I'm still getting through real life job work, but I figured I should finally get through some of my asks! Unfortunately, the queue in my ask box is massive, and while I plan on trying to get through what I can in the next few days, I'm going to have to skip some of them or else I'll never get through them, so I'm really sorry to anyone who's sent me an ask several months ago and isn't getting an answer. (If you really want me to answer it very badly, please send it again.)
02TB-related ones will be kept in my inbox but put on hold because I want to hold off on those until after I get my meta out (which I really am working on...I promise...)
By chance, do you have any insight into Lui's name? Using an L sound seems pretty unusual for a Japanese name and I was curious if there was any special reasoning, or if it is more of a common name than I realize.
It's just the Japanese name "Rui" but with stylized romanization, similar to what they did with "Ruri" (Ruli) in Ghost Game. I don't think there was any reason for it besides "to make it stand out" or "to be unique about it". I have a policy(?) of not following official Digimon romanizations because of how bad they are with a lot of other names, so I've just personally been calling him Rui myself.
Welcome back. Hopefully your work-life-hobby balance is stabilizing. So, Beatbreak am I right? Cool Tomoro has a personality unlike prevous anime Digimon protagonists, though I wonder if he has any commonalities with previous characters, like Haru with Ken and Hiro with Koushirou even a bit.
I can't say it's "stabilizing" much, but we had a double whammy of Xros Wars and 02 (original series!!) content at the same time, and 02TB's anniversary is soon, so I figured I might as well!
I'm looking forward to more of Beatbreak! I like how Tomoro is kind of simultaneously an edgelord archetype but also is obviously a kid and immature as one. Although considering that he and his brother already seem to have been subjected to trauma before the series even started, I can't really blame him.
Hey, good to see you posting again. I was wondering if you had any new perspectives on Savers to share now that we’re going into its 20th anniversary soon, and that it seems it’s getting a spiritual successor in the form of Beatbreak (or at least being handled by the same head writer).
Regarding Savers, I don't have anything in mind other than what I've covered already (although I'll certainly report if I come up with anything!) Regarding Beatbreak, it's a bit too early for me to make any solid calls, but if my experience following Yamaguchi Ryouta's Twitter is any indication, I expect it to get extremely outspoken about politics and social commentary. Based on what I've read in Digimon interviews, it's a series that gives writers an unusual amount of freedom compared to most, so I'm guessing that both Savers and Beatbreak are where he had the leeway to go ham. I mean, Beatbreak's first episode already gave us societal control via IoT leading to extreme class stratification, so it's not like it's being subtle about it!
So the other day I finished rewatching Appmon, and something that kind of stuck out to me was how Gatchmon became Haru's buddy because him being the search Appmon would help Haru's own journey in searching for a role in life. It made me wonder, can you also apply this logic to the other App Drivers and their buddies?
Astra and Musimon made sense, Musimon's upbeat nature gave Astra the push he needed to explore groovy things outside his family business. But the others? Rei and Yuujin are kind of vague, mostly they needed Hackmon and Offmon because they needed the power to help Hajime and Haru respectively. Eri, especially, gave me the vibes that she never really needed Dokamon anyways, given how strong her drive and willpower is lol. I'm especially curious about Yuujin and how much that was influenced by meddling from Leviathan or something. What do you think?
I think it's less about complementing their Buddies and more about being like-minded or being a reflection of their interests, so since Haru is a curious type who wants to understand more, Gatchmon aligns with that idea. So for Eri and Dokamon, they're just very head-on and straightforward, and Rei and Hackmon are more willing to do the dirty work others aren't, whereas Offmon reflected Yuujin's self-consciousness and fear of hurting others (which the latter did his best to cover up by acting confident).
Do you feel as though your vocabulary, or communication style/choices have changed after doing more meta/analysis of translated works?
I ask this because I notice myself when I read text translated from Japanese with the intent of being faithful to the original meaning (as an example, the English translations to Eve’s music videos), I notice I phrase things differently for a bit. I’m not sure how to describe it? Like a different ‘cadence’ to the words I choose, which is intentional, but also being more specific and using slightly ‘clunkier’ or ‘more roundabout’ wording, conveying my intended meaning without caring about sounding weirder.
