct thing to do is go to America, but they don't even bother! The very next shot they're on the plane! And then bad editing combined with that freaking music kills any comedic timing they should have had with the "With Monster" hitchhiking sign gag and the "Made in Japan is really great!" guy. I remember those jokes being much funnier, but I think it's because my brain mercifully mis-remembered the editing to make them funnier. What's especially confusing is that they thought they had to make those parts so short when most of the movie is dragged out to death. The movie is at the same time too short and too long.

And the resolution of it all is such horse hockey. "Hey we should evolve to Ultimate-level for the first time somehow and maybe something else will happen ow we lost but oh good something else happened." And why would blowing up the part of Cherubimon that's still Chocomon (Wendigomon) make Cherubimon turn momentarily good before death? Wouldn't it either A) not kill Cherubimon and make him even more evil or B) kill Cherubimon too but make him DIE evil? I'm fine with leaving a ton of wordy explanation out of the movie--that approach worked fine in the first movie--but it's another thing if you CAN'T explain it in-movie because it's nonsense. And they couldn't even be bothered to SHOW the original Chosen Children all better again at the end, we just have to take their word for it that they're fine now.

For the first time I feel a LITTLE sorry for the people who made Digimon: The Movie. You have 2 excellent movies to work with but they're only one hour put together, but the only other movie you can add is a weird, oppressive fever dream that would drive the whole thing up to TWO hours, which is 30 more minutes than you can justify. I'm sure a lot of the staff were laughing about it and enjoying the chaos of slicing, dicing, and frankensteining that abomination together, but there must have been at least one person who couldn't stomach it and had to drink away the pain.

The movie's not all bad. There's some good pyrotechnics, some of the imagery is freaky in a good way, and I like the settings. There's real, honest grit in the way they illustrate the underbelly of New York City and the dusty expanse of Colorado and South Dakota. I'm always interested to see how America is depicted in foreign media, and this movie provides an interesting perspective (Wallace's ludicrous Engrish aside. Wouldn't it have been cool if they'd hired someone with good English with awful Japanese?). And the backbone of the story is a good one, even if its execution is really poor and they had no idea how to resolve it with evolutions and a fight scene. And I like how Wallace calls Gummymon (Terriermon) and Chocomon (Wendigomon) by the names he first learned. If I seem harsher on this movie than I am on 02 itself, it's mostly because the first two Digimon movies were so great.

Interesting trivia: this movie was originally shown in two parts, with another short Toei movie in between.

I hadn't thought of that! I think I watched the third movie subbed once years and years ago, and I recall not liking it nearly as much as the first two (Hosoda forever). I definitely know the basic story from the dubbed movie (and GUH I hate that movie. Horrible violence to one of my favorite filmmakers), but I'm fuzzy on the parts that were cut. I checked Wikipedia, and it seems the movie was released between episodes 14 and 15, so I'll watch it next because I generally put order-of-publication over in-universe-chronology for reading/watching order (speaking of Narnia, lol). Also, here's what Wikipedia has to say about the placement of the movie in 02's continuity: "Due to events, which contradict those of the series, this movie is considered non-canonical.[citation needed]" Oh, Digimon fans and their attempts to reconcile canon.

Yeah, don't worry about Digimon Campaign, I read so little fanfiction myself so I'm never one to talk. Narnia's an old favorite of mine too. Weirdly enough it occupies a spot in my brain adjacent to Digimon Adventure because they were two things I got exposed to at a young age which both involved kids getting sent to a world that was both fantastical and spiritual (Angemon/Devimon, Aslan). In fact, if there's a work outside Digimon that was a big influence on Digimon Campaign it was Narnia. I won't get into too much, but the chief antagonist of the fic resembles a worshiper of Tash more than he does any particular Digimon villain.

Oh okay thanks. I didn't think of updating the splash. I'll do that now.

Episode 18:

I'm on the record as not liking the scenario where the kids go to the digital world and come back home the same day over and over again, so the "camping trip" gambit is a welcome change that makes the most of that scenario. I.e. it casts their real world lives as an obstacle to be overcome rather than a convenience. The stakes and level of danger still don't feel as high as I'd like, but it's a clever idea and I approve of anything that gets Yamato's dad involved in the story. The scene where Yamato and Takeru convince him to go along with it is pretty funny, as of course is the scene with Jun where Yamato ditches her in the most dickish way possible. The rest of the episode is about Miyako overcompensating for her trepidation and eventually coming to a deeper understanding with Hawkmon. They touched on the trepidation aspect of Miyako's character in episode 10, but it's handled much better here because the shifts happen for more of a reason and because it results in some amusing bits and an action scene that could have been pretty good if the animation weren't butt. Fortunately they're hinting at Chimeramon (and spoiling him in the next-ep preview as the Japanese are wont to do), meaning the best action scenes so far are coming soon if I'm remembering right.

