Yagami Hikari as an Unrealized Character
You know, something I have come to while doing the introspection to other characters from Digimon is how I am kinda frustrated with how much Hikari was just never realized as a character. This girl is in many ways the most important character in Digimon Adventure and the connected universe, and also at the same time the least character of all of them.
And... again, having spoken to several people involved in the creation of at least Adventure and 02, I can follow up partially on why this has happened. But it is strange frustrating to me, you know? And... it also is kinda sad?
Hikari in Adventure - The Character that was not to Be
The main issue with Hikari in Digimon Adventure is, that Nishizono was very frustrated about adding her at all. I talked about this before: even though it almost feels natural to have her as the eighth child given that the first movie was pretty much released before the series started, this was actually not originally part of the plan. At some point in preproduction, it was only six chosen children, with Sora as the Koitten, the sole girl. Then Mimi was added because of merchandising. And then the movie actually released to the public and people loved Hikari. And then it was decided to add Hikari, despite at the very least Nishizono arguing that this would be too many characters for the show. It did not matter. Hikari was added. And Nishizono was frustrated about it, which is why Hikari's best trait is being Hikari. She has the crest of light, as in Japanese it literally just translates to the placeholder name of "Hikari's Crest". Cool.
Years back in the German fandom, someone once made the astute observation: Hikari in Adventure is not much of a character. She is Taichi sister, who comes with a convenient flashlight function.
Which... yeah, sums up Adventure Hikari. She does not have much of a character arc of her own. She just serves other characters' arcs. Most notably Tailmon - who arguably is the only Digimon partner with an actual arc - and Taichi, of course.
The backstory of Hikari being sickly, and needing care... It all exists for Taichi's character arc. She is sickly, because Taichi's character arc is related to him being the Reliable Child, and having to deal with his conscience of not always being able to take care of Hikari. This sickness, however, does never connect with Hikari as a character.
You could argue that maybe she has become so much of a people pleaser because she did see that her brother had to give up so much because of her. But... that is nothing that ever comes up in the show. Hikari does not have a lot of feelings about being sickly. She does not have a conflict of her own. She does not have development of her own. She just... is.
And she is mysterious and hears voices, because it was a convenient way to bring in exposition and explain why this exposition did not happen before she was along. But also she does not have any feelings about the voices and about being mysterious. She is a thing the universe interacts with. She is not a character.
So, the good thing about Hikari in 02 is, that she actually is a character. Which is... good. Hooray. She is no longer Taichi sister with a flashlight function. She actually is a person who has likes, and dislikes, and something of an arc. Only that this arc is not only all over the place, but also does not feel connected to anything of what happened in Adventure. Not really.
Out of all things they could have carried over, the thing they decided on was her brother complex. I will note this once more, because people tend to forget this: due to Nishizono kinda refusing to write Hikari as a character, the person who most influenced the younger version of Hikari was Hosoda, who had done that first movie, the second movie, and obviously also the episode in which Hikari first showed up in the anime: episode 21. And he decided that due to Taichi being the parent to Hikari more than the actual parents, Hikari had a giant ass brother complex and was in love with Taichi. This does show especially in that one episode, though it kinda disappears in the later arcs. But in 02 it is the one thing that carries over. Arguably because it was literally the one character trait Hikari ever had, other than being vaguely mysterious and glowing from time to time.
The main problem is, that 02 does not really know what to do with it. Which is likely connected to the fact that 02 was created under crunch and a production as chaotic if not more so than the preproduction of Adventure has been.
Unpopular opinion: despite it all, the character and story writing in 02 is actually kinda better than in Adventure, as the character arcs are not contained in bottle episodes and are given some more room to breathe.
The main issue for Hikari as a character is, that despite what us kids back in ye olden days of 2000 to 2009 were absolutely convinced about: no, the Dark Ocean was never meant to have particular plot relevance for 02. There was no cut Dark Ocean Arc. Due to circumstances Konaka wrote an episode, he got allowed to go weird, he made a homage to Shadows over Insmouth. The writers made a decision that "more than two worlds" was a theme in general. And that was it.
