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It is, of course, standard practice for fen to promote romantic pairings. I find myself amused that such partisanships are so frequently framed in terms of “evidence” when actual evidence is often sketchy at best. The tendency to find romance in this story, in particular, though, strikes me as an example of people getting into a rut.

In a general way, I’m perfectly happy for everyone to experiment to their hearts’ content with what might happen if character X paired up with character Y or possibly entered into a menage a trois with character Z into the bargain. In this show, though, the writers seem to have gone to more trouble than usual to mix the characters. They make it fairly clear that each member of the team has a close relationship with every other member, each according to personality. I would also say that romantic tension is more than usually absent, up until Frontier where Kouji’s protectiveness of Takuya does rather ring classic Japanese romance bells; after all, it’s not as though Takuya isn’t just as competent to defend himself as Kouji by virtue of even greater strength if somewhat lesser skill. Previous to that, there just isn’t much there.

(Pause while the author ducks the barrage of rotten fruit.)

Strong Relationships

No, I’m serious. I will happily agree that some of the relationships are set off as particularly strong. The pairings I have the least trouble understanding are the Leader and the Loner. Both Taichi and Yamato, and Daisuke and Ken are highlighted. Plotwise, it’s Yamato’s return in Episode 50, 01, that results in a rather touching emotional scene between he and Taichi; the tear-filled declaration that nothing will ever come between them again is certainly open to future romantic interpretations; and the shot of Garurumon nuzzling WarGreymon, who then heals, is too sweet for words. Visually, you may note that whenever the 02 team is together (after Ken is de-Kaisered, anyway) Ken and Daisuke tend to be side by side, out front of the others; they are, of course, the first to find their way into fusion evolving; and the way that Chibimon and Minomon wake up Daisuke, after Ken has slept over, by wrestling on the bed is, again, just too cute.

Makes me wonder what’s going to be made of Takato and Ruki, in Tamers. Wouldn’t she run right over top of him? A threesome in this instance strikes me as the most likely future outcome, along the lines of their song “Primary Colors”. Not necessarily a romantic one, though. Even in the first few episodes, we see that a separate romantic interest has been provided for Takato, in the person of Juri (sock-puppet girl).

4/14/02 Like I thought. If Ruki’s got a future-indicative match in that season, it’s Ryou who has enough snap to avoid being run over. I have been interested to note the extent to which Ruki and Juri’s friendship is emphasized–definitely the opposites-attract philosophy at work.

At any rate, Sora also shows up pretty strongly as the 01 team’s second-in-command. But, as my nomenclature should indicate, if I had to typecast her, it would be as the Perfect Executive Officer and not the Perfect Girlfriend. Organized, responsible, wants to make sure things are running smoothly–the girl is XO material all the way. She’s the one that, for example, helps the sleepy Mimi to lie down comfortably in Episode 2, 01, and the one who encourages and supports Noriko (the seeded girl Ken is especially concerned for) in Episode 49, 02.

Incidentally, this is why I also understand people who want to pair up Wallace and Daisuke (OVA 3). Except that he’s not nearly as tortured, Wallace serves much the same plot function as Ken does–the loner who comes to understand the power and joy of working with a team. Certainly, the grand old time Wallace has teasing Daisuke by kissing Miyako and Hikari goodbye would fit right into an analysis a la Sedgwick that women form the medium of exchange between men, the occasion for expression of homosocial bonds. (That is, the point of those kisses is to tease Daisuke, not to address Hikari’s or Miyako’s attractions or desires.) Certainly the expression of mischief on his face and the speed with which he takes to his heels afterward, leaving Daisuke steaming in his wake, seems to indicate that his target in the endeavor was Daisuke. That kind of teasing is actually one of the reasons I like this character.

That said, however, I have to point out that all these relationships are presented in the context of a bunch of eleven-year-olds. There are no gestures among the teams that are at all sexual, unless you count Yamato holding the injured Taichi. Very iffy.

And the reason I don’t want to count that as sexual is that I think we, as a community, are starting to miss something.

Friendships

They’re best friends. While I’m all about the idea that best friends can sleep together, I would like us to keep it firmly in mind that they can also not sleep together. I’m of the personal opinion that one of the most precious things any friend can offer is non-sexual physical contact. I admit this is a product of my own past, but I consider it no less valid for our culture at large, given the general obsession with things sexual.

My mother (who lived through it) has pointed out that the “Sexual Revolution” gave women the right to have sex, but didn’t give them the right not to have sex. I think this is a failing of US culture as a whole, for both men and women. It’s taken the death-toll of AIDS to bring the right-not-to into some currency, and it isn’t nearly as well established as I’d like.

