Painfully accurate ya… time to watch the older digimon shows lol

This just reminds me of the reason why the battle frontier from Pokémon Emerald didn't make it to ORAS, because kids are bored and more interested in quick mobile games.

Confirmation bias. I wonder how much is it about the 'kids' vs profitability and cutting costs. Following an episodic formula helps more with the later imo. They are feeding into what they already "believe", not the other way around.

Which I really hate cause sorry for the constant comparison (I hate it too but it always comes up) but whenever compared to Pokemon, that was one of the main draws for Digimon. Darker tones, character growth, overarching plots, though recently it seems the reverse is true now (At least for the anime). I really don't want to see Digimon go down the wrong path again then be forced to claw their way out of the grave once more. I personally still enjoy the anime but the pacing has got to change soon as the anime is the main gateway for other media such as games, card games, etc.

@@andresmarrero8666 ahh, my mistake then. All I heard recently was that they're bringing back old characters and some of them have new motivations and designs. While I agree it still sounds like a mess, at least there was an attempt at some kind of "growth".

As a hobbyist writer, I have the opposite opinion; Readers, even younger ones, are becoming more critical of their media and will consume if it's quality.

This doesn’t treat the audience like adults. It’s showing how Digimon are integrating themselves into society. Focusing solely on GulusGammamon and Hiro would feel childish to me because it gives the impression that that the world revolves around Hiro.

@@pn2294 it’s true, in fact a lot of times this show reminds of gegege no kitaro and how it had a similar approach to its episodes

I agree, but Digimon is made for selling toys, games, and accessories. Past 5 series shown you serial story telling can’t beat episodic series like Pokémon which is also created for the same purpose. Popularity of Digimon never surpassed Pokémon in Japan.a Let’s also not forget how production pressure created the Blizwargreymon plot mess, where episodic method can easily slip in such changes. Matter of fact if you look at other on going series selling games/playing cards, majority went episodic instead.

I don't know man. How do we explain the Pokémon anime still running after all these years? It's a kids show that doesn't treat their audience like adults.

@@ultraspinalki11 then I say Digimon should focus on the teen demographic.

I understand you like it. But, you got to admit that this show biggest flaws is they barely do anything, even though it's a episodic series there so many thing that's happening in the show, and nothing happening. The current team are lazy and too busy going on with their boing everyday life by doing whatever they want rather than focusing on the important stuff that's happening in their world. Other than the monster of the week, are there any progress for the characters to accomplish their goals if they have one?

I would see a special after the Ghost Game story is over. Hiro and Gammamon would end up in the 2020 dimension, where they'll met Yamato, Koushiro, Sora, Joe, Mimi, Takeru, Kari and their Digimon. They'll eventually come across a boy with his Digimon; Wormmon.

@@jacobmartin3639 You forgot Taichi.

I know it’s a kid show, but I’d be scared letting my kid watch certain episodes from Ghost Game. Then again maybe every generation needs to experience their own D-Reaper moment. I just hope your son hasn’t been scarred by any of the more gruesome episodes yet.

@@Animemus I am way too young for something like having your own children.

Yeah, it’s a better move in the long-term to wait & judge a series in its totality!

The thing about Ghost Game is we don't know how long it will go. All Digimon series usually go for about 50 episodes (I count Xros Wars season 1 and 2 as one season while season 3 as a separate season entirely). The season with large amounts of episodes is the new reboot 2020 Adventure with more than 60 episode surpassing all other season if you count Xros Wars season 3 as separate season.

yup, I m also wondered where is the silhouette of black agumon and some other silhouette digimon in the early ep and middle ep? Also why the ep stop at ep 51(2021) and already have preview ep 52. Until now(2022), no ep 52 yet.

I loved the first 3 seasons of Digimon as well as the reboot and Tri. Ghost Game, i watched the first 10 eps and called it a day. Same reason why i never watched Pokemon. I need to see the story going somewhere. I want to get Invested in it. Not waste 20 mins for nothing xD

@@joaosoares2570 This is what Masatoshi Chiyoka, Director and Storyboard of Digimon Ghost Game said in an interview back in November 2021 issue of V-Jump : "While they were still at the stage of the very first planning stages, the producer, Sakurada-san (Sakurada Hiroyuki, Assistant Producer for Adventure and Adventure 02 and Producer for Adventure reboot), called out to me. It was right around that time when they were roughly thinking of the proposal to have the Digimon series to be “episodic” and “with a horror feel”. From there, we had more and more planning meetings, finalized the ideas that came out, and they had me put together and submit the tentative draft for this project."

