#speedsketchrambles

[speedsketch]

Frontier Fest Day 5

APRIL 11: Favorite Main Character (Digimon/Digimon form)

Hmm… 

I wonder…

who…

…could it be?

Surprise. It’s Flamon. I love this little dude so much, and alluded to as much in my first post.

If not for the little guy, I wouldn’t be here today, adding to the cacophony of Frontier Fans who suddenly came out of the wood-work. Seriously, Where have y’all been hiding?

Anyhow, Flamon despite being a one-off character stuck with me over the years. I like how he’s not any one “thing” but an amalgamation of creatures. His eyes are large and expressive in extreme contrast to the other Flame Digimon- they’re all masked which limits their ability to emote. 

Quick tangent, eyes in animation are one of the easiest ways to get an emotion across. You can tell a lot from the way the eyes look without any other feature in play. A great example of this in action is Let Me Explain Studios (https://youtu.be/eo62AEDwTKY) on Youtube. She articulates the concept so much better than I can.

Back to Frontier. I adore Flamon visually and narratively. Visually, he’s the easiest goddamn Digimon design in the whole show to draw (Spirit wise). Seriously, WHAT the HELL was someone thinking when they ok'd these complex, hyper detailed characters for ANIMATION!? Animation is one, not cheap to start with. Two, TIME CONSUMING as all get out. And Three, on a tight deadline (usually). But I digress. 

Narratively, Flamon serves as one of Takuya’s best character moments. While the show doesn’t make an effort to show us his past or his struggles, it does give us a great insight on Takuya’s inner turmoil in the here and now. 

He’s at his absolute lowest point and is ready to throw in the towel. DarkTrailmon sending him back to the human world in what I assume to be a dream really hammers home how lost Takuya is. His drive is gone, spirit broken and he’s ready to run away, and try to erase his mistakes, all while being hunted by an apparition  of Duskmon.

Only when Takuya learns that no matter what mistakes he’s made, he’s grown as a person and made friends he can never leave behind. You get to see a huge range from the character all through the lens of this little rookie Digimon.

Second is probs tied between Vritramon -I can finally draw him and I enjoy doing so, and Aldamon, whose face is a goddamn nightmare, same goes for Agnimon. And don’t get me started on Lobomon’s forehead eyeballs.

[speedsketch]

Frontier Fest Day 19 (LATE AGAIN)

Why am I like this

APRIL 25: Any headcanons or AUs you’d like to share?

My time to shine here! This will probs be long so I will post a break

Headcanons:

Kouji’s Dad is married to his work and probably used his business success to take custody of Kouji

We see Tomoko struggling to support herself and Kouichi, realistically she couldn’t take care of them both.

Kousei probably dated a lot of women before landing Satomi. As such Kouji doesn’t want to get attached because who knows how long they’ll last.

Once the twins find each other, Satomi discovers her husband lied to her and his son. She takes him to court to gain custody of Kouji and in the process bonds with Tomoko. They are now besties and raising the boys together.

Kouichi definitely blossomed more once he is in a more stable environment

Kouji is a bit more reserved, Kouichi is mischievous

Takuya is way more insecure than the show ever let on- explains a lot honestly.

I sense a lot of jealousy of his brother, and I can relate being the oldest “Test run” child

The lyrics of Salamander imply this to be the case as well.

His self confidence and self worth take a sharp upswing post Digital World adventure. 

Zoe absolutely said fuck the patriarchy I’m gonna be a world class chef.

Zoe also swears liberally- usually in Italian

JP definitely started to blossom with his new found self-worth, He’s definitely gonna go on to be a engineer or the next Steve Jobs

Tommy and Yutaka have a better understanding of each other. 

Yutaka is mildly jealous of Takuya upon meeting him

He’s definitely sus of the group but cannot for the life of him figure out how the hell Tommy was adopted by all these misfit pre-teens.

[speedsketch]

Frontier Fest Day 4

APRIL 10: Favorite Main Character (Human)

Okay this is a hard one. I love the cast for different reasons. IF I had to pick- It’s between the Twins and Takuya, though it’s probably gonna go to Takuya if I’m honest. It’s Takuya’s solo outing that got me into Digimon in the first place and despite him being exceptionally idiotic at times (example, Pushing the Moon with their attacks) you have to remember he’s canonically 10- ten-year-olds aren’t always mature/smart/articulate. 

The problem with Takuya is once you start to dig a little deeper, his character is actually somewhat shallow. As a viewer, you don’t get to see where Takuya’s weaknesses come from. His biggest flashbacks reflect on a standard brotherly feud and don’t really go much beyond that. I would have liked to see his school life, or more of his personal life. What are his interests? What’s he afraid of? Etc. He does serve the other characters as a grounding force but he needs a bit more.

The case for Kouji is he’s just not quick to trust people. And maybe back when I first got into the show I wouldn’t say this but I feel like I can relate to him more. He’s guarded and his trust needs to be earned.

Kouichi is that redemption character type I like a lot. They’re usually pretty deep and well thought out characters overall. Personally, he and Kouji have some of the strongest characterizations in the entire show. I like some depth to my favorites. 

[speedsketch]

Days 15-17 because omg my life is chaos

APRIL 21: Favorite detail from the Blu-Ray Drama CD (“A Train Named Hope”)

Honestly I didn't listen to it/read the translation in depth, but if i’m recalling correctly, Agnimon performs Kabuki theater so that’s neat.

Slight edit- Agnimon claims to have been a Digimon called Okunimon, named for Okuni no Izumo, the woman credited as the creator of Kabuki theater. Okunimon was a shrine maiden, or Miko, and during this Agnimon uses a more feminine voice. I need to find this to listen to.