Here is a story that offers us wonderful examples of groups who are very close, who rely on each other in deadly serious situations, who touch each others’ souls, and yet are not involved sexually. In fact, I think the writers did this on purpose. You note that, in 02 when the first group of Chosen children are old enough to have gotten the hormonal wake-up call, Taichi and Yamato, while clearly still very good friends, don’t display the same kind of physical intimacy they did in 01? It’s rather a shame, actually, because they could without it being sexual. But I think that drawing back was intended to make a point. Then, too, while I will be the first to agree with Meimei and Ajora that Episode 50 was a serious acid trip on someone’s part, you note that there were a grand total of two couples internal to the group? Ken and Miyako, and Yamato and Sora; that was it. And all of them had kids, which tends to indicate fairly serious liasons at some point for all of them. Hikari and Takeru, who joke together, work as a team with their noticably paired mon and are generally best friends all through the show, aren’t romantically paired. None of the jogress partners, who must after all match each other’s motivations and desires in order to make the fusion work, are romantically paired. Miyako and Daisuke, who have a lot in common in the way of headstrong stubbornness and who are comfortable enough with each other to fight vociferously over food, aren’t, nor are the common-interest/common-position pairs like Koushirou and Miyako, Miyako and Mimi or Yamato and Ken.

When Taichi and Koushirou are working together in the middle of the movie (and nearly get into a fight–shades of Yamato), when Jyou and Mimi share seasickness, when Yamato and Jyou draw Sora out of her depression in the Cave of Darkness (which is what I call it since it seems to parallel the Dark Ocean), when Daisuke catches Miyako as she trips crossing a bridge (after, I was interested to note, Miyako preempted his attempt to catch Hikari coming the other way; he never did gallantly assist Hikari, but does help Miyako who he’s never in romantic pursuit of), when Daisuke runs on foot after Arachnimon as she absconds with Ken, when Ken (apparently) calls Stingmon to save Iori, when Miyako shakes Hikari out of the grip of the Dark Ocean and tells her she’s the strongest person Miyako’s ever known, none of this is because they’re in love with each other. I’ll allow that they may love each other, but not that it’s romantic. It isn’t that simple.

This is not to say that I object to the notion that it could be, at some point in the future, but it isn’t in the immediate framework. What people tend to call romantic love and associate with sex, in my opinion, is pretty superficial and evanescent. Friendship, trust, understanding, those are a lot harder to come by and more enduring than mere lust; and while physical attraction can come out of those things, that’s not the premise I see people writing from.

So, let’s try a different side, shall we? Just for kicks. Go on, I dare you.

“1. Exaltation to divine rank or stature; deification. 2. An exalted or glorified example” (American Heritage Dictionary)

I couldn’t resist this as my title for the page devoted to Ken. After all, it’s one of the meanings of shinka, and it was what the Kaiser was after. At least that first definition was. The second definition brought Osamu to mind in a big way, and he was certainly the root of a fair number of twists in Ken’s psyche.

Fun with Names

As has been noted elsewhere, the kanji used for Ken’s name is the one that means wise or clever. But without his nametag, the possibilities expand hugely. There are dozens of kanji pronounced ken; it’s like shin–all over the bloody place. And they all mean something different. Now, most of them have ken as the holdover Chinese pronunciation, and a different pronunciation attached from Japanese (that’s part of the fun). Some of the meanings that jumped out at me, though, were firm/hard/strong/strict, power/right/authority/influence, kind/considerate/to regard affectionately, and to be modest/humble. There seems to be a division of categories in the meaning. Some are, for lack of a better term, aggressive, while some are quiet. I would say the one that means sword falls into the aggressive side; if I recall correctly, it’s the kanji that’s used to form the word scolding.

At any rate, I rather suspect this name was chosen with an eye to this duality. Ken clearly has the capacity for aggression; my personal opinion is that all Darkness did was suppress his restraint. At the same time, his strongest defining characteristic is Kindness. Not only is it his crest, which indicates that it is his “best” quality as per Gennai’s explanation to the kids in 01, but it’s what Wormmon warns him about having an overbalance of in their first encounter (see flashback in Episode 23).

Pursuant to that…

Kindness and Strength

Wormmon tells Ken that he values Ken’s kindness, but that Ken must also have strength. Enemies, Wormmon points out, will take advantage of Ken’s gentleness and corrupt him if Ken doesn’t have sufficient strength to back them off. Very cogent warning. Lo and behold, Ken gets back to the real world and we have a graphic demonstration of why he’s vulnerable. Someone who was nothing but gentle might only have been in danger of being tortured and killed, but Ken has something else that must have made him downright tasty to Arachnemon and Vamdemon (Myotismon)–anger. Hell, can you blame the kid? First his parents are just fawning on his big brother, and then big brother yells at him for being drawn to what is after all Ken’s own digivice. And takes it away again, on top of that. So here’s a good kid with a gentle disposition having to deal with perfectly reasonable anger at the people he still loves. It’s only to be expected that he would suppress the anger, especially after Osamu is killed. Then he’s got standard survivor guilt to reinforce his discomfort with his own anger. He probably manages to bury his anger for a while, though it’s hard to say for sure since we never see those years. Then comes the fateful email and the trip to the Dark Sea. Whereupon, it sure looks to me like all Ken’s buried hostility comes roaring to the surface, unrestrained by his basic good nature. This is one of those places where having the original helps. Price did a very nice villainous Kaiser, but listening to Paku we get the voice of someone who is not simply evil but actually insane. Think Escaflowne‘s Dilandu. Thus, my hypothesis that what Darkness does is suppress Ken’s restraint.