I was wondering if you noticed anything like that happening with your own writing, and this might be a case of ‘people emulate the speech they engage with often’, or if it’s more of a one-off case or speculation without evidence.
This is a really interesting question! This is something I imagine probably differs for each person based on their background.
For me, English wasn't the only language I grew up with, so I've always associated each language's structure with "what they mean" rather than trying to convert one to another. Once I started learning Japanese, I started with a bigger focus on communication rather than media, so rather than going (what I want to say) → English → Japanese, I focused on learning to construct Japanese sentences directly from scratch, and as a result when I speak English I go directly to English and haven't really gotten those pipelines confused (or at least, not to the extent I can tell).
I do feel there is some extent that my phrasing choices in meta analysis are affected -- I'm pretty sure my character analyses probably have a lot of spots that are influenced by things I've read off Japanese analyses from one of the wikis or social media ^^;; I definitely feel like my use of the word "arbitrarily" has gone up a lot. But I think that might also be just another case of, as you said, emulating the speech you engage with more (especially because it's usually about the same brand of character analysis)...I don't think I'm immune to using TV Tropes lingo either...
I was rewatching Digimon Tamers for nostalgia's sake, and it's kind of funny to realize that Guilmon is essentially Takato's edgy Digimon OC. Like red and black virus type dinosaur digimon, 'better than agumon' who's bigger and according to the notes he jotted down 'really cool'.
So my question is, do you think Guilmon's personality was formed by the Digi Gnomes as like a blank slate and most Digimon are curious creatures that quickly have to adapt to killing and relying on their instincts (as Guilmon is frequently feral when wild ones show up) or they somehow molded Guilmon to be gentler and kind because Takato was?
Cause it makes me think if all digimon are capable of learning human emotions (Like Renamon going from cold-blooded killer to protector figure) that Guilmon was just lucky his partner is so nice cause otherwise he could've easily became as violent and uncontrollable like say, Cyberdramon. (I know there's extra lore with Ryo/Cyberdramon but I'm not 100% familiar with it) or cruel and power-hungry like IceDevimon.
Basically I wonder if Guilmon's personality was a nature vs nurture thing, cause I could only imagine if Takato had written down 'super aggressive badass partner' for his edgy OC, Guilmon could've come out differently. XD
I'd lean more towards the blank-slate interpretation, because I think if the DigiGnomes had based Guilmon's personality on anything beyond what was written in Takato's notebook, Guilmon would have been even more vicious. Not because of Takato himself being malicious in any way, but...well, I mean, Guilmon's a ten-year-old's Digimon OC, right? Even with Takato being a well-behaved kid, I generally haven't met a lot of ten-year-olds who have much restraint when it comes to making their edgy OCs. I have a hard time believing "Virus type and powerful" was where Takato stopped with the edginess in his head!
And if I think of it in terms of the themes of the series, I do think Guilmon ending up being a big baby (I say this affectionately) was predominantly due to Takato's influence after he was born. Just thinking about it from a sheer logistics standpoint, if a much more malicious kid had that exact same kind of encounter with Guilmon in that exact same way...well, bad things happen when you have malicious influences on things that are impressionable.
Hey, so what are your thoughts on the dubbing choices made for the new dubs of the first three Digimon movies by Discotek?
Practically speaking, it's a good way to get people to take interest in the original Japanese uncut movies and what they're about. A lot of people have a stigma against watching the original Japanese versions of anything Digimon because they're so attached to the Fox Kids writing style that they find the Japanese version to be "boring" in comparison, so I think this is a good compromise to bait get more people familiar with something closer to the original content. I've definitely seen people express interest in the Discotek collection just out of sheer curiosity over it, so I'd say it's all for the best.
In terms of the fact that re-invoking the Fox Kids writing style was merited at all, I do admit there's a part of me that's a little annoyed at that, since I feel that it's basically catering to an audience that considers this a necessary part of the localization process instead of what's ultimately just catering to childhood nostalgia, and that leads to all of the nasty rabbit holes I've been uncomfortable with regarding people defending problematic changes just because of said nostalgia. But that's an issue that extends beyond Digimon, and I understand they were in a difficult situation where they had to cater to an audience that has a lot of those kinds of feelings towards The Movie. So I have to be pragmatic about it, and if gets more people to become more familiar with the original content (especially Hurricane Touchdown, which didn't even have a good translation for its Japanese version until a few years ago), I'm game.