P.S. started writing Will Somebody Stop These Kids?, which is from the plot bunny I put up a little while ago. I'm excited! :D

Happy new year to you as well!

Only from the tv this year, although people near where I was staying (at a friend's place) shared some fireworks at 3am or so.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas, Astinus!

oh hey merry xmas asty <3

Woo, presents! Bugger with working on Christmas Eve and the day after though. My family mostly celebrate on the 24th/25th.

Speaking of, my plans are being with family for the period, am already up here.

It has been hot in parts of Australia, but here not too bad considering typical Australian summers. We had two particularly hot days a couple weeks ago, but the rest has been okay, or even too cold for summer standards, which is weird.

I see you had a birthday sorta recently, so happy belated birthday!

Episode 17:

This episode features the triumphant return of Yamato's dad and the TV station crew, definitely some of my favorite adult characters from Adventure. These poor guys can't catch a break. I love how the guy in the bandana's angst over the ghost has as much to do with his show's encroaching deadline as with actual fear of the ghost. That fun stuff aside, the only important element in this episode is Wizarmon's cryptic hint, which sets up that there will be villains after Ken, that Ken will probably become a good guy (maybe this is less obvious if you haven't seen the show), and something to do with kindness and "the golden light" (Ken's Crest and Magnamon's digimental). Main character-wise this episode does little beyond re-establishing that Yamato and Takeru are close and reminding the viewers of their parents' situation. I did like the shot immediately after when Wizarmon and Tailmon try to touch hands and can't. The attempted touch is pretty standard for seeing-a-dead-friend-again scenes, but I thought the look of disappointment and resignation on Wizarmon's face as he floats away elevated it a bit. I always thought they managed to do a lot with a little when it came to Wizarmon's expressions in Adventure and this episode.

Btw, here's a comparison to show how padded the story is in 02 vs. Adventure. By this point in 02 they still haven't confronted the Kaiser all that directly, and by this point in Adventure they had already defeated Devimon and were halfway through the Etemon episodes.

Get up to much for it? And any Christmas plans?

happy bday <3

Astyyyyy! Happy Birthday! :D I hope you've been doing well as of late! ^__^

Happy birthday, Astinus! :)

Episode 16:

This is the one where Iori gets his Digimental of Sincerity (Reliability in the dub, and "Faithfulness" in the subs I'm using, but I'll be calling it Sincerity). There are a few things I like here, for example when they're trying to get Iori to pick up the Digimental and he gives a bunch of other excuses first before finally admitting to them (and himself!) that he doesn't think he deserves it because he just told a lie. Also, it's funny how Daisuke and V-mon are the only ones who don't catch on to the rigged game of straws. One thing I think could have been handled better is Jou's lesson for Iori about good/bad lies. It seemed sort of hand-wavy, like "Eh, sometimes lying's okay," where I think the more truthful lesson is that the essence of a "lie" has more to do with malicious intent than literal correctness. I think we need different words to distinguish "malicous lies," "benevolent oversimplifications," "telling a factual truth with malicious intent to deceive," etc. I may be asking too much from a fifteen-second scene in a kids' show, though. Crest fits Iori perfectly, definitely a better justification offered than with Friendship and Purity. That aside, Submarimon's special attacks look like the weakest nonsense ever. Shooting air and water while underwater, seriously?

I think there were four evolution sequences in a row, which is pretty shameful. I forgot about ShogunGekomon's hair; that makes more sense.

The plot bunny's been going pretty slowly for what I think is an okay reason: Pokemon Moon. :) I'm doing a blind Nuzlocke and coming up on the Elite Four. And on Tuesday Final Fantasy XV comes out, which probably won't help matters.

Good luck with 02 redux redux!

Thanksgiving has stuffing and Zero Two has filler. I prefer Thanksgiving.

Episode 15:

This is the one where they go to the Edo-themed town with the Gekomon, Tamamon, Floramon, etc. It's basically the Wild West episode but not as weird. I guess there's a little character work here, though. We see a sliver of Hawkmon's (Shurimon's) honor code in how he and Igamon keep fighting even after the tower goes down, but feels more like a fleeting, isolated moment than actual development. I suspect Japanese viewers might get more out of this episode with culture-specific references/jokes; for example there's this bit where they say goodbye and Daisuke speaks in what I assume is formal, period-appropriate mode. Miyako calls it "embarrassing," so maybe he's getting it hilariously wrong? Hard to tell when you don't speak Japanese. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