And, really, it can’t possibly have been a coincidence that the Kaiser bears such a striking resemblance to the way Osamu looks as he’s bawling chibi-Ken out for using the Digivice. The hair and reflectivity of glasses was almost identical. Besides, there are several visuals that reinforce the idea. When Ken ‘comes back’ to his parents, the shot of their reunion is from the point-of view of Osamu’s picture on the mantle. Then there’s the picture in Ken’s dream of Osamu holding the Kaiser’s glasses, surrounded by bubbles. There we have both sides of Osamu: the caring (bubbles) and the harsh (Kaiser’s glasses). This suggests several things to me. Ken may have internalized Osamu’s temper and harsh tendencies; after all, his parents seem to have wanted Ken to copy Osamu. And remember the words of wisdom over the bubbles? Ken is better at it because he’s gentler, while Osamu blows too hard and breaks the bubbles. That harshness definitely shows up in the shadowed Ken. Too, Ken may be externalizing a major cause of his anger, making it visible as he acts out his hostility. At the most basic level, I think it’s pretty clear that the writers/artists want us to realize that Osamu and his flash-paper temper are very involved in what the Kaiser becomes.

A particularly telling example of Ken’s lack of control as the Kaiser is the fight with Takeru in Episode 19.

Violence and Control

So, Ken is being his usual obnoxious Kaiser-self and asserting his own perfection. Takeru laughs, which is probably the best/worst thing he could have done, depending on your point of view. Ken strips a gear and lashes out with that whip of his, cutting Takeru across the face. Takeru, at this point, gets that rather fey look on his face that he has when he’s dropping out of innocent-and-hopeful mode and into crusader-from-hell mode. He’s pretty sharp in that latter mode; he asks Ken whether his reaction to being at a loss for words is always to strike out. Ken, looking pretty taken aback, downright stammers that it is. Takeru notes that this is Ken’s big problem–not knowing when to talk and when to fight. Then comes the part that I think shows Takeru’s own fault-lines. He first says that this is a time to talk, and then yells that it’s also a good time to fight and jumps the Kaiser. I can’t help but think that he might have been able to turn Ken right then and there if Takeru’s own past hadn’t overwhelmed his judgment. Ken looks pretty shocked by what Takeru’s saying.

In fact, our dear Kaiser must have been pretty wigged out at this point, because Takeru gets the drop on him. We’re talking about someone who’s proficient in Judo, yes? He should have thrown Takeru into the wall. But he doesn’t. In fact, Takeru pounds on him before the return of Chimeramon interrupts them. Besides this, I find it curious that Ken, who is good enough at handling that whip to break in half a hefty branch that Iori throws at him (Ep. 8), suddenly uses it so clumsily that Takeru can catch it. Thus, my suggestion that Darkness produced a loss of control mechanisms in Ken. It let his hostility and aggression loose, and in the process seriously degraded his ability to deal with reality. When reality, in this case Takeru, intrudes in such as way as can’t be ignored, Ken doesn’t have access to any of the ways he might normally compensate for the unexpected. Unbridled anger does tend to make one extremely single minded and narrow of focus.

That’s one of the reasons I think Takeru has something in common with Ken during this confrontation; his own anger is making him behave similarly. They seem to do that a lot–note the similar expressions here and here. He passes it on to Iori, too, judging by Iori’s rampant intolerance of Ken for the next handful of episodes. Takeru is a bit more flexible than that; he strikes me as one of the most complex of the characters. For all the anger between them to start with, I suspect Takeru and Ken understand each other very well. As Yamato points out, Takeru is the only one who understands what Ken felt when Wormmon evaporated. Takeru is certainly the first one after Daisuke to think that Ken really has changed and deserves a second chance. The one I bet really baffles Ken is Daisuke.

Water

See, Ken definitely has his pride. For all that his efforts toward genius-hood were inspired by all the wrong reasons, I think his pride in his accomplishments was real. He would not, I suggest, have broken so completely once he realized his mistakes if he hadn’t had a good deal of pride. It was the understanding that his actions were so very far from the image of himself that he’d held that causes Ken such extended agony; if he had been able to accept that his actions were the result of Darkness overshadowing him, he would have been all right. It was the fact that his actions were rooted in permanent aspects of his personality that threw him so badly. And what but pride would drive him to work alone for so long? Fear of rejection, to be sure, but he doesn’t precisely avoid the other Chosen. He saves Iori’s bacon, after all, which is how they figure out he’s wandering around destroying Spires. He just refuses to deal with those complications. At least until Daisuke wears him down (and smacks him one).

I imagine Daisuke is a real puzzle to Ken, no matter what condition he’s in. Here’s someone who seems to have a good deal of ego, but also seems to have no pride to speak of. Daisuke’s very good at groveling. Episode 8 is the most famous example, of course. Ken decides to engage in some psychological torture to make up for Daisuke a) surprising him out of a point in soccer and b) making him look bad in the process. So he wants Daisuke to beg for the lives of his alleged friends, hung up for the monster. Daisuke folds right up and begs charmingly; I bet Ken was in heaven. Daisuke’s words to Veemon are telling; when his partner hesitates to hold him down, Daisuke says to do it and that anything that gets the others free is fine with him. It’s torture for him all right, but only because his friends are (supposedly) in danger. The humiliation doesn’t touch him. Similarly, as Daisuke and Veemon are being chased by that triceratops looking mon, Daisuke has no hesitation in groveling when he asks for a favor before being killed (handwashing…). And these things never affect him. He’s like water. He gives way to everything and just keeps on going. His pride is based, not on any appearance of dignity, but on whether he accomplishes his goals–however silly those goals may occasionally be. Even after Ken recovers, I doubt he really understands this. But that’s precisely Daisuke’s gift to him–the message (or perhaps lecture) that it’s human to mess up and need help to fix things, and admit the fact.