From a Watsonian perspective, what exactly do you think of the theory that the entire Digimon multiverse (including the real worlds of each entry) is a computer simulation? Could you explore the plausibility of it, and how likely it would be to be confirmed one day, similar to the reveal in Anonymous;Code from the Science Adventure series?
Well, when we think about what the Digimon multiverse really is, it's basically just a way to implement meta logistics: they wanted to make a bunch of different Digimon stories set in different universes, and then they wanted to do fun things like crossovers or characters like Mikagura Mirei travel through them, so it became a multiverse. If it were to be revealed that the entire thing is a simulation, I think it would have to be a crossover work or some other thing where that kind of lore would actually matter. But I also don't think they'd go too much into it, since it'd end up making it complicated when in actuality it's a device to maintain franchise logistics.
Hey there Shiha! Long time no ask. I'm researching 02 again, and I saw your mention of Adventure having Gnostic and Neoplatonic themes regarding “the conceptualization of ideas into reality”. Do you plan to touch on this eventually? I'm honestly very curious since I used to love Plato's thoughts on this.
Unfortunately, while I have looked into it before, I honestly wasn't able to figure out what to do with it, because Kakudou's description of how much he went into it never really went further than "it was based on that" (and to be fair, the only reason we know so much about the Digimon-as-youkai thing was Habu talking to him about it so much for the games). So other than the part about said conceptualization of ideas, I'm at a dead end unless we get more info. (If anything, you might know more about it than me!)
started reading the xros wars manga and it's given me a new appreciation for the series, I'm really enjoying this version of taiki and shoutmon as well as the supporting cast
Hiii I love your posts! Especially the analogy about daisuke, taichi, taiki and tagiru. For the DXW I wanted to ask your opinion, if you think tagiru actually surpassed taiki, I mean the show indicates that he did but personally I'm not convinced lol
In essence, I think the fact that "superstar" was defined so vaguely is intentional. Tagiru is a pretty self-aware person, and he seems to be perfectly aware that he's the one who determines whether he's satisfied with himself. (I just wrote a meta on this!) So in other words, the one who gets to decide whether Tagiru has surpassed Taiki or not is Tagiru himself -- and I would say that probably applies to "surpassing Taiki" too.
Tagiru wanting to surpass Taiki can mean a lot of things. It can mean anything from "becoming beloved and accomplished in every way above him" to just "doing one really cool thing better than he did at some point". So one can argue that by being able to wield the Brave Snatcher on Taiki's behalf and save the world with Gumdramon, Tagiru surpassed Taiki that one time, because he did something Taiki couldn't. Next time, maybe he'll try to surpass him in basketball! Nobody ever said surpassing Taiki was just a one-and-done; Tagiru just thinks Taiki is a good reference point to use to motivate himself.
And besides, I don't think surpassing Taiki is Tagiru's only goal in life. Even if Tagiru thinks that he's fulfilled his Taiki-surpassing quota(?) with the Brave Snatcher and doesn't need to continue pursuing that angle anymore, it's probably just going to be like "Yeah! I did the cool thing! Time to pursue the next cool thing."
Can I ask you a question? Is it ever explained why Ken got a Tag? Was he really supposed to be part of the original group? Thank you.
I don't think he was ever meant to be one of the Adventure kids, especially since (canon is a bit unclear about this, but) Ken's "inciting incident" that made him a Chosen was in 2000. But when you really think about it, there's no rule saying that only the original Adventure kids should have a Tag. I personally get the impression that Homeostasis, the Agents, the Holy Beasts, and other forces behind reaching out to Chosen Children had different methodologies and motives...and none of them were swapping notes.