I feel like the easiest answer ever to fix so many of these issues is to just make some mysteries two-parters. Because some of these episodes ABSOLUTELY needed way more time to develop the ideas of them. AncientSphinxmon trying to revive Pharohmon is such a great idea! Why not expand on it? Have Part 1 be them setting him up and doing the riddle thing, then Mummymon gets involved, AncientSphinxmon overpowers them, and the pyramid is completed. Then you get an entire second episode all about learning what Pharohmon's deal is, setting up Ruri's arc, paying off her character by... I dunno... having her use her music knowledge to solve a riddle or something......? And then you get her defeating AncientSphinxmon before helping Hiro and Gammamon beat Pharohmon. You could build up these side characters a bit, show some worldbuilding and lore, still have a compelling mystery, and set the stakes so the evolution feels worth it. Maybe explore Mummymon's relationship with these Digimon and his history a bit. And because it's a two-parter it's still pretty quick and self contained within that format. Instead we just get this rushed plot where Sphinxmon wants to revive Pharohmon, then Ruri just gets a Mega out of nowhere, we beat him, and that entire plot just dies with all the potential and intrigue going completely ignored. It's not really the worst, but for all the stuff you could have done with it, it's just such a waste... Alternatively, just have a few recurring antagonists. Hey, remember when Myotismon and his vampire group escaped? Have them come back. Matadormon can do some Matador themed thing and then he reveals himself and goes GranDracmon. That's still a unique setup, and you can have characters be like "Oh crap, it's that guy from that one past episode!" Remember when Datamon was literally experimenting on people? That's such a fun idea, just a mad scientist Digimon that does mad scientist things. Why not use that for more stuff? Datamon could be the one behind multiple mysteries and the gang has to fail a few times before finally catching him. That would give us stuff to speculate about and give Datamon some time to build his motives and character a bit so there's more weight to his character. But nope, just one and done. Just like everyone else.

Its mostly because both you and Digiknow have a clear perspective on the franchise as a whole while covering this is whats keeping the Digimon media afloat

I was doing a Ghost Game podcast while it was coming out week to week, and this basically explains my issues exactly. Lots of formulaic plots that felt repetitive, non-existent narrative between episodes, and LOTS of hints throughout. I genuinely liked some of the episodes, but other ones just flopped super hard. And the ENTIRE time we were just slowly giving into nihilism at the realization that none of it would actually matter at all. I've never felt like I've had to struggle more to talk about an episode than I did when we were 50 episodes in and the plot was still just "A bad digimon appears, does a bad thing, we're retroactively told what the deal is without any real hints, and then they beat it." Like it doesn't even really function as a mystery show because you're not given enough info. But it'll absolutely go out of its way to work in all three main characters and what they're doing that day every time whether they're relevant for the episode or not. Just absolutely absurd how poorly thought out this was at points.

Same here! It really scared me when I first watched it

Writers changing is normal, especially in an episodic tv show. And the show has never skewed to being a serial anime. Tossing in some overarching threads suddenly doesn't change the show into a serial show.

It sucks that someone got mad at you for having criticisms! I know what that feels like since someone lashed out at me for having criticisms about Hiro's character.

@@ikaika1 Yeah after they said I was just trying to hate on the show, I said I mentioned one thing and it’s not wrong to mention flaws. But they said it’s weird to treat the “Espimon looking for Hiro scavenger hunt” as an actual flaw as it’s trivial. And I don’t dislike Hiro, but I don’t mind anyone who has criticisms towards him. Sorry that happened to you too.

@@IgnitedQuils You can have issues with how characters are written whether you like or dislike them. But yeah, it sucks that that person didn't understand that. I just wanted to relate with you since I had a similar experience.

I do like Espimon alot. I dont mind his thing of not beliving Hiro is the real Hiro becuse of the fathers misleading discription. I found that actully rather amusing.

@@sofaris576 Yeah I can see how that can be funny due to Digimon not being able to reproduce, it was just that it was used constantly over and over, and they even tried explaining it to Espimon.

Pretty much. They had the building blocks for an amazingly awesome show with fantastic story and character, waved the blocks around for a while, then put them back in the toy chest without actually doing anything with them. So much potential wasted.

You clearly haven’t looked at enough forums. The most common take is that it’s mid lmao. It even has a lukewarm, tepid reception in Japan (similar to over here)

I did try Appli monsters, but it was boring and annoying to say the least so I dropped it. The main characters were annoying (specially that yellow dude) and the story itself didn't hook me in the beginning. I believe I watched around 15 or so episodes before I decided I couldn't take it anymore. Comparatively, I was following ghost game till 40 or so episode simply because even though there was very little plot, the character strength and character interactions combined with well executed episodes kept be hooked enough to follow it. All in all, what I'm saying is that Appli Monsters felt like it was lacking at a technical level with bad story writing and direction. Meanwhile Ghost Game has it all, except a plot.