There is no doctrine of forms in our philosophy. We were put [so it's said] into our bodies, as fire is put into a pan, to be carried about; but there is no accurate adjustment between the spirit and the organ, much less is the latter the germination of the former. So in regard to other forms men do not believe in any essential dependence of the material world on thought and volition….[but this is false] For we are not firepans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and torchbearers, but children of the fire, made of it, and only the same divinity transmuted, and a two or three removes, when we know least about it.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet

Now, in general, I think Emerson is one of the hardest blow-hards of US literature, and that’s saying something, but this quote seemed to speak to the idea of how digital and real world interact in Digimon.

Bioengineering and Family

As I mentioned at the start of the first page, I see some bioartificing metaphors in here. Particularly the idea that intention has a good deal to do with whether something that is alive will develop benignly or malignly. Or, in fact, develop at all. With Ken, we have examples of both. On the one hand is Chimeramon, a digimon created by more than usually artificial means, solely with an eye to his power. And, of course, that’s exactly what the problem is. Chimeramon is uncontrollable, the fleshed out spirit of hostility and aggression in which he was created. Frankenstein, anyone? On the other hand, there’s Wormmon, who can’t evolve to Adult until Ken gets off his it’s-all-a-game power trip. It’s clear, as the show goes on, that the digimon depend on their human partners for the motive force to evolve. It isn’t until each human realizes and accepts her/his potential for fill-in-the-attribute that the mon have the energy to evolve. This set-up doesn’t actually have much in common with Frankenstein at all. That story is a case of a human trying to break into the powers of nature/god and doing just a little too well, spiritually, and a little to badly aesthetically. This is more the other way around. Chimeramon has no soul, and Ken-as-Kaiser isn’t capable of sharing enough of his soul to let Wormmon evolve.

The biological metaphor stresses investment. If you’re not invested in the beneficent progress of the life dependent on you, as you would be in the wellbeing of your very best friend, development won’t happen or will go catastrophically wrong. The political/familial metaphor is actually fairly similar.

Andrew Tudor designates some useful categories of scare-stories like this: “secure horror” and “paranoid horror” (qtd. in “Panic Sites”, Susan J Napier, Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture, ed. John Whittier Treat). In the first, “the collectivity is threatened, but only from outside, and is ultimately reestablished” (240), while in the second “danger comes not from outside in the form of alien invaders…but from one’s friends, family, even oneself. As Tudor describes it, ‘gone is the sense of an established social and moral order which is both worth defending and capable of defense. Gone too is the assumption that there are legitimate authorities who can demand our cooperation in exchange for their protection’” (248). The cases in point, respectively, are Godzilla and Akira. By these terms, I would call Digimon’s corrupted-human theme secure horror with paranoid tendencies. The collectivity is threatened from within, but also is preserved, and while authority (parents) screw up they also straighten themselves out. Authority is not totally de-legitimized, but I would note that this is one of the few children’s shows I know of that sets forth the concept of reciprocal responsibility on the part of parents and kids. Ken’s parents have to realize their mistakes in pushing both their sons too hard for the sake of their own pride before Ken can return to a more traditional relationship with them. They need to have the same kind of investment in and care for their son as he needs to have for Wormmon. These parallels are striking, to me, because the digimon are never presented as in a parent-child relationship with their human partners. They are freinds, and the digimon often provide words of wisdom that their humans need. Indeed, on the most notable occasion of human priorities dictating digimon priorities, when Garurumon and Greymon get into a fight because of the conflict between Yamato and Taichi, it’s presented as about the worst thing that can happen–as Yamato being taken over by evil and Taichi getting sucked in. If you turn it around, the implication is that parents and children need to have relationships of a certain equality.

I see this as part and parcel of the populist politics that seem to crop up in anime right and left.

I also find it interesting that in Tamers the focus seems to be different. It’s the one-ness of the children and the digimon that is emphasized. Note that it’s Takato’s particularly strong cross-identification with Guilomon, to the extent that Takato feels the blows that Guilomon takes and finds himself vocalizing the attacks that Guilomon makes, that makes his partner digimon so strong. As the show goes on, this extends to the biomerge phenomenon, wherein the digimon reach Ultimate (that is, postPerfect) status only in physical merge with their human partners. This gets us back to collectivity in a big way, emphasizing as it does the power of lending one’s very self to another to accomplish a common goal. At the same time, I would note that it’s the partner who seems more directive (the Tamer) who does the lending. So I think we also have an implicit message here about the nature of public service and leadership. A good leader gives him/herself over completely to those who put his/her will into action.