What are your thoughts on whether or not the Digimon franchise should delve into more overt sci-fi concepts, such as, for example: “the real world being a simulation existing alongside the Digital World” (in the vein of works like Sci;Adv’s Anonymous;Code or Zegapain)? While such ideas like that haven’t been explicitly explored in Digimon, they are hinted at in the background of the series, with inspirations like Permutation City influencing early entries. Do you think the franchise would benefit from or is likely to make such a revelation central to its narrative, particularly considering past creators like Kazumasa Habu showed interest in similar themes but are no longer part of the creative direction?
Basically, since Digimon is a canonical multiverse and anything goes in any world, I think pretty much any potential new work could do well with exploring a new theme. I don't think there's any genre theme I would feel like discouraging the theme from exploring, aside from "hopefully they do a good job with it!"
Tagiru is a more well-behaved kid than he's given credit for (and other misconceptions about him and Hunters)
With Xros Wars finally getting some officially endorsed anniversary love (you don't see that happen every day, you know!), I also happen to have rewatched Xros Wars quite recently! I had previously written a meta talking about the differences between Daisuke and Tagiru, but while I wouldn't disagree with anything I wrote back then per se, there are some things I wish I'd phrased better or emphasized more. I owe it to Tagiru to make it up to him, so I wrote this up quickly.
To put it simply and bluntly, partially as a byproduct of people misunderstanding his home series and people misunderstanding him directly, Tagiru tends to be taken the wrong way by a lot of people in the fandom, so let's set the record straight!
First, let's talk about Hunters
Like I said, a big reason Tagiru ends up misunderstood quite often is that...well, I won't mince words, but Xros Wars came out at a time when the Western fandom had some very specific ideas about "what a Digimon series should be", and to compound things even further, the target demographic for the older Digimon series was in pretty much peak edgelord phase (late teens/twenties) of wanting everything to be Dark and Edgy.
In fact, this treatment of Xros Wars and Hunters is very specific to the Western fandom and only to that particular time period; Hunters is reasonably well-liked and Xros Wars as a whole very well-liked among Japanese fans, and nowadays, I hear a lot of cases of even Western fans watching Xros Wars and Hunters in recent years for the first time and being utterly baffled as to why anyone would view the series as poorly as much of the Western fandom does. There was a serious echo chamber and toxic aura problem going on that seems to have altered people's perception of reality to the point of historical revisionism regarding what was and wasn't in the series.
Hunters got especially maligned on the grounds that it was supposedly a bunch of meaningless trash that didn't go anywhere, but having rewatched it recently, I find that a lot of it is little more than unrealistic expectations where people were expecting something completely different from what it actually was. I suspect this to be one major reason Japanese reception to the series wasn't nearly as negative, because the Japanese fanbase had much stronger consciousness of two major factors:
The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami had a massive impact on Japanese media and especially kids' media at the time, and there was a collective bid among them to make things that would lift kids' spirits after the disaster (Smile PreCure, Kamen Rider Fourze, and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger were also made under this philosophy). Combined with the fact that Japanese audiences tend to be more insistent that kids' shows should brighten kids' days, if you were to insinuate that a show was too lighthearted during this period, you'd easily be seen as a cruel and insensitive sadist to suggest that a kids' series isn't "dark" enough.
It is well-known among Japanese fans that Hunters was greenlighted at the last minute (the Death Generals staff was already into production of the finale when they found out Hunters was going to exist), and it's widely understood that it was also a series made to hold down its timeslot until Saint Seiya Omega was ready. In other words, Hunters was a series made after the staff was told to make something that would literally waste time. Once you stop having unrealistically high expectations of the series to do something revolutionary with its content, it's actually doing much more for its audience than it needed to, and frankly, I have seen series that spent 50+ episodes doing far less interesting things than Hunters did within its two cours.
You are supposed to watch Hunters under the understanding that you're meant to have fun, and from what it sounds like, the staff was also trying to have as much fun as they could within that time. (Honestly, I'm currently convinced that the crossover episode was made for the returning Digimon staff to indulge and satisfy themselves more than it was to pander to the fans.) That's all it is, and the story becomes much more enjoyable and insightful when you watch it this way.