APRIL 22: Favorite relationship in the series

Kouji and Takuya. While I hate that the show decides to focus so much on them, I love their relationship going from “I can’t stand your presence” to “I'll be a human shield for you.” Watching them grow to respect and lean on each other is just so amazing.

APRIL 23: Any (romantic) ships?

I have a weird stance on the ships in this fandom particularly. Canonically, there’s WAY too much pushing Zoe towards all the boys for some reason or another. Makes me uncomfortable. Especially the wedding scene, that’s borderline creepy. They’re all 9-12 ish depending on the version.

That being said, I support almost all ships within the fandom. They all mesh nicely with each other for one reason or another. No hate here, love is love, especially in fandom spaces.

In no particular order, I personally love Takuya/Kouji, Takuya/Zoe, Kouichi/Zoe (my rarepair), JP/Zoe and Takuya/JP (my other rarepair). That last one is super hard to find but I have found some great fics over the years. Jealously breeds all sorts of things, sometimes romantic feelings blossom.

[speedsketch]

Frontier Fest Day One:

My first memory of Frontier is one of me actually not paying too much attention but slowly getting drawn in. I feel like I need to preface that growing up, I was a Pokemon kid from a Pokemon elementary school- so much so we had pokemon cards banned from the school yard ‘n such. So Digimon was never something I watched or even knew much about.

So fast forward to sometime between 2004-2007, I can only guess the timing from a few drawings I bothered to date back then. I was over at my grandparents house playing on my aunt’s computer afterschool, probably the Sims 2 or Zoo Tycoon. Tv was going in the background and since we didn’t have it at home, I would put on Jetix and let it go in the background.

I’m playing whatever game and Frontier is playing in the background. If I recall correctly, it was two episodes back-to-back as a part of a block or something. The first episode is playing away, I’m not particularly paying attention. It climaxes and I’m checking in more. Next episode starts and my gods I was engrossed.

The episodes in question were 21 and 22, Duskmon’s confrontation and subsequent thrashing of the team, leaving Takuya alone in the dark. Then Takuya is sent back to try and stop himself from ever boarding the train.

More backstory; I loved Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Static Shock, Danny Phantom- See the theme? The heroes had special abilities to become stronger and fight back against their adversaries. I fell in love with Frontier out of the gate. It checks so many boxes for me.

From there, I dove head first into Frontier. I remember visiting fan sites and reading fanfiction- which also tracks given the timing of things, I joined FFN in 2005 and Deviantart in 2007. Some of my first posts to Deviantart were Frontier/Danny Phantom Crossover. (They’re ghastly, don’t look at them lol).

I guess the TLDR is that I happened to catch an episode one afternoon and it was the right one to drag me into a rabbit hole that I proudly sit in 15ish years later.

[speedsketch]

Frontier Fest day 14

APRIL 20: Favorite supplemental media 

Long Post Under the Cut

TRADING CARD ART TIME: 

Emperor Greymon Alt Art Booster 7

Flamon Booster 7

Ancient Evolution Booster 7

Song- I had Takuya’s second character song, Secret Rendezvous on my old iPod nano that got a lot of repeated plays. Salamander is a bop. 

Recently breezed through the Manhua for kicks- the English translation is so laughably bad but the art is so GORGEOUS. 

You can find it in English [Here]

[speedsketch]

Frontier Fest Day 18

APRIL 24: What aspect of the series would you like to have been more developed?

I’m not writing a full scale reboot for nothing. The Short list would be this;

Not removing the spirits from the kids at all. Zoe gets needlessly handicapped for too long.

Not leaning so hard on Takuya and Kouji towards the end-let them form the Zetas with the extra four spirits (Steel, earth, water and wood) and let the other kids keep theirs. Honestly wouldn’t have changed much considering how often they got wrecked.

Seriously taking away any agency from the cast is detrimental and frustrating- They could easily pull a Ben10 moment where they time out early or get the beast spirit instead of the human spirit and vice versa. Think Avengers Infinity War when the Hulk is just like FUCK THAT, I AIN’T PLAYING. It’s seriously implied that the Beast Spirits in particular are hard to control, keep that up and make the kids work for it for longer.

The last 10 episodes are just hard to watch for me. IT’s so hard to watch Takuya and Kouji lose again and again. Like this group ultimately fails overall. The world they fought to sabe is obliterated and reborn. Everyone they tried to save is gone. It’s just... awful

Kouichi needed to show up WAY sooner in my opinion. Purified Kouichi. But no, we get silly filler preventing him from having any lasting impact, which sucks. He had so much potential.

The whole “We’re Digimon now, our senses and connections to nature are stronger” is used for like a few episodes and dropped. SUCH A GOOD IDEA, KEEP USING IT

There are just so many opportunities for great character driven/developmental moments and the show gets the ball, looks at it and shrugs and moves onto the next thing, Ya know this meme:

Also we found where the budget went for the entire season, Beowulfmon’s intro episode Versus Duskmon, the animation is so stunning. Literal next Episode recycles a lot of footage/uses a look of moving stills. Balance guys geez.

[speedsketch]

Frontier Fest Day Three

I personally want more artwork/development stuff. Frontier has an interesting idea that ended up being scrapped ultimately in favor of the adventure story we got. Honestly, the original concept reminds me of Megaman NT Warrior- Particularly the Crossfusion aspect with Humans and their Digimon partners merging to compete in a Battle Royale type contest. Cool Idea, kinda glad they didn’t go that route.

As an avid collector of art books and making off books, I want more about the development, the sketches and rough drafts. 

The rough drafts are LIT. Highly Recommended- Wikimon has a lot of them under Gallery:miscellaneous on some of the different characters.

Links and Pictures under the cut

https://wikimon.net/Digimon_Frontier#Trivia