Frontier, of course, turns the whole thing in a somewhat different direction. The children are the digimon. In Frontier, the message is hitched to the way the group interacts among themselves. While a lot of fans felt that it was a cop-out to spend the last twelve episodes with Takuya and Kouji being the only two who could evolve sufficiently to kick butt, the whole thing was a classic set-up. Junpei even makes it explicit: Takuya and Kouji are the ones who can be the focal point; that does not mean that the other children are not important. Without the support of the others, Takuya and Kouji would be useless. It’s really a very practical moral: when individual strength is not enough, decisions have to be made about who will carry the hope and weight and honor of the collective. This dynamic even shows between Kouji and Takuya when the two of them are in the last fight with Cherubimon. Kouji says that he will be Takuya’s shield, to get him close enough to attack; when Takuya protests such a sacrifice, Kouji points out that as MagnaGarurumon he isn’t equipped to do anything else at this critical point. Kouichi, Izumi, Junpei and Tomoki give up their strength so that Takuya and Kouji will be able to fight effectively, but the flipside of this is that those two give themselves up to the will of the collective.

Reciprocality.

Im and Material

The boundary between the material and the non-material is crossed and re-crossed in this show. The immaterial attributes like faith, kindness, courage are translated into something material. They become the digimon’s sustenance. At the same time, the immaterial nature of apparently solid digimon is made graphically clear twice–when Angemon and Wormmon are both destroyed, reconfigured and reborn. In Season 01 Yamato finds that the apparently real digital world is a computer program, but is quickly disabused of his notion that this means the humans are unhurtable; damage will translate back to their real bodies.

The message that what happens inside your head is real is pretty strong here. And, in addition to the biogenetic metaphor, we have something that hardly qualifies as a metaphor, it’s so direct a parallel–the net. The digital world reminds me so much of a MUD it’s alarming. It particularly reminds me of the way people who are very involved in any form of gaming talk about their adventures. It’s always “Well, when the dwarf died we tied a rope around him and used him to check for traps ahead” (the dwarf-player was rather irate, if I recall). I’ve seen this manner of speaking severely throw off people who don’t understand the basis and think that there’s a graphic element involved, or even physical acting out; they tend to be a little wigged out to find it’s all text (or talk). But that’s what makes it alive–everyone participating to create, in their heads, a commonly visualized world.

And just ask anyone who’s ever been the victim of harassment or abuse via the net–what happens in-there-out-here is real.

Digimon makes this point with a sledgehammer. The realization that finally breaks Ken down is that he’s been taking out his hostilities on real creatures. Real defined here not in terms of molecular makeup, but in terms of behavior, feeling and self-awareness.

I think someone among the writers agrees with my In Favor of Productive Debate arguments. Ken and his Kaiser persona remind me forcibly of the way people take personas out on the net and take that demi-anonymity as liscense to act out all their most anti-social tendencies. The subtext of Ken’s anguish at realizing that he hasn’t been acting out in his own private, self-created and un-real world, but rather in a real and public world shared by others that he’s been abusing, is that today’s realms of virtuality require care to navigate. I suspect there’s a message here about the long-standing cliche that it’s all right to read/watch/play out graphic violence (and sexual violence) because it’s cathartic and helps one contain those urges in real life. That’s certainly what Ken thought he was doing. But the consequences were very real.

I’ve been on kind of an obscure-title kick lately. This one is almost as bad as the FY page title. In this case it’s a Darwin reference. He was really into how the shape of finch beaks changed depending on the type of food available. Evolution in action. I was mildly surprised to find, when I looked up shinka, that it really does translate directly to “evolution.” And also to apotheosis/true value/retainer, but I suspect that last, at least, involves different kanji.

Interesting, you know, that we so often consider evolution progressive when it depends so entirely on accidents. A gene complex has to exist, first, for it to be selected for, and the existence of a complex favorable to any given environment is up to chance mutation (since I don’t buy divine interference in any way, shape or form…maybe I’ve just answered my own question, though.) At any rate, this is one story that presents beneficial evolution (vs. evolution gone dangerously wrong) as very dependent on will and intention. Bio-engineering metaphors, anyone? More of this on the Children of the Fire (Reality, in the menu) page.

So, anyway, Reader Advisories: spoilers, of course. Also, though I swore up and down never to do this, most of these pages are based on the dub. *grumble, grumble, mutter* I really want Fox to put these out in dual language format. Meanwhile, as I slowly collect the WPP-3G subs, I have supplemented the translation with snippets gleaned from the music (shinka as the transformation reference, for example) and from people like Meg-chan (see link at the bottom of the page). Since I’m catching the show via TV, and have only seen a scattered half of Season One, this is largely based on Season Two. We’ll see what Tamers adds to the scene as time goes on, likewise Frontier.