I'm not kidding when I say that a lot of people who currently dislike Hunters would probably become a lot more attached to it just by rewatching it now. It's only two cours, so it's not even that long! One thing I noted during my last rewatch is that the kids are all of the archetype that the modern Internet would affectionately call "gremlins" and enjoy for being all over the place and often of questionable morals. Perhaps one could even say that the series was too ahead of its time.
Tagiru is actually pretty well-behaved
So let's talk about Tagiru. Common perception is that he's rude to the point of disregarding what others say and often puts down others, but is that really true? Certainly, it's true that he's at least a little poorly behaved in terms of often stepping out of line and disregarding what Taiki and others tell him to do, but:
Even when he disregards others, it's not nearly as much as people often think. Having rewatched the series lately, I find that the majority of his cases of directly violating someone's suggestion without at least taking it into account is simply just because he was too impulsive and went ahead before even he had thought it through. Otherwise, he'll still defer to others most of the time (even if he has to complain loudly about it). And you don't see people giving Taichi grief for doing the same thing, do you?
He's diligent about his honorifics and still largely treats strangers and elders with respect as per Japanese propriety rules. He's not as deferential as Daisuke, but he also doesn't massively step out of line either.
If you take his words at direct verbal face value, he's being rude to people, but if you actually look closer, he's just kind of brash and loudmouthed and doesn't actually mean it that seriously. You don't see people giving Takuya nearly as much grief for this one either, do you? Rather, once you get into Tagiru's head, you'll see that him treating Taiki and Yuu as "rivals" of a sort is his way of acknowledging them as people worth having a rivalry with; he sees the entire world as a competition, but he respects his competition too. And Tagiru does have a concept of kindness and decency; he loves to mess with Yuu because Yuu is someone he knows well (and, frankly, even if he's not as direct with what he says, Yuu is actually the one responsible for provoking him most of the time), but with strangers and other people he doesn't want to step on the toes of, he takes care to not be insensitive, takes responsibility easily, and apologizes well.
He's competitive and hates the idea of losing, but when he actually does lose, he doesn't let it deter him and just takes it as a reason to try harder so he can win next time. A lot of people could do well to be this forward-thinking!
Multiple episodes allude to the idea that the real reason Tagiru can often be a problem for others is that he has too much energy that he hadn't been given a good enough outlet for, something alluded to by the fact that Shoutmon also immediately let up on Gumdramon when he found that the latter had gotten himself a partner (episode 2). Just like how the Digital World's "wild child' stopped causing chaos for everyone around him now that he had something to dedicate himself to, Tagiru becomes much easier for Taiki and Yuu to work with once he starts putting all of that excess energy into the Hunt. And that ties into...
Being "selfish" can be a good thing
I mentioned earlier that I wrote a meta about Daisuke and Tagiru but currently wish that I'd phrased some things differently, and the biggest reason is that I emphasized a lot that Tagiru was self-interested compared to more altruistic characters like Daisuke. But when I said that, I also meant this in the sense that having personal goals and "selfish" interests is not a fundamentally bad thing, and Hunters is actually quite a lot about the juggling of personal interests and doing good for others.
Tagiru is impulsive, brash, and often disregards what Taiki and others would prefer that he do in order to pursue his own goals, but he's also not self-centered to the extent he doesn't care about other people. Yes, he's participating in the Hunt because he personally enjoys the thrill of it. But it's not like he's paying zero consideration to the fact that it helps people, and in fact, if you actually pay attention to Tagiru's behavior throughout the series, Tagiru enjoys the Hunt partially because it's a way of helping people in meaningful ways. It's because of this that he's able to meaningfully distinguish between Hideaki's personal goals and Ganemon's greed (episode 8), because Tagiru himself would also hate it if he got lumped in with people who took from others purely for self-gain!
It's easy to get distracted by the fact that the Hunt technically involves combat, but Tagiru also just thinks Digimon are pretty cool in general (see episode 21, when he immediately drops the idea of Hunting the amusement park Digimon when they seemingly aren't doing anything wrong). It's actually quite common for people to have things they enjoy doing that also happen to help others! It's just that we usually call those "hobbies" or "career aspirations".