I enjoyed Appli Monsters; it’s different but still a heartwarming show.

I want to try it but the silly character designs for some push me away

Or rewatch the shows they keep invoking every time they complain about GG not being like ___

@@ebadsheikh792 That's because Appmon still did have overarching episodes, and the character development were baked into the plot progression. Episode 15 or so were still fairly early, especially in the context of Digimon. They were intended to be flawed characters at the beginning that would work themselves to become better characters with character-interpersonal relationship as the series progressed. Ghost Game characters, on the other hand, had their character development "frozen" if not static (as in not having any development as they were more or less can be considered as "complete" characters) and that the fact that most of the episodes were episodic, they were more or less designed so that audience could come and go anytime they want. There was no commitment needed by audience in terms of plot or character development. GG to me felt like it lost its direction, or more like the direction played secondary role as it's too wrapped up in the character/monster of the day which is not really meaningful in the bigger picture and to many people, the novelty of this wears off overtime.

Totally agree. Survive was the best story Digimon's told in ages and that's because it was allowed to tell a more mature story

I agree that should have been a show as it is so text heavy which I find just burns me out so fast

Again and the lack of character growth and development just KILLS this show for me

You can edit your post you know.

In addition to this, does anyone else remember them saying Ghost Game was approaching its climax? Nearly *two months ago?* Where's the climax? Will we even know when it happens?

I agree with all of this!

Yeah, the recurring villain part was something else. One of those, Dracmon, was completely wasted, only showing up to die. It's a shame, since he seemed to be planning on finding his own human partner, but didn't and served as cannon fodder for Myotismon.

@@akl2k7 Yeah, talk about wastes potential for a "dark" Digidestined!

What I can see though, is there's a fine line between Frontier and AD20 drags and Ghost Game drags. The whole genre not working well with a certain franchise is different from just dragging 7 filler episodes with no progress and the heroes looking like clowns.

Thanks George. Yeah it's frustrating. I'm hoping things wrap up in 70 episodes or less because any longer would be pretty agonizing

Yeah I am in this ship too. In a way I like it a lot but sometimes I want story to continue and all of the black digimons we have seen. I want to know ! And I am lowkey hoping Blackwargreymon will show in this series.

It would be less like Gravity Falls but more like Criminal Minds. To be honest.

Gravity Falls had a good handful of filler episodes as well, though I think GG is more comparable to Steven Universe in its filler to plot ratio.

Shows don't need stick exclusively to one way of storytelling. GG has been consistent in how its treat its overarching plot.

Gravity Falls is a tediously overhyped show... -_-

@@TheBleachj16 i agree with this. I feel like Ghost Game has been, at the very least, thematically consistent, and consistent in how it breaks up its story beats. I kind of like that I can tell people "watch the first 5, see if you like it, then watch up to 12 if you want, and/or just watch whatever catches your interest."

Exactly, I think most of the viewer of the serie don't understand the main propose of ghost game is just to be a light horror serie with sérial little story. In fact the serie is clearly in the vein of Kitaro 2018 where main story was really rare and everything was revolve in 1 or 2 episode (like every kitaro serie). I want to point that the director of the serie made hakaba kitaro in 2008 ans the most horrifing episode from 2018. He just made his own Kitaro show. And it's work digimon ghost game is the biggest commercial success for digimon in 15 years.

@@ashelygordon669 I think that my only problem with the semi serialized story is simple how that the characters IN UNIVERSE are being written to handle the plot. It's similar to my initial issue with Steven Universe as early as it introducing new character Lapis Lazuli. The protagonists should have questions they want answered but the problem being they're not really pursuing answers at all...

yeah when i heard that interview I was so disappointed hah

@@thedigiknow Full disclosure, I pretend the anime ended after Frontier because every screenshot/clip I saw from Xros Wars looked so cheaply drawn it physically hurt to look at. So I can't say I'm surprised at how Ghost Game turned out. Something has to get cut when you're trying to make something that at least aesthetically *looks* as good as Ghost Game and unfortunately the rule of thumb (unless you're One Piece) is that it's 99% of the time story that suffers.