Names

I use the Japanese names, sur-given order, purely to assuage my feeling that I’m selling out by basing this page on the dub. For the benefit of those who are still trying to pin down who’s who:

Yagami Taichi-Tai
Ishida Yamato-Matt
Takenouchi Sora-Sora
Izumi Koushirou-Izzy
Tachikawa Mimi-Mimi
Kido Jyou-Joe

Takaishi Takeru-TK
Yagami Hikari-Kari

Motomiya Daisuke-Davis
Inoue Miyako-Yolei (where they got this one, I don’t know; most of the anglicizations are pretty obvious but how they came up with Yolei and Cody for Miyako and Iori…)
Hida Iori-Cody
Ichijouji Ken-Ken

Ichijouji Osamu-Sam
Wallace-Willis

Lee Jenrya-Henry (I’ve also seen this rendered as Jianliang, which I believe would be the phoneticization from Chinese–and would sound about the same)
Makino Ruki-Rika (don’t quite get the logic of this one, either)
Matsuda Takato-Takato (eeh? very confused emilymon)
Katou Juri-Jerri (actually, I haven’t the foggiest how the English version is spelled)
Shiota Hirokazu-Kazu
Kitagawa Kenta-Kenta (it’s the season of unchanged names)
Akiyama Ryou-Ryo (the weirdest cross-over I know of, may I add)
Lee Shiuchon-Suzie (…)

Kanbara Takuya-Takuya
Minamoto Kouji-Koji (they never think we can handle long vowels)
Orimoto Izumi-Zoe (well, I guess they couldn’t very well make her Izzy)
Shibayama Junpei-JP (gag, hack, enough with the bloody initials already!)
Himi Tomoki-Tommy (whimper…)
Kimura Kouichi-Kouichi

And through here, if you wish to look, are the Digimon names, as well as I can make them out through the consistency-faults between 01 and 02. English dub names are the ones in parentheses; if no parentheses, then no difference in names. In some cases, it’s merely a difference in phonetic rendering–for example, Greymon and Birdramon; in those cases, I use the anglicized rendering in the rest of these pages.

You may notice that I’ve glossed Tailmon rather differently than you will probably find her elsewhere. Please do not bother to correct me on this. This is based on my personal opinion of how it bloody well ought to be, despite the fact that it isn’t. I believe Meg-chan when she says the cards (Japanese edition) say Tailmon is an Adult. I think that was a really bizarre design choice, and also that it’s contradicted by the visuals of the show. I’m assuming, for the moment, that the story of Tailmon’s lost egg indicates that Nyaromon was her Baby 2 form and Plotmon is her Child form (I haven’t seen that ep yet). Nevertheless, I’m leaving the above personal version of reality intact.

See, it’s like this.

Indications that Tailmon is an Adult: The cards (and, by implication, the original show dialogue) say she is. She jogress evolves to Sylphimon from Tailmon, when everyone else does so from their Adult forms. There is a visual parallel between Nyaromon and forms like Koromon and Tsunomon, which we know are Baby 2 forms.

Of course, that first trumps all other indications to the contrary, but I’m in a contrary sort of mood as I write this, so I’m going to list the contradictions anyway.

All the 02 digimon armor evolve from their Child forms, and pass back down through Child from Adult in order to do so; if Plotmon is the Child form, she should pass through that one and she doesn’t. In the opening of Season 01 and when the 02 gang are talking over evolving with Qinglongmon (Azulongmon) if I recall correctly, Tailmon is shown with the other Child forms and Angewomon is shown with the other Adult forms. Along the same lines, there is also a visual parallel between forms like Tokomon and Koromon, which we know are Baby 2, and Plotmon, as there are between Patamon, Agumon (Child) and Tailmon, and Angemon, Greymon (Adult) and Angewomon.

There are inconsistencies here whichever way you look at it. Either Tailmon can jogress evolve from Child or she armor evolves from Adult. When everyone de-evolves from jogress, she gets knocked down Plotmon; any way you look at that, it’s only one step down for her, when everyone else is bumped down two levels. So I’m going to indulge my stubbornness and say that Tailmon should be a Child form, even though she doesn’t seem to be. Yes, I realize that denial of reality is a psychotic symptom; surely you’ve noticed by now that we’re all a bit nuts. At least I know it.

Speaking of digimon and their names, the spider lady represents one of my favorite examples of botched re-phoneticization. The dub version of Arukenymon, if you pronounce it with a Japanese twist, comes out to something like Arukenemon. If you meditate on English to Japanese transfers, take out the extraneous vowels and change the k to a hard ch you wind up with Arachnimon. Arachnid, as in spider. And not one of the dub staff seems to have realized it.

And, just out of curiosity, can anyone tell me why so many page authors leave the last “d” off of digidestined? I’m really starting to wonder.

Speaking of names, did you know that Yamato Takeru is the name of a legendary hero? Saved his father’s kingdom, turned into a swan after his death, flew up to the heavens. An illustrated account of the legend is through here. I understand an anime series has been made based on it. How loosely, I have no idea.

And is it just me, or does Tokomon bear a remarkable resemblance to Fizzgig of The Dark Crystal? It’s all the teeth when he attacks.

Anyway…

Imagination

As you might gather from the title of this page, the treatment of imagination in Digimon fascinates me. Toward the end of Season Two, as the various Chosen children are fighting BelialVamdemon (MaloMyotismon), first in that dreams-to-reality world and then in the digital world proper, Gennai explains that the digital world is the result of digital information (computers themselves? the net?) interacting with dreams. I am reading dreams and imagination more or less interchangably, here. We have two very explicit examples, in Season Two, of what happens when people try to separate children from the worlds in which they shape their dreams. Both have truly dire consequences.

When Ken is young, he discovers the digital world via one of those handy digivice materializations and meets Wormmon. Then along comes Osamu and takes it away. Major bad news. Particularly when he blames his little brother for being drawn to what turns out, after all, to be Ken’s digivice.

