To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Digimon Adventure this year, we will host an appreciation week from March 1st to 7th, 2024. Tag #daweek2024 or #digimonadventureweek to get featured.
| DIGIMON ADVENTURE WEEK 2024 WILL BE HELD FROM MARCH 01-07 |
▶︎ RULES & FAQs
▶︎ Make sure to put #daweek2024 & #digimonadventureweek in your first five tags or tag @digimonadventureweek in your post.
▼ BONUS Q&A ROUND ▼
For those who, for whatever reason, cannot participate using the above prompts, use the below questions to talk about Digimon Adventure during the week!
As we know that posts with images get a better reach, feel free to add the below banners to your post, no credit required 😉
Which crest did you relate to the most as a child, has it changed since then?
2. What is the first memory you associate with Digimon Adventure?
3. Is there a dialogue (sub/dub) from the series that you quote frequently IRL?
For any other questions related to the event, please feel free to send a message ✉️
Bonus #3: Is there a dialogue (sub/dub) from the series that you quote frequently IRL?
"Don't give up! You can't call it quits now just because of one or two mistakes you made. Man, I've made plenty and I oughta know. You just have to get up and try again." - Tai (dub), Digimon Adventure Episode 18, The Piximon Cometh
It’s not so much that I quote this line word for word, but I’m pretty sure the sentiment clung to me ever since I heard it. As I mentioned in my Day 5 post, this episode left an impression on me as a child.
It’s hard to remember to get back up and try again and honestly, I forgot about this episode until I rewatched the series with my husband. I’m going to keep trying my hardest at everything I do. If I fall, I’ll get right back up again, especially if it involves my passions.
Thank you everyone who followed me and liked my posts for DAWeek 2024. This is the last one for Adventure’s celebration, though I have plenty more plans for more art. So keep an eye out!
Time to get back up on the art and social media bike!
Bonus #2: What is the first memory you associate with Digimon Adventure?
Tai and Matt fighting and rolling around in the snow.
Basically, this was my thought process as a 9 year old child on this episode: "What is this Pokemon rip-off, oh god why is the intro theme catchy but also cringy, wait is the main character punching him? And the other guy is crying about his worries?"
… "We are calling this a Pokemon rip-off???? I'm confused. This is NOTHING like Pokemon."
I saw these two idiots throwing punches in the very first episode of Digimon that I got to catch on TV and had to wait for reruns to catch up and find out what exactly the deal was with this show. Kids shouldn't be fighting each other. Also the monsters were cute and cool.
Never regretted my curiosity.
Not once.
Except for maybe when my mom actually brought me to the theaters to watch Digimon: The Movie and had to sit through Angela Anaconda followed by the Digi-Rap.
Bonus #1: Which crest did you relate to the most as a child, has it changed since then?
Love and Kindness
As mentioned in day 1 and 2, I related to Sora and Biyomon with the Crest of Love. I grew up with an emotionally abusive mother. I won’t go into exact details of what I experienced to avoid triggering others. My mother’s erratic, abusive behavior, while she considered it was her way of showing love, actually taught me that love was conditional. Because of this belief, if she couldn’t love me, then I couldn’t and shouldn’t love myself. I was unworthy of it.
I fell into the same dark pit of despair that Sora (and Matt) fell into towards the end of the season.
I eventually learned unconditional love from my friends and my husband and his lovely family and finally learned to love myself. While I relate to this crest still, I don’t feel it nearly as strongly as the Crest of Kindness.
I know it’s not an original Adventure crest, so I will only touch on it briefly.
I related very strongly with Ken’s backstory with being compared to an older sibling, but most of all with how he felt with the darkness and dealing with trauma.
Not only did I not love myself, I could not be kind to myself. I would do things and abuse myself mentally and just couldn’t break out of that spiral until others showed me true love and kindness.
I will say, thank you Digimon for having characters that struggled and overcame their own obstacles. Because they did, I had hope growing up that one day I’d conquer my own dark pits and oceans of despair.