The Hunt is a competition that's structured in a battle royale, dog-eat-dog sort of format, and in a case like that, having personal ambition is very important. It's tempting to expect every shounen hero to fit a model of constantly saying one-sidedly selfless things like "I just love seeing everyone smile!", but the realistic truth is that there are also cases where you're not going to survive very long if you don't think about yourself, too. This is where Tagiru excels: he's brimming with motivation (to the point that episode 11 demonstrates how dangerous that motivation would be if it were anyone different), and he's up against Digimon who are manipulating kids based on their own personal desires without any selflessness at all.
He may not be like Daisuke in terms of cooperating with others as a given team player, but not everything in this world is about team cooperation, and there's a reason Daisuke and Tagiru are the respective protagonists of their own respective series tailored to those strengths.
And that's also why saving the world from Quartzmon required someone who enjoyed the Hunt itself rather than just wanting to save everyone for altruistic reasons. If you're on the verge of getting obliterated from existence and need to find something to cling onto, having something you personally enjoy and find fulfillment in helps a lot.
Up until Hunters' finale, participation in the Hunt was optional. There was no need to save the world, and a lot of Tagiru's cases could have easily been solved by any other Hunter. But Tagiru didn't need to have "the world is going to end right this second if you don't do something!" to motivate him, and that's why he's able to focus on Hunting Quartzmon even while dealing with a situation where everyone he knows might be gone forever if he fails: sure, he wasn't one of the "chosen heroes" for this job, and it's stressful as hell, but he can have the mindset of "wow, saving the world requires doing something that I happen to be really good at? Too bad for you!"
So what is a "superstar"?
Since it's one of the first things presented about his character, "Tagiru wants to be a superstar and surpass Taiki" is the part that most people easily remember about him, and that means that Tagiru's primary fandom reputation comes from his arrogance. And it is true that he has a certain degree of arrogance and pride, moreso than a lot of other Digimon protagonists. But once you actually look at the series as a whole...
...it turns out that Tagiru being a bit arrogant is also the main reason he's able to be normal about his personal aspirations compared to almost everyone else in the series.
Episode 9 introduces the concept of "excessive idolization and putting others on a pedestal to the point they just become nothing but tools to you" and puts in a warning that idolizing Taiki is very likely to go in the same direction. Even Yuu, who's not necessarily doing it to an entirely unhealthy level, is still overly conscious of Taiki's role in the Digital World war a year prior and initially resents Tagiru for lightly using the Xros Heart name and imitating Taiki without understanding the war. It's understandable that Yuu would feel insulted by this, but you also have to look at things from Tagiru's perspective: Tagiru only ever knew Taiki as "the cool middle school senior whom I should use as a goal to surpass", and it's not really his fault for not knowing there was an entire war going on there.
But that's also the key word there: surpass. It's a word that's often taken as a sign of arrogance, but the point here is that Tagiru only treats Taiki like an admirable reference point rather than judging his entire self-worth based on whether he's like Taiki or not. He seems to be as close to treating Taiki as an equal as he can get within the limits of Japanese seniority. And after a whole series of people getting caught up in Digimon incidents because a Digimon started feeding off their feelings of "not being good enough"...
...we get to the eventual reveal in the final episode that Ryouma was, essentially, the same as another monster-of-the-week victim: someone who made his entire life about "wanting to be like someone else" and easily fell prey to a Digimon's manipulation because he was so obsessed with that goal that he lost sight of anything else.
The truth is, even with humility being a virtue, being confident in yourself is important too, because it means you won't project your insecurities on others. Even back in the first two parts of Xros Wars, Taiki's disregard for himself was also the cause of a lot of problems. And ultimately, that's the take-home: Tagiru is self-aware about what he is and isn't, and that's why he's able to pursue his own dreams in a healthy manner rather than railing on himself.
Tagiru's vaguely-defined goal of "being a superstar" is essentially "doing something that I feel is fulfilling and worthy", and he repeatedly demonstrates that he knows full well that he's only going to become a superstar when he decides he's done enough. For Tagiru, it seems that as long as he himself acknowledges that he did something cool (and his friends also acknowledge that it was cool), he'll see that as sufficient to have achieved his goal. So when it comes to saving the world, Tagiru decides that this is satisfying enough for him to pat himself on the back and go "that was really cool, wasn't it?"