Only that there was one issue: episode 13 was arguably the episode in all of those two seasons where Hikari had the most character conflict to begin with. Because this episode actaully engages with her as a person. She is so used to relying on others, that when she is posed with a challenge she is torn between just fully relying on other people (especially Taichi, who is not available) or actually becoming proactive. That is cool stuff. Would have been interesting to see the series build on this, no?
Yeah, only that the series never builds on it. Because, again, chaotic production. Which, well... Left basically the fandom of kids back in the day feeling like there was something missing. Hence the conspiracy theories. (Look, I was once of those conspiracy theories. I only put them aside after being told by several people who worked on the show that indeed, episode 13 was meant to be self-contained and there never was a plan.)
For Hikari in 02, there is a bunch of things that could actually be interesting. And there are some short moments, when the series becomes aware of them. Those moments tend to be in the episodes where someone actually had been given time with the script and a chance to do revisions. Which... sadly is true for about like... 8 episodes. Those 8 episodes are great and lead to the show overall working better than Adventure - given that Adventure really struggled with the lack of an overall narrative goal - but... it is 8 episodes.
And for Hikari this means, there is a bunch of interesting things that could make for a character arc. Her reliance on Taichi and Takeru for example. Or the fact that she is actually a bit shitty towards Daisuke, and clearly is at times playing him. Or the fact that she can be pretty careless about other people and is blunt to the point of being callous, which also very much conflicts with the overall perception of her as a sweet girl. Or the fact that she struggles with the draw of darkness and sees Ken as a dark reflection of herself. Or the fact that she actually wants to share the concept of Digimon partners with the world, while it has to largely be a secret.
All of this is interesting. And all of it never gets fully explored anywhere. It shows up, it sits there. Two episodes kinda address part of it. And it never gets resolved and that is this show for Hikari.
She is a character. But... her writing is still lackluster.
You know, while I do have my beef with the jobs of the girls in the end of 02, and personally in my headcanon actually made Hikari a photographer. I do kinda like her job better than the jobs (or non jobs) of the other three girls. Because it does fit. It is not one of those super special jobs for super special people. And I kinda can see it. It does not necessarily follow out of her character arc - but as laid out: it is not as if there has been much of an arc to begin with.
The main issue is that anything that came after 02 never really knew what to do with Hikari. And it is honestly one of the bits that frustrates me the most with both tri. and the two later movies. I mean, in Kizuna Hikari is barely there - she gets put into the dream world and that is most of what she does. And in The Beginning, the most you can say about her is that she... certainly is there and doing stuff. Cool.
tri. meanwhile once again had a great opportunity. And there moments it became aware of this opportunity. You know, those fleeting moments you could wave at while they were passing by. Because Meiko as a character was technically the perfect foil for Hikari. And had tri. been competently written, they would have actually used this.
Like, yes, here is this girl, who has a crush on Taichi, who is associated with Darkness, and has a sort of Dark Tailmon clone, and also gets acknowledged by the Homeostasis. All of this would have made Meiko an amazing foil for Hikari. In some other universe, where tri. was good, a core part of the conflict would have been character conflict between Meiko and Hikari. Use those points above. Use the fact that Hikari is kinda fixated on Taichi. Use her callousness. Turn this into a central point of the story.
I mean, the Meicoomon-Tailmon-parallel is there. It is clearly there. Someone actively wrote this. Someone actively made the decision to make Meiko darkness themed. And then they just... did nothing with it. Meicoomon looks like Tailmon. It has also angelic evolutions. And the movies do absolutely nothing with it. It is like... how? How can you not use this?
I could rage on this forever.
But the fact of the matter is... Well, Hikari never got to be a character. Because she was never meant to be there in the first place, I guess. And because 02 was written under horrendous circumstances. And because tri. was just... well, whatever tri. was. (Honestly, there clearly was also production drama happening with tri. and we do not know 10% of it, I am sure. I would love to poke the people who were involved there. Because... like, there were so many unrealized plot points, and the animation got worse over the course of the OVAs, despite it being fairly commercially successful. Ah. I would give a lot to ask question, man.)