Pt2 of Digimon Adventure anniversary post :333 I wanted to try a fisheye lens perspective and used Tai as my guinea pig sorry if it's not super good!! I haven't posted much art here yet
3. Is there a dialogue (sub/dub) from the series that you quote frequently IRL?
Alright, this is a silly one. I wouldn’t say this is a line I quote, but it has become a meme in the Portuguese fandom.
The first Portuguese dub for Adventure is, to put it plainly, not great. Bad sound quality, a lot of annoying voices. Nowadays we don’t fault the dubbers since we know they had virtually no budget when making this (even now, sadly, they didn’t have one for dubbing Kizuna, a couple of years ago. I suspect, right now, they’re also dubbing The Beginning without a budget).
And, anyway… that crappy dub is part of our childhoods now. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.
Well, the line from the Portuguese dub we quote way too often is said by the guy that offers the kids a lift on his van. As you may remember, Koromon takes a dump and the driver freaks out. The exact line he screams is “Quem é que se cagou?!”. “Cagou/Cagar” is Portuguese slang for defecating. It’s hard to translate accurately but, in terms of offensiveness, it ranks above “taking a crap” but below “taking a shit”. It’s definitely not a word you want to teach your kids so it baffles me that it was allowed on a kids show.
I’m not usually that huge on this kind of childish toilet humor, but I can’t help it on this one.
And on that note… Happy anniversary, Digimon Adventure! Thank you for changing my life!
Honestly, I don't know how I could forget @digimonadventureweek when it's such an important date for me as a long-term Digimon fan. I guess it's because life's a bit bitchy right now. Anyway, now I'm here!
I haven't prepared anything but I thought I'd share how I celebrate today. Here's Gomamon keeping me company on my desk at work (together with the Muppets and a relaxing Lopmon. I also have Patamon as Funko Pop but I left him at home in my, ehem, Digimon shrine😅.)
And that's what I wore today, this super cool shirt by AnimeDesigns12 on Redbubble:
Bonus Q & A
Which crest did you relate to the most as a child, has it changed since then?
As said in the tags of this post, I used to relate very much to Love (see the shirt) because I thought myself to be motherly but I also believed that I could buy people's affection with being caring. There's always two sides of a coin you see. Courage is something I try to incorporate into my life as well but now more than ever I think my Reliability is something that comes to people's mind when they think about me (at least I hope so). Whenever I dreamt about joining the team I imagined myself having the new crest of Determination though.
Is there a dialogue (sub/dub) from the series that you quote frequently IRL?
Oh boy, and how there is one! Two, actually, both from the same episode, 01x09 "Subzero Ice Punch!"/"Clash! The Freezing Digimon" - Verschollen in Eis und Schnee
"Ich lass dich nicht los und wenn mir der Arm abreißt!"
(I couldn't find the exact scene but this is the one preceding it before they hang from a branch and Taichi promises Yamato not let him go even if it tears his arm out.)
"Ich bin das Frigimon!"
I just love him and how he says "I am Frigimon" every frickin' time!
That's all from me for now but I'll probably add a picture of my Digimon collection and, uh, said shrine.
Digimon Adventure Week 2024 Day 1 and 3-Favorite Digidestined / Favorite Dynamic
For both of these prompts, my answer had to be these two.
Growing up, I always admired Tai. Seeing Tai grow as the de facto leader to a true leader while making a few mistakes along the way made me feel like I was going on the journey with him as I grew up. Also, he was one of my first anime crushes.
Kari was the first "surprise" digidestined that gets added to the main cast. While it's the norm for Digimon now, it totally blew my mind as a kid to see a new character being added. Mix it together with Gatomon and pink and I was sold.
As an older sibling myself, I resonated with Tai`s protectiveness over Kari. Their sibling dynamic is always just too adorable!
I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life. Lots of times when I forgot who I was. And when I forgot, I'd always come back to Digimon.