When Oikawa is young, he has a remarkably similar experience. In that case, it’s Iori’s grandfather who cuts Daddy and friend off from their dreams. If the dub is accurate, Grandad explicitly admits that he stopped their games with the digital world precisely because he thought it was a case of overactive imagination.

I hate that phrase, you know?

At any rate, I severely doubt it’s coincidence that both these people are the ones targeted by darkness. In fact, it was Oikawa’s severance from his world of free imagination that leads directly to a) his overshadowing and b) Ken’s overshadowing, which Oikawa seems to have been instrumental in.

Now, it’s fairly obvious that the world of imagination is just as dangerous as the real world. Right from the get-go in Season 01, the kids are in danger of being squashed by rampaging mon, wiped out by dark mon, etc. All is not sweetness and light, here. On the other hand, it’s the qualities learned and developed over the course of their imaginative adventures that allow the kids to save both worlds (over and over and over…). Teamwork is a pretty basic one; so are trust and fortitude. And that doesn’t even mention the crest/digimental qualities found in the individual children. The cultural prescription here interests me. One should freely, even wildly, indulge one’s imagination and develop one’s individuality, the message seems to go, but in service of collective goals and along the lines of traditional virtues. Not, however, the self-effacing virtues. Ken-as-Kaiser overshoots that mark, but you’ll notice that not one of the Chosen children is a passive follower.

I also find it interesting that we have both an example of great intelligence that is still positive and great intelligence that is negative. Koushirou is our good genius who works with the team; he’s a vital part of a whole lot of solutions, and the fact that he substitutes intellectual understanding for emotional understanding (go read the translation of “Open Mind” some time) doesn’t impair that. Ken-overshadowed and the children influenced by copies of the Dark Seeds, on the other hand, are clearly negative models. They have nothing but contempt for everyone around them, are completely isolated, and run headfirst into their own potential destruction because of it. The equation seems to be isolated genius equals overwhelmed and consumed by darkness. The part that particularly catches my attention is that both the children and Ken seem to lose their outstanding abilities when they break free from darkness. This strikes me as of a piece with the bio-metaphor encoded in the mon’s evolution: development will only be beneficial if it’s pursued for the right reasons, otherwise it will go horribly wrong and you’ll have to abandon it and start over from square one.

This is the kind of thing that makes me think anime in general is the medium most deeply and forcefully involved in reformulating the heritage of collectivist ideals in Japanese culture to take advantage of the more individual-distinction-ideal systems showcased (flaunted, drug in cat-style) by other first-world nations. The ethos/mythos of the US, to take the example I’m most familiar with, holds individuality and differentiation dominant over collectivity. The anime I’ve seen neither accept nor reject that stance. Rather, these stories take it apart and mix it in wherever it seems to fit beneficially.

I wouldn’t take it as a compliment, though. Ever notice how astoundingly the Control Spires resemble the Washington Monument?

Before any of my readers who may be taking statistics this term jump on me, yes my sample size is both very limited and also biased. The anime that tend to come to my attention are those that have appealed enough to a US audience to migrate here, and usually be dubbed. Of course those are the very ones that are likely to to display themes assimilated from this culture. Still. Sailor Moon and Digimon are high profile shows back home, and in the former case at least I could base my analysis on the original (hint, hint, fansubbers *winsome smile*). It’s a valid hypothesis, I’d say. Thoughts?

Violence

On the one hand, the character of Black WarGreymon represents another theme I’ve started to expect: the futility of the un-reflective warrior. He reiterates over and over that his destiny and purpose are obviously only to fight. In the end, of course, Qinglongmon smacks him, verbally, upside the head and tells him to get over it and stop expecting other people to provide his life-meaning and motivation for him. It isn’t fighting in general that’s being hissed, here, but fighting for its own sake with no ennobling cause to drive one to it. Moreover, the whole concept of letting other people tell you with whom and when to take up a fight is presented as the loser’s option–a denial of proper responsibility. Interesting balance; it’s one I appreciate.

What happens inside the in-group, however, seems to be a different story.

I’ve seen it elsewhere, but it’s particularly noticable in this story. The approved way to bring a friend to his senses if he’s feeling out of it or acting foolish seems to be to haul off and belt him one. Yamato whacks Taichi for being non-productive over Agumon’s abduction (ep. 10), Daisuke smacks Ken (ep. 26), and Miyako slaps him (ep. 30) for similar reasons (not to mention the dust-up with Takeru in 19–this boy gets mauled quite a bit), Miyako and Hikari trade slaps in ep. 31, to say nothing of the catfight between Angewomom and Lady Devimon in ep.50, 01. That last, at least, is between enemies, but the rest are among friends and it’s presented as something that works and should be appreciated not resented (this one I don’t get).

A lot of this was left in, which was the part that rather surprised me given how squeamish US dubbers generally are. The bits that got clipped tended to involve guns being drawn, or else blows harder than a slap. Slapping is uncut, the sequence when Takeru jumps the Kaiser seems to be uncut. I suspect the second is because most of the hitting is shown from an oblique angle; I was more surprised they left in the business with the whip, despite the oblique angles, but I suppose there had to be some explanation for the cut on Takeru’s face. Besides, they’re official enemies at the time, and that seems to make the critical difference to the people with the clippers. The sequence where Yamato punches Taichi, while shown, had the actual moment of contact cut.