In conclusion
I'm aware there are a lot of people who were expecting a more traditional shounen hero progression of "a protagonist who's not cut out for heroism grows and becomes a noble hero by the end of the series". Certainly, if Hunters had been a longer series and was given more resources in planning to be anything beyond a stall series, it's true that we probably would have gotten to see this aspect of Tagiru gone into thoroughly with the attention that it should have been given. But with what we were given already, there's already a lot you can get out of it, and in fact, I personally find that Hunters still covers a niche of the boundary between personal aspirations and finding fulfillment in it, even when it's about mundane problems that anyone else could have solved.
Tagiru wants to pursue his own personal goals, but he balances it well with doing good things for others and finding fulfillment in it. He's prideful enough to aspire to do bigger and better things, but he's also self-aware enough to not be constantly insecure about whether he's doing enough already. He's rough around the edges, but he gets it in a way that even adults often don't (again: it's arguably a series that was ahead of its time), and while it's not necessarily a perfect way to live nor the only way for one to live, I'd say it's pretty admirable.
In Adventure 02 Episode 44, Ken Ichijouji is kidnapped in a truck that's right-hand drive. His friends are chasing after him in a car that's left-hand drive. Is it true that a LHD vehicle in Japan is considered to be a major status symbol with a high resale value?
Sort of, but not really. For it to be a left-hand drive vehicle, it would almost certainly have to be an imported car, and it is true that "foreign car = you're rich and have status" used to be a stereotype, but nowadays people will get it because they wanted to invest in a specific model of foreign car for some reason (maybe they were dissatisfied with domestic Japanese-produced ones, and the only models they liked were left-hand). A lot of people will also outright avoid it because of how inconvenient it is to drive in Japan's road system, which isn't compatible with it at all, and it's also much more difficult to keep it maintained in those circumstances.
Of course, that doesn't mean having a left-hand drive car doesn't come with some kind of money and status at all, because buying and maintaining an imported car is expensive, but since the Kido family is a prominent and esteemed family of doctors, it's reasonable to think they'd be able to afford it and would be willing to put up with the trouble if they consider the car to be important enough, especially since Shuu seems to be a traveling scholar. It's a family that tends to be picky and low-compromise, so this probably falls in that category.
Incidentally, Kyoko from Cyber Sleuth also has an imported car (well, putting the other considerations about its, uh, nature aside). While it's not mutually exclusive, I think the modern association with it is probably less "rich and elite" and more "hipster and unique".
I get a few questions once in a while about help finding Digimon in Japanese, and it’s a tricky situation because as much as I’d like to plop an official streaming link down and call it a day at every opportunity, we’re still not quite at the point where Digimon in Japanese has official subtitles or is available in every country, even though I would love for this to be the case someday. That said, we are fortunate in that every Digimon series has been diligently translated by someone out there!
For those who are interested in watching Digimon in Japanese (with subtitles or otherwise), it can be pretty tricky to navigate, especially for the older series, so I’ve decided to write a bit of a helper with my recommended versions, with links to watch them officially whenever they’re available. (Unfortunately, some of these official outlets aren’t options for those in certain countries, so I’ll try to provide options in those cases.) I will not be providing direct links to (ahem) unofficial sources, but this should at least be a pointer in the right direction for those, and I’ll also be including links and pointers for where to buy the actual raw Japanese version, in case you don’t need subtitles or you simply want to support the series and have a nice box of your favorite.
For the sake of brevity, this will only include the TV series and their tie-in theatrical movies, but if you’re looking for other franchise side media, a lot of the below translators have those as well. I’ll try to keep this post updated as things change (although I can’t make any guarantees).
Finally gave this post a much-needed update to account for the Crunchyroll releases earlier this year (although ironically I myself can't use most of them, since they're not available for the US) and the Discotek Blu-ray releases. I also added tri., which I originally didn't include due to this being meant as a TV series-centric post, but decided to add upon remembering the whole situation with the Crunchyroll formatting. (To phrase a friend, "telling people not to watch tri. on Crunchyroll is a public service.")
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