It would honestly be hard for me to be who I am today without Digimon. While Adventure 02 and Frontier were what really resonated with me, Adventure will always have a special place in my heart, solidifying my affection for isekai-hero-adventure stories (which started with Animorphs, moved to Digimon here, and then eventually propelled me into the Persona franchise, but that's a whole novel of a story that is not one to tell now).
Adventure touched me in a way that other cartoons at the time didn't. It introduced me to characters that struggled just like I did and overcame their problems. It introduced me to characters that were 'real' enough that I wished I could have friends like them.
And it gave me an escape I so desperately wanted in my dark childhood.
Nowadays, it is nostalgia, but it's still an adventure. I'm glad to see these 7 young kids that went to camp one summer and live in a digital land to grow up beside me, go to college, question their futures, and continue living past the struggles of their childhood that carried into their adulthood. This anime helped shape who I am now, and is still helping me through my own adulthood as I find my way through art, storytelling, and streaming.
Small shameless plug, but since the 20th anniversary of Digimon, I have been streaming on Twitch a Digimon game every Friday just to continue my adventure as well as bring others along on said adventure. I'm happy to share my love for what touched me as a child and hope that Digimon or myself will be a help to others as Digimon was to me.
That said, just above is my Digimon Adventure PSP Stream Title Card from 2020, which is also my 20th anniversary art for Digimon Adventure.
This is not my last post for Adventure week. I’ll be going above and beyond to answer the Bonus 3 questions over the next 3 days.
Thank you Tai, Agumon, Sora, Biyomon, Yamato, Gabumon, Izzy, Tentomon, Mimi, Palmon, Joe, Gomamon, Takeru, Patamon, Kari, and Tailmon. Thank you Digimon Adventure.
Episode 21 "Home Away from Home" ("Koromon, the Great Clash in Tokyo!")
This episode.
Tai's relationship with Kari.
Going into the series, I didn't know that Tai had a younger sister until he mentioned her. I didn't think she would be ever mentioned or seen in the series, but then he returns to Tokyo in episode 21. I felt like that episode was such a turning point for Tai's character. He could have abandoned all his friends and stayed at home with his little sister that he had great affection for, but decided not to. He realized that it was more important to return to the Digital World to defeat the rampant Digimon, which would in turn protect his younger sibling.
The moment of separation was so gut wrenching to watch in this episode and it left such an impression, so thus I tried to recapture that moment in my piece.
I have an older brother myself. When I was a child, I really wished Tai was my older brother. I wanted someone that could protect me and I could have fun with. I had that but there was also something off with our relationship, or at least how I perceived it. Something tarnished the relationship and I won’t go into detail about it here except say that there is another Chosen that I more deeply relate to which I’ll honorably mention in a DA Week bonus post.
While I don't have a fanart piece, Episode 48 "My Sister's Keeper" ("Bombing Mission! Mugendramon"), also gets honorable mention because we get a glimpse more of Tai's and Kari's relationship growing up. We see how reliant Kari is on Tai and wanting to not be a burden on him and Tai’s regrets for not being a better older brother and not being observant that his sister was sick. This plot shows how far Tai’s come and why Matt had every right to feel jealous of Tai being the ‘better older brother’.
2. What is the first memory you associate with Digimon Adventure?
I don’t have one specific first memory. All I remember is that, in my country Portugal, Digimon Adventure first aired around 2000, 2001, during Batatoon. This was a kid’s show that aired every school day around 4 p.m. and included episodes from different cartoons. They ran the entirety of Adventure back to back multiple times, one episode per day. I didn’t always have the chance to watch the show every day, so I missed a lot of episodes. It would be a year or two before I could watch the entire season front to back properly – when it aired on a different channel on weekend mornings – and really understand the story.
Now that I think about it though, I think the first episode I ever watched was the third one – the one where Garurumon debuts. I vaguely remember the dynamic between Yamato/Matt and Takeru/T.K. catching my attention. Maybe that’s why sibling relationships have always been one of my favorite things about Digimon.