In fact, that seems to be one of the most common cuts in this show; the wind-up and the swing are shown, but not the actual contact of fist (or similar appendage) with body. The impact is heard, however. Think of Veemon getting the snot beat out of him by Red Veggiemon (Ep. 4).

Do these people really understand what they’re doing?

For one thing, I would say it’s rather more visceral to hear the blow than to see it. For another, all cutting the actual contact does is get the viewers’ imagination into gear. And one of the most basic truisms of writing horror is that you never describe the monster in any detail because what the reader comes up with on her/his own will be more terrifying than any graphic description could be. The same principle applies here; with only the sound effects, the imagination is free to run rampant and interpret the damage as far more gruesome than any visual artist could draw it.

I’m somewhat tempted to think that this has something to do with why I’m finding such a high percentage of angst/torture/rape fics in the Digimon corner of fandom, but I don’t really think it’s that innocent a reason. In the Kaiser, we have the very figure of truly sadistic acting out (more about that on the Ken page), accessorized with a whip for crying in silence. This really seems to bring out some less savory impulses in fic writers. I suppose what disturbs me most is the conviction that the kind of violence I’m seeing there isn’t actually outwardly directed. If it were I’d worry less. Not a lot less, mind, but a bit less. Just as Ken’s efforts to completely control the world around him translate into an effort to control himself (and no wonder with Darkness messing around with his mind), I’m afraid that a majority of the authors who write sadistic-Kaiser fics are identifying much more strongly with the victim than the aggressor. And it’s pretty obvious in most cases that the author is not working inside the framework of BDSM, which has quite a few safeguards built in. No, what I’m seeing is the kind of pointless and motiveless infliction of bodily harm that tends to crop up so distressingly in the self-directed imagining/action of female teens. Girls in their teens are particularly vulnerable, in our culture, to this kind of self-constructed abjection, and it isn’t healthy. I’d really like to see it to stop, one of these days.

Now wasn’t that a cheerful place to pause? I should probably mention at this point that these pages are wound together a lot more closely than usual for me. Don’t assume that all of my opinions on Ken are on the Ken page, or that the above comments are the extent of my words about violence. So, if you’re having fun, keep going. If not, keep going down toward the link list. If you’re having sufficient fun to email and tell me so, I will be delighted.

Links

(Of which there would be a lot more if people could just resist the impulse to add so much Java-script their pages are impossible to view, and occasionally even to load. Knock it off!)

Yatta! A fansubber is doing Digimon! Let’s all put out hands together for WolfPackProductions. *virtual kissing of toes* The brave may go join them on IRC; the timid, like me, can probably locate the fruits of their efforts on one of the p2p networks. *whispers* They’ve even gotten together with Three Guys to do 02! *dances gleefully*

Most of the good general sites have gone down; let me know if you find some. Meanwhile, Lelola should cover the bases for groundwork information.

For those who are always wondering what’s up with these two characters, Ryou and Osamu, that we never or barely meet, Find a Way to Bring Back Yesterday explains who they are.

Meg-chan’s Digimon Sekai has been reduced from its former glory but I highly recommend her lyrics page. She also offers the original Japanese show (no subtitles), on VHS.

Miz-Topia (which will be relinked when I find it again, possibly under the title Mizzy’s Anime Junk) is a personal site with a primary focus on Digimon. The fic is very good, and the essays and whatnot are howlingly funny…realizing that my sense of humor can take strange twists when I’m overtired.

=P Kae Ti xx seems to have started life as a taito site, but now includes some good essays too, as well as entertaining snippets of … stuff.

Given my villain-habit, it should surprise no one that I support good Ken sites. Wrapped in Darkness is certainly that. Rae chan shares with Kae Ti the kind of attitude that I enjoy reading, which makes her Digressions…lively. She’s also a very good writer of fanfic.

The Practically Evil Shrine to Dark Koushirou is moderately insane, but great fun. Lots of parody, some essays, good stuff.

Normally I don’t like fanart, it’s way too amateur. Cloud Ishida, however, gets my vote. Her black and whites, in particular, are truely drool-some. Check out Digimon Kaiser Yamato for some very…nice…eye candy.

Maybe there’s just something about Digimon, because Sugah’s fanart is also outstanding. Bunches of Ken and Daisuke. Check out her material at deviantART, and give her feedback so she’ll draw more.

Credits

Digimon, of course, originated with the writers who slave away for Toei and Fox; I sincerely hope no one reading this is foolish enough to think either of those bodies would have produced a webpage like this.

Most of the Ken pics are from Lonliness. Most of the Takeru pics are from Tarnished Wings. Most of the OAV pics are from Digimon Lab. A scattering of pics were also taken from The Lost Temple of Ishida (apparently defunct), Daijin no Kindness, Lelola. A significant percentage originally came from the hands of Megchan and The Digimon Experience; the latter is someplace I have browsed through on my own, as well. I have left the watermarks on those. Many thanks to all. A few screencaps are my own work with my trusty VCR and digital camera. Those are the ones with lines through them. Images are used as illustrations to an analysis, with no commercial infringement.

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Entries tagged with anime-manga: digimon