@@ashelygordon669 I forgot Appmon were even a thing. Though in all seriousness, I do love the characters (except maybe Hiro, but I don’t hate him)

wow did not expect to see somebody compare a digimon anime to criminal minds of all things, a welcome surprise

that's actually a really good comparison. it reminds me of when there is a season long threat, just in the background. you get hints and clues in individual episodes but the episodes themselves are also self contained stories that don't necessarily always drive the main threat forward. i like it.

Another good comparison would be the Batman TAS as it is also a surpisingly dark show with an episodic format. Ghost Game, Criminal minds, and Batman also had episodes with narratives more centered on the villains whiles the protagonists are just there doing their thing

Honest shame this wasn’t the case. Feels like it got rushed after you hit the point where Hokuto finally comes back and then it’s over.

I've always wondered what people's problem with the Frontier Royal Knights arc was.

@@risersin7957 The protags constantly losing no matter what, and no meaning developments came from the losses. At least the prototype involving the Destiny/Holy Stones had some meaningful progress despite its tedium.

@@TheDiscoGenre Didn't strike me as any worse then how much Tamers dragged in the middle.🤷‍♂️

@@minicle426 Digital World was pretty bad in Tamers yeah.

Where is the Police or Army or the government or any Digimon Organization? Digimon literally killed tons of people how are they still rumours

Honestly, the team up at the end of Young Hunters was so well done and oozed so much fanservice that, IMO, it singlehandedly made up for how crappy the rest of that series was. Totally agree than Digimon feels halfhearted nowadays. I haven't truly felt invested in a Digimon series from beginning to end since Savers/Data Squad. None of the current generation of Toei employees seem to "get" Digimon.

Can’t wait to hear Gammamon say: GAMMAMON WARP SHINKA… REGULUSMON!

@@TheBlueWanderer2000 I'll be fine for now with "GulusGammamon, Cho Shinka!"

Im also wondered why Gammamon cannot remember anything when he turn into gulusgammamon. Gulusgammamon like have his own memory, not sharing with gammamon. Also Gulusgammamon behaviour like waiting for something, thats why he choose to turn back to gammamon.

I’m kind of in the same place. Started out excited, especially since they kept dropping little hints of things going on in the background. Some digimon having no idea how they got to the human world, or the black digimon seemingly keeping an eye on gammamon. Plus recurring digimon like mummymon. Then those “crumbs” rarely go anywhere. We wait several episodes to find out relatively small details: like black tailmon is in contact with Hiro’s father, or Hiro gets to have a two minute conversation with gulusgamammon where gulus drops hints that he knows things normal gammamon doesn’t. My interest has worn down to “I’ll look up the episode summary online to see if anything major happens.”.

@@corvidaegudmund1186 i atleast watch them as best as i can focus on, then just kinda like... hopefully complain about the little breadcrumbs and how i wish there was anything satisfying happening. i feel really bad for the dude who was having nightmares about people not liking the ending, but where rhe series is now i really dont see it being able to salvage it. i felt mt stomach drop when I heard that shit wasn't gonna get resolved until the last episode tbh. thats not good story telling, thats scrambling to cover up plotholes/loose ends

Okay then dont watch. The show is great as is.

@@mysticdigital5936 How is it wrong to mention flaws with the show? Especially since Digiknow for instance mentions the good and the bad, and the bad being the concern here? Regarding the inconsistency between the episodic and serialized nature which leaves people confused? You’re saying it’s fine if the show never explains Gulus and the Digimon coming over to the real world?

2020 is the most insultingly awful Anime I've seen since Sailor Moon Crystal. Just mindless fight after mindless fight with bland characters, that coasts by purely on nostalgia.

I ended up liking the reboot a lot more than I expected, and there are aspects to 2020 that I prefer over the original series despite it's shortcomings. *shrug emoji*

Possibly. During it the earliest days I predicted that this might be among my favorites along side Adventure , Tamers, and Data Squad. I don’t think that’s going to be the case.

Me too I remember coming back from school going to cartoon netwerk and watching Bakugan Battle Brawlers. Those we're the times when Ben ten and Bakugan we're actually good.

I agree, Appmon was excellent.

if you're tired at 20, you're not going to find much else I'm afraid :(

Savers and Xros Wars were a Story Format with Xros 2 being Episodic with bits of Story

This is not similar to Pokémon. Pokemon still had a goal which they work toward with the monster of the week format. GG in most episodes does nothing to mention the overall story or character growth

> I guess this is what happened when digimon became popular, goes commercialization like everything else. Not enough. Might as well as say ANYTHING but Adventure, Tamers and Savers are shaky and all over the place.

Never cared for Gravity Falls. Always found it tediously overhyped...

I hope the next Digimon show will be than this.

Good point !