@digimonadventureweek Day 6, March 6th - Favourite episode: #31 - "Raremon! Surprise Attack on Tokyo Bay"
I have once made a list of my "Top 16 favourite Digimon Adventure episodes" and no matter what I do, I always come back to this one. Not only is this one of the episodes my dad had recorded for me when I was a kid because I couldn't watch it when it first aired on TV, but it also basically contains everything that I love about Digimon Adventure as a whole. It also justifies a lot of my biases and headcanons in the process, but that's just a side note.
This is the closest we've ever gotten to a "slice of life" anime that includes the original casts, as it contains several of its typical elements while focusing on and mirroring primarily Taichi's and Koushirou's experiences on their first evening back home in the real world. I could have taken approximately 100 screenshots of it, because the storytelling and pacing are just so marvelous to me:
Even though it definitely IS a slice-of-life-ish episode, it doesn't lose the main plot at all, but intertwines it perfectly into the story: The kids are looking for the eighth child and Taichi, rightfully, suspects Hikari, since she had been with him during the Hikarigaoka incident. Thus he and Koromon ask her if she owns a Digivice already, which she denies. The viewer can tell that she does own one, it was just stolen and played with by their housecat Meeko/Miko - and she is the reason we're gonna get an action-packed chase scene later down the line of the episode...
Then there's the secondary plot - I refuse to call it B plot, because it is so in the forefront of everything that happens. As mentioned, it's all about Taichi and Koushirou reuniting with their families and trying their best to hide their Digimon from them. They're both having rather warm, heartfelt and happy moments that feel light-hearted (and even a bit comedic) on surface level. The difference here is that Koushirou's personal backstory is also given more space to bloom; while both Taichi's mother, Yuuko, and Koushirou's mother, Kae, sense that something about their sons is off, the latter seems to be ridden by melancholy and guilt about it. Koushirou has been acting nothing but polite and grateful towards her, but she feels like this is not how he should be like, that he is hiding something - which, as her husband, Masami, puts it, "is nothing we can blame him for, since we're hiding something from him as well".
It's the first time the viewer actually hears that Koushirou was adopted - we have seen him having flashbacks and getting somewhat distraught and sad about something, but we didn't know what it was. One can tell that he means it when he tells his mother that he's grateful - we see it when he keeps smiling happily to Tentomon about everything -, but there is that barrier. He IS hiding something from them - and we know it's not just Tentomon, even if that is perfectly mirrored with Taichi hiding Koromon as well -, but she cannot grasp what it is. And he is burdening himself with it, everything: Caring for and hiding his partner, sneaking out of his room to deal with a rampaging Digimon in the middle of the night while (potentially) chasing the eighth child around town - on his own, because the others are already fast asleep -, having a one-on-one fight with an evil Digimon and almost gets impaled, while also trying to reassure his parents that everything is alright. A lot to bear for a 10-year-old, huh...
And why was he prompted to act in the first place? Not only because he was notified of Raremon being a threat, but also because the Yagami cat went on a stroll with the eighth child's Digivice and lost it several times over.
This episode simply has it all: It has a sense of happiness and peacefulness, it has comedic elements, it has a suspenseful fight and chase scene; the main plot and character development are perfectly intertwined and even though there is so much going on, it doesn't feel rushed, bloated or like anything shouldn't be there. The characters are pretty unreliable narrators while the viewer can see everything that happens - nothing gets resolved in this episode, it consists of a repeated "Almost!", but that is fine, because it contextualizes everything that will happen from now on.
It also tells us so much about the Yagami and Izumi family dynamics, including the fact that the mothers are very familiar with the fact that their sons are close friends who call each other at very odd times...
The adoption topic is rather heavy, not downplayed and presented in a light that makes you hope that all of this will eventually resolve.
It's just very dear to my heart and I would absolutely love a whole anime that would deal with all of the kids and their backstories similarly, giving them all temporary main-character status.
