Digimon Adventure: and how not to approach a reboot

Two nerd rants in one month? I'm not quite sure what this says about me.

Today I wanted to discuss why the original Digimon Adventure anime worked so well and became so beloved and nostalgic for the first generation of Digimon fans, why the 2020 reboot Digimon Adventure: (often colloquially referred to as Digimon 2020 by fans because the colon is not pronounced, so in speech it's impossible to tell the two titles apart) failed to recapture Adventure's success, and why you really need to think long and hard before rebooting anything (aside from a frozen PC).

More old art, namely a character design for a Digimon roleplay I did with a friend back in college. My character was a scrappy swordswoman who chose to stay behind in the Digital World when it was disconnected from the real world because she disliked her "real" life. She trained as a warrior under Leomon and Ogremon, and continued to wear this getup even when she returned to the real world years later, not caring how many heads it turned.

(Yes, she does greatly resemble Terra from my Neopets fics. I did a lot of character recycling in college, before I started taking my writing seriously.)

I've been rooting around my hard drive and I found more old artwork that wasn't terrible, so I thought I'd go ahead and share it here.

First up, some rare Digimon fanart. I didn't care much for Davis when 02 was first airing, but as an adult he's grown on me because he's just so ridiculous. Veemon is an absolute cinnamon roll and I'd love to have him as my Digimon partner (I could really use his upbeat enthusiasm and unconditional friendliness on days when I'm an anxious mess).

This picture in particular was inspired by the third Digimon movie (i.e. the last part of the amalgamated Digimon: The Movie that was released in the West), which had a definite vibe to it. It was surreal and weird and the animation was totally different to the TV series, and I just loved the evocative setting of the characters traveling through the American West, the plot culminating in the rolling fields of southern Colorado in the summer. Also, although the film didn't really try to be all that deep, it had some good messages about the value of friendship and that yes, letting people into your life and letting them help you can be terrifying, but true friends are worth taking a chance on.

It was like a road film if you replaced the cars with Digimon, and I feel like it took the franchise and its storytelling in a new and unique direction. I also have nostalgic memories of watching Digimon: The Movie during a sleepover at a friend's house in junior high (that was back in ye olden times when you rented VHS cassettes from Blockbuster). 

Video game ramblings: the unecessary sequel

 Again, it's time for more random rants about stuff that's been on my mind and I can't find a real excuse to write it up, so I'm just going to collect it all into this blog post and hope no one notices.

Below the jump you'll find more stuff about Pokémon (although surprisingly not about Scarlet and Violet this time), Digimon, Zelda, Super Mario Bros., filmmaking, and web design just because.

The other day I sat and did something I haven't done in a while--free doodling where I just sketched whatever was on my mind.

These first two are character designs for a Digimon OC made up by a friend of mine who started a Digimon RP way back in high school. The RP never finished because the guy suddenly went AWOL and never came back, as Internet friends are wont to do. But our group still had a fun time and made some good memories.

This character, Taki, I found really interesting from a development standpoint. She started out as an antagonist hunting down the Digidestined (the roleplayers' characters) for an unknown reason. Eventually it was revealed that Taki had been accidentally transported to the Digital World as an infant, and raised as a warrior by Goldramon, the ruler of this version of the Digital World. When Goldramon was infected by a virus due to the actions of the real villains, he began acting erratically and ordered Taki to destroy the Digidestined. 

Eventually the heroes had to defeat Goldramon in battle and free him from the virus by deleting him, but not before he revealed to Taki her true origins, and told her that she was in fact also a Digidestined, at which point she joined the group  to take down the bad guys behind the Digital World's problems. I got to make up her Digimon partner, who was pretty much a purple bat version of Renamon. Maybe I'll do a redesign sketch of her one of these days.

The reason there are two character designs is because the first one was my initial design for her when I doodled stuff about the RP. The second design is actually closer to the RP creator's design for her, which he showed us a few months in to the RP when he finally managed to get some of his artwork onto the Internet. This was in the Stone Age before smartphones and social media, when that kind of thing was much more difficult, especially for teenagers who couldn't afford digital cameras, flatbed scanners, or drawing tablets (and there were maybe like one or two types of good free art software available).

These days I'm more into writing solo, but these old character designs bring back a lot of nostalgia for me. (Also, more Digimon games need to come out. Including the ones that are already out in Asia and the rest of the world isn't getting for some reason.)

And here's a sketch for a story idea I've been working on. Kitsuko "Kit" Nonaka is a 350-year-old kitsune who is fascinated by human culture. When she's not working to preserve the tenuous peace between humans and youkai in cyberpunk Kyoto, she's busy geeking out on the Internet--the one place where nobody has to know that she herself is a youkai.

More sketches!

Prehistoric kitties, Smilodon and a cave lion:

Tufaimon, a Digimon I made up for a roleplay with a friend. She's a dragon goddess who rules over the earth Digimon.

Random character design.

More playing around in Corel Painter, getting accustomed and trying out different brushes.

The character on the top is from a Digimon roleplay I did a few years back, and I had a lot of fun with her character. She was a Digidestined from Digimon Adventure who ended up staying in the Digital World after the events of Adventure, and became a scrappy swordswoman who hung out with Ogremon a lot. During the events of 02 she was revealed to be the reincarnation of an earth goddess Digimon and regained her true form, but she continued to use her human alias during visits to